Liu Yuan

Sorry I got lost! classes started at the speed of light since we only have 9 weeks. It’s only been a few days but I feel like it’s been weeks! So much has been going on. I don’t even know where to catch up with.

So I think I’ll start with the weekend. That first day I went to the cafeteria I met some people from Tianjin University because they were curious to know where I was from. They invited me to this international event at the University. It was somewhat like a fair and they had booths from all different countries and there were people from all over talking Chinese. It was odd. I guess now I know how people feel when they’re surprised I really do speak Spanish and not Chinese.

My friend Li!

They were also selling food from all the different countries. When I was around the Vietnam booth a lady came to me and asked me if I wanted to try a spring roll and gave me some chopsticks. I was eating the roll and I noticed she was speaking to a microphone very fast in Chinese and there was a camera in front and then she gave me the microphone and I just stood there looking at the camera thinking “whaaat?” and then I said, “Dui bu qi, bu hui shuo zhongwen! (Sorry, I don’t speak Chinese)” The lady asked me where I was from and I said, “Banama ren (Panamanian)” and then she turned again to the camera and said, “Banama ren shuo hen hao chi (Panamanian said it was delicious)” Lol.

Here are some pictures from around the campus! Tianjin University is said to have one of the biggest campus. There are (I think) a total of four lakes.So many bicycles everywhere! which reminds me of crossing a street in China!!! It’s crazy! There’s everything coming at you, cars, bicycles, motorcycles and all kinds of three-wheeled vehicles. Vehicles (excluding cars) don’t follow traffic lights and even cars sometimes don’t follow the lights either! Whenever I’m on a taxi I feel my heart is going to jump out.

A friend from Tianjin told me they turn off the lights at 11 pm everywhere so people have to go to sleep. I couldn’t believe it! That is really early in GT time. They were shocked by the fact that our library back at Tech is open 24 hours during finals and exam times.

This is our one and only classroom for the program.