Thursday, June 21, 2007

Day 2

Friday, June 15, 2007
Most of the interns met at the front gate of the Hubei University of Science and Technology and headed to the New Oriental School by bus. When we arrived, we met our “bosses” and other interns and we had an orientation, which started with a presentation by the Wuhan police officials telling us what not to do while in China. The main theme of the presentation was not to get “drunken” and act a fool because there could be serious consequences. After the orientation they took us to lunch where we ate Chinese style again, which was different because everyone sticks their chopsticks in all the dishes and puts them in their mouth, it’s kind of like sharing a spoon. The food was pretty good, we had some more Wuhan dishes and things like sweet and sour pork and fried tofu. After lunch we met with our “bosses” again and then went to observe one of the interns’ classes. He had them formulate questions to ask in English and told them to ask us the questions. Most of the students wanted to ask me questions like what is New York like and one girl asked me if I knew how to dance hip hop, so the teacher played some Beyonce and I danced with the girl, the class loved it. I find that they are very intrigued when they see me. There are some African students studying here, but I guess they don’t look like me (you know I’m giving them fashions here). A lot of people stare and some actually come up to me to talk, but since I don’t speak Chinese that doesn’t go so well. We had a break so we went to the mall and to McDonalds, the menu was somewhat the same, I had a Chicken McNugget meal, it was 14.50 Yuan ($2). In the evening we went to what they call a cultural salon class, where they discuss the differences and similarities of different cultures. The class was taught by a British guy named Paul, he was pretty funny and the Chinese really liked his class. After the class we took the bus home. The bus is interesting because they play 80’s American music on them and on some there are TV’s showing different commercials and shows about people like David Beckham. I knew that China was heavily populated, but you don’t know how so until you come here. There are so many people; you have absolutely no personal space any where. There are so many people everywhere. At night we went out to a club that international students go to, the music was pretty good but, of course someone did exactly what the Chinese police said not to do—got “drunken.” Don’t worry it wasn’t me.

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