Education, education, education.

These blogs are evidently becoming sparser and finding the time to write them is proving more difficult.  Thus, the next few blog updates will be shorter, because it has become almost impossible to find a free moment in the new term.  Check out this timetable: Monday – Friday is a 7 a.m. start, getting to university for 8 and having lessons until 12.  Monday and Wednesday I’ll go to the gym directly after university and get home around 3.  Tuesday and Thursday I’ll have a Chinese writing class in the afternoon, so I’ll study before this class starts also. Every evening is spent revising Chinese too (if I have the energy).  On Friday I go from university to Aston, to lesson plan and to begin teaching in the evening.  This is followed by a whole weekend of teaching from 8 a.m. to about 7:30 p.m., but there’s no respite, as the week is then repeated the very next day.

            As much as I sound like I’m complaining, I’m enjoying the busy schedule and the workload.  In fact, I love every moment, well, almost every moment.  There’s no denying it’s exhausting, but my Chinese is coming on leaps and bounds.  However, the amount of time and energy I’ve committed to this new lifestyle has already caused me to catch a cold twice, which is strange because I’ve only had one cold the whole 6 months prior to this.

            It’s slightly surreal being back at university, especially as I only finished a short while ago.  I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.  To be honest, it’s not that much different from before, except there’s a much greater workload with the amount of Chinese characters we are expected to read, revise and know for the very next day.  I wouldn’t say my speaking has improved a great deal, nor my listening.  The real leap forward has come with my reading and writing, seeing as I only knew about 10 symbols before the start of the course. 

After one month I’d say I know, or at least could recognise, approximately 100 characters.  Recognising and recalling them are two completely different mental attributes.  The former is definitely easier; it involves seeing the symbol and acknowledging both it’s sound and meaning.  The latter, however, means attempting to remember the character from your own memory, as you place pen-to-paper.  After just one month of studying Chinese at university though, there a large number of sentences I can now string together in Chinese:

-       我学习汉语。

-       你是哪国人？我是英国人。

-       他是谁？他是我的朋友。

-       你要什么？我要茶， 谢谢你。

Translated into English, this becomes:

-       I study Chinese.
     Where are you from? I'm from England.

-       Who is he? He is my friend.

-       What do you want? I want tea, thank you.

It can be very difficult to translate Chinese directly, because there grammar and way of speaking is often extremely different from our own.  Take the second sentence for example, which would be translated like so: “You are which country person?  I am England country person.”  To be honest, this translates quite well in comparison to other sentences.  Lets take one more:

-       你的名字是什么？

-       你叫什么名字？

Translated literally, this is: “Your name is what?” and “You call what name?”  Again, these sentences are actually comprehendible when translated literally, there are some that are much more difficult to understand.

            Aside from university, there have been some interesting events in China lately.  I’ve noticed it’s been making front line news on the BBC repeatedly, which has mainly been in concern with the “Anti-Japanese riots”.  I couldn’t condemn these riots more; they are absolutely ridiculous.  I’m not saying the reasons behind the riots are ridiculous; as a foreigner here it’s definitely not my place to.  However, the way these “protests” have been carried out is despicable.  Japan has claimed islands within Chinese waters, which I understand.  What I don’t understand is why the Chinese have felt the need to go out onto the streets to needlessly abuse Japanese people, Japanese restaurants and Japanese products.  All of which is unbelievable, seeing as these Japanese restaurants hire Chinese employees, providing them with jobs.  Not to mention that it was Chinese people that owned the Japanese phones, cameras and cars that were being smashed.  During the riots, the center of Xi’an became a very dangerous place to be as a foreigner of any nationality.

            Unfortunately, it just so happened that these incidents coincided with the build up to a national holiday here in China, known as “National China Day”, which seemed to help in stirring things up.  On the bright side, however, this too coincided with a Chinese festival, known as “The Moon Cake Festival”.  The Moon Cake Festival is a time when the moon is at its fullest and can be most clearly seen, but it is also seen as a time to reignite old family ties, bonds and eat moon cake.  This means that many Chinese will make a special effort to go and visit their families, even travelling across the country to see their relatives and siblings etc one more.  That’s great, but what it basically meant for everyone working at Aston was a week’s holiday, meaning a group of us used this as an excuse to travel to Chengdu.  Chengdu is renowned for three things: spicy food, Pandas and “the most beautiful girls in China”.  Apparently the girls in Chengdu are seen as the most beautiful for their facial structure and skin colour, which is much more pale than the rest of China (China’s advertising companies promote an “idyllic” white, skin colour).

            Chengdu was great, offering pretty much what it said on the tin: