Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas everyone, and a Happy New Year! I hope you all had a good month, and a lovely festive season. For me, the month of December started with a 2am realisation that I still had so much to do in regards to UCAS applications, Christmas presents for friends and family in both China and Scotland, preparation for end-of-semester exams, holiday plans for January and February... How did the time progress so fast? It certainly has been a busy month with lots of very important things to do – but we've done a lot of fun things this month as well, such as going to see Frozen 2 in the cinema (English with Chinese subtitles, perfect for us!), preparing for end-of-semester class performances and going to the Tianjin TV Studio (which I'm going to explain in just a minute!) and of course, Christmas and the New Year! I’m currently writing during the three-day period between our exams being over and Jody and I setting off on the first leg of our Chinese New Year/Spring Festival holidays, so it's a good time to look back on the month before we go away, and as I finish off everything that needs to be done before we leave Tianjin.

We were informed at the start of December that each class would be expected to perform on stage at the end-of-semester performance at the main university campus on the 27th, meaning we had to start thinking about what our act should be. We decided to do a song and dance, and what we chose was “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys, sung in Chinese! With a dance choreographed by Alexandra and lyrics that we were told to memorise for homework it all started to come together, and after we performed it in front of others for the first time at rehearsal we were told that a man from Tianjin TV had been there, and he wanted our class to have a role in the Tianjin New Year's TV showings! With a few more practises under our belt, we headed along to the studio on the Monday before Christmas and were given a small dressing room to wait in with people available to do our hair and makeup, while we waited to be called through to the main room. We went and did a run-through while they set up our music, then were sent back while the presenters did their sections; then we were brought back through to be introduced, walk to our places on stage, and do our dance again - which thankfully was much better than the first run-through we did! We only had to record it twice, and then we gathered around the presenters who spoke to us for a while about China and why we were here/what we liked here – then we were surprised with another guest, who was a talented calligrapher and who showed us some of the designs he had made and taught us how to write the character 福, which is a well-known, meaningful character, especially for the New Year – then it was time for us to make our exit, and thus ended our fifteen minutes of fame on Chinese TV! We don't know yet when our performance will show or if we'll even be able to see it as we don't have TVs here, but our teachers are going to keep an eye out and let us know. All in all, a pretty fun and unexpected way to spend a Monday, although it did mean we had to make up for the three classes we missed over the rest of the week. Attached are some pictures from the TV studio and our class!

The final performance on the 27^th was also pretty good fun, and we got to see all the other groups’ performances, some of which were really fantastic – I've attached a couple pictures of the auditorium, stage, and the performances while they were being rehearsed.

The big events of this month were undoubtedly Christmas and New Year, and they were certainly very successful! We set up a Scholar's Secret Santa in November, and so on Christmas Day after attending classes (we showed up in our pyjamas!) everyone went back to the accommodation to put their Secret Santa presents under the Christmas tree and spend time giving presents to one another until around 2pm, when it was time to start our lunch. We opened our secret Santas while eating some delicious homemade (dorm-made?) soup that Bethany cooked, then we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening coming and going as we pleased, hanging around in the common area and relaxing with games and food (both ordered in from WeChat and cooked by Bethany!), or even doing a bit of studying, as despite the festive season our exams were still coming up fast! I video called my family in the evening and we ended up calling for an hour and a half – I even got to watch the Queen’s speech which came on TV during that time! And I saw my cat as well, which is always a highlight of video calls home.

Christmas isn’t celebrated in China, so it was definitely strange not being surrounded on all sides by the festive buzz that we’re used to in Scotland. But it was a charming Christmas nonetheless. I’ve attached some more pictures from the day, mostly of our lunch table which was quite a triumph!

A peaceful midnight on December the 25^th

Our Christmas lunch table all ready to go!

The rest of the month has consisted of preparing for exams, culminating in two days of serious study before three exams last Monday and a fourth on Tuesday. These exams mark the end of the first semester, and now it’s nearing the start of our holiday period, to celebrate Chinese New Year and the Spring Festival! We have around six weeks off from classes, so over the past month I’ve been doing some serious brain gymnastics to work out an itinerary for holiday involving travelling around China before coming back to Beijing to meet my family who are coming over. Train tickets around this period are notoriously hard to buy, but with some luck and a bit of rearranging I’ve so far managed to book all twelve of my trains, with two still awaiting confirmation - I’ll find out over the next week or so if I’ve gotten a ticket, as they’re over a month in advance and the sale hasn’t opened yet! I’m so excited for the holiday; there’s only one day left before Jody and I leave for Shanghai, then Jody comes back to Tianjin and I head on further. I’ll be writing blog entries throughout my travels, so I’m really looking forward to letting you all know about how I get on. Wish me luck!

And to Stirling High School - I received all your questions and comments that you wrote to me, and as I’m spending a lot of time on trains in the next month, I’ll be working on responses during that time! I’m really glad you’re all enjoying reading the blogs, I hope the next few will be interesting for you all as I explore more of China!

An extra photo for this month’s blog; the neon lights at Power Town glowing in the fog

Until next time, everyone! 再见！