We stopped in a couple more stores and then settled down by the pond with some street food. Chinese waffles were a favorite choice, and I was excited to find a gigantic roasted sweet potato. I don't think anyone spent more than 1 US dollar on their dinner, and the food is awesome! Here are some silly photos as we people-watched by the pond.
Alek then decided to model for us with this beautiful tree stretching out over the lily pond.
And even looked great in Liz's qipao shirt!
Some wandering around campus led us to the founder of Nankai Daxue...
And then to the lake in the middle of campus before sunset.
Friday night was pretty relaxed, but we finally had our "Kuaizi Aolinpike!" Max especially had been dying to do this, so he brought two bags of m&ms (which are expensive here - imported goods...) and a bunch of us faced off in Chopstick Olympics. Aka we raced in pairs to see who could pick up the most m&ms and drop them into their mouth in a minute. Kellianne became our champion!
Saturday morning I attempted laundry for the first time in China. The word was the laundry machines here are pretty rough on your clothes, so I stole Kellianne's method of plugging the sink, filling it with hot water and laundry soap, and then washing clothes in there. This was the first time our shower being in the same room as our sink and toilet came in handy! That became the rinse station before my clothes were strewn about the room to dry. Lack of hangers might need to be resolved when we settle down in Shanghai.
With that task taken care of, Liz, Emily, Kellianne, and I went to Xinancun for lunch, where Liz picked up Chinese chocolate to try in our taxi ride back to Wenhuajie. Unfortunate.
Instead of all the knock-off designer bags being thrust in our faces, Kellianne purchased a "Serve the people" bag, a very handy item.
My list included finding some more cool Chinese paintings, and I was so thrilled to find a cute painting shop with a bunch of unframed scrolls that would be easy to take back home. I narrowed it down to two, but they actually went together really well, so I just bought both scrolls for 90 kuai, about $13 for two beautiful paintings on silk scrolls. I'm ok with that!
We turned down an alley for a qipao store, and the alleyway was just filled with books!
Kellianne and I liked Emily's purchase the first time we went to Wenhuajie so much that we got our own names painted too! My Chinese name, 施凯宁 (Shi Kaining) in beautiful blue. All of the painter's samples were basically rainbow, and when I initially asked him if he could do just blue, he said that wouldn't look as good and asked me if I was sure. But when he was all done, he apparently changed his mind and said it was a lovely choice!
When we turned around, we found Liz in a music store. A lovely red-haired girl strumming a guitar and singing Chinese tunes with the shopkeepers! That sure attracted some business.
First real preservation of old stuff in action I've seen.
We noticed a crowd of people (sometimes there are more crowds than others in China...) and music coming from that direction, so we decided to check it out. We stumbled upon a bunch of people watching a dress rehearsal for some girls' dance and/or culture show!
A couple other photos from our adventures:
And then a stop in Wu-Mart "Hypermarket!" Besides an interesting English translation, they have really awesome electronic ramps instead of escalators.
Upon returning to the dorms, Kellianne and I canvassed both buildings to put up study break reminder signs. In doing so, we discovered the hilarity of the sign attached to something related to fire safety. "Fire-fighting jury exciter lamp." That's a lot of English words I recognize, but that combination really does not tell me what that contraption is!
After a couple hours of girl talk and people-watching (one of my favorite hobbies) in the lobby of our dorm, a bunch of us finally made a pact to go to Scarlet for a little while. A few Dragon Riders had already checked it out and gave it decent reviews, but earlier in the day we received fliers for a Latin dance event happening there. Now, I completely love Latin dance, but I was doubtful anyone else would share my enthusiasm, but I was pleasantly surprised! It took us a while to finally decide to go, but a few other foreigners from our dorm were headed that way as well so we tagged along.
What do you do with a bike right in the middle of a dark road all by its lonesome? Sit on it Chinese style, with a pretty girl on the back. Yer and Emily here demonstrate.
Clubbing is not really my thing, but Scarlet for that night had its lower level devoted to Latin music and even had a live band after a while. The upstairs normal club atmosphere was a more standard ethnicity ratio, but for a couple hours I really did forget I was in China because I was salsa-ing, bachata-ing, and cha-cha-ing with Yer, Amend, Liz, Kellianne, and Emily surrounded by foreigners and my beloved Latin music.
Sunday was also a pretty relaxed day, but some homework needed to get done. But it was so beautiful outside! A combination was the perfect compromise. Kellianne and I took the twenty minute walk to Shuishanggongyuan, what was termed a water park in English. It was not quite a water park, but I would say more of a park and an amusement park in one.
We did our homework on a bench under a tree, but we were facing a water ride so we watched some pretty awesome splashing every ten minutes or so. We had to write essays for class, and since the Chinese aren't too big on the personal space concept, once every few clumps of little elderly people that passed us by, someone would come over and judge the foreigners' hanzi (Chinese characters).
Our essays having been written, or at least brainstormed about, we were met by Zhangxun and decided to explore more of the park. I realized we're used to amusement parks being very renao, all hustle-bustle, and parks being beautiful and quite and nature-like, but here nature was unnatural. It was quite beautiful, but it felt like such an odd combination!
The advisory signs were quite amusing, I'd recommend clicking on these pictures to see the English!
Our last few normal days at Nankai were nothing too special. We had Chinese classes like usual, learned wushu, Chinese martial arts, in the afternoons (which was pretty awesome!), and I got to do some running around campus and more parking lot tennis with Emily.
A few photos from the week:
Kellianne and I with one of our favorite friends at Xinancun, a man who sold us a great many DVDs and always asked how we are and if we had eaten yet. He actually asked to take pictures with us first!
As Emily and I headed out to play tennis on Wednesday afternoon, we heard a ton of commotion outside and wondered what was going on. Our assumption is that the great quantity of soldiers who had been housed in our dorms and many a time had made it rather difficult to walk through the dorm hallways finally passed bootcamp or something and were shipping off to the next stages of training. It was complete madness outside, and we had to push our way through to just get out of our building!
Thursday got a little crazy because it was our last formal day as Nankai daxuesheng. We had our dakao (big test, it accounts for 70% of our grade) in the morning, and then had to run home to pack. Zhao Laoshi was able to get a deal to mail a bunch of our suitcases to Shanghai so we wouldn't have to lug all our stuff around on our midterm break week if we didn't want to. The process of getting everybody's luggage they wanted to send in one place, the lobby of the boys' dorm, having everyone's suitcase weighed, stuffed in a mailing bag, and addressed, and getting everyone their receipts to be able to procure their luggage once in Shanghai was more than a little complex... But we learned the Chinese way to solving those issues is for everyone to crowd around, stare at pieces of paper, talk all over each other, and hope something works. Everybody was very nice though, and we got everything taken care of eventually.
One of our last days eating in Xinancun, which we will definitely miss. Chuanr, jianbing, baozi, chaomian... yum! And apparently sometimes tangerines can be ivy green on the outside and still taste lovely.
Kellianne and I watched a couple episodes of a Chinese tv series she bought that we're now hooked on, and Zhangxun joined us - that helped us mingbai (understand) a little bit better because the whole thing is in Chinese - audio and subtitles! We had to say goodbye to our Chinese friend, and 5pm our whole crew reunited in the teeny auditorium in Nanlou, the south building) for our closing ceremony. Everyone received diplomas, and then we got to go out to dinner with our professors!
After our big test, Xiao Laoshi gave everyone in our class a cute little gift of a notebook and bookmark with a personal note. She is adorable, hopefully we'll see her again!
Bros, Zhao Laoshi and James!
After celebrations and foods, a good number of the Dragon Riders (including Zhao Laoshi's featured appearance for a short while!) spent their last night in Tianjin at Scarlet for karaoke, games, and dancing. Jake even used his guanxi (connections, very important to getting things done in China) to swing us our own private room for the night for our festivities.
Now we split into travel groups for our week of midterm break, which happens to coincide with Chinese National Day. Happy National Day, everyone! My group of Kellianne, Rob, Alek, and Max is hopping on a train tonight to Tai'an and then in a few days to Wuxi, so I look forward to hearing about all the other groups' adventures as well when we meet again in Shanghai! Good day Tianjin, you have treated us well.
Wherever you are in the world, I'll try not to send any smog your way. With love,
Kaining
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