Ping Pong, Popsicles, and Jump Ropes
Martin playing against a cute, and very amazing, little ping pong player. She won by the way.
Another group photo because why not. We're all squinting because of the sun.
We are in the process of reviewing absolutely everything we learned. It has been quite a journey. I have over 2,000 flashcards, and we’re still learning more and more and more. The most formidable and most exciting part of learning a new language is the never-ending opportunity to learn new words and sentences. The learning process never stops. I still learn new words and phrases in English every year, and I’ve been learning English from the day I was born.
Today, Micah, Ben, and I tried to go to the stationary store near the school, but we were not allowed to go probably because of a liability issue. I hardly have any paper left, so I will be going soon. I've been to the stationary store once, and I love it. It's this small shop across the street with tons and tons of notebooks and pens and even some miscellaneous goods. What's even better is that pretty much everything sold there is cheaper than the comparable good in America. For example, all of the notebooks are less than a dollar while the comparable in China would definitely be a bit more.
After lunch and a little disappointment, my Chinese class began practicing poetry and songs for the closing ceremony. The closing ceremony is after our last day of class, August 9th, and each class will perform a special performance. My class is doing a poetry program with songs in between. Class A is going to sing some songs, and Class B will do a homemade play. I'm all for poetry because I love poetry recitation in English and would love to learn about Chinese poetry. The poems we're reciting are pretty sort, but they're very famous in China. Chinese students have to memorize and recite lots and lots of poems in school. In America, I've really only had to recite poetry out of personal desire.
In the afternoon, for our cultural activity, we went to the Shuangliu Gymnasium to experience the art of ping pong. We were greeted by hoards of younger kids in neon yellow jerseys and black shorts. Upstairs there were lots of ping pong tables and one surrounded by short barriers and a few benches. After we were seated, a small boy and a taller skinny boy walked to the ping pong table in the center of the barriers. They demonstrated some different techniques used, such as slicing, different serves, and hitting backhand and front. They were both very good players, and apparently, the taller boy is known for winning national competitions.
After the impressive demonstration, they invited us, the Americans, to try to play against the taller boy. A few brave souls dared to challenge him, but no one had the skills needed to defeat him. Martin, a boy in Class C, even got the opportunity to play against a very little girl. Lets just say that Martin didn't win. After the slightly embarrassing show of American ping pong skills, we were given the opportunity to either play without training or to have a brief training session with a highly skilled Chinese master. I chose the brief training session because I have little to no ping pong skills. The master ping pong player showed us two versions of three strokes. These strokes make up the backhand and the front hand strokes, being two of the most common and arguably simplest. I was able to learn the backhand pretty well, but I still struggled with the front hand stroke quite a bit.
After learning a little bit about and how to play ping pong, we took a very big group photo outside the ping pong facility. It was incredibly sunny as we took the picture so the vast majority of us were squinting quite noticeably. Some even just closed their eyes completely.
After a fulfilling day and fulfilling dinner, my host mom, 吴璨, and I went to this little place in the community designated for exercise. This area has ping pong tables, exercise equipment, and general exercise space. In this space, we all jump roped. I used the jump rope I had brought, they used one they had recently purchased. My host mom informed me that 吴璨 needs to work on jumping because it's part of her physical education test, and jumping was one part of her exam that she didn't get full points on. 吴璨 is not a big fan of exercise in general, but I feel that if she does more exploring on her own, she will find some exercise that she enjoys.
Sweaty and tired, we headed back to the apartment for some light snacks. 吴璨 and I had pineapple popsicles, and then my host mom gave us purplish dragon fruit. Dragon fruit is so delicious. The purple is considerably tastier than the white dragon fruit and also quite a bit more expensive. Dragonfruit has such an interesting texture too, being incredibly soft and containing tons of little black seeds for a touch of crunch.