Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!!!

Yes, I did get to celebrate Thanksgiving here in China. Yes, it was wonderful. No, it did not look like the pics I saw of the Squire/Shabro Thanksgiving. I think that means I get double rations of grandma's rolls at Christmas! An American/Canadian family invited all the teachers to their home. Of course all the Americans went, many of the other foreign teachers also came to check out what this crazy American holiday is all about, and many of the Chinese TAs came. So it was a huge, loud, and happy affair. There were kids tables, the whole house smelled of turkey and pie, and it did take two hours, but in the end every guy was sitting in front of the TV watching a pre recorded football game. A very typical Thanksgiving :)


All about the language
- Xie xie is "Thank you" in Mandarin. Elaine helped me bargain for something at the night time market, and as I was leaving I said xie xie to the lady I had just bought something from. Her face got SUPER excited and she just started babbling in Mandarin to me, apparently all impressed that the foreigner can speak Mandarin. Too bad at the time the only word I knew in Mandarin was xie xie.
- There are SO many homophones. "Shi" is the most common word (in my opinion). Mandarin in a tonal language, so it's all about how you say it. There are 4 different tones, so that should just be 4 ways to say "shi", making 4 different meanings for "shi". BUT if you combine shi with other words you get a completely new word and a new meaning.
"shi" 4th tone = the verb "to be"
"shi" 2nd tone = the number "10"
"lou shi" 3rd tone and 1st tone  = "teacher"
"zhe shi" 1st tone and 4th tone = "cheese"
"shi wu" 2nd tone and 4th tone = "food"
Confused already? Me too. The possibilities are endless. And even sometimes you say the same tone, but when you write it, it's a totally different character and a totally different meaning. Kind of like to, two, and too, but x 50. I strongly dislike the word "shi".
- I had an epiphany the other day, thinking about the tones. How is it possible to sing in Mandarin? Or is talking just singing in itself? Because all the different tones do sort of make a melody when you're speaking. I learned Spanish by listening to Spanish music. But when I listen to the Chinese radio, I can't tell which tones are being sung.  I asked my TA Alice how she understands the singing on the radio. She looked confused at first, then she understood my question and just started laughing, shrugged her shoulders and said, "We have to guess what the singer is saying" Kind of like context clues. But you have to figure out which tones for all the words creates the sentence that makes the most sense.
- When you answer the phone, you're supposed to say "Wei". I'm not sure about the exact translation, but people are always talking loudly on their phones with a bit of attitude. So when they yell "Wei" into the phone, the way they actually pronounce it and say it, it sounds more like their yelling "What?!", which is exactly how I affectionately answer the phone whenever my sister calls me :)

My Visa:
- It expired. Whoops.
- I came prepared with everything I needed to turn my temporary 30 day visa into a year long working visa, but they needed more pictures to put on the 18 or so documents I had to submit.
- Even if I did manage to find the picture taking place by myself down the back road, I would never be able to tell them the specifications for the pictures needed for the visa applications. Thank goodness Wendi came with me.
- 2 weeks later they said they needed more pictures. But for one reason or another no one could come with me and the delay caused my visa to expire. So basically it expired because I'm a woos and didn't want to go by myself.
- TJ took me down to immigration during the school day. We talked to the front desk for about 10 minutes before she would allow us to go back and see the uniformed guy in charge. Then I checked my clock. TJ argued and persuaded for a full 30 minutes before the guy would even look at my documents.
- In the end, after an hour of fairly heated conversations of which I only understood the words "this", "that", "teacher" and the verb "be", TJ wrote up an apology letter that I had to sign basically stating it was all my fault.
- It was a little nerve racking, but afterwords TJ and the top guy were smiling and laughing. Later TJ told me our school has a very good relationship with immigration and that there was never anything to worry about. That was a lot of show for nothing to worry about!

Shin Da Lou:
- "Lou" meaning "road", Shin Da Lou is the only street I know. It's the one I walk down to get to the grocery store, which is about the only place other than school that I feel confident enough to go by myself.
- I asked Matt where he got his voltage converter so I can finally charge my camera battery. He gave me directions down Shin Da Lou, but then offered to go with me. Thank goodness, I would've never found it.
- Since we can't describe what I want, and we can't read any of the boxes of electronics, Matt called Jackie, one of our Chinese IT guys at school and handed the phone to the shop owner. The owner picked out a box and when I got the phone back Jackie told me the owner wanted 170 kuai, but then Jackie told me to give the owner 150. Normally there is a bargaining process, but again, my Mandarin is not near sufficient for this. When I gave him 150 kuai, the shop owner looked suspiciously at the money, then back at my hopeful but silent face, and then just started laughing and waved good bye.
- After hearing my visa story, and figuring out how little of Beilun I know, Matt has decided that we're going to start planning things so I actually get to leave our gated community on a regular basis. Most of the teachers are in their second year here, and last year when everything was new and exciting they used to go out all the time. This year Matt says they've all gotten "old". But hopefully this means I'll have some more stories and get to go exploring more often. I've just always had a host family or basically a local who is designated to take me where I need to go. And I've always had a good grasp of the local language in case I want to go out on my own. So I'm a little embarassed that I don't seem to be as fearless here in Beilun.