Archives for April 2008
Year of the Rat
I should be happy to graduate, but transitions are always hard for me. I recall being sad about moving out of a college apartment which I actually hated a lot a lot. I find I get attached too easily to people/places/things even though I may not necessarily like them (school, for instance). So while these next few months are going to drag, I know I’m going to miss it when I leave for China.
It would probably be a good idea to finally explain what, exactly, my plans are, then. I’ve been yammering about going to China for a while, but I haven’t even said when it’s happening. That’s because I wasn’t entirely sure, myself. I was originally going to go in August/September when the school year started. Then I realized there was no reason for me to stick around Utah that long, so I asked about doing a summer contract. That would have required me to fly out on July 10th. Some concerns about my work visa, however, have bumped it up to June 23rd.
June 23rd! Holy crap! That’s only two months away!
And the changes don’t stop there. I was intent on teaching in Hefei—because I’m familiar with the city and have friends there—but in order to work with elementary students, I had to sign with a school in Changzhou, instead. I don’t know Changzhou. I don’t know anybody who lives there. And it sounds like I’ll be the only American teacher at the school. But… meh. Whatever. I’m this deep into it already, I may as well go all out, right?
Yeah. Go all out.
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This is my last week of school, which, on its own, is pretty hard to sit through, anyway. But this week is even more so for me, because, when I say last, I mean last. Graduation is in four days, and I’m ready to write off any future educational endeavors. Please, no more school! It’s taken me way too long just to get where I am today. People keep asking me if I will go to grad school, though. Then they’re shocked and/or disappointed when I say no. Come on, guys, are you really that surprised?
I am.
It’s crazy to think that this time three years ago, I was in the middle of a teaching stint in China. I still can’t figure out what possessed me to go. I used to be such a complacent, self-defeating pessimist. Continuing to go to school would have been a perfect fit. But then I joined ILP on a huge whim. It was that or live at home and feel worthless for another semester. Needless to say, life hasn’t been the same since.
Sure, volunteer jobs like this are supposed to change you, but then you come home and move on with your career. It hit me much deeper, though. I suddenly find myself very restless and eager to travel the world, and I don’t care as much anymore about working in games or film. I only stuck through school so I could at least finish my degree. Even I understand the merit of that. But now that that’s done, it’s time to do what I really want:
Chinese is Like a Storm Raging Inside You
My Chinese class just started a new lesson on medical terms, like how to say hospital, headache, vomit, and diarrhea. Man, that last one would have come in handy when I was in Hexian in 2006. It’s pretty hard to explain to a doctor who doesn’t know any English what your symptoms are unless you’re willing to resort to embarrassing charades. After that night, I have no shame.
With Chinese, it’s actually really, really easy to learn new words and implement them. Wait, what? Did I seriously just say that? When I tell people I’m learning Chinese, they whistle, “Ooh! Tough language!” I don’t know where they get this idea, though. Chinese grammar is so simple and straightforward, and related words (like morning, noon, and night) end up having connected… er… uh… wordage… instead of being fanciful and arbitrary.
I think it’s the whole concept of tones that scares people, how a simple fluctuation can change what you’ve just said. But it’s not like this is some foreign concept to us. We have similar devices in English. My favorite example is taking the sentence, “I didn’t say I liked her,” and putting the emphasis on different words to make it mean something else:
I didn’t say I liked her. (She’s just my friend.)
I didn’t say I liked her. (I like somebody else.)
I didn’t say I liked her. (I only hinted that I liked her.)
I didn’t say I liked her. (Stop accusing me that I did.)
I didn’t say I liked her. (Jimmy Poopypants said that.)
Granted, it’s not quite the same in Chinese. There’s not a lot of subtext to try and decipher. You just might end up saying, “I want to eat five sleeps,” instead of, “I want to eat five dumplings.” That sounds funny, but don’t we take the same risks with words that are too similar to each other in English? Somebody asks you what you’re doing, and you say, “I’m baking,” and they reply, “What? You’re bacon?!” Well, whether you said “bacon” or baking,” we know what you meant. The nice thing about being new to Chinese is that people will often still get what you’re trying to say based on the context. But they may make fun of you afterwards for saying it wrong (wouldn’t we all).
I remember one of my Guanghua students trying to teach me her Chinese name, and she kept saying, “Huang Wenwen.” And I’d say, ”Huang Wenwen?” And she’d say, “No! Huang Wenwen.” The only difference, of course, was that I was saying it like a question. That’s the hardest part about learning to speak Chinese: abandoning the practice of saying everything like we’re asking it. When we say something we’re unsure about, we habitually raise our voice at the end to let the other party know we don’t have any faith in ourselves. Seriously, stop it.
My teacher always tells us, “Be thankful you don’t have to learn English,” because, in comparison to Chinese, English is a monster of a language. It’s when you want to start reading or, even worse, writing Chinese that it gets to be troublesome and deserves its infamy.
I can’t even make sense of that in English.
mp san
I have a lot of Chinese music on my mp3 player, but I find myself always skipping those songs when the shuffle picks them. Stupid shuffle never picks what I want! Don’t get me wrong, I like Chinese music, it just makes me incredibly homesick. I am a sucker for sentimental music, after all, and Chinese hits me the hardest. I can’t listen to anything by Cyndi Wang without picturing my ILP apartment.
I’m a big fan of Chinese pop, partly by choice and partly because it was either embrace it or go crazy. Seriously, you can’t escape. I actually have a soft spot for American pop, as well, but I generally don’t listen to it. I understand the lyrics, so I know how stupid and superficial it is. Chinese pop is probably the same way, but my grasp on the Chinese language is so minimal, I’m just happy to recognize the phrase “wo ai ni.”
Stefanie Sun and Jolin Tsai have always been my favorites, but I’ve recently come to like Angela Chang to great lengths. Have a listen for you:
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