Welcome to Carolliu's life in VCU

At 5 o’clock this afternoon, I was sitting in my living room, busy striving with a can of tunny by digging in a hole as large as a coin on the iron box with a pair of chopstick. ’I have to eat it’, I resisted, since it had cost Chen’s blood to open such a hole on the can (Chen cut his finger when trying to open it). But five minutes passed, I have only licked some sauce on the tip of the chopstick.
Several days ago, I bought this can of fish in an Asian supermarket. After days of sandwiches and pizzas with bacon, smoked turkey, cheese and beef, this can of fish in Chinese flavor meant a lot to me. However, I didn’t discover that the can was without a pulling loop on it. How could I open it? This is a question. Poking it with stick? Cutting it with knife? Prizing it with a spoon? Or just smash it? Whatever, I couldn’t give it up.
Prepared with a knife, finally I decided to execute it this noon. But my arm was too weak to open it by myself. So I asked Chen who was a gentleman who never refused girls’ pleas to open it for me and promised to share it with him. Obviously we both missed Chinese fish can, as his eyes were lit up when I took the fish can out. He lifted the knife, which seemed fragile compared with the ironclad box, and kept poking the box repeatedly and fiercely as if there were treasure in it. Suddenly, the knife tragically missed the box and exactly cut on his finger. Soon he began to bleed and the blood scared me a lot. ’ You might as well give it up! It’s only a can of fish. No difference if I won’t eat it. ‘ I said. ‘No’, he refused with revolution, ‘ I can manage it ! ’
I have to say that one couldn’t imagine how stubborn people are when they decide to relieve their yearning for home food. Finally, through bleeding, screaming and performing violence, we successfully chiseled a hole on the box. Ok, a hole is enough.
Now the can is empty. And I finally figure out how the mummy makers in ancient Egypt could remove the brain from the nostrils of the body……

The can is empty now

I have been bothered of the question that what kind of gift I should buy for my father and my uncle. They are just too old to have Harry Potter on hand, too man to use cosmetics, too businessman to wear VCU’s baseball hat, too adult to have Hello Kitty dolls to hang on their cell phones, too unsentimental to read my postcard full of sentimental words, too busy to laugh at comics about Bush, too Chinese to read book full of English. What about a tie or something? Um…I think I am too poor to buy a good one. And I also don’t want to buy them Zippo lighters to encourage them to smoke, in spite of that it’s not easy to bring lighters to the airplane. So they are the kind of awkward group that no convenient gift could fit.
But I managed to tackle this problem this afternoon—I bought two cowboy hats in the campus from a black man who looked like Morgan Freeman. Weaved by straw, colored in silver, decorated with a raw-and-bloody-bones with wings and fake crocodile skin, these two hats are just awesome ! The cashier in the bookstore praised it when I walked into the bookstore with one of them on head. My father must love the hat because he has bunch of hats, assorted styles, some really exotic—Jipijapa (Panama hat), white golf hat, leather golf hat, even fur hat that Russians like to wear. In addition, no male creature would refuse the chance to be a cowboy (at least look like).HOHO~~~

two cowboy hats

When we arrived at the Richmond airport, it was the welcome from them that brought us back from somnambulating with our luggage. Their smile reminded me of what we were going to do here: not flying here and there, but to have a study program. I took out the English that I had hidden in the closet for years to talk with them. My grammar was rusty, but thank god, the interns were all friendly and patient.
Gnami: she was the first intern I talked with since I arrived here. When we sat in the airport to wait for the bus, we talked a lot to kill time. She is really friendly and easygoing, and has nice skin all the black people have. We all laughed when we talked about New York and she said ‘ New York is too busy for me. I like country life. You know, just live in a small town and drive my little TOYOTA…’ She seems like the kind of people who know how to be content with the life. What’s more, we are all interested in her marvelous hairdo^_^.
Katty: she is the intern that I stay with for the longest time, since she drove us to the mall and the place for bowling. She looks really smart with her clean and green eyes, pointed chin and clearly-cut short hair, and as the fact, she always gives us quick responses (although sometimes our expression is vague), which I appreciate a lot. She told us about her cat, with obvious great affection. It’s interesting that her nick name is Katty, her eyes are as alert as cat's and at the same time her pet is a cat. So I decide to give her a ‘cat’ as gift. Besides, as her boyfriend is going back from a trip in china, hope she will get a terrific Chinese present from him!

Katty and us in the bowling place

Erik: Erik is a big guy with earnest face and nice smell（wonder the brand of the perfume he uses）. He is the most helpful one among all the interns—carrying our luggage, teaching us how to bowling ( he taught us so well that Chen even beat him once), giving us announcements during the lectures…… We can always catch the sight of him anywhere and anytime. I call him ‘almighty intern’.

after bowling

Brian: he is, maybe the tallest one among all the interns. With deep eyes, deep voice, coy smile and sensitive-looking lips, he is quite attractive. I guess he is still at the stage that ignores everything except sports (Is it impolite to judge people in my blog?), which makes him even more attractive because girls are always fond of sporty guys. He is very helpful too, as he has helped organizing so much interesting activities, and always ready to help us on any question.

drive us to the asian market

John: he is an interesting guy and his Asian face makes him much amiable for our Chinese. I remember when the professor mentioned ‘bad women’ during the lecture, he put his hand beside his mouth and whispered to me ‘prostitute’. That’s cute.

In the end I want thank all the interns, for they are so considerate and helpful, always hoping we will live and study better here and trying their best to make our life more colorful. Thanks for all their hard working, and hope we will have a good time together in the future time!

boys are playing soccer with Mr.xue (to illustrate that Brian is sporty)

God, he is handsome, but I don't know his name. Is it Matt?

It was my first time to really have fun on the beach. I had been to beach twice before. But in the first time I was only six. I fell on the sliding sand and burst into tears. In the second time, the weather was bad and the water was too chilly to swim in. So this day when I finally stood on the Virginia Beach, wearing my newly-bought bikini, I was excited and going to enjoy a whole day of romantic beach life.
Everything was just fine so far: the sun was good but not too burning, and the wave was strong but not too overwhelming, except one thing--the sand, which annoyed me a lot. First, when I played volleyball with some friends, the sand just kept scattering to my face as I was serving the ball. Then I found some sand in my ear after I stayed in the water for a while. It also irritated me that when I applied the sunscreen to my body, I got my hand full of sand mixed with the lotion. At last as I went back to the hotel, ton of sand dropped when I took off my bath suit and I went crazy. Sand was everywhere! It was in my bra, in my pantie, or evilly hidden in the fabric which made the bath suit impossible to wash clean. Even there was sand on my eyelashes!!!! I expected everything—the sunshine, the blue sky, the handsome boys and girls with tanned skin, colorful umbrella providing shelter from the ultraviolet radiation, but I didn’t count the evil sand! I thought it was just something soft to walk in and something golden to make the sunshine look lovelier. But now they only looked like ugly minute rocks spotting my bath suit.
Therefore, the trip on the beach revealed to me that reality always deviates from our ideal. Just like a couple tends to find their marriage perfect, except the snoring in bed, quarreling about whether to watch a football game or a fashion show , negotiating about how to set a fair division of labor on household chores….(thousands of unromantic moments, you can name it), all the seemingly romantic things are unreliable. Every rose has its thorn. If I want to have it, maybe I have to take is as whole, even the thorns I hate.

exactly when i got water in my ears...

the highlight of the day

Episode I: Yesterday, a ping pong game involving students from Fudan, BFSU and VCU was held in the gym. In the final game, Zhang Yuhan from BFSU beat Mr. Xue, the last hope of Fudan, and became the champion of the game. So today, during the break of the lecture, Erik announced the winner and brought some prizes for the 4 best players. All of the 4 players went up to the dais delightedly and proudly, including Mr. Xue with a wide mouth. But, unfortunately, for some reason unknown, Erik didn’t buy anything for Mr. Xue (maybe he thought a teacher was not poor enough to get prize). The moment was going to be awkward, and all the students waited and saw what would happen. ‘Key chains for Felix and Jane, and a T-shirt for the champion Quinn……’ Erik said loudly. Finally he turned to Mr. Xue , ‘Xue, you…you will have a hand shake.’ He reached his hand out, face flushed.

Episode II: Today, Professor Wood began his lecture with a joke: ‘ A philosophy professor of mine used to ask us a question as the final exam: what if you have only one hour to live? We all gave him huge answers with pages listing things like enjoying the memory of life. But it turned out to be there was only one student in the class having the top score of A. That girl who had the A gave only one sentence as the answer: if I have only one hour to live, I will stay in your class. The professor asked her why she choose to stay in his class in the last hour of her life. She answered, ‘Because one hour in your class seems like eternity.’’

Episode III: In the afternoon, we met Terrence in the gym, and we walked back to dorm together. He showed us his yellow car and said that he had got two cars. Usually his wife drove another one. Now that he mentioned his wife, I wanted to ask more about his family. ‘Do you have kids?’ I asked. ‘Yes, I have both.’ He answered. Both? Did he mean he had two children? ‘So how many kids you have?’ I asked further, ‘Is this a question too private?’ ‘no, of course not.’ He said, and took out a bunch of keys. ‘Here, I am bringing one with me now.’ Puzzled for a second, I started to laugh. He thought I was talking about the keys of his cars!

john was playing pingpong

I didn’t expect the home visit of the weekend would be so happy. Coming back from the visit, it was already 11 o’clock, but Chai, Fu and I just kept talking about how nice the family was and how many interesting things happened.
The hostess of the family, Lisa, is a well-educated and generous woman, with natural red hair. She came from a wealthy family (for God’s sake, she told us her mother owned racing horses!) in New York. She studied English literature in university, and became the assistant vice president of a firm, doing public affair and store marketing. Her husband Dave is a photographer, who came from Italy and speaks quick English. They adopted a little girl from Guangdong, China, and for this reason, they pay a lot of attention to China. Also for this reason, they are more than willing to contact Chinese students like us.
Lisa is so well-educated and nice that she won’t say anything is bad. We all gained much assurance from her kind approvals on our English, our appearances and also our personalities. To her beloved daughter Lily, who will turn to 2 years old soon, one can not imagine how patient and considerate a mother she is. During our visit to her home, when Lily began to throw her toy violently (she has two roomfuls of toys, assorted. ‘She is spoiled.’ quoted from Lisa, and I totally agree.), Lisa just patiently repeated ‘be gentle, Lily, be gentle’ , and tried to hold her flapping little arms. In the middle of supper, when Dave was teasing that Lily was a ‘wild’ girl, she yelled at him ‘Dave’, and earnestly corrected the word ‘wild’ to ‘energetic’, ‘funny’ and ‘busy’. All of us could tell how much she loved the kid.
She is also a kind-hearted and sentimental woman. Every time she talked about how they found Lily in an announcement of searching parents for abandoned infants on a Chinese newspaper, she would close her eyes once in a while in sorrow, not only for the abandoned infants, but also for the mothers who had to do such a decision. ‘I want to leave something like posters at the place Lily was left. Just try to let her biological mother to know that Lily is fine.’ She said, hand pushing on her chest.

the family

Besides being a loving mother, she was provided the gifts to be a successful and smart woman by the education and upbringing she gained. Undoubtedly, she is proud of her work now and also her ability to write beautiful English sentences. She brought us to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and talked with us a lot about histories and cultures of both America and China. She was a quick learner, Every time she received interesting information from us, she would respond with confidence ‘Get ya!’ When the assistant in the cosmetic shop kept mistaking us for Japanese, she almost lost her temper. ‘ I don’t understand why people always mix up Chinese, Japanese and Korean! I can tell clearly!’ She complained to us.
One thing that learned from Lisa is that one should try to communicate with others, even strangers, as more as possible to make things favorable, which she called ‘doing some public relations’. In the museum, she talked with the ticket checker; she talked with the guard; she talked with the receptionist; she talked with almost everyone she met, friendly and politely. According to Lisa, she used to be very shy but for her job was closely associated with public relations, she consciously tried to be more talkative in front of everyone, even somebody who she would meet only for couple of seconds and perhaps would never meet again! I realized that was how to set a ‘net work’ in our life, which may be more helpful than we expect.

Lisa and me

the exhibit in the museum

As for Dave, he is a good father as well as a good dad. He cooked meal and made bed for Lily while Lisa had to take care of both Lily and us. The spaghetti with Italian sausages he make was terrific. I enjoyed it and stuffed my stomach to an extreme. He supports his wife, and kind of combines the family tightly as a whole.
Lisa and Dave adopted Lily in Lianjiang, a city in Guangdong Province. Everything related to this adoption has been carefully preserved, even the package of milk powder that Lily used in the orphanage. To help Lily grow up smoothly, the couple decide to tell her all the adoption thing in an appropriate time. Instead of breeding her in an totally American way, they want her to learn about and to love her heritage and Chinese culture, which makes me believe it more firmly that they deeply love Lily, the girl per se, including all her heritage from China, all her differences from themselves, but not only as a substitution of their own biological child. That moved me a lot.
Still a lot of things to write: Lily, the two dogs and the nice museum etc. Maybe the pictures tell better.

a statue I like in the museum

nice supper( all made by Dave)

Lily climbed up to my lap, then we had this picture

Lisa loves LIly so much

ideal father and ideal husband

the black dog is called Lumy