China! by Madeline G.

I'm going to attempt to condense 12 days (and one extensively detailed, long journal!) into a single piece- which may be interesting, so here goes! We woke up bright and early Thursday morning to meet a school bus at Sanborn. I was sad but excited as I said good-bye to my family. Following a short plane ride to Newark, we had a 13 hour one to Beijing! It was long, but it definitely helped that there were about 300 free movies on the plane! Finally, we landed. As we stepped off the plane, we were still processing that we were in China! After a long international line, we found our tour bus and main guide (Cool) and his assistant for just Beijing (Ashley). We went straight to dinner- our first one in China, but it unfortunately was only decent, not spectacular- then walked around a park. We went to a kung fu show which was a slightly bizarre mix of singing, dancing, and kung fu (obviously!), and elaborate costumes, all with a plot. It definitely wasn't Broadway, and could have been seriously condensed. The fact that I fell asleep kind of proves my point. Then again, it had been a 40-hour day.

The next day, we left the hotel and immediately went to the Summer Palace, which is basically the imperial family's vacation house: but very, very, very big!! It was amazing, elaborately beautiful and obviously ancient. It had the longest corridor in the world! But I don't remember how long it was. At this point, I was beginning to become an expert at refusing vendors, who can be very persistent. You have to say "Bu Yao!" (I don't want) in a very firm voice with no eye contact. The prices are cheap to match cheap goods. We then went to a cloisonné factory where we also had lunch. Cloisonné is beautiful and very cool. After that, we went to the Great Wall! It was extremely fun though it was very misty and chilly. It was on the wall that I think I finally began to process that I was in China! It was really cool. We then went to Olympic Park, where we saw the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest. I had no idea how big they are, especially the Bird's Nest, which is actually much larger than the Water Cube. After that, we had a duck dinner (I discovered that I really dislike duck!) Several people on the trip are a vegetarian which sometimes is easy but sometimes is difficult.

On day two, we checked out then went to the morning exercises at the Temple of Heaven (really interesting) then the Temple of Heaven itself. It’s amazing and very beautiful, with 9 brilliantly colored layers stacked on top of each other. All the Chinese people wanted pictures of us! We then got to go to the pearl factory, which was very fun. It had gorgeous, expensive pearls and gorgeous, inexpensive pearls- but was insanely well priced. After lunch, we went to the Forbidden City. My main impression is that it is huge! There are 999,999 rooms- a baby could sleep in a room for every night of his life, and would finish when he was 27! We then saw an older, poorer part of Beijing, a part that is beginning to be replaced by big modern buildings. We then went to dinner, which was disgusting mainly because we were right next to a room with smoking allowed. We went to the train station next, ready to board a soft sleeper train (overnight) to Xi’an. The train was very cramped but actually fairly easy to sleep on.

After leaving the train on day three, we had breakfast then went to a museum that is a little like a lesser known, smaller terra cotta warriors place. Next, we went to the school. The lunch there was amazing! They have their own noodle chef, and I got to try stretching noodles. After hanging out on the playground area, we got our host students. My girl's name is Yang Chen, and I also met her mother. Their apartment was very small but clean- it had a little kitchen, a bathroom with a Western toilet (Chinese ones are holes in the ground) two bedrooms, and a living/tv room where we ate dinner. Yang Chen also had two other people she didn't tell me about (grandmother and aunt?) and I was a little intimidated by their fast Chinese as they jabbered on and on to each other. This was the first time that I felt homesick, and I was pretty sad when I went to sleep.

The next day, I walked to school with Yang Chen, because she lives very close to the school, which is called Sunshine Middle School. She went to class, and I met up with the other people from the trip to visit some classrooms. We went to an art classroom where they were learning Chinese calligraphy and an English classroom where they were learning about describing people in English. We then went to the factory where they make the genuine reproduction terra cotta soldiers (that weirdly means the real fake ones). It was cool, and we were still thinking about it when we went to the genuine terra cotta warriors museum and pits after lunch. It was absolutely huge, and I was astounded when we got to actually look at the main pit. It was so cool and I was very impressed, not to mention being amazed that I was seeing this in person. After visiting a nice, relaxing tea shop, we went to a dumpling dinner and Tang Dynasty show. The dinner was, for the most part, delicious (though I accidentally had a bite of shark fin dumpling) and the show was interesting and, I must say, a little odd. I fell asleep (like the majority of our group) towards the end of the show but I did enjoy what I saw- though it was all a bit repetitive. I then met Yang Chen at the school and went home to her house for the night.

After walking to school, we started day five at the jade factory. It was very cool and the jade was all beautiful and well priced, like everything in China! We went to an art museum, which was interesting, but not spectacular. Two girls from our group stayed on the bus to sleep because they were feeling sick- we were all fairly worried and hoped nothing too bad would spread. Lunch was very good, and after it we went to a mosque. It was very ancient-feeling and beautifully old. We then went to the much-anticipated bazaar. I must say, it lived up to all my expectations and more! Bargaining was insanely fun, and I think I got pretty good at it. Most of the stuff was pretty cheap, but it was still really fun to buy. We then went back to Sunshine, weighing several pounds heavier with our many new items. This night, we had dinner with the host families, which was pretty good. After dinner, Yang Chen took me to the park around the Wild Goose Pagoda, where we met up with some of her friends and their American homestays- so I was able to enjoy speaking English while also interacting with the Chinese students. We were planning to see the water show, but it was canceled because people were mourning due to the earthquake: so we made plans to go the next night! Back at the apartment, I saw Yang Chen's mother again and a few other family members. I'm still not sure who lived where in her family, and I think she might live only with her father because I only saw her mother the first night and that night.

Day six had okay breakfast, but not spectacular. We didn't leave the school, and instead went to what I think was a gym class. It was pretty fun, and we did a long series of exercises that I'm pretty sure were some type of martial art. I wasn't very good at it! We then visited a math class. It was really confusing, but I think they were learning about probability, maybe. The teaching style is very different in China- the teacher just talks loudly and the students listen. After briefly watching morning exercises, we went to the auditorium to rehearse our show. Every year, the students use the once a week classes after school before the trip to develop a performance for the students at Sunshine. Our show was pretty complex: lots of dancing (including a tap number and a jazz number), singing (in English, in Chinese, in South African!, and assorted miscellaneous performances (from piano solos to skits in Chinese). We had a delicious lunch at the school then performed! I think they really like us, but they have an odd habit of randomly clapping in the middle of performances- this became more than slightly annoying, especially as I'd expected everyone to be very quiet and perfect. After watching their performance, we hung out before heading back with our host families. My homestay (host family) is friends with some of my friends’ homestays, so we all went out together to KFC (2nd time in my life) and then the Wild Goose Pagoda water Show. The show was an astounding display of various fountains shooting up into the air with jets of water and glowing colored lights. The whole time, music was playing. The effect was Disney but free (and in Chinese!). We then went back to our homestays and fell asleep.

Day seven started with (after walking to the school) a half an hour bus drive to Pangliu, which is a very small farming village outside of Xi'an. It was so different from the city- everything was small and shabby and old looking, without much technology or anything. At the small school, all the young children lined up and clapped and sang to us as we walked through- I felt very famous! They performed for us, and were absolutely precious. Unlike the Sunshine students, they didn't clap in the middle of our performance! After teaching some classes (I played a bunch of simple games with very young children, who adored it) we split into three groups and went to different farmers' houses for the most delicious lunch of the entire trip! Back in Xi’an, we went bicycling on the Xi'an city wall. It was very fun, but the 9 miles of uneven, bumpy, ancient stone was very difficult to bike on with such bad quality bikes! We went back to Sunshine, and then I went to my homestay's house. Before falling asleep, I gave her and her father my gifts for them, which they loved. They especially loved my photo scrapbook I made, and where overcome with joy when I gave it to them. In return, they gave me a book of papercuts for my mom and a HUGE gorgeous wall of cherry blossoms.

The next morning, I woke up early to a delicious noodle breakfast before heading off to Sunshine. I was really sad to say good bye to Yang Chen and her father, and it was weird to think that I might never see them again (though I don't know whether or not Yang Chen is coming to America in the fall). We went to the airport and had a short flight and then we arrived in Shang Hai! We went to a very fun but overwhelming museum, then a very fun boat ride around a river canal. We could see lots of incredibly tall buildings, including the second tallest in the world! After dinner (which was one the 18th floor of a nice hotel) we went to an acrobatics show. It was absolutely amazing, though it hurt me to watch the acrobats stretch in seemingly impossible ways! We went back to the hotel, where my roommates and I watched animated Cinderella on the hotel TV (in Chinese, which was very interesting) before going to bed.

A wake up call woke us up the next day, and we rolled out of bed. After a nice breakfast buffet, we went to the Shanghai Zoo. We saw TEN new young pandas! They were absolutely adorable, and I literally could have stared at them all day! But we were dragged away to go to the silk factory, which was also extremely fun. Learning how the silk was made was fascinating, and the gift shop was huge and amazing. We went to a cool embroidery place and then lunch. After that, we visited the Shanghai Jewish museum, which was about Jews who went to Shanghai during World War Two. It was small, but very interesting. After that, we went to an ancient garden which was very pretty and interesting. We then went to the Oriental Pearl Tower, which was incredibly tall and thoroughly awesome. We lay down on a glass floor which was exhilarating, because cars looked smaller than ants! We then bought gelato (surprisingly delicious!) before walking around the city, which was fun because there were many lights. Shanghai is so green! It's really clean and modern- I really liked it a lot. We then went to a late dinner- our last! It was sad, but we quickly fell asleep when we went back to the hotel.

We had an early start the last day, and I felt really disoriented about the fact that we were actually leaving. Before the airport, we had some last minute shopping which was really fun. We had an incredibly emotional lunch- it was our last meal- and I started getting really sad but excited. At the airport, we said good bye to our guides then boarded the plane. We arrived at the right time for our flight and it went smoothly: we arrived in Newark right on time. It was nice but weird to hear English that wasn't accented, and to see signs that had no Chinese! Our flight to Boston was quick, but we were some of the only people in the airport as we got back very late. I was so excited to see my family, and one of my friends had her dad bring us all pizza- it was so good!

On that note, I will end this article. Overall, China was incredibly fun, and I eventually recovered from the jet lag. I had a great time, and, even though I was happy to come home, I really miss being there and having fun with the chaperones and my friends. It was a really awesome experience and I'm glad I got to share it with you- however belated that may be!