Simpson's Paradox » learning Chinese

Scenes From Imaginary China

Meg — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:49:56 +0000

I came across this book when I was home in New Jersey cleaning out my old room. (Yeah, my mom said something about how I haven’t lived there in ten years and she’d really like a guest room and that piles of paperbacks are not her ideal way to decorate that guest room.) It’s a collection of scripts for short plays, set in all different countries, and I think I read it about a thousand times, not to mention putting on most of the plays with kids in my neighborhood.

Are you surprised that I liked the Chinese story best? The story about a wise old Chinese man and his sons and daughters-in-law is probably about as Chinese as a kung fu movie, but this is one of the stories that first sparked my interest in China. China just seemed so exotic and romantic.

(Is it just me, or does it look like her lantern says “wen“? 文? But I think it’s supposed to say woman not language.)

I was sad when I got to China and found that instead of names like Spring Blossom and Precious Jade and so forth, girls all called each other Sis.

Also no one walked around in layered silk gowns and Manchu hairpieces. Another disappointment.

But on the plus side, no on ever sent me out to find wind and fire wrapped in paper before I could come home again.

My Flickr set of more photos from this book.

I came across this one in my room as well, which is doubly hilarious. First, it is unbelievably amusing to me that I was interested in authentic Chinese food pre-China, and then when I got to China, I spent months trying to hide my look of disgust and politely insist I was already full.

Second, because the bag of rice is clearly labeled “Beijing” in Chinese.

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Scenes From Imaginary China

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Elevator Confession

Meg — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:01:39 +0000

Every time I go to Chinese school, I take the elevator to my classroom, just to use my elevator Chinese phrases. I can’t figure out if I do it to keep up my elementary Chinese, or just to watch the looks of shock when the white teacher talks the talk.

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Elevator Confession

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Everyday Expressions

Meg — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 06:23:52 +0000

When I first went to Yantai, I imagined I’d come home and slip effortlessly into fluent Mandarin to quote ancient Chinese wisdom. Fortunately for people who have to put up with me, that didn’t happen.

A few characters have somehow made it into my notetaking, which is completely mindblowing to me. I tried to train myself to write any characters I did know at every opportunity as practice, and some of those words stuck. Which now makes my handwriting extra illegible!

I don’t have any complete phrases, or ancient Chinese sayings, but one Chinese word has made it into our everyday vocabulary. Stick and I both use la da to talk about food, instead of saying spicy-hot-not-hot-hot.

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Everyday Expressions

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Mangosteens

Meg — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 04:23:06 +0000

I’ve been meaning to get a photo of this crazy fruit since we first saw it, but here’s one from Tomato Egg Noodles:

Tomato Egg Noodles also has this to say:

The mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana) ??? is a small, round purplish fruit native to Malaysia. To eat it, one must remove the thick outer skin to reveal the sweet, white segmented flesh inside. The flavor is a mix of peach, pineapple and raspberry. The texture is very soft and juicy.

I’d like to add that this fruit looks and feels like a painted wooden toy, and the stylized green leaves don’t help it any!

One of the vendors in the now-defunct veggie market saw us looking and offered us one to taste. She broke the skin, by crushing and twisting the mangosteen, and offered us the insides. The fruit inside doesn’t taste like peach, pineapple and raspberry to me… I think it tastes like kiwi, peach, and icing roses on a birthday cake, with extra sugar and a little pina colada. It’s pretty tasty and half the fun is in opening these things.

The other exciting part is that this is the first thing for which I learned the Chinese name but didn’t know the English word.

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Mangosteens

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Success!

Meg — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:58:22 +0000

Success!

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Success!

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Second Language Benchmarks

Meg — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:18:03 +0000

I just had a whole telephone conversation in Chinese!!!

(If a new bottle of water gets delivered to our house today, I must have done it right.)

Edit: Stick realized that I would want photo evidence of me talking the talk, so he snapped this while I was talking.

Note the intense concentration.

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Second Language Benchmarks

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Twelve Kwai Of Trouble

Meg — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:56:00 +0000

Stick and I went back to our possible hutong home, mostly to see if we could find it on our own. We were successful, and I fell even more in love with the neighborhood. The area is Brick Factory Road, where the workers who built the bricks for the drum tower lived, but the inside has been renovated to include hot water and internet. I’m really hoping the bargaining stars will align and we’ll get our high-speed hutong.

Then we took a roundabout trip home, and stopped at Xizhimen to check out a sushi place. It’s on the 5th floor of the Xizhimen mall, but I don’t know the name. Well worth a visit if you’re looking for cheap, good sushi. (6-30 RMB for orders of various rolls) The beer is unfortunately restaurant price, it always makes me giggle to see a bottle that goes for three kwai in the supermarket appear on a menu for twenty. Not that that stopped us from ordering it.

The food was very good, the Tsingtao was Tsingtao, and Stick wasn’t quite done explaining the theory of relativity (I am not kidding), so we ordered another plate of cucumber sushi. The waitress came back a moment later with 12 RMB.

“Oh, I didn’t see you pay!” Stick said.

“What? I thought you paid!” I said.

Stick called the waitress over, and then I opened my mouth like a fish a few times. My survival Chinese has never been put to this test, I’ve never had to tell someone to take their money back! When she realized I had a problem with my change, she counted it back to me and showed that it was indeed 12 RMB. I finally made myself clear with my broken Mandarin (Women bu ge chien which I believe is the Chinese equivilent of “We no give money”). It is amazing that anyone ever understands me! Our waitress thanked us and sorted it out, but I think we gave her more than twelve kwai of trouble.

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Twelve Kwai Of Trouble

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Cow Cow Steak

Meg — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:13:00 +0000

“Stick! Look! That sign says ‘Cow Cow Steak Restaurant’!!! Check me out, I read the whole thing!”

“Hooked on radicals worked for Meg,”

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Cow Cow Steak

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A Round Square?

Meg — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 03:46:00 +0000

I took this yesterday in Beihai Park. If that square is the character for “round”, I officially give up on learning Chinese.

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A Round Square?

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Tienanmen Tourists

Meg — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 06:07:00 +0000

Yesterday, we decided to catch the bus into central Beijing and do a little exploring. It was touch-and-go whether we’d get out at the right bus stop, it seems that in Beijing, all the streets in the neighborhood are variations on the same name. We found ourselves at what seems to be the intersection of Fuxingmennan Dajie, Fuxingmennei Dajie, and Fuxingmenwei Dajie, but fortunately there’s a giant rainbow bridge at the intersection. I recognized that bridge from the last time I was in Beijing, but that doesn’t mean I knew where we were. It just means I can get back to the hostel where I stayed with my sister when she visited. Not exactly a major attraction.

We were told to take the subway but we decided to walk to Tienanmen from there. It’s a bit of a hike, but we discovered the giant Beijing Bookstore and learned some new landmarks for our next adventure.

The flower displays for National Day were being built in Tienanmen. I saw them last year in their completed state, and they looked amazing. When you see the giant completed project, with all the flowers, and pools of water, it’s hard to believe it’s just a temporary installation. It’s even more impressive to see the amount of work that goes into the flower displays. This is the frame for this year’s Great Wall flower installation.

Working on the flowers.

I had a good time with the Tienanmen vendors, too. They can be pushy sometimes, but I feel like it’s a bargaining game with them. I got some Fuwa charms, and I tried to help Christina bargain for a map, but the vendor accused me of learning Chinese to cheat her! (zuan… rip off, right?) Anyway, then a cop came by so the vendor quickly finished the transaction and disappeared into the crowd!

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Tienanmen Tourists

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