College Letter to Mommy!

March 17, 1279

                              Dear Mom,

I’m doing great here in China. Here are some things that I had adapt, since the day I left for my adventure.

      My favorite thing to do here in China is to run. Did you know that it is a way for the generals to determine the fitness of his troops. I was thinking to actually go into the military in a couple of years. I enjoy listening to poetry and traditional Chinese music here. The music is much more relaxing than American music. The beautiful accents of their voices make me feel like I'm floating in the air or something.

In my new classes here, we needed to write about our “Chinese Idol”. I researched and my idol here is Wang Shifu, I enjoy his play Romance of the West Chamber. Its a romance comedy. I really don’t understand what they are saying, but I can sound out a couple of Chinese words. For example, wēi, which means hello.

Here in China, we use characters and pictures to write. We call it calligraphy. Its so difficult, mom! It frustrates me on how much patience I need. I enjoy learning here, I’m glad I had the opportunity  to come here, especially with all my classmates. I also, enjoy feeling the silk here. Silk, in china is very important. Silk was traded for other goods or services as they traveled the "Silk Route." I haven’t realized how important their resources are to us, I also learned that the silk that they have was sailed and have been through amazing journeys to get to Europe.

      Here in China we have Chinese rulers, called emperors, based on the government on the Confucian model, which taught that the best ruler was a virtuous man who led by example. As far as I can remember I grew up in America with having presidents. Recently the Mongol took over and Kublai Khan is now the ruler here. We were told to not be afraid about our religion, because the Khans are very religion tolerant. Right now we are battling Yeman. I really don't know why, but i think that's just because I'm not into the war kind of stuff.

      Recently, the Europeans have traveled into China. They are very beautiful people. My classmates and I have seen pictures given to us from our professor. My teacher says that these pictures were hand drawn. It was so amazingly detailed, I was fascinated. Maybe the next place I will go to Europe. I'm not quite sure where yet though. I don't know much about over there. Anyways, I hope you mail me back.                   

                                          Love your daughter,

                                                      Valeria Aedo.