Instead of a typical
written exam we went on a scavenger hunt through Kunming to accomplish
some tasks and we couldn’t use any English at all
It was a lot of fun and especially helpful that our teacher repeatedly told our class "You guys should REALLY know how to say, 'Where is the Provincial Library in Chinese"
The easy one was trying
to find the Yunnan Provincial Library which I could have sworn was a
place that I had been to before so I convinced my group that we could
walk there
We had our teacher with
us as our supervisor to make sure we didn’t cheat (she took my map of
Kunming away from me but it was in Chinese so it really wasn’t that much
of a help anyway) and we got to what I thought was the library so our
teacher took our picture in front of the wrong building
We eventually found it
and I deleted the photo of us in front of the wrong building just for
pride but we got a lot of other good pictures out of it too
The most fun tasks were
those which didn’t involve trying to find something
Singing a song
It took us forever to find a Chinese person to sing a song with us because Chinese people are just so reserved
We finally pried a song out of a 10-year old boy (whose mother had to chase him down after he ran away in terror) and luckily he picked a Chinese kids song that has the same tune as "frere Jacques" and "Are you sleeping?
Playing the game
Then we had to find one person to play this Chinese game called "The Eagle and the Chicks" where the chicks hide in a line behind the mother duck and the Eagle tries to grab one of the chicks
We got really frustrated at the end because the last landmark the final wanted us to find was by this restaurant which we had some difficulty finding but we found it
Then our teacher gets a call and our boss tells her that we found the right chain of restaurants but the wrong location
This causes me to become a heat-seeking missile and become completely oblivious to everyone around me so I end up finding the landmark but then I realize I'm all alone
Luckily I passed the final but I was still pretty frustrated
KTV
Later that night we got our first experience of KTV compliments of Teach for China
It was really fun and I noticed that we really Americanized it because instead of the reserved Chinese way of sitting back in the leather couches and singing a song all of us Americans crowded around the TV and sang Adele as loud as we could
Trip to Lincang
We had way too much luggage
I think all 13 of us ended up bringing about 3 bags with them and we had a heck of a fun time trying to stuff all of these into the cabs
And as you can see by the picture below, we effectively boxed out people so that we could get all of our baggage on the train
8 hour bus ride
The title says it all but it wasn't that bad
We watched Kung Fu Hustle and Mission Impossible 4 in Mandarin on the way there but if I had to choose it would be transportation by train all day, every day
I did love the scenery though so if you're going from Kunming to Lincang I say take the bus but by 2 seats for yourself so you have some legroom
Arrived in Lincang to the estrogen room
The Summer Institute is being held at Teachers University in Lincang, Yunnan, China and I love the room they put me in
You can tell girls lived there the semester before and it's just so funny that they didn't take any of the decorations down yet
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