Da Pi Gu: Big Booty

September 7, 2008

So I don't think that I will be able to update this blog on a daily basis. Perhaps it's because it is orientation weekend that I have been so busy. Yesterday, I ate some Xiao Long Bao (no, not little dragon ballz, Willy) for breakfast from the store near our dorm, which was 4RMB (~50 cents US) for 10 of them. What a deal! I also bought an electric mosquito repellent...some sort of incense that mosquitos are...repelled against.

We also got to eat lunch with our Chinese teachers and get our Chinese books. It seems everyone other than the advanced class gets DVDs, CDs and 4 books, while the advanced class has...one book of quite small size. It's actually more difficult than I anticipated, but that's a good thing! I have much to learn.

At dinner a few of us went to a Muslim restaurant on campus with the BEST homemade yogurt I have ever tasted, best yogurt ever for that matter. We also played a few of those word games...It's hard to describe but you have to find a pattern with what people are saying, and try to catch on. For example... There is butter, but no bread...There are trees, but no leaves... and you have to come up with your own phrase that works with the pattern... tricky, tricky.
Laura also taught us a new game called "Contact", a game of words and spelling. Best game ever! It's extremely difficult to teach someone how to play, you just have to watch it happen! We still haven't stopped playing it and it definitely has taught me a bunch of vocabulary and weird facts!

Last night we went as a group to "Propaganda", a night club. On our way there, we played "contact", of course. The club didn't really play the music I like, but a lot of the other kids loosened up. What a miracle music can be, even though we were probably the only ones who understood the lyrics. Laura, Angela, Eric, Jansen and I left early because this morning we had to prepare for a scavenger hunt. And of course, we played "contact" on the way back.

This morning I had to wake up bright and early for the scavenger hunt! Xiang Ling, Kendall, Mike, Weien, and I were in group A. Once told to disperse, we planned out the entire day. We walked for seven hours today, in the rain, thunder, and lightning, without umbrellas... and I tell you we are BEAT! We were the only team to go to the Mao-selium, Tian An Men, and take the subway as far as we did. It seemed to be unnecessary for points as other teams did not go far from campus, but I was glad we went because we encountered several hilarious situations. At one subway transfer station, an older Chinese woman came up to me and asked for which train to take to get to Bei Jing Zhan(r), completely disregarding Mike (since he's not Asian). Of course, being the one who knows Beijing better than I do, Mike told her where to go as I looked like an imbecile. She laughed and said the foreigner friend is better than the Chinese friend. I still get a kick out of that scenario, but its the kind of situation where you have to be there.

Weien has all the pictures on his camera, so I will add them once I get them.
GIVE ME THE PICS!

For dinner, we went to the conference center and first demonstrated what our day was like, then we had dinner, where once again we played "contact". Gladly, we taught newbies how to play and because there was so many people, it kind of got out of hand...so we started a new game. Big Booty! I just learned it tonight, but we put a big spin on it...we now play in Chinese. It's one of those "concentration" games where you have to keep the beat by clapping. Apparently, it catches people's attention on the street, especially because it's foreigners yelling Big Booty in Chinese (Da Pi Gu).

Well, this is my update for now.
For those of you who like to see pictures, I set up a Picassa account (Blogger and Picassa are both Google entities, so when in doubt: Google it).
The link is http://picasaweb.google.com/cassandra.chao.

I will add more pictures when I have the time. I have homework for all my classes already...and school starts tomorrow! Good luck to me!

All the way from the land of invented Da Pi Gu.