At Home and Out About

Well, it’s about time for me to talk a bit about my host family huh? How should this go…

I live with a host mom and a younger host brother. The dad’s off in Shangdong working and the older brother’s off in Guangdong working, so they only visit home twice a year. Chinese New Year’s and Mid-Autumn Festival. The mom doesn’t work so she’s at home all the time. School for the brother starts next Monday, which is awfully soon…

Anyways, the mom and the brother. They’re both nice folk. Pamper me practically, even when I tell them not to haha. I guess it’s just them being kind and whatnot. The meals at home are pretty delish. Zhengzhou (Henan Province) cuisine follows the Sichuan style, so everything is loaded with peppers and other spices. Not bad really. Just needs more meat haha. I swear my family eats a serving of meat every fortnight.

My brother and I have been having a blast together. We’ve been to some landmark sites. For exampe Er Chi Tower, which is a memorial for the Chinese soldiers that died when fighting to repel Japanese forces during World War II. Er means 2 and Chi means 7 in Chinese, and Feb 7th is the day that the event occured…so yeah. Visited the Central Business District (where all the important government and business (surprise surprise!) stuff happens) and some relatives there. They have a pretty sweet place considering it’s China.

Other notable events / places so far?

Waterpark in Zhengzhou. Pretty crappy in my opinion. Half the slides were closed and the water looked kind of nasty. There was this one slide that was basically a straight drop down though…most def the highlight of that whole park.

Movies at the theaters. So far I’ve seen Karate Kid and Knight and Day (twice) in China. Karate Kid was English with Chinese subs but Knight and Day was in Chinese-dub without subtitles… Haha had to think a bit to understand all that they were saying. Not the best two movies but hey, it was fun nonetheless.

Shopping and bargaining on the streets. Man it’s so fun to bargain. Just talking to the shopkeepers and whatnot is cool. Nice way to practice Chinese while picking up some sick deals.

Xi’an. All 19 NSLI-Y kids in Zhengzhou took a 2.5 hour train ride to Xi’an this past weekend. Saw the terracotta warriors, rode a bike on the city wall (9 miles ish), went to a jade manufacture factory, shopping, etc… Honestly though my favorite part of it all was being able to stay in a hotel for a night Miss those hotels and the atmosphere in them haha.

Huang He / Yellow River was alright. There’s mud there that can support human weight, it’s pretty weird and cool at the same time.

Kung fu lessons. We’ve had two 1-hour sessions. Some master comes in and teaches us some forms. Best part though is that we got measured for some custom-made tailor-fitted kung fu clothes. So dope you don’t even know. Mmhmm…

Oh a few days ago it rained really hard at night… My host family’s building is in a neighborhood block that is a bit below road level. We live on the 4th floor, but when I woke up to go to school on Monday I was met with 1.5 feet of water to walk through… One of the nastiest 10 minutes of my life. Can anyone say dead bird in the water? Thank god that was that.

The other kids here are nice. The food is cheap. What more is there to ask for? Who needs Seattle when everything is already here

That’s all for now. G’night y’all.

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