ACE/China Week Prep

Contrary to my last post, I actually do have time to write before leaving for China.  We're leaving tomorrow at 9am, but we still have so much prep work to do.  Before I talk about all of that though, I'm going to rewind to last weekend and the great cultural evening.

At my school, each continent/cultural group hosts a special dinner/dance/play every other year.  So, last weekend was the first cultural evening of the year, and was hosted by the Africans of the school.  They put so much prep work for it, always planning, rehearsing, and promoting the event, and it really paid off.

The day before the event, the group staged publicity events, painting people's faces and staging an African dance flash mob.  Then, they announced the different costume themes for each block the next day.  My block, Block 1, was assigned African Idol (famous Africans), while the other blocks had African warriors, wildlife, and royalty.  The entire atmosphere on the campus changed as everyone was so excited for the next day. 

The next day, I finished some studying before prepping for the evening.  I had no clue what I could wear for my theme, until my friend Munya recommended that I dress up as a famous football/soccer player from his country, Zimbabwe.  He lent me a jersey, cleats, and long socks. I thought I was ready then, but then someone told me that I was underdressed and offered to paint the Zimbabwean flag on my face.  I agreed, but was slightly concerned regarding my failed history of facepaint.

Munya, the Zimbabwe Flag, and me

Anyways, it turned out really well and everyone headed to the canteen for a fancy dinner prepared by the African students  There were dishes from around the continent, all in a room filled with African decorations and flags.  After we all finished eating, we took the oh so common LPC photos.  Basically if you bring a camera near any group of students at my school, every person rushes to be in, just so everyone can see their face on Facebook later. 

Our African outfits

When all the photos were done, everyone headed out to the assembly hall for the play.  For the next hour and a half, the students from over 20 African nations entertained us with a show celebrating Africa and its people, while making fun of common stereotypes.  It was hilarious and so well rehearsed, and the entire student body rushed the stage to congratulate the actors when the show was over.

Part of the play (photocred to Arzucan Askin)

The evening concluded with a canteen party (the LPC way of saying a dance).  Even though only 250 people go to LPC, the dance was a great time, since almost everyone goes.  We were dancing till almost 1 until we headed back to our dorms, chatted for a while, then finally went to bed.

The school week following was relatively uneventful, with the usual barrage of assignments: a Spanish test, a geo test, an English paper, etc.  However, all the first years were getting excited for our China week trips the next week.  We had to prepare lesson plans and skits to present to the kids, so we can teach them a few vocab words.  All of our ideas about teaching the kids were crushed yesterday when in final rehearsal for our project, our group leader yelled at us all, and told us how horrible our presentations were.  Such motivational words!  I'm still excited for the trip, and we all are prepping more today and rewriting our lesson plans, but I'm slightly concerned we may get locked into our hotel rooms, forced to practice our plans instead of experiencing China.

Necessary rooftop break after the terrible rehearsal

 

Now, I have to pack up the rest of my stuff, get a little homework done, and eat lunch, so I've got to go now.  I won't be reachable on Facebook (blocked by China!) or any other form, since I'm leaving my laptop and other technology behind.  Next week will definitely be quite a learning experience!

Mid-term Macau and Cancelled Camping

Over mid-term break, some friends and I decided to plan a trip away from campus for a few days; first going camping at Tai Long Wan, Hong Kong's nicest beach, then crossing the Pearl River delta by ferry to Macau.  In the end, only half of this happened, but it was still a great break from school.

Two days before the break, when I had to get my overnight stays approved by LPC, I heard from a teacher that unsupervised camping is illegal.  Somehow wholesome hiking, camping, and swimming is illegal, but taking an hour and a half ferry to Macau, the biggest gambling city in the world, was allowed by the administration.  Anyways, my friend James invited us over to his house on Thursday instead of camping, and we went out for some Italian food and a movie.  We watched "We're the Millers", which I tried to watch 2 months prior in the US, until my sister accidentally ditched me .  Thanks Hollywood for the delayed release in Asia!

The next day, I returned to school, grabbed my clothes, camera, and passport and headed to the ferry terminal.  Our group bought tickets, went through security, then hopped on the comfortable high speed ferry.  An hour and a half later, we ended up in a very different city, with Portuguese signs everywhere and a completely different skyline. Of course we had to pass through customs, but using our Hong Kong residency cards, we managed to skip the long line filled with mainland Chinese trying to go to the casinos. 

MGM Grand...Not our hotel, but we took their bus by accident and went into the lobby

By a combination of complementary casino bus and taxi, we arrived at our hotel and checked in.  Afterwards, we started walking around until we found a good place for dinner.  We ended up at a Portuguese restaurant, where we ate great seafood, stews, and bread.  When people from my group tried to talk in Portuguese to the waiters, no one understood.  Macau may have many signs and buildings from Portuguese colonialism, but during our entire trip we only met one Portuguese speaker, and he wasn't even a local.

Near the restaurant

The skyline

 

After dinner, we walked around the city for a while, buying traditional pastries, and ultimately ending up in the casino district of the city.  Its so strange walking from a colonial street, then two blocks later entering casinos rivaling Vegas.  We went into the lobbies, but couldn't enter the casinos.  We tried to get to the top floor of the Grand Lisboa casino (the strange looking tall building above), but we could only take the elevator to the 40 somethingth floor.  At midnight, our group split into two, half taking the taxi back to the hotel, the others walking across the 2km bridge back.

On Saturday morning, we started the day at the hotel pool before checking out and returning to downtown Macau.  We spent the next 5 hours walking around the old city of Macau, a World Heritage site.  There were old cathedrals, forts, and parks everywhere, and we took plenty of the obligatory tourist pictures.  At one point, we all bought matching rice hats and posed in a public park, as dozens of other tourists stopped to laugh at us and take pictures.  Our multicultural group of tacky hat wearing tourists caught plenty of attention, and we continued to wear them the rest of the day, just because. We even wore them for a while on our trip back to Hong Kong, getting
plenty of glares from people on the subway. 

 Ruins of St Paul's Cathedral

 

That weekend flew by, just like all my time here.  I'll be in mainland China next week, volunteering in a school and touring the city of Guangzhou, and after it will already be November.  I might not get to celebrate Halloween (such an important cultural holiday), but we're still going to a cake factory that day, so I should get my obligatory sugar overdose.  Miss you all, and see you soon!

Caving in to blogging

I can't believe that I have been in Hong Kong for almost 2 months now.  Every day goes by so fast, and I am busy almost all the time, either studying, going to Quan Cais (the name for extracurriculars here), spending time with friends, or talking with people back home.  However, this weekend happened to be mid-term break, a 4 day weekend following a week full of presentations and tests, so I decided to finally catch up and start blogging (credit to Karyn for making this one).  While there's no way I can describe everything that has happened so far, I'm going to try to do a quick recap.

In August, I arrived in Hong Kong after the miserable 16 hour/4 movie flight.  At the end of the flight, I bumped into a Northwestern student who happened to have studied at Li Po Chun, my soon to be school.  He offered to tell me more about the school and show me around over lunch one day.  What a coincidence that someone from my future high school and also from one of my top university choices happened to be sitting behind me the entire flight.

Anyways, my dad and I spent the next week traveling around Hong Kong, visiting Lantau Island, Disneyland, TST, Victoria peak, and many of the other tourist destinations around the city.  It really is an incredible place, with so many skyscrapers, people, parks, and mountains.  When my tourist introduction to Hong Kong was over, I headed out to the New Territories, dropped my luggage off at school, and said goodbye to my dad (and vicariously my mom), and prepared for a completely new experience.




Over the next week, I was introduced to Li Po Chun and all its great people.  Trying to remember 250 different names from around 80 countries was initially a challenge, and I probably asked some people for there name and nationality three times.  Anyways, the campus is really nice, looking down on the ocean and the surrounding mountains, and the people are even better.  Highly motivated and social people from all around the world in one boarding school makes for an incredible school atmosphere.  Sitting through orientation lectures and activities, I started feeling more at home and making friendships that will last for these next 2 years and far beyond.

After the fun of orientation week ended, it was time for school to actually start.  I'm taking higher level Math, English, and Chem, and standard level Geography, Spanish B, and Chinese ab initio.  While all the classes are rigorous, the school runs on a policy of 70% contact time, meaning that only 70% of the instruction occurs in class so as to keep school days at a maximum of 5 hours, allowing for more involvement in Quan Cais.  On an average day, I go to class for an hour, eat breakfast, go to two more hour classes, have a 20 minute snack break, go to another class, then eat lunch and be done.

Study break at the nearby lake

 A few weeks ago, we celebrated mid-Autumn festival (but I have plenty of pictures of this on Facebook so I won't go into much detail), where we stayed at my friend Jeremy's house, eating traditional food and then visiting the fire dragon street parades.  It was a nice change of pace from school, and I really enjoyed it, even if I was not a huge fan of mooncakes, a celebratory "delicacy".

Mid-autumn festival dinner

So, this schedule has been going on for several weeks now, and I'm doing well in my classes, becoming more involved in my Quan Cais, and having an excellent time. I'll try to keep this blog updated every week or so now, so I don't have to make any more 2 month summaries.  For all of you back in the US, I hope you're having a great fall (it doesn't feel like fall here in the slightest), and see you in December!