Snippets of Xi’An
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I’ve come to realize that one of the strongest language barriers I encounter on a daily basis with native Chinese speakers is humor. Mostly sarcasm. Like Mandarin, English is also an extremely tonal language, in which our emphasis and tonal placement frame our meaning. For us, it’s not always so much what we say, but rather how we say it that fully conveys our intended message. In contrast, Mandarin is a very literal language that leaves little room for flexibility. For instance in English, we can virtually say anything, including nonsense words, and call it slang. Mandarin has no such luxury. What you say is what you mean. Even if you laugh while (to us) obviously applying English sarcasm within Mandarin, it’s pretty likely a Chinese person will take you seriously.
I’ve often experienced this non-translation and it’s left me a little disheartened. The solution is to stop trying to apply English humor or syntax and start embracing sarcasm in Chinese. Easier said than done. How am I ever going to fully grasp what I can and cannot say, when it seems I’ll never fully understand how Chinese speakers think? What’s more, how can I bear to separate myself from something so true to my identity? To the root of my being? I’m not sure I know how to carry on an entire conversation without at least once instance of sarcasm, of a joke totally dependent on tone, on blatant irony!
As I watch blank and confused expressions on my teachers’ faces or internally sigh as they ask me why I’m always laughing I mourn the loss of my sense of humor. Useless. I swear guys, in English, I’m really funny.
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This is the future of China
From a country commonly thought of as strictly censored and fixed in traditional culture, China has developed a highly driven youth generation whose values to a western population appear increasingly superficial. For Chinese young people finding a girlfriend or boyfriend is a very specific kind of jungle. At the starting gate, girls have the advantage as they greatly out number the men. The ladies get to be picky. Finding the man of your dreams only requires you to be two things: tall and pretty. For men, it’s competitive to attain the perfect TPCG (Tall Pretty Chinese Girl). However, the hierarchy of requirements may surprise you. We’ll start from the bottom: 4) He’s not ugly 3) He’s got a nice car 2) He, like you, must be Tall 1) Absolutely, positively must be LOADED.
And we thought we were bad.
Looks, which to me is the most common example of a superficial quality, barely makes the list! Romance is truly dead here in the Middle Kingdom, where money is the true bottom line.
What you see here is a TPCG having a photo shoot so she can paste her heavily photoshopped pictures all over cyberspace to tell all her perspective Porsche owners she’s out there waiting.
Why China is Great:
All of this for $2.30
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上课 First Day of Classes （9／10）
Today was my first full day of class。 I was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually enjoyed being in class! So far, all of my teachers are very nice and (also) surprisingly understanding of our speaking struggles. Because let’s be real. Chinese teachers can be REALLY scary sometimes. Not the ones here. There must be some fine print requirement that all teachers on this program be ridiculously cute and perky. It’s hard not to smile when they talk and encourage you to tell them your mimi (secrets).
So here’s how it goes. There are four 1 hour classes everyday M-TH. We start of every morning 8am sharp with 大班课 (da ban ke) which is referred to as a lecture class with one teacher for 8-10 students. It’s less of a lecture than quasi-socratic method where the teacher asks questions regarding the text/grammar structures throughout the lesson. Then comes 小班课 (xiao ban ke) which is more of a drill session with one teacher to 5ish students. You go over sentence structures again in greater detail and receive more corrections in pronunciation. From here we go to 讨论课 (tao lun ke) with one teacher to 2-3 students. During this class we’re asked to discuss a given topic with our peers. The teacher is only present to correct/answer basic questions. She does not participate in the discussion. Finally, we end the day with 单班课 (dan ban ke) the one on one session. My experience with this today involved talking about myself a little and just chatting with my teacher about various topics while struggling to incorporate today’s new vocab and sentence structures.
I was relieved to discover I understood most of what my teachers were saying all day and wasn’t completely exhausted by the end of this collective 4 hours. Their method of teaching seems pretty effective. So far so good!
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Adventures in Houhai (9/7)
Collin, Matt, and I decided to venture to Houhai, a famous hutong here in Beijing relatively late Friday evening. Houhai is known for its food, drink, music, and lovely scenery by a decently sized body of water (I’m not sure if it constitutes as a lake or pond). So, without any real idea of how to get to Houhai, the three of us boarded the subway to start our adventure. Getting out of the subway, we wandered a little aimlessly into a park-like area that seemed promising with some water and large rocks. A friendly park go-er was nice enough to walk us to the entrance to the hutongs that would lead us to Houhai. Mind you, it was already dark outside. She really didn’t have to help us that much. Go her.
We eventually came to a gated more legitimately promising park that brought us to said body of water, which as you can see, was beautiful! We were not yet in Houhai, but another hutong called Xihua (Xinhua?). We wondered around in the dark climbing rock stairs, passed a couple about to commence, erm, canoodling (oops!), and suddenly found ourselves in a beautiful little area with a bridge. Even though it was dark, this little area was beautiful and peaceful. Were we really in Beijing? We sat for what felt like a long time looking out onto the water. I felt like we were invisible in the best kind of way. Just a part of the scenery.Collin, Matt, and I decided to venture to Houhai, a famous hutong here in Beijing relatively late Friday evening. Houhai is known for its food, drink, music, and lovely scenery by a decently sized body of water (I’m not sure if it constitutes as a lake or pond). So, without any real idea of how to get to Houhai, the three of us boarded the subway to start our adventure. Getting out of the subway, we wandered a little aimlessly into a park-like area that seemed promising with some water and large rocks. A friendly park go-er was nice enough to walk us to the entrance to the hutongs that would lead us to Houhai. Mind you, it was already dark outside. She really didn’t have to help us that much. Go her.
We eventually came to a gated more legitimately promising park that brought us to said body of water, which as you can see, was beautiful! We were not yet in Houhai, but another hutong called Xihua (Xinhua?). We wondered around in the dark climbing rock stairs, passed a couple about to commence, erm, canoodling (oops!), and suddenly found ourselves in a beautiful little area with a bridge. Even though it was dark, this little area was beautiful and peaceful. Were we really in Beijing? We sat for what felt like a long time looking out onto the water. I felt like we were invisible in the best kind of way. Just a part of the scenery.
What a great day meeting new people! Went on the campus tour this morning with two of the Chinese teachers and a small group of fellow students. When I sat down in the lobby, it just so happened I sat down next to Sarah, my roomie! As expected from our short email correspondence, we got along right away.
After the tour we hung out in my temporary room and began a quest to move into our actual room, which was no simple manner. China. What can you do. We ended up befriending the two boys who were staying in our actual room, Collin and Chao who made another friend Matt. The 5 of us ended up spending the entire day together, between going out to eat and shuffling rooms. It was so nice to just sit and talk and get to know each other. We fell into an easy rhythm filled with laughs. Hope this continues when we can’t speak English anymore.
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more hutong pics
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Hutongs So cool! Some of the last parts of old China that are left in a booming city filled with fun shops. The streets seem like they wind along forever. It would be really easy to spend an entire day exploring just one hutong street.
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Ok so, for those who know me, yes I have an absurd body temperature where I am constantly overheated and sweating when normal people need a sweater. Despite my abnormality I think it’s pretty safe to say you don’t understand what it means to sweat until you’ve been to Beijing in the heat of August. Yes, there are plenty of places in the world that can be equally hot, maybe even equally humid at times. But, while you’re absorbing the fact that it feels like you have 3 extra layers of skin that are really sticky layers of sweat, the light breeze you feel through the city might appease you. Except that the breeze is full of toxic air. And you’re breathing it. Lots of it. Now you’re sweaty, dehydrated AND your chest hurts. You really can’t compete with Beijing heat and the black lung. Literally.
As a result, after only 3 days I’ve given up: 1) feeling properly hydrated 2) wearing my hair down 3) showering less than twice a day
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