Xiamen, week One

I've been in Xiamen for a week and a half now. Xiamen is a city of 2 million people on the East coast of China, across the water from Taiwan. I am living in the international student dorms owned by Xiamen University. There are about 30,000 people who attend. I'm not sure how many are international.

Classes started for realz yesterday. Chinese I, Intercultural Communication, Contemporary Society, and Dimensions of Culture are all packed in there. Our Chinese teacher is very cute and very excited. She is constantly very earnestly saying things like "Oh, you are very clever," "Oh, hen hao, hen hao" (very good, very good). There is a tai chi component to Dimensions of Culture. That started yesterday as well. Yesterday it was lots of fun. Today it was lots of work. If you do it right, your muscles are flexed practically the whole time. Today our teacher made us do it right. I think I am going to be sore tomorrow. Our teacher is pretty legit. He was asked to be a judo judge at the Beijing Olympics. Crazy.

I am slowly getting more and more used to China. I don't remember it taking me this long in Egypt, but that might just be me looking at my experience through rose-colored lenses. I think I was able to learn Arabic a little quicker (at least the important phrases). Here, I think they are focusing more on building a solid foundation and then moving forward. We're still in the foundational stages for sure.

Things are most frustrating when it is time for a meal. There is a cafeteria on campus, but the food is sub par like cafeteria food world wide, so I typically try to go off campus to eat. (We don't have a fridge in our room so it is impossible to just buy lunch/dinner from the supermarket.) All of the menus are in Chinese so unless a restaurant has pictures (which many of them do) I never quite sure if I know what I ordered. CSP did give us a list (in pinyin--basically a transliteration of the Chinese characters) of popular dishes that most restaurants have, so I typically end up sitting down to eat and pull out my own personal menu. Conversations with the waiter usually go along the lines of "Yo mei yo (do you have) what ever dish I am looking for?" To which the response is either "Yo (have)" or "Mei yo (not have)." Or "ching gei wo nei ge (please give me that)" and then I point. I found a noodle place that I really enjoy. It is run by Chinese Muslims and the food is fantastic. They serve all types of noodle dishes. No rice, which is a nice change of place. I have also found that I enjoy dumplings, of which I am learning there are many varieties. Who knew?

Alright, I am off to English Corner--literally a corner of campus somewhere, where Chinese students gather with English speaking students to improve their speech, so I will end here.