Yantai at the Halfway Point

So we're at the halfway point of the program now and finally settled in to the new routine in Yantai. The first weekend we were here a bunch of us went straight to the much-hyped beach "only 5 minutes away from campus". Dan brought a football and I carried along a Frisbee to throw around at the beach. It was a totally different beach experience than I've ever had. On the beach there were a bunch of boats "docked" in the sand. It added a nice touch to the beauty of the beach. Fisherman launched their boats about 20 feet away from where people were swimming. Mini-tractors drove right along the edge of the sea narrowly missing people sitting in the sand, spitting out thick clouds of black smoke across the beach. Diapers and a nice diverse assortment of waste littered the water close to shore, of course where everyone was swimming and enjoying the cool Yantai weather. Haha. It was quite the scene. At the beach we were stared at more than anywhere else. People were awestruck to see a "large olive" flying through the air (the Chinese translation of football means flying olive). We even spotted a couple videotaping us throwing the football and Frisbee. Soon a big crowd gathered on the stones at the top of the beach just to watch us. All while this was going on, Alison was getting a lot of attention because of her bikini. They just don't exist in China since everyone dresses very modestly. It was interesting to see that most of the women didn't go into the water. Some that went in wore full swim-dresses that were pretty unusual.

Yantai Da Xue's campus is really great. It's much more spread out than Beida so it isn't always packed with people all the time like it is in Beijing. Right outside our dorm is a basketball court that is always packed with kids in the afternoons. One day I went down to the courts to shoot around and soon I was involved in full court games. It amazed me that the kids played basketball in their sandals or bare feet. You have to have really tough feet to play basketball without shoes. After a few days of playing with the kids I picked up some basketball terminology. Here are a few useful phrases in case you get into a pickup game with the Chinese: "Hao Qiu" = good shot, "Lan Qiu" = to shoot, "Chuan Qiu" = to pass, "San Fen" = 3 point line. That's about all of the new vocab I've learned so far. Most of the time I just talk a lot of trash in Chinese. One day I taught the kids how to play "knockout," which was cool. It took a while to explain it in Chinese but they finally got it I think. Every time I go out to the courts they always ask me questions about the US. They are all really interested in where I came from and what I'm doing in China. Playing basketball here is a great time and I get a lot of practice with my Chinese. A few days ago I found out that most of the kids practice Judo all day and then come to the basketball courts everyday after their sessions.

At night in Yantai near the beach there are street vendors everywhere. You can find everything from fried squid on a stick to beef to every other type of meat imaginable. We discovered a great place that makes amazing fresh burritos made right in front of your eyes. There are also a lot of great, cheap Korean restaurants in the area. Today we stumbled upon a jiaozi (dumpling) place that tasted great. One night after grabbing dinner me and a few kids from AU saw to the side of the road older women dancing in a square with music blaring from speakers, so we checked it out. While talking with an older lady watching from the stage, we found out that they were doing it for exercise. We had a hard time understanding her because of her Shandonghua (Shandongese dialect), but we could make out her saying that we looked like foreigners because of our big noses. She said that Alison looked like a native Chinese because of her flat nose. The women also pointed out our hair and thought that Alison was Chinese since she had black hair. It was a really funny experience and we were all cracking up, including the old Chinese woman. We all came to the conclusion after this encounter that the people of Yantai are a lot more forthcoming than Beijingers.

So tomorrow we're heading off to Qingdao for a few days. The past week we had class everyday, that's 7 days in a row. It was an intense week, but now we have some time to travel a bit. Our schedule is to see the famous German-made Qingdao beer factory and hike Laoshan mountain.