Zaijian

Preparations continue as the day of departure approaches. One week from now our group will be in the air, perhaps somewhere over Russia en route to Beijing.

Today was not that exotic, though, unless you call a trip to Walmart exotic. On my shopping list were items such as an international power adapter, travel-sized toiletries and a small calculator to stick in my purse--my mental math isn't good enough to convert Chinese Yuan (CNY) to dollars on the fly. However, I might not need my calculator too often if I remember that 100 Yuan is about $15.

Today the exchange rate is $1 = 6.67 yuan, which is a little higher than it was a few days ago. China uses both coin and paper currency, and the paper currency is different colors depending on the denomination. For example, the 1 yuan bill is green while the 5 is purple. The 1 yuan coin has a chrysanthemum engraved on it and the jiao has an orchid (10 jiao = 1 yuan). There is also a coin for 5 jiao which pictures a lotus.

Speaking of money, a classmate recommended that we notify our bank and credit card company that we will be traveling to China so that our transactions will not be flagged as potentially fraudulent. That's still on my to-do list.

Last night I attended a Chinese New Year celebration at Central College in which the students who have studied abroad in Hangzhou, China, organized activities and showed highlights of their experience. Although Hangzhou is on the eastern edge of China, the students had traveled inland to Beijing on one of their excursions. They showed photos of many of the same places that our group hopes to visit such as the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Ming Tombs, and Tiananmen Square. They also visited Xi'an and saw the terracotta army, which is too far away from Beijing for us to visit but would be a fascinating site to see someday.

One of the activities at the event was a Q&A about China. The students asked these questions of the audience to test our knowledge (answers are at the bottom of this post):

1. Should you expect a fortune cookie at the end of your meal in a restaurant in China?
2. Which direction is considered good luck for a gate to face in China?
3. What color is considered lucky in China?
4. China is the __ (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th) largest country in the world by area.
5. China is the __ (1st, 2nd, 34d, 4th) largest country in the world by population.
6. Approximately how long is the flight to China (air time)?
7. What are the main religions in China?
8. What is the capital of China?
9. Who is the head of state in China right now?
10. In December 2009, how many US students did President Obama propose to study abroad in China during the next four years?

Today's Chinese vocabulary word is "zaijian," which means goodbye. It is pronounced sigh-jin.

I ran across these Chinese proverbs that are worth remembering: "After three days without reading, talk becomes flavorless" and "Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere." This trip to China will be a learning experience that I will carry with me the rest of my life.

Answers: 1) No, that's an American custom; 2) South; 3) Red; 4) 4th; 5) 1st; 6) 14 hours; 7) Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism; 8) Beijing; 9) Hu Jintao, since 2003; 10) 100,000