3 weeks has flown by so quickly that I have written 21 different entries and not once updated my blog! Anyways, where to start? Let’s just say that over the past few weeks my friends Lili, Stowe, and I have been filming a video for a Chinese movie competition. The theme is “My China Experience”, so we have been exploring and walking around Beijing, interviewing locals and asking them all sorts of questions. It was very successful and our video has now been sent off to be judged. Hopefully something good will come out if it!

Besides walking around in the Hutongs, watching little pantless babies run around and old men playing Chinese chess, taking photos of hanging meat and watching fish being bartered in a market, I have been up to lots of exciting things.

My Chinese has improved a lot, and now every time I get into a taxi, a bus or a train, I have conversations with people. I can understand more words, and I am beginning to understand the meanings of the shop signs which flicker past me as I ride my bike around the city.

My family has been doing well. My sister passed an examination (I helped a little ), which has enabled her to take part in an M.U.N conference in some of the IVY league universities in America. She’ll be gone most of February. My baba is great.. drinking a little too much tea, and is getting a little chubby. He teaches me 5 new Chinese words a night, and has promised me that I am going to be fluent by the end of this year! Without him my homesickness would be A LOT worse.. My mama can be a little tough.. today I “washed my clothes in the wrong bucket” and “wasted all of Africa’s water”. But it’s okay.. I understand why she was a little annoyed, however I didn’t appreciate the loud Chinese words being shouted at me! Apart from that, my mama is super!

Overall, school has been a little tough. The first quarter here is finished, and about 200 more days. It seems like a long time, but in reality, time is flying by so quickly!

I have started teaching English at a Migrant School a little outside of the city. It is a school where migrant workers send their children to be educated because they have been rejected to go to normal Beijing schools. The school is pretty run down, but the children seem very happy, and are especially eager and excited to learn English.

I love China, despite the few cases of homesickness I have had. Like a cough can be cured with some cough syrup, being homesick can be cured with a dosage of exploration in Beijing. In two weeks I am off to live in the rural parts of China, which will be a goood break from school work!

开运动会

开运动会：SPORTS DAY

(1st Place)

Having been here in China for 28 days now, I am finally settled in.
Although a month seems to have gone by pretty fast, it feels like i've been here for months. Homesickness gets easier by the day, and with weekly skype calls, my family and friends still get to see me.

I can no longer access facebook, even using the proxy sites (which is a good thing as i am no longer addicted), but luckily my blog still works. The last time I updated was just before my first weekend with my Host Family. Since then, a lot has happened!!

I'll start with school:

It has been pretty stressful to be honest.. Work is a lot tougher than in Thailand, and my work load per night is about 5 hours. It's a lot, but i know that i'm learning.
This Wednesday, thank God, we have a 10 day holiday! Very excited for it, because i will have a lot of time to explore Beijing and i'm thinking of just getting on my bike with my camera, and getting lost.

Now with the family:

Without them, Beijing would be very miserable. If i have a bad day at school, they always cheer me up when i get home. Our meals are delicious, and my mama, after 4 weeks, is still going strong with her diet. Tonight she had some sort of Chinese whiskey and her cheeks are as red as chinese lanterns. She offered me some, but i decided i did not want to be intoxicated with a pile of homework waiting for me.
My baba, he is a comedian. He is hilarious, and when i don't understand him, he puts on a little performance acting it out. Every morning he puts hot water and green tea leaves in my water bottle and tells me to be "safe on the road". And my sister, although she speaks a little too much English for my liking, is very special. She's my little Xenia away from home. We play the saxophone together, and she tells me about her boy troubles. On her birthday last week, her little admirer left a HUGE cake with "我爱你" (I love you) written on it. My family is pretty amazing :)

Friends:

I have a bunch of really close friends who i spend most of my time with. We share the same interests, so on weekends and after school, we have a lot of fun. This friday night, we biked to the Western supermarket so that we could cook an Italian dinner- spaghetti, tomato and mozarella, etc, for one of our friend's host family. Then on saturday, we walked with our cameras hanging by our sides, in the Beijing Art District, 798.

Anyways, if you have read all of this, thank you. Hope you are all doing well wherever you may be. Time to study my 300+ Chinese words for tomorrow's test. :D

晚安 (goodnight)

CHINA I

BLOG CHINA.

The flight from Bangkok to Beijing was a milestone in my life. My heart pounded for four continuous hours, tears fell periodically and the butterflies in my stomach were intense. Basically, I was terrified.

Having lived in bustling  Bangkok for almost 5 years, I would never have guessed China to be as crazy as it turned out to be. The Chinese culture at a glimpse is so different to anything I have ever come across. My week in China started off with an isolation period called  quarantine. Our quarantine procedures took place in a small town 2 hours outside of Beijing and a 5 minute walk to an infamous part of the Great Wall. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were served on metal trays, and usually consisted of watery rice and salty celery-- definitely something new to try out. With 55 other American kids, quarantine was ironically extremely fun; I got to know my classmates, ran up and down the great wall everyday, participated in team building exercises, took tests for our Chinese and math classes, visited temples, started class etc etc. Ultimately, quarantine was fun. However, ever since I had landed in China, all I had wanted to do was to move into my Chinese host family in Beijing.

Two days ago, we left our quarantine location and headed for Beijing where were were given a tour of our Chinese High School, received our uniforms, ate lunch in a local restaurant and last but not least, were handed over to our families.

It was basically an ineffable experience and I was seriously overwhelmed. I sat anxiously waiting to find out which smiling Chinese family would be mine. I was nervous, and yet extremely excited. This was the start to a new chapter in my life, and I just hoped I would have the most amicable of all families!

And then the moment came... my name was read out, and I spotted my 'mama' (mom) waving to me ecstatically. She hugged me so tightly that I thought she would never let go. But after a few awkward minutes, my 'baba' (dad) shook my hand firmly, and urged us to go home. The rest of the China tales begin here.....

So now, I sit here on the edge of my window, overlooking the city of Beijing. i have just eaten a plate of delicious peaches and a red date yoghurt drink which was to die for. My room overlooks a beautiful park which I can barely see right now because the skies are always smoggy here, and the sun struggles to come out. In the kitchen, my mama is cooking noodle soup and dumplings, and my baba is urging me to watch TV with him. My Chinese little sister (mei mei) is not home yet. It is 6 o'clock and she is still studying at school. One thing i have learned is that the Chinese are extremely hard workers!

This morning I had a Chinese test, and at breakfast today, my mama, baba and meimei hovered over me, quizzing me on my words. I ride my bike to school everyday and luckily the traffic is not too crazy, and i'm still alive. My Chinese High School is about 20 minutes by bike- so i wake up at about 6:40. When i get to school, i have to walk up 180 stairs. It is VERY tiring! 

My friends here are all extremely nice. They are also incredibly smart and determined to be fluent in Chinese. My teachers are excellent, especially my Chinese ones. There is a no- English policy in Chinese class, which has become very amusing. Today is the 2nd day at school, and I am already loaded with homework from all subjects. I get about 150 new chinese words every single night, which i get tested on the following morning. It's intense.

This weekend is a "closed weekend", which means i am not allowed to communicate with any of my classmates. I have to spend every minute of it with my family. It will be fun and possibly frustrating because of the language barrier. However my family here is super nice. My baba is so funny, and my mama is very hospitable. I find it very amusing that my mama is on a diet and refrains from eating anything but watermelon!

I'm sure there is a lot more I could tell you, but for the time being, i think this is a pretty reasonable update. If you want to email me, it is best to email me at
antivita@gmail.com, because facebook is blocked here and it is a pain to get on.

Miss you all. :)

PHOTOWALKING

Shoot photos, not bullets. My passion for photography has multiplied over the past year. I cannot leave the house without my camera because I fear that I will miss out on a photo opportunity. Living in Bangkok means LOTS of photographs. Every day there is something new that catches my eye. May it be the elephant crossing my street, or the novice monks receiving food, I must have my camera with me at all times so that I can whip it out and shoot. 

Since photography is now my favorite hobby, I was determined to take as many interesting photos of Los Angeles as I could. Recently, I went on a ‘photo walk’ through Santa Monica in L.A and for once, I was extremely uninspired to take any pictures. The lighting was bad, and there was no action taking place. My mom, my friend Conor and I, walked around, trying to take interesting photos. However, none of my photos were very good, and I was rather disappointed.

However, by the end of the 4 hours, surprisingly I had a lot of photos I liked. 

Farewell

It's Thursday morning, and tomorrow night I leave for Los Angles. I have been very busy running around doing last minute things, seeing friends and packing.

After a long day of shopping with the monk Dhammasara on Tuesday, we managed to buy him a Monk's umbrella and a food bowl. We walked down narrow streets filled with barefoot children, clothing lines, burning fires and aromatic smells to find family businesses selling monk's food bowls. I got to see how they were made and thank god I had my camera with me!

The monk left yesterday- and he is now in Khao Yai in the middle of a forest in a monestary. He spends his days waking up very early in the mornings, meditating, collecting food, eating, sleeping and more meditation. At his departure, he gave me a book which he translated from Thai into English, called 'Reaching The Goodness Within'. He wrote an inscription saying:

"For Anthea, 

With Metta from Jotika Dhammasara". 

I asked him if he was "excited to go live in the forest", and he told me that "he cannot be excited- otherwise he would build up expectations and if his expectations were not met, then he would be disappointed and unhappy". Monks' live in the PRESENT- not the past, nor the future. Maybe we should all think like this because then we would never become displeased or dissatisfied. 

I must say, I have learnt a lot from our monk, Dhammasara. I had various intellectual talks with him, about topics such as politics, religion, culture, beliefs, people etc.

As I said in my first blog, the monk brought peace and tranquillity to our household. No arguments and no raised voices. Funnily enough, as soon as he left we were back to normal. Maybe we should have a permanent monk living with us!?

Morning Meditation

Today I woke up and meditated with our house guest and monk. His name is Dhammasara. I must admit I'm pretty bad at meditating! I drift off and think of everything, when you're actually meant to be thinking of nothing. I fidget, itch my mosquito bites and move around. On the other hand, there is Dhammasara, who is the complete opposite of me. He did not move once for 40 minutes; entirely content and in his own world. Well, anyhow I can only get better through daily meditation practice which I am determined to continue doing!

Whilst this was the start to my Sunday morning, one of my best friends was doing something else.  She woke up extremely early to go 'temple hopping'! Basically, she went to 9 different temples, and from this, she gained good 'boon'. Boon is a form of merit- something to be thankful for, like a blessing. Boon also protects us from any kind of evil spirits. My friend had to go to each different temple, give light bulbs, candles, food and pray. She also had to pour water from a spiritual metal bowl onto the roots of a large tree. At some of the temples, my friend was given some Buddhas and bracelets. 

After morning meditation, I went with my family and Dhammasara to the Bangkok weekend market, called Chatuchak (JJ market).  The market sells everything from squirrels, to Indian sandals, to waffles, to amulets, to anything! It's pretty crazy, but incredibly hot. Every time I go, I feel faint- slight stomach ache and dehydrated. However, they sell great things, for cheap prices.. and I love it. So,we took "our" monk along, fed him lunch (before 12) and wandered around. My dad and Dhammasara left at 1pm. My mom, sister and I left at 5pm. A record of 7 hours was spent at Chatuchak. 

To end the night, I just meditated for half an hour. This time I did lying down meditation, and yet, I still fidgeted and found it hard to concentrate!

:)

Visiting Monk

It is not every Saturday morning, when a South- African/ English Monk, comes to live in your house. 

My family- who are used to talking loudly, sun tanning, playing music, and basically living like any other household would do, has to change the way we live for our monk. 

My shoulders which are normally bare, are now covered by a blouse. The house is quiet and peaceful, and very tranquil. No arguments take place; we talk in respectful tones (something hard for teenagers). We prepare two meals for our monk. Breakfast and lunch-  both must be served before 12. A girl cannot touch a monk, turn her back to him, or pass him an item. 

Our monk teaches us meditation, and tells us stories from his travels. 

What's funny about this, is that my friends are all probably watching TV, or on Facebook, or still sleeping. 

My Saturday morning is not the usual :)