First impressions of my trip

" It feels like somebody had put 100 woollen blankets on top of me!" That's what I thought when I stepped out of the airport in Chengdu. The temperute is very high here, as well as the humidity. So constantly I have a second skin of sweat all over my body. But still it feels very nice!

 

On the 4th of July, during a group meeting with all the Dutch students and organisers, we chose, by name and study, our buddies. (We, 20 Dutch students, are teamed up with 20 Chinese students.) My buddy, Xu Liang or Peter (his western name) is studying safety engineering, which I found out two days ago, is more like safety chemical engineering.

So on the arrivalday we met our buddies for the first time, we had had a little emailcontact before, but now we really met eachother. Now, after more than two days, I am finding out that it is a perfect match. His character is very similar to mine and I think we will stay good friends after my trip. Unfortunately all the Chinese students will only stay with us for one week.

 

Until now we have visited two schools, but unfortunately we were not really able to talk with the kids. I really want to interview some of them for my documentary; I want to use sports as main theme. What sports do they do/like, and is there difference before or after the earthquake and/or last year's Olympic games. It is, with our busy programme, hard to shoot the right videomaterial. I hope it will improve these coming days...

 

It is the first time I really do interviews with the camera, and especially with Peter as interpreter. I have interviewed some people and made some nice shots, but I hope I will have more and better chances these coming days. Unfortunately the governor has told us that we can't do tomorrow's programme. 

 

Other than that, it feels great to be in China, especially because I am partly Chinese and I have never been here before. I am right now sitting alone in a very small  copyshop/intercafe, and it seems that I am their only customer for the past hour. Since I don't speak mandarin Chinese, I had to use my hands and feet to show what I want. The  you realise that you are really in a different country where they don't speak any other languages!

 

This morning I saw the eclipse, and as a miracle, the clouds parted a bit so we could see the full eclipse. Incredible! It get's almost as dark as at nighttime. It was quite special since this eclipse was a very long one!

Yesterday I bought an erhu (Chinese violin), and a bamboo flute. The flute is not so hard to play, but the erhu is much harder. Even a violinist like me is terrible at playing the erhu. But, I am very,very happy with my new instruments, and it is like a dream come true.

 

I just started with my travel diary today, since we have so little free time. That is also why this short story may be a little unorganised. There are just to many impressions I have to undergo!

Since it is not possible to open the blog here in China, I am using a different way of posting a message. I am sorry that I don't have pictures right now.

I hope to write you soon some more!

Greetings from warm (and right now for the first time rainy) China,

 

San