Just a Quick Update

I'm back safely from my weekend home stay. It went pretty well; the parents were very nice and generous, but their daughter didn't speak English very well, so it was a little bit awkward as we had a communication barrier. It seems like most students got paired up with Chinese students who were English majors, but mine was a Computer Science major, so her English was not as good.

I'll try to post a more detailed account of my experience soon, but since there is so much to say, it has been hard to find the time to sit down and type it all out.

Sunday afternoon, after returning to the school, we attended a Peking Opera performance. There were a total of 3 plays (about 45 minutes each). The first and third play were "Wenxi," meaning that they focus on singing and music to move the story forward. There were not quite as interesting as the middle play, which was a "Wuxi," or fighting play. This style play focuses on acrobatic style fighting and can be enjoyed even without a good understanding of the language. Many of the younger Chinese people I have spoken with seem to find the Peking Opera not interesting (as many young Americans also find our opera not interesting) and the crowd at the show was our group and elderly Chinese.

I've posted a few pictures from the opera under the "Around Tianjin" album on my webshots page.

More to come soon....