Blog for zhum3

Before I came to America, I was very excited about the coming trip. We did a large amount of preparing work during the semester, filled out countless forms. We even spent the whole afternoon at the airport to go though the security check and wait to aboard the plane before it took off. To conclude, it was really difficult to come to US.
At the airport, we met our interns the first time, and started talking in English. I found myself often tongue twisted and couldn’t understand all of what they were talking. Actually I still have this problem until now, but it is not so bad, as long as we can communicate rather smoothly.
Life was new and strange to me at beginning and I had a complicated feeling at that time, excited and also a little afraid about the new life. I took a couple of days to shift the shift the hours and adapt to the new circumstance. The most difficult problem was that it’s not easy to find suitable food to eat, with moderate price and good taste. I even felt a little homesick at the beginning but things got better gradually. Now I’ve got used to the new life.
Richmond gave me an impression of quiet and harmony. The pace of life is very slowly, and people here are very friendly. On the street lots of strangers will say hello to you with kind smile, even when they are driving a car. The traffic is extremely light compare to Beijing. I heard from our intern that the traffic conditions in New York is totally different from here, it’s really a hard problem for large cities.
During these three weeks I encountered cultural shocks, language barriers, but I also gained a better understanding of globalization. I think culture diversity is not a big problems for communication, and different nations can get along well with each other.
Tomorrow we’ll depart for New York, we are expecting it for a log time. Hope it will be a wonderful trip ^_^

Time slipped by without my notice. I’m very surprised that I have been in US for nearly three weeks and only have two days left living in VCU and GRC. Maybe three weeks is not a long period of time at all, but I learned a lot and changed lot during my visit here.
I met a lot of people, not only those lovely and nice interns in VCU, but also students from Fudan University, and our BFSU students whom I never met in our campus. I was great to make those new friends, and I really appreciate our friendship. During my life here my friends give me a lot of help, and we enjoy great fun together. Especially those interns, I used to think that when we in America whom we stay with or talk to would be Chinese students as we were in China, so we couldn’t get chances to experience a real American life. But the interns all devoted lots of efforts to this program, they planned activities for us almost every day and spent most of the time with us. This gave us a great opportunity to get access to American life and gain better understanding of American culture. I really appreciate it.
Besides meeting a lot of people, I also got chance to attend many wonderful lectures from which I learned a lot. The lectures covered the topic of history, politics, business, literature, and also arts and acting ^^ So we were able to get familiar with America from all aspects. Although we couldn’t go deeply in these issues in such a short time, we gained a broad view and experience a new style of teaching in America, questions and comments~ ^_^
In addition, I also had a good time playing here. We’ve been to historical places like Williamsburg and Monticello, natural travel attractions such as VA beach. We went to amusement park, went shopping, canoeing, went to bars, movies, concerts and parties, went swimming and climbing mountains, nearly all kinds of activities. They were both great experiences in my school years and in my whole life. Some day in the future if I have the opportunity to study at graduate school in America, I will definitely back to Richmond to recollect those beautiful memories.

Last night we attend special lecture. Tony Garcia and three other guys gave us an excellent lecture and presentation on Jazz.
I’m not very familiar with jazz music. I know it’s a significant part of American culture but I’ve never heard it before. Last night was my second time to listen to jazz music. The fist time was also happened during this program, when Mitch and Brian brought us to a jazz concert. I can figure out that most of our interns enjoy jazz music very much, they show a lot of interests and knowledge concerning with it. But to me, this kind of music seems a little strange, because I can’t figure out the melody in it, maybe it’s because I seldom listened to it. >_<
However, from that class I get more familiar and learned appreciate more of this kind of music. Professor Garcia showed us lots of aspects of jazz music, the theme, direction, tune, register etc. And after the class I also surf on net and got more information on jazz.
Jazz has roots in the combination of West African and Western music traditions, including spirituals, blues and ragtime, stemming from West Africa, western Sahel, and New England's religious hymns, hillbilly music, and European military band music. Jazz was originated in the beginning of the 20th century and spread in the 1920s. The origins of the word jazz are uncertain. The word is rooted in American slang, and various derivations have been suggested. Jazz was not applied to jazz music until about 1915, when jazz musicians in Chicago began calling their music jazz. Earl Hines, born in 1903 and later to become a celebrated "jazz" musician, used to claim that he was "playing piano before the word "Jazz" was even invented". The instruments used in marching bands and dance band music at the turn of century became the basic instruments of jazz: brass, reeds, and drums, using the Western 12-tone scale, but generally there’s no restriction on what kinds of instruments can in used in playing jazz. Jazz has developed a lot and diversified in different regions, but it is still embed in the root of American culture, especially African- American culture.
In the class I also learned a lot of famous people who are very good at jazz. I can’t remember all of them but I really think that jazz is a kind of musical language, it can be used as a tool to get a better understanding of American culture and society. Maybe what we interested in is a different kind of music, but we can learn some thing about jazz and then we can better communicate with more people ^^

Monticello is the plantation of Thomas Jefferson. It is a working plantation, also a home to both the Jefferson family and an extended community of workers, black and white, enslaved and free.
Thomas Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of independence, the third president of the United States, and the founder of University of Virginia. He was not only an politician, a philosopher, but also a good architect. Monticello was his design. He the estate from his father, and began building when he was 26 years old. It was as many as 130 enslaved African Americans raised crops and tended livestock, made nails and barrels, cloth and carriages in Monticello. They helped to build the house, crafted many of its furnishings, and cultivated the gardens.
I was very impressed by the dedicated features designed by Jefferson, for example the clock in the entrance hall. The clock has both an interior and exterior face inside the building and out. On the outside wall, the clock has only an hour hand, which Jefferson believed was accurate enough for outdoor laborers. The inside face of the clock reveals much greater precision by offering not only hour and minute hands, but also a smaller dial for a second hand. The seven-day clock is driven by two sets of cannonball-like weights, which hang on both sides of the front doors. On Sundays the clock is wound with the help of a folding ladder, and the weights are raised to the ceiling. Throughout the week, the top ball on the right-hand set of weights reveals the day with Sunday at the top and Saturday at the bottom. I think it must be a very advanced facility to keep track of the days at that time. Besides the clock, there are lots of features in the house that shows the dedicated and ingenious design. It is impossible to list all of them here, but I really saw a lot and learned a lot by visiting Monticello. It was a worthwhile trip ^^

On sunday we went a small hiking around Sherando Lake.
I know that many Americans enjoy hiking very much. When I was traveling in Yunan after graduating from high school, I spent a long time there. And during the trip, I saw a considerable number of Americans who was hiking there, with big bags on theire back, wlking along the road in mountain areas. They seemed very energetic. And I can also find out this characteristic from our interns ^^
I believe mostof the Chinese people do not like hiking very much, just like me. I preper to travel in a more relaxing way, enjoy beutiful seceneries without being too tried, thus hiking was too exhausting a working for me. Any way the trip around the lake can not be described as hiking at all, we were only climbing mountain. But I still felt tried >_< So maybe I should do more physical exercises in future ^^

p.s. Thanks very much toMitch, he drove us a long way to the lake and back, but we were all very tied and fell asleep on his car >_<

On Saturday night Lisa and me, as well as two boys from Fudan University went to Mitchell’s home. That was an wonderful experience, except that Mitch was 25 minutes late to pick us up >_<
We took a considerable long way to his home. The house was a very traditional one, located in the suburb, has a beautiful yard, and was surrounded by a lot of large oak trees. Many Americans live in the suburb. This is quite different from China. In China, suburb areas are usually used for farming, or only reach people will buy villas there and live there only on the vacation.
Mitchell’s parents were very kind. They prepared a lot of delicious foods for us. But for the rain, we would have a BBQ outside. However, the meal was still wonderful, very different from the Chinese. Maybe it was a kind of traditional American meal. Before eating the family member prayed and showed their appreciation to God. I was very curious about that but I kept quite, in case I would make some mistake. During and after the meal we had lots of conversations with the family member, talking about culture difference, and exchanging ideas about certain issue. I found them very interested in Chinese foods and medicine. We told them a lot about some special items that probably only existing in china. We tried very hard to describe them in English and I don’t know whether it made sense, but I felt very good to let them get more familiar with Chinese culture. I really hope that some day in future they will go to China and I will give them a traditional Chinese meal. ^_^
By the way, Mitchell’s dog is very lovely, she’s always exited about squirrels. ^o^