Anthology: Train Ride to Suzhou, the Moulin Rouge, and Finally Getting to Teach

Here is an anthology of the rest of Danika's emails to us the first two weeks of her China trip. We got her set up on a VPN (Virtual Proxy Network) in order to work around China's blocking certain Internet sites. Once she could get on Facebook the long descriptive emails ceased! From that point on she would post pictures to Facebook and we used instant messenger or Skype to communicate. It's sort of sad; this day and age of technology does not lend itself well to documenting experiences like letters used to. At least we were able to capture some of her first impressions.


August 29, 2013

I don't have Northanger Abbey but I did bring a few other movies - Charlie's Angels, Newsies, The Holiday, and The Sandlot. Sorry, I needed to have those. They gave us money for our phones, and we're going to get those figured out today. Do I need a Chinese bank account? Our liaison said we were getting them today, but I don't think I'm going to get one. Yesterday was an interesting day leaving Beijing and trying to get situated in our Suzhou. The train ride was 8 hours, but it was pretty cool. They switched me from Kindergarten to teaching elementary school, which I'm glad about because it will be easier to communicate and get them to do things than the little kids. I just kept thinking about a whole class of Bradys and Camdens.....but elementary will be better haha. Our temporary liaison is a super cute college girl named Jane. She is so cute and she speaks English really well. Living situation....kind of a long story that I don't have time for right now. Long story short, 3 other girls, Jane, and I ended sleeping in a hotel last night instead of our apartments. This hotel is so nice, and the beds are SOFT and we have 2 FLUFFY PILLOWS. I slept so well! But hopefully we don't have to go back to that apartment because it was awful. Like kind of sketchy and unlivable. But things change at the last minute so maybe we won't be living there. But the good thing is I will be living with 2 other girls (as of now) so that is positive. From what I can tell, Suzhou is a little less crazy than Beijing. I want to get a VPN so you'll have to tell me how to do that. 

Train ride to Suzhou

August 31, 2013

We are still in that apartment, but I think we will just have to make it work. I think a lot of people have rough living situations too. We aren't getting internet for at least 2 more days so that sucks. We found a Tesco and and grocery store that have anything and everything we need. We are trying to go to church tomorrow, but apparently we are also finally going to our schools. We don't even know who our liaisons are yet. Suzhou is cleaner, quieter, less smell, and a little less crazy than Beijing. The air is also a lot better. We can actually see blue sky and clouds and the sun! We're just kind of playing everything by ear right now. We finally found a restaurant with wifi (we had to sit in the lobby of a super nice hotel to get internet today, but only for a little bit), but it's taken a while. The air conditioning in my room and also the washing machine both work really well. I might not email for a day or two because we don't have internet in our apartment, but just be patient. There is a cute bakery by us that is like the one in Beijing. Everyone is really nice so far. I didn't get a picture with Jane or our driver, Ding, but once we go to the schools I'm sure we will make Chinese friends. I just want to start teaching so I have some sort of structure of where I'm supposed to be. Right now it just seems like no one cares that we are here, but Jacob and Spencer told us all that it would seem really unorganized. They were right! It's nice to have my own room, even if everything is maroon-colored and it looks like the Moulin Rouge. Brentwood is going to seem like a castle in the sky compared to this. I found honey nut cheerios and milk! I have been craving that this whole time. They have everything here that I was told they wouldn't: deodorant, milk, cheese, yogurt, FROZEN yogurt, chocolate, everything. It's really not that bad. Well I have to eat my food so talk to you later. Love you, bye!

Walking to hotel to "steal" WiFi

Humorous Chinese sign

Just keep "clam"

September 1, 2013

Jacob is coming to our apartment to help us out tomorrow, and supposedly we are moving to a different apartment next week. We are still having some difficulties, but Jacob will sort everything out. We bought comforters and blankets for our beds so they aren't too bad. I just want to start teaching so that I have a purpose for being here, and we're not just sitting around doing nothing. We took the subway to church and it was super clean and nice. The meeting house is someone's mansion apartment. It is seriously so fancy. We met a lot of nice people that say we can have dinner with them and stuff so that will be good for Christmas and Thanksgiving. I used Danielle's phone to get on Facebook today after church, but it was super slow loading so all I saw really had time to see was that email about Garrett. But now we have a flash drive thing with internet so yeah. K I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow. Bye!


September 2, 2013

Brooke:

I have no other way to tell you this so....HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! My people got in contact with Harry's people and he is coming to your birthday party. Zayn might be coming, but there's just no way to be sure at this point. Niall always crashes so be prepared for that as well. Have fun and be glad you don't live at the Moulin Rouge!

Mom:

Are you guys doing the race or whatever for Garrett in October? What even is it? I wish I could go. I would have you buy me a wristband or something and send it, but I'm pretty positive it would never make it here. I went to my school today. It's a cute school, and everyone was super nice. There are some younger girls and then the older lady teachers and they were exactly like they would be at an American school. I had lunch there and looked around by myself and then I sat there for about 2 hours doing nothing. They just didn't know what to do with me. But I have my own cubicle thing so that's cool. I'm teaching 4 classes a day, and they're all 3rd and 4th graders except one 2nd grade class a week. That's actually the age that I wanted to teach originally so I'm glad. They seem like they know pretty good English. I have a text book to teach out of which is good also. Anyway, the branch president with the fancy house asked me if I could teach his kids piano lessons! I just have to tell him my schedule, and they will pay me about $10 US dollars an hour and send their "driver" to pick me up. Fan-cy. They have three kids and they want each kid to have at least one lesson per week. I will die of happiness if I get to teach piano (easy) to American kids (fantastic) in their ballroom on their baby grand (dreamy). I'm going to email him today, and hopefully that works out. I need a VPN so how do I do that? I haven't taken any pictures of Suzhou yet, but I will eventually. 

"One of my very naughty 4th grade classes."

"Rainy day at my school"

September 4, 2013

So teaching is going pretty well so far. I have the perfect ages. I am celebrity status at that school. I literally spent 10 minutes signing autographs yesterday. There are 3 girls in one of my fourth grade classes who are my friends kind of. One of them lived in Chicago for 2 years so she can actually understand what I'm saying, and I love it. I'm teaching Seth's kids one lesson a week each at their school (not at the mansion) so that will be good to have them know what I'm talking about because they speak English. 

The Chinese kids do not have a good English language education. If I ask one of the fourth graders what their name is, they usually have no idea what I'm saying. All they know how to do is repeat what the teacher says, and I'm pretty sure they have no idea what it means. I have a textbook to teach out of, which is just having them repeat ridiculous dialogues that would never help them talk to an English speaker in real life. But for now I will keep using the book, but try to incorporate better ways to teach it. It's just hard to explain anything because they have no idea what I'm saying. Good thing there's a Chinese teacher in there with me to help translate. I showed the kids those postcards and our family picture on my computer and they loved them. We played head, shoulders, knees, and toes and we sang it slow, fast, loud, quiet, etc. and it was fun. It's nice that I don't have the same class twice in a week so I can just use the same lesson all week. I have it pretty good. My school is a three minute walk from our apartment, I only have four classes each day, my kids are pretty easy to teach, and the other teachers are really chill. Kenzie teaches 2 year olds for 2 hours every day and she hates it haha.

Eye exercises

And everyone else in our group has to commute pretty far, and all the ones teaching younger ages absolutely hate it. So I am very blessed. I teach my only second grade class today so I'll have to have a few more games up my sleeve. It's supposed to rain this weekend so I'm pumped. Well, I have to get "ready" (that's another great thing- I can look terrible and they still tell me I'm beautiful. I love China!) and do some other stuff so peace out. Let me know when/if you want to Skype, and we can try to figure out a time.

The Great Wall & Summer Palace- August 27, 2013

So the internet in my hotel hasn't been working and that's why I haven't emailed in a while. I just barely had time today to come to this restaurant with wifi and we're in a hurry to eat and get back for more orientation so I won't write too much. This is the only place I've found so far with good internet! 

The Great Wall was so cool! They said it was the best day they've ever had for going to the Great Wall because it was blue skies and not totally unbearably hot. I didn't even know you could do this, but we took a ski lift thing up to the wall (the view was amazing), and then we took like an Alpine slide thing back down. So fun! I got some really good pictures. The Summer Palace was super pretty and very garden-y and HUGE. Lots of walking. It was rainy yesterday and a little this morning and I loved it. I'm finally getting used to sleeping on the hard beds, it doesn't really bother me too much anymore. I will try to come back here later maybe and attach more pictures and write back to dad and read the other emails, but I'm in a little rush right now.

The Summer Palace

Church, Tianamen Square & Forbidden City- August 25, 2013

Today we went to church at the Beijing branch. It was just in this tall hotel type of building and our meetings were in nice conference rooms. I really enjoyed it. The speakers in sacrament were really good. We also went to Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. You pretty much just walk around and look at it. Tienanmen Square wasn't all that much to look at, but the Forbidden City was a little better. I bet if you looked at it on Google Earth you would have the same experience that I did. Except you wouldn't have the joy of being drenched in your own sweat like I was privileged enough to experience.

We are hiking the Great Wall tomorrow (Monday) so I'm pretty excited about that. All the food we've had has been really good. Cabbage dishes and eggplant are always a good choice, and we had these lid of caramelized yam things that were so good. I haven't had any noodles yet though, and there is a dumpling place around here that I want to try.

I just emailed Lincoln and Bryton, and I sent one to Jordyn and Carly a few days ago. I haven't sent one to Donna yet but I will try to soon. Or you can just tell her about it. I wish my phone would work here and not be expensive because that's how I would prefer to communicate.We will probably get a phone when we go to our cities. Tell the girls good luck starting school!

Where the Beijing LDS branch meets 

Learning the Art of Chinese Bargaining-August 24, 2013

We didn't go to the Great Wall today. We had language training in the morning and then a delicious lunch and then we went to this huge 6 story market where we had to try to bargain with the shopkeepers. It was so weird! Everyone would try to get you to look at their stuff, and if you even looked at something for more than 2 seconds they would try to get you to buy it. I'm so glad we don't bargain in America because it's really annoying. Some vendors were really pushy, and of course they try to rip you off because they know you're foreigners. At one point I was literally in a tug of war with one lady who was trying to get Kaylee to buy some shoes, and we each had one of her arms pulling different directions. She ended up buying the shoes haha.

I bargained only 3 times. I bought some really pretty navy blue leather gloves for about 25 US dollars, which was more than I should have payed. But remember how I said I wanted some gloves like that a while ago? They feel really nice and soft, and it was my first try so I don't feel too bad about getting ripped off. On my second try, I bought some super cute aquamarine and neon green "Nike" tennis shoes. You know like those cute ones you see at the stores? Yeah they aren't technically real, but Spencer said that they actually make good quality fake ones and they are made in the the same types of factories as real Nikes just not the official outsourced Nike factories. I got them for about 20 US dollars, which is extremely cheaper than what I would pay in America. And then my last attempt was kind of scary, but I got the best deal for sure. I was looking at a little doll for Megan and the lady started the price at 85 yuan and I tried to lower it, but of course she was saying she wouldn't go any lower than 65. So I started walking away (because I really didn't even want it) and she started yelling lower and lower prices at me and when she said 15 yuan I went back and bought it. She was upset and she kind of threw it into my bag and I'm pretty sure she was cursing my name in Chinese, haha. 

It's just a weird experience to have people be so forceful and rude when they are trying to sell you things, as opposed to the US where they treat you so well and actually let you leave if you don't want to buy it. I guess here if you walk away they kind of assume that you are just trying to get them to lower the price. A big rule in China so far is don't be polite. Especially if you're a foreigner because everyone thinks you're an idiot haha. It was a really interesting experience, and I think Kaylee and I are going to go back and try to buy and few more things because we didn't bring enough money this time. 

Some people in our group got manicures and pedicures so I think we'll try that too! A pedicure and foot massage sounds so nice right now. So tonight we are going to get a few snack for tomorrow (so we don't have to buy anything on Sunday) and then for dinner we're going try to order our own food at a restaurant. I'm excited to go to church tomorrow. 

The acrobatics show last night was AMAZING. Those people are probably the strongest people on the planet. One girl was dancing pointe on a man's head and shoulders, and there was one of those sphere cages with the motorcycles in them and they had 8 motorcycles in at once! It was crazy. We had to take a subway there and back....it was packed pretty tight. But it was fun, and my first time on a subway! Well we are going to go to dinner now. I'll let you know what we get and if it's any good. I still can't attach pictures, but we are going to try an internet cafe close to our hotel sometime later and see if it works. 

The Night Market in Beijing

Skylar, Danika, and Kaylee outside acrobatics show.

Danika Meets China-August 23, 2013

I haven't blogged for 2 years, but I decided it's time to get back on the wagon. I wanted to post some of Danika's semester in China since it's almost been a year since she left on her adventure. She's been back now for seven months. Here is her first e-mail from Beijing:

Ok so it's about 9:00 AM right now, and my roommate and I are sitting in our hotel room. Are we supposed to be at the Forbidden City? Yes, yes we are. Did our group leave us? Yes, yes they did, Everyone sort of separated to get breakfast before leaving this morning, and I swear my roommate and I didn't take very long at all, but we could not find anyone anywhere. We walked up and down the block looking for a while, but no cigar. So we then tried to get a bus ticket to get ourselves there, but again, no one could really help us. After that we just decided to explore and shop around for somethings that we needed to buy. We found another China Horizons kid who got left behind, and the poor kid was all by himself just pacing down an alley, so he joined us and we all went exploring! We walked all around the streets surrounding our hotel. There's so much stuff to take in, I can't really explain it all right now. It looks just like the movies. I felt like I was the Ramen Girl. Everyone stares at us, especially at me. There's only two other girls with blonde hair in our whole group. I've seen some other Caucasian-looking people around, but I think they're from Europe because they were not speaking English. 

It's not too hot, but it's SUPER muggy and sometimes you get whiffs of really bad smells. I've seen probably ten people spit big loogies on the ground. Some of the stores were really tiny and stuffed with crap, but there were some really nice stores too. It will be easy to find clothes and shoes and a coat and everything from what I've seen today. I definitely could have bought all of my shirts here, but that's ok. We went into this way nice jewelry/gift store and there were cats just walking around in there. It was awesome. We found a nice bakery, and a cute little candy store. I bought a little purse that's the perfect size for my money and passport and chapstick. I bought a little spiral journal to write in, and it's hilarious. I'll attach a picture of it. Customer service isn't really a thing, but they are pretty nice to us. There are ASIANS EVERYWHERE. The little kids are so stinkin cute. We walked into a squatter toilet public bathroom....I will not be doing that unless it's absolutely necessary. I don't think I could even physically squat that low to the ground. My favorite place today was this really nice little bakery we found with amazing cakes and pastries and all that. You can go upstairs to this loft/hangout place with couches and tables and a little workshop where you can make your own cakes and stuff. It's seriously cute. And they all they play is Phil Collins and Elton John so that's good. I took pictures of it. They have dairy stuff here. I had yogurt and an ice cream bar today so that's good. I only want to eat cold things right now because it's so hot. 

Things to be grateful for in America:

1. Air conditioning

2. Clean air that doesn't smell like sewer

3. Safe roads (people drive crazy!)

4. Drinkable tap water

5. You can flush toilet paper

6. No-smoking laws

7. Soft mattresses

Anyway, I have met 3 people that are teaching in Suzhou so far. I know who the others are, but I haven't had time to really meet them yet. We have been really busy today, and I feel too tired to write emails, and it's too hard to include everything in them. Now I know how missionaries feel. I have about 90 mosquito bites on my feet from standing outside with Brandon, and they are not fun. But I'm glad working at Yogotogo made me used to having sore feet from standing all day. We just got the air conditioning in our room to work!! Ok well, China is awesome. I can't wait to go to my school and see all the cute kids. I saw some little kids today and I almost died they were so cute. Literally I almost died ;) Why are Asian kids the cutest kids on the planet? I don't know. So apparently we are going to go to do the stuff we missed today on Sunday. I think Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City are mostly just big open spaces where you walk around a see the few things there are to see. So that will be good. We just have a group dinner and an acrobatics show tonight and then SLEEP. On my brick of a mattress :) 

I don't know if you've already done it, but keep me updated on when you register me for classes, please. And if you hear anything about Garrett. I did not see the Google Doodle because I can only access my email with this hotel internet, but happy birthday Claude. Also it's not letting me attach pictures so maybe I'll try that in another email. Even though we got left behind, today was so awesome, and I'm really glad I got to know the area a little and just become friends with my roommate. She's a really cute girl. Her name is Kaylee and she goes to BYUI. But from now on we know to never lose track of the group haha OK peace out for now!

Danika and Kaylee outside a restaurant in Beijing.

"Awaken the great stone dragon..."

You could say Beijing has a slight pollution problem.

In China you can find food like this...

...or you can find food like this!

Yao Ming