AFS - Another Fat Student

 random talk

1.        - "best friends become strangers and strangers become best friends" (not yet, what about you guys?)
2. 2.     Chinese would never ever dare to use bronzer lol. they're terrified of the sun. why? oh yea-vampires. at least aiming to get the same skin tone... every Chinese facial product is 'whitening' and in Summer (35 degrees+) the students walk around the campus with the f* school sweater and an umbrella to protect them selves from the sun. OK. well, my skin tone isn't exactly fitting in there. It's funny because the people in the bus or on the street need to look at me at least twice to realize I'm a foreigner - and then the starring begins. My friends always complain about me not being white or want to the a 'who is whiter' competition (those aren't my friends) but since I'm not that desperate for a defeat I just always decline. And then they shut up and are impressed which i don't get at all but thats OK. Fact is Chinese are racists. (Biggest irony ever!) 
3. 3.     AFS (China) does NOTHING but rules!!! 
4. 4.     Chinese people DO eat with alot of noise and DO smack while eating and they DO spit on the ground in public and they DO make a lot of disgusting noises :D. But luckily only the elder people do that, students in my age don't and my parents generation sometimes does.. ahaha.
5. 5.     The hierarchy in the Chinese AFS is thusly: AFS - School - Family. So if you want to do something the family generally says yes, because they don't want to deny you anything and most of all because they agree to everything the school decides. Maybe because it's the school and therefore it must be a wise decision (or whatever).
6. 6.     In China there are no Playgrounds for children such as we know them. There are only outdoor ‘fitness areas’ with equipment. There are bicycles, cross trainers etc. Those are outside and look like a playground, I only realized after about 1 month that in fact they aren’t playgrounds :’D Sometimes there is also a swing or a seesaw but that’s rather rare..
7. 7.     There isn’t a schedule for the Bus in China. So you just go to the Bus station and wait. If your lucky 1 Minute if you aren’t 1 hour. When I go to school by Bus I usually bank on 15 minutes time for waiting which always is enough. The problem is the way back home. At 4 o’ clock the primary students(and their mothers) go home and at 6 o’clock the middle school students and normal employees. We usually wait for 30 minutes sometimes longer, sometimes less..         Since our homes are in the ‘new development’ area there are only a few busses and it’s always awfully crowded inside. Before we can take a bus at all we always have to let at least 1 past because it’s so replete with people that nobody can enter. If you want to exit it’s extremely difficult too, the people usually try to move towards the entrance 2 stations before they have to get off :’D I haaaate going back home in the evening. There are so many people all starring at us. And it’s not all comparable to the Parisian Metro or the Bus from Rychi at 12:00 or in the morning :’D
8.        Chinese People might no nothing about another country but they know EVERYTHING about it’s food. At least they think they do. My sister doesn’t want to go to England for an exchange year because she read that chinese people wouldn’t like Englands food, now she’s afraid she might starve :D And everytime we talk about another country she asks about the food, or says something like: Newzealand is known for it’s famous milk, isn’t it?! (Is it, i never heard about Newzealands milk... ahaha)

Chinese Doctor

3 weeks ago I was at a Chinese doctor to get some medicine against my cold. Thought I could try the not western alternative and it was a rather interesting experience:

I went to a pharmacy with my host mother. We got a number there, like the ones you get in a bank. We had to wait 20 minutes until our number was yelled, there were about 5/6 other persons in front of us. The doctor was an old women, she asked what about my problem and then took the pulse rate of both of my hands. Based on my pulse rate she determined the ingredients of my medicine. 
My medicine had 27 ingredients, my host mothers only 12 (I forgot why she needed medicine haha). You can choose to take the medicine uncooked a mixture of leaves (and idk what else) or you take the medicine the next day and they’ll cook it for you. Then you take that home and cook it again to drink it warm. 

cooked

whatever?!

doctor

Chinese Hospital

Last Week I visited the hospital too, there are 2 bid hospitals in Chengde. The teacher took me to the better one. I went with my teacher because my host mother didn't have time during the week. I have some problems with my chest/ my respiration which is why I had to go there. 

My teacher told me that in China there is a 'little hospital' for the district where you live. You go there if you have a cold, fever or other 'not very serious things'. If you are seriously ill, don't know what you're problem is or just feel like going to the big hospital you go there. I went because of the 2nd reason. 

The first time you go you have to buy a (chip)card on which you're data of every visit will be saved. Since you will always see another doctor and there are so many people you have you're data saved just on you're card. The hospital doesn't keep the patients data, so better not loose the card. 

First you will find the fitting department ( Respiration, Heart,...). There you have to draw a ticket and wait for your number. If it's a very crowdy day maybe for 3 hours, but we only waited 30 minutes. Then there was a doctor, she took a quick look at me after I explained my problem to her, then she sent me to take an X-Ray and blood, since in China there are different departments for everything. 1 Person only does 1 thing. 

After the X-Ray and the blood test I had to wait approximately 40 minutes for the results. When I received them we took them back to the doctor, she consulted bronchitis because nothing was visible. Then she prescribed me 3 Medicaments which you get in the biiiig pharmacy in the hospital.

In between all these steps you always have to go the 1st floor, the cashiers work there. Because only with a receipt you can do the X-Ray, take blood, or get medicine. 

我的家 - My Home (wo de jia)

I live in the 'new development area' of Chengde, which means a bunch of new houses were just planted in the middle of nowhere outside of the city. Therefor my way to school is 20/30 minutes by car. But since in the evening I come home by bus I'm underway for ca. 1 hour :( 

But the flat is quite nice though. As I already mentioned it's all new, and extremely tacky...ahahaha the only thing that's missing is Louis XIV. It's also quite big compared to Chinese standards since it isn't really in the city.

My room is small. Extremly small, especially compared to the rest of the apartment. I can't even open the doors of the wardrobe without hitting the bed lol. But at least I've got my own room.

(Because this area is new lots of people just moved in, and in China when you marry or move into a new place the people do some kinda' firework to banish evil spirits. and it's not meant to be be beautiful, just loud. EXTREMELY loud.! and they tend to do it really early in the morning (on weekends). arrrrgh I could kill them every time! But I've also heard from other friends all over China that I'm not the only one with this problem. crazy Chinese..)

Here are some pictures :) 

my room

my sisters and my bathroom 

parents bathroom

parents bedroom

the study

living room

tea table 

my sisters room

'terrace' (I'm just lucky to live on the floor where the
stores end so that we have
 that kinda veranda. i'ts nice to read there in summer :-))

dining room in the kitchen

Great Wall

Today I went to the great wall again, with Carola and some Teachers and 2 kids :)) The weather wasn't that great but i loooove the great wall! It's awesome. We went to the very famous place jinshanling changcheng, so there were many other foreigners. At least 60% of them German :D And today was the 'China Aids Walk' supported by some Condom Companies haha, that was SO weird! Many people joined them, also many foreigners, but it wasn't that crowded though :)) 

Here are some (MANY) pictures!

A Day In School

Normal School Day (Thursday)

This is how my school life looks like J I picked Thursday as example.

I am in senior 1 – gao yi, most of the students are 16 too. We are in Class No. 5, but we only have like 1 or 2 lessons per day (+morning the lesson) with our classmates.

Arts, Music and Ballet Class are with the juniors. They are 13/14…

The Chinese lessons we have in our small classroom.

Sometimes we also just stay there instead of having class with class No. 5 because it’s extremely boring and in the small classroom we can use our phone :D Or we stay on the sportsground in the sun and chat with the students who have PE class :) Or we just stay at home and come to school for our Chinese lessons.

We only have one Chinese teacher that comes every time, the others tend to forget us or to have ‘important meetings’ sometimes. The Junior students change their schedule like every week so we also have these lessons very irregularly which sucks a little. School is very boring anyways, but I’m very grateful for the Chinese lessons, I’d actually like to have more, 8 isn’t really much…

Carola and I have school 5 days a week from 07:00 to 18:00. The first lesson is morning class-> learn by yourself. From 07:50 to 18:00 all students then follow their schedule.

The Chinese students have school 6 ½ days a week and they have evening classes. Which means after dinner, at 19:00 they have school again until 20:30.

In School Carola and I are allowed to have our cell phone but only in the small classroom. We are not allowed to use it in the big classroom or listen to music there. The Chinese students are not allowed a cell phone at all!

In school we must wear our school uniform, if we wear the school’s jacket we are allowed to wear our own shirts, but only with a little cleavage! And also we’re not allowed to wear earrings or to paint our nails.

3rd Week of School (11.9-14.9)

Birthday Grandma

Sunday Septeber 8th

Today was my host mothers mothers (lao lao) birthday. She got 74.

We left home at 10:30 AM and drove to the city to buy a cake (Chinese always get a cake for birthdays). In China you just go to the bakery choose a type of cake and they will make for you. Awesome: DD We waited about 20 minutes. I filmed the women while making the cake :)

Then we went to a restaurant where we met my host mothers brother, his wife, the grandmother and her husband, my father and my sister (she came directly after school).

There was a lot of food haha :D On birthdays you always eat noodles (instead of rice) after the dishes, because noodles are long with means long life. The grandma got the special birthday noodles, which are extra wide.

Military Training

On Wednesday September 11^th the military training started. We had to be in school at 8:30. It started with School meeting where all the rules and stuff was explained, but basically it was just one hour of boredom. Then every class was assigned to a soldier. At 9:30 we started the standing: straight back, hands attached to your legs, no moving… marching with arms in 40 degrees angle to your legs and fists. Carola and I didn’t understand anything and just copied our classmates’ gestures haha.

We ‘trained’ for three hours. September 11^th is our classmates LiuXionas Birthday. She invited us to eat with her and 10 other friends. She ordered 5 dishes and rice for everyone, some friends got beverages and cake. The cake was like the grandmas cake freshly made and full of cream.

We had training until Sunday. It started everyday at 7:50 (the soldiers usually arrived at 8) lunch break was from 11:30 to 14:30 and ended approximately at 5. But Carola and I always left at 4 to attend sports class until 18:20.

In the morning and after lunch we had to stand still for 20 minutes, but our soldier preferred us standing for 30 to 40 minutes. Awful! If you feel sick you can ask to sit down, you don’t have to maintain standing, but actually nearly nobody does that.

After the standing we trained mostly marching or running. Which is extremely difficult with 57 people because it should be synchronous.  You actually don’t do much in the training, but it is exhausting anyways because you have to stand the whole day on the sports ground in the burning sun. There were 2 or 3 10minutes breaks in the morning and in the afternoon, and sometimes the soldier allowed us to sit for 2 or 3 minutes.

Except the long standing our soldier wasn’t really strict, he laughed a lot - mostly at us because our performance looked rather awkward.

Haha, our class was a little incapable so we learned everything like one day later than the others, and on Sunday we still couldn’t really run or march synchronous.

On Monday there was an ending ceremony, but only the well performing students took part in it, which is why Carola, I and 6 other people from my class were sorted out hahah!! This performance was graded, each class was surveyed by the head teacher who then determined the ranking. My Class somehow managed to become 8^th (out of 20)…

My sister also didn’t perform well enough, but she had to go and watch the others though. I didn’t go, rather slept…  

I am extremely glad this is over now!! It makes absolutely no sense to me, why would you do that to the students? It’s terrible haha!! The teachers think this is good to show the students, who is chef and to ‘renew’ their discipline after the summer holidays. The students who have to participate are all new in school: Senior 1 and Junior 1, but some other Junior Schools don’t have a military training, that’s why it was the first time for some students and some were already used to it.

Arrival/Orientation and First Week of School (22.8-31.8)

Arrival and Orientation

August 22^nd

I got up at  8:30 and put toiletries into my suitcase. Then I ate my last European breakfast (I already miss bread a lot!). My father came from Germany to bring me to the airport. I was really happy he came J. We left home at 11:45, my mom, my dad, Markus, Naomy and me. I wasn’t nervous at all, just a little excited. At the airport we met the 2 others – Samuel and Pascal (actually we are 4, but one didn’t get his visa).

I didn’t cry when saying goodbye, I still think that it ‘s really strange that I was neither sad nor nervous. In Schipol (Amsterdam) we met 3 other people from Switzerland (French part) – actually they were in the same plane from Zurich too but we didn’t recognize each other haha ^^.  Two of them flew with Samuel and me to Beijing and one of them with Pascal to Shanghai. The flight to Beijing was long 9:15h, but we had our own entertainment system and I got my veggie food :D But still it was cramped and as usual – I don’t like flying. I’m never able to sleep on a plane, so I slept for only 3 hours. I was tired as hell the next 3 days in the camp.

August 23^rd

When we arrived in Beijing two volunteers came to pick us up. One of them was my local volunteer from Chengde J We drove to the hotel by bus with two girls from Sweden. It took us about 30 minutes to the hotel which was in the middle of nowhere (Beijing circle 6), that’s why we didn’t see anything of Beijing L

We were split up into Groups by region, I was in group No. 11.

We spent the first day waiting for it to pass and trying to stay awake, because there were students arriving throughout the day. I spent the whole day with Hedwige, the Swiss girl we met in Schipol. We talked to maaaaany many other exchange students that day and met new friends :))

Everyone was really nice and open-minded! There were 80 Thais, 60 Italians and 17 Germans and the rest were from several other countries. – a total of over 200 people.  

August 24^th

The second day we had orientation in the morning including a ‘Chinese lesson’ with Didi (Volunteer). In the afternoon we went to the Great wall ‘changcheng’. Our missing Swiss student arrived that morning so he could join us. We went by bus, it took us about 1.5 hours I think (I slept). We had to climb up the staircase and it was SO HOT that day. I died :D But I succeeded anyways and it was really awesome! The Wall is an amazing masterpiece! And you have a really great view. Poor workers / slaves 2000 years ago who had to bring every single stone up there. it’s so exhausting!

After the trip we ate in a Restaurant. Every group had it’s own Table J The food there was much better than the food in the hotel!

August 25^th

At the third day we had to say goodbye again. This time I was actually a little nervous and anxious about meeting my family. It was funny - all the girls suddenly wore long trousers (because of the families). A Bus from my School picked me and Carola up at 15:00. We drove 3 hours to Chengde where we met our families and went straight to a restaurant with them (Carolas family and mine). My sister was really excited to see me and my māma and bāba were very nice too! Especially the father is very warm-hearted.  

After dinner we went to the apartment of the family and I unpacked my suitcase. I’ve got a room for myself. It’s very small but nice J. The apartment is brand new, they moved in in July. I will publish a little blog post about it sometime J.

I gave the presents to the family this evening too. They didn’t show that much reaction but I think they liked it though.

7000 Kilometres Homesickness

This is a documentation series of 4 german exchange students in China. I was really glad I found that video it's really helpful and gives a good impression of an exchange in Asia.

 7000 Kilometer Heimweh(Phoenix)

Orientation Camp

This Whitsun we had our orientation Camp somewhere in the middle of nowhere. We all came by train alone and met the others at the hostel. I was pretty relieved meeting most of the students in the train already. IDK how we actually recognized each other, I guess we all must have been somehow exotic and 'exchange-studentish' looking. 

We were 23 (I guess) and the camp leaders themselves were exchange students 2 to 4 years ago (Thailand, Indonesia and Southafrica and China).

We called our group 'Die Exoten' (Exotic People) beacause we are the part of AFS Switzerland, who is going to spend a year in really exotic destinations (mainly Asia). Most of us are going to Japan, but also to Malaysia, India, Thailand, Indonesia, South Africa, Hong Kong and China. 

The camp was without time or any electronical devices, therefor we had to hand in our cells, cameras and watches. I would have neeeever ever believed that I'd like to be without them, but it was great. Everyone was really outgoing and open minded and we all got to know each other fast. 

Basically we spent the 2 Days playing some games, laughing, talking,(jogging at mignight) and reconstructing situations that might happen in the host country. It was great to talk with  Miranda (the leader who spent her year in China) about her experiences. 

She could tell us a lot about her year and take our anxiety a little. But still I'm getting more and more excited day by day (72 days to go). 
I had a great time, thank you all! ♡

 

Die Exoten

CHINA! ❀ ★ ❀

128 Tage noch.., und dann sitze sich schon im Flugzeug nach China.

Ich habe anfangs nicht wirklich über den Bescheid gefreut, da China wirklich meine letzte Wahl war. Und vorallem weil ich wirklich Angst hatte/habe in eine strange Schule zu kommen, in der ich dann 1 Jahr auskommen muss. Chinesen sind generell kindisch aber andererseits sehr diszipliniert beim Lernen! Ich hoffe einfach, dass ich mit andern Austauschschülern in eine Schule komme. Und nicht zu sehr aufs Land!:DD
Aber langsam fange ich an mich immer mehr dafür zu besgeistern. :-) Ich werd aufjedenfall versuchen so viel Mandarin wie möglich zu lernen, das sollte mir später doch einige Vorteile bringen und die Sprache ist wirklich cool ! 0816 hahaha! 
Schreibt mir doch wenn ihr auch nach China geht!:)) Ich finde so gut wie keine Blogs von ATSchülern die nach China gehen.

Was mich erwartet:

Familie- Die Familie ist den Chinesen das wichtigste. Sie haben grosse Achtung vor den älteren bzw. Eltern und Grosseltern. Diese Leben auch nicht selten mit der Familie zusammen. Die meisten Familien haben ein Kind und die Eltern arbeiten beide Vollzeit. 
Die Kinder haben meist strikte Regeln was Freizeitaktivitäten und Schule bzw. lernen angeht. Die meiste Zeit verbringen sie jedoch lernend...


Schule- Das Chinesische Schulsystem besteht aus:  
primary school (6-12)
junior middle school (12-15)
senior middle school
Die Primary und die Junior Middle School sind Pflicht (9 Jahre), die meisten Schüler besuchen dann aber noch die Senior Middle School (keine ahnung wie lange). Ich werde ins Senior One Level kommen. 
Die Schule sollte normalerweise von 7.30/8.00 a.m - 4.00/4.30 p.m dauern. Eine Klasse ist riesig - ca. 35-55 Schüler!


Das war erst mal alles :) 
See you, Vivi 

Endless waiting und Papierkram

Anmeldung

Ich bin eeeendlich fertig mit dem ausfüllen der definitiven Anmeldung, so viel Papierkram!

(Am besten viel Zeit dafür einplanen und schnell damit anfangen - damit eure Anmeldung möglichst scnell im 1.Wahl-Land landet und die Chance grösser ist dort eine Gastfamilie zu bekommen) 

Ich musste die Anmeldung in zwei Teilen abschicken:

Erster Teil

1. Deckblatt: Scanne ein gutes Passfoto ein. Bitte lächeln :-)!
2. Persönliche Angaben: Fülle die Personalien/Informationen von dir und deiner Familie aus und liste deine Wunschdestinationen auf (bitte drei Länder angeben). Bitte beachte, dass erst nach dem Interview angeschaut wird, ob das Land für dich möglich ist.
3. Platzierung: Wählt eure Wunschländer aus (höchstens 3)
4. Ich stelle mich vor - Ein sehr detailierter Brief über euch, eure Beziehung zu euren Eltern eure Hobby, etc. - das ist also der 1. und alles entscheidende Eindruck den die Gastfamilie von euch hat! 
5. Schulzeugnisse   

Zweiter Teil 

1. Gesundheit: Arztzeugniss 
2. Fotoseite: Fotos von dir, deinen  Freunden und deiner Familie
3. Beschreibung des Teilnehmers / der Teilnehmerin durch die Eltern
4. Einverständniserklärungen
5. Datenschutzbestimmungen
6. English Language Recommendation Form (for USA only): 
7. Passport Copy

Wichtig: Bevor ihr euch bei einer Organisation bewerbt, holt euch zuerst das Einverständins eurer Schule, sonst müsstet ihr schlimmsten Falls im Anmeldeprozess abrechen!

Warten

Jetzt heisst es warten. Ich habe mir 3 Länder ausgesucht. 

1. Südafrika

2. Hong Kong   

3. China

Organisation

Ich werde mit der Organisation AFS- Intercultural Programs Switzerland verreisen.
AFS gehört zum Dachverband Intermundo. Ich empfehle bei der Auswahl der Organisation auf dieses Kriterium zu achten :-)

    http://www.intermundo.ch

                      http://www.afs.ch