A Day in the Life of: Shanghai Edition

Today it was just me and Paige in class. We finished our second texbook last week, so now we are doing a few lessons in the "optional" Intermediate 1 material. We all decided to buy the Intermediate 1 and 2 textbooks to bring home with us, so that we can continu working on our Chinese on our own. The two books were only 90 yuan ($15)--so much cheaper than America!

Chen laoshi is in Beijing now foing through training for her teaching program in America--she's going to be in Iowa next year! Her last day was last Thursday, but she didn't tell us until Wednesday that she was leaving, so I feel like I didnt get a chance to properly thank her for all of her work this semester. I definitely miss having her in class, and for the rest of the semester, Tang laoshi is going to be our only teacher. 

After class, I met with my tutor, Chengdu, as usual. She is leaving tomorrow for Hangzhou because of the Dragon Boat Fesitval, so I won't see her until next Tuesday. Today I learned that in Chinese high schools, students are seperated into 2 tracks, one studying STEM and one Humanities. I thought it is really interesting that students are split up at such an early age. All of my Chinese teachers were on the Humanities track, as would be expected. I also learned that Chengdu is going to be studying for graduate school entrance exams this summer! Ouch, that's gotta be tough! 

At 1:00, I headed back to the dorms and got  few things done before headed to ChengFeng park. I found a nice shaded bench and read "The Edge of Never" for about 2 hours. At one point, an old Chinese man came up and sat down next to me and just stared at me for the longest time--it was a little creepy. I also saw a Dragon Boat team practicing and a man come by and feed fish scraps to the ferral cats in the park--so cute!  

After I finished my book, I walked around the park for a bit and found the source of the blarring Chinese music that keeps me up at night. It was a group of about 5 elderly people belting into microphones in one of the park gazebos! And it was the most Chinese-y Chinese music EVER. 

On my way back to campus, I stopped by my favorite restaurant to get some TangBao for an early dinner. I was finishing up my homework while I was waiting for my dumplings to cool, when a man suddenly came over and sat across the table from me. After a few minutes of small talk--which hit on all of the common questions, like where I am from, where I'm studying Chinese, what ethnicity I am (he thought I was Korean), and how long I'm in China--he started telling me I needed to get a Chinese boyfriend. I think he was trying to set me up with his little brother, and he kept saying that Chinese boys are very handsome and kind. I told him that I already had a boyfriend back home in America, but he just laughed and said I could have two at the same time! Needless to say, I declined to give him my phone number when he asked for it at the end of the conversation, but I did give him my WeChat (the China version of Facebook) ID since I knew I wouldn't be using it much more when I get back home. 

Overall, it's been a pretty good day! Tonight I still have my 1-on-1 session and have to work on my presentation for Issues in Chinese Society, but that shouldn't take to long :)