Calligraphy Class & Coffee Crash

Saturday January 12^th, 2013

It’s the beginning of your weekend, Saturday. You’ve spent the past five days working which sometimes requires skipping out on sleep to make ends meet. Nothing would be better than to recharge by getting a full night’s rest. Am I right? Of course! Too bad I still woke up at 5:50AM in order to be on time for today’s Rotary 2^nd orientation and culture class. XD That’s the bad thing when the event’s location is on the extreme far end of the subway line. (I live on the extreme right when the event was on the extreme left) After riding about 4/19 stations down the line, I lost consciousness and only remembered choosing the next song to listen to for my iPod. Then getting off at the destination station, tiredness was prominent in my system. I found a buddy exchange student who was also sleepy and went together for coffee at 7-Eleven. We bought our drinks, met up at the meeting place, took the bus as a huge pack of foreigners and arrived at the building where Rotary resided in for the day.

The first part of the second orientation was basically to tell us rules concerning our Eastern culture trip coming up and confusing advertisement for an optional Chinese exam. I say “confusing” because the lady was blasting through the information…all in Chinese. All I could understand were bits like “school,” “library,” “foreigners,” “test,” etc. Even a Rotarian was making ‘slow down’ hand motions that were ineffective.

Already a couple hours passed and we had a coffee break/snack time. There was fruit, little sandwiches, sweets, tea and of course coffee available. Since I already had coffee this morning, I chose a cup of tea instead. During this break both Braden and I were called over by a Rotarian to discuss our host family situation. We had a problem because exchange students should have three host families total but none were available to be our third family. That’s thanks to Lea dropping out of our host family rotation. So the Rotarian wanted our thoughts and opinions of what to do. He brought up the option of going back to our first host family. I nearly had a heart attack at the mention (reasons why are not meant for this blog) but Braden saved me by suggesting to stay with our second host family.

This soon was agreed upon and decided that the both of us would stay where we are until the end of our exchange. It can be viewed both a good and a bad thing. Bad because we don’t get to experience a third Taiwanese family’s lifestyle (though technically I did for a week and a half at my temporary family’s house). Good because we can strengthen our current family’s relationship and really settle in the house. I really like my current family and would like to develop a close bond. As they show me Taiwanese culture they are also interested in Texas since their son is there on an exchange, which gives me a great opportunity to positively represent my state and country. Though the transportation distance can be a pain, I’m really pleased I can stay here for the next five months. ^_^

For the second half of the orientation a big problem popped up within my veins. One I haven’t experienced in years. The lack of sleep must have triggered an adrenaline release and the morning coffee (which is usually ineffective) horribly clashed together. Andrea was shaking in her seat from hyperness. At first it started with innocent leg bouncing but transformed into my heart pounding with every beat as if bursting out of my chest. I admit it kinda hurt a bit. When the time for groups to give a short talk about their experience in Taiwan, I sprang out of my seat desperate to stand up. My two-minute talk about martial arts club had so much energy and enthusiasm that I excited myself even more. Sitting back down was painful as my heart raced on. Oh gosh it was bad and dangerous.

A pizza lunch was provided and I took the opportunity to release a chuck of energy by moving around by doing whatnot. A friend I ate with (Mariko) helped with my problem by showing me some taibo to burn energy on. She also advised drinking water to flush out or at least dilute the caffeine and adrenaline. I did both but still was not revived when the culture class began (in the same building). This class featured the ancient art of calligraphy.

Whoo! It was my first time to get a lesson in calligraphy and practice with ink. (I tried once before with a practice pad and water but failed miserably since I didn’t have any instruction nor knew what the heck I was doing XD) First we were taught how to hold the brush and our body posture. Then how to properly ink your brush and of course some strokes to dorm basic Chinese characters. Beginning strokes were a horizontal line with a tail at the end and a plain vertical line. Later we moved onto a 90° angle and upgraded to a full box. With these few strokes, we could paint several characters that are used during Chinese New Years. Our whole goal was to paint lucky calligraphy on red paper as is tradition in Chinese culture. These papers are mounted on the house’s walls during Chinese New Years and left up for the entire following year to bring in luck, wealth and happiness.

The learning process for the most part was watching the teacher writing the characters and then figuring out how to do it ourselves. Now and then an adult would come over and try to help you. Try is the key word. Most of them took hold of your hand and brush trying to correctly guide them. Let me tell you, it never worked, not for me nor for other exchange students I talked to. You could tell where my hand was controlled because my character went from looking fair to horribly scribbly and jagged. Let’s just say Andrea wasn’t too fond of this.

We were told calligraphy should be done in a calm serene environment such as outside with trickling water sounds, gentle breezes and the aroma of trees. What did we get? Inside with adults constantly surrounding you with cameras or the intent of taking over your hand. I could barely write a full character without an interruption. That got frustratingly stressful. Mix in a harsh, emotionally rackety crash from the period of bursting hyperness, I bit my tongue hard to remain sane.

But yes, the crash. Oh my gosh it was beyond terrible. It was downright horrendous! The feeling of about to pass out was constantly present, I couldn’t stand up without my head spinning and the paintbrush became really heavy to hold up. For a while I just stared at my arm trying to get it to lift up the brush. It was like I was a Jedi trying to use the force to move my own body. XD The crash overall was totally atrocious.

Here’s my final product of calligraphy. The top right red square is the character for spring. It’s a very common one to use during Chinese New Years but the way you post it on your wall is by turning it upside down. By doing this it symbolisms bringing spring in and that encompasses wealth, happiness, fortune and all that jazz.

Group #1 (a.k.a. my group) with several Rotarians, the teacher (blue/white sweater) and our calligraphy products.

Afterwards many exchange students went to Ximen to watch a movie. Two girls and I tagged along to walk them to the theater but we didn’t want to watch for a movie. Instead we went around the place looking for K-Pop stores. All three of us are fans. In total three different stores were found but none sold official merchandise. They might have had several legit items but most looked like rip offs. Whether they were or not didn’t matter because if the stuff was cool that’s all that mattered. To my surprise I actually found a spurt of J-Rock in one store. And part of that spurt was my beloved Miyavi! There was a mug and pillow of him that squeezed out a squeal from me. The mug was too dirty with dust and heavy to consider buying. The pillow was pretty expensive for something that I could do myself back in the states. With that being said I have a pillow idea when back in Texas. ;P

One of the girls (Mariko) left our group, which left Sophie and I to grab ‘dinner.’ Neither of us were really hungry but I needed something to consume because I was still feeling really dizzy from the crash. We found a Coca-Cola restaurant and ordered sweet drinks. The waitress messed up my order and gave me cold mint chocolate instead of hot mint chocolate. Oh well I still got some type of drink.

Mi Arizonian amiga's drink.

The ‘spoons/scoopers’ each came with were really questionable. Sophie’s was a mermaid and mine was a long orange stick with hands at both ends. Not very effective tools to eat with. Nonetheless they were the source of many an outburst of laughter from the both of us. Such jokes varied from me saying, “High five!” and then putting up my plastic hand stick or us dressing the mermaid in a napkin to cover up the weirdness of using an unclothed girl for eating a slushie. Good times. :)

When back at the house my host family gave me a whole two-tiered box of wedding cookies. They went to a family wedding today (I would’ve gone too if not for the Rotary event) and they were given two of these boxes. So they kept one for themselves and gave one to me. Oh holy…so many cookies. I sense a sharing time/forcing upon friends in the future. XD It’s sweet of them to give me it. The box is so cute that I plan on using it as a storage device. Recycling, whoo! ;D

Good night all!