True Immersion

This immersion thing really works. In just my 4th night with my host family and 3rd day of school, I can joke around and have filling conversations with my host parents. At the dinner table tonight they joking called me the "kuáiziren" as I picked up greasy peanuts with my chopsticks. Kuáiziren literally means the chopstick man. I am better than Jeremy at using chopsticks lol. My host family loves to joke around; they are not very strict about things. The host mom is a Korean teacher and she is interested in adding some english to her repertoire, so I quiz her just as she quizes me on my Mandarin. My host father loves soccer. I woke up this morning to watch the US in the world cup at 4:30 AM and I find my host father on the couch anxiously awaiting the start of the game. He looked at me and pointed at the TV while saying "Meguo Meguo!" (America America!). We had a bonding experience filled with sighs and yells as the US fell 2-1 to Belgium. 

My studies have been quite arduous but very very helpful. Day 1 I was struggle-icious. The teacher was only speaking in chinese and I had no idea what she was saying being that I had never taken a formal in class course before this. The evaluater of the group, Bret, strongly urged me to stay in level 2 and to not move down to level 1. He said that I was way too motivated and already too skilled to have the patience to sit through level 1, so I stuck it out and it has been wonderful. I am picking up on many words now that Ruàn Lao Shi is using and instructing us. Today we learned how to bargain with private vendors and how to buy normal food and fruits at the supermarket. I told Māma what I learned and she acted as a vendor and allowed me to practice what I learned. It ended in me screaming at her “Tài gui le, tài gui le! Pin gui idiarn” which means "Its too expensive, its too expensive! Lower the cost." Everyone at the table was cracking up because they didnt expect to learn something that forceful at school. Ruàn Lao Shi is a very demanding teacher and loves to use emotion in her classes. It makes it much easier to understand her. 

My daily routine. I wake up in morning normaly at 6:33 or 6:42. I then hop into the shower and put on fresh clothes while Sister Luo, the housekeeper, prepares my breakfast which is usually mientiao de jidān and xigua (noodles with fried egg and watermelon of course). I carpool to school in a car driven by Robert's host dad filled with me, Robert, Bryce, and Leah. Leah is one of the 3 graduates in the China NSLI-Y group. Class starts at 8:30 and ends at 5. Our cultural class where we learn about Zhuhai and China history starts at 3:30 and in the following weeks we will play fun traditional chinese games to further  understand the culture. At 5 I catch the bus (gongongchiche) home with Bryce and Robert. I have to transfer busses once and the whole trip takes about 20 minutes. The bus stop is only 100 yards away from my apartment complex. The complex has a pool and ping pong tables and other cool activities. So now I will spend some quality time with my bro Jeremy. For now, Miles is out. Zàijiàn!

P.S. Sorry about the weird animal pics 😬