Chinese lessons & more

My TA and I had a free day yesterday until 5pm when we had our two tutoring students, so we went out on adventures. The big company I did the demo class for the other day ended up picking an older teacher with another school, so now we're always free until 5pm Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

We went to a coffee shop in the morning to get some studying done. The Chinese don't really drink coffee and I don't know of a single coffee shop in Songyuan, but because TEDA is much bigger with more foreigners, there are lots. And of course they have Starbucks. Coffee is very expensive though because they it's not a standard commodity.

While we were there my TA ordered something that the menu called "sherbert with red beans." Sounds like a weird/gross combo. It ended up being small red beans in a sweet sauce over the ice from an icee that had a very light but sweet flavor to it. Strange, but not bad.

Our main point of study there was teaching me Chinese! Chinese is crazy to learn; she was laughing at me and how excited I got every time I got something right. There are four tones (flat, rising, falling then rising and falling), and the same word said with each of the different tones means four different things. I am only learning to listen and speak, not read or write the characters. That's a whole other can of worms that I really won't be here long enough to tackle.

I learned a couple key phrases and words yesterday, and then my TA started asking me to rearrange the words and phrases to make new ones. Word order doesn't change as much in Chinese and isn't quite as important as in English, so once you know a few phrases, it isn't too hard to pick words out of them and combine them into new phrases. Last night I introduced myself to my tutoring students and asked their names and they understood. This afternoon I did the same with my student; it makes people smile when I use Chinese (probably in part because I speak so slowly and get so excited). After tutoring this afternoon I told the cab driver I wanted to go to the grocery store and which store to go to in Chinese!

Aaaaand then I made us banana splits for lunch :) her first one. More cross cultural education.

I was seriously disturbed to notice afterwards though that my spoon was from KFC! I cannot escape KFC here. It's everywhere...

After Chinese lessons yesterday, I proofread my TA's introduction to a big English paper she has due at university and then we wandered around Tanggu (the area of TEDA that we live in) a bit. It was also my first time wearing my Chinese Warm Pants out (which I am in love with). Chinese Warm Pants are a cross between leggings, long underwear and amazingness. They fit like leggings, are furry on the inside and you can wear them by themselves as pants or under other things. They're awesome! The Chinese don't call them Warm Pants though, just foreigners. They're almost like something a stylish L.L. Bean would make; L.L. Bean for the 20 somethings.

financial area

Seriously, I'm going to start a campaign against KFC.