Greenheart Travel

Author: Michaela Riggio

My Trip to the Beijing Zoo to See the Pandas

by Afia Yeboah, Greenheart Travel homestay English teacher in China

It’s day 7 in Beijing and today I went on an adventure: A Trip To the Beijing Zoo!!

Main Goal: To see PANDAS. Pandas are a symbol of peace and friendship in China so I felt it would be important to see them while I’m here in Beijing.

If you remember Day 4 in Beijing, I talked about my friend from college named Jade Johnson. Well we decided to hang out again today and take a trip to the zoo! Before I came to China, I did my research. I thought it would be best to come up with a list of places to visit that were considered Beijing, China’s Main Attractions. The Beijing Zoo was the one of the places on my list.

The Beijing Zoo is metro accessible, and in fact it has its own station on Line 4 of the Beijing Subway. After making 2 transfers, within all of about 35 minutes, we got to the zoo. Jade’s roommate, who has been living and teaching in Beijing for 5 years, told us to get food before we entered the park, because they only served snacks inside.

So our first destination and closest food option was the World Recognized McDonald’s. After days of rice, I’ve never been more excited to see that golden arch. The McDonald’s was actually pretty normal and cool. I ordered a Double Cheeseburger and small fry. The fries were exactly like how they are at home. The burger patties were slightly off in taste but still doable. Thanks McDonald’s.

We made our way back to the zoo. Admission was really cheap, 20 Yuan, which is less than $4 in USD. The Zoo was huge! They had lions, and tigers, and bears. We learned that the zoo was home to over 400 different species of animals, about 5,000 animals in total, including kangaroos, elephants, zebras, and giraffes. We got to see all of the animals I mentioned and more. I also got to see the giant pandas! Yay! And I also got to pet some zebras, which was really cool.

The park was huge so after about 2 hours we were pretty tired of walking. But all and all it was a great experience and I do recommend a trip to the Beijing Zoo to you all!

Until next time and thanks for reading,

Fi

May 5, 2016
Differences in Determining Temperature, Age and Weight in China
by Afia Yeboah, Greenheart Travel Homestay Teacher in China

叶飞飞Yèfēifēi

Ni Hao Friends, Family and New Friends,

Day 6 in Beijing was a very chill Saturday in Beijing for me. I stayed in with the boys, played with them a bit and helped them to practice their English. They are great.

I’d like to use this quick post to talk about a few more cultural differences between home in the United States, and life in Beijing. Yes, the list of differences continue, but I’ll make these brief.

Temperature:

When Chao told me one day, “Yeah it’ll be about 22 degrees today,” I literally was like “wut!?” *insert shock face here*.

But we both realized that their ‘22 degrees’ here in Beijing meant about ‘71 degrees Fahrenheit’ back home in the States. The temperature here in Beijing is told in Celsius.

Weight:

They have a weight scale here in the BEIT Office, Greenheart Travel’s partner company’s office. So of course I casually hop on the scale to check my weight. But after seeing the number I’m screaming like “Ahhhh, no way!”

I figured I’d lose weight in China because the eating is healthier here, but not this much weight! Then I had to ask, “Chao and Bella. Please tell me, is weight measured here in lbs?” And they’re like “yeah.”

I say “No way, p-o-u-n-d-s, pounds? l-b-s, pounds?

And then they clarify, “No, we use jin.”

Now it made sense. It seemed like I had lost a drastic 10-12 pounds in my short stay here so far. However, it was more like 3-5 lbs, but not too far off my normal weight at home.

The difference between jin to lbs seems to fall within 10-20 lbs or so. So the conversion looks like this:
- 100 lbs is 90 jin.
- 200 lbs is 181 jin.
Age:

The way age is recognized in the States differs from how it’s recognized in Beijing.

In the states, when a baby is born, he is 0 months old. Then the baby is x months old, like 6 months old or 10 months old. After one year passes, on the first anniversary of the baby’s birth, the baby is then considered to be 1 years old.

Not the case in China. In China, the moment a baby is born, that baby is considered to be 1 years old. On the baby’s first birthday, the baby is now considered to be 2 years old.

So yes, the differences here are pretty neat. I’ll continue to take note and keep you all posted as I do.

Until next time,

叶飞飞
Fifi
April 29, 2016
Observations on Transportation and Bathrooms in Beijing, China

by Afia Yeboah, Greenheart Travel Homestay Teacher in China

你好.
Nǐmen hǎo! Hello, Everyone.

Today is Day 5 in Beijing! I think time is flying!! Today I tutored the boys in English. I tutor them five times a week for three hours a day. I also got some of my TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) coursework done. This certification that I am obtaining online will allow me to teach abroad in almost any country, including China, on a teacher’s contract for a year or so.

I decided to use this day mostly as a day of rest, and because it was more on the uneventful side, I can talk about more of the cultural things that I’ve noticed here that I haven’t touched upon yet:

The Bathroom Culture

Many of the bathrooms in Beijing have squatters for toilets. What that means for women in particular is that you have to squat over the toilet into a suction hole. There is no actual toilet base and seat.

I was pretty shocked to see this at first and I’ve noticed bathrooms with toilets like this in a lot of public places like restaurants and parks, but never in a home. I haven’t brought myself to try out the squatter, because frankly I don’t trust my squatting abilities, so luckily I’ve had the option of using the more common toilet.

When it comes to public restrooms, it is encouraged to carry your own tissue with you at all times, because some bathrooms will not have toilet paper. The bathrooms that do carry toilet paper normally carry it outside of the stall where you typically wash and dry your hands.

What about the babies? And while we’re on still on the subject, the way that babies use the bathroom here is unique as well! There are no changing stations in the restrooms here. On any given day it’s pretty common to see the babies using the rest room in public, right on the street. You’ve read that right!

In fact, many of the babies wear pants that have a hole in the back, for the use of easy access for squatting and doing their business in public. Basically, whenever the babies “have to go”, the parents let them squat and go in public on the side of whatever street they are on. Someone shared with me that this is an alternative for parents who can’t afford pampers. I’m still not too sold on the “hole in the butt for babies” bottoms, but hey, to each his own!

The Transportation Culture

I literally can’t even watch the road here. Whenever I’m in a taxi or another type of public transportation called a rickshaw, (a pretty cool method of transportation that’s a mini car cart with one wheel in the front, two wheels in the back), I find myself cringing at least once during the ride through the city.

The driving here is crazy! It looks as if people are making up the rules as they go, turning on red, whoever was there first goes, delayed signaling and a lot of honking. If I am to watch the road, I clinch very often because I’m afraid that every other second I am about to witness a collision. So I just don’t. I don’t watch and I pray to myself that I will make it to my destination safely.

It’s been working out for me! Haha. Also a lot of adults in Beijing don’t have their driver’s license because the traffic is heavy and the subway is such a popular mode. The rickshaws tend to be more of a negotiated price, by distance. The taxis are typically a little less expensive than a rickshaw, and fairly inexpensive in general.

The Beijing Subway

I touched on this a little in my last post, so today I can expound a little more. It’s a pretty extensive system made up of 16 color-coordinated lines, almost expanding out to the entire Beijing. It’s a fairly inexpensive mode of transportation. It’s not too hard to navigate because almost everything is translated into English. All of the announcements on the metro are read aloud in English, after the Chinese reading first.

Furthermore, if you know the name of your destination, you can read which line you’re on and also read the pinyin of the destination, the written lettered form of Chinese, for easy distinction. It’s a pretty good system that’s made transferring to different lines simple and easy.

Be aware however that the stations get really crowded and pretty often on the metro all of the seats are taken and there are people packed like sardines, all standing up. This is the norm during rush hour after work. Also if you’re a foreigner like me, don’t be surprised if people take random pictures of you. I get that a lot here ☺

There are a lot more cultural distinctions to be discussed so stay tuned for more.
In the meantime, Zaijian! Which means, goodbye, in Chinese.

Fi 飞

April 27, 2016
Adventures in Eating Pizza and Exploring Xidan in China

by Afia Yeboah, Greenheart Travel Homestay Teacher in China

Yay! Ni Hao Friends and Family.

It’s Day 4 in Beijing and I feel really excited to be here. I feel so happy and blessed. Today, I will be meeting a friend of mine named Jade Johnson. Jade and I attended the University of Maryland College Park together from 2011-2015. We were in the same “more than just a scholarship” program, the University of Maryland Incentive Awards Program, which produces the finest Maryland student ambassadors. (Shout out to IAP!)

As most of you already know, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature, pre-law emphasis. Jade graduated from the University with a Bachelor of Arts in History. She moved to the Shijingshan District of Beijing for a year to teach English in a kindergarten and she will be here until October 2016.

Doppelgänger fun: It’s amusing to hang out with Jade Johnson from college sometimes because I also have a best friend from high school with the exact same name: Jade Johnson. I have to make sure they meet one day. I’ll definitely get a kick out of it.

So college Jade Johnson and I meet in Xidan, a very modern, chic, shopping district in Beijing, that reminded me a lot of like a less congested, more spaced out, Times Square, New York – mainly because of the massively lit billboards.

We ventured into Joy City Galleria for some grub. I thought it was so cool that this mall had an H&M, Samsung store, Microsoft store, XBOX One gaming store, Under Armour (Shout out to Baltimore), an iPhone store, Starbucks, Burger King and a Dairy Queen. Sounds like home to me!

Jade suggested we go to a pizza place inside the mall named Babela’s Kitchen. My friends and family know that I can never and have never turned down pizza in my entire life. So accordingly, Jade and I ordered French fries, chicken nuggets, and a medium pizza.

And the saddest pizza in the world award goes to: I’m sad to report this, but this was the scariest pizza I’ve ever encountered in life. Jade ordered a Hawaiian Pizza. You know, the typical ham and pineapple pizza. But I’ve discovered that in China they get really creative with their pizza and make the pizza sweet, for example they sell blueberry pizza. They’re big on fruit on pizza and other very interesting topping combinations.

Guys, this pizza made me very, very sad. As a pizza lover, I was heart-broken. Jade ate it and told me this pizza was sweet and sour, with sweet drizzle and sour cheese. Can you imagine? Honestly, I could not even take a full bite, let alone a whole slice. Hahahahaha it was tragic.

Other menu items on the drink list were “Purple Rice with Coconut Milk” and “Corn Juice.” If only I was more adventurous. Jade and I went to get Froyo to make up for our sad pizza in Beijing experience. [However, stay tuned because later we found the most DELICIOUS pizza spot in Wudaokou, Beijing. All hope is not lost!]

We leave Xidan and Jade gives me subway directions for me to return to my host home in the Chao Yang District. The Beijing subway is pretty big system, but it becomes easy to navigate after a few times riding the lines. One distinct difference between the stations here, compared to back home, is the security check they implement.

Here in Beijing, they require any bags and purses passengers’ carry, to first go through a conveyer belt to be scanned. Very similar to what the system they have in the airport, except you don’t have to remove your shoes and jackets, etc.

I make it home in about 30-40 minutes by Metro. Jade’s instructions were as followed:

Instructions from Xidan:

Line 1. We are at Xidan. Go 7 stops to Guomao (blue). Get off and walk to Line 10. Take the direction at Line 10 to Jintaixizhao. Go 6 stops to Sanyuanquao. Exit D, Phoenix City.

The Sanyuanquao metro is about a 15-minute walk from my host home, or a 3-minute cab ride. I made it home safely, and I’m looking forward to my fifth day here.

What a great day in Beijing.

Until next time,

Fi

April 23, 2016
Meeting My Host Family in China and First English Lessons

by Afia Yeboah, Greenheart Travel Homestay Teacher in China

Day 3第三天 Dì sān tiān

你好.

Nǐmen hǎo! Hello, Everyone.

It’s Day 3 in Beijing, China, and I finally get to meet my lovely host family of five.

Meet My Host Family:

My host dad, Mr. Gao, is a businessman here in China. My host mom is Ms. Gao Lin. In China, the last name is placed before the first name in introductions, so in America she would be known as Lin Gao; first name Lin, last name Gao.

Ms. Gao is an attorney here in China. She passed the Bar in New York, USA and also received her LLM degree. She shared with me that her eldest two sons, William and David, ages 6 and 5 respectively, were born in Orange County, Los Angeles, California. Her youngest, Vincent, age 2, was born in Vancouver, Canada.

Learning this information lead me to asking, “what were the boy’s nationalities, technically speaking?” Ms. Gao explained and this is what I gathered:

According to American law, if you are born in the United States, you are a United States Citizen. William and David have an American passport. They can declare their nationality when they are older. According to Chinese law, if you are born to parents who are Chinese, then you are Chinese. Vincent was born in Vancouver, Canada. I’m not so familiar with Canadian law, but I believe he is Canadian through birth and will also have the ability to declare when he is older.

The eldest sons, William and David attend primary public school, which is free, and according to Ms. Gao, very good education. Besides kindergarten, the boys take many classes such as fencing, horsing, swimming, chess, piano, drums and sports. Ms. Gao shared that they have 3 ½ music lessons on Saturdays. And after kindergarten the boys excitedly ask: “ So what kind of class do we have today mom?!” I told Ms. Gao that she has “busy little men,” and laughing, she agreed.

These 6, 5, and 2 year-old boys are precious. They are smart, cute, talented and quite a bit of fun.

William’s strength with English is his writing. His writing is very neat and he knows a wide range of subjects. I met with his English teacher who is from England, and he shared that William knows about school, feelings, restaurants, his things, numbers, personal needs, etc.

David’s strength is in his speaking; He can speak small sentences and string words together very well. He is a little younger than William, so obviously his writing ability is a little less than William’s, who has had more exposure to the English language.

Vincent’s strength is in food. This two year old can EAT. I’ve never seen Vincent without food in his hand. He loves to eat. He also knows words like “hi”, “hello”, “mama”, and “baby”, which is really cute. He’s adorable.

The boys also have two nannies, which are known as “āyí” in Chinese and translated to aunt in English. The āyí’s are responsible for the cooking and cleaning around the house.

I went grocery shopping with Vincent, the 2 year old, and one of the āyí’s today. She doesn’t speak English at all, which made for an interesting trip. The grocery store was called “METRO” and it was within walking distance from our fenced and guarded apartment complex. Mr. and Mrs. Gao both suggested that I visit “Metro” with the nanny to get the items I like most.

So we get to the market and of course I’m excited to see American brands that are easily recognizable, such as Sprite, Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice, Cheerios, Frosted Flakes, Pringles, etc. and I happily load my cart. I also grabbed other basics like sandwich bread, cheese, tortillas, and fruit.

Later, I speak to Chao, my B.E.I.T. rep, and she tells me that American foods are imported and more expensive. Basically, I could have gone to a less expensive local grocery store to get some of the same items. Oops! I had no idea because of the language barrier between the nanny and I. But no big deal, of course, because I now know for next time, and the food items I purchased will last for a couple weeks.

When we return to my host home, we all have fish and rice for dinner. I give the boys their first English lesson, and at the end of the lesson I show them the movie “Mulan,” which is a great animated Disney movie based in China. The boy’s loved it so much that they asked me to show them Mulan 2 as well!

Today was a great day, I love my new family, and tomorrow I look forward to meeting up with a former colleague of mine from the University of Maryland, who is currently teaching English in Beijing for a year! The adventure continues!

Signing off for now. Until next time my friends,

叶飞飞Yèfēifēi

April 21, 2016
Learning About Money, Love and the Unlucky Number 4 in China

by Afi Yeboah, Greenheart Travel Homestay Teacher in China

Day 2第二天 Dì èr tiān

Ni Hao Family and Friends. It’s me again, 叶飞飞Yèfēifēi (affectionately known as Fifi in America), and this is my blog post about Day 2 in Beijing, China.

To continue where we left off, I was headed to orientation with Greenheart Travel’s partner company, “Bridge For Education & International Travel.” I am participating in their “Homestay in China” program. Upon settling in the meeting room, one of the first things I noticed was how they serve tea in Beijing.

Chao He, my B.E.I.T. representative, explained to me that they don’t add anything to their tea in Beijing. No sugar, honey, ice or milk! What’s served is just the hot water and bag less tea leaves. Hot water is also served with every meal, as opposed to the way cold beverages are served with meals in the U.S. Interesting stuff.

So Chao and her colleagues gave me a really great “Post Arrival Training” book, which went over a lot of important cultural aspects of China, but I will briefly cover two.

About the Money:

Chinese currency is called “Renminbi (people’s money). It is abbreviated as RMB. Yuan is a unit of Renminbi, and the smaller denominations are called jiao and fen.

1 yuan = 10 jiao = 100 fen

As far as spoken Chinese, yuan is called kuai and jiao is called mao.

When shopping, they tell me to divide the RMB amount by 5 to get the approximate USD amount. Meaning, if something is priced as 100RMB, its about $20 bucks or less back home.

(The actual conversion right now is 1 US Dollar equals 6.46 Chinese Yuan, according to Google.)

No Love?:

As we continued to talk about cultural differences, one of the most memorable differences was their expression of love.

In Chinese class in high school with Mr. Zhang, and even my Mandarin courses in college with Wang Laoshi and Lee Laoshi, I remember learning the phrase “Wo Ai Ni”, which means “I love you” in Mandarin Chinese.

However, I probably won’t ever hear “Wo Ai Ni” here in Beijing! Chao and Bella from B.E.I.T. explained to me that in China, you rarely say “I Love You,” not even to your parents.

I said “Bella, do you ever say I love you to your parents?” Laughing, she says “No, never!”

Boy, I was shocked. In America, I say “I love you” to someone every single day. In every conversation with all of my family members and even with my close friends, we exchange our “I love you’s” at the end of every single one of our conversations.

Chao explained to me that in China, people only say “I love you” to their parents during very special occasions, maybe on Birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and wedding speeches. The reason being, China is a country where the people don’t like to show their emotions.

They don’t openly display their affection; they tend to keep it all inside. Although they may have love in their hearts, typically, they won’t verbally express it. I thought this was fascinating.

Unlucky Number 4:

When we were leaving orientation to get food at a local mall, I noticed something else. The elevators in China skip the number 4. (They also use the negative dash symbol to indicate their ground and basement floors.)

The number “4” is considered to be unlucky in some parts of China, and therefore omitted in some Chinese buildings. Why? Because in Chinese, 4,四 is pronounced “sì” which sounds a lot like the Chinese word for death “sǐ” 死.

Cool. So on our way to Phoenix Galleria, 凤凰汇, I spied a 7-Eleven which I was amazed that they had here. Even more amazing was the fact that the gallery had an H&M. If you know me at all, you know I love love love to shop, so I can’t wait to go back in there. We managed to grab food from the food court and I had the most delicious Chicken and Rice dish.

People continue to ask me how the food is here and I must say it hasn’t been too bad at all. I’ll talk about more about it later.

We left the mall and Bella and I took the Metro to the Historical Hutongs, which are narrow streets and alleys filled with shops, commonly associated with Beijing, and are considered to be an important cultural element in this city.

Finally, Bella takes me to meet my host family and I get to see where I will be living. I interact with them more in Day 3 in Beijing, so I will discuss it all in my next blog post. Stay Tuned!

Until Next Time ☺

叶飞飞Yèfēifēi

April 20, 2016
After Much Preparation and a Long Plane Ride, I Finally Arrive in China

by Afia Yeboah, Greenheart Travel Homestay Teacher in China

Ni Hao! Dear Family, Friends and new friends! This is Fifi from the United States. I am happy to share that I have arrived in Beijing safely! I will be blogging my entire experience so please be sure to stay tuned. A special thank you to Greenheart Travel and to my family for making this possible for me.

On Sunday, April 3^rd at 12:40pm, I flew from IAD Dulles International Airport on a nonstop flight to Beijing, China. I made sure I had snacks for the flight and I also ate a burger and pretzel (interesting combo) at the airport because I didn’t want to be too hungry mid-flight and I knew that it would keep me full for several hours. It did.

A key specific for this flight was that I needed a visa to travel to China. The airport checked for a valid visa in my passport twice before I boarded. I obtained an L visa from the DC Chinese Embassy earlier in March.

An L visa is a tourist visa, which will allow me to stay in China for up to 60 days and it allows multiple entries. This means I am allowed to revisit China multiple times until my passport expires in 2025.

My nonstop flight to Beijing, China with United Airlines was 14 hours long. “14 hours!? Sheesh, that’s a long time” you might say. Yes, a long flight indeed, but it wasn’t too bad at all.

United Airlines provided great service, there were drinks, meals, and snacks served every few hours, and equipped on the back of all the seats were individual TV screens. Personally, I think technology is so cool these days.

I remember when flights only had TV screens overhead, not on every row, but every few seats. With these individual TV screens, I could opt for music, movies or TV shows, free of charge, and watch and listen to any selection with my personal headphones. During the flight I watched “Concussion” starring Will Smith and “The Revenant” starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Both movies were great in their own respect and I highly recommend them both if you haven’t seen them already. Of course I cried during both films because quite frankly, I’m a big wuss. Don’t judge me, but typically I can tear-up during any good movie that isn’t a comedy. hahaha

During the 14-hour flight, besides the movies, I napped a bit, listened to music and I didn’t get restless until about 12 hours into the flight. Then I forced myself to sleep for the remaining 2 hours, until it was time to touch down. Overall, I definitely enjoyed my flight. The only thing I can say that I didn’t like about this flight was the person sitting around me who kept letting out gas. They were the silent but deadly ones. I think it was the guy sitting in front of me. So the United “Safety Card” pamphlet became my fan and my best friend. Other than those unfortunate smells, great flight!

So we land and the first thing I had to do before going through customs was stand in the “Foreigners” line which checked passports and visas. Funny story: I had on a black “ Hunger Games” t-shirt that said in big white letters on the front: “I volunteer as tribute” and had the “three-finger salute”.

These are all references to “The Hunger Games” movie. This was the most comfortable t-shirt I could find to wear on the plane, as I like to be comfortable on flights. Well, I forgot I had this shirt on until I heard a faint whistle; it was the slow four-note mocking jay whistle from the “Hunger Games” movie. I looked up and I made eye contact with the girl who was was teasing me, and we both started laughing.

In “Hunger Games”, the four-note whistle was the sound that the mockingjay bird makes, and also the tune that the main character Katniss Everdeen would whistle. In the movie, the mocking jay was a symbol of rebellion and the whistle was a symbol of hope. So she was teasing me in line by whistling this sound because of my shirt. Anyway, it was such a funny moment and it put me at such a sense of ease in this new country!

I made it through the line and I got my passport and visa stamped. On to baggage claim, and I find my checked bag on the conveyer belt in literally no time.

By this time it is 2:30pm in the Bejing Airport. I am exhausted. I met a nice lady from South Africa who allowed me to use her phone, and also showed me where to buy a sim card for my iPhone. I suggest anyone who wants to use their iPhone in China to unlock it before coming, and you will be able to text over wifi.

I got in contact with Chao He, my contact person and representative for this program, and from the airport we checked into my hotel and grabbed a bite to eat at a local food restaurant chain, Beef and Rice.

After chatting with Chao He for a bit about our different cultural experiences, I returned to my hotel and slept for 12 hours straight. Clearly, I was exhausted after that flight.

Today, I will be going to Greenheart Travel orientation, sightseeing, and meeting my host family. Thanks for tuning in.

再见Zàijiàn.

Until next time,

Fifi

叶飞飞

April 8, 2016