I woke up naturally at 7:00 this morning, and was excited because it meant I would have an hour to goof off on my phone, but then I got real sleepy again and somehow managed to fall into a deep sleep for an hour.
In class, our topic was only children/one child policy. I didn’t realize that everyone in our class had siblings except for me.
For drill 2, we had to explain an American policy and an American tradition. I wasn’t really sure about any policies, so I ended up talking about the Bill of Rights. I’m really not sure how I managed to get through that one, but I know for the eight amendment I said something along the lines of “打官司的时候，他们不可以给你奇怪的刑法” or “when you go to court, they can’t give you strange punishments.” I then followed it with “for example, they can’t tell you to put your hand in a fire” because I had no other examples I could explain in Chinese. Our teacher got my meaning somehow, so that’s impressive on her part.
I also explained Christmas because, again, I couldn’t think of any other “strange” American traditions. I’m sure there are a lot, but because it’s my culture, I don’t necessarily think of it as strange.
When I started talking about Christmas, I did realize how weird it was to go and chop down a tree and then put it in your house. I also talked about Santa and saying “a man watches our children sleep” really put things into perspective. Like, I knew that the concept of Santa was weird, but when I think about telling a child that there’s a man always watching them, it really does make it morph into pedophilia.
For lunch, the girls went to the Muslim place, and it turns out everyone was there. Literally, we walked up, and I think all of 400 was there, 300 showed up, and then Holden, Kevin, and Korey showed up. That’s 48% of the CLSers.
I got the cold noodles, and I ate all of it because I only had water and pasta to eat yesterday.
In newspaper, we talked about culture shock/cultural differences. I learned that there are two different meanings to AA制, and that was a real treat trying to explain to Li Laoshi. She also didn’t know there were two meanings, and she didn’t understand the only meaning I knew.
After class, Hannah and I went back to shidalu to print some pictures and get milk tea. Also, it turns out I was right about the machine being out of paper because the photos printed in 30 seconds. I feel betrayed.
But also, I’m proud of myself for being able to read the error message yesterday.
I am sad though because the good printer is gone, so I’m stuck with off-colored photos. Hannah can’t tell the difference, but I can. I’m going to chalk it up to being a film major, and finally getting an eye for color inaccuracies.
Afterward, we went back to her room to do homework. Originally, we were going to hang out in my room, but my roommate was asleep, which is why we ventured into her room, but her roommate was also passed out. We sat in the hall and were “homeless” for a few minutes, so we texted Korey and asked if his roommate was there. Turns out Korey was actually at the gym, so we could either sit in the hall or just be quiet.
We choose the later, but thankfully, when we went back into the room, Hannah’s roommate was awake.
We had some good chats. The cooking thing we did Sunday was actually something Hannah’s roommate set up for her because she mentioned she wanted to do Chinese cooking. I think what happened is that it morphed into a birthday celebration, but I’m not too sure.
We also stalked our facebooks, and I realized how annoying I was in middle school.
At 6:30, “two Asians and daddy” got dinner at the Korean restaurant, and Hannah and I split a bomb-ass rice dish. We tried to get Korey to tell us what he would say if he actually wanted to insult us, but he said he wouldn’t tell us. Something about it lacking impact if he said it now, but I doubt it. He said he might tell us when we’re leaving San Fran.
We got ice cream afterward and then headed back. I was going to study the tingxie words in my room, but then the main light died and I was sitting in the dark with my phone in my mouth trying to use it as a flashlight while also writing. It didn’t work, so I ended up going back to Hannah’s room so I could actually see.
We talked about our Myers-Briggs type, and I mentioned Korey said he was an introvert but tested as an extrovert. Hannah texted him why he thought that, but since she was doing homework, she had me respond to him. We decided to put our test into play and see if he could tell who was texting him: me or her.
I did my best to copy her writing style, but I don’t think I did a very good job. The only strategy I had was sending short sentences in multiple text bubbles. When Korey did start getting “serious’ we decided to tell him it was me texting him, and surprisingly, he didn’t notice.
I had my OPI at 10, and I knew I fluffed up when I forgot how to introduce my name. The first and last characters are easy because I can just say “阳是太阳的阳” and “云是云彩的云” but the middle character “露” is more complicated since I actually have to break it down into radicals. I got the top part right which is “上边是雨伞的雨” but then I forgot if 马路’s 路 was at the bottom because I wasn’t even sure if 马路 was a word. Thankfully, it was.
After I told the guy my Chinese name, he asked if I liked it, and I said: “yes because my Chinese parents gave it to me and I don’t know them, so this is a part of them I carry with me.”
The other thing I fluffed up was getting 视频 and 食品 mixed up. The question he asked me prior was “what do you like to do in your free time in Xi’an?” I said I enjoyed watching short videos and talking with friends. For example, we go out to eat a lot.
So, he then asked me about food safety in China (食品), but I forgot that means “food” so my assumption was that he was asking me about the short videos I watch (视频). So, I spent about five minutes talking about how I don’t watch Chinese videos because they’re not in my native tongue, so I find them hard to watch.
He then stopped me and goes “oh you thought I said shipin? I mean shipin.” Fuck Chinese.
Thankfully, we’ve talked about food safety in newspaper, so I was actually able to half answer this question.
So, for some reason, when I was talking about newspaper, all the topics I knew went out of my head, and so the only ones I could remember was trade wars, internet stars, and food safety. I don’t know how I forgot about the one-child policy (a topic I actually know vocab about), sexism (another topic I know vocab for), or even what we talked about today in class.
My dumbass said “I studied the trade wars” and then he asked me to talk about that. I backed out of that real quick by saying “不好意思，我的专业不是国际关系，所以我不真了解这个题目.” I said I could talk about being an internet star, so I changed the topic to that. Smooth save.
I also mentioned that I did singing, so he asked if I knew any Chinese songs. Again, backing myself into a corner because I said I was singing 那些花儿 with some friends this Friday at graduation. Here’s where I got confused: I was 90% certain he said “sing for me” but I was so shocked by this that I didn’t believe I understood him. I dumbly said “现在唱歌？” And he said yes.
Again, not good because I didn’t have the lyrics in front of me, so I awkwardly said: “I don’t know the words because I haven’t memorized them yet.” He asked if I could sing any other Chinese songs, so I went with the classic 甜蜜蜜 and then he asked me to sing that one. I did, and he said my singing was 不错 so I’ll take that.
I think my favorite topic was addressing social media because earlier I mentioned that I liked going on Facebook. He asked if I was using Facebook in China and then asked how I was even accessing it. I paused and laughed before awkwardly saying “I put a VPN on my phone.” I think he found that amusing because we continued talking about that.
He asked what I would do if I couldn’t use a VPN, and I said: “I’ll use a friend’s phone with a VPN.”
My roleplay was “you’re using a friend’s computer and you break it. Explain the situation.” Again, I had no idea what to do, so I said “你好朋友。不好意思，但是用你的电脑的时候，我很生气，因为你的电脑很慢，所以我打你的电脑，现在是坏的。”
He responded with “that’s fine, but my emails are on that laptop.” I ended up saying some bullshit like “I hope you’ve backed up your files somewhere like Google, but otherwise I don’t know what to do.” I didn’t have the vocab for this.
So, there was an awkward pause as he searched for a response, and when he did come up with one, he asked which laptop I recommended getting. I said a mac if you have money and a dell if you don’t. He asked if I could help pay for his new computer and I said “I could, but I’m a college student, so I also don’t have money. You should ask your parents since they have a stable job.”
That was the end of the role play. He laughed awkwardly and said that that was very interesting. He finished the convo with “well you spoke for 30 minutes. Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?”
With my very direct Chinese, I said: “no because it’s night in China and I want to sleep.”
Fact: it’s 1:07 and I’m awake typing this.
I think I might have gotten advanced low though because the topic I got was the same one Densley got when he scored advanced low, and also I found a PDF with the advanced topics. I really hope this is the case.
Phil actually came to Hannah’s room and asked how my OPI went. We spoke in English (bless) and he helped me go to the front desk and get the broken light in my room fixed. I actually chatted with him about my OPI for a while, and it was a nice little convo.