New Chinese Friends and More Great Food

My first week of classes has now finished and I am glad for it to be the weekend. Overall, Chinese class hasn’t been too bad but three hours of classes can be quite trying. We do get two ten minute breaks which leave us just enough time to run to the nearest baozi (steamed pork buns) shop! The nice thing is that if I have any questions about my homework I can just ask my roommate or any of the other Chinese students. I do have to write an essay this weekend on top of my other homework but at least I have a few days to complete it. Our teachers are also quite helpful. My conversation teacher is always trying to give us suggestions about where to go in Shanghai and tell us about important aspects of the culture. She even brought us chocolate for Valentine’s Day. 

Besides the Chinese classes, I am taking a China as a global market class and a class about the Chinese economy. Both really don’t seem like they will be too bad. I think all the tests are open book and homework is kept to a minimum. If anything, it will mostly be reading from the textbook. I do have to complete a research project and within the next few weeks I have to come up with a topic. Hopefully something will jump out at me soon!

I am still trying to secure an internship for the semester. My program director said that he should have an interview set up for me next week, but as of yet I do not know where I will be interning. I am just hoping it all fits together. It would be great to have the experience.

Over the past few days my friends and I haven’t really ventured out too far into the city. With all of our homework and classes we mostly just limit ourselves to going somewhere for dinner. On Tuesday we found this great Korean restaurant where we sat on the floor and could have cooked the meat at our table. Unfortunately, we couldn’t really understand what the waiter was asking and they ended up cooking it for us instead. We did though have great Kimchi fried rice!

In general, cheese is something that is hard to come by in China, unless you can find a New York style pizza place! A girl had seen the restaurant in her guide book and we decided to take some of the Chinese roommates to get true American food. We ordered four huge thin crust pizzas and they tasted great. My favorite by far was the barbeque chicken pizza. Some people also enjoyed the milkshakes that they had to offer. I was happy to drink Snapple. 

It’s been really great to interact with our new Chinese friends. The funny part is that they know that I speak some Chinese so whenever they don’t understand what we are saying in English or they don’t know the word in English they want to use, they look at me to help them. However, most of the time I am no help at all! The roommates are all so nice and really eager to learn about American culture and practice their English. The reason that they are in our program is because they will be studying abroad in either American or England. Hopefully I will be able to see some of them when they come to the US! 

On a side note, the English names of our roommates are quite creative. There are the normal names like Sara and Thomas and then the not so often used names like Ike and Betty. The best ones though are those that you would never think could be actual names. My favorites so far are Seven and Grubby!

 

Tonight we are celebrating the Lantern Festival that marks the end of the New Year festivities. We are going to a restaurant with our roommates to eat some of the traditional food for the holiday. Apparently scallion pancakes are on the menu so I am quite excited.

Also, I now finally have internet in my room, so I should be able to post a bit more frequently. Thanks everyone for reading!