星期三：Today was our midterm presentation, which was a fairly big deal. We had been preparing for a while and, while I knew that I had my presentation down, I was still kind of having a heart attack. Also for lunch Anthony and I both accidentally ordered these black sesame noodles that were pretty scary and we were both concerned we had stained our mouths black right before the presentation.
For the actual presentation there were six judges, some from iEARN, some from that American Institute in Taiwan, and some from the Chinese Language Center. I presented about differences between American and Taiwanese beauty standards and, while it wasn’t necessarily the most interesting, I was able to use plenty of personal experience as a week has not gone by without at least one, usually multiple people, commenting on how white my skin is. In the end it was cool, though, because I got the award for most improved, which definitely made me feel good that, even if my Chinese can still be pretty rough, it really is sooo much better than when I came.
(receiving my award at the end)
(me with my awesome tutors who spent hours helping me with my presentation)
(us with the judges, some host family members, and some of our tutors at the end)
星期四：As a kind of a celebration for finishing our midterms, Jenny and Kripa took us to a traditional new year’s market where they gave us some money and sent us on missions to buy traditional snacks. The experience was quite cool, especially because most all of the vendors would let you sample anything you wanted really. Anthony was my partner and he bought some pumpkin seeds which were good, while I bought some sour plum candies that tasted like cough syrup. We then went on a mission to buy Chun Lian which are the red banners that go around a house’s front door. They always come with three, one for the top, left, and right of the door and have calligraphy couplets bringing safety, wealth, good luck, and other wishes on a house.
After we had all bought our stuff, we went and met up at an old train station where we stayed for like two hours just snacking and hanging out, which was really relaxing and fun.
Once I got home that evening, both my sisters had to go to cram school, so my host parent’s decided to take me out to sushi, which wasn’t super fair but my little sister doesn’t like sushi apparently and it was fun, so oh well.
(lots of new year's decorations in the market)
(traditional new year's snacks and candy)
(more snacks)
(the group at the old train station with our snacks and chun lian)
星期五：Today the CLC hosted a new year’s party for all the teachers and students. It was a kind of talent show where different groups could sign up, a few classes performed together, a group of Vietnamese students performed a traditional dance, one American guy played Chinese songs on his guitar, some of the teachers sang and danced, students from Kiribati sang, and then we performed a weird and fairly awful rendition of Twelve Days of Christmas like we had at the Christmas party, though we attempted to make it about Chinese New Year. It was pretty terrible, but we at least got some laughs.
After the performance they served us dinner, so we all spent some time hanging out with different people in our classes. Once it was over, Becca and I went to the mall to spend these coupon/gift card things we had gotten from both our midterms and for performing in the CLC party. We had a good time shopping and then ran into a giant group of people in front of the mall who were auctioning off calligraphy pieces. They were really excited to talk to us as they had just gotten back from auctioning stuff in New York, so we stayed for a while and they even gave us some cake.
(posing before the party with our Chun Lian from the day before)
(laughing through the pain during our terrible performance)