We had a lecture this afternoon from Professor Yin Qiping on modern Chinese literature. He focused mostly on three Chinese poets: Xu Zhimo, Ai Qing, Luo Qing. The latter wrote an interesting poem called Six Ways of Eating Watermelon. Try Googling it. Professor Yin is pictured below. It was a fun lecture because he was very passionate about poetry and put a lot of style into his reading aloud.
Over the past few days we have been communicating via email with the Chinese student, Ding Ding (I think I referred to her earlier as Ariel), we met back on July 4th. She invited us to dinner at her parents’ house along with her college roommate. Ding Ding emailed us directions to a nearby hotel in Chinese characters and we loaded up in a taxi and headed off to meet her there. Jessica, Katie, Jose, and I made it on time and then she led us up to her parents’ apartment. We were really looking forward to seeing a real Chinese apartment and how a real Chinese family lives. It was a nice, small apartment with two bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, and front room. I would imagine that it was around 600 square feet total. We met her parents, and her dad had already memorized our names from a group photo we had emailed a few days before. We sat down to eat right away at the table that was already full of food and Barbie plates. Her mother had taken the afternoon off from work to prepare the meal for us.
Dinner consisted of dishes like stewed chicken, stewed pork, green beans, beef, asparagus, spinach, dumplings, steamed buns, and some more dishes as well. We had to eat and eat, and then our hosts still kept putting food on our plates. Even though I have sworn off Chinese food, the meal was good. After dinner we had green tea and then we all performed some songs on their piano. Katie and I played Heart and Soul, and Jessica and Ding Ding both played much more complicated music. Ding Ding even sang a Chinese song for us. She was also very good at translating for us throughout the evening so we could talk back and forth with her parents who didn’t speak any English. Her dad had been all over the US several years ago though and showed us lots of pictures. The picture below is of him opening a gift I brought for his family. We had brought a bottle of fine rice wine with us for a gift, and I brought an Indianapolis calendar, some Brooks School Elementary pencils, a t-shirt, and some new presidential dollar coins. They gave us each some postcards and a copy of the group photo that we had taken several days before.
All in all is was a very good time with the family--probably one of the best evenings thus far on the trip. A group picture of all of us is below.
Over the past few days we have been communicating via email with the Chinese student, Ding Ding (I think I referred to her earlier as Ariel), we met back on July 4th. She invited us to dinner at her parents’ house along with her college roommate. Ding Ding emailed us directions to a nearby hotel in Chinese characters and we loaded up in a taxi and headed off to meet her there. Jessica, Katie, Jose, and I made it on time and then she led us up to her parents’ apartment. We were really looking forward to seeing a real Chinese apartment and how a real Chinese family lives. It was a nice, small apartment with two bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, and front room. I would imagine that it was around 600 square feet total. We met her parents, and her dad had already memorized our names from a group photo we had emailed a few days before. We sat down to eat right away at the table that was already full of food and Barbie plates. Her mother had taken the afternoon off from work to prepare the meal for us.
Dinner consisted of dishes like stewed chicken, stewed pork, green beans, beef, asparagus, spinach, dumplings, steamed buns, and some more dishes as well. We had to eat and eat, and then our hosts still kept putting food on our plates. Even though I have sworn off Chinese food, the meal was good. After dinner we had green tea and then we all performed some songs on their piano. Katie and I played Heart and Soul, and Jessica and Ding Ding both played much more complicated music. Ding Ding even sang a Chinese song for us. She was also very good at translating for us throughout the evening so we could talk back and forth with her parents who didn’t speak any English. Her dad had been all over the US several years ago though and showed us lots of pictures. The picture below is of him opening a gift I brought for his family. We had brought a bottle of fine rice wine with us for a gift, and I brought an Indianapolis calendar, some Brooks School Elementary pencils, a t-shirt, and some new presidential dollar coins. They gave us each some postcards and a copy of the group photo that we had taken several days before.
All in all is was a very good time with the family--probably one of the best evenings thus far on the trip. A group picture of all of us is below.
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