The Elephant in the Road

Hmm, I think I like jetlag!  On the way home from Asia it’s a justification for my laziness, and on the way over, it’s the only time in my entire life that I wake up early! 

I got up at 6:30; I had woken up earlier but stayed in bed biding my time until breakfast was open.  The hotel provided rice, fried green vegetables, a dish with sprouts, egg pancake, fried eggs, bread, butter, pineapple, and OJ.  Not bad!  It was a lot like Chinese food but all-around less flavorful, like they don’t know about salt or something. 

I spent the morning reading Harry Potter in my bed.  I bought my Chinese copy of the first book, reasoning that it’s the smallest book that I could read for an entire week and not finish.  I read about 10 pages (out of 200) on the plane over and another 10 this morning.  It’s going pretty well – I’ve learned a lot of new words by context (magical words like wand, robe, owl, etc.).  The hardest things are adverbs – “She said, tempestuously/viciously/amusedly/etc.” – but the story is easily understood without them. 

We met downstairs at 10 and set out for our first real look at Cambodia.  Our hotel is right off a main road (Monivong) so we started there.  Our first task was to get a cellphone for Michelle.  The guy behind the counter knew some English, certainly enough to understand “SIM card” and tell us a price, but Michelle’s other questions proved too difficult.  On a whim, I went up and asked “你会说中文?” and he responded “会” – he spoke Chinese!  I was so excited to be useful. 

Questions answered, we bought a SIM card and continued on.  After a short walk, we came to the Central Market.  We walked through the food section first.  They had a lot of fruit that I missed from China – I was so excited to buy tiny oranges again!  The hygiene in the meat section was particularly disturbing, with feet on the cutting counters, for instance, but whatevs. 

From there, we walked across the street to the mall, where we continued our shopping and people-watching.  We went up to the top floor (of 6?) which offered both a panoramic view of the city and the opportunity to watch some teenage guys learning to rollerskate. 

We had lunch at a pizza place in the mall.  David said that it was legitimately good pizza, but I think that outside of an Asian country it would be the rough equivalent of Mazzio’s.  Just not far enough removed from good Western food to lower my standards that much . . .

During lunch, I looked at the Khmer (Cambodian language) phrase book that I had bought at the market.  I was reminded of how difficult it can be to start a language, at that early point when even the Anglicized pronunciation is impossible.  Um, does anyone else know how to say “flour” in a sound London accent, or what “o” as in “corn” or “dawn” sounds like?

We stopped by the supermarket afterwards to buy provisions for the days in Svay Rieng when the food will [allegedly] be horrible.  I was way impressed with their selection, especially when compared to similar places in China.  They had so many spices!!  I would have killed for that last year . . . I also appreciated the surprisingly good selection of sparkling grape juice for our New Years celebration. 

We tuk-tuk-ed back to the hotel to drop off our stuff, then took a tuk tuk tour around town.  Phnom Penh is beatiful!  There are ornate temple-shaped buildings everywhere, and the main thoroughfare is a beautiful green boulevard centered around the Independence Monument.

(This was taken from a moving tuk tuk.  Can we take a moment to appreciate my new camera?!)

My favorite part was the riverfront, which was lined with flags from countries all over the world. 

Our tour ended at Wat Phnom, the main temple in Phnom Penh.  (By the way, Angkor Wat, which is the largest religious structure in the world, is not in Phnom Penh and thus we will not be seeing it.) 

The temple was really beautiful and it was the Golden Hour (as the sun was setting) so we posed for a group photo.

John and Rick took the opportunity to ride an elephant for $20.

This turned out to mean a ride around the entire temple . . . in the street.  The elephant just merged into traffic with the cars and tuk tuks, no big deal. 

Back at the hotel, Kim and Rick and I got massages – one hour, $6.  It was not the best massage I’ve ever gotten, as it was slightly awkward, but I enjoyed watching the Asian music videos anyway. 

For dinner, we walked to a Japanese restaurant on Monivong.  I had sushi and tempura – good, but really expensive ($13).  Michelle and Garret went to bed but the rest of us played Loaded Questions for a while.  Then David and John went to bed, leaving just us young’uns to greet the new year. 

We retired to our room and played a game of Catan, which I won about 20 minutes before midnight. 

With the game over, we decided to turn on the TV and try to find a countdown of some sort.  We found a recording of fireworks from the hour before in Taipei and Hong Kong, but right before midnight they cut to commercial!  We frantically scanned through the available channels looking for something remotely festive, but ended up on a Danish news station as the clock struck 12:00.  It was moderately ridiculous . . .

Happy New Year?

Songs and Games

I finally got a chance to sleep in this morning! I spent the morning packing in between chatting on QQ. Recently a bunch of people have been adding me on QQ to talk about Jesus, which is pretty interesting. I’m not sure if they know I’m Christian (and how they would know this) but at any rate, there is a veritable horde of these online evangelizers. Here’s a typical conversation:

Him: Are you Christian?
Me: I’m Catholic.
Him: Why don’t you believe in Jesus? Why do you want to believe in Mary? Jesus was God’s son, Mary was just a person.
Me: You don’t know what Catholics believe, do you? You really don’t. We also believe in Jesus.
Him: I don’t know, I just know that Jesus is the Messiah.
Me: We also believe that.
Him: So what’s up with the Lord of Heaven?
Me: The Lord of Heaven is the Emperor on High, they’re the same person.

See, in Chinese, Catholics and non-Catholic Christians have different names for God. Catholics say 天主, or Lord of Heaven, while non-Catholic Christians call Him 上帝, or Emperor on High. There is so little actual knowledge and so much misinformation that sometimes the Chinese don’t realize they refer to the same person. It’s not that unusual to have theological disagreements with other Christians in the US, and sometimes they even refuse to admit that Catholics are also Christians, but usually you have to get into more specific doctrines like the Immaculate Conception or the Communion of Saints before having problems . . . not just the belief of the Trinity.

Jelle called me up in the afternoon wanting to play a final game of Catan. I ended up boxed in between him and YongZhi, and lost with 9 points. It’s probably better this way, as Jelle is super competitive and kind of a sore loser; I guess I can handle him winning once, even if it was my last game in China :)

I had a little time before dinner, so I walked around West Gate. As I was perusing the street goods, one of the sellers ran after me to get my attention. She started talking about how good it was to see me, how long it had been, and things like that, but despite my head racing I could not figure out where I knew her from. I let her talk, and after a while she mentioned something about Coco. That was it – I could picture her perfectly in an orange polo and khaki baseball cap! She used to work at Coco and was familiar because I went there almost every day. She got fired for a bad attitude, I think (which is kind of funny because the surliest Coco employee is friendlier than the friendliest waitress in any restaurant), so it had been several months since we had seen each other. We exchanged phone numbers, finally learned each others’ names, and I guess we’re friends now!

I had dinner plans with Mr. Hou, one of the men from the dancing group. I hadn’t seen him since he played ping-pong with my dad during their visit, but he happened to walk by during Diederik’s goodbye dinner and I said hi to him. This meal was definitely the most we’d ever talked; I knew he was professor of biochemical engineering, but I learned tonight that he likes to memorize speeches in English. He did the beginning of Bush’s inaugural address, starting with “Chief Justice Rehnquist, President Clinton, Vice President Gore, distinguished guests” and on from there. He also knew more of Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech than I did! Surprisingly, he didn’t know the Gettysburg Address so I recited what I knew (which was, thankfully, the entire opening paragraph). Thank you, 5^th grade!

After dinner I had dessert plans with BinBin, the youth group leader at church. He had a friend who was heading to America to do a PhD in mechanical engineering, so we met up to talk over shaved ice. He’s going to North Carolina State, which I told them is in the American equivalent of Shanghai, when my university is in Kunming. BinBin followed that up by asking how long it would take to get there by bus, and I had to break the news to him that you can’t take buses like that in America. I had this funny mental image of him loaded up with luggage, wandering Chapel Hill looking for the bus station to catch the sleeper to Tulsa. Hahahaha.

This friend and his girlfriend were also Catholic, but part of the underground church. They were the first underground Catholics I met, and I was happy to tell him a little bit about the Church in the rest of the world where there won’t be this division. (Incidentally, BinBin told me that if I were around for another month, I would be able to witness the beginning of the reconciliation between Xiamen’s patriotic and underground church! Oh, for another year here . . . ) I felt like I was telling him the streets were paved with gold in America when I told him that there would most likely be a Catholic church and student organization on his actual campus!

My new friends joined me afterwards for karaoke. It was Carlos, me, and a bunch of my Chinese friends – but because they were from different groups, I had to introduce them to each other! There were my dancing friends, friends from church, a friend I stole from Carlos, one of Carlos’ coworkers, and my two new friends.

We sang all the songs I learned after our last karaoke party, plus I sang a few from their English selection.

Carlos and I did a killer rendition of Circle of Life.

I did Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You as a sort of goodbye, Anson sang a Chinese song for me called “If There Comes A Day”, and we ended the night with the cheesily perfect Chinese song “Friends”.

这些年 一个人
风也过 雨也走
有过泪 有过错
还记得坚持甚麽
…
还有伤 还有痛
还要走 还有我

Through the years by myself, the wind has blown and the rain has fallen.
There have been tears and mistakes, but I’ve persevered.
There is hurt, there is pain, we have to keep going, but you still have me

The room was paid for until daylight, but we didn’t stay that long.

There were lots of goodbyes once the singing ended; while it still didn’t seem real to me yet, one friend obviously clearly remembered Lester’s recent farewell and started crying at the thought of his other foreign friend leaving.

I didn’t want to sleep. I was leaving 后天 (the day after tomorrow), but as soon as I went to sleep it would become 明天 (tomorrow). So Carlos, XuLei, and I postponed sleep by eating barbecue at West Gate and walking back to the dorms at a leisurely pace. It wasn’t enough; eventually I had to go to bed.

Why the Chinese Carry Umbrellas

After a late rising and a meal of mangos and egg tarts (breakfast of champions!), I 爬山-ed up to the tall building.  I registered for my completion-of-studies certificate and finally got my HSK certificate, officially verifying my 中等B季 (B-level intermediate) Chinese skills.  Sweet!

I kind of started packing before I met XuLei for dinner.  I’ve been teaching her an English word a day recently, starting with “party pooper” when she refused to stay up all night to watch the World Cup final.  My goal is to find useful words that native speakers actually use and ground them with a personal experience – it is the best way to learn after all.  So we started with “party pooper” (It’s like a bunch of people want to have a party, but you poop on it) and, when the conversation turned to plans for my last night in country, I taught her “skinny dipping”.  Hahaha.  She was mortified. 

Carlos and I had plans to play games with his work friends again, so we headed out to meet them after dinner.  Carlos had told me about a different version of Catan he had sighted in a board game shop, and through the power of suggestion we became convinced it was Cities & Knights.  (Cities & Knights is the awesome expansion to Settlers.  Cities is to Settlers what milk tea with pearls is to its pearl-less counterpart; regular milk tea is good but you don’t realize what excellence you’ve been missing until you try the 珍珠.)

But, seeing as Settlers of Catan has both cities and knights, it proved to be very difficult to discuss the game clearly.  In the end, no one had Cities so we just played a game of Settlers with 6 players.  And to add insult to injury, I lost!

Afterwards, the owner of the board game shop suggested another for us to try: a French game called Dixit.  It’s like Dictionary (a.k.a. Balderdash) mixed with Apples and Apples, featuring artsy French illustrations.  Everyone has a hand of six picture cards (all unique); one person lays a card face down and somehow describes the content of the picture with words, sounds, or actions.  Everyone else chooses the card out of their hand that best fits the description, lays it facedown in the piles, which is shuffled before people vote on which card they think was first laid down.  You get points for guessing correctly or causing others to guess correctly. 

It was fun and interesting, but I was really bad at it.  It may have been the fact that they all knew each other, because it’s pretty important to understand how others think when playing.  Like the one time Carlos said “James” (the name of one of the guys playing with us) as a clue and three of the six people played cards that had some sort of sword fighting on them.  But at least once there was an allusion that I caught.  The clue was “China” and cards included a girl being rescued from the jaws of a monster, a crowd of eggs or possibly houses, a thermometer filled with blood showing a high temperature, a table covered in food, and a map and compass.  Lots of possibilities there, but the 5 of us foreigners all chose the correct one – a sun shining over a sea of umbrellas – from the available choices.  The pictures are all a little ironic, or have something not quite right about them (umbrellas in the sun??), but in this case this one was absolutely perfect for the clue (yeah, if you’re in China!). 

 

We took a taxi back to West Gate and then Carlos and I walked home across campus.  We took a route I don’t usually take, Carlos leading the way.  Suddenly, he stopped and pointed to the tree in front of us.  “Look!”, he said, and I looked.  The tree indicated was surrounding by a glistening wet patch, and in the light of the streetlight next to it, we could see a torrent of water drops falling down.  It was weird looking – a rainstorm confined to the tree’s surroundings – but in a pretty way, because the water drops looked like jewels in the yellow light.  “It’s cicada pee,” he told me. 

My mind processed this information immediately.  Yesterday when I was walking under those trees by the supermarket, those drops were not air conditioner water.  DISGUSTING.

In 7 days I will land back at home.  Between the road trip my brother and I have planned, and the hordes of peeing cicadas here in Xiamen, I am totally ready. 

Supply and Demand

We’ve put up with our share of crap from the weather in Xiamen this year.  For about five months, if you asked a Xiamenite when the rainy season is, they would respond, without fail, “n月和n+1月” (essentially, this month and next month).  And, from about February to mid-June, it was true.

But the blazing sun and brilliant blue sky have been out these past few days, and it has been glorious.  It’s been hot (35C or 100F) but not as deathly humid as before.  It reminds me of Texas, or (if the wind is blowing) Oklahoma.  Except there are beaches here.

I had my first final today, in newspaper reading.  I was really excited about the class at first but somewhere along the line (between the second and the third teacher) it became newspaper analysis and started to suck.  Glad to be done with it.

I rewarded myself by spending the afternoon at the beach with a book.  A book I’ve already read, granted, but that’s the reality of life in China for me.  I didn’t go in the water, just sat by the large concrete mice (computer, not animal) that are there for some reason.  I had the beach basically to myself, which would have made more sense if it had been during a downpour or a snowstorm or a tsunami instead of an insanely gorgeous day.  But this is one of the perks of Asians’ cultural dislike for dark skin – sometimes understandably mistaken as a downright fear of the sun.

I should admit – one of my purposes in sitting out there was to get a tan.  I feel slightly conflicted about this, because I dislike the importance attached to skin color in societies all over the world.  I guess I think I look better with slightly darker skin (hopefully to cover up those mosquito bite scars) but what I think is more interesting is the connotation that different skin colors carry.

Because of course, skin color is just a convenient proxy for the connotations associated with it.  This is why Americans love bronzed bodies and Asians treasure their porcelain skin.  (See?  Even the words differ; Americans would more commonly say ‘pasty’.)  In societies where many labor under the sun, skin untouched by its rays is a sign of wealth or prestige keeping it from a darker fate.  In societies where many spend their lives indoors, only those with the money and time to exercise, relax, or travel enjoy prolonged exposure to the sun. 

But over time, the connection between skin color and what it signifies becomes so close that the two are seemingly one.  And instead of that skin arising naturally from those circumstances, obtaining that skin color through alternate methods is a way to create the facade of that lifestyle.  So this is why my classmates at Coon Rapids High School were bright orange in the dead of winter, a physical impossibility using natural sunlight.  And this is why my friends who work construction in Jilin wear layers of clothing all summer, to preserve their white skin in spite of the reality of their jobs.

It all seems kind of silly to me; I’m not trying to fool anyone here with my skin color.  I want it to speak the truth – and the truth is that I live 3 minutes walk from a beach.  I want to have enjoyed this luxury by the time I leave, and my tan is just a convenient meter for measuring my progress. 

 

This evening, Carlos invited me to go out with his work friends to play Catan.  We had dinner and [two bowls of] shaved ice and fruit, and then went to their house to play.  Carlos won both games last time we played 6-player, so I warned them not to let him win.  They really believed me, so Carlos got crushed and I won.  I won the second one fair and square, though.  And things are back to how they should be :) 

Catan is such an amazing game, really.  I am continually amazed at how simple it is, how perfectly balanced the rules are, how many times it can be played without ever getting boring.  I want to do research on Catan – what kind of degree program would that be?  Supply and demand, game theory, statistics?  Sounds like economics to me.  Hmmmm. 

We played until 1 a.m. but it didn’t even feel late.  I guess several nights of 2:30 a.m. football matches will do that to you, eh?  There is no football tonight, day one of a two-day break before the quarter finals . . . and its weird.  I haven’t watched every night, but I have generally known who was playing and looked for the results as the games ended.  I haven’t even been a football fan for three weeks, but when Carlos put his head in his hands, groaning “What will I do when it’s over?”, I kind of knew how he was feeling.  True story. 

 

I got home to a few messages on QQ.  Joyce, a.k.a. Worst Friend Ever, is trying to rekindle our friendship; I think she needs to improve her oral English for something.  Allen, a guy I met once at English Corner, is trying to take me to dinner before I leave.  Earlier in the year I would have tried to fit them in, but tonight I was honest and said I was going to be pretty busy until I leave China.  It’s not like I’m dying or anything, but the truth is that I only have a certain number of days left here and, after this long, I have a pretty good idea of how I want to spend them.  I’ve done the fake friend thing here; it has its merits.  But by the law of supply and demand, time with the people I care about has gotten infinitely valuable, and it’s hard to compete with that. 

Tell Me How You Really Feel

I felt so much better this morning that I broke my 24-hour yogurt fast in the afternoon to eat a cookie.  It was a mistake, apparently.

But I still had a good time this afternoon.  I played two games of Catan with Aleid, Jelle, and Carlos, and won them both.  After Carlos dominated last time, things are back to how they should be. 

I went to see Toy Story 3 afterwards, which was everything everyone said it would be.  I really loved watching it in a theater full of young Chinese, hearing them exclaim “so amazing!” when Buzz flew across the room, and “so cute!” whenever the baby was on the screen. 

I’m out of sorts, though, perhaps an example of my mind mirroring my stomach.  Seriously, what happened to those six capsules of charcoal I ate??  I’ve been anxious all day, worried as if I was running late to something important.  But my pressing social engagements today were Catan, Toy Story, and a football game that I ended up skipping, so I don’t know what the big deal was. 

I guess XuLei got me a little bit down today, too.  I love the girl, really, and think she is one of the most caring people I know.  For example, as we were walking down ZhongShan Road she stopped to talk to a handicapped man who does calligraphy with his feet; when I asked how she knew him, she said that she just stopped to talk to him one day and gave him her phone number in case he ever needed anything.  After walking a bit further, we passed a man doing calligraphy with his mouth – he didn’t have arms either – and she said she knew him, too.

But she’s kind in a Chinese way.  While I know that she would never do anything to hurt me on purpose, sometimes it’s not enough to know intellectually that this brutal honesty is not considered rude in China.  Today was much worse than usual, with her asking me “Why is your face thin, but your stomach fat?” and “What’s with the black area under your eyes, didn’t you wear makeup today?”.  (I did wear makeup today . . . and this is why I don’t ever wear contacts in China anymore, because people constantly worry that I’m on the verge of death from sleep deprivation or something.) 

Another note on an aspect of Chinese culture that continually stuns me – bus etiquette.  I’ve gotten used to the shoving during the boarding process and the way that guys will take seats that leave girls standing while everyone will immediately give up their spot for a pregnant woman or old person.  But lately I’ve been shocked on a regular basis by what I can’t help but see as incredible self-centeredness. 

Two people get on the bus and head for the back, which has rows of four seats, separated into 2 and 2 by an aisle.  There are only two adjacent seats left.  In America, the first person would sit down and scoot over, allowing the other person to sit down on the aisle.  In China, the first person plops down in the first seat (obviously, because it’s the most convenient) and sits there expressionless while the second person awkwardly climbs over them to the window seat.  This is of course hampered by the proximity of the chairs (not enough room for me to sit straight) and the horrible bus design that puts some seats flat on the ground.

Aaah!  I can think of no circumstances under which this would be okay in America.  Even if you were already sitting in the aisle, if someone wants/needs to sit next to you, social convention dictates that you either move over or stand up to allow them to get to their seat easily. 

I wonder, what customs do we have that other people think are rude?  The habit of splitting the check, I know, but what else?

I Bless You, I Bless You In The Lord

I can be so clever sometimes.  With the purchase of two small bottles of nail polish, I managed to turn my two sets of Catan (one English, one Chinese), normally for 3-4 players, into a game for 5 or 6 players. 

We inaugurated the large island this afternoon: me, Aleid, Kristina, Maja, Carlos, and Carlos’ friend.  Carlos stole my victory in the first game when – both of us tied at 9 points and me with another settlement in my hand – he held up a victory point card and innocently asked when he could play it.  I mainly sat out the second game, helping Carlos’ friend and offering advice to those about to seriously err.  My guy did pretty well, but Carlos somehow managed to win again.  Haha, these two victories probably bring his five-game average up to 6 points or so . . .

 

I can also be really slow sometimes.  I went over to church after we finished playing because I thought we were supposed to be there all night again.  I arrived just as everyone was packing up after the rehearsal; apparently we were supposed to come at 4 if we could for a run-through.  Dang. 

I did run into Fr. Jiang, though, who said that the consecrating bishop is from Shandong.  From what I gathered (seriously, he is hard to understand no matter what language he’s speaking), the other Fujian bishop was not acceptable because he’s not Vatican-approved?  More leads, but still no answer . . .

 

I’m sure I’ll have LOTS of interesting stuff to write about tomorrow, but my main goal tonight is getting the flashcard stack down to four or five hundred.  So, to round out this post I would like a translation of one of my favorite songs that we sing at Mass here every week during the Sign of Peace.  I offer it as a blessing to all of you readers, especially those classmates back home at TU who are hours away from finishing up one major stage of life and beginning another:

在主里祝福，祝福你。祝你平平安安，万事如意。

在主里祝福，祝福你。祝你快快乐乐，万事顺利。

无论你在哪里，我都会衷心地祝福你。

歌声带去我的问候，主里常相聚。

 

I bless you, bless you in the Lord.  I wish you peace and all the best.

I bless you, bless you in the Lord.  I wish you happiness, and that everything would go smoothly. 

Wherever you are, I will always sincerely wish you well.

My song bears my greetings to you, as we gather in the Lord.

Well Played

Aleid and I began the day at the tailor’s shop.  She had a cute dress to pick up and I had a pair of pants to drop off.  I brought him my favorite (slash only) pair of khakis in the hopes of of prolonging their lifetime.  They’re kind of old (as in, I bought them at Goodwill several years ago) but so comfortable, so I asked him to update them a little by slimming the legs down from a flare to a straight leg, and to get rid of the tattered-to-hell hem.  Three days and 20 kuai ($3) is apparently all it’s going to take to get a few more years out of these pants!

We made it back just in time for class.  Speaking class was pretty fun today because we did an activity in which students, grouped together by nationality, answered questions from other students about studying abroad in their countries.  I counted; my classmates come from 12 different countries. 

After class, I had a date with Carlos, Kristina, and Maja on the island of Catan.  We began playing outside where, after a brief rainstorm, the weather had cooled down from the afternoon’s intense heat. 

 

The game went well until the sprinkles started back up and we had to hurriedly move the game inside.  We reconstructed the setup based on a picture, which ended up being a lot of hassle for the remaining 8 minutes or so that it took me to win the game.

I’m not actually sure if my friends here like playing Catan, or if they are just very driven to beat me.  After winning (bringing my streak up to 5, I think), they all wanted to play again.  The second game didn’t go so much in my favor but I still managed to get up to 9 points by the time Kristina won.  Needless to say, she was happy about her first ever Catan victory!

Well played, Kristina.  你有一手.

Learn Something Interesting Every Day!

Interesting notes from class today:

- The upcoming May 1st holiday, supposedly one of two Golden Week vacations, is actually a three-day weekend this year.  In America, a three-day weekend just means one extra day off of school and work but in China, where they work on days that end in ‘y’, a three day weekend is kind of a big deal.  (Once I read that the government sometimes declares “two-day weekends”, which in China does not fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Redundancy Department.)  Also, even a “Golden Week” is not as long a vacation as a week-long break would be in America.  They push the work days over to the weekends, which means your 5-7 days of vacation are bookended by 7- or 9-day workweeks. 

- The words for stay-at-home-mom and stay-at-home-dad are distinguished by a single tone difference on the last syllable.  You’re either a jiātíngzhǔfù or a jiātíngzhǔfū, and you better say it right either way.  Potential for awkwardness and embarrassment abound.

- Our lesson is about the working-at-home movement in China, as opposed to the traditional working situation.  In America, we call it “9-to-5”; in China it is called “8出8进" or “out at 8, in at 8”.  Interesting, no? 

 

Interesting notes from some blogs I read today:

- An article about Chinese humor and the phenomenon of post-punchline explanations. 

- A list of the abrupt ways that Chinese people end phone calls.  In my experience these are more often used for ending class, meetings, announcements, press conferences, etc., while phone calls tend to end in an endless stream of “恩，恩，好的，拜拜，好的，会儿见，拜拜 . . .” (“mm, mm, okay, bye, okay, see you soon, bye-bye . . .”)

- A guide to ordering food in China that is actually practical for foreigners who want to eat normal – good, cheap – Chinese food.  In addition to descriptions, characters, and pronunciation, it also includes such helpful tips as, under the heading ‘Soup’: “Most foreigners don’t order soup when out on their own.”  He also brilliantly omitted foods with too many bones like “ ‘chainsaw chicken’ –you know, where it looks like they just took a chicken and cut up the whole thing with a chainsaw and threw it in the pot”.  Couldn’t have said it better myself. 

- A compilation of rhyming syllables in Mandarin.  Useful because, while Mandarin has relatively few possible endings for syllables (25), most of the ones that look like they should rhyme, actually don’t.  ‘li’, ‘si’, ‘hui’, ‘zhi’, and ‘ai’ all sound completely different. 

- A list of characters that Chinese people usually can’t write.  Good for a self-esteem boost, as I am perfectly capable of writing 钥匙 (‘key’). 

- Several posts regarding the prevalence of homonyms in Chinese: numbers that have meanings because of what they kind of sound like (a.k.a., why 8 is the luckiest number), and traditional New Year’s foods and why they’re considered so auspicious (a.k.a., where the phrase “Year after year have fish” came from). 

- Examples that happen when languages are treated as a one-to-one correspondence – basically, when you speak English with Chinese words or vice versa.  The writer had a few examples of how to learn from others making this mistake, and a few examples of how he had made this mistake. 

I liked these posts because they were all directly pertinent to my everyday life here in China.  They’re things I noticed, lists I meant to make, questions I kept meaning to find answers to. 

 

Today’s weather was finally decent – warmish and, while not clear, at least not raining.  Maybe I’ll be able to pack the leggings away someday soon . . .

In celebration of the end of the lamest weekend ever, a few of us got together to play Catan this afternoon.  I won; if such things were possible, I would have won with 13 points by stealing Longest Road as well.

It’s A Perfect Day

I thought it might be a good day when I inexplicably had a lot of energy during this morning’s class.  We continued studying the generous Chinese/cheap Americans essay which, while it still annoys me, at least engages me in class unlike another text on Beijing’s $#%@ four seasons.  Also!  I discovered two new awesome characters – 凸 and 凹, which mean – get ready for it! – convex and concave, respectively.  Way cool, right?  I think I’m going to start a list of my favorite (and least favorite) characters, so now you have something to look forward to :)

I didn’t know it was going to be a good day, though, until I found a crumpled 1-kuai bill in my pocket on the way to the bus, which arrived just as we got to the stop.  We enjoyed a delicious lunch of malatang and were back to campus just in time for an invigorating newspaper-reading class. 

After class, a few of us went to the board game cafe, which I discovered last semester but had yet to try.  We played two rousing games of Catan, both of which I won.  Like I said, it was a good day!

I grabbed a drink on the way over, a smoothie made entirely from fresh fruit for the low price of a dollar.  I started out peeling and cutting the mangos myself; now I have other people peel, cut, and liquefy them into something I can drink through a straw . . . I think the next stop is a direct IV into my bloodstream.

We had dinner with the Dutch ‘twins’, who were adorable in their matching outfits (supposedly unintentional).

During dinner, I had a great idea for my upcoming birthday.  I’ve asked my friends for a special gift – a CD containing pictures from our time together in Xiamen, and music from their own country.  I’m getting really excited about the results!! 

I also came up with some new slang that Kristina and I are trying to make popular.  “Qiezi” is now an adjective, describing something that everyone unanimously agrees is awesome, can’t get enough of, and likes in any incarnation.  Spread the word! 

On the way back home, we perused the merchandise on the street and spotted some truly wonderful Chinglish and otherwise ridiculous clothing.

China would be a much sadder place without Chinglish.  There are a few things I would like to change about China, but I think that correcting all their translations would mean less smiles and furtive snickers, and I wouldn’t do that to future laowai. 

Oh!!  And Kristina has asked my help with some data analysis on the body image survey she did for her thesis.  She’s happy that she found someone to help, but I may be even more excited.  Mmmmm, graphs . . .

When I got home, I was delighted to see my name on the mail list – my parents’ package finally arrived!  I can’t pick it up until tomorrow, but I’m getting pre-excited tonight. 

I went dancing tonight and, despite an even-more-sweaty-than-usual Smelly Man, had a good time.  We did the Macarena and I was asked to teach them a few dances from America – I’m thinking the Cotton-Eyed Joe and the Electric Slide?  Also, the last song was Midnight to Moonlight, my sole contribution to the dance music. 

I’ll save my thoughts on the status of the internet in China for a slightly less-perfect day; this one shall not be sullied. 

A Locked Door Is A Language Barrier

Today was the big day, the day I’d been waiting for since early last semester.  Yes, that’s right: today was the day I finally taught Carlos how to play Catan. 

We met two Chinese friends for lunch first, and then settled down to play.  It was the first time for Carlos and Dong Wei, so Yong Zhi and I taught them how to play.  In addition to using a mixture of spoken English and Chinese, we also made use of my new Catan 中文版 set to make sure that everyone understood the development cards. 

The game was good.  Carlos didn’t listen when I explicitly said that the numbers were important, so he built on an 11,11,12 and a 3,4,8.  Yong Zhi took Longest Road early on but didn’t pick up on my rather obvious plan to steal it from him until it was too late.  Dong Wei kept building roads aimlessly, even after we asked him where he was headed.  Needless to say, I won. 

We were playing in the architecture classroom building, which is actually the other half of the Overseas Education College classroom building.  Afterwards, Yong Zhi took us up to the roof where we had a great view of the ocean and the rest of campus.  (Well, we would have had a great view if the weather hadn’t been so . . . gray.  I plan to return another day with camera.)  It actually made me really mad because this classroom building is divided in half not only by two purposes, but the boundaries are established with locked, metal-barred doors.  The roof is inaccessible from our half, which is annoying because it would be a great way to spend the break between classes. 

But even more than this issue of convenience or pleasure, the physical barriers, like these locked doors, that XiaDa has constructed between its Chinese students and the foreigners who study here mirror the social barriers, both natural and imposed, that I see here every day.  It bothers me that the OEC claims this ideal Chinese-learning environment when I see so many ways that they actively impede meaningful contact with local students – which everyone agrees is the best way to learn a language.  We not only live in our own dorms, but out entire living and studying environment is separated from the rest of campus. 

Yet ironically, as I mentioned yesterday, when it comes to the times when we would perhaps prefer to have a little assistance in our dealings with China, the OEC is conspicuously absent.  Thus I find myself spending my mornings completely surrounded by laowai in our little Foreign Concession, then going over to the hospital for Chinese language practice with doctors and nurses, where it’s not just for fun but a matter of serious health issues.  They don’t give us opportunities to practice without pressure, and they don’t help us out when the pressure’s on. 

Come to think of it, the OEC is rather inept.  Perhaps it’s better than they are regulating my social life, and maybe it’s even better that they’re not a part of Lester’s hospital experience?  There have been enough ‘incidents’ as it is.  Today’s unexpected twist: we got the results from his blood sample, which was taken to be tested about 4 days ago.  The result?  He doesn’t have AIDS . . . which is great, except we were wondering about hepatitis.  Many phone calls were made trying to figure out what happened, but all we’ve learned is that it’s no one’s fault.  It just happened that way, I guess! 

After a quick hospital visit, I went to church.  Missals and hymnals have become more and more scarce each week, so I don’t think I’ve been able to follow along with the readings since I came back to Xiamen.  It makes it much harder to understand and much harder to stay awake :( 

As I was walking towards LunDu to catch a bus back to XiaDa, I followed a good smell and discovered an entire street of malatang and barbecue stands!  I had a nice meal there, after a stroll that revealed the street also specializes in porn.