I AM IN CHINA!

The 14-hour plane ride to China was hell; it was so cold on the plane. Even though I'm only half Chinese, I, apparently, look Chinese enough for people on the plane to speak to me in Chinese. It's pretty funny because I couldn't understand half of what they were saying, so I just pretended I understood by nodding my head (: (I think the man next to me was asking me to watch his stuff, lol idk). To pass the time, I watched Paranormal Activity 4 and slept. The only thing that I did not like about the plane ride was the turbulence. At one point, the turbulence got so bad that I was literally having a panic attack.

After we landed in Shanghai, we took a 3 hour bus ride to Hangzhou. The buildings in Shanghai literally look all the same; it's like the suburbs in America. We even passed by an IKEA and a Walmart on the way there. I don't really like Shanghai that much...I don't think I would fit in.But I LOVE Hangzhou. This city literally looks like the Chinese version of LA/New York, but smaller. I really like it here (thank you AC for putting me in this city!). The one thing about Hangzhou in June is that it rains a LOT. Not only does it rain, but it is also humid. I sweat so much in this city; I always feel so sticky and disgusting. It's amazing how people in China never sweat, especially students who have to wear those track uniforms. So glad we don't have to wear those uniforms at SHA. (For my SHA friends, I showed my host sister a picture of our uniform because she was curious...and she really liked our uniforms LOL. She said they were "very beautiful").

Anyways, today was my first full day in China, and I am starting to love it here. The other 18 Americans are really nice and easy to talk to (really glad that I got grouped with these people). Everyone is just so interesting, outgoing and funny. This morning basically consisted of exchanging money, eating lunch, taking another placement test/interview, and playing charades in Chinese (which my group totally failed at). After, my host sister and I walked & took the 303 bus back home to the apartment.

Speaking of my host sister, my host family is really nice, and they try to help me as much as they can. It's a little hard to converse because 我的中文不太好 (my Chinese is not too good), but I'm trying my hardest to comprehend what they are saying. Of course, if I don't understand, they usually try to translate it into English (which they are capable of speaking). At first, I was a bit apprehensive about getting along with my host sister...but after walking/taking the bus home with her today, I feel a lot comfortable around her. I guess it'll just have to take some time because of the language barrier. 

Overall, today was a successful day. Tomorrow we start actual Chinese classes. I'm nervous, yet excited. I have to get up at 5:40 a.m. tomorrow because my host sister has A level exams.

PS: my host family hasn't served me anything too weird or outlandish yet. But I do know that Olive (one of the other NSLI-Yer) was served tripe and HOOVES last night. Pig hooves, I think. Isn't that just lovely? I miss everyone at home, but I also really love Hangzhou. I'll try to get pictures for you guys up soon....when I take some. I've been neglecting my camera just because I'm usually too lazy to take it out and snap some pictures. But I will soon! 

Until next time,

Christine

Chicago-bound

Just a 14-hour flight away from Shanghai!

PDO Day 1

It is now 8:07 am (PDO day #2). We're just about to head over to the American Councils office in 20 mins, but I thought I'd tell you guys about PDO Day #1 (yesterday). Btw, sorry no pictures yet! I forgot to bring my usb cable down to the Internet Kiosk, so I'll probably have to upload the pictures later.

So I got to the Embassy Suites around 12 pm after a 9.5 hour direct flight from HNL to Dulles airport. Surprisingly, the flight wasn't too bad. The whole flight was silent (no crying babies) with some minor turbulences.

When I got to the hotel, my room wasn't ready yet so I had to wait in the lobby for several hours. (I was also the first one to fly into DC and the first one to get to the hotel). More NSLI-Y kids started trickling in around 4-5 pm. We all made a huge circle in the lobby and just hung around (asking each person their name, age, city, school, host city, etc). There were so many kids from the DC/Virginia/East Coast area. Also, there were a lot of Nanjing people too! The Nanjing group seemed pretty close; they all seem to know each other already. So far, I was the only one going to Hangzhou that had arrived at the hotel.

The icebreakers weren't too awkward. We did a little "speed dating" game, a human knot and many more. The RDs made us use Chinese for a majority of the activities though, so that was really nervewracking. We had to put ourselves in order by birthday using only Chinese, and each person also had to say what they wanted to learn in China (in Chinese).(Note: everyone here is so good in Chinese. It's a little intimidating).

My roommates are also really nice: Kelsey (who is going to Hangzhou with me) and Sylvia (who is going to Suzhou. Btw, she has her own blog at sylviachinasummer.webs.com)

Anyways, I gotta go. We have a full day of lectures today, and then we leave for Dulles airport (Hangzhou kids) at 3 am tomorrow.

Until next time,
Christine

DC, I'll See You Soon

Less than 3 hours before I head to the airport to catch my overnight flight to DC and I don't exactly know how I feel right now. It just doesn't seem real. I'm excited, yet anxious and nervous.

This trip will be the first of many things. It will be the first time I:

• Travel by myself without any friends and/or family members
• Spend an entire 7 weeks away from my parents (the longest I've gone was 3 days)
• Travel to DC and China
• Travel outside of the United States (yep, this is my first international experience!) 

I hope my parents and my sister have a fun & safe flight and trip to Vegas and California! They'll be leaving 2 hours after my plane departs. I'll miss you guys a lot! 

Packing

Less than 24 hours till my flight to DC, and I am finally done packing. I just need to put my retainers and etc in tomorrow and then I'll be ready to go (:

Host Family Gifts

I am the worst gift giver ever. After much advice and suggestion from past NSLI-Y participants, I finally finished my gift shopping...sort of. I'm still trying to figure everything out. 

I am incredibly happy with how the photo book turned out. I made it at Walmart with pictures I took around the island.

PS : the thing in the bubble wrap is a hand-carved candle that I am planning to give to my host mom (: The color is a mixture of white, purple and pink-- super pretty!

Edit: Okay, for some odd reason, I couldn't post this through my email. It wouldn't work. I tried 3 times on my Gmail and 1 time on Yahoo Mail, but it failed each time. Apparently it went over the size limit...so I'm assuming that I won't be able to post pictures on this blog while in China. 

Final Flight Itinerary

Lets just say I will be doing a whole lot of flying this summer-- the most I will have ever done in my entire life.

• HNL to DC = 9.5 hours
• DC to Chicago to Shanghai = 18 hours
• Shanghai to Chicago = 14 hours
• Chicago to HNL = 9 hours

I don't fare well on long plane rides, so lets see how this goes. I mean, I get antsy on a 5 hour plane ride from Oahu to LAX.  Hopefully, I'll just fall asleep or do my summer reading or anything to keep me occupied. Perhaps even review some old Chinese characters?

The airline website says I can collect up to 23,761 award miles from this trip. 

I'm a Member of the He Family!

I received my host family information earlier this morning and was delighted to find out that I will be staying with the He family for the six weeks that I am in China!

My host dad is an engineer, and my host mom is the manager of a company in Hangzhou. I also have a 16 year old host sister, which I am completely happy about. She attends the same school that I will be attending, so we'll probably be traveling to school together in the morning.

No other information was provided about my family, such as hobbies and etc, but I was given their email address, home address and phone number. Apparently, I live 10-12 minutes away from school by car and 45-50 minutes away from school by bus. Hmm, I wonder what mode of transportation my host sister takes to school...

Okay, I feel really creepy for saying this, but I actually google searched my sister's name. (I'm sorry! I just wanted more information on my host family since I'm so impatient.) Google says that she's a top student in her school, and she also does debate...which is pretty amusing. I used to debate within the NFL (National Forensics League) back in 7th and 8th grade, but gave it up in favor of speech and choir.

Only 9 days left until PDO!

Until next time,
Christine

Testing 1, 2, 3

Since I won't be able to access Blogspot in China, I'll be posting by email. Hopefully this works and my email goes through.

To test the picture function, here are some pictures of my summer so far:

Thank you to Microsoft for putting on that free concert with Macklemore and Neon Trees!

Hiking Pillbox

Sunset

Bucketlist/Updates

Congratulations to all of the CIEE finalists! Even though I didn't actually apply this year, I've been keeping up with the Facebook group from time to time. I hope everyone has an amazing time in South Korea! Ahh, so envious, but I guess I can't complain (: My friend thinks it's weird how the #1 thing I want to do in South Korea is ride the subway/metro. It just looks so much fun...and different. Hawaii doesn't have any subways, so I've always wanted to try one. Plus, the subway station (and Incheon airport) looks so nice and clean. But enough about Korea, lets focus on China!

Everyone in the finalist group seems pretty nice so far. I can't wait to meet all of them, especially those in my city. I have a couple of them as friends on Facebook, but we haven't really conversed as much. They all seem like fun and intelligent people, though. Hopefully it'll be a lot different when we meet in person.

I've been stressing a lot over the past week. Only yesterday did I realize I only had 3 weeks left to do everything: take ACT, summer homework, senior portraits, pack, etc. I've been procrastinating on everything, especially packing and summer homework. I still need to buy a ton of stuff before I go (I wonder when American Councils will be releasing our host family information?). Packing is such a daunting task. For summer homework, I have to read three books (Jane Eyre, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Pride and Prejudice) and complete 10 journals for each of them. I've already decided that I, unfortunately, won't be able to finish before I go to China. This means I'll probably have to complete my homework in China, but that's what long plane rides are for.  

Speaking of long plane rides, here's my tentative itinerary. I'll be on a 9 hour plane ride to DC. After two days of orientation, the entire group will be traveling for an hour to Chicago, and then a 14+ hour flight to Shanghai. On the flight home, the entire group will be traveling back to Chicago. Because there are no flights from Chicago to Hawaii at that time, I'll be one of the few staying overnight until my flight home the next day. I'm actually skipping the first day of school because of that. It's okay, though, because we don't really do anything on the first day anyways.

I'm so excited for China! Some of the things I want to do there:

• Dance in the park with all of the grandmas, grandpas, aunts, etc. - I'm pretty excited for this, no joke.
• Shop - I want to go shopping there so badly. I heard Wulin Street is a really good place for clothes shopping in Hangzhou.
• Eat authentic Chinese food - Hawaii has many many Chinese restaurants, but a lot of it has been Americanized.
• KTV - KARAOKE, YES. I love Karaoke, and China has some of the best places for it. 

Yeah, I'm still working on my list, haha. I really just want to experience what a typical lifestyle in China is like and, of course, improve my Mandarin (esp. my speaking and listening skills). 

I will keep you all posted on any news about my host family! I hope I'll be able to blog in China because I know many people tend to abandon their blogs when they're on the trip; I've come across many blogs like that. *Fingers-crossed* that that won't be the case for me. I'll definitely try my best! 

Until next time,
Christine 

Pre-departure Tests

Wow, it's already summer (: Exactly 3 weeks until I board the plane to Washington DC. I've never been to DC before, so that'll be something to look forward to. I'll be in DC for two days of orientation and then off to China I go!

This post isn't particularly interesting; it's just to provide some information on the pre-departure tests that we are required to take. I just thought I'd address my experience with them just in case anyone is curious. It may be different for each organization, so this is primarily for those with American Councils. American Councils require each scholarship recipient to finish 3 tests before the end of May: the placement test, OPI, and this 2-hour online test. I believe everyone has to take the host institution placement test and the OPI, regardless of the organization that they're in. The 2-hour online test is strictly an American Councils thing (and I think it was something that was implemented just this year. Past participants said they had no idea what this test was, lol).

• Host Institution Placement Test: Just like the name says, this is to determine your placement within the host institution. My test was about an hour long, and it had to handwritten and then scanned. It was okay....I left a lot blank though, especially the pinyin and measure word section, ugh. I found the reading portion to be the easiest, but that's just me. I'm personally stronger in my reading comprehension skills than I am with anything else. (Heh, I translated the whole paragraph almost perfectly, but then I misread the questions and answered them wrong -__- Always check your work before sending in your test, guys...I only realized I had read the question wrong after I sent it in. Oops.) Apparently, other people found the placement test to be difficult, too, so I guess I'm not the only one. I can't really say too much about this because the test is different for each person depending on your host institution.

• OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview): This test basically measures your oral proficiency in the language, so your speaking and listening skills. Honestly, I knew this one would be the hardest for me. My speaking and listening skills are those of a 1st grader...but I did list my level as "poor" on the application for both of these, so I guess it's okay, haha. My interview lasted about 10-15 minutes on the phone (because I did so bad and could not hold a conversation at all), and I was just incredibly nervous. I even told my interviewer this. My interviewer was really nice though, so that made me feel a bit better. She basically asked me about my family, my hobbies, my name, my Chinese teacher/class, etc. We also did a role play, which I failed horribly at. This was the scenario: She was visiting Hangzhou, and I was the information booth person. Yeah. I honestly blanked out and did not know what to ask her. Hopefully I'll do better on the second OPI after I return from my trip. 

• Reading and Comprehension Test: This test was about 2 hours long, and it was taken online. Sixty minutes was dedicated to the reading portion and another 60 minutes was dedicated to the listening portion. Each section was about 30-40 pages long with 1 or 2 questions on each page. The questions were all multiple choice and asked you about what you read or heard in the dialogue. I personally found the reading section to be easier because I could not understand anything in the listening portion of the test. They had weird music playing in the background for some of the dialogue and that made it really hard to concentrate. Also, the audio levels kept changing; it was really soft in one audio and then deafening-loud in another. I probably killed my ears after this test, lol. I think I did decent in the reading section, but I 100%-failed the listening portion. *sigh* It didn't help that I had a killer headache that day as well. I fell asleep after finishing this test. Like, I literally exited out and then crashed; I didn't even bother closing my laptop. It took so much mental concentration, hahahaha.

***None of these tests affect the status of your scholarship, so just breathe and relax (: They won't take away your scholarship just because you "failed" them. I'm just going to take these tests as a way of motivating myself to work harder in Chinese.