Ni Hao (Hello), today we had a great breakfast; the blue and white package was milk, which surprisingly did not bad taste. The bread has strawberry jam and peanut butter. The eggs were hard boiled and they were really good. I was shocked we had milk provided with the meal because we have had provided a drink to our own meals.
In our first class today we learned about the Chinese language. Did you know the first name is there last (family) name and their second name is their first (Given) name? The given name has meaning of what the parent’s expectations are for the child. Next we learned about pinyin, this is the Chinese phonetic alphabet. If you would like a written translation be sure to ask for this, or they will write it in characters. In the Chinese language there are four tones. The first tone is high, but flat, second tone is a rising tone, third tone is a dipping tone and the last tone is lowering tone. One thing I found really interesting about this was each tone may contain a different meaning to the words. There are pictures showing the Professor’s technique of teaching us how the pronunciation rules. Next we learned how to write some of the characters. The strokes you start with is very important, and also do not live out a stroke because that will make it a different word. I think the most interesting idea I learned in this lesson is the mistake usage. It was interesting to see how some characters have the same meaning, but sometimes if there is another character in front of characters the meaning can be different. After that part of the lesson we went back to serious mood and we learned about the everyday Chinese, which contained numbers, currency and phrases.
Lunch was interesting, the chicken had bones and I just bit right into it without realizing, it hurt (ouch). I find it really interesting how they serve soup with every lunch and dinner. After thought, the veggies seem to always be very delicious!!!
After lunch we walked to our second class which was
about the Chinese Culture. In this lecture, we learned about the Spring Festival and folks arts and crafts. The cool thing about the Spring Festival is that it is equivalent to our Christmas, but without the sacrificing a pig or chicken. There is so much to say about this festival, but what I found interesting was what is served for meals and their meaning. The four types of food that are important to have during this event are fish (Abundance), chicken (auspiciousness), tofu (richness) and dumplings (wealth). Dumplings are served only on the 8th of December during the
Lunar Calendar. I think most interesting things I learned were about the decorations and New Years. They decorate with couplets (red paper) outside their doors stating the family member’s wishes, red lanterns that are hung on their porch with candle light, and the red paper cuttings are placed in their windows. For their New Years they give family members a red packet with characters that describes the person they are giving the gift. Also, this packet will contain either 600 or 800 yin. After this we learned about some Chinese Arts and Crafts. We were able to learn how to make a lucky knot and red paper cutting. The paper cutting means double happiness; this would be given to a married couple.
The next class we had was cultural influences on consumer behavior, we learned about how they pursue the American culture, as well as how they see the differences between our cultures. For example the United States are observed to act more masculine because we are aggressive and want to be number one at everything. I how it interesting when the professor was talking about the religion because China does not have a clear religion, but the United States seem sensitive about religion because on paper we ask questions about religion, our money, and other stuff. During this lecture the professor had us
view a “scandalous” commercial that we have in America. This commercial was the McDonald’s advertisement where the husband is doing laundry while watching a sports game at the same times and he puts the McDonald hamburger wrapper into the dryer without looking. In the next scene the husband smells his wife and engages in kissing. I thought this was funny because I feel like that scene would be found on any channel and is overlooked as crude. In China they do not have rating on films or television. The parents make the decision on what they children watch. It seems like in China they allow the parents to make more decisions on regulations then the government does. I guess they have to have regulation on something around here.
Dinner we had dumplings with shrimp, veggies, rice and soup. One of our team members is allergic to shellfish so a group of us went to the cafeteria to purchase something else to eat, this was not a great idea. The cook came out and thought we all couldn’t eat the food and got really confused and seem irritated. So, most of us went down stairs to the drink shop while the professor and her explained the situation to the chef. Milk Tea seems to be really popular here.
In our first class today we learned about the Chinese language. Did you know the first name is there last (family) name and their second name is their first (Given) name? The given name has meaning of what the parent’s expectations are for the child. Next we learned about pinyin, this is the Chinese phonetic alphabet. If you would like a written translation be sure to ask for this, or they will write it in characters. In the Chinese language there are four tones. The first tone is high, but flat, second tone is a rising tone, third tone is a dipping tone and the last tone is lowering tone. One thing I found really interesting about this was each tone may contain a different meaning to the words. There are pictures showing the Professor’s technique of teaching us how the pronunciation rules. Next we learned how to write some of the characters. The strokes you start with is very important, and also do not live out a stroke because that will make it a different word. I think the most interesting idea I learned in this lesson is the mistake usage. It was interesting to see how some characters have the same meaning, but sometimes if there is another character in front of characters the meaning can be different. After that part of the lesson we went back to serious mood and we learned about the everyday Chinese, which contained numbers, currency and phrases.
Lunch was interesting, the chicken had bones and I just bit right into it without realizing, it hurt (ouch). I find it really interesting how they serve soup with every lunch and dinner. After thought, the veggies seem to always be very delicious!!!
After lunch we walked to our second class which was
about the Chinese Culture. In this lecture, we learned about the Spring Festival and folks arts and crafts. The cool thing about the Spring Festival is that it is equivalent to our Christmas, but without the sacrificing a pig or chicken. There is so much to say about this festival, but what I found interesting was what is served for meals and their meaning. The four types of food that are important to have during this event are fish (Abundance), chicken (auspiciousness), tofu (richness) and dumplings (wealth). Dumplings are served only on the 8th of December during the
Lunar Calendar. I think most interesting things I learned were about the decorations and New Years. They decorate with couplets (red paper) outside their doors stating the family member’s wishes, red lanterns that are hung on their porch with candle light, and the red paper cuttings are placed in their windows. For their New Years they give family members a red packet with characters that describes the person they are giving the gift. Also, this packet will contain either 600 or 800 yin. After this we learned about some Chinese Arts and Crafts. We were able to learn how to make a lucky knot and red paper cutting. The paper cutting means double happiness; this would be given to a married couple.
The next class we had was cultural influences on consumer behavior, we learned about how they pursue the American culture, as well as how they see the differences between our cultures. For example the United States are observed to act more masculine because we are aggressive and want to be number one at everything. I how it interesting when the professor was talking about the religion because China does not have a clear religion, but the United States seem sensitive about religion because on paper we ask questions about religion, our money, and other stuff. During this lecture the professor had us
view a “scandalous” commercial that we have in America. This commercial was the McDonald’s advertisement where the husband is doing laundry while watching a sports game at the same times and he puts the McDonald hamburger wrapper into the dryer without looking. In the next scene the husband smells his wife and engages in kissing. I thought this was funny because I feel like that scene would be found on any channel and is overlooked as crude. In China they do not have rating on films or television. The parents make the decision on what they children watch. It seems like in China they allow the parents to make more decisions on regulations then the government does. I guess they have to have regulation on something around here.
Dinner we had dumplings with shrimp, veggies, rice and soup. One of our team members is allergic to shellfish so a group of us went to the cafeteria to purchase something else to eat, this was not a great idea. The cook came out and thought we all couldn’t eat the food and got really confused and seem irritated. So, most of us went down stairs to the drink shop while the professor and her explained the situation to the chef. Milk Tea seems to be really popular here.
After dinner we went walking on around the outside of the University. It was an experience. Right out side the gate of Sandia University there were a lot of food and knick knack stands that had people ordering and cooking everywhere. As we walked further down the street we came across clothing, shoes, restaurants and convenient stores. There was a lot of garbage on the streets and traffic everywhere. I was shocked that the locals were not bothered by the appearance and also there was not an abundances of flies in this area. I think my favorite place was the pastry shop. I could eat pastries all day. Now I just need to find a fresh fruit store and price that.
