Drama In Zhengzhou

Jason Chow 5/31/08

We arrived in Zhengzhou by train; arriving at the station, nervous, we slowly left the train platform, to meet our students. As we rounded the corner, a large group of Chinese students noticed us and excitedly pointed in our direction. ‘Good luck’s were exchanged around our group, and, slowly, we exited through the turnstile to find our students.
At least we were all able to recognize our students. I found my student, Curtis, or 李想, and he looked excited about our arrival. As a large group, everyone moved to the right to claim our luggage. However, the luggage was extremely late in getting off the train. Therefore, we were stranded in the train station for at least 1 hour, plenty of time to catch up with our students. Seems like there wasn’t much to catch up on with Curtis; we had only met each other 3 ½ months ago. Although I was a bit worried about our luggage until it arrived.
After the arrival of our luggage, we all said our goodbyes, and split up to go with our families. I met Curtis’ parents, and followed them to their car, a nice SUV. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, since it was 11:30 PM, but there were significantly more cars than in Cary at this time of night, and the neon lights were amazing. Everywhere I looked, the city was brightly lit with neon or street lights, etc. Curtis’ parents had quite a few questions for me, and I answered as best I could mostly in Chinese.
We stopped at a small restaurant, which was mostly deserted, since it was about 11:45 by this point. I had made the slight mistake saying that I was a little hungry, and they ordered about 4 large dishes for me to eat. It seemed like the food I ate then was much better than the Chinese food I had eaten before during this trip, but even I couldn’t eat all of it. Around 12:00, we left the restaurant and drove about 5 minutes to Curtis’ apartment. At the point, the streets we were traveling on had almost no cars, but the store lights were all still brightly lit.
Arriving in Curtis’ apartment, I found out that he lived on the 4th floor of his apartment building, with no elevator. Although it looked a bit shabby on the outside, it was really nice on the inside. I found out, apparently, that they had prepared an entire room for me, a change of clothes, and a table full of snacks. After cleaning up, I presented my family with a few gifts that I had brought with me. It seemed like they liked them a lot, and afterwards, I went to sleep.
I woke up at about 9:00 the next day; good thing it was a Saturday and we didn’t have to get up early. At around 9:30, I had finished my morning routines, and exited my room for breakfast. They had prepared a few bowls of soup and some youtiao for me and Curtis to eat. Although the soup was really good, I didn’t get to try any youtiao because they presented me with a very nice cake. I was polite and had one slice, even though I didn’t want to start my day with mostly sugar.
We didn’t have anything planned, so Curtis showed me how to play World of Warcraft. Evidently, he had spent a lot of time on his computer, playing that game. For about an hour or two, I watched him play WoW, and he even let me create a new character, and play for a while. However, at 11:30, we departed for lunch.
The streets during the daytime were much different from last night. Not only was everything in a different lighting, there were a lot more cars and various two-wheeled vehicles crowding the roads. Not only was the constant weaving in and out of traffic amazing, I saw several sights that I haven’t seen before, such as a large brown chicken walking down the street, etc. After about 15 minutes, we arrived at a very tall building, where we were going to eat lunch.
It turns out that Chinese people are very impatient when taking the elevator. The restaurant was on the second floor, and I wanted to take the stairs, but as a group, Curtis, me and his dad decided to take the elevator. Forgetting to press floor two before it was too late, we ended up taking the elevator to floors 15, 22, 25, 31, and 16 before arriving at the second floor. Every time, people in the elevator, including Curtis, would mash the ‘close door’ button, even while people were entering/exiting the car.
Lunch was an amazing affair, at a nicely decorated restaurant, with a large-window view of…the parking lot. Oh well. The food was very good, and I got to try many new foods, including a spicy soup dish and a nice bowl of baked Chinese buns. There were also foods that I’ve already eaten before, but cooked differently, such as doufu and spare ribs. Overall, I was nicely full by the end of lunch, with some food left over.
Hopping in the car, we traveled to school, again weaving through traffic. Arriving at Curtis’ school, I was amazed at the size; I had never been to a school larger than about 2,500 people, let alone a school comprised of all Chinese students. Not only were all the buildings the same size, if not larger, than the buildings at CA, they were also about 3-4 times as tall! Apparently, we were going to view a school drama production that their classes had put together. We arrived at 12:30 for the 2:30 performance, and for the longest time, no one showed up except for Therice, Camden and Nathaniel.
At around 2:30, the performance started, although we decided not to start their show with our ‘dancing’. Everyone had arrived, and we were prepared to enjoy the show. It was comprised of many small skits, including some acts of music, dancing, and small plays.