Chinese bargaining, excessive good food, and schizophrenic weather

Nihao my fellow waiguoren! This is a long and overdue entry, as there's been so much going on this past week that I haven't had time to update. The first week of classes are over, and I am officially exhausted! Every weekday we have grammar classes in the morning with a "tingxie" (dictation) quiz first thing, where we get tested on 30 characters that we had to memorize the night before. Grammar class is followed by small group drills, and then either discussion or supplementary material such as watching a Chinese movie. Starting next week, we also have 1 on 1 sessions in the afternoon and an elective class (mine will be "Business Chinese"). We will also be starting fun electives - I signed up for martial arts and Chinese painting, and might also be taking private erhu lessons with some other students who are interested :) On Friday, we had our first weekly exam and it was quite tedious and difficult - we had a long written section with a short essay as well as an 8-minute oral. I think I've decided that reading and writing Chinese is much more difficult for me than speaking.

Thursday was a very exciting day, as I finally got to meet up with my grandaunt who lives in Beijing. We went walking in the Wangfujing area and then took the subway to her apartment on the other side of town. It was incredible to hear some of the stories she told me of my grandma and other relatives and also to have so much connection with someone I'd only met once before for a few hours!

Friday afternoon after our long week of class was over, I went shopping with some other students at the Silk Street Market. This mall is probably one of China's biggest carrier of fake goods, and also an incredible place to practice bargaining in Chinese since all the shop owners like to hike up prices if they know you're not a native. That night we had an amazing dinner at Quanjude Roast Duck, which is Beijing's #1 roast duck restaurant. We split a whole duck between four people and saw the chef chop it up right in front of us!

On Saturday CET had it's first outing at the Summer Palace. It was unfortunately one of the rare rainy days in Beijing so we were unable to completely enjoy our time there. I still had fun seeing the famous parts of the Summer Palace, such as the walkway with 100 ancient Chinese stories narrated in traditional paintings, and the huge royal dock shaped like a stone ship - I can't believe how spoiled ancient Chinese royalty was! Saturday night I went with other students and their Chinese roomates to KTV (Chinese karaoke). We all had a great time singing old American pop songs, watching our roomates belt out Chinese pop, and trying to decipher all the Chinese characters on the TV screen while they were singing. It was also funny seeing which American songs our Chinese roomates liked - the two American songs my roomate absolutely had to sing were "My Heart Will Go On" and "Barbie Girl". When we finally left the karaoke place at 3AM, it was SNOWING outside, which apparently never happens in Beijing in March. Nevertheless, it was extremely pretty and made up for the fact that it didn't snow in Providence before I left last semester :)

Today (Sunday) my roomate invited me and a few other American students to her house for Yuanxiao Jie, the holiday that signifies the official ending of Chinese New Year. We had a deliiiiiiicious lunch in her family's 7th floor apartment, complete with homemade Szechuan sausage, dumplings, and tangyuan/yuanxiao (two types of sweet sticky rice ball desserts that are traditionally eaten on this holiday). That lunch was so good, I may never be hungry again.

Here are some pictures for your entertainment:

Xizhimenwai - my neigborhood!

My grand aunt in front of her apartment

Posing with the token Quanjude duck (notice our huge shopping bags)

Walkway of story paintings at Summer Palace

Anyways, I think I've procrastinated enough, as I have an essay due on Tuesday that I have not started. Apologies if the writing in this entry is really bad - the language pledge is making me forget how to speak English, but at least my Chinese is improving (hopefully)....

Zai jian!