September 14th

Dear Everyone,

So life has been pretty good…busy but good. Everyday something exciting happens and I just love the surprises China presents us with. Today is Zhong Tou Jie, a.k.a. the moon festival. So moon cakes are the popular item right now. They are these bread things with fillings, usually a fruity kind of jell with fruit chunks or sesame seed type things. Most of them taste pretty bad to us Americans, but the ones with red bean paste in them are probably my favorite. I really like a few of them, but it is true that most of them are just a little too strange for the western pallet. So because it’s the Moon festival here, we went to a concert last night that was held in honor of the festival and it was waaaay fun! We actually found out about the concert the day before when we were touring the San Yat-Sen memorial park. There is a really nice outdoor amphitheater we happened upon, and someone told us there’d be a concert the next day. Since it had been cheaper to buy year long passes to the park than to even by a day pass, we could come back for free and we were even told that we could get into the concert for free. So we rented a bus and all headed up to the park at around four in order to look around and save seats, etc. But the bus that came could only hold ten, whereas we’d wanted one to hold about fifteen. And even then, twenty two people showed up!! So the bus had to make two trips and some people grabbed a taxi. I went on the first bus ride. After arriving at the back entrance (the bus driver got a little lost and took us around a different way) we flashed our cards and totally made it in! We were really thrilled since the concert was supposed to cost 80 yuan, which is something like 12 dollars. So we set up our blankets and settled in, but it got pretty boring cause there really wasn’t that much to see just in the amphitheater. And by five thirty I was also really really hungry. So Greg (this guy from Colorado who is into violins, Audrey Hepburn and is a return missionary from England-mandarin speaking) and I went out of the amphitheater and looked around the park for something good to eat. A lot of the places looked closed, so we had to go further and further away. We stopped at a few convenience store type things, but the only warm food they served was corn on the cob and all the meats were just packaged things hanging on the walls at room temperature. There were bags with pig intestines, whole ducks, chicken feet, chicken wings, etc. They all looked cooked and then vacuum sealed, but I still didn’t feel like eating anything like that. So we continued on and found this one place that had two people eating in it, so we went there and ordered a really yummy noodle dish. But as they were making it, it looked like they were trying to close as well. They pulled down these garage door looking things over all of the entrances except one mini one, and so we felt kinda bad sitting there eating. But the Chinese people thought we were really nice and didn’t mind us being there. So after eating we headed back to the amphitheater, only to find out that they wouldn’t let us back in with only our passes!! They said that after 6 you needed a real ticket to get in! But luckily some other guys we knew were stuck out there too, and they had made friends with this Chinese guy Michael, and he somehow managed to get four tickets (for free) from the ticket lady! Only problem is that there were six of us, not four. But he was like, don’t worry, we’ll just hand them the four tickets and they’ll let us all in. So we tried it, and they people totally just laughed at us and let us in!!!!!! Lol, China is soo different from the US. The show was absolutely amazing and totally Chinese, so it was a great cultural experience. Tons of beautiful dancing and a variety of styles of singing, it was awesome! I'm so happy to be in China!
Love,
Brooke

September 12th

Everyone,

I’m in China!!! It has been almost a week now, and I’m really loving it! I have own apartment now that I share with two other girls- Juliana Murray from Washington DC, and Geneva Scaife from Washington State. Juliana I knew from my year of Chinese studies at BYU, and Geneva is a new friend I’ve made since. Juliana is 23 and pretty spunky, and Geneva is 25 and super super spunky! I love them both am excited to be here! School started Monday and is a little challenging, but mostly fun. I like that I’m improving my Chinese in school and outside school. I do hang out with many other foreigners from the program, but I’m hoping to make some new Chinese friends soon! Geneva and I had a really fun time walking around an alley near where we live and chatting with a lao ban (store owner) who was manning a fruit stand. He seemed to think my Chinese was pretty good, but alas, Chinese people always say that because they try to be nice to the people who will give them money. Geneva tries to contradict my statement, but since she’s still a beginning Chinese-speaker, she has not yet realized how much I need to improve. But I did have a nice and fairly long conversation, which was really really fun!! I haven’t been speaking too much Chinese lately because of all the need to settle in and start school, but I’m sure I will have plenty of opportunities in the very near future. So in case anyone was wondering, I haven’t gotten sick yet or eaten any extremely weird things. My favorite foods here have been baozi ( a steamed bun with meat or vegetables inside), which are usually only five mao apiece (which translates to 7 cents!!!), and beef in soup with noodles, which is usually about 87 cents. And two baozi or a bowl of beef noodle soup totally fills you up!!! So on average, I spend less than five dollars on a whole days worth of food (drinks are a little more expensive…which means about 40 cents). Pretty funny huh? So when I went to a night market and finally bargained some earrings down to 20 yuan, I felt like I was splurging major!! But in actuality, that equals a little less than 3 dollars… and they are nice earrings! So life is different here, but some things are the same. Phones are expensive (I have to buy a new one because my old one from America doesn’t work here, and it cost me 430 yuan for a phone, a sim card, and 650ish minutes, roughly cost me 62 dollars), housing is semi-expensive, as are some items like foreign shampoo and snicker bars. But a bus ride cost about 28 cents on average, my text books were like five dollars, and my friend bought a Chinese to English pocket dictionary for 75 cents!!! So things are pretty cool J I also bought a really cute skirt for about 6 dollars and a tailored tai chi outfit (for my tai chi class!) for 20 dollars! It’s pretty sweet. Well, sleep time so peace out and keep it real!
Love,
Brooke

First Blog

Hey Everyone!!
This will be where I post things from now on, so I hope you all like it! Love you all and miss you much! Pics and more will be coming soon!
Brooke Smith