First, just some logistics ...
- Elaine (Chinese TA) and I checked out a dance studio. As far as I know, they teach belly dancing and jazz, but at least it's something! Lessons start next week. Our TAs are the best!!!
- Monday through Friday I am taking Mandarin lessons, with 4 different teachers! My head is spinning. When I don't feel brain dead I will definitely have some good language stories. I just know that Mandarin is all about the word pictures, which I'm sure eventually will be helpful, but right now it's very confusing. So "angry" is actually made up of 3 different words. It literally translates to "have big fire". But I need to know basic words like have, big, and fire, in order to figure out how to say angry.
Knitting Club:
- Sunday afternoons at 4 down at the Cup of Joe, about 5 other teachers and myself get together to gossip and knit.
- I've learned a couple of new stiches, so I should be able to branch out and make gloves, leg warmers, and hats!
- We're getting the supplies from Tao Bao, meaning, "Hidden Treasure". It's Chinese Ebay but better, with next day delivery! So I'm also getting to work with a new type of yarn!
- The club consists of 3 Washingtonians, a Colorado-an, a French Canadian, and a Chinese woman. While we were busy knitting away, two Scottish men just having a beer were recounting stories about how their grandmothers used to knit, and they suddenly burst into old Scottish tunes that their grandmothers used to sing in their knitting clubs. Foreigners .... for some reason we just congregate and bond, no matter how strange the circumstances.
- Erich (the owner) made some off hand comment about the scarf I was wearing, saying eventually I could make something like that. He looked at my face and said, wait, you made that?!?!?!
Chinese Restaurant Dining:
- Elaine (Chinese) and Line (French Canadian) and I went out to eat. Thank goodness for Elaine, she ordered!
- It was all Chinese food, but thai food style, so they brought us 6 different dishes, you get your own rice bowl, and you just dish up! The total was about $10 for the 3 of us.
- As my friend Levi already told me, when they cook the chicken, they just kind of chop it up, bones and all, so as you eat you have to spit the bones out. I'm not very good at that. But trying to get the the meat off the bone with only chopsticks was even harder.
- Elaine coached us on simple etequitte, like laying your chopsticks on the plate instead of sticking them straight up in your rice bowl :). It's also considered more polite to hold the rice bowl with your opposite hand (mine was resting in my lap so I slyly moved it up to the table but Elaine noticed and giggled at me)
Nighttime Market:
- We walked the night time market, just a collection of food venders, trinkets, and shops, all in pursuit of a good pair of boots!
- Line said she didn't want anything with rhinestones, fur, or leapard print. That eliminated every shoe in every store.
- The last store Line and I both found success. Mine have little bit of bling, but I think I can handle it.
- Walking back I was about 1 lane across a 6 lane street before I realized that Line and Elaine didn't cross with me. My first reaction was to turn back, but then I remembered I'm in China. Line saw my momentary hesitation though, because I heard her yell at me, "DON'T STOP!!!" I may have mentioned before, crossing the street in China HAS to be a constant and fluid motion. Stopping, speeding up, or slowing down could get you hit. I remembered almost immediately though and I kept moving.
At School:
The boys in my class have been recently very fascinated with making messes while they brush their teeth. When they rinse their mouths out, they've been spitting the water on the mirror, the floor, on themselves, just everywhere. And then they get upset with me because we go straight to nap time and their sweaters are all wet. Apparently no one likes to sleep in a wet sweater. So I actually had to have a specific lesson on how to brush your teeth without getting yourself all wet. I wish we had fake flies for them to aim for, but each boy actually has their own drain in our trough of a sink, so I gave them each their own drain to aim for spitting. The next day, this is what happened.
Elf: *Rinsing mouth, points to mirror, shakes his head, points to the drain, nods his head, and then spits all the water right into the sink*
Me: "Perfect! You know exactly where to spit the water so you don't get yourself wet!"
Elf: *Smiles excitedly, takes another sip, points directly upward (They like to spit directly up so that it splashes themselves on the way back down), shakes his head, points to the drain, nods his head, and then spits all the water right into the sink*
Me: "You did it again! All by yourself. You are becoming a champion at brushing your teeth!"
Elf: *Even more excited takes another sip, points to another student, shakes his head, looks at me and sees my wide eyes because thankfully none of them have ever come up with the idea of spitting on each other, at the look of horror on my face, he almost bursts into laughter which would have completely sprayed me, and dives his head for the sink and just lets it all out.*
We all just crack up after that. Gotta have a good laugh over brushing your teeth :)
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