Photo: Dialogue students in full regalia at the Nanjing Secondary Vocational School of Tourism and Nutrition
Happy Friday!! This week has been very long for all of us having started our first week of classes and three days of language pledge. We were finally allowed to speak English all day, which was nice because we could now clearly express ourselves. This morning was a stressful day for my class � Chinese Intermediate 1. We had to speak in Chinese in front of the class about each of our hometowns, we had a dictation on the last lesson we learned (writing the characters for words and sentences), we had a quiz on the past two lessons combined, and then we started the next lesson. To say it was a long four hours is an understatement.
The presentation was fun because it was interesting to hear about everyone's hometown. Conley and I had a little feud over which of our home states is better � my home state of Maine or her home state of Colorado. The dictation and quiz were kind of hard, but I think that was just because a lot of us felt unprepared having just learned the material this week. The teacher's assistant, Cao Laoshi, taught the class for the day, so it was nice to get to know him a little more. He told us about his hometown of Anhui which we will actually be visiting next weekend!
After class, Dong Laoshi treated my class and a few other students to lunch at a restaurant near the hotel. It was the best meal I have had in China so far. The 红烧牛肉 (beef braised in soy sauce) was amazing and came with fried buns on the side. It was nice to finally have a variety of food to eat compared to searching for my own food in Bird Flu Alley. I always end up choosing fried rice to eat because it's cheap and filling.
Today we had our first Chinese cooking class! At 2pm everyone boarded a bus to go to Nanjing Secondary Vocational School of Tourism and Nutrition. We were first greeted by a teacher at the school whose name is my Chinese name 小贝(Xiao Bei). Dong Laoshi apparently named me after her. I felt flattered.
We were shown a video about the school and then given awesome uniforms to wear! (see picture\) Before going to the kitchen, we went into a room that the students use to practice their food flipping skills in the big cast iron woks. A girl needs to be able to flip food 300 times in a row before passing the class. In the kitchen we were greeted by the students and teacher. A lot of the students were younger than we expected, only 18 years old, but their cooking skills surely surpassed ours.
We were shown how to make two awesome dishes� Beef Wonton and Dough Slices in soup. The beef wonton was delicious, but kind of bland. I thought the dough slices in soup was better because of its tomato-vegetable based broth. Even though the students did not speak English, or little if any, I did not feel that much of a language barrier because they were able to show us what we needed to do. It was a really awesome experience and I can't wait to go back in a couple of weeks to learn how to make some more authentic Chinese food!
We boarded the bus with our stomachs full and our bodies' hot and exhausted. It was nice to finally be on a bus driving through Nanjing. While it was rush hour and the drivers were a bit crazy, I enjoyed seeing the city and all its shops and restaurants after having just seen what is around Nanjing University's campus this whole week. I can't wait to explore Nanjing more this weekend before our next week of intensive classes begin.
Happy Friday!! This week has been very long for all of us having started our first week of classes and three days of language pledge. We were finally allowed to speak English all day, which was nice because we could now clearly express ourselves. This morning was a stressful day for my class � Chinese Intermediate 1. We had to speak in Chinese in front of the class about each of our hometowns, we had a dictation on the last lesson we learned (writing the characters for words and sentences), we had a quiz on the past two lessons combined, and then we started the next lesson. To say it was a long four hours is an understatement.
The presentation was fun because it was interesting to hear about everyone's hometown. Conley and I had a little feud over which of our home states is better � my home state of Maine or her home state of Colorado. The dictation and quiz were kind of hard, but I think that was just because a lot of us felt unprepared having just learned the material this week. The teacher's assistant, Cao Laoshi, taught the class for the day, so it was nice to get to know him a little more. He told us about his hometown of Anhui which we will actually be visiting next weekend!
After class, Dong Laoshi treated my class and a few other students to lunch at a restaurant near the hotel. It was the best meal I have had in China so far. The 红烧牛肉 (beef braised in soy sauce) was amazing and came with fried buns on the side. It was nice to finally have a variety of food to eat compared to searching for my own food in Bird Flu Alley. I always end up choosing fried rice to eat because it's cheap and filling.
Today we had our first Chinese cooking class! At 2pm everyone boarded a bus to go to Nanjing Secondary Vocational School of Tourism and Nutrition. We were first greeted by a teacher at the school whose name is my Chinese name 小贝(Xiao Bei). Dong Laoshi apparently named me after her. I felt flattered.
We were shown a video about the school and then given awesome uniforms to wear! (see picture\) Before going to the kitchen, we went into a room that the students use to practice their food flipping skills in the big cast iron woks. A girl needs to be able to flip food 300 times in a row before passing the class. In the kitchen we were greeted by the students and teacher. A lot of the students were younger than we expected, only 18 years old, but their cooking skills surely surpassed ours.
We were shown how to make two awesome dishes� Beef Wonton and Dough Slices in soup. The beef wonton was delicious, but kind of bland. I thought the dough slices in soup was better because of its tomato-vegetable based broth. Even though the students did not speak English, or little if any, I did not feel that much of a language barrier because they were able to show us what we needed to do. It was a really awesome experience and I can't wait to go back in a couple of weeks to learn how to make some more authentic Chinese food!
We boarded the bus with our stomachs full and our bodies' hot and exhausted. It was nice to finally be on a bus driving through Nanjing. While it was rush hour and the drivers were a bit crazy, I enjoyed seeing the city and all its shops and restaurants after having just seen what is around Nanjing University's campus this whole week. I can't wait to explore Nanjing more this weekend before our next week of intensive classes begin.
- Rebecca
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