People from Sichuan LOVE spicy food, and I’m definitely one of them. Our first stop was the most famous Maocai (冒菜）in the city. It only opens daily from 10:30 am to 2 pm. I went there once last summer but the beef was sold out even my friend and I lined up for more than two hours. Luckily we had it this time. It was indeed that good!

     I haven’t been walking like this in the city for over five years, and I discovered several places that I have never been or noticed before in my life.

Chengdu Art Gallery:

Chengdu Catholic Ping An Qiao Church (I didn’t know there’s catholic church in Chengdu at all…):

Please excuse me for these bad quality photos, but here’s some more:

Again, I’m so happy to be home!

The past two weeks:

- Met family and friends
- Visited high school teacher
- Shopped around
- Karaoked
- Ate Ate and Ate a lot of good food!!!

The next few months:

- Work at Mercy Corps’ Chengdu office to help out with some PR and publication work
- Learn more about international development and nonprofit in China
- Wait for grad school information
- Plan my Europe trip with an amazing friend (Maybe)

Chinese New Year plan:
- Hot spring and ski trip with family
- Chongqing trip with friends
- Shop in Hong Kong with my dear mom

Haha…My 2011 Chinese year will be a GREAT GREAT year!

I finished my internship at Special Olympics Oregon last Wednesday and I will be a college graduate in less than a week! Someone told me that there are three biggest things in life: born, graduate from college, and get married. I can’t believe I completed two already. Although I don’t see the next big thing coming anytime soon, graduating from college and receiving a degree is definitely an end as well as a beginning of a new chapter in my life.

I’m so happy that I participated the senior experience program in Portland and got the chance to intern at Special Olympics. If I chose to graduate in the past summer, I would not have the chance to experience the life living in a city in United States (not until next year at least) and learn so much about nonprofit organizations.

Sometimes I feel I’m too young to have a life in Eugene. Not saying that I don’t like Eugene, but I can only imagine I live in Eugene for a long period of time after I turn 60. Portland is perfect. The city isn’t too big, but I have a lot more to do here. Besides my internship, I enjoy meeting new people in Toastmasters club and CouchSurfing, going out with friends to explore good Asian restaurants, etc. I will definitely miss Portland later after I leave.

Senior experience gave me chance to learn about nonprofit organizations also. After decide to pursue a career in nonprofit in the field of international development, I feel I know so little about this field. Thanks to the senior experience, at least I’m learning new things every day. It is a great start of my nonprofit career. (:

P.S. I went to Lucky Strike on Saturday. It’s probably the only Sichuan style restaurant in Portland. As a girl who spent 18 years there, I would say the taste is pretty close to real Sichuan food. If you LOVE spicy food, don’t miss it.

Here’s the website:  http://luckystrikepdx.com/index.html

Microfinance is a general term to describe financial services to low-income individuals or to those who do not have access to typical banking services. There are now about 3,000 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in operation around the world with 100 million clients. Many of these clients are from the poorest countries in the world. In 2006 the most famous MFI, Grameen Bank (and its charismatic founder, Muhammad Yunus), won the Nobel Peace Prize. Many MFIs have a dual mandate – to create viable FIs, and to alleviate poverty. The success of these institutions demonstrates that low-income individuals are capable of lifting themselves out of poverty if given access to financial services.

I watched a TED speech given by Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva, talking about her experience and the world first one-to-one microlending online service. I’m deeply touched.

Grameen Trust has several microfinance projects going on in my home Sichuan. I hope I can check them out and learn more when I go back in late January.