Spending Time with my Host Family!

This Sunday my host brother, his friend, Leo, and I spent our free day exploring 曾厝安路 (Zhengcuoan Road) and 中山路 （Zhongshan Road). Leo talked about his school, his dreams and aspirations (he wants to go to 清华大学 (Qinghua University), and his basketball interests. Incidentally, China play the US the next day, and he said it is a win if China lose by less than 50 points! William, my host brother, gave me some really cool sunglasses (photograph attached) for the blistering sun. After exploring for 3 hours or so, we went to a stir fry restaurant and took a subway back home. Yesterday, we were visited by a world renowned painter in the province of 福建 (Fujian) who drew some unreal paintings, like the one shown below.

Meeting my Host Family!

Today, after finishing our OPI interviews, I finally got to meet my host family. My host family is small and sweet – Dad, Mom, and a 17-year old brother, William. The host family’s apartment is around 20 minutes away from Xiamen University. Everyone was very nice to me, and we chatted a little in Mandarin before eating dinner. During dinner, I gave my family presents I had brought from the US and explained the significance of each one. Given that I am from Boston, I presented them with Red Sox baseball caps. Tim Kilduff (former race director for the Boston Marathon) had generously given me posters celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Boston Marathon – my host family really liked this present. After dinner, they showed me to my room. Btw, it is a great coincidence that my brother and I like the same football club, Bayern Munich!

I am looking forward to spending the next 2 weeks with my host family, getting to know them and improving my Mandarin. I think they are as excited as I am to share and enjoy what should be a wonderful experience!

With my host mother

With my host brother, William

Yummy dinner!

With my host Dad and brother, William

NSLI-Y Week 2 Overview

Week 2 has just come to a close, and there is only one more week before we move in with our host families! I have learned a lot so far, but living with my host family for 2 weeks will definitely enhance my knowledge and insight.

It has been a lot of studying and reviewing material, but the classes make you speak up and pay attention. The interest groups have also been a lot of fun. I learned how to play Chinese chess, and we had a guest graduate student visit our class to teach us how to sing some Chinese songs. Last Sunday, however, we were in for a real treat as we celebrated four students’ birthdays for the month of July. The cake was 很好吃！After that, we went to our second music concert, featuring the 10th anniversary concert of the Youth Orchestra of Xiamen Foreign Language School. The performance included both current students and alumni who rejoined their high school orchestra especially for this occasion. The orchestra, which has won both national and international awards, played an excellent and exciting concert consisting of both Western Classical and Chinese pieces. It was very emotional in the end, as many alumni would be leaving Xiamen after this academic year.

I am excited to find out what our final week in the dorms has to offer!

Trips to XFLS and Quanzhou

Aside from the regular classes and interest group activities, we have also taken a couple of day trips. Two days ago, we visited the Xiamen Foreign Language School during its Open Day. The kids studying there are among the smartest students across the entire country, and their English is impeccable. They gave us a tour of their beautiful campus.

The next day, we visited the ancient city of Quanzhou, which was once a prosperous port city at the start of the ancient Maritime Silk Road. Quanzhou is famous for harboring  Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism with little or no conflict at all. Quanzhou was much more developed and advanced than its neighboring cities in part due to its religious tolerance.

Today, we studied for an upcoming OPI test (Oral Proficiency Interview) and experienced our first immersion day, where you had to speak Chinese for the entire day. It was difficult but it definitely helped my confidence in speaking – as I am now able to start fluent conversations with the students in the University. In the evening, we had another Green Drive project, this time picking up fallen bikes all across the Xiamen University campus.

 

NSLI-Y Week 1 Overview

The first week of this immersive, 6-week program is over and it has been a lot of fun. Aside from learning new Mandarin vocabulary, working on grammar, writing characters, and studying Chinese culture in the class we have also had fun during our recreational time. We learnt martial arts and tai chi from a graduate student. We anticipated a super-typhoon that barely hit us, leading to some heavy rain. We went to a music concert which featured wonderful piano solos from Daniel Epstein, and finally we picked up trash on the Xiamen University Campus as part of a community service project and had a competition to see who could collect the most trash.

All in all, this week has been fantastic, and I can’t wait for more!

First Day of Classes

Today was the first day of classes. It typically begins with a morning Chinese class from 9-11:50 AM, but today it was shortened so that we could have an orientation session. The staff introduced all the details of the program during the session. They told us that Xiamen University is one of the best schools in China.

After lunch,  we had culture class and we were also given readings about China’s landmass and geography – we were going to be quizzed the next day. Finally, we had afternoon classes, followed by tutor groups which is like study hall time back in the US. In my free time later during the day, I learned how to play Chinese Chess (Xiangqi), which is very different from regular chess. It was an exciting day and I am excited to learn as much as I can!

Below are pictures from yesterday’s 4th of July holiday excursion:

Delays, Cancellations, and Missed Flights

The last two days have been very hectic. Yesterday our flight from Newark to Shanghai arrived at 1:40 PM after which we had a 4-hour layover before our flight from Shanghai to Xiamen. The plan was to arrive in Xiamen at 8:00 PM.  However, due to bad weather in Xiamen, our flight was cancelled and we were forced to spend the night in a nearby hotel. We tried our luck again the next day, waking up early to board a flight at 6:15AM in the morning. However due to mixups with the boarding passes, 6 of us (including me) and two other chaperones missed our flight and we had to rebook for a later flight at 3:15PM. But it just wasn’t our day!  The flight was delayed another 3 hours because of weather concerns. We eventually arrived at the campus with the other students at 10 PM. It has been a very chaotic two days but at least I am here in Xiamen and the journey begins tomorrow with a holiday excursion trip in honor of the 4th of July.

On the bright side, I got to try some cool cheese rice in one of the restaurants at the airport.

Pre-Departure Orientation in Newark

Today we had our Pre-Departure Orientation at the Hilton Newark hotel before we leave for China tomorrow. The program director, Dr. Jianguo Chen, introduced himself and the program, along with the other faculty. The entire day was dedicated to going over the guidelines of the trip, what the average day would look like, how we should represent our country etc. Dr. Carol Radomski, representative of the US State Department, gave a talk about how we were ambassadors for the U.S., and how we had to make a good impression on our host families to help strengthen the relationship between U.S. and China. After that, we had a placement exam to determine what class we will be attending in Xiamen.

With all of this out of the way, we are almost there. Our flight is tomorrow, I can’t wait!