Journey Abroad: IN CHINA!

[Cherry17]

Hello and WELCOME to my forum. I just wanted to start off introducing myself. My name is Laura and I 18 years old and I will be senior in highschool. Though this year I will not be attending my first half of the semester in school but online and in CHINA! I will be leaving August 24, 2009 and I will come back December 19, 2009. I was given this opportunity as a scholarship by the government and was one of the lucky few to be chosen. I will be staying in Beijing, China for 4 months and I will be attending an international Chinese school.

Now that we’ve finished the introductions, I’ll begin telling you the 2 reasons why I will be using this forum. First I want to bring you along with me to china and what better way then to show and tell you my travels and experiences during my stay in Beijing, China. I will be writing about every new place I encounter, the people who I will meet, the buildings, and of course their shopping. This leading to my second reason for using this forum, I want to show you the types of clothing people in China buy and wear depending on their income. But this will also be a learning experience for me in fashion in marketing, as this will be my first time to be on the look out for fashion trends and learn how this trend became and who mainly wears it.

I would write “in conclusion,” to this paragraph I wrote, but this is not the end it’s just the beginning of my life changing journey and I HOPE you will follow with ME!

BEST WISHES ON YOUR DAY!
~CHERRY~

[kai]

totally cool! i would be interested in hearing what it’s like to date in china. i think chinese girls are really sexy looking, but i’d never go to china because i heard the men out number the women by 3 to 1. 👿

[Cherry17]

Ah! That’s good to hear you want to hear more. I’ll be posting about every week when I am in China. Also what you said is true, men dominate women.

[Anonymous]

How can you go away to China for your senior year? I would be so nervous. Are you nervous about having to make new friends during your stay abroad?

[Anonymous]

LAURA!!! i miss you i sent you an email but i think it sent it to the wrong email becuase I HAVENT GOTTEN A REPLY!!! i like the comments they are funny again i miss you keep telling me whats going on

[Anonymous]

ummm the whole china post doesnt sound like you? did you write that?

[Cherry17]

MADDIE! I knew when I saw the name “Maddie” I knew it was YOU! I think only I call you that! But I never got your e-mail and I don’t think you got my e-mail I sent last friday! What was the e-mail address you used? B/c mine is [email protected]. What’s yours? And yes to your last comment. I did write it but I had to make it a little more formal for others I was told. But what do you mean though by it’s not really like me?

[Cherry17]

OMG! I am finally settled in at Beijing No. 80 High School. But the week after I arrived at the Beijing airport I was under hotel arrest meaning I was being quarantine for a week at a hotel. The hotel was pretty good but after a 3 or 4 days of being kept inside the hotel, my NYSLI group, plus the Boston group, and the German group, all became anxious to go outside. We were only allowed once and that didn’t go that great, since it was a 2-hour ride outside the middle of nowhere! Lol. Ah…did I make memories!

Anyways back to the present, school is not too bad, basically we are forced to study at night for our tests the next morning and we have 7 or 8 hours of different classes during the day. I have to say Chinese characters, once you get the hang of it is pretty simple, they are just basically representing the meaning of the character. Say for instance if you look up the character for “MOON” it will be writing as a half moon shape character. But what is really hard for me is the 4 tones, they just kill me. I think by the end of my program I will get the hang of it.

So last Saturday and Sunday, which was the first weekend in which I was in the high school dorm, went out to Yao Shao to shop! When I got there I was surprised because I was thinking it would be a big cheap place for bargaining but that wasn’t so. It was basically split up with a giant outdoor shopping mall with known name brands and a 5-story building including a food court at the top shop. The giant outside mall had expensive shops such as, the Apple store, Addidas, Pumas, Burberry, etc. The 5-story shopping mall sold bags, shoes, and clothes. Since the last time I came, many of the bags, shoes, and clothes are now at a higher price. But I think it might be because there is only 1 giant shopping place for bargaining and also the place I went was in Xi Dan, which has a lot of 8 story buildings selling the same items. But I can compare in a better manner when I go to Xi Dan this Saturday and Sunday.

So there is a giant gap between the older generation of people and the younger generation when it comes to fashion. From the first look at the older generation’s fashion, well I don’t know how to say it in a kind way but they don’t have one or follow one! Most of the adult women wear a t-shirt with slacks or the long capris with sneakers, while the adult men wear the ¾ sleeves with dark colors and sneakers or work shoes. The younger generations of women wear the last 2 or 3-year fashion clothes. Some of them have English writings that I doubt they even know what it says but I guess it looks good to them. The younger generations of men wear jean pants or regular pants with a t-shirt. I can say both the younger generation of women and men love to accessories with their clothes, either with a hat, a belt, shoes, and or some type of jewelry. I leave you with a new fact I learned since I have been in China, basically people in China wear the same clothes they wore today they also wear again tomorrow. What do you think? Is what they do really smart and or would you ever follow that trend?

[Anonymous]

OMG OMG OMG I CANT BELIEVE YOU RESPONDED THIS MAKES ME SOOOOOOOOOO HAPPYYYYY i LOOOOOVVVVEEEEEEEEEEE hearing about china!!! it sounds so cool and so different from boring old naples!
WELL i am on the swim team now! HAHA i dont kno if i told you that but anyways i will try emailing you again on that email adress i will send you a beautiful video!!! haha lol i miss you naples is pretty hot and it rains almost everyday! but ya back to swimming omg i have funny story for you about that but i will email you that schools pretty boring your not missing much except dang they force you to study!? hole crap it sounds way hard lol omg we had a half day recently and its like only till 11!!!! how weird is that? but ofcourse i stayed home that day 🙂)))) heheh lol anyways hopefully you will get my email!!!!!!! I MISS YOU! LOTS OF LOVE KEEP THE UPDATES COMING!!!

[Cherry17]

I am sorry to all of you, I know it has been some time since I last posted, but it’s been one hectic month for me. So a couple of weeks ago was the 60th anniversary of People’s Republic of China, they put on such a grand festival like no other. It was a weeks worth of celebration not only for the anniversary but also for the Moon-Cake festival, which happens every year on the first year of October. All of this was celebrated at T’ian Men Square.

So during the festival week I went with friends to Xi Dan to shop and check out the game room. In the game room their were all sorts of people, from the young to the old, but more of the young. The kids dressed in like every other American in pants and a t-shirt. Though there were some fashionable kids, who dressed with a mix of hip-hop and urban. It mainly had to do with what music they listen to and where they are from. I have seen a lot of Koreans dress very well, with a mix of classic and urban fashion. They wear washed jeans, loosely to their body with a scarf and a those small black hats. Even though it’s different and if I tried wearing it where I live it would be too strange, but here in China every outfit works. This is one of my first shortest replies but I’ll be back with more stories.

[Cherry17]

I am sorry to all of you, I know it has been some time since I last posted, but it’s been one hectic month for me. So a couple of weeks ago was the 60th anniversary of People’s Republic of China, they put on such a grand festival like no other. It was a weeks worth of celebration not only for the anniversary but also for the Moon-Cake festival, which happens every year on the first year of October. All of this was celebrated at T’ian Men Square.

So during the festival week I went with friends to Xi Dan to shop and check out the game room. In the game room their were all sorts of people, from the young to the old, but more of the young. The kids dressed in like every other American in pants and a t-shirt. Though there were some fashionable kids, who dressed with a mix of hip-hop and urban. It mainly had to do with what music they listen to and where they are from. I have seen a lot of Koreans dress very well, with a mix of classic and urban fashion. They wear washed jeans, loosely to their body with a scarf and a those small black hats. Even though it’s different and if I tried wearing it where I live it would be too strange, but here in China every outfit works. This is one of my first shortest replies but I’ll be back with more stories.

[Cherry17]

So just last weekend a group of my friends and I went to Silk Market. Oh what a great place it was! So many shops just for winter clothes, accessories, and bags. But it really is a tourist trap. Once you go into a store and you just want to look at the thing that catches your eye, the seller becomes alert and gives you the item, asks’ if you like it and even if you say no they don’t listen. But all in all I did get some shopping done…after all how can you not if everything you need and what is right in front of you. So starting from the beginning, my friends had only 3 days left before they had to go back home to America and they needed to go last minute shopping. I started out getting some high heel shoes and I needed boots for winter here. I was able to get a pair of 2 UGG boots for 200 yuan which is about 33 or 34 US dollars. It was cheep but not easy to get, it was the same for my friend. Now she knew everything about UGGS; from the color to the material inside and out, plus how it should be made. So having her around was a big help on getting good UGGS. We basically went around a lot of stores, trying them on and trying to find the right color and every other detail for UGGS. Finally we were able to come to one store in front of where the exit where people get off the subway to come to the Silk Market. It was tough there since we were not allowed to try them on first, they wanted to get the price figured out and then trying out the shoes. My friend went there before when there was a mean seller but when we went together it was a different nice one. He is a good tip for bargaining, if you really want to buy some thing cheaply then you should try to befriend the seller. Basically be nice to them, talk with them answer their questions about where your from, they really like that. That’s how I was able to lower the prices of the UGG boots from the 150 yuan each to 110 yuan for my friend and 100 yuan for me. I bought 2 pairs and my friend bought 3. My friend was really happy about her boots and so was I, since now I am prepared for their winter here.

Anyways I learned at the Silk Market that everything they sell especially jewelry and clothes are made right there. I say people making brand name jeans near the stair ways, with sewing machines and by hand. Over all the sellers at the Silk Market start out with high prices for their merchandise but you just need to know what you would pay for it. After all nothing their is real just brand names that are knocked-off well. This is not the last of me since I still have plenty of other places to go to for X-MAS shopping and who knows what I will see.

Always,
Cherry

[April Masini]

Let me know how things are going for you Laura! 😀

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