Fall Weekend in Shanghai - Part 2

The blue brother-of-Gumby icon on the posters is all over Shanghai promoting the 2010 World Expo.  The green logo of three waving figures is made from the Chinese character for "world".  Better City, Better Life is the theme of the six-month Expo.  It's billed as an international idea exchange for improving modern cities.  Thousands of people and several hundred businesses were displaced to create the Expo grounds.  Hopefully all of them now have a better life....   On a sweltering day in mid-September Terry attended the Expo as part of his meeting with a group of American businessmen, and he got his fill of crowds and hype.  So we didn't even consider going during our weekend in Shanghai. 

We skirted People's Square on our way to visit the Shanghai Museum, but they weren't allowing any more people into the building by the time we got there.  So we took off on a winding narrow street nearby, where we saw all sorts of goldfish, turtles, birds, bunnies, and crickets for sale.  On our China-bound plane in August I told Leah that I thought we probably should go to the market and find a little cricket in a cage for our apartment.  These are the first crickets I've seen for sale, and I've now changed my mind.  I pictured a modest-sized Minnesota cricket that would chirp companionably this fall, not one of these humongous critters.

There were other  quaint sights on the critter street, including this man, boy and dog on the scooter.  We think of Chinese people having considerable restrictions on their freedom, yet Americans live with far more restrictions when it comes to transportation and child safety.

This was part of the wet market in an alley just around the corner from the apartment we stayed in.  It's called a wet market, not because it looks wet (it was raining that morning), but because it's where you buy fresh food, some so fresh that it's still alive.  The man is washing a chicken he's just dressed.  There were lots of swimming things to eat in the tubs.  I found some early season clementines on the other side of the market.  I was so excited after actually understanding the vendor when she said "qi kuai", which is 7 RMB or just over $1, that I didn't even think about bargaining and then dropped my shopping tote in the muck as I fumbled to find correct change.

This is an amazing site in Shanghai:  no people!  It rained all day Sunday, otherwise there would have been lots of people out strolling in this pleasant park in the French Concessions.  We hoisted our umbrellas that afternoon and did a walking tour out of a Lonely Planet guidebook.  Leah said she much preferred rain to hot, sticky air for touring.

Monday it didn't rain, so the crowds were out again, especially at tourist sites like this one just outside the entrance to Shanghai's famous Yu Gardens.  The structure in the middle is the Huxinting Teahouse, built in the late 1700's by cotton merchants.  The zigzag bridge was supposed to protect the building, since evil spirits aren't supposed to be able to turn corners.  That's a huge swirl of goldfish in the murky water.

Here's Leah inside the Yu Gardens, which were built during the Ming dynasty in the late 1500's, partially destroyed several times, and now are restored.  There were six walled areas of winding paths through the gardens and buildings, which made it seem like a maze.  Whew, we found our way out in time to catch a taxi to the airport Monday afternoon.

Fall Weekend in Shanghai - Part 1

     We returned to Shenzhen Monday night, after spending a long weekend in Shanghai.  Leah doesn't have many school breaks when we'll be able to travel in China, so we took advantage of her vacation this week.  It seems unusual to have a full week off only five weeks into the school year when everyone's just starting to get some traction.  But this is holiday time, between the Moon Festival last week and National Day coming up on October 1.

We stayed in the French Concession district of Shanghai.  Despite the name, there never were all that many French who lived here after France made this part of Shanghai a sort of outpost in the mid-1800's, subject to French rather than Chinese law  until the 1940's.  We stayed in a small apartment in the peachy-tan building to the left in the background.  The young Chinese-American owners were doing a brisk online business renting it out for short stays now during the 2010 World Expo going on in Shanghai through the end of October.  The location was great:  interesting neighborhood, tree-lined streets, a few small wet markets nearby, and a 5-minute walk from a Metro stop.  We rode the Metro a number of times and were impressed.  It was well-marked, clean, much faster than a taxi or bus, and a mere 3-4 RMB ($.45-.60) per ride.  China has spent a lot of money in Shanghai the last few years on infrastructure like the Metro, getting ready to show off the city to the rest of the world during the Expo.  In the photo, notice the laundry drying on the rods extending out over the street.  Electric clothes dryers are not used much in China, even by those who could afford one.

Saturday morning we awoke to classical piano music blaring over a loudspeaker.  Looking out our window we saw these students lined up in formation, going through morning exercises on this playing field.   After a half-hour they broke out into squads of 20 or so, and neatly jogged two-abreast off the field.

The next two mornings it wasn't music, but car horns that we heard, and not just stray beeps, but conversations between horns,  as impatient drivers competed for road space even on a weekend in this congested city of 17 million people.  This was a lively contrast to our apartment in Shenzhen, where we are on the bay side of the building, with no road and no car noise.

Bikes and scooters abound in Shanghai, much moreso than in Shenzhen.  We had to be careful whenever we stepped off a curb, because they were everywhere.  I took this shot as I crossed on a green light, perhaps overly confident that all these cyclists would wait at their red light.  The woman on the left is wearing a helmet, a rarity, although it doesn't look substantial enough to offer much protection.

Here's a motorcycle taxi, one of a few we saw on the Shanghai streets.  The image on the side of the taxi is famously modern Shanghai, looking out over the Huangpu River toward Pudong's skyscrapers.  Prior to China declaring Pudong a Special Economic Zone less than 20 years ago,  it was mostly swampy farmland.

And here we are, pasted into the same scene as the one on the side of the taxi above.  I'm sure you pick out the Oriental Pearl Tower in the Pudong skyline.  This much-discussed structure with its multiple spheres, some of them hot pink, is a good example of what I think of as a certain exuberance in some modern Chinese styling.  What a contrast to the uniform drabness of the Cultural Revolution.

We are standing on the Bund, which is an elevated wide walkway along the Huangpu River.  On one side of the river is ultra-modern Pudong, and on the other are the huge old colonial banks, trading houses and hotels built in the 1920's and 30's, reminders that Shanghai was the busiest international port in Asia in the 1930's.  The Bund was filled with tourists when we were there on a Saturday afternoon, not just foreigners, but lots of ordinary Chinese people, too.

Moon Festival

     Today is the Moon Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival in China.  This holiday is second in importance only to the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) and dates back at least 3,000 years.  The Moon Festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month and is a public holiday.  Some workers get 3 days off beginning today.

     The Moon Festival is a time of family reunions.  Traditionally people eat moon cakes and enjoy watching the moon together.  If people aren't able to be with their loved ones on the Moon Festival, they derive a sense of togetherness from knowing that the other is watching the moon, too.

     After a rainy afternoon, the clouds have thinned tonight and there is a now moist-looking moon in the sky.  I stepped out on our balcony about 9:30 and heard some fireworks in the distance, as well as lots of excited little people's and their parents' voices coming from the boardwalk down by the bay.
     We three dull Americans are not out watching the moon tonight, but instead are sitting in the glow of our computer screens.  We did, however, have a family reunion of sorts:  Terry arrived home this afternoon after several days of work in Shanghai.

This was a scene this morning about a 40-minute walk from our apartment.  There were lots of families out having fun together, like these kids and their grown-ups riding the goofy battery-powered animals around the plaza.  The red lantern decorations are ubiquitous at Moon Festival time.  On the pole you can see an image of Lady Chang Er, the star of a Moon Festival legend.

Here's Leah with a sample of moon cakes, which are sold in most every store for the month or so preceding the Moon Festival.  Not only are they round and yellow like the moon, but they're supposed to be made with 4 egg yolks, representing the 4 phases of the moon.  Most of them are sweet, filled with sweet bean or lotus seed paste, not necessarily flavors that appeal to the western palate.  Companies buy boxes of them to give to their clients.





     There's a legend that goes with the moon cakes.  700-some years ago, the leader of a rebellion against the Yuan dynasty ordered special cakes to be baked for the upcoming Moon Festival.  Baked inside of each cake was a hidden message with a battle plan.  The rebels attacked on the night of the Moon Festival and overthrew the government, which paved the way for the Ming dynasty to come into power.  Moon cakes are eaten to commemorate this legend.

Cash

     When we rented our apartment here this summer, we had to bring cash from the U.S.  for two months' rent as a deposit, plus the first month's rent.  This made a serious dent in our local bank's stash of cash that afternoon before we left the U.S., and then made a worrisome bundle to manage for a few days until we could hand it off to the rental agent here in Shenzhen.  But that was how we were instructed to manage payment.  The rental agency sent our  bills through their money counter/counterfeit detector, summoned a runner to take our dollars to a bank and convert it to Chinese yuan, and then dropped the yuan into the counter before calling the landlord to come collect her money.  A few days later, Terry stopped by the building where he'd leased an apartment through the end of July.  He got his two months' deposit back, in a two-inch stack of bills.   Not only did they seem clunky, those stacks of bills seemed rather...well, illicit.  I'm used to writing a sleek and simple check, sliding a debit or credit card, or going online and clicking a payment.  Stacks of bills make me think of sleazy deals.
     Even more amazing to me than the cash rental transactions was sitting in the finance office at Leah's school last month and watching a man pay for his son's tuition in cash.  There was no money counting machine, so a clerk was counting and re-counting his huge stack of bills by hand.  There are about 1,000 students at Leah's American school.  I imagined all the time needed for counting tuition payments if everyone paid in cash--what incredible inefficiency!  Fortunately, a check drawn on a U.S. bank account was also an acceptable form of payment. I walked up to another clerk, handed over my check, collected a receipt, and walked away less than two minutes later, feeling very fortunate to be able to use American-style efficiency.
     There's more.  Soon after arriving here, we had to deposit some money in a special bank account that our utility bills are paid from.  Terry waited 45 minutes for his turn at a bank teller window so he could hand over stack of yuan to put on deposit.  I took a turn at this bank transaction the next time.  I found a different branch of the bank, a smaller one, and had to wait only 15 minutes to get up to the window with my wad of money.  However, it took over a half-hour to walk to the bank.  After finally getting the last of our utility bills at home set up for online payment, this was a frustrating step backwards.  (The situation should improve, though.  Once we get our own account set up at this bank, we'll be able do online transfers to the utilities account.  In theory, anyway--the online text is in Chinese.)
     We have to keep cash on hand for nearly all of our day-to-day expenditures.  I expected that for myself, but the Chinese all seem to use cash, too--no check cards or credit cards.  It's possible to use plastic at some of the larger department stores, but because they're not really set up for it, you hold up the line when you do, and the 2-3% fee for using your card adds up.  It's a good thing that the ATMs work great!
     What's going on with the cash economy?  I remember reading somewhere that many Chinese have an affinity for cash that grew out of the family loyalty tradition I mentioned in a recent post.  You'd trust your family or friend if they gave you an IOU, which is what a check or credit card is.  But you wouldn't necessarily trust someone you don't know if they gave you an IOU.  So businesses want you to pay in cash.
     In addition, it's been only relatively recently that there's been this vigorous flow of money through the Chinese economy.   Personal money management is new to the average person.  It seems likely that China would want to avoid the pitfalls of allowing the average person have access to the magic of IOUs in the form of checks or credit cards, lest they be tempted to overextend themselves, as so many Americans have.
     For as clumsy as it is sometimes to have to use cash here for just about everything, it does keep Chinese people solvent.  The Star Tribune ran a feature within the last year with a personal finance expert's novel suggestion for teaching young adults how to stay out of debt:  cash the paycheck, deposit some in savings, and  put the rest in envelopes for monthly expenditures.  When the cash is gone, you're done spending until the next month.  Money management, Chinese style!
 

Typhoon Fanapi

     The supports you see on these trees on our apartment grounds are supposed to typhoon-proof them, I think.   Just about all the trees have them.
     A few days ago Typhoon Fanapi looked as if it would track over Shenzhen, but it veered to the north and is now a mere tropical storm.  We've had a few hard downpours overnight and there are whitecaps on the bay this morning--no big tree-damaging winds, though.  The hot, heavy air and haze are gone, and there's a cool tinge to the air, the coolest since our arrival.  It feels great to me, but the locals  may think it's starting to feel like winter.  The heat will be back, though...maybe by noon.
  

Yia

     This is Yia.  I learned her name only a couple nights ago, although we've ni hao-ed anonymously many times in the last few weeks.  She's one of the friendly young workers at the desk in the building where I go to the gym.  Tuesday I turned in a cell phone that I'd found in the gym.  Yia was at the desk that day and thanked me, maybe somewhat excessively, when I gave it to her.   Wednesday when I walked in the door, Yia came out from behind the desk, took hold of my arm, and excitedly told me how happy the cell phone owner was when she got it back.  She thanked me again several times.  Thursday Yia greeted me with a big smile.  Now that I was a tad less anonymous, she took special pains to try to tell me about a special program that would be held the next night on the plaza here in our apartment complex.  She said, I thought, that there would be music and dance and that I might like to go.  I wondered if the women I see practicing their dance pieces every morning in front of the glass building would be performing.  So Friday night I went down to the plaza with my camera, curious.  There were lots of shouted announcements into microphones, a comedy skit (I think), a sort of quiz show with kids, and a puzzling display of a firefighter's hat, boots, overalls and fire extinguisher.  No dance, no music.  I really had no idea what the theme or purpose of the gathering was, except that it may have been related to the upcoming Moon Festival next week.  But no matter, it turned out to be interesting anyway.
     After I'd been standing at the back for a few minutes, peering at the action in the middle of the plaza and studying the crowd gathered around, I heard a gleeful squeal behind me:  "You came!"  Running towards me was the familiar smiling face from behind the desk in the gym building.  She grasped both my forearms and said she was very happy that I had remembered to come to the event.  I quizzed her about what was happening in the middle of the plaza, but she had a hard time explaining and I had a hard time understanding.  So that's when I began asking her about herself, starting with her name.  I asked her if she was a student, because I sometimes see the young people studying while they're staffing a desk--the concierge in our apartment building, for example.  Yia said she would like to study abroad.  She has American friends from Indiana who lived here awhile and are now trying to help her go to the U.S. to study.  I couldn't help interjecting that the only two people from Indiana I know, longtime friends Kuo-Long and Carol, are Chinese!   Yia said that it's hard to stay in touch with her Indiana friends, since she can't use Facebook or email abroad.  These are unavailable options for most people in China, due to government restrictions on Internet use. We foreigners get around it because we're not Chinese citizens and because we can afford a $70 solution.  More about that some other time.
     Yia went back to the incident from earlier in the week.  She looked at me very seriously.  "I have to tell you about the cell phone.  You found it and brought it to me.  That was very nice.  Most people would not do that  here.  A Chinese person would not do that."  I told her that I didn't think this was true from our experiences.  The Chinese we've met here have been extraordinarily helpful to us, generous in  every way.  Terry has spent months working with many Chinese, and he has no end of positive things to say about them.  Upon reflection later, though, I think Yia may have been referring to the traditional loyalty that Chinese have to family and friends, but the lack of obligation or connection to the wider community or to people they don't know.  Some say this is changing.  Yia said she comes from a province far away from here.  She maybe has run into some people who have made her life difficult,  as she's made her way in this fast-growing city far away from family and friends.
     I told Yia that in the U.S. I have been a teacher and have worked a lot with kids.  I said that many of us try to teach kids the golden rule-- to treat other people, even people we don't know,  as we ourselves would like to be treated, because it makes everybody's life better.  "Are you a Christian?" she asked me.  She said that she herself was.  Maybe I'll hear the story behind that later.  At the time I was surprised to meet someone who professed affiliation with a religion, in this country of 1.3 billion people that's been characterized as mostly unreligious, especially here in the south.  And I was reminded again that the things I do and say while I'm out and about here will likely cause some people to generalize about Americans, just as our family has generalized somewhat about the Chinese from the warm and kind people we've met, people like Yia.

Around The Peninsula

The Moon Festival is coming up on September 22.  In preparation for this second most important holiday for the Chinese, this week workmen have been putting up red lanterns around the walkways here at our apartment complex, The Peninsula.

In her book Dreaming in Chinese, Deb Fallows describes gazing through binoculars at tai chi groups from her 22nd floor Shanghai apartment, before choosing one to join.  A few days after  arriving here, I was thrilled to discover what I thought could be my tai chi group right here at The Peninsula, overlooking Shenzhen Bay.  But alas, it's actually a dance group that practices here every morning, using this glass building as their studio mirror.  They seem to warm up with tai chi and then put dance music in the boombox, everything from traditional to Chinese pop.  They're quite good and fun to watch.

Shenzhen is a busy port in the Pearl River Delta.  In the distance you can see the red-orange cranes used to load containers of "Made in China" goods onto cargo ships, goods that you may be buying in the U.S. in a few months.

These men help keep the grounds around the apartment buildings  looking beautiful.  Most seem to carry the army green water canteens you see here because it's hot and humid all day every day, pretty much from May through September.

Why We're Here

     During his junior year of high school in 1972, Terry emptied his savings account to go to Chile as an exchange student.  He spent a few months in a Catholic school in Concepcion.  After he learned enough Spanish to get along, he decided he’d learn more outside of school--especially since there was a revolution going on--and took off hitchhiking around the country.  AFS didn’t know where he was most of this time, so couldn’t send him home for breaking so many rules.  Many years after living in Chile, Terry’s still dissatisfied with the same old, same old way of doing things and still way more eager than the average person to take a chance on the unknown.  That’s what eventually led us to China.  (And to his trying out the pickled silkworm condiment for his breakfast congee today.  We do not stock this in our kitchen--he was at a hotel in Shanghai.)

     20 years ago Terry started his own business as an environmental consultant.  A few years after starting out, he had a chance to work on a project in Pakistan.  He drew on some old AFS courage for that project and for other work abroad that followed.  Eight years ago he came to China to work for the first time, and he’s been working on various projects here ever since.  

     In 2009 Terry was given a contract by the Environmental Defense Fund to work with sourcing operations here in China for the world’s largest retailer, Walmart.  EDF paid him to work with factories that make the goods that Walmart sells.  He’s developed a template for evaluating current factory energy use, for making recommendations to reduce their energy use, and for measuring change.  He’s training young Chinese sourcing people how to do what he does because he needs a veritable army to make some headway.  Walmart buys goods from an estimated 200,000 factories here.  So if Walmart insists on more manufacturing energy efficiency and the factories can get the help they need, the potential for change is huge. There are other aspects to his work, initiatives related to finance, for example.  He’s met with an investor representing Chinese power companies with a plan to buy energy-efficient equipment to lease to factories, who will pay for it through their energy savings.  Terry especially likes working with innovative ideas like this one.

     This past year I began to refer to Terry as the family migrant worker.  He went back and forth between Shenzhen and Minneapolis, spending about 2/3 of his time in China.  He has a new EDF contract to work here fulltime for the next year, and Leah and I have the privilege of joining him to live here in Shenzhen.  

Show & Tell: Fruit

     






Here are some fruits I found in our refrigerator tonight.  By color:
     pink and green - dragonfruit
     orange - papaya
     light yellow - Asian pear/apple pear
     green - mandarin orange
And the green foliage is from the jasmine bushes that grow luxuriantly along the walkways around the apartment buildings where we live.
     

     After tasting the dragonfruit, Leah said, "This is probably one of the worst dragonfruits I've had."  That's not saying much.  In my opinion there's not much difference between the best and the worst.  They're supposed to taste like a cross between a kiwi and a pear, but I don't think they usually taste like much of anything.  The flavor of the apple pears and mandarin oranges can also be a little underwhelming.  I think the reason many of the fruits we get here lack flavor and sweetness is that the farmers traditionally have picked them long before they're ripe so they don't spoil before they get to market in this subtropical climate.  Now in spite of modern transportation getting fruit to the Chinese consumer much faster than it used to, everyone may be used to certain fruits being eaten green.  

     The papayas are tasty, though.  They're picked somewhat green, but they ripen up fast.  I buy one of these just about every day at the little store/market where I get most of our produce. "Here she comes--any papaya left?" the young store workers probably call out to each other when they see me coming with my shopping tote.

     The Fireside apples are getting ripe now in Minnesota.  Although I like papaya, I'd trade one for a Fireside any day!

Now about the jasmine.  It grows all along this sidewalk leading out the front gate, which is straight ahead.  There are a few fragrant white flowers here and there on the bushes, though they're not really visible in this photo.  Yes, I picked a few sprigs from these bushes to put in a teacup on our table.  (I miss having fresh flowers to pick from my back yard.)  I reasoned it was okay because these things grow so fast that they start crowding our feet before the groundskeepers can get them pruned away from the sidewalk.  They're nicely trimmed here, though, aren't they? 

Visit to a Dental Clinic

     One of many things that gives Westerners pause before deciding to move to a still-developing country like China is concern about finding good medical or dental care if it's needed.  We're spoiled.  If we have a problem, we want it fixed as fast as possible, with no pain and no screw-ups. And we're not sure we'll get this if we leave home.  
     This afternoon after school I went with Leah to her appointment at "U Dental", which was a 15-minute taxi ride away.  I'd gotten two recommendations for this clinic; the English-speaking staff was the main draw.  Afterwards both Leah and I were pleased.  Parts of the experience were somewhat different than what we're used to at home.   First of all, they're open until 8:30 weekday evenings, and they're open on weekends AND holidays until 5:30.  Same day appointments are usually not a problem.  How's that for client-friendliness?  When we walked into their sleek office on the 24th floor of a high-rise, the three young women in smart lilac shirts behind the reception counter all stood up immediately and greeted us. After we sat down, one of them not only brought each of us a cup of water, but came back twice to tell us our estimated wait time, since we'd arrived 15 minutes early.  I noted the warm lighting and colors--no cold, blue fluorescents and antiseptic-hued decor in this waiting room, reminding you of your dental anxiety.
     When the dental assistant arrived, she led us out of the waiting room up a short step and through a push button sliding door of frosted glass (I thought of Star Trek).  The dentist looked all of 15, but had an air of competence and reassurance, just what you want from a health professional.  Our dental office at home doesn't have touch screen controls like this one had, and I doubt it was as clean as this one.  We were done in 20 minutes and paid in cash, as we pay for pretty much everything else here.  They sent our money through their counterfeit checker--nothing personal--many businesses here do this, since there's been quite a bit of fake currency floating around their system.  I was pleased that the bill was just over 1/4 of what it would be at home.
     The one recommendation I have for the clinic is to tweak their staff's business cards.  Leah's dentist's card lists his name and title on the English side simply as "Daniel, Chief" and his email address begins with "snake"!
     Although we were fortunate to find this exceptional clinic, it's of course not the norm for China--yet.  Living here in this modern city, it's sometimes easy to forget that we are in a developing country.

The View from Here

The milky haze of the last couple weeks lifted today, and we had partly cloudy skies.  I thought the view out our apartment windows was particularly beautiful, so I took some photos.

This is the view looking straight out our windows.  Across Shenzhen Bay you can see the low mountains of Hong Kong.  Sometimes the haze has been so dense that we haven't been able to see even the outline of these mountains.   Fishing boats of all sizes come and go across the bay all day, although it doesn't seem that there would be too many fish left to catch anywhere in the area .  Before the economic reforms were implemented here 30 years ago, some brave Chinese people would attempt to swim several miles across this stretch of water to the freedom and prosperity of Hong Kong.

Looking to the left out our windows, we can see the Shenzhen Bay Bridge, which connects our area of the city with Hong Kong.  In the distance is the dense urban forest of high rises that many of us picture when we think of Hong Kong.  This bridge just opened in 2007, marking the 10th anniversary of the British return of Hong Kong to China.  In the foreground is the eastern side of the peninsula that we live on.

                                          

This is our apartment complex, aptly called The Peninsula because we live on one.  I took this photo about 10 days ago when it was not only hazy, but starting to rain.  Why was I out in the rain taking a picture?  Because I walked outside midday and felt an incredibly comfortable breeze coming off the ocean, after days and days of feeling hot and sweaty outdoors, so I decided to take a walk with my camera.  We live in the middle building of the three in the foreground, on the 7th floor. 

Chinese Without Tears

            Last week my American neighbor here told me about a local online grocery service that offers lots of foreign items that we Westerners might crave once in awhile.  She said that prices at “Nogogo” are competitive, and better yet, they’ll deliver free anywhere here in Shenzhen if you spend at least 150 RMB, which is about $23.  Sounds good, I thought, and googled it.  Not only did I find brown rice and cheese, I found a few books:  specifically, a guidebook to the city I’d seen recommended, and then there was Chinese Without Tears – Learn 168 Chinese Characters in One Afternoon.  The title reminds me of those tiny, ridiculous, promise-the-impossible ads at the back of pulpy magazines.  I checked out the blurb for the book.  Hmmmm.  The approach sounded rational.  I was beginning to feel rather desperate to start working on my Chinese, as long as I’m going to be here awhile.  Moreover, the Weigle kids’ mom told me a few months ago that they’d start Chinese language study in school come September, and that they’d be looking forward to sharing this experience with me.  Yikes, recalling that added a little more pressure.  Then I heard that my niece Kate would also start studying Chinese this fall, as she begins her freshman year in college.  Yet another reason to get going!  Since my investigation into language learning here had not turned up any other practical first step, I ordered the book from Nogogo, despite the title.

            Did I learn 168 characters in one afternoon?  No way.  Even if my brain was capable of such a feat, I couldn’t sit still for a whole afternoon focusing on just that.   How about the “without tears” part?  So far, promise delivered.  I’m having fun with it, probably because I haven’t tried to learn more than a few new characters at a time.  I’ve studied only about 45 characters, as it takes lots of focus and repetition to learn not just the strokes of each one, but also the order of the strokes, and then I have to keep reviewing characters already learned.  I haven’t worked on the oral part much at all.

            Spoken Chinese is challenging for most of us Westerners because of its tonal nature.  There are only about 400 different syllables in spoken Chinese, which is about 10% of what we have in English.  So each Chinese syllable could have many meanings, depending on whether the tone is rising, falling, neutral, and so on.  Sometimes even native Chinese speakers get confused because by tone of a particular syllable in a word, and they end up writing out the characters to clarify.  Because I’m a visual learner, it seems a lot easier for me to learn written characters than to make my tones understood.  That doesn’t mean I won’t work on the oral part, but the road in that direction is looking long and bumpy.  This morning Terry walked by while I was practicing pronouncing a particular character, with the help of an online dictionary.  “You sound like a chicken!” he laughed.  I laughed, too, because I really did.

            Our evening meal tonight did not include either brown rice or cheese from Nogogo.  Most of the time I try to use ingredients I get at the little store/market a block away. I fixed a quick supper of dumpling soup, made with leftover veggie soup in the fridge and some frozen dumplings. I happened to look at the package of dumplings and was pleased to note that I recognized several characters, including the ones for water, meat, fire/heat and knife.  I don’t expect to achieve anything approaching proficiency in Chinese, but recognizing even a few characters on a package or a sign at this point gives me another reason to feel hopeful that China will seem less and less foreign as we spend more time here.  That’s a good feeling, one month after our arrival!