Today I am going to the market to see if I find anything cool. Last night I went to an Indian restaurant with friends in HoHai, which is this bar/restaurant/club area surrounding these two lakes. We ate then walked around the area for something like two hours. We walked around some of the allyways, which are called HuTongs, and I enjoyed that a lot. I often feel like in Beijing I am in Chinese Disneyland, not really China. Last weekend in pingyao I felt like I was really in China, talking with old shopkeepers on the winding narrow streets filled with junk shops. It is interesting walking around the Hutongs simply because i feel like I am walking around the courtyard of a family's house often times; their doors are open, you can see their living room, kitchens, bedrooms, everything. I have been told that in China people do not have to same concept of privacy or property as they do in the US. It is hard to explain exactly how it is different, but Chinese people men just walk around the streets without shirts on all the time, people spit everywhere, people's houses are completely open and close together in these allyways creating this effect that none of them just live in one of the huts. It is a really different living environment.
But back to HoHai, in HoHai Chinese people aggressively come up to us as a group and start asking us in bad english "Are you American? Do you want to come into our bar" (there are so many bars they need to promote themselves somehow). I use to say in Chinese "No, thank you" but last night one of my friends just started saying back to them in Chinese "I'm not American! I'm Chinese! Can't you tell?" That was extremely affective at getting them to leave us alone, so I think I am going to start using that.
That is one of the things about China, when i am walking around little kids will point and say "Wai4guo2 ren2" which means "FOREIGN PEOPLE." Now I just point back and say "Zhong1guo2 ren2" which means "Chinese people!" and the little kids either start laughing or get very confused. Another thing i noticed, does not matter what you look like, if you are white, Chinese people assume you are American and if you are Black they assume you and African. They do not really have a sense of a multi-ethnic cultures. For example, a lot of my friends here are American but their parents are Chinese. When they tell that to Chinese people, the term the Chinese people is "hua2 yi1" which means you are Chinese, but grew up in another country. Basically they are still Chinese, they are not really American. My friend Lucy will say "no, I am American, but my parents are Chinese" and Chinese people will ask "so why aren't you Chinese?" She will respond "because I grew up in America" Chinese response: "But you are still Chinese." It is quite strange.
Anyways, I know anyone in my family who reads this blog knows about the shutterfly page Lyn set up (no i cannot take credit for being organized enough to make my own shutterfly for my trip). But anyways, I will be trying to pictures of last weekends trip to Datong us soon. The like is http://chateauxyadeau.shutterfly.com/camilaschinatrip
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
A very very late post
I had my written and oral Final Exam for the first half of the “semester.” Starting Monday I am officially a second semester second year Chinese student. The final was by far the most difficult test we have had so far, and I do not know anyone who feels confident about it. Maybe, hopefully, our Laoshimen will be comparatively kind in grading, although that would not particularly Chinese of them.
This program is the most academically rigorous program/ class I have ever enrolled in. Nevertheless, I feel a sense of relief and pride when I realize how much I can speak now compared, especially to last September when I started Chinese. Even though my Chinese is at a level less than an elementary student, I find myself thinking in some strange form of “Chinese-English” (changlish perhaps?)I have noticed that in my mind words like “Coffee Shop” have been replaced by “Ka1 Fei1 guar3”, “work out” is “”yun4dong4” and “study” is “xue2 xi2” (that is the pin-yin version of Chinese, a phonetic system to use roman letters to show how a character is pronounced).
While I may wonder whether I should have locked myself in the library this past week to study for the final, as I did at Yale last semester during reading period, I feel like the other experience I have had that have not been studying have perhaps been more helpful with my Chinese. For example, yesterday I was in the second floor coffee shop studying and went to the counter to order an “English Milk Tea.” A large group of Chinese middle age women was standing by the counter. After I ordered my drink, one turned to me and said “Oh! You speak Chinese! You speak very well.” This started a twenty minute conversation, where I found out that these women were all leaving very soon for the University of Minnesota to study English more so they can come back and teach English at another University here in Beijing. I talked to them about Minnesota, Yale, and about studying Chinese. I have found that the consensus among Chinese people I have encountered is that they find it very interesting that foreigners, especially white people, have an interest in the Chinese language. Perhaps Americans are just so use to the attitude that ‘everyone in the world learns English” and the Chinese have not quite developed that attitude yet.
In general I feel very comfortable right now in China. I know a lot of the street food vendors, talk to them frequently. The people in the sandwich/ milk tea shop I am starting to get to know, and the closest Boa zi pu (name for a small restaurant with Chinese buns, dumplings, soup and noodles) I think are starting to know me. Sometimes I forget I am in such a far away country with such a different culture and history, then other times I snap out of it and realize that “yes, this really is China.”
In a few hours I leave for Datong for the weekend (the "midterm trip". Myself and 9 other students chose to go to Datong, most of the students in the program choose to go to Xi’an, but I thought the idea of going to old Buddhist statues in an extremely beautiful landscape or mountains and water sounded better than going to another modern city. The terracotta warriors do sound pretty cool, but hanging out in a cool (temperature wise) part of China sounded too nice. I will post pictures on shutterfly when I get back.
In all things are going well, and some of the pictures i have already posted I am quite pleased with. DaTong!
-Camila
This program is the most academically rigorous program/ class I have ever enrolled in. Nevertheless, I feel a sense of relief and pride when I realize how much I can speak now compared, especially to last September when I started Chinese. Even though my Chinese is at a level less than an elementary student, I find myself thinking in some strange form of “Chinese-English” (changlish perhaps?)I have noticed that in my mind words like “Coffee Shop” have been replaced by “Ka1 Fei1 guar3”, “work out” is “”yun4dong4” and “study” is “xue2 xi2” (that is the pin-yin version of Chinese, a phonetic system to use roman letters to show how a character is pronounced).
While I may wonder whether I should have locked myself in the library this past week to study for the final, as I did at Yale last semester during reading period, I feel like the other experience I have had that have not been studying have perhaps been more helpful with my Chinese. For example, yesterday I was in the second floor coffee shop studying and went to the counter to order an “English Milk Tea.” A large group of Chinese middle age women was standing by the counter. After I ordered my drink, one turned to me and said “Oh! You speak Chinese! You speak very well.” This started a twenty minute conversation, where I found out that these women were all leaving very soon for the University of Minnesota to study English more so they can come back and teach English at another University here in Beijing. I talked to them about Minnesota, Yale, and about studying Chinese. I have found that the consensus among Chinese people I have encountered is that they find it very interesting that foreigners, especially white people, have an interest in the Chinese language. Perhaps Americans are just so use to the attitude that ‘everyone in the world learns English” and the Chinese have not quite developed that attitude yet.
In general I feel very comfortable right now in China. I know a lot of the street food vendors, talk to them frequently. The people in the sandwich/ milk tea shop I am starting to get to know, and the closest Boa zi pu (name for a small restaurant with Chinese buns, dumplings, soup and noodles) I think are starting to know me. Sometimes I forget I am in such a far away country with such a different culture and history, then other times I snap out of it and realize that “yes, this really is China.”
In a few hours I leave for Datong for the weekend (the "midterm trip". Myself and 9 other students chose to go to Datong, most of the students in the program choose to go to Xi’an, but I thought the idea of going to old Buddhist statues in an extremely beautiful landscape or mountains and water sounded better than going to another modern city. The terracotta warriors do sound pretty cool, but hanging out in a cool (temperature wise) part of China sounded too nice. I will post pictures on shutterfly when I get back.
In all things are going well, and some of the pictures i have already posted I am quite pleased with. DaTong!
-Camila
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