A special Christmas update...

It is about 5 in the afternoon on Christmas day here in Shanghai, and I have to say...this was a fabulous Christmas. I don't think I could have asked for anything more knowing how far I am from home. 

The holiday started at Karin's house. I know Karin through my Chinese class. She is here with her parents and they needed some extra children to fill out their fairly large dinner table. It ended up being Karin, her mom and dad, me, Degan (a Canadian guy also studying Chinese), Priscilla (Karin's Brazilian friend) and Frederic (Karin's Swedish friend). Dinner was delicious, including all of the traditional Swedish dishes, i.e. meatballs. Everything was delicious. We all ate until we were stuffed and then began our "white elephant" game. Of course the game was hilarious and Degan, who started out with no presents, made out like a bandit and took everyone else's! It was quite hilarious to see seven "adults" running around a dining room table singing Jingle Bells at the top of our lungs waiting for the buzzer to go off so we could take a seat. It was like I had an extra, extended family that I had never met before! Basically, the evening was fabulous and enhanced by the presence of Glogg wine and a live Christmas tree, not to mention wonderful company. 

Me and the lovely tree.

Me and my Swedish substitute parents!

Today has also been lovely. I surprised my roommate with a miniature Christmas in the middle of our room when she came back from her lesson this morning. She was very excited and after warming up some hot cocoa and cinnamon rolls, we sat down to open a few gifts. I think my favorite part is that we Skyped with my parents while we opened gifts, in a way it was like they were there...which was nice. We just kind of enjoyed ourselves through the morning. It wasn't fancy, it wasn't home, but it was definitely what I needed.

Mini Christmas!

Mun and I in our lovely hats.

It's a family Christmas!

Later we met up with Professor Wu from Willamette! He took me, my roommate, Corinna and his pianist to a delicious Cantonese style lunch. I'm calling it my Christmas dinner though. There was definitely enough food to warrant that. We were at the restaurant for roughly three hours, I'm beginning to think that this is just the average time one should spend at a meal. Who knows. It was delicious and the company was excellent. And now, I plan to spend the rest of my evening tucked snuggly warm in my bed watching movies and drinking hot cocoa.

String Quartet fun!

In the last week I have learned several things about dining with Chinese. Saturday, my quartet (the Phoenix Quartet) had a gig. We performed the first two movements of our Beethoven quartet and the first movement of a Mozart quartet that we had only had for two days. Though a little frightening because of the short rehearsal time, it went extremely well. Later that evening, we met up at a hot pot restaurant for dinner. Three hours, several bottles of Tsingtao and several pounds of food later we are still sitting there. I don't think I have ever felt so full. I finally ate strange food though, some pigs ear...surprisingly crunchy, and pigs' brain...brain. I'm still not sure how I feel about that part of it. 

Since Saturday, I have been crazy busy. I basically practice all the time...at least eight hours every day. I think after one more month of working on my technique will really pay off. Today was hilarious though. I knew that we would have an orchestra rehearsal today at 1:30, I did not however know that we had a concert at 3:30. At least it's over for the semester. 

Later, I met up with my Professor, He Xuan and we walked to a Teppanyaki (I have no idea how to spell that) restaurant. There we waited for twenty minutes for the violist from my quartet and another ten minutes after that for our violinist and cellist. It's "Chinese time" which means that everything starts at least one half hour after it was supposed to. By the time we started grilling the various foods, it was almost 8:00. Everything was delicious, and I surprised myself by eating seafood. A lot of seafood. I probably consumed more seafood tonight than I have in the last several years of my life. I thought things were winding down around 9:00, but two decanters of sakae appeared along with several more plates of prawns and cow tongue (it's chewy). Around 9:45, I was getting kind of antsy, but everyone else seemed content to sit and talk and eat more, so I was patient. Finally the restaurant started shutting down. The waiters kept looking over at our table and finally one came by and forcably made us pay the bill. But Professor He kept chatting away...finally around 10:25 a lull came into the conversation and we finally made a break for it. I think it was the longest meal of my life. Delicious, but long. 

In conclusion...when invited out to dinner by Chinese, one must remember these very important things:

1. Dinner will start at least a half an hour later than scheduled. 

2. Come hungry...very hungry.

3. Finish anything you need to do before you go to dinner, it may take your entire evening. 

4. Come prepared with stories...or at least jokes.

5. EAT FIRST, ASK LATER (if you ask first, you may not be able to eat what they set down in front of you...)

GANG BEI! (cheers)

Here's my string quartet!

 (L to R) Shen Ting (first violin), Yie Zhou (cello), Wei Jin (viola), and me (second violin)...aren't we adorable!

I have a few minutes! Yay.

So I'm heading into the home stretch of my first semester here in Shanghai and things are busier than ever. I have a feeling things are about to get even busier in fact. It is also extremely cold here, freezing, sometimes I can't handle it. Most of the time I'm shivering and when I'm not shivering, I'm thawing. The weirdest part is that the practice rooms are not heated (at least not on the weekends) and even when they are heated, they aren't that warm. 

At least it's better than when my teacher was studying here. In my lesson today he told me that they had to practice in the old building where it was all cement with no windows. Basically they were freezing. Professor He said when they were practicing for exams he would stand on a wooden chair just so that he wouldn't have to stand on the cement floor. They played really fast...apparently. So that made me feel better. 

I am working hard, and I think I might be getting somewhere...hopefully. I have a feeling that the next month or 33 days to be exact will fly by. I have exams on the 19, 25, and 31 of December and then the final solo technical exam on January 5th. Throw a few extra performances in there (orchestra and the string quartet) and some Chinese classes, and there is a lot to do. Most of the time, I feel like I barely have enough time to breathe, much less time to eat or sleep. Although, I always seem to find time on the weekend to make a pilgrimage to the fabric market with Joanna. That place is like some kind of fly trap for me, and I'm the fly. Once you're there, there's no leaving without being measured and handing over some cash for a delightful custom made piece! 

And now I should get on to some Chinese homework or more practicing...or any number of other things...maybe some pomelo...delicious!