We had our first lesson test today, which covered four lessons and over 450 new vocab words. We have tests every Friday at 8AM and they last two and a half (!) hours. It was quite an exhausting experience. And to make it even more exhausting we immediately had to roam the streets of Beijing and find three people to interview (we were given a sheet with pre-written questions). We had to find one waitress (fu4yu4yuan2) and ask them about their restaurant's atmosphere and best dishes, etc. Then we had to find any type of person and ask them about their family- how many kids, living situation, job, if they are willing to be friends with foreigners (wai4guo2ren2). Lastly, we had to find a person who sells stuff on the street and ask them why they sell things on the street, how much things cost, if they were willing to bargain, etc. Most people are fairly polite and willing to help, but some people are quite rude and will not talk to foreigners. For example, I interviewed a woman who sold newspapers on the street who said she was not willing to make friends with foreigners because it is tai4ma2fan (too much trouble). I also interviewed a worker at the local supermarket. As I was aking her questions, a bunch of shoppers stood and watched- we foreigners draw a tlot of attention especially if we can speak Chinese.
After the interviewing we had to present our findings to the rest of the third years. Then we finally got to go to lunch. On Fridays we always have zhong1wen2zhuo1zi (chinese table). We go to local restaurants with the teachers in groups of three or four and have lunch. It is nice because we don't have to pay. Today I also go to try nai3cha2 (milk tea or bubble tea) which was quite good.
Lately, the pollution has been pretty bad. There is a constant haze in the air- buildings that are very close by have smudged appearance. Many people wear face coverings to keep from
breathing the air.
We will also be meeting host families tonight. Each host family has two ACC students. I am sharing my family with a fourth year student who was here last semester.
Lastly, a quick complaint: Every time I go to restaurants to eat (which is pretty much every night for dinner) my clothes come out smelling like smoke and food and it is horrible. I don't like to wear the same thing twice because it absorbs such strong food and smoke smells (also every restaurant has signs that say smoking is forbidden, but people still do it and the fuwuyuan don't to anything). So, to clean my clothes I tried to do laundry for the first time yesterday. However, Chinese washing machines are not a good as American ones. I apparently put too much clothing inside so it couldn't clean effectively or drain any of the excess water. So I ended up with dripping wet clothing that still hasn't dried yet. zaogao!