Winding Down

We are about to finish PST - Pre Service Training, otherwise known as
what has been keeping us busy since we arrived in China on June 30th.
We had our LPI (Language Proficiency Interview) yesterday, which was
an anxiety-inducing 25 or so minutes of speaking Chinese with someone
assigned to judge our speaking ability in front of a tape recorder. I
stumbled over my grammar more than usual, but I think I was able to
get my point across: introducing myself, explaining my work
background, asking about class scheduling and giving a short speech I
prepared about cheese (I threw it in when she asked me about my
hobbies - one of them is eating cheese, a substance hard to come by in
the middle of the middle kingdom). We get our results on Tuesday, and
I'm hoping for an Intermediate-Mid or Intermediate-High score, but
we're only required to be as high as Intermediate-Low.
After our LPI, I finally got to pick up the Chinese dress I had made.
It's not a traditional qipao style, but I had it made out of real
traditional style silk. I was supposed to pick it up last week, but as
Chinese dressmakers are unfamiliar with the Western "S" body type (as
they call it) it turned out rather large and sack-like. I had them
take it in, which meant it wasn't ready to wear to the host family
appreciation dinner on Friday, but now it fits me reasonably well and
I can still wear it to swearing in. It's not the knockout,
fits-like-a-glove dress I'd imagined, but it's pretty nice and not bad
for a $38 dress made out of real silk. I'm going to have to try the
qipao thing again over in Chongqing. Richy however had a pretty
amazing Zhongguo yifu (Chinese clothing) experience, and was able to
wear his 100% Italian wool Sun Yatsen suit to the family appreciation
dinner. As the Chinese host families said, he was very "Shuai ge,"
(handsome) and the fit seems perfect on his frame. Photos will be
posted as soon as we acquire a reasonably fast internet connection.
After picking up my dress, we headed over to see some of the tourist
sites over on Jinli Street, which is kind of a redone old-style
neighborhood with lots of snack stalls, overpriced souvenirs and a
Starbucks. Searching for the nearby Tibetan district, we came across
what used to be a Spanish restaurant getting ready to close their
doors. Apparently the wine importing business is more lucrative in
China than the ethnic food restaurant business. They shared with us
(free of charge) some of the best beer and wine we've tasted since we
left the states and we chatted about various foreigner-in-China
experiences. Afterward, we had our first meal of hotpot that did not
include the blood, brain or entrails of any animals, which was quite
enjoyable, followed by the not so enjoyable witnessing of an ambulance
tending to a stabbing victim a block away. It took a few minutes for
Richy and our friend Leo to ascertain that a stabbing had occurred,
after which we quickly hightailed it back to the relative comfort and
safety of the campus.

--Katie