Orientation and Student Activity Carnival

Sorry for not writing, this week has been long with four days of orientation! I talked about the first one last time, but the day afterward the local first-year students (including my roommate!) came. These orientations lasted all day, from nearly 8:30am to 7pm or so. Unfortunately, I have to report that most of the orientation lectures were a bit ho-hum, which you could tell by looking around the room at the students with glazed looks in their eyes. Fortunately, during meals we were divided into groups within our hostels, so I had the chance to meet more people living on my floor, which was definitely NOT boring. Also, it was exciting to be in the auditorium with hundreds of students doing their hostel cheers (HALL B O YEAH!!!).

I tried to read it the best I could, haha.

This is when a bit of culture shock came in: this was my first time living in a place where people speak a language I barely understand at all. People are nice and translate what's going on, but I hate making them do that. I hate making them stop enjoying their conversation to cater to me. I'm determined to learn Cantonese; in fact, if you came to my room right now, you'll see all the flashcards I've made this afternoon, haha.

Also, sometimes it's difficult to order at the cafeteria, but I have a plan: I bring a little notepad so I can write down the Chinese names of the dishes! There's another thing, a cultural thing, that took me for surprise: washing your cups and silverware with tea before eating. I was sort of faked out a bit when I saw people pouring their tea, only for them to pour it into their bowl, then placing their cup and chopsticks in it. Afterward, they dumped this used tea into a large container. The look on my face must have been priceless: I never remembered reading anything about that in the guidebooks!!

Delicious fruit dessert after a long and hot day

Finally, we were all rewarded from sitting in the lectures with a student carnival, where we could sign up for clubs! I'm trying to sign up for too many because schoolwork comes first, plus I want time to travel off of campus. I signed up for SSA, which is a group that volunteers in the community with children and the elderly. I also signed up for the choir, and I'd like to find a sport club to join as well.

A DRAGON DANCE club, that's AWESOME!

...there must be over 50 clubs to join here.