Chinese Table

On Friday we had our first test, which wasn't bad at all. Two hours was rather long though. It's incredibly frustrating when all these complicated characters you know appear elsewhere on the test, and the one simple character you can't remember doesn't.

After the test we had to memorize the short "compositions" we wrote about our impressions of Beijing. We then had a one-on-one session with a teacher to practice reciting them. Hu-laoshi kept trying to get me to gesture emphatically, which wasn't too successful, resulting in an awkward time delay between, say, exclaiming how hot it is and wiping pretend sweat off my forehead. Perhaps public speaking is done differently in China...or Hu-laoshi was just messing with me.


Then we all headed to a nice restaurant for Chinese table, which is always great fun because the food is delicious and we get to actually learn what the dishes are called. I think half my time at this program is spent either eating or talking about food. Maybe because our recent lessons have all been food-related. Not that I'm complaining.

Afterwards, Wang Ping and I headed to 超市发, our neighborhood grocery store to buy fruit and bowls. Most exciting discovery of the day:


The weather then decided to get ridiculously hot, which must have burned off all the smog (because that's how it works, of course) allowing us to see blue sky! Miraculous. Alas, even though the sky was blue, my lungs still died when I went running. Boo, Beijing, boo.

By far the most interesting part of the day was the taxi ride to the dance party last night. As we were told to, we struck up lively conversation with the driver, but before long we were lost, confused, and stuck in a cab with a driver rather pissed off at us. To top it off, we were trying to give directions to another cab, perhaps more clueless than us. At one point, everyone was talking at once, and (sorry Kai Xin!) Kai Xin exclaimed loudly "Give the phone the driver!". It was definitely a test of our language pledge. A few minutes later, we stopped to consult the mini map on the back of our tickets and the cab decided to stall. Thankfully, we eventually made it. The abandoned factory location was pretty cool, but it made me think about labor conditions of factory workers, which was kind of a bummer.

Off shopping today!