John just got his football! That means there is great fun to be had in the days to come at ZUCC. We played soccer a few times (I can’t believe they got me to play soccer — a sport which I normally can’t stand playing), but now John’s football can sweep away such foolishness.
I use the term “exotic,” of course, because American football does not exist here, and to the Chinese, its rules are still a mystery. That’s OK …
I’ll be the first to admit that Chinese are some of the most caring, dedicated parents in the world, willing to sacrifice anything for their children. But they also go to the opposite extreme as well, from time to time. I took the picture below yesterday, on the streets of Hangzhou, while riding my bike.
Doesn’t this lady realize that any sudden stop will send her precious baby careening into the busy street? There was actually much more traffic than …
I was pretty sleepy in Chinese class today. I didn’t get enough sleep last night, and the teacher’s explanations of the subtle differences between 4 different Chinese words somehow wasn’t jolting me into the desired state of consciousness. I desperately wanted to yawn, but that would be really rude to the teacher if she saw it, so I kept trying to sneak one in when she’d turn to the board to write, but then she would always turn around just …
So sometime in September, when the teaching semester started, I also started studying Chinese full-time at Zhejiang University of Technology (ZUT). After talking with the administration, I was placed directly into the advanced class without having to take the placement test. Before classes started I was a little apprehensive about that decision, but I needn’t have been.
There are only four students in the advanced class. There’s a Korean guy, a Korean girl, a girl from Kyrgyzstan, and me. Everyone …
Recently one of my students presented an interesting gift to me from her hometown, Jiaxing (¼ÎÐË). It’s a kind of “fruit” (?) called líng (Áâ) in Chinese. According to my New Age Chinese-English Dictionary, it’s called a “water caltrop” or a “ling” in English. In any case, when she kindly gave me this plant-like alien-spawn, I had no idea what the heck it was.
Below are some pictures I took of the ling.
The first thing you have to …
最近我跟我的中国朋友谈论了施瓦辛格*当美国加州新州长的事情。她说（希望我没有搞乱她说的话）：
我觉得很糟糕…… 我觉得美国真的是个什么都可以发生的地方。 如果在中国成龙也这样当了政治家你们会怎么想？
我觉得她说得好。但也许，也许施瓦辛格州长真的能够改善加州的情况。他毕竟已经当了州长，只能看他的表现。
* 哎哟，学外国人的“中文名字”真烦！…
The last performance that the ZUT foreign students will be involved in ended yesterday afternoon. One of the hostesses, Weika (I only know her by her Chinese name, 维卡) from Kyrzygstan, didn’t show. All her lines came right before mine, so they decided to just give them all to me. So not only did I have double the lines, but I no longer knew any of my cues. I did a pretty good job memorizing all my new lines quickly, …
Matt of the Nanjingren blog (one of the newest additions to the Sinosplice Network) came to Hangzhou this weekend with some of his classmates. Unfortunately I was only able to spend one meal with him because my schedule is rather full this weekend. It’s fuller than usual because I’ve been coerced into participating in Zhejiang University of Technology’s 50th Anniversary Craptacular.
I don’t pretend to invent the word “craptacular,” but I’ve noticed it’s already in common usage among foreigners …
John has lived in China for
11.8
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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