Two Months Down

I have been traveling for two months now! On the 24th, I will have been in China for a month.

I am enjoying my Chinese classes. In our program, everyone is required to take Readings in Chinese, Spoken Chinese, and Contemporary Chinese Studies (which is taught in English). I pulled the "hey, I've already graduated card" to opt out of the Contemporary Chinese Studies class. Instead, I have been shopping for alternative classes.

Yesterday I tried to attend an Industrial Psychology class. To my surprise, there was only one student in the classroom. The teacher said not enough students were present so class was canceled for the day. He told me to just come back next week. I talked to my program director about what happened and she said she is not surprised. Her explanation was "This is how China's education system is. It has many issues." Apparently, you cannot register for classes online. They don't have class schedules online either. What?!

Today I somehow found myself in an advanced newspaper reading class. I would have never imagined that I can read a newspaper. I was right. It is pretty hard. However, it doesn't matter if I fail because I've graduated. This is what I've always wanted--to take classes and learn without my grades counting for anything. The article we read talked about the education of poor children in the countryside. (I really think I am unlearning English. Most of the time, Chinese word order is "backwards" or the opposite of English word order. I am having a hard time forming sentences for this post.) Anyway, the professor was telling us how the children's parents go to the cities to earn money to send home and leave the kids with their grandparents. The kids have to hike, sometimes for hours, to the nearest school carrying their own chairs because the school doesn't have any. I know it is real but part of me doesn't want to believe it.

Brief Chinese lesson of the day:

Some things translate easily.

男人不坏， 女人不爱 nán rén bù huài, nǚ rén bù ài
Girls love bad boys.

芝麻开门 zhī ma kāi mén
Sesame open! (Open sesame)

Some things just don't translate.
The other day my classmate told his Chinese roommate he was going to 做咖啡 instead of 冲咖啡. Essentially he said he was going to grow coffee instead of pour it. 做 can mean do, make, or prepare so yes, Chinese can be rather tricky. So many words have the same English meaning but in Chinese they are used for different situations.

One of the first days in class, one of our classmates pointed at his wrist and said he needed to buy a 婊子 (biǎo zi) instead of a 表(biǎo). They are pronounced the same and even look really similar. However, he accidentally told his teacher he needed to buy a prostitute when he meant to say wristwatch. Oops.

Three things I am grateful for:
1. Mandatory 报告 in my Spoken Chinese class each week
I struggle giving speeches in Chinese but I know the practice will help and get easier. Our teacher gives us a vague topic and we can make a presentation on anything regarding said topic. Por ejemplo, this week's topic was 恋爱观 (viewpoint on love). Because I didn't want to talk about my own, I talked about Barbie's 恋爱观. Did you know that Ken has four Olympic gold medals?
2. We had a free kung fu lesson.
A group of four of us went to watch a 4pm class at a martial arts center but arrived at 4:25. Maybe because we are foreigners or maybe they are just nice but they gave us our own private teacher and class. I haven't taken kung fu in probably over 14 years but it was ridiculously fun. I am going to try to find classes closer to where we live.
3. Yesterday I was watching cartoons with my little sister. When I first got here, I tried to read along with the captions at the bottom of the screen but it was too fast. I think the cartoon characters were speaking rather slowly because I could actually follow along. I felt like I had an aha! breakthrough moment.