...another holiday! Tomorrow marks the beginning of Chinese National Week (国庆节, Guóqìngjié) and once again I find myself turned loose in Chongqing with new friends, plenty of cash, and no obligations. Not only that – my birthday is this weekend! Plans are materializing and the week looks promising. One of the best things about my situation here is that even when I’m out socializing, shopping, or just vegging out in front of the TV, I’m still learning Chinese. I’ve found a way to turn partying into studying. Actually, the other foreign students here all tell me you do about 80% of your learning outside of the classroom. Pretty smart, huh?
I’ve discovered that, aside from actually going out and conversing in Chinese, watching kids’ shows and soap operas on TV is one of the best ways to improve your listening comprehension. That’s the beauty of foreign-language TV and movies – even the trashiest talk show can be educational. My roommate follows several of the corny Asian soaps (known here as “dramas”), but I’m really into the kids’ shows. The Chinese kids’ shows are delightfully strange – I watched one last night that appeared to be a traditional folk story acted out by creepy stop-animated puppets – but I also get a huge kick out of watching the Chinese-dubbed versions of Spiderman and Digimon. Nearly all the TV shows also have Chinese subtitles, too, so I can practice my reading at the same time. I still haven’t gone to check it out, but there’s a theatre (电影院, diànying yuàn) on campus where you can watch Chinese and Chinese-dubbed Western movies for just three or four yuan, or about 50 to 70 cents. Sounds like a good way to pass the rainy winter evenings. My snazzy new cellphone also has FM radio, so I listen to Chinese talk radio while I do my homework (作业, zuòyè) and it gets easier and easier to follow along.
For a different challenge, I like reading kids’ books. Well, more like translating, because I never seem to know enough of the content to just sit down and read them. I always have to look up words in a dictionary, untangle a few grammar structures, and make some notes. Occasionally you can find a book written in both Pinyin (the Romanized phonetic transcription of Chinese) and characters (汉字, Hànzì), but the ones without Pinyin are much harder because if you run into a new character you have to look it up twice – once to find out what the pronunciation is and then to find the meaning. I also often run into words I know used in a combination or grammatical context I’m not familiar with, so even if a passage looks simple at first glance I’ll probably still have to struggle to understand it. It’s like decoding a secret message. Chinese is easier to learn than people think it is, but it’s still damn difficult sometimes.
Socializing in Chinese is by far the best way to practice. All the Chinese students here speak some English, which makes it really easy to lapse into English every time I run into a word or concept I can’t express in Chinese, but I’m doing it less and less. One thing I’m thrilled about is that I’m starting to get to that point where, to at least some extent, I’m thinking in Chinese. People here will often address me in English, but more and more I find myself automatically responding in Chinese and completely bypassing English. Lots of the Chinese people I talk to want to practice their English, too, so I’ve gotten into the habit of doing a language exchange; I speak Chinese to them while they speak to me in English. My limited vocabulary (词汇, cíhuì) can be extremely frustrating, and when I first got here I despaired at the amount of Chinese I didn’t know, but in the deluge of new words I hear every day I manage to retain a few. I was told by one of my Chinese friends last night that my Chinese has improved, so if I can make a noticeable improvement in three weeks I must be doing something right.
Chinese lesson of the day:
我学习汉语
Wǒ xuéxí Hànyǔ
I study Chinese
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Ganbei!
I’m currently recovering from my latest adventure in China: drinking with the Chinese. One of my Chinese friends asked me to help her classmate correct a paper which he wrote in English, and to thank me they took the roommate and me out for beer and hotpot (火锅, huǒguō), Chongqing’s signature dish. Chongqing-style hotpot is a spicy and fattening affair, best enjoyed in large groups: a bubbling pot of oil and broth, loaded with at least a cupful of chillies and mouth-numbing Sichuan pepper, sits in the middle of the table, and you order plates of raw ingredients off the menu, cook them in the pot, and then dip them in sesame oil and garlic. The plates of food keep coming until nobody can eat any more, and then you all sit around in a grease-spattered stupor until it’s time to go. It’s great.
We got a private room in the restaurant (which is quite common in China), and as soon as we sat down, my friend’s classmate ordered a case of beer. Uh oh. I gather that women in China rarely drink, because every time I mention to someone that I like beer they get all excited about it. The case arrived, the beer started flowing, and the next thing I know I’m conversing comfortably in Chinese. The Chinese drink beer in the same little cups they drink tea out of, and every time someone says “ganbei,” you’re expected to drain your cup. It’s not too bad, except that the beer was 9.5 percent and “ganbei” was flying around at a frequency of about once per minute. I’m pretty sure that “ganbei” means “hey, let’s get this foreigner disgrasefully drunk!”
Strong beer and weird food cooked in spicy grease are a pretty deadly mix, and I’ll leave the rest of the night up to your imagination. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.
Chinese lesson of the day:
我不要 Wǒ bú yào.
I don’t want any.
We got a private room in the restaurant (which is quite common in China), and as soon as we sat down, my friend’s classmate ordered a case of beer. Uh oh. I gather that women in China rarely drink, because every time I mention to someone that I like beer they get all excited about it. The case arrived, the beer started flowing, and the next thing I know I’m conversing comfortably in Chinese. The Chinese drink beer in the same little cups they drink tea out of, and every time someone says “ganbei,” you’re expected to drain your cup. It’s not too bad, except that the beer was 9.5 percent and “ganbei” was flying around at a frequency of about once per minute. I’m pretty sure that “ganbei” means “hey, let’s get this foreigner disgrasefully drunk!”
Strong beer and weird food cooked in spicy grease are a pretty deadly mix, and I’ll leave the rest of the night up to your imagination. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.
Chinese lesson of the day:
我不要 Wǒ bú yào.
I don’t want any.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Wandering
Today was the roommate’s birthday, so we celebrated with a manicure and a shopping spree, spending most of the day wandering around the busy shopping district near the campus. The streets are extremely crowded, the stores all look the same, and the sidewalks are all lined with un-pruned trees which greatly inhibit your ability to look for landmarks, so it’s easy to get lost. Somehow, we managed to get where we needed to go and find our way back to the dorm after.
During our wanderings we happened upon a strange underground mall which must have had about 200 cramped little shops squeezed into it, consisting almost entirely of clothing shops and beauty salons. It turns out getting your nails done is a great way to practice your Chinese. I didn’t even know the Chinese word for fingernails when I walked in there, and we had to use hand gestures and a pocket dictionary to tell them what we wanted (because we were just there for a polish, not the two-inch-long jewel-studded talons that are so popular here), but they figured it out. We had a quick, simple, somewhat unsanitary manicure while the woman behind us had her eyebrows tattooed on. One of the girls there, whom I gather was the younger sister of one of the beauticians, was extremely friendly and chatted with us in Chinese the entire time we were there. She only knew a few words of English. She used words we didn’t know and had a bit of a Chongqing accent, so there were lots of times when we didn’t understand her, but whenever we really got stuck she’d grab my dictionary and look up the translation for me. She was great.
All Chinese students study English from middle school through high school, so nearly everyone under 25 here knows at least a little English. Most of them have an English name, too. I did a bit of a double take when the girl told us her English name was Jezebel, but she seemed pleased when I said her name was very unique. She was particularly interested in my tattoos – I get tons of comments on them here. She was horrified when I told her how much they cost. She said she thought tattoos were really cool and she wanted one, but her mom wouldn’t allow it.
Although the constant stares my roommate and I get when we go out in public are unnerving, the people here seem really interested in talking to us when the opportunity arises. My Chinese friends tell me they stare because they’re curious and they want to talk to us. They’re all eager to practice their English with us, but they’re even more excited to meet an English-speaker who can speak Chinese. People will often just walk up to me and start speaking English. I have great conversations with strangers nearly every day, and they frequently end with an exchange of phone numbers and a new friend to practice and explore the city with.
The highlight of the day: seeing a woman who was at least 50 wearing a bright red t-shirt with the words “SEK ZOMBIE FROM MARS” written on it in rhinestone-studded block letters.
My new favourite Chinese word:
辣妹子 Làmèizi
Hot chick(literally, spicy sister)
During our wanderings we happened upon a strange underground mall which must have had about 200 cramped little shops squeezed into it, consisting almost entirely of clothing shops and beauty salons. It turns out getting your nails done is a great way to practice your Chinese. I didn’t even know the Chinese word for fingernails when I walked in there, and we had to use hand gestures and a pocket dictionary to tell them what we wanted (because we were just there for a polish, not the two-inch-long jewel-studded talons that are so popular here), but they figured it out. We had a quick, simple, somewhat unsanitary manicure while the woman behind us had her eyebrows tattooed on. One of the girls there, whom I gather was the younger sister of one of the beauticians, was extremely friendly and chatted with us in Chinese the entire time we were there. She only knew a few words of English. She used words we didn’t know and had a bit of a Chongqing accent, so there were lots of times when we didn’t understand her, but whenever we really got stuck she’d grab my dictionary and look up the translation for me. She was great.
All Chinese students study English from middle school through high school, so nearly everyone under 25 here knows at least a little English. Most of them have an English name, too. I did a bit of a double take when the girl told us her English name was Jezebel, but she seemed pleased when I said her name was very unique. She was particularly interested in my tattoos – I get tons of comments on them here. She was horrified when I told her how much they cost. She said she thought tattoos were really cool and she wanted one, but her mom wouldn’t allow it.
Although the constant stares my roommate and I get when we go out in public are unnerving, the people here seem really interested in talking to us when the opportunity arises. My Chinese friends tell me they stare because they’re curious and they want to talk to us. They’re all eager to practice their English with us, but they’re even more excited to meet an English-speaker who can speak Chinese. People will often just walk up to me and start speaking English. I have great conversations with strangers nearly every day, and they frequently end with an exchange of phone numbers and a new friend to practice and explore the city with.
The highlight of the day: seeing a woman who was at least 50 wearing a bright red t-shirt with the words “SEK ZOMBIE FROM MARS” written on it in rhinestone-studded block letters.
My new favourite Chinese word:
辣妹子 Làmèizi
Hot chick(literally, spicy sister)
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Mid-Autumn Festival
One week into classes and I’m already on holiday! China goes by a lunar calendar and right now it’s the fall equinox, known in China as the Mid-Autumn Festival. During Mid-Autumn Festival, people get together with friends and family, watch the full moon, and eat moon cakes – rich, dense, extremely fattening little pastries stuffed with a variety of different fillings, such as red bean, peanut, pork, preserved egg, fruit, and lotus seed paste. The cakes are elaborately decorated and packaged, and ever since I got here I’ve been seeing people carrying around expensive-looking moon cake gift boxes to give to their friends, family and coworkers.
It seems that it’s also an unofficial tradition to climb mountains on Mid-Autumn Festival, because we had invitations from three different people to climb some of the nearby mountains over the holiday. We ended up climbing Mount Jinying, about a 20 minute bus trip from the campus. The trail starts at a busy street and winds through lush bamboo forests all the way up to the top of the mountain. It’s not wilderness, though – the trail is paved the entire way with stone steps, there are roads, restaurants, farms, hotels and shops all up the mountain.
Along the way we stopped at a rambling Taoist monastery and then at some kind of super-rustic restaurant which seemed to operate out of someone’s house, complete with laundry hanging from the eaves in the courtyard and the family cat attacking our feet while we ate. The restaurant had a Mah Jong table and while we waited for our food our Chinese friends taught us a simple version of Mah Jong, which, it turns out, is almost exactly like Rummy. Lunch was a typically excessive affair: our friends ordered noodles with egg, thinly julienned potatoes and green peppers stir fried with a heavy dose of mouth-numbing Sichuan pepper, spicy deep-fried fish with tofu, stir fried eggplant with garlic and chillies, strips of cucumber sautéed with ginger, some kind of spicy pork dish, stir fried peanuts, cabbage in broth, and rice. After we left the restaurant we bought dessert from a street vendor selling cleverly shaped caramelized sugar lollipops.
We spent most of the day meandering our way to the peak. When we got there, we hung out for a bit, took some pictures, ate some moon cakes, and then walked back to a bus station near the top of the mountain to catch a bus back to the campus. Exhausted, I got back to my dorm room and finished my excellent day with an excellent dinner – a bag of “intense and stimulating numb and spicy hotpot flavour” potato chips. These things are bloody amazing. I’m bringing a case back with me.
Chinese word of the day:
中秋节 Zhōngqiū jié
Mid-Autumn Festival
It seems that it’s also an unofficial tradition to climb mountains on Mid-Autumn Festival, because we had invitations from three different people to climb some of the nearby mountains over the holiday. We ended up climbing Mount Jinying, about a 20 minute bus trip from the campus. The trail starts at a busy street and winds through lush bamboo forests all the way up to the top of the mountain. It’s not wilderness, though – the trail is paved the entire way with stone steps, there are roads, restaurants, farms, hotels and shops all up the mountain.
Along the way we stopped at a rambling Taoist monastery and then at some kind of super-rustic restaurant which seemed to operate out of someone’s house, complete with laundry hanging from the eaves in the courtyard and the family cat attacking our feet while we ate. The restaurant had a Mah Jong table and while we waited for our food our Chinese friends taught us a simple version of Mah Jong, which, it turns out, is almost exactly like Rummy. Lunch was a typically excessive affair: our friends ordered noodles with egg, thinly julienned potatoes and green peppers stir fried with a heavy dose of mouth-numbing Sichuan pepper, spicy deep-fried fish with tofu, stir fried eggplant with garlic and chillies, strips of cucumber sautéed with ginger, some kind of spicy pork dish, stir fried peanuts, cabbage in broth, and rice. After we left the restaurant we bought dessert from a street vendor selling cleverly shaped caramelized sugar lollipops.
We spent most of the day meandering our way to the peak. When we got there, we hung out for a bit, took some pictures, ate some moon cakes, and then walked back to a bus station near the top of the mountain to catch a bus back to the campus. Exhausted, I got back to my dorm room and finished my excellent day with an excellent dinner – a bag of “intense and stimulating numb and spicy hotpot flavour” potato chips. These things are bloody amazing. I’m bringing a case back with me.
Chinese word of the day:
中秋节 Zhōngqiū jié
Mid-Autumn Festival
Saturday, September 18, 2010
The first impression
I seem to be having trouble posting pictures on Blogger, so I'm posting them all on my windows live account.
Chongqing is famous for being one of the hottest cities in China. It was 37 degrees yesterday. Thankfully, it hasn't rained in over a week, so the humidity was bearable. Sometimes the climate here is practically tropical. My skin reacted pretty badly to the humidity and pollution at first, but it seems to be calming down now. And, thankfully, nearly all the buildings and dorm rooms here are equipped with a functioning air conditioner. We also have a private bathroom with a flush toilet, which I'm quickly realizing is a real luxury here.
I really like the campus. It's quite large and has all the amenities - there are a few cheap restaurants and snack bars, several markets and shops scattered around where we can buy pretty much everything we need, a post office, two libraries, three banks and a hair salon. It's also really beautiful here - there are plenty of trees and they let them grow out a nice big canopy to provide shade during the hot summer months, so the effect is quite lush and exotic. There are gardens and courtyards around the campus with cute little stone tables and stools to sit at. The campus has a fleet of small, open-sided electric buses that ferry people around at a cost of one Yuan per person, or about 17 cents, and zipping around the narrow, winding streets through the dense overgrowth feels like some kind of safari. The surrounding scenery is beautiful, too. Chongqing is surrounded by lumpy, green, mist-shrouded mountains, exactly like in the classical Chinese paintings.
In the next month we'll be having one three-day holiday and one week-long holiday, and I'm thinking of hopping a train to do some sightseeing. People tell me that Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) is typically a four- to six-week vacation, so I'm making some travel plans. I've got a friend in Tokyo I really want to see, so that's the priority. There are also loads of students here from Vietnam and Thailand and I'm getting to know some of them, so hopefully by spring I'll have an invitation or two to come visit with them!
Anyway, here are the highlights of my trip so far: on the first day, I woke up to find a spider bigger than my hand on the ceiling above my head. Last weekend I tried Chongqing's famous signature spicy hot pot for the first time - tasty, but it's just so much oil! The supermarkets here are amazing and shopping for food to cook at the dorm is actually more fun than eating in restaurants. The dollar goes pretty far here, and I can fill a shopping bag with tasty eats for under five bucks. In the "leisure foods" aisle you can find a variety of potato chips with flavours like blueberry, lemon tea, cucumber, sour fish soup, and "vigorous and refreshing numb and tingly hotpot." Yesterday I ate fresh durian (I'd had durian before, but it's shipped frozen and tastes different), which, for those who haven't tried it, is a truly phenomenal fruit that has a rich, creamy texture and a complex flavour that tastes like a combination of avocado, pineapple, cheese, and onions. Everyone here is super friendly and curious about foreigners, and it's really easy to make friends.
I am a little homesick, and I'm experiencing a bit of culture shock, but I'm having lots of fun here and I'm adjusting fine. The three things I miss most (besides my friends and family, of course): my bike, privacy, and electric dryers. We're lucky enough to have a washing machine in our dorm, but hanging things to dry really sucks in this wet climate.
Chinese word of the day:
旅行 Lǔxíng
To travel
Friday, September 17, 2010
We are experiencing technical difficulties
Ok, so I originally started this blog to circumvent China's Facebook ban, but I naively didn't realize that China also blocks blog sites. Hence the lack of new posts. I've found some ways around it and for the time being I can get onto the blocked sites, but that can change at any time. I've written a couple more blog posts which I will have to post later, because the internet is really patchy here and it seems to be acting up right now. If it comes to it, I'll just put the blog in the care of someone else and post via email.
That's all for now - new posts coming soon! Don't tune out yet!
Saturday, September 4, 2010
T minus 3 hours.
I expect most people who will read this blog are people I know, but on the off chance you don't know me, here's the story: I'm a third year English major at the University of Victoria. I started studying Mandarin on a whim and fell in love with it, and after my second year of Mandarin studies I decided to take it on as a minor. This spring my teacher got wind of a few scholarships to Chinese universities and encouraged me to apply, and I thought, "why not?" So I applied for three or four to different universities, not expecting to hear anything of it ever again. By summer I'd forgotten all about it. And then in mid-July I get a big envelope in the mail with Chinese writing all over it. Inside is a letter telling me I've won a full scholarship to study Mandarin at for a year at Southwest University in Chongqing - tuition, lodging, living allowance and medical coverage all included. And I have to be there by September tenth. And so the mad scramble began. Gathering documents, getting shots, applying for a visa, packing, saying goodbyes...Somehow it all came together, and tonight I get on a plane and fly for 16 hours to a totally foreign country, where I will be living for a year.
So after an epic night of goodbye-partying, a 3-hour sleep, and a horrendous day of last-minute packing, retreiving forgotten items, and rushing to catch the ferry so I could pick up my Visa from the agent before they closed, my journey begins: I'm currently at YVR airport, with only three hours left on my home continent. In less than one day, I'll be plunged into a completely new life. So surreal.
Anyway, the main purpose of this blog is to keep in touch with everyone at home while I have no access to Facebook, which is blocked in China. So say hi and tell me what's up with you!
So after an epic night of goodbye-partying, a 3-hour sleep, and a horrendous day of last-minute packing, retreiving forgotten items, and rushing to catch the ferry so I could pick up my Visa from the agent before they closed, my journey begins: I'm currently at YVR airport, with only three hours left on my home continent. In less than one day, I'll be plunged into a completely new life. So surreal.
Anyway, the main purpose of this blog is to keep in touch with everyone at home while I have no access to Facebook, which is blocked in China. So say hi and tell me what's up with you!
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