Ready to focus on rice

Five weeks of Chinese classes are done. With an average of about three tests a week, plus tons of homework, I am beginning to see the results and am feeling really good about my ability to conduct interviews and read reports on rice. Over the last week or two, I've been feeling torn between being anxious to start my research and wishing that classes could last longer and prolong the inevitable where I am completely on my own and have to be self-motivated to structures my days around talking to people and reading about rice. I think I've come to the content realization that this program is going to come to an end and my research is going to have to happen. Part of the comfort I feel comes from just talking to people about rice and hearing their ideas about it. The more conversations I have about rice, the more I see that people are responsive and excited to talk about rice. This week I've had great spontaneous conversations with my language teachers, the foreign affairs director of my school, random restaurant owners, and a Harbin history professor. It is their responsiveness that is getting me excited to turn my attention completely to rice in just about a month.

So I started this week getting ready to live here after everyone else in my program departs to go back to the US. I am working on securing a year-long research visa and I have begun asking about apartments in Harbin. THese projects are time-consuming and I am hoping that once my program ends and the Olympics begin (i.e. everyone will be glued to the television), I will have the time to focus full-time on getting the details of living in China taken care of.

In the meantime, I am enjoying spending time with my classmates and teachers. This morning all of the students in my group went out with our teachers to the countryside. We went to a "Russian Park" but it was still being built, so there was not that much to do there. Except I thoroughly enjoyed it because the sun was shining, there was green grass and trees everywhere, and we had a picnic. It felt good to be out of the city for a day. On the way, we passed some rice fields, adding to my enthusiasm to get out and check out the rice. I just have to be patient and realize that I have a whole year ahead of me of being around rice. For now, I have to prepare a report about what I did this morning at the park for class tomorrow, not to mention study for a test in another class.

Rice fields from a moving bus...