Friends and Neighbors: Yundi Hu (Cece)

New foreign exchange student, Yundi Hu (known here as Cece), may have been born a city girl but she is enjoying small town living and is very happy to be part of the Mark and Tiffani Anderson family.

Up until the last few months, Cece has lived her entire life in the city of Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Urumqi is the largest city in the northwestern area of China with an approximate population of just over 6 million.

Back in Urumqi, life had been quite different for Cece. She lived in an apartment with her father, mother, grandmother and eight year old sister. Her grandmother went to the local market everyday to buy fresh fruit and vegetables for the day's meals. Although Cece's little sister already goes to school full time, their father, who used to work in finance and now owns apartments, spends several additional hours tutoring her after school everyday. Cece's mother works in finance, often traveling out of the city for days or weeks at a time.

Even Cece's personal life in China would seem unusual here in Kimball. She would go to school around 8 a.m. and not get home until 7 p.m. After more than an hour of heavy traffic, she would arrive home around 8 p.m. only to have another four hours of homework.

Now, Cece has free time to spend however she likes. She had never had time to herself as she does now.

Although the weather in Urumqi is similar to Kimball's, Cece did not bring many clothes, mostly because in China she was forced to wear a uniform to school. She also was not allowed to curl or color her hair or wear make-up to school.

Every year, for two weeks before school starts, high school students have mandatory military type instruction where they learn to work together and march in time/step for the whole day.

The Anderson's were not Cece's original family. When she first arrived in the States, she was placed with a young family that