Something I wrote for my school

Sorry about the use of Chinese characters. --there's some translation at the end if you're curious

When I first decided to come to China, my goal was to become fluent in Mandarin in the three years of my planned stay. Upon arriving to China the only words I knew were ‘ting bu dong,’ and a faltering ‘ni hao.’ In theory I knew that Chinese was a tonal language, but had no idea what that actually meant. I wondered if my years of musical study would be of any use in learning Chinese (as it turns out the answer is ‘no’).

I was to study language in Chengdu at 四川师范大学 for two months with classes in the morning and individual tutoring in the afternoon. My morning classes were held in a hidden classroom overlooking the campus’ grungy swimming pool which had been drained for the winter. I had never been in a classroom that was so cold—one of my most useful purchases in China has been my blue santa-polar bear electric hot water bottle. I would stumble out of my bed five minutes before class, grab the hot water bottle, stuff breakfast into my bag, and run to the classroom which was accessible through a sprint around the back of my apartment next to the austere badminton courts, beside the pond, over the disintegrating bridge, and up the treacherous and narrow stairs that climbed past a distrustful mother cat.  

The first week I felt more stupid than I had ever felt in my entire life. I had studied Spanish in high school and had done well with little effort, but Chinese turned out to be a completely different story. For an American used to English words as long as the Great Wall, the melodic brevity of the Chinese language was completely disorienting. The absence of a phonetic writing system has been one of my greatest obstacles. When I studied Spanish, I learned words by remembering what they looked like, but I found this nearly impossible with Chinese. Every pair of initials and finals sounded the same to me, and I was at a complete loss when it came to hearing the tones. The entire mentality of speaking Chinese was foreign to me in a way that to this day I cannot describe. It took me at least a year to realize that one ‘word’ could actually be created from more than one 汉字.

I started two weeks behind my classmates, and had completely missed the lessons on pinyin. Our teacher asked me to read what I could from the text book, and I had no idea what to do. Learning how to say ‘你’ felt like I had summited 峨眉山, and I became familiar with ‘不对’ more quickly than any other vocabulary I have ever learned. Eventually my teachers gave up on me and no longer required me to go to listening class where I just sat in a stupor wondering if what was going on around me was actually language. When the teacher would ask me a question, I would stare back at her with my mouth open and my eyes fighting tears.

Teddy, my first tutor, is now one of my best friends. I can’t thank her enough for the patience she had with me. She brought her pinyin reader from primary school, and we looked at nursery pictures of turtles, dogs, trees, and ducks for weeks as I slowly and painfully tried to comprehend how my tongue could possibly do the acrobatics required by the ‘sh,’ ‘ch,’ and ‘zh’ initials. I had resorted to tying yarn around my lips to make the ‘v’ sound required by my favorite color, 绿。I think that Teddy’s selection of this children’s textbook was appropriate in more ways than just my language level. Being new in a country and not understanding any of the language made me feel more helpless than one of the children learning to walk with their 婆婆s outside of my 单元. I have never prouder than the day I figured out how to ask the 阿姨 at the front desk of my guest house for toilet paper.

I am thankful for how far I have come. I usually don’t have problems buying things that I need. I can do most errands alone downtown. On a good day, I can have short conversations with people in stores, sympathetic Chinese friends, or taxi drivers, but I am often discouraged at how far I have to go. My goal for the end of the school year is to know at least 2,000 words. So here I am with six more months left in my time here China, and I still have so much to learn. Just this evening after a taxi ride back to the school, I could hardly get the driver to stop. I was saying something like, ‘你可以停在这门口,’ but he kept driving, until I frantically starting blurting out any phrase I could muster with the word 停！Sometimes I wonder if I can speak Chinese at all, but I will just have to keep trying. Thank you all for your patience, and I hope that when I teach in class, I can be as encouraging and patient with you.

四川师范大学 --Sichuan Normal University in Chengdu
汉字--(han zi) chinese character
峨眉山--(Emei Shan) A famous mountain in Sichuan...there's a famous temple and some monkeys and stuff...and climbing it is a big deal
不对--(bu dui) Incorrect
绿-(lü) green
婆婆--(popo) Maternal grandmother
阿姨--(a yi) Aunty
你可以停在这门口 (Ni Keyi ting zai zhe menkou) something like 'you can stop at this gate'
停--(ting) stop

Learning new things about life!

I just wanted to share with you an insight that I have very recently gained here about food. If you were, say, to put things to eat like tomatoes, garlic, onion, salt, beans, beef, water, and a bit of sugar into a pot, you could then apply heat to it, and it would, over a period of time, become food. You know, the kind of food that you eat!

China part III

I had a smashing good time in the states. I'll admit that I haven't even processed leaving China 3 weeks ago, so I am a little bit overwhelmed at the prospect of being rocketed back to China so soon. I learned a lot at school, and for the first time in quite a while, I can say that I am excited to teach this year. I have a feeling that this year is going to be very rich with lots of deepening relationships and tasty baked goods.

I miss 混沌

He was so sad when I left. I hope he is still alive. I hope my fish are still alive. I'm a little bit afraid of America. So much English! So much personal space! So much organized traffic! So many cereal types from which to choose.But now i'm on facebook and blogger at the same time! Maybe i should just open up youtube while i'm at it! Oh the possibilities.
It's strange. I'm starting to wonder where home is....

If I had a blog

If I had a blog, I would be diligent in my posting schedule. Good thing I don't have a blog. Here are some things we eat for lunch some Time. Thanks to Holly's brilliance, we (meaning Holly) but together a scrumptious lunch of white-bean hummus and pepper/mystery herb ''Green Goo". Another day we
used the left-over hummus and made taco/flautas/quesadillas. Karen brought over oranges and salad. Look mom, I'm eating a tomato! And i'm eating salad with Chopsticks. Oh, we also made nachos the other day (sorry, no pix) and we proceeded to eat them with chopsticks. Holly and Karen barely noticed, but I guess i'm still just a China toddler, so I made a point of writing this anomaly in my blog post. Look at me ...rambling away...ramble ramble ramble. Maybe one of these days i'll tell you something interesting. For example about the furniture store in town that has gone all-out to advertise for some grand-opening/re-opening. Don't let me forget! Now I need to do some homework.

Remember that time it was 90 degrees every day?

I'm finally home. To welcome me home, my cat stole the loaf of bread that I had just purchased and scattered it around my living room. And Sichuan, well....it's cold...I'm back to the land of blocked blogger, so bear with me if my captions seem jumbled. Upon arrival in Chengdu I hung out with two of my former students. Hungry for some Sichuan food we finally settled on KFC. Did you know that there's a thatched cottage memorial for Colonel Sanders in Chengdu. Ok, no not really...that's Du Fu.

After our meal we went to play with fire as per Chinese New Year tradition.

Derry's mom, Derry, and I made 饺子(jiao zi)-dumplings-for lunch the next day (another Chinese New Year tradition).

That night we went to the 42nd annual light festival in Chengdu. Here is money pouring forth from the money deity.

After 2 nights in Chengdu, I made it to my friend 晓丹's house for more Spring Festival festivities. It was COLD--hence the face. Her brother is standing to my right with family members (from her dad's side) looking on. I didn't stop eating the whole time I was with her. I felt like a whale--swimming through the day with my mouth open. Maybe I'll grow into the coat (borrowed from friends in Chengdu).

I finally made it back to Nanchong, and Holly is Sooo happy!!!

What's warm, sunny, and has a name that starts with 'Th' and rhymes with 'ailand?'

I'm finally going to leave Thailand on Sunday. It has been an incredible month filled with stress, joy, relaxation, good food, and wonderful friends. I will be sad to go, but I am feeling surprisingly good about going back to China. My trip here has been everything I needed to feel recommitted and positive about my work in China. Here are a few pictures of the highlights (sociolinguistics class, Doi Suthep [a temple], beetles, gardens, a bridge).

January

If I post in the next 65minutes I may have a January post! I've been wondering around SE Asia for the past month. I found Vietnam and Thailand. Here are some pictures of Vietnam!



A tree




A man and some boats




Me




A street