Paris Toilette/My Favorite Places to Eat

Hi all!

My poor computer

     Sorry, it's been a while since I've posted anything, my computer broke from the torrential downpour that came down on Monday. The streets literally turned in to rivers on that day, and the sewage even backed up in Paris Baguette, a snack shop just down the road from the school, which turned it into a real Paris Toilette (pardon my French).

     Other than the torrential downpour, not many exciting things have been happening. My classes have been a little disappointing since there seems to be no real structure in my classes, and I wish we were learning more vocabulary and sentence structure instead of having motivational speech contests (my class split into two, and each group chose one student to represent their group and give a motivational speech in front of the class, and whichever group's speech was more motivational won extra credit). 

     However, when things get rough and school gets to be simply too much, the food here is definetly very comforting. Here's a list of my favorite places to eat in Nanjing!
Side note (s): I didn't put a lot of the more hole in the wall places in my list (there are a lot!). Also, I would be very cautious eating fish, especially at places with questionable hygiene practices (places that are more high-scale should be fine). I say this because I got food poisoning from fish on three separate occasions! Lastly, I haven't mentioned any of my favorite breakfast places, I'll save that for another time.

Chinese Food

Celebrating a friend's birthday at 海底捞! 

老妈: Halal food, cheap, down the street from school

辛香汇 (Spicy Joint): Sichuan style food, Upscale
楼兰：Xianjiang Food, Upscale

海底捞：Hot pot, Upscale (They'll even massage your hands while you're waiting)
Hot Pot in the 水游城 Mall: Again, I forget the name, but it's very good
成都娃娃：Sichuan style food, Upscale
Fish in Paper: Seafood, Upscale
Food Carts: Be careful, but the food they have is usually great                 

Me n the crew at Spicy Joint!

Nanjing style food at 狮子桥：again, I forget the name of the place, but there are a lot of great option around 狮子桥
鲁氐汤包王：Great soup dumplings by the Confucian Temple

Nanjing style food at 狮子桥

Salmon Eggs Benedict at Eat                   

Not Chinese Food
Uncle's Pizza: Pizza (who would have guessed), close to school
Blue Frog: Burgers and nachos and the like
The Korean places on 汉口路: There are two and they're both ok, I forget their names
Skyways: Great sandwiches
This Thai place in 新街口: I forget the name of the place, but it's by a mediocre Vietnamese place called Rice Paper
Taj Mahal: Indian, close to school
Eat: Brunch Food/American Food, Close to school
McDonalds: Because why not?      

Me and my boi Chris Wu at McD's         

Cafes                                          
Lava: Close to school, comfortable, there is a very cute cat that lives there!
Human Coffee: Doubles as a bar at night!
Nannar: Expensive but comfortable

Coffee helping me write my thesis

Melissa at the Bassman

Bars
Helen's: Awful atmosphere, cheap drinks (great specials)
Revolution: Expensive drinks, great for dancing                                              

The Bassman: Scary basement vibes
Tap Planet: Expensive, tasty beer

    Well, that concludes my list! Feel free to ask about any of these places, or post about any more places that you liked to eat at! For next week, I'll be posting about something that I have very much been looking forward to: a week long break for the mid-autumn festival! During this time, my good friend Melissa and I are planning on visiting a town called Suzhou, and then Shanghai. Next week, I plan to share some of my experiences from these two places! Also, as always, any comments or questions are welcome.

A Month in Nanjing!

     This week has been relatively uneventful: finishing homework, making time to sing karaoke on the weekends, and attending classes. Finally, I am starting to get into the rhythm of life in Nanjing, and overall, this experience hasn't been half as stressful as I predicted. Thus, I will take this opportunity to reflect on the Capstone entrance process, starting with the Oral Proficiency Exam, or OPI.
     Before taking the OPI, it is essential to prepare and essentially memorize a professional self introduction. This includes your Chinese name, where you are from, what college you go to, what experience you have in Asian speaking countries, etc. If you prepare and memorize this information, you will also have an easier time completing homework and preparing for interviews at Capstone, because a lot of the Flagship homework either centers around getting a superior score on the American Councils tests, such as the OPI, or preparing of interviews. Also, using very high level, very polite wording is key to achieving a high score.
    Also, every student planning to participate in the Capstone program must take a Reading and Listening exam. It is extremely difficult to prepare for these two tests. The only suggestions that I can think that might help the most are as follows: take your time, but also manage your time wisely, brush up on reading traditional Chinese characters, and know that during the listening test, there will be distracting music/noises in the background.
   As always, if anyone has any questions or comments, please feel free to send them my way. Thank you for reading!

A pic of me studying at Lava with Coffee the cat!

School (kind of) started this last week!

     
   

    The Flagship Center In Nanjing!

     Flagship classes have already started this week! However, many Nanjing University classes haven't started up yet. Thus far, the Flagship classes I have been taking include a media class, a writing class, and an "optimization" class. All of these classes are meant to prepare students for the tests they are meant to take at the end of the program. Here's a quick overview of the content of the classes I've been taking: In my media class, my classmates and I have been brushing up on Chinese current events and are learning to use more high level vocabulary to express our ideas regarding these current events. As for my writing class, I have been learning how to prepare myself for job interviews in China (how are they different from job interviews in the states?). Lastly, the ominous optimization class is essentially a one on one class in which students learn more vocabulary regarding their major, or pretty much any topic that will improve their Chinese. However, on top of taking classes, there are a great deal of tutoring hours; for every class that I am taking, I have about an hour of individual tutoring. On top of that, I have to do around five hours of tutoring with my roommate every week. Although all this tutoring seems like overkill (which it is), at the end of the month, students such as me (NOT the tutors) receive a small stipend of around $1000 RMB depending on the month.

Nanjing University Classes

     So far this week, I have finally chosen two classes at Nanjing University that I want to take! One is a nutrition class, and the other is a class concerning environmental pollution and affects to people's health. However, picking out my classes wasn't easy. For instance, before browsing Nanjing University classes, I did not realize that I would have the option of taking graduate level courses. Also, course catalogs are not standardized across the school, and this can create quite a bit of confusion. For instance, some classes start the first week of September, whereas others start well into October. In addition, many classes are located at the new campus, 仙林 （xiānlín）, as opposed to the campus where the Flagship center is located (all Flagship students are required to live within a certain radius of the Flagship center). For most people, this means the commute will be about an hour long subway ride away, one way.

Here are some tips for choosing your Nanjing University Classes:

-Although Nanjing University is a renown university in China, the quality of teaching is not super great. 
With that being said, I would gravitate towards classes that friends are also interested in (maybe making you more likely to go?), and classes that are all on the Gulou campus. 
-Try something new! 
This is a great time to learn about something that doesn't concern your major!
-Don't take the Nanjing University classes too seriously
important note: I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT FLAGSHIP CLASSES! Do put a lot of effort into Flagship classes. However, even if you get terrible grades in your university classes, the program does offer a great deal of extra credit to help raise your grade. 
-Find a teacher that has very detailed slides in order to better retain the class material
-Find a teacher that speaks more "standard" Chinese to help with listening comprehension

Roommate!
     As for my roommate, who is also my tutor as mentioned above, has proven to be great. She has been extremely helpful and cleanly, and goes above and beyond to make sure I am getting all of my work done and that I feel comfortable. In addition, she keeps buying me gifts! Giving small gifts in China is a way to show someone that you like them, so be prepared!

My Roommate!



Left: Me!; Middle: My Roommate Zhang Ying; Right: Alison

     However, this is not to say that we haven't had some minor differences. One of them is that my roommate washes her clothes everyday; I have learned that this is not a behavior that is endemic to my roommate, but is actually a common practice throughout China. This can get a little bit tiresome if the drying room for hanging clothes is in your room, or if I need to go to the bathroom/take a shower and the sink is being used. In addition, sense of privacy is a little different in China than it is in the United States. For example, my roommate entered my room (even though the door was closed), and put some of her items in my room temporarily. I did talk to her and ask her not to open my door, especially if I am not home, and she apologized in great detail, but at first it was a little unnerving. But overall, she has been a great person to live with, and a phenomenal tutor! 

     That concludes this week's blog post, feel free to ask any questions or leave a comment below, and thank you for reading!

Week 3(ish) in China!

     I have had quite the adventure this past week and a half or so, from trying to see all the sights Nanjing has to offer, to preparing for school, to dealing with being sick. First off, I haven't found a lot to do in Nanjing, especially considering that the weather is either scorching or cold and rainy, so many of the activities that I have been able to partake in have either been indoors at various shopping malls or have been at nighttime when the weather is bearable. So far, my most favorite place to go has been 夫子庙  (fū zǐ miào),or in English, the Confucian Temple. At first, I was under the impression that the surrounding scenery would be tranquil and peaceful like most temples are, but, especially at night, the  Confucius Temple is PACKED with people. There are various shops lining the streets with lots of clothes and tasty food to buy, as well as beautiful scenery (i.e. waterways and pagodas). 

A picture of a pagoda near the Confucian Temple

There's a fun boat tour right at the Confucian Temple!

     Not far from the Confucius Temple is my favorite shopping mall so far: 水游城, or "Aqua City". There's a lot of really tasty things to eat there that's definitely a little more expensive than your average meal (picture below) and some fairly affordable things to buy. They also have a really fun slogan: "水平方" (shuǐpíng fāng), which supposedly sounds like "shopping fun".

A seafood boil my friend and I got at the restaurant Fish in Paper at Aqua City!

     This week has also been packed with various speeches, lectures, and an entrance test. Most of the students have already taken the entrance test, which is only used to measure student's individual improvement, not to place students in classes (placement in flagship classes is decided well before students arrive in Nanjing). I have not yet taken the entrance exam because I was sick (just the flu), and luckily my teachers allowed me to take it at another time. However, I was present for some of the speeches.

A funny photo of Mr. Chen. He helps run the program,
 and gives A LOT of speeches. I got to know him very
well over the course of the year (as do most of the
students), and most people either despise him or give
into the stolholm syndrome and respect him.

     By far, the most useful speeches were the ones given by flagship students that had moved onto their internship portion of their time abroad. They talked over many useful topics, such as how to succeed in our language classes, how to best complete the required ten hours of community service, and how to battle homesickness. I was surprised by how much the previous cohort wanted to help us; even after the presentation, I was able to get dinner with them, and they were really happy to tell me all the ins and outs of the program. After spending a good while soaking in my peer's advice, most of their advice boiled down to this: communication, communication, communication. If you are having any difficulties, your teachers should be willing to work with you to better improve your Chinese, whether that be adding extra tutoring hours, or giving out homework extensions. So, for those who are planning on going on Capstone, I would strongly recommend reaching out to the cohort that is already on their internship phase.  

Dinner with the Spring Cohort!

     Lastly, I would like to talk about homework/first day of classes. As mentioned earlier, teachers are very forgiving, and even if you don't have everything together by the first class period, as long as students are trying, that's all that really matters. In addition, the teachers themselves are somewhat unorganized. In the end, it all comes together, and the main thing to remember is to not be too nervous in order to make a good impression, especially with Mr. Chen, who is the head Flagship teacher at Nanjing University. 

     Next week I will (hopefully) be discussing adjusting to life with a Chinese roommate, how all of my Flagship classes are going, and which Nanjing University classes I will be taking! As always, please feel free to ask me questions or comment below.