Written by Kerryellen Willard

After arriving exhausted from a long day of travel, the idea of sleep sounded wonderful to all of us.  Unfortunately, due to jetlag we all seemed to wake up quite early. I woke up at 7 in the morning when we didn’t have breakfast until 9.

Prior to breakfast we met in the lobby of the International Student Service Center and walked about 4 blocks to the canteen where we eat most of the time.  The breakfast was a traditional Chinese breakfast, and though it proved to be delicious it contained many foods we wouldn’t think of as breakfast food.  Some of the foods we had were (to the best of my comparing abilities): pumpkin crackers, spicy noodles (the spicy food in the morning threw me off a little bit), dumplings, rice porridge, sponge cake, veggies and warm soy milk which is sweetened and quite tasty.  They served an orange drink similar to Tang in place of fresh squeezed orange juice (something I’m starting to miss).

After breakfast we bonded with our four AWESOME student guides: Chris, Starry, Cassie and Venya (?).  We learned a bit about their lives as compared to us.  They really enjoy American T.V. shows, such as Gossip Girls or Desperate Housewives.  They were also interested to hear that we don’t all party and live like the Gossip Girls.  We learned that they have some stricter rules about dating, as in high school they are not allowed to date. Even in college they feel they need to hide their relationships, claiming they are just “teaching English.”  Chris told us he had a crush on a girl at school. We are determined to help him ask her out!

We then met with the school’s president and our teachers for this week.  We will be taking Traditional Chinese Medicine (including acupuncture!) and Martial Arts (Kungfu and Taijiquan).  We presented the president and teachers with gifts from home.  The president received a baseball bat with his name engraved on it and Ithaca College shot glasses.  We gave the school as a whole a Corning plate that we signed with the School of Health Science and Human Performance logo in the center. We got a group photo in front of a building that resembles the White House, and even shares its name.  The president then took us on a tour of the campus.  Being with the president gave us the opportunity to see a couple private demonstrations on campus.  The first demonstration was Kungfu and Taijiquan.  The performance of Kungfu was so powerful.  It was really quite stunning.  We also got to see a few dance routines done by the school’s competitive team. 

I’d like to make a comment about the hospitality here.  The Chinese people have made us feel so welcome.  They refused to let us sit on the floor or stand while watching them perform, and did everything they could to make us comfortable.  They have really made a great impact on how I view hospitality.  After the performances we saw the hospital that was formally part of CDSU (Cheng Du Sports University) and is now affiliated with the college.  A great thing about the hospital was that it was highly geared towards keeping healthy people healthy and fit as well as treating people who are ill.

We then had our second meal in Cheng Du.  It was a banquet with the president of the college.  We arrived  at the banquet and there were about 8 dishes on a large lazy susan at each table.  We were amazed just by this, but by the end we had seen over 20 different dishes.  It was absolutely incredible.