Sheree Colon, May 22

Sheree Colon, May 22

A brief recap of my life in China

Thursday there was a basketball game between China and the international students. The international team won. There were cheerleaders during the halftime period; they did an excellent job with a cute little dance routine.

Friday we woke up extra early and went to see Dazu Stone Carvings. The place was ravishing with beautiful stone carvings all over. The carvings were set up along a “u” shape path so you basically walked a circle from beginning to end to see the carvings. Each carving held a story and the pictures carved in to the stone were the stories being told.

Friday night we surprised a classmate with a surprise birthday party. The professors, international students, and our Chinese friends all gathered with 3 cakes to share his birthday.

Saturday was the most anxious day for me. I woke up, looked out the window, saw the rain and knew the weather matched my mood. I wasn’t excited to go meet a family and spend the day with them. I was so nervous, but I put a smile on and headed to the learning building to meet my family. I was put at ease when I was told another international member of our group would be going with me to the same family, a professor from Thailand named Mark. My Chinese family was a CTBU student named Aaron, his mother Elizabeth and his father Julian. The first thing I did with my family was go to Elizabeth’s job. She’s a middle school English teacher and when she told her students she would be having some foreigner friends over they begged her to bring us by to meet them. We visited two classes and the students were so excited to see us. They asked me questions about America and talked a lot of English with me to practice their pronunciation. It was nice to see how excited they were just to speak to someone not from China. After we left the school we crashed a wedding. It was so funny. The family at the wedding was so excited to have foreigners crashing their wedding. They said it was good luck. The groom greeted us personally and asked us to sit with his parents and the bride’s parents at a front table. The groom’s mother gave us rose pedals and asked us to throw them at the groom and bride when they walked down the aisle. It was so exciting. I never saw a Chinese wedding and to be at a wedding I wasn’t invited to front and center was amazing. We stood at the wedding for the marriage ceremony and left to get lunch when the party started. Lunch was nice, we talked about a lot of different things and my family was so excited to learn about me and what I like.

After lunch Aaron invited his cousin Amanda to go with us to the mall. So the 3 of us left to a place called Paradise Walk. We were there for a couple of hours doing what kids do and having a good time. We went back to Aaron’s house where I learned how to write Chinese characters including my Chinese name.

Then we ate dinner, talked some more, and before I knew it I was safe and sound back at the dormitory sad that it went by so soon.