What is an exchange?
Exchange is change. Rapid, brutal, beautiful, hurtful, colorful, amazing, unexpected, overwhelming and most of all constant change. Change in lifestyle, country, language, friends, parents, houses, school, simply everything.Exchange is realizing that everything they told you beforehand is wrong, but also right in a way
Exchange is going from thinking you know who you are, to having no idea who you are anymore to being someone new. But not entirely new. You are still the person you were before but you jumped into that ice cold lake. You know how it feels like to be on your own. Away from home, with no one you really know. And you find out that you can actually do it.
Exchange is learning to trust. Trust people, who, at first, are only names on a piece of paper, trust that they want the best for you, that they care. Trust, that you have the strength to endure a year on your own, endure a year of being apart from everything that mattered to you before. Trust that you will have friends. Trust that everything’s going to be alright. And it is seeing this trust being justified.
Exchange is thinking. All the time. About everything. Thinking about those strange costumes, the strange food, the strange language. About why you’re here and not back home. About what it’s going to be like once you come back home. About who’s hanging out where this weekend. At first who’s inviting you at all. And in the end where you’re supposed to go, when you’re invited to ten different things. About how everybody at home is doing. About how stupid this whole time-zone thing is. Not only because of home, but also because the TV ads for shows keep confusing you.
Thinking about what’s right and what’s wrong. About how stupid or rude you just were to someone without meaning to be. About the point of all this. About the sense of life. About who you want to be, what you want to do. And about when that English essay is due, even though you’re marks don’t count. About whether you should go home after school, or hang out at someone’s place until midnight. Someone you didn’t even know a few months ago.
Exchange is people. Those incredibly strange people, who look at you like you’re an alien. Those people who are too afraid to talk to you. And those people who actually talk to you. Those people who know your name, even though you have never met them. Those people, who tell you who to stay away from. Those people who talk about you behind your back, those people who make fun of your country. All those people, who aren’t worth you giving a damn. Those people you ignore.
And those people who invite you to their homes. Who keep you sane. Who become your friends.
Exchange is music. New music, weird music, cool music, music you will remember all your life as the soundtrack of your exchange. Music that will make you cry because all those lyrics express exactly how you feel, so far away. Music that will make you feel like you could take on the whole world.
Exchange is uncomfortable. It’s feeling out of place, like a fifth wheel. It’s talking to people you don’t like. It’s trying to be nice all the time. It’s bugs and bears. It’s cold, freezing cold. It’s homesickness, it’s awkward silence and it’s feeling guilty because you didn’t talk to someone at home. Or feeling guilty because you missed something because you were talking on Skype.
Skrivet i augusti, efter en månad i Kina
Exchange is great. It’s feeling the connection between you and your host family grow. It’s meeting people from all over the world. It’s having a place to stay in almost every country of the world. It’s getting 4 new families. One of them being a huge group of the most awesome teenagers in the world.
It’s cooking food from your home country and not messing up. It’s seeing beautiful landscapes that you never knew existed.
Exchange is falling in love. With this amazing, wild, beautiful country. And with your home country.
Exchange is understanding.
Exchange is unbelievable.
Exchange is not a year in your life. It’s a life in one year.
Exchange is nothing like you expected it to be, and everything you wanted it to be.
Exchange is the best year of your life so far. Without a doubt. And it’s also the worst. Without a doubt.
Exchange is something you will never forget, something that will always be a part of you. It is something no one back at home will ever truly understand.
Exchange is growing up, realizing that everybody is the same, no matter where they’re from. That there are great people and douche bags everywhere. And that it only depends on you how good or bad your day is going to be. Or the whole year.
And it is realizing that you can be on your own, that you are an independent person. Finally. And it’s trying to explain that to your parents.
Exchange is dancing in the rain for no reason, crying without a reason, laughing at the same time. It’s a turmoil of every emotion possible.
Exchange is everything. And exchange is something you can’t understand unless you’ve been through it.
Half to go - 我不想离开中国
In the beginning of my exchange year, I never thought this day would come. I though every day went by so slow and If I could make it to Januari, when half time had past, I could do anything.
And now I am here, happier than I could ever imagine. After the first month past in China everything have been going so well, I have enjoyed every single day. And I am not saying that is how it will work for everyone, every persons exchange year is different. But for me, I was really really sad the first month and couldn'y wait for the time to pass faster and faster. And now when I am here, with so little time left, I never want to leave. The time is really flying away and it's making me so stressed.
This exchange year is the best and most difficult thing I have done in my whole life. And I only have about 5 months left. It's with tears in my eyes writing this, I can't imagine leaving my life here......
Mid autumn festival
The thing is in China, everyone have their holiday at the same time, you don't choose when to have your vaccation. This year, we had 8 days off from the 29th of September until October 1th. My family went on a one week trip to Jiangxi province. We first stayed in a house to some friends of the family for a few days, here I discovered so many culture differences. Here on the country side, people still grow their own food and some people wash their clothes in the river. I was so chocked to see this in the country that is moving so fast and is the "future", and we still have things like this.
During these days, a festival took place - something called the Mid autumn festival, or moon festival. This festival's date is on the 15th of the 8th lunar moon (the chinese calender that depends on the moon, I can't really explain it cause I don't understand it..). We celebrated with watching the full moon and eating moon cake which is a traditional chinese dish to eat this time a year, for the celebration of the moon. Sometimes it's with meat filling, sometimes it's sweet. We all shared song and poems about the moon, it was really nice. The day after was the national day of the republic of China.
Moon cake and other 点心
Can you believe that this is a toilet in someones home?
Tea plants
Tea leaves
Me and mother
Ugh all the insects, they are so huge here....
So when we were back from the mountains we took a shower haha. Not only that but we went to visit some hot springs where you could in water right from the mountain. Some of the water was too hot, I couldn't bare it but it was nice to relax a little after those days.
In the normal city they have these hot springs open for everyone to, so a lot of people go their to have a hot bath for their feet and so on.
Trip to "Sweden" (IKEA)
Last weekend, my family & I + Victor went to IKEA in a another city nearby Changzhou (the city where I live). I was so happy to finally go there, now when Christmas is coming up.
My visit was more than I expected. We had a great Swedish lunch with meatballs served with mashed potatoes, lingonberry jam and browns sauce and almond cake – it tasted just like home.
They also had a Swedish food market where I found everything and a little more. I bought the typical Swedish Christmas drink – glögg (mulled and spiced whine kind of). I found gingerbread as well, saffron buns, gingerbread dough, julmust, pickled herring 等等。
I am now really looking forward to Christmas and sharing my Swedish Christmas with my Chinese family who otherwise never celebrate Christmas.
They wrote "hej då" with pinyin like [hei dou] but I think it is wrong, should be [hei duo] - means good bye in Swedish!
Ooh best ever !
So cold
Even if we don't have any snow here (yet?) you can really feel that it's winter here more than anywhere else. Because here, the coldness follows you wherever you go. It is cold everywhere, except for maybe starbucks.
Some rooms might have kongtiao/热空调 (like air conditioner which makes hot air) but it's on very few places. My home doesn't have any at all, or does not use it anyway. In school the classrooms it is the same, the school is so tight-fisted and only use it some of the teachers office. And what makes it worst is that in the classrooms they also leave the windows open...
This air condition is too expensive, that's why people not use it. But they should really invest in better build buildings and some better heat system which is not as expensive and much more convinient than AC.
R.I.P.
This is really a fear you meet being away from your home and family, that someone will pass away. I can't imagine the feeling and I hope I'll never have too. But today someone I knew had to meet that fear. And I am so sorry for his loss.
Hotpot
However, this saturday I could actually spend time with my two chinese friends and my little sister. We first went to eat hotpot which is a special chinese dish were you have a big pot in the middle, often one part that is very hot and the other part not as hot. It's boiling water with some oil in it and you put different kinds of food in it and wait til it's cooked. Meat, vegetables, fish, mushrooms - it is delicous!
After that we watch a movie at my friends house - but she went away right during the movie to do homework, chinese students and their studies, crazy...,
Relatives
Last weekend we visited my father's bigbrother. We all had lunch round their small table and on the coach, or low chairs. We ate crab and the rests of the crab you just put on the table, you always do that with fishbones too and meatbones - the table manners here are something else, often not in the better way.
Me and my sister
Swedish visit
I was so happy to meet some people from my "own" country again but I noticed that I almost got a culture shock from meeting them, I am feeling really like China is a big part of me and that I actually was hosting them in a country I belong to.
Anyhow, this school, Rosstensta, have an exchange with my school and they usually go visit them once a year, and my chinese school have also been on a visit to Sweden.
I shared with them all the differences I have discovered between the swedish school and chinese school, there were some students there who was writting a project about that. We were together all day, went to visit a restaurant and the famous tempel here in Changzhou, which is placed in Hong Mei park.
I will keep contact with the swedish school and visit them when I am back in Sweden, hopefully I can join them and visit my chinese school next time they are going!
My school, welcoming Sweden!
A few of the swedish teachers and students
The tempel in Hong Mei Gong Yuan
