Brookline High School in China

china 4

weird food: chicken stomach
good food: "bi jiu" (dumplings with soup inside of them)
weather: snowy (I guess we brought it with us b/c Xi'an doesn't have much snow.)

a little reminder: I can't read any comments my void of readers might make, so if you wanna chat send me an email at celtics186@hotmail.com because I'm getting really lonely here 13 hours in the future.

wow life is hectic in china, but i guess i like it better that way. I'm dreading the moment when I fall into the stiffiling boredom of routine.

I've started caligraphy lessons with my host mom. She gave me a caligraphy book where you fill in the outlines of characters and the strokes are numbered. Of course this is the same mom who annoys the living shit out of me. She follows me everywhere, stands over my back when I'm on the computer (like right now but I think she's still working on translating the first few words), forces me to eat, unpacked my suitcase for me, makes me wear long underwear, and has recently walked in on my naked while I was changing and kept on coming into my room saying "Mei guan xi, Mei guean xi" ("It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter"). So of course she makes me do my caligraphy right handed which, for a lefty, is not the easiest thing to do. My right hand has zero dexterity. I can't even hold the brush still in my hand. It shakes so much that i can barely put it to the paper. Nevertheless, after having her hold my hand steady for me, I was able to slop out some characters. My mom decided that now I have to do three pages a night under her guidance. I grudgingly agreed thinking that at the very least my right hand will build up some muscles. But caligraphy itself is very interesting.

Originally, I had no idea why the hell writing characters was supposed to be such an art, but after attempting to write many characters I've discovered it truly is something you've got to master. You really have to anticipate how the brush will spread the ink onto the paper. You got to know when to press, to flip, to squish, to turn, lighten, to fill... You can't watch the brush as it makes the character you have to look ahead of the brush and anticipate what kind of move best fits the character you are filling in. There an innumerable amount of ways to do the same stroke. Hard, soft, quick, slow, slanted, straight, etc. I guess in it's highest form you really can speak volumes through the painting of just a few characters.

I beginning to think my little host sister has a crush on me. She keeps asking me for pictures of JUST me, and her and my little brother always get in fights when he says "he has something to tell me." My little brother is really cool. He reminds me of a monkey. Always plotting something. His cousin, who he calls his sister and is the same age, is much better at English than him and does most of my translating.

In other news, the China group has really been getting along well. Everyone has so much to talk about in the past few days we have all been laughing and shouting every time we meet. I think a lot of it has to do with us finally being in China and by ourselves. I know Edna's been feeling homesick, and I have to admit there are times I'd love to be back home w/o my pug-like mom looking over my shoulder. Celine's been sick the past couple of days, but been having a good time w/ her family. Ian has been going around with his little brother doing all kinds of things like lighting firecrackers and training the family's new dog. Lauren has been living the high life; apparently her dad is the founder of the entire city of Xi'an or something. Christina's appartment has three floors which is a rarity in China. Sara and Isaiah have been their usual selves. And Gaelen has been impressing the entire group with her fluency in chinese. All in all, I'm pretty sure everyone in the group is having one of the best times of their lives despite the snow and homesickness or sickness, or whatever difficulties accompany this kind of trip.

dAVID

posted by dAVID @ 2:57 AM