Cultural Excursions in Beijing: Cuan Di Xia（爨底夏） and Ping Yao（平遥）

We went on two cultural excursions during our 6-week program. They were both very enjoyable for me to see other parts of China.

First we went to the countryside- Cuan Di Xia. The city is small and old-fashioned, with courtyard-type homes and pictures of Mao still hanging in the bedrooms. The city's main source of income is tourism.

Me n' Mao in one of our "bedrooms"

Amazing mountains.

Awkward family selfie

View from the top of our hike.

Sweaty and loving life

View of our dinner tables, the courtyard in the center of surrounded bedrooms. It could sleep like 30 people (5 on each hard long bed)

Best food I have ever tasted. Honestly.

I found the food in the countryside to be more fresh, less greasy, and with more vegetables. It reminded me of how my momma cooks. So delicious.

I loved this first cultural excursion. The second was equally cool - in Ping Yao. We went for 3 days at the end of our program. We got to see a lot of historical sights. The town is pretty well preserved. All the streets in Ping Yao are narrow and dirt. And all the houses are low. It feels like you're in a cat and mouse maze.

This statue's mouth is shut symbolizing how women shouldn't talk? WATCHME

Good luck if you rub his belly

Cool wooden dragons that looks like they're about to fall apart

Cool shot from outside looking into a famous Chinese man's home (HUGE, he did export goods)

Little feet and a big umbrella.

Ping Yao is known for their noodles. Notice most of the dishes are some sort of noodle.

This man's genealogy- SOCOOL right? I thought it was fascinating.

Good luck if you kiss the lion. Notice a trend?

Beautiful garden

Me n' my closest friend Mary Christina

To appease all my family members who thought I'd get married in China, I started dating this handsome Chinese warrior. We got pretty serious.

selfie in our "cart"

Our "hotel" in Ping Yao - one of my favorite places we stayed. All very ancient looking and also super cheap. Less than $100 USD

This restaurant had photos of all the famous communists. Notice any? Ha ha.

We went to this place where you can have all these little fish eat the fungus off your feet. It was the worst feeling ever. I was surprised at what a whimp I was. I couldn't keep my feet in there for more than 2 seconds, literally. It was so gross!!

The fish swarming. *eew*

Ping Yao night life. No edits. One of my favorite pictures and such a cool atmosphere. Everyone was out and about and I especially loved the lanterns.

Okay. If you say so.

At Ping Yao's "great wall" around their city.

You can kind of get a feel for what the city looks like here. Tons of people, narrow streets, and ancient-style houses.

We also toured the city's political center offices, which included too much details about ancient forms of torture. It was disturbing.

And learned how to shoot bows and arrows

Great shot of our group.

We took an overnight train back to Beijing, which I absolutely loved. It was so comfortable. Oh besides that large Chinese man snoring up a storm with his belly hanging over the side of his bunk . . . ha ha.

ACC K-12 Program in Beijing: what I did every day

How did I get to go to Beijing? Well, I got accepted to attend a 6-week teacher training program at Minzu University in Beijing. It was funded by a fulbright scholarship, which covered airfare, some food, housing, travel, and two cultural excursions. I had about 4 hrs of homework every day, learning and memorizing usually up to 100 vocabulary words a day, reading texts, or preparing presentations or teaching demonstrations. The coursework was heavy, but it was motivating 99% of the time. I loved it. There were 11 other participants from around the United States. We were all about the same level of Chinese proficiency, with varying levels of experience. I made some pretty awesome friends there and learned a ton.

And fortunately, we had one of the teachers that was great at taking candid, somewhat awkward photos of us so I have some great documentation of what we did with the program every day:

In front of our Minzu University sign :)

Us reading with some kids at a Chinese public school.

Presenting on the Chinese language 5 modes of communication. Nice hands right?

Discussing some concepts

Presenting for native speakers who will eventually go to America to teach Chinese.

Presentation on positive modes of reinforcement, creating a positive classroom environment

Trying to prep them for how American kids REALLY are ;) ha ha.

Learning about Chinese "tea" culture. Still don't know what that means, ha ha.

Smelling some tea clay bottle things. I am hesitant.

Doing a teaching demonstration about comparing Chinese and American holidays

 

Visiting a private school in China - it was crazy the discrepency in educational materials between private/public schools

Sitting in a boring lecture :)

All of us teachers as well as the private school teachers

Doing a "cultural activity" at the park

Learning some Tai Chi

Playing a Chinese game (kick the jianzi)

At the park with the other teachers

Learning about Chinese writing with a makeshift sponge brush. So creative, right?

Learning...whatever this is...Can't remember...

Play a ridiculously fun game in the park.

Us with some of my closest friends and teachers from the program.

What our homework looked like every day. Response questions.

The walk on campus to the west gate. Beautiful, right?

Bad pic of me with all of my Chinese teachers.

Receiving my certification of completion

Me with my favorite teacher, Zhou Qu, on the last day of class.