Shiao Lin Trip and More

Sorry its been so long since i have updated this, but its been a pretty crazy week. Last weekend we traveled by train to the Shiao Lin Temples. Traveling by train sleeper cars where pretty fun. We took a night trin that we slept on through out the night. This temple is one of the premier Kung Fu training temples in the world. Buddhist Monks are trained here and select new students to enter the temple. This temple was also made famous by the movie Shiao-Lin featuring Jet li. While in the city we visited a Kung Fu school where we watched a demonstraition on Kung Fu Techniques. We then traveled about two hours to see a river where over 2000 years ago Buddhist caves and features where carved out fo the rock alongside the river. We also went to several other cities around the area in the Hunan Province of China.

This week I had the opportunity to make a little extra cash by modeling for this clothing company at the CHIC 2006 Asian Fashion Trade Show. I made 1500 Kuai nearlly 200 dollars for three days of work. I dressed as a cop and acted out several corny skits while some of my other friends interacted with me and showed off the clothes. I will have pictures updated soon!

GRAD SCHOOL!

I have made my decision to go to Purdue University. Starting in August 2006 I will be a Proud Purdue Broilermaker! This decision has been tearing at me for the past few months after my visit to all the campuses. I have been praying alot about this and asking God to give me a sign of where he wanted me to go to Grad School. I have spent many nights praying for this answer. I truly have seen the power of prayer. God's sign number one: While talking to mom she mentioned that I received a letter from Purdue with a Purdue University Window sticker. God's Sign Number two: I was walking outside of Worldlink's Headquarters heading back to BLCU in order to catch my shuttle for my evening business class and low and behold as i was walking a Chinese Man was wearing a Purdue sweat shirt. I asked god to show me something with Purdue on it one night and I seriously thought this was impossible. I dont think that this was mere coincidence. The chances of one person out of 1.3 Billion Chinese wearing a Purdue Sweatshirt, riding down the very same street I was walking on, and right during the time that I had been praying for a sign is no mere coincidence, its the power of God's Love for us. I have truly been blessed.

Business Classes Start

I started the International Business portion of my classes that will last through out the next month. We meet each evening in the SOHO Central Business Sector of Beijing where we have been discussing the way China developed as a nation based on Agriculture in comparison to the way Ancient Europe developed. China's basic production units where the family which where self sufficient making everything they needed. The is explains alot of the Chinese strong family values and holds many of the roots for most the Chinese ideologies. Its been quiet educational so far.

On Friday we had our first Company visit to the Beijing Blue Zoo, a joint venture company from New Zealand. It was an interesting visit to the Aquarium and asking questions regarding joint ventures.

Following our business class we met up with our other World Link Friends at the Acrobatic show. It was truly an amazing experience seeing people twist and turn their bodies in ways that I thought where impossible. We saw like 20 people balance on a single bike, people stacking in pyramids on top of balancing balls. You'll have to check out the pictures to see what Im talking about! I will post them soon.

Saturday I went to the Hutongs of Beijing. This is the ancient part of the city where many people lived during the original dynasties in China. Today it has been converted to many shops, bars, and cafes. However it was still a pleasant walk through the historical part of China.

This week should be an adventure as I go through more classes. The next weekend we head out to the great wall on Friday and then on Friday night we're taking a 6 hour night train to the Xiao Lin Temple. I will updated sometime next week
Take care and see you all soon!

A Fun Weekend

The second week of classes has come and gone! Its been an amazing random weekend for me! My friend Jo, a girl whose family is from Hong Kong but raised in Great Britain, along with several of her friends where suppose to go to Tianjin for the weekend. However the weather turned for the worse Friday night with extremly cold weather and sand storms. We decided we would just spend the day in Beijing and do some exploring

We went for brunch at a cafe called Grandma's House which serves American style dishes and breakfast food. It was a good taste from home as we enjoyed milk shakes, burgers, salads, and other dishes that reminded us of home. Our crew was a pretty mixed group of people from Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Michigan, Korea, Indonesia, China, and Japan! We then went to the silk market and did some shopping. I ran into a friend there name steve that I met at the silk market when i was here in November. We talked for awhile and then Jo and I went to purchase some business button t-shirts, tea cups, and a few other things.

Jo and I got to talk about things and found out we had lots of similar tastes in things! We enjoyed talking about the differences between the United States and Great Britian. It was fun poking fun at each other over the differences! We went to dinner for hot pot and then watched Eurotrip with her room mate who is chinese and we had to explain to her that Europe and America aren't like the stereo types in the movies.

It was a great relaxing weekend! Hope things are going great for everyone! Talk to ya soon!

First Week of Classes

Well the first week of class has come and gone! Its amazing how much you learn in one week of studying a foreign language! My classroom is pretty amazing though and puts most American College classrooms to shame. At each desk we have a sound system and a computer. I think that I am in some sort of advanced class because most of the kids in World Link do not have computers and head sets like we do and they are all beginners. In my class there are people from Denmark, the US, Hong Kong, France, UK, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ecuador. The campus has about 10000 students with about 70% of them Korean!

The sound system is used so we can listen to the tones and pronunciation of words, an ever so important aspect of Mandarin. There are 5 tones in mandarin each changing the meaning of the word. For example ma with the 1st tone witch is just a flat tone is mother, however ma with the 4th tone dropping means horse. There are other similar words that if you mis pronounce them one means Miss and the other means prostitute, another that means bitch or noodles. Its really complicated but once you practice it enough you get it down.

We spend a lot of time repeating the pronunciation of tones and key formations in mandarin. We are also working on several characters in Chinese. We actually have three teachers our main one we see is a pretty young male but is a very unique person and very encouraging. Our other two teachers are a man and a woman. The woman speaks absolutely no English!

So far I can order rice, noodles, stuffed dumpling, bread, water, beer, wine, liquor, vegetables, meat, and fish at a restaurant. I can also introduce myself and tell people where I am from. These are pretty basic but is a huge achievement from just a few days ago.

I have been studying a lot to get the foundation of the language down. I have been seeing a private tutor that world link provides for us from either one to two hours each day since Tuesday. He helps to review, preview, and advance my skills. Its been great so far! I also go home and practice with my host family. I found out that my host family is retired my uncle was a manager for a school and my aunt was a teacher. This explains why she has been willing to teach me each night!

This weekend I am meeting up with some students for a birthday party, going to practice my mandarin, and gonna chill out.

I have been doing my best to keep up with Lent, by not eating meat at the meals I eat outside of the home. It is hard to tell that to my family since I can not fully communicate with them. Hope everyone is having a great time in Texas and around thed world.

God Bless. If you are wanting to send me messages please do so by email at bhollas@hotmail.com because I can not view my blog. Blogs are considered a form of free speech and since that is banned in China I can not view my blog, but only update.