Hey everybody! I haven’t talked to everyone in a while, so I’ll have to catch everyone up. So since I last talked to you, much has happened. We had all of our classes, that I told you about and we finished those. There were finals a week or two ago, we had to take for the classes that we’ve had till now. So then we had a service project.
We were supposed to do the service project on the trek when we are in Xi’an and go to a ranch to help them with their cattle? I’m not really sure. But instead, because our flight wasn’t available till the next week we went to a school in Xiamen. It was only about a 30 minute bus ride from the University campus, so we were able to stay in our dorms while we were helping with the service project. The schools wanted the kids to be taught English (and they had already learned a little in their classes through textbooks, but it's different when you hear it from a native speaker), so we were assigned 4 classes every day. Thankfully we were working in pairs, so I was paired with a guy on our trip named Ben. We had kids from 1st grade to 6th grade in my classes. On the first day, Ben and I had 2nd graders who were really well behaved. At first we started to teach them things like how to say "How are you today?" but then someone told us that it was too hard for them, so we started to draw pictures on the board and teach them what the English word was. Things like fruits and colors. For colors we would point to the kids clothes and say a color that was written on the board. Then we would ask "Nali, nali?" and they would point to other kids in the classroom that were wearing the color and those that were wearing the color would stand up. They had a lot of fun pointing it out to us. We also had a 3rd grade class, and then a 6th grade class. The 6th graders were harder because they already knew all the stuff that we were saying. So we tried the months of the year and things like geography. They already knew it all so we were mostly helping them with pronunciation. The last class of the day was the same first graders we had had earlier. On the second day we had 2nd, 4th, and 3rd graders. We had more of the hang of how to teach them so it was more fun than the first day, although the anticipation was more stressful because we knew what we were getting into. On the last day we only stayed for 2 classes because in Chinese school the teachers devote half of Friday to explaining the homework that the students are to complete that weekend. The school served us lunch since we were helping them (we later paid them for it, because they were a poor school) and then there was recess, and we could play with the kids. It was so much fun. All of the kids were adorably cute (although a little rambunctious) and they all were really excited to be learning from us. The school was a really poor school, and they didn't have enough money to pay for better teachers so having foreigners come to help was really exciting for them.
After our service project we were scheduled to depart for our history trek. We left on Wednesday the 27th of October and flew to Xi'an. When we arrived it was cold! It was weird because Xiamen is pretty tropical, so it stays pretty warm for a longer period of time then up north. So it was pretty surprising when we left the plane. From the airport we took the bus to the Xi'an International Studies dorm (it's actually kind of like staying in a hotel) and got situated before we had dinner. The funny thing about China is that if you are below the Yanztse River no one turns their heat on till November 15th. No matter how cold it gets. So since we are below the river, no heat. It's pretty cold. Both inside and outside. So I've gotten used to wearing my jacket all day, and staying under covers when I'm in my room. We have classes in the mornings here, on the history of China and the different dynasties and stuff. Xi'an is more rural than Xiamen (in parts) but it's also the ancient capital city for the Shang Dynasty. So when you go to the metropolis section of the city, there are old city walls, a moat, a bell tower, and a lot of old architecture. It's very beautiful. Yesterday we went to the Muslim quarter, an area of town where you can buy a lot of touristy things, like knock-off name brand stuff, fake Chinese artifacts, real Chinese artifacts and the usual random stuff that tourists like to buy. It's really funny though because they really push you to buy things, and you have to bargain for your price. It's hard to walk away if you really don't want it. But I've been able to find some really good deals on some cool things.
Today we went to the Terracotta Warriors. They were really cool. We had been taking classes on the Qin Dynasty and learning all about Qin Shi Huang. He's the emperor that the soldiers are guarding. He really wanted immortality, so he tried to make a way that when he was in the afterlife, he would have everything that he needed. There is also a mausoleum that he is buried in, which is pretty cool. He had a map of China that covers the whole ground, and there might even be one that the ocean and rivers in the map are mercury, but no one is sure whether or not that account of the construction is accurate. So when we looked at the Terracotta soldiers, they were awesome. It was pretty dusty in there though and very cold. There are a lot of broken ones, because supposedly there had been enemies of the Qin Dynasty coming in to destroy the solders and take their weapons. All of them have different faces. That's a little creepy. The weapons that they found with the army were still sharp after 2000 or so years. That was cool. While we were there I over heard this story (may not be true) about a German guy who when he was visiting the Terracotta Warriors he dressed to be exactly like one, and when no one was looking he went and jumped over the fence and stood in the army. I didn't hear the rest of the story, but it made me laugh so I thought I would share it with you.
For the rest of this week we are just having classes and next week we start to go to Shanghai and Beijing. I don't know when I'll be able to get online because we don't have internet anymore, so we are having to go to an internet cafe. I hope all of you are doing well! I'm miss you all and can't wait to come home at Christmas!
