May 29, 2006

1:57pm


I just had my first classes, and yep, my professors don't speak a word of English, but I'm surprised about how much I understand. My simplified characters are horrible, but everyone else is in the same boat I am. Thank you Ivy so much for the traditional to simplified dictionary, it's a lifesaver. I'm really excited to see how much progress my Chinese will make here. And Ted you were right, Beijing accent is so hard to understand. It sounds like a mixture of drunk Chinese or Chinese with a mouthful of spit.

I just got back from a big shopping place near me and from eating lunch with a bunch of people. Ordering food here is impossible and a couple of times I have resorted to just pointing to something on the menu, or just asking for whatever the server thinks is good. Luckily, a lot of places have this system where they have all the dishes on display, so I can see it first, and I can at least read what kind of meat it is and stuff, but food type stuff is just really hard. But the food courts are really weird, you go to the place where you want to eat, choose what you want, they write you up a receipt, you then go to a central cashier, pay, they give you a receipt that you take back to the food place and they give you your food. And they don't serve drinks at the food places; you have to go to a drink place.

The beds here are REALLY hard, but I have been sleeping well and I think it's really good for my back.

Sometimes people stare at me like I'm a complete alien or something. The weather here is pretty hot and really humid, but it still beats Phoenix. I tried to say hello to a bunch of Korean kids (in Korean) and they all just kind of looked at me funny. Oh well, at least the Chinese people understand me.

It's starting to hit me that I am here.

I haven't mailed anyone postcards or anything yet because I haven't found a place to buy them, but when I do I'll send some out.

I can already tell I'm going to be super busy here.