So starting from me and going counterclockwise:Deborah Sung is sitting next to me. She is a senior in International Studies and Pre-Med. She is doing her research project on the role of traditional doctors (called Bimo) in ethnic minority groups in China and how that role has changed since the Cultural Revolution. She is American Born Chinese and speaks Mandarin at home with her family, who are Taiwanese. It has made her experience here at lot different than ours. Because she looks Chinese and can speak, people sometimes assume she is Chinese even if she already told them she is American and will assume she knows everything about Chinese culture and rules and things so they are alot less patient and forgiving.
Next is Ben Gertsen who is a sophomore and majoring in Archeology. His research project is a video project about ethnic tourism in a small village called Yishala. It is an Yi village and the people there have recently decided to turn their town into a tourist destination for people to come and see a "traditional Yi village". He has been in China longer than us because he spent a month in a city a little South of Beijing doing a intensive language program before school started. He is also a soccer player at UW and has been playing on alot of teams here.
Top row on the right is Laura DeVere, my roommate. She is a junior, I think, and is majoring in Chinese. Her project is about Chinese sign language and the deaf community in Chengdu. She is fluent in ASL and does alot of stuff related to that in the states and is now in the process of learning Chinese sign language. Besides Deborah, she has been studying Chinese for the longest (2 years). She is very independent and has to work to pay for school, like me. I know alot about Laura, but I don't really know what else to say here.
Standing next to Laura is Tabitha Hart. Tabitha is a China Studies major and is also a junior. She is doing her project with Sunny (coming up next) and it is about coffee culture in Chengdu. Coffee shops have been going up all over the place and there had been some controversy, especially generational, about how it will affect the tea culture that has been part of Chinese society for so long.
Next to Tabitha is her project partner Sunny Boo. I am not sure what Sunny is majoring in Chinese as well. Sunny is Korean and Korean is here first language. She has made friends with the other Korean foreign exchange students here. Sunny was about a week late getting here because she was in a car accident in Korea and couldn't fly for a while because she had to wear a neck brace; it wasn't too serious though.
Next to Sunny is Matthew Reinert who is a junior and a Biology major. His research project is an ornithological survey of Yangjuan. Basically, going out with the little boys and catching frogs, then writing down their names and anything the people know about them in Yi. Matthew used to live on Bainbridge in the community housing project there, which was one of the first in the nation. He also reads alot and knows alot about pretty much everything and is really fun to talk to.
And last but not least is our "mentor" in Chengdu, Andrea Elliot. Andrea's role in our group is pretty much to help us out in anyway we need because we don't have a professor here with us, but she is more like a friend than and is an excellent resource. We have weekly meetings with her where we can ask any questions we have about buying bus tickets or our research or our classes, pretty much anything. We are also starting to take field trips in and around the city to places we might not find otherwise, which is a lot of fun too. Andrea has lived in Chengdu for about 2 years (I think). She teaches at the Sports University, which is a University pretty much for gym teachers, although they have other majors now too. She teaches an English Literature class. She is also here apprenticing Dr. Fang to learn more about Chinese medicine and hopefully open some kind of practice when she gets back to the States this June. She went to SIOM (Seattle Institute of Oriental Medicine).
So that's the group, we like to call ourselves Team Awesome because that was our team name when we went to Quiz Night.
I also told you all that I was going to go to Lezhi on Saturday. Well it turns out we didn't quite make it. I met Deborah, Ben, Matt, and Andrea at the North gate of campus at 7am on Saturday morning and we all took taxis to the closest bus station (there are several in Chengdu). We bought our tickets for Lezhi and got on the bus. So far so good, since when we had told other Chinese people we were planning to go to Lezhi the had either never heard of it or asked "why would you want to go there?" About an hour into the bus ride is when things went terribly wrong. We were driving down the middle of a little two lane road in a very small one road town and there was a motorcycle that was pulling up next to us on the right. The motorcycle had three grown men on it and was going a little faster than the bus. When the motorcycle got ahead of the bus, I guess they wanted to go to the other side of the road and the cut in front of the bus. They were all looking straight at the bus when it hit them. They smashed into the windshield; then the bike fell under the front tire and was dragged about 30 feet. We didn't know what to do and we just sat on the bus for a few minutes. I couldn't see anything except the shattered windshield, but I wasn't trying to look. I could see a crowd quickly gathering around where the people were lying. After a little while it was too uncomfortable to be on the bus and we got off. We stepped over blood on the way down the front steps. One of the guys, I can only assume the driver, was lying in front of the bus right by the motorcycle. There was another guy on the side of the bus on the curb. The third guy was the best off and could walk around and just had a minor head injury. I felt really helpless. I didn't want to be part of the gawking crowd, but there was really nothing I could do. All of them were still alive, but I don't know if the two other guys were going to make it or not because they were pretty bad off. Fortunately the ambulance came really fast because I think the driver called right away. After that we just got on the next bus that came that was going back to Chengdu. It was really sad and terrible. It makes you think that things like this do happen and I am going to be extra careful riding my bike from now on.
Sunday was a new day and after doing some homework in the morning I rode to school to play ping pong with some friends. They have outdoor courts a couple places on campus, which I think are really cool and that's where we played. I was working on holding my paddle the Chinese way, "the Mandarin Death Grip". I'm actually getting pretty good and it was alot of fun to play outside. After that I went swimming and the guys started bothering me about swimming too long again. They say it's dangerous, but I'm getting more confident so this time I just told them that it wasn't a problem and I felt fine and that I swim alot. That's pretty much all I could say in Chinese and I was almost done anyways, but they stood at the end of my lane until I got out. They are so funny. Now it's time for bed so I will report back soon. 晚安和小心！I also learned how to write Chinese characters on my computer, yea! It says good night and be careful. 
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