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long ramble...
Jul. 22nd, 2006 02:37 amokay, so not enough people have heard from me, nor have I heard from them, but that's normal.
( Excuse for this entry, as it goes outright against my LJ starting goals )
So, things about China, or rather my impressions, outside of what anyone can find out by studying China in books and papers:
1. Everyone says the economy is developing fast, and Beijing looks different every year. They're right, of course, though it seems hard to believe; my father asked me if there was construction around me all the time, and I said no. But come to think of it, there /is/, much of it on this building but also elsewhere--there are a couple of buildings knocked into rubble, which will probably spring up as more restaurants. In fact, I haven't been to that area, a few minutes' walk already, lately--wonder if they're being built already. It'd be neat to have a new restaurant near the class building before I finished HBA. But I gather much of the noteable changes are in the more countrylike areas that are /not/ already developed.
1a. Nevertheless, the 8-to-1 ratio of Chinese to American currency makes prices look similar, even cheaper, in China, because they're /much/ cheaper. Chinese people sort of think all Americans are rich, and I have to explain that the prices are higher in America, even though there are differences...also, Chinese professors and teachers get maybe half the income of their counterparts in America, I think, which means they're materially much better off. :)
2. I get audiences, at least when I'm not on campus or in the immediate surroundings which of course are full of foreign students. As I've told some friends, I ought to learn to write Chinese with my right hand, so I can tell Chinese people in all seriousness that I write Chinese with my right hand and English with my left; they always think it's strange when I write either, and especially that I use my left hand. So whether they begin by talking to me because I'm writing in Chinese, or talking about me because I'm writing in English, I end up in conversation with strangers. If I want to discourage such, I wear my iPod, but I don't do that when I'm writing letters; I do that when I'm feeling introverted and want to listen to music.
3. Chinese people keep asking me what I think of China, which I guess prompted me to write this. I tell them that Chinese people are friendly, which is true...that things are cheap, that the culture is rich, which is also true...I feel like I'm constantly missing an appreciation of the things around me, and I won't realize quite how different it is until I get back to America. I haven't mentioned to Chinese people in general how I love so many kinds of tea here, and other things, but how much I miss the good tea and chocolate. I can't wait until the Moon Festival; Lucy and Sanda have demanded moon-cakes, and I want to try various kinds myself. Though I /have/ found a kind of green-bean cookie that is remarkably like the moon cake my real Chinese teacher gave me perhaps 6 years ago, that I liked very much.
4. Chinese people wonder about America, England, and English--they've all had to learn English in middle school and high school, but they haven't necessarily learned it well, and at any rate I can't practice with them because of my language pledge, the best I can do is correct pronunciation of a couple of words. They've also learned about some culture...but they want to know about English dialects, whether people ever "listen-not-understand" (that Chinese phrasing just sounds better, so I'm putting it that way) each other if they speak different kinds of English, and I've had to say "yes but not if they take a few days to get used to it." The same is NOT true of Chinese; I think it's agreed that Cantonese and Mandarin are much farther apart than French and English. Yesterday a telephone-card-seller's friend told me that once you cross the Chang Jiang river--er, forgot, is that usually spelled the Yangtze river in English?--you listen-not-understand the speech there.
5. I can read Chinese. No, really. Not every character, but enough to read stories, especially enough to read newspapers, enough to watch a Chinese movie if there are Chinese subtitles (I like watching English movies with English subtitles, too, you know--or French or Chinese ones), enough to read the explanations in my dictionary of Chinese proverbs and get the idea of what the proverb means.
6. I can speak Chinese. I may have to ask about words, but in general I ting-de-dong (listen-"reach" (=arrive at, get)-understand) conversation unless it's both too fast /and/ has too many unfamiliar words. I forget when I've been speaking in Chinese or English, though I can sort the conversation based on who I was talking to--I can switch very easily, and so I don't worry about using English too much anymore. In fact I've been using mostly English all day, because I've been reading![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
landofnowhere's entire livejournal (well, after some beginning entries I'd already read), talking with her and with my family (grr, my other reliable caller owes me a phone call), drafting Fusion emails at last, and now writing this. I was also going to go to the library and read some Jane Austen, but it looks like I'm going to have a visiting student stay in my room with me tonight, so I should really really clean up. Gulp. I didn't even let the maids in this morning, it was too messy...
7. I'm learning a solo for the HBA concert: Xiao Bei Lou. I have to alter my voice to get the harsh min2ge2 sound...er, Chinese folk song sound...but I quite like the effect. I only know that and a few other Chinese songs, though...I wish I could sing out the songs in other languages, outside of my room...like In the Bleak Midwinter, which Alison mentioned and which is therefore stuck in my head.
8. I'm doing seal-carving and some cloth projects, and am in general on top of work having written my social-study report for the week, though I should really start buckling down to regular lesson-work today or tomorrow. A little letter-writing, a little Jane Austen, is called for, though...I love letters very much. I now have one from my parents as well as a postcard, a postcard from Kristen, two letters from Alison, and a letter (divided into one in Chinese and one in French) from Olivia, and am expecting one from Kevin and possibly one from EHC. Amazing how Olivia's littlest comments still make me smile broadly--she doesn't read my LJ, by the way, or probably remember that it exists. I'm also finishing letters to Lucy, Olivia (those two in Chinese) and EHC (in English), and now want to write to others I haven't written to yet...I don't usually have this free time, though. Tonight I'm going to the Chinese circus!
9. With periodic spells of misery I'm mostly very happy here. It helps that I have a lot of fun with Xu An, as well as getting along with most people in general. Xu An and I need to try to make the pearls (I mean bubbles) I have bought into things worthy of bubble tea--last time, I cam close, with a cup and microwave.
10. I probably will pay a visit (along with my fellow student, my "little brother) to my host family tomorrow, and I don't want to, because they don't take us out to do things but just have us over to dinner. Oh well.
11. I want milk. I want cheese. I don't particularly want good chocolate, actually; this is probably because I have some, and am hoarding it. I want my father's cooking, or either of the Elisabeths', or my own. I want my grandmother or my mother's baking. But I can live without these for a while.
12. I'm more than halfway through my stay here, and I think I can actually enjoy it more now. Also, incidentally, I have quite a pile of things, mostly for others, as I don't like spending money on myself, unless it's on getting this month's Internet or phone cards. By my estimate, for an hour's conversation in which I call (the numbers I've memorized, anyway) I pay 100 yuan, which is $12.50, which is not so bad, but I've been convinced by Noam and Xu An to try Skype.
( Excuse for this entry, as it goes outright against my LJ starting goals )
So, things about China, or rather my impressions, outside of what anyone can find out by studying China in books and papers:
1. Everyone says the economy is developing fast, and Beijing looks different every year. They're right, of course, though it seems hard to believe; my father asked me if there was construction around me all the time, and I said no. But come to think of it, there /is/, much of it on this building but also elsewhere--there are a couple of buildings knocked into rubble, which will probably spring up as more restaurants. In fact, I haven't been to that area, a few minutes' walk already, lately--wonder if they're being built already. It'd be neat to have a new restaurant near the class building before I finished HBA. But I gather much of the noteable changes are in the more countrylike areas that are /not/ already developed.
1a. Nevertheless, the 8-to-1 ratio of Chinese to American currency makes prices look similar, even cheaper, in China, because they're /much/ cheaper. Chinese people sort of think all Americans are rich, and I have to explain that the prices are higher in America, even though there are differences...also, Chinese professors and teachers get maybe half the income of their counterparts in America, I think, which means they're materially much better off. :)
2. I get audiences, at least when I'm not on campus or in the immediate surroundings which of course are full of foreign students. As I've told some friends, I ought to learn to write Chinese with my right hand, so I can tell Chinese people in all seriousness that I write Chinese with my right hand and English with my left; they always think it's strange when I write either, and especially that I use my left hand. So whether they begin by talking to me because I'm writing in Chinese, or talking about me because I'm writing in English, I end up in conversation with strangers. If I want to discourage such, I wear my iPod, but I don't do that when I'm writing letters; I do that when I'm feeling introverted and want to listen to music.
3. Chinese people keep asking me what I think of China, which I guess prompted me to write this. I tell them that Chinese people are friendly, which is true...that things are cheap, that the culture is rich, which is also true...I feel like I'm constantly missing an appreciation of the things around me, and I won't realize quite how different it is until I get back to America. I haven't mentioned to Chinese people in general how I love so many kinds of tea here, and other things, but how much I miss the good tea and chocolate. I can't wait until the Moon Festival; Lucy and Sanda have demanded moon-cakes, and I want to try various kinds myself. Though I /have/ found a kind of green-bean cookie that is remarkably like the moon cake my real Chinese teacher gave me perhaps 6 years ago, that I liked very much.
4. Chinese people wonder about America, England, and English--they've all had to learn English in middle school and high school, but they haven't necessarily learned it well, and at any rate I can't practice with them because of my language pledge, the best I can do is correct pronunciation of a couple of words. They've also learned about some culture...but they want to know about English dialects, whether people ever "listen-not-understand" (that Chinese phrasing just sounds better, so I'm putting it that way) each other if they speak different kinds of English, and I've had to say "yes but not if they take a few days to get used to it." The same is NOT true of Chinese; I think it's agreed that Cantonese and Mandarin are much farther apart than French and English. Yesterday a telephone-card-seller's friend told me that once you cross the Chang Jiang river--er, forgot, is that usually spelled the Yangtze river in English?--you listen-not-understand the speech there.
5. I can read Chinese. No, really. Not every character, but enough to read stories, especially enough to read newspapers, enough to watch a Chinese movie if there are Chinese subtitles (I like watching English movies with English subtitles, too, you know--or French or Chinese ones), enough to read the explanations in my dictionary of Chinese proverbs and get the idea of what the proverb means.
6. I can speak Chinese. I may have to ask about words, but in general I ting-de-dong (listen-"reach" (=arrive at, get)-understand) conversation unless it's both too fast /and/ has too many unfamiliar words. I forget when I've been speaking in Chinese or English, though I can sort the conversation based on who I was talking to--I can switch very easily, and so I don't worry about using English too much anymore. In fact I've been using mostly English all day, because I've been reading
landofnowhere's entire livejournal (well, after some beginning entries I'd already read), talking with her and with my family (grr, my other reliable caller owes me a phone call), drafting Fusion emails at last, and now writing this. I was also going to go to the library and read some Jane Austen, but it looks like I'm going to have a visiting student stay in my room with me tonight, so I should really really clean up. Gulp. I didn't even let the maids in this morning, it was too messy...7. I'm learning a solo for the HBA concert: Xiao Bei Lou. I have to alter my voice to get the harsh min2ge2 sound...er, Chinese folk song sound...but I quite like the effect. I only know that and a few other Chinese songs, though...I wish I could sing out the songs in other languages, outside of my room...like In the Bleak Midwinter, which Alison mentioned and which is therefore stuck in my head.
8. I'm doing seal-carving and some cloth projects, and am in general on top of work having written my social-study report for the week, though I should really start buckling down to regular lesson-work today or tomorrow. A little letter-writing, a little Jane Austen, is called for, though...I love letters very much. I now have one from my parents as well as a postcard, a postcard from Kristen, two letters from Alison, and a letter (divided into one in Chinese and one in French) from Olivia, and am expecting one from Kevin and possibly one from EHC. Amazing how Olivia's littlest comments still make me smile broadly--she doesn't read my LJ, by the way, or probably remember that it exists. I'm also finishing letters to Lucy, Olivia (those two in Chinese) and EHC (in English), and now want to write to others I haven't written to yet...I don't usually have this free time, though. Tonight I'm going to the Chinese circus!
9. With periodic spells of misery I'm mostly very happy here. It helps that I have a lot of fun with Xu An, as well as getting along with most people in general. Xu An and I need to try to make the pearls (I mean bubbles) I have bought into things worthy of bubble tea--last time, I cam close, with a cup and microwave.
10. I probably will pay a visit (along with my fellow student, my "little brother) to my host family tomorrow, and I don't want to, because they don't take us out to do things but just have us over to dinner. Oh well.
11. I want milk. I want cheese. I don't particularly want good chocolate, actually; this is probably because I have some, and am hoarding it. I want my father's cooking, or either of the Elisabeths', or my own. I want my grandmother or my mother's baking. But I can live without these for a while.
12. I'm more than halfway through my stay here, and I think I can actually enjoy it more now. Also, incidentally, I have quite a pile of things, mostly for others, as I don't like spending money on myself, unless it's on getting this month's Internet or phone cards. By my estimate, for an hour's conversation in which I call (the numbers I've memorized, anyway) I pay 100 yuan, which is $12.50, which is not so bad, but I've been convinced by Noam and Xu An to try Skype.
