Week 1: 第一周
Welcome to my first post! 欢迎你！
Thanks for putting in the effort to keep up with my travels!
To give you an overview of how my blog will work, I will just pick a few random moments that I would like to share. Hopefully I will post an update every week on Thursday. I'm a bit of a scatterbrain, so some of the stuff I write about will be off chronologically. For example, my Week 2 update will contain stuff that actually happened during Week 1. Honestly, by the time I reach Week 15 I'll probably accidentally be writing about Week 6. But everything here is either my take on something about China, or me sharing my misguided but well-intentioned understanding of how things in China work. And don't worry if there's Chinese characters; you're not missing out. I'm just repeating what I'm saying in English because it's fun and it gives me a bit of practice. Hopefully my Chinese will improve enough that I could eventually write all of my blog posts in both English and Chinese, but it's my first week here.
As for my schedule, I flew out to China Thursday February 8, and my semester starts March 5 and ends July 5. On February 26-27, I will have placement testing to see which level of Chinese classes I will be taking at East China Normal University here in Shanghai. In the meantime, I'm adjusting my biological 14 hours forward while doing a tiny bit of sightseeing and visiting nearby family.
I'm writing for OU's Global Engagement Fellowship, but I'm also writing for friends since I vanished from social media. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this!
谢谢你花时间读我的博客，你可以跟着我一起去旅行！
在我的博客里，我会随便选一些我感兴趣的东西。我的计划是每个星期四写出来。我有时候犯糊涂，所以我写的博客有可能不是同一个星期里发生的事情。博客的内容都是我对各种情况的看法。我希望我的中文会进步，然后我就可用两种语言写我的博客，把英语翻译成汉语。但是现在就是我第一个星期，还早着呢。
首先讲讲我的行程。我是二月八号到上海，然后我三月五号要开始上课，七月五号就放假。二月二十六号到二月二十七号有分班考试，看要去华师大的哪一个等级班。但是现在我首先要倒时差，这是十四个小时的时差。此一我会在附近的城市旅游一下和在亲戚家做客。
虽然我写博客是因为俄克拉荷马大学的国际组织的奖学金，但是我的朋友也可以看看我写的东西，因为我现在没有脸书。我希望你们也能像我喜欢给你们写这个博客一样喜欢读我的博客。
A convenient place to get a haircut
火车站里的便民理发店
While we were waiting for a train, I saw a giant fake train with a window for little kids to stick their heads in and get their picture taken. I asked my dad to get a picture of me because I wanted to be a little kid, and then I realized that people were getting haircuts in the middle of the train station.
我们在等火车的时候，我看一个模型火车的展览，其中有一个窗子可以让小孩拍照。我当然也要让我的爸爸给拍我拍照因为我认为我还是小孩。就在那火车模型旁边我发现有人在火车站理发。
The great thing about this picture is that I thought the people involved in the haircut were weird, but they thought I was weird. 我觉得他们有点奇怪，但是他们觉得我奇怪。
There are not usually soft pretzels being sold in China
国内应该没有 美式椒盐饼
I saw two Europeans eating something in flat square paper wrapping, and I thought they were eating Auntie Annie's soft pretzels. I was wondering where they got soft pretzels in China, and then I realized they were eating Chinese pancakes with meat filling and I was just being weirdly racist. I saw white people, then associated their caucasian faces with soft pretzels. I feel bad that I'm racist, but maybe soft pretzels is a pretty harmless form of racism.
我看两个欧洲人在吃东西，我以为他们在吃 美式椒盐饼soft pretzels。然后我在想，他们在哪儿买到 美式椒盐饼呢soft pretzels？我仔细看，原来他们在吃中式卷饼。其实我是一看是欧洲人就认为他们是在吃西餐。
I am an adult who knows what hot water is
我是一个知道什么是烫水的成年人！
The water here isn't necessarily safe to drink if it's not boiled, and boiled water helps warm you up when there's not always central heating. But even just for the taste, Chinese people love hot water. So I started learning how to describe how hot the water is. I proudly told my dad I remembered how to say the different temperatures of drinking water. I said: “烫水，热水，温水，冷水，冰水“ which is "very hot water, hot water, warmer than body temperature water, cold water, ice cold water". It became apparent that I sounded ridiculous to that man who was listening to this conversation, because he started laughing at me when I said that. To him, I look like a fully grown Chinese adult who grew up in China, and I was proud that I knew how to say "hot water". By any means, I really am proud of myself. That's just what happens when you look Chinese don't always act it.
在国内，大家都喝开水。喝冷水对你身体不太好。并且如果天气很冷的话，开水会让你感觉暖和一点。好像大家都喜欢喝开水。所以我要开始学习怎么描述水的温度。当我告诉我爸什么是 “烫水，热水，温水，冷水，冰水”的时候，刚好有一个人在旁边听到。他就觉得很好笑，这让我感到很不好意思。我想他一定以为我一直在中国长大，这么大的孩子还在学 ”热水“ 是什么意思，所以他一定觉得我看起来非常笨！不过，我自己很得意，每天慢慢进步。这个就是一个华裔所要面对的。看起来是中国人，但是汉语不太像中国人。
A truly unique creature 我觉得看松鼠是很正常的事情
This boy is pointing at something excitedly. These people are taking pictures and staring. What could it possibly be? 这个小男孩很激动在指一指。大家都在照相，盯着看那棵树。是什么原因？
A squirrel. That's right. These people were taking pictures of a squirrel. As an American citizen, this is pretty amusing to me. As an OU student this is absolutely ridiculous.
对！就是一只松鼠！他们就是在给松鼠拍照！在美国我每天会碰到很多松鼠，所以我觉得中国人对松鼠那么感兴趣是一件不可思议的事情。
I also saw a man sticking food on the end of a stick and offering it to the squirrel. People don't normally see squirrels in China, so when they do, it's a picture perfect moment. I eventually joined in and took a picture of the squirrel. It's a pretty low quality picture too. Not my proudest moment.
我也看一个人在给松鼠一点食物。松鼠在中国的城市并不常见，所以中国人有机会看见松鼠时，当然就要照相了。过了一段时间，我也开始拍照，但是我拍的照片质量不太好。
Happy Chinese New Years!
This week was Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday. But the only holiday I see people preparing for is Chinese New Years! Chinese New Years offers much better food. This is the biggest holiday in China, and millions and millions and millions of people all go home for the holiday. China has over a billion people, and the recent urbanization of China has resulted in countless people leaving their childhood homes for work, but almost everyone returns home for the New Year, leaving big cities like Shanghai feeling empty. Every New Year, everyone grows one year older. This is a bit hard to grasp. So I am 20 in America, and after Chinese New Year I will be 22 in China. In Turkey I would be around 21 because they try to include the time when you were alive in your mom’s belly. I'm getting a bit off track with gestation and all, but I just wanted to say 新年快乐! Happy Chinese New Year!
I swear my food is looking at me. 我吃的东西在看我。
The most amusing thing about the food is that a lot of the fish, chicken, and duck still have their heads attached and I swear my food is looking at me. I grew up seeing food with it's head still on. For that reason, it's not that jarring for me. But I did spent the past three years as a vegetarian. For that reason, seeing the head of an animal on a dinner plate is a little weird.
I commented that America doesn't have the heads still attached when you eat an animal, and someone jokingly responded, "你在看我我就吃你。“ That means "you're looking at me so I'm just going to eat you."
Don't get me wrong. The food is amazing yet affordable. But looking into the eyes of your meal is uncomfortable.
It's so cruel and funny all at once. They shredded up it's body then place the head back near it.
That's it for this week!
Thanks for sticking around to the end of this post! I will be back next week. Some posts will be longer, others will be shorter, but all of them are meant to share a bit of the happiness that I find here in China. Bye for now! 下个星期再见！