Harbin at the Heilongdaxue Post-Week One

(Picture: Outside my dorm)

So it has been a bit over a week so far and much has happened as far as the program goes. First, the beginning of classes has come and gone. Our schedule is 8am-noon, and then 1-3pm or some days 1-5pm in the afternoon. It is intense, but I feel my Chinese getting better every day. This is in addition to the hours of homework we have every night to memorize how to write characters, memorize entire Chinese conversations, write sentences for new vocabulary, grammar work, etc. Other than the classwork, we are basically all on a 24/7 language pledge to only speak in Chinese. At this point I'm already starting to feel like I am losing my English so it doesn't make much sense to talk in English even though we only must speak in Chinese from 8am-8pm every day.

Well, I'll try to recap the non-class stuff so far. After we made it in to Harbin all of our "julis" (class helpers/Heilongjiang University students) met us along with our teachers. The students are all really nice and have helped me try to grasp the large campus that I'm now living on. With one of the julis we've started a regular soccer pickup session that tends to attract other Heida students. The other day we ended up playing a three on three game outside some tennis courts. Some key soccer terminology I've picked up so far is "dian qiu" (juggle a soccer ball), "pan qiu" (step-over). This week I made it over to the massive shopping complex across the street from campus, which is like the Beijing Silk Market without all the drama. Most of the complex is bargain-only, which my "juli" told our class before we headed over for our "zuoye" (homework)...buy misspelled English T-shirts. I ended up talking one of the vendors down from 49 kuai to about 25, which is decent. They were much harder to bargain with I think because less foreigners traverse that area. Other than the immediate campus area I've been able to explore the city a bit. We all took a day to go to Zhong Yang Jie, a street famous for its foreign origins but now is more or less a tourist attraction full of Russian goods stores hawking everything Russian. A person in my program ended up spotting a Russian doll painted with President Obama's oversize head. Upon asking the salesperson to open it up, there was Kim Jong Il's smiling face, followed by Sadaam Hussain and Ahmedinajad. It was truely an amazing find. That night we also found Harbin's big snack street with Chuaner of all kinds, lamb, beef, pork, tofu, squid, and more (meat on a stick, Chinese BBQ-style). Last weekend we quickly went by the main town square that still hosts the Sophia Church, originally built by the Russians a hundred years ago. It really does feel bizarre how Russian this city is. Everyone thinks I'm Russian because I'm white and foreign. I never thought that I would ever see Chinese speak to me in Russian before Chinese or English. I feel like I'm living in a dream world every day. A few days back though it hit me again that I am in China. It was a beautiful day so I decided to study outside in one of the green areas on campus. I spotted some recent college grads taking pictures at one of the prettiest parts of campus when I heard behind me in Chinese, "o na shi yi ge laowai, women yinggai zai zheer pai zhao" (Oh, there's a foreigner, we should take the picture right there). I was in the background of their grad shot of course studying away. Times like these bring me back to the reality of the wacky world of China.