midterms and hutongs

Ok, so don't think that I haven't been posting because I've been lazy or that nothing has been happening here.  The past week two weeks have been totally over-stimulating, and I'm planning on spending the next week sleeping a lot so that I can enjoy our upcoming trip to Chengdu.  I am also beginning to get very nervous about the fact that I am more than halfway through this program, since it feels like I just got here still.  While there are some things that I am really looking forward to having in my life again (my standard answer for people when they ask me what i miss most about home is: cheese, real coffee, and sleeping in a bed that is not made of rock) I feel like I have to try and cram as much as possible into the rest of my trip to see all of Beijing - as though that is even possible.  

The week before last (after my very busy lama temple weekend) was midterms week, which was very intense.  They had us do all kinds of assignments and papers throughout the week to prepare, so that by the time Friday rolled around we were exhausted.  Friday was the actual midterm, which consisted of a written test that was cumulative, meaning it covered about 25 chapters (about 2500 vocab words, and maybe 250 grammar structures?) from 8-10:30.  From 10:45 to 1pm we had oral finals, which consisted of two formal presentations we prepared ahead of time and one informal one where they gave us the topic on the spot.  After this we went out for our weekly 中文桌子 － zhongwen zhuozi, or Chinese table - where we go out to eat with our professors, and we all practically fell asleep at the table.  

After a short nap, it was time to get ready for a party a few other students had planned.  One of my friends turned 21 on Wednesday, and we had a combination happy birthday surprise party/ thank god midterms are over party at a place near our school.  I was in charge of persuading Emily that we should go there for dinner without getting her suspicious, and I think I did a pretty good job.  Almost everyone from our forty person group was there, and the expression on her face when we walked in to the restaurant was really cute.  

The next morning I was up early to hang out with my "Chinese mother" that ACC arranged for us.  I will write more about my host family later, they are truly fascinating, and I need to devote a whole entry to them in order to properly describe them.  I'll give you a teaser though: Saturday involved us leaving the dorm at 9 am and returning at 5 pm.  In the meantime I learned a lot about my host mother's sense of ethics, watched my classmate get force-fed 白酒 (baijiu, hard liquor, in this case homemade by the man who was getting him drunk), and sang "Oh my darling Clementine" about twenty times with a group of orphans who were trying to practice their English.  

On Sunday my roommate and I spend the day with someone who was previously in my phone as "New Best Friend," but I now know is named Yuan Yuan.  We met Yuan Yuan in a restaurant near school.  She came over to our table to tell us how cool it was that we were speaking to each other in Chinese and introduce herself.  She insisted on exchanging cell phone numbers so that she could show us around Beijing, which I would definitely not be ok with in New York, but is apparently really common if you're a foreign exchange student in China.  People are just incredible friendly and helpful (especially if you speak to them in Chinese), and other college students are particularly interested in making friends with you.  Yuan Yuan is a grad student, and her major is something to do with business that has a lot of technical words in its name.  Actually, I'm pretty sure we would just translate it as marketing, but in Chinese it sounds really complicated.  

We went to a 胡同-hutong, traditional Beijing street.  They are very narrow and winding, and the buildings that line them are smaller and more old-fashioned then the huge apartment complexes that most people in Beijing live in.  Some are very old, but of course many have been torn down or will be soon to make room for new developments.  A lot of the ones that remain are overly commercialized and sell the same touristy crap that you can buy anywhere in China (or in the US's Chinatowns for that matter).  This one was fun, though, and we met some interesting characters along the way.  My favorite is an old lady in one shop who lectured us on every topic you can imagine.  She was horrified by my tights and said that they weren't keeping me warm enough.  She then shared some very interesting theories about what can happen to your body if you don't wear the right kind of tights.  She taught Claire some traditional Chinese medicine techniques which all seemed to involve pressing your thumb into a sensitive part of your body until you're in a lot of pain.  She told me that I was very pretty, like a cat, and did I know my eyes were like cat eyes?  She used to be very pretty when she was young, and she was not super respectful of Mao.  We then went to Houhai, which is not far from where we were and has a big lake that we walked around.  The weather was beautiful and surprisingly warm (my tights were more than sufficient, thank you very much), and we chatted with Yuan Yuan.  I'm really glad we randomly met her at a restaurant because she's a real sweetheart.   

So it has been very eventful recently, and I have lots more to share, but I'll have to come back later.  Suffice to say, I have been having a lot of fun (and working hard too).  And using my Chinese to communicate with more and more people, including one truly batty old woman...