Students In China 2010
May 30, 2010
Today was my first experience on a plane. I am 5’7 but I have the same leg length as my 6’3 husband. I tell you this to convey a sense that my legs are really quite long. Eleven hours straight on a plane with legs too long to cross without hitting the person in front of you. Read more...
Victoria Trarback
May 31, 2010
We arrived in Xi’an late last night…a few hours later than was originally intended, because of delays on EVERY SINGLE AIRCRAFT. It was a bit absurd…but we made it safe and sound, with decent flights and a little bit of sleep. Read more...
Melanie Willerth
The Chinese can really cook! I awoke and headed down to breakfast to be treated to nothing any Chinese restaurant outing at home could have possibly prepared me for. The food was varied and delicious, and so much more then I expected. Read more...
Victoria Trarback
June 1, 2010
After a very exhausting and frustrating day of traveling we finally made it! It’s hard to believe that we are actually in China! Read more...
Sarah Sandall
Being in a different country and culture can definitely present some challenges. After our archeological lecture this morning we again split off into different groups to explore a bit more of the city of Xi’an. Read more...
Melanie Willerth
We woke up early today; my body decided it was let’s get going time about 6am. After a fulfilling breakfast we started our walk to the university for our first class. Read more...
Victoria Trarback
June 2, 2010
Hello from China. The trip continues to go great! Today was another very full day. The days tend to start at 8:30 and we go pretty steadily until 4 or 5. Read more...
Randy Johnson
Well I have been in Xi’an now for three days so I figured it was time for a blog post! I find this place to be VERY intriguing; the city itself is beautiful in its own way. There is so much greenery and parks here it makes home feel like a cement pad. Read more...
Jessica L. Hansen
Today I got to ride a bike on an extremely important and ancient piece of history of Xi’an, the City Wall. The City Wall is almost 14 kilometres in distance around and it was quite the bike ride in the heat and humidity, but while difficult it was extremely rewarding. Read more...
Victoria Trarback
I feel like I got a lot more than I both bargained and paid for today. All that we were told was that we were going to get a tour of the Ancient City, and since this is a city that holds millions of people and has countless artifacts, no one was quite sure as to what this tour would entail. Read more...
Melanie Willerth
On June 2 we went on our first tour! We went to downtown Xi’an and went to the top of the city wall which surrounds the city of Xi’an. We rented bikes and biked 13.7 km around the wall! The view from the top of the wall was unbelievable. Read more...
Sarah R. Sandall
June 3, 2010
This trip has been filled with little pleasant surprises. Here are two examples of “cultural snacks” that we were able to sample in or near historical sites that we visited. Read more...
Choonlee Chai
Today I got to ride a bike on an extremely important and ancient piece of history of Xi’an, the City Wall. The City Wall is almost 14 kilometres in distance around and it was quite the bike ride in the heat and humidity, but while difficult it was extremely rewarding. Read more...
Victoria Trarback
June 4, 2010
Friday was a very interesting day. We had an absolutely amazing lecture in the morning about folklore culture in the Shaanxi province. The professor was so funny and tried to include us in everything and make sure we were having fun. Read more...
Sarah Sandall
We started our day again at 8:30 am. I find myself skipping breakfast here more and more. While the food is incredible and delicious, it is rather heavy compared to what I usually eat. At 8:30 sharp we headed for our walk over to the campus for our morning class. Read more...
Victoria Trarback
This morning we had our second lecture in Xi’an. While the first one was chalk full of information about the city we are living in, we were all very tired and unable to listen to what was going on. This lecture, however, was an entirely different story. Read more...
Melanie Willerth
June 5, 2010
Today we went on another tour! After a very long bus ride where I struggled to stay awake we arrived at the Empresses tomb. There has only been one Empress in the history of China. At the site was her tablet which has 8 interwoven dragon’s on the top and carvings of dragons in the sides. Read more...
Sarah R. Sandall
As a norm, bargaining in general is not an acceptable practice in grocery stores or shopping malls or event summer street vendors in Canada. In my lectures, I sometimes suggest students to bargain with shop keepers or cashiers at grocery stores as a way to conduct the “Breaching Experiment”, which is also called “Garfinkeling” – to take the name of its originator Harold Garfinkel. Read more...
Choonlee Chai
Today did not happen as planned. We all woke up early expecting to go on a tour of a princesses tomb, an empresses tomb and to see the great Buddhist Temple, but had to make a change of plans when our tour bus ended up being late and then being involved in an accident on the way to come and get us. Read more...
Melanie Willerth
Some one tried to pickpocket me today! While on the bus some one had snuck up behind me and managed to riffle through my backpack. Read more...
Victoria Trarback
June 6, 2010
Today was one of the best days in China for me yet. Though there were some scary driving experiences (scary for me as a Canadian, normal for the Chinese populace), we made it to three very interesting locations. Read more...
Melanie Willerth
Today was kind of a lazy day because it was raining, which made my day when I first woke up because it has been so hot here. We had another lecture today at the university and we got to meet a famous opera singer. Read more...
Jessica L. Hansen
Yesterday we had a lecture on the Chinese Opera and the history of the opera dating back From an academic perspective today was the most interesting day thus far. Read more...
Victoria Trarback
June 7, 2010
Today was a good day in China, but also a difficult day. We were able to sleep in this morning, which was nice, and then we attended a lecture regarding the opera that we saw on Friday night. Read more...
Melanie Willerth
Yesterday we had a lecture on the Chinese Opera and the history of the opera dating back thousands of years. A very famous actress in China was actually the one that ran the lecture and one guy filmed it for TV which is pretty neat! Read more...
Sarah Sandall
We began our day an hour late, and the extra sleep was welcome. At 9:30 we headed for our walk over to the university campus to attend a lecture about the Chinese opera, and a bit of discussion about the play we had seen the previous Friday. Read more...
Victoria Trarback
June 8, 2010
Cultural transposition involves the transfer of a cultural artefact from one cultural location to the other. Read more...
Choon-Lee Chai
Today has been a difficult one for me in China. I’ve been trying really hard to appreciate my time here, to enjoy every moment because I know that the moment is fleeting Read more...
Melanie Willerth
Today we went on yet another tour! It was another long drive but this one was on much better roads than the last one. Read more...
Sarah Sandall
Today we got to go to a Taoist Temple which definitely made up for the last we visited. Read more...
Jessica L. Hansen
Today sucked. Royally. I woke up with a super nasty sore throat and that snowballed into a fever that lasted on and off all day. Read more...
Victoria Trarback
June 9, 2010
The children here in China are adorable. They want to come and explore us ‘white folk’ with great intensity and openness. Read more...
Melanie Willerth
We got to walk through and explore a little bit and got to look into the buildings where Buddha and other gods were. Read more...
Sarah Sandall
Happy Birthday Tyler!!!! Just though I would throw that in there because it is my friend’s birthday back home and since I have no access to North American Facebook server Read more...
Jessica L. Hansen
The Buddhist temple was one of the most rewarding trips of my travels so far. Walking in all I could think was “now this is what I was expecting!”. Read more...
Victoria Trarback
June 10, 2010
This morning we had a very informative lecture about sociological theory and the way sociological research works in modern day China. Read more...
Sarah Sandall
Is there universality in numerical sign language? Probably. When someone raises the index finger in a circumstance that involves enumeration, most of us probably know what it means. Read more...
Choon-Lee Chai
Today was kind of a bah hum bug day for me, I was very ill this morning and ended up missing our lecture which made me disappointed because it was a very good one! Read more...
Jessica L. Hansen
The social sciences are a relatively new field in China, and today our lecture focused on a broad overview of sociology in Chinese society. Read more...
Victoria Trarback.
June 11, 2010
Late last night my roommate Sarah and I had another cultural experience. As we were reading in bed, I started to smell burning rubber of some sort. Read more...
Melanie Willerth
Today we went on an extremely long bus ride to the Wuzhang Plateaus to where a very famous General planned military action. The bus ride was not the most enjoyable but there were very pretty views up there! Read more...
Sarah Sandall
Oh my goodness it was so bloody hot today, I feel like I’m just melting away especially on our long bus trip out to the Wuzhang Plateau. Read more...
Jessica L. Hansen
We climbed aboard the bus today with a goal in mind; hermit living. Unfortunately this was not to be the case. Read more...
Victoria Trarback
June 12, 2010
Yet again it was another beautiful day here in Xi’an the temperature must have been upwards of thirty plus degrees centigrade. Read more...
Jessica L. Hansen
Today was one of my favourite days here. We had another bus ride and this time went out to the mountains to a national park. Read more...
Sarah R. Sandall
June 13, 2010
This morning we had a very informative lecture about the modern history of China beginning with the opium war in 1841. Read more...
Sarah R. Sandall
It is hard to believe that we only have three more full days in China. Read more...
Melanie Willerth
Today we woke up and headed out to attend a lecture given by Professor Lee. It was informative, extremely well done and embodied everything I had looked forward to in a lecture when I signed up for this study tour. Read more...
Victoria Trarback
Today was the day of our last lecture and it was with Professor Li on contemporary China. The over all lecture was very good it was very neat to learn why some of things in China are the way they are. Read more...
Jessica L. Hansen
June 14, 2010
Today was another wicked day, I have noticed that it is very hard for me to have a bad day here since there is so much that interests me everywhere especially the people. Read more...
Jessica L. Hansen
This morning we went to the Banpo museum, a place where some of us had been excited about seeing since our first lecture when the scholar on the area told us about the Banpo people and the museum that represented them. Read more...
Melanie Willerth
Today was a very enjoyable day for me. A small group of us went to the Banpo Museum which is said to be a matriarchal society. Read more...
Sarah R. Sandall
June 15, 2010
Today we went on another long bus ride and got to travel through the largest tunnel in Asia and second largest in the world! Read more...
Sarah R. Sandall
Today was just a terrific day; we went to the Zhushui Karst Caves which took about an hour to and hour and a half bus ride to get there. Read more...
Jessica L. Hansen
June 16, 2010
In the first lecture here in Xi’an, Prof. Li Jiajun mentioned the often-quoted saying about how the different main cities in China represent different facets of Chinese history. Read more...
Choonlee Chai
Well today was our last full day here in China, and I must say I am sad to go. Today was a very good day fist we went to Lily’s house which I must say is much bigger than I thought it was going to be. Read more...
Jessica L. Hansen
Today is a bittersweet day; it’s our last day in China! This morning we went to our tour guide Lily’s house to celebrate the dragon boat festival. Read more...
Sarah R. Sandall
June 18, 2010
Well…our trip took an unexpected turn on our way home. There was a large thunderstorm in Beijing, and as we were trying to leave Xi’an we ended up spending almost 11 hours in the airport before we finally got on our flight out of the city. Read more...
Melanie Willerth
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