Halden is from Pinehurst, NC and participated in the China Summer 2018 program.
大家好！我的中文名字是李静辰，英文名字是Halden Levin。今年夏天我去了中国成都，是个NSLI-Y汉语的学生，在成都双流中学实验学校学了六个星期的汉语。这个夏天以前，我在网上学了两年多的汉语了 但是我觉得在网上学习中文很难，因为没有面对面的中文老师。去中国以前，我感到有点儿紧张，因为我知道我说得比较慢，听力非常不好，认识的汉字很少，写中文太难了！我应该怎么办？
Hello everyone! My Chinese name is Li Jingchen, and my English name is Halden Levin. This summer I went to Chengdu, China as a Mandarin Chinese NSLI-Y student. At the Experimental School of SMS, I studied Chinese for six weeks. Before this summer, I learned Chinese online for two years, but I think learning Chinese online is really hard because there’s no face-to-face Chinese teacher. Before going to China, I felt a little nervous because I knew my speaking was slow, listening skills were very poor, ability to recognize characters wasn’t the best, and I also felt writing was a bit too hard! What should I do?
第一天在成都，我和我的接待妹妹、接待妈妈见面了。我的接待妹妹，叫吴璨，在开幕式发表演讲的时候，我掉下了快乐的眼泪，因为她让我感到欢迎。开幕式以后，吴璨在学校的对面和我一起去一家小卖部买冰淇淋。虽然我告诉她：“我吃饱了！”，但是她坚持我需要试一试中国冰淇淋。我吃了一根牛奶冰棒以后，笑着说：“很好吃！” 到那会儿，我不但吃得非常饱，而且还非常高兴。
On the first day in Chengdu, I met my host sister and host mom. At the opening ceremony when my host sister, named Wu Can, gave a speech I started to cry happy tears because she made me feel welcome. After the opening ceremony, Wu Can and I went to a small convenient store in front of the school to purchase ice cream. Although I told her I was full, she insisted I needed to try Chinese ice cream. When I ate a milk popsicle, I smiled and said, “Very delicious!” By that time, I was not only extremely full, but also extremely happy.
几天以后，他们开始认识我，我告诉了我的接待家人：“我是个很奇怪的美国人，因为我最喜欢去跑步，不吃牛肉或者猪肉，每天吃太多蔬菜水果什么的。” 每天他们让我去跑步，从星期一到星期五我常常在学校的操场跑步，周末在他们的小区跑步。我的接待爸爸和我一起跑了一天，而我的接待妹妹和我一起跑了几天。另外，我的接待妈妈每天做很好吃的菜，比如西红柿鸡蛋、木耳、papa 菜、鸡腿和南瓜。回家的时候，她常常给我很多水果，我最喜欢荔枝、梨、李子、西瓜、苹果和桃子。
After a few days, as they started to get to know me, I told my host family, “I am a very weird American because I love to run, I don’t eat beef or pork, every day I eat too many vegetables and fruit, etc.” Every day they let me run. From Monday to Friday, I often ran at the school’s playground. On the weekends, I ran at their apartment community. As a matter of fact, one day my host dad ran with me, and my host sister ran a few days with me too. In addition, my host mom made delicious food every day, such as stir-fried egg and tomato, wood ear mushrooms, vegetables in broth, chicken legs, and pumpkin squash. After returning home, she often gave me fruit. My favorites were lychee, pears, plums, watermelon, apples, and peaches.
第一天去上中文课，吴璨的同学告诉我我看起来很漂亮，可是我觉得我看起来很奇怪，因为我的头发是金色的卷发，我的眼睛是蓝色的，羊群里头出骆驼。在中国很多人看着我奇怪的样子，有的人想跟我一起拍照片，一些想要我教他们的孩子们英文。回到美国的时候，我觉得每个人看起来很奇怪，因为在中国大部分的人看起来很像：黑色的头发、深色的眼睛、白色的皮肤。
On the first day I went to Chinese class, Wu Can’s classmates told me I looked very beautiful, but I thought I looked weird because I have blonde, curly hair, and my eyes are blue. I stuck out like a camel in a flock of sheep. Many people in China stared at my weird appearance. Some people wanted to take a picture with me, and some wanted me to teach their children English. When I arrived back in America, I thought everyone looked very weird because many people in China look very similar: black hair, dark eyes, white skin.
我最喜欢的一天是7月31日，因为我和我的接待妈妈一起花了很长时间一边走路一边聊天。我们一起去一家很大的商场，我们每层楼都走了。我们没买东西，只聊天。因为这个经历，我开始更多认识我的接待妈妈，她也开始更多认识我。我学到了中国人在中国种香蕉，我觉得这个很有意思。另外，我也学到了我的接待妈妈喜欢热的气候，因为热的地方有很多很多水果。
My favorite day was July 31st because my host mom and I spent a long time walking and talking together. We went to a shopping mall together and walked on every floor. We didn’t buy things, only chatted. Because of this experience, I started to become more familiar with my host mom, and she also started to become more familiar with me. I learned that Chinese people grow bananas in China; I thought this was very interesting. Additionally, I learned my host mom likes hot weather because hot places have lots and lots of fruit.
最后一天，我很早起床，因为我的接待家人会送我去双流飞机场。我的接待妈妈需要上班，所以她不能送我去。在他们的房子，我的接待妈妈给我很大的拥抱，我们开始掉眼泪。我不知道我应该说什么，所以我只说了“谢谢”。跑步以后，我的接待爸爸和吴璨送我去双流飞机场。到飞机场的时候，我看到所有的朋友们，我不想哭，但是我又开始哭。很多人哭了，因为我们知道可能很久不会在一起。我会永远记得他们。
On the last day, I woke up very early because my host family was going to take me to the Shuangliu Airport. My host mom had to go to work, so she couldn’t go to send me off. At their home, m y host mom gave me a big hug. We started to shed tears. I didn’t know what to say, so I only said thank you. After running, my host dad and Wu Can took me to the Shuangliu Airport. When we arrived at the airport, I saw all of my friends. I didn’t want to cry, but I started to cry again. Many people cried because we knew it could be a long time before we’d be together. I will forever remember them.
I wanted to express some of my favorite memories in Chinese to the best of my abilities. A special thanks goes out to my wonderful Chinese teacher, 湖老师, who helped fix some of my errors. Here are a few more thoughts and reflections from my experience in China I would like to share with you.
1. There She Goes Again
There are some characteristics that define you as a person across languages and cultures. For over three years, I’ve been an avid runner, running in snow and in rain and in pain and in China, and overtime, I’ve realized how running allows me to connect almost instantaneously with new people I meet. A few years ago, I went to Sen Lin Hu, the Concordia Chinese Language Village in Minnesota, and there I met a man named Binga, a man with the body of a runner and the mind of an artist. His accent and my less than standard Chinese skills made communication between us, at least in Chinese, very difficult. However, early every morning, I would wake up and run down the dirt road to the outskirts of the village and back, and almost every morning, I would see him too, and occasionally he would look at me and say “很厉害！” Every time, I couldn’t help but smile; I felt as if he knew me and I knew him in a way words could not describe.
On the NSLI-Y program, in China, I carried this part of me along with, continuing to run. Though my host family lived forty to fifty minutes from my host sister’s and my school, every weekday, they would drive my host sister and I there an hour before classes started. Immediately, I would drop my backpack off upstairs in one of the classrooms and then would run down the stairs and onto the track. Rain or shine (风无雨足) , I would run upwards of twenty laps around the track, and every day, my host parents gave me hard boiled eggs and a banana for a snack. My rather immense love of running again became one of my defining characteristics. When other students on the program saw me run, they would often encourage me onward. A few times, girls from the school hosting us ran with me. When talking to others, my host parents would talk about my running addiction, seeming almost proud as if they were my parents by blood. Even the principal asked me how far I was running.
In going to a foreign country, never forget who you are and what defines you as a person. Consider who you are in America and how you can extend those parts of you in other countries because those characteristics and passions help you form relationships and connections where language barriers otherwise inhibit. In every single country, you will find people who love music, who love drawing, who love sports, and practically any sort of thing you can love. Be that crazy runner, that phenomenal artist, that spectacular singer; be whoever you are in your full capacity.
2. Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes
I am not a fashion model. I am not drop dead gorgeous. If the weather is humid, which it often is in the Sichuan province, my hair gets quite frizzy. Considering I run quite a bit, I often smell salty from the copious amount of sweat I excrete. All this is to say, I found it rather odd when strangers would come up to me and tell me I was beautiful. Flattered and startled, I would often turn red, say thank you, smile, and move on. On one of the first days in China, we were at the Great Wall of China, and a random man came up to me, and in broken English, asked to take a picture with me. Odd as it was, I said yes, or at least nodded, and afterwards, he told me I was beautiful.
This wasn’t an isolated occurrence, it happened again with another man and a few times with some younger girls and also with some Chinese students. I even received small presents for being… well…me? At Tiananmen Square, an older man, who was face timing his parents, came up to me and asked me to tell them hello. I think people took interest in me because, in China, I was an anomaly with my blue eyes and blonde-ish, curly hair. I stuck out like a camel in a flock of sheep (羊群里头出骆驼). Fitting in was simply not an option.
The diversity of people in America is so different from that in China. This isn’t to say that China isn’t a diverse nation, it is, but the diversity that exists in China is of a whole different type. For one thing, the diversity of dialects in China is rather intimidating. When I began learning Chinese, I had originally believed that the only derivations were Mandarin and Cantonese, but in going to China, I’ve realized it’s not that simple. The many variations of the Chinese language form an entire branch, the Sinitic branch, of the Sino-Tibetan language family and can be broken down into hundreds of dialects. In the Sichuan province, I realized pretty quickly that many people I encountered weren’t speaking Mandarin Chinese. In regards to ethnic diversity, though the Han Chinese are the dominant ethnic group, comprising over 90% of the Chinese population, there are 55 other recognized ethnic groups in China. On the outside, though China may appear homogenous, linguistic and ethnic diversity does prominently exist.
3. A Whole New World of Vegetables
Being in China, I of course tried a whole lot of Chinese food, but I found that I fell back on one of my favorites: vegetables. From the time I was in the single digits, I would crave broccoli and happily munch on carrots. Yes, I was that kind of kid. It wasn’t until I went to China that I realized there was a whole different world of vegetables I had never discovered before: lotus root, wood ear mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, kelp, seaweed, more mushroom varieties, bitter squash, pumpkin-like squash, and the list goes on and on. Overtime, my host mom started to cook my favorite vegetables every night in the form of papa cai, a regional dish which is simply lightly salted vegetables in broth, and would nudge the bowl towards me, knowing that I would keep coming back for more.
Whenever we had hot pot, a Sichuan specialty that is a bit like Chinese fondue, my host parents would order tons and tons of mushrooms, cabbage, lotus root, and pretty much any and every vegetable they had available, and after I had finished eating my weight in vegetables, they’d always ask if I wanted more. Starvation was never an issue because my host family would always make sure that I had had enough or more than enough. All this is to say, an important key to having your needs and wants addressed is to communicate. Be reasonable, but don’t be afraid to ask. If you love vegetables, don’t be afraid to ask for more vegetables because, chances are, your host family will listen to you. Additionally, don’t worry about a lack of food because they’ll likely keep feeding you until you say otherwise.