Adventures in Guangzhou!

Regardless, I plugged on with my studies. In truth I procrastinated a bit by being immersed in a good book (anybody read Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore?" Good stuff.) but I found some time to review as well. As I've said, after being subject to so much classtime over the past two months, it's really hard for me to say how much I've learned. I keep crossing my fingers that it's more than I think and today I had a moment that suggests I might be right.

In between classes I was checking the Yankees score online when one of the teachers I'm friends with asked me for some help. She had gotten an email from a former student (written in English) and didn't understand it. Before I knew it, I was translating various phrases and sentences for her, elaborating with my own ideas... and she understood me! I have no doubt that I butchered the grammatical constructions (and if asked to write the translation in characters I would certainly be at a loss), but she got the point. And when it's all said and done, isn't that what it's all about?

I think the true test still lies back in Guangzhou with my coworkers, though. My biggest fear is that I'll get back and they'll ask how my summer went, I'll tell them, and then I'll have no idea what they're saying to me in response. I'll give them the same blank stare that I gave them last September and they'll chuckle to themselves about how foreigners never master Chinese. The worst part is that they're not too far off. Though I'm not exactly in the most distinguished of language programs, there are students here who have been studying for over five years that not only lack true communication skills, but also have major flaws in their basic pronunciation and tones. Five years. If I have issues like that in five years I think I'm going to start learning Italian instead. No matter how you slice it, Chinese is tough. I know I've made at least *some* progress though and I guess that'll have to be good enough for the time being.

The school offers everyone a "transcript" and certificate at the end of their study and today I got mine. I opened it up and almost laughed out loud. Lets just say that I'm glad that I've long graduated and that I don't actually need it to try and get credit with it. I can picture the quizzical look of the lady in the Wesleyan Registrar's Office who would scrutinize the form for about 7 seconds before handing it back to me and saying, "Sorry honey but I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this." My official transcript consists of a handwritten half page with exam scores and attendance hours, mostly in Chinese. At least I took my exams though. I have two friends who never got around to taking three of their four tests and received scores ranging from 85-92 on them. Not bad! Naturally this is going directly up on to my fridge back in Guangzhou.

The highlight of the day though was actually in my afternoon reading class. Back at the beginning of July I got placed into a reading class for students who could speak decently well but had never studied characters before. There were only two of us and the other girl was far and away more advanced than me. I decided to stick it out though and I'm sure glad I did. While I couldn't understand a lot of what was going on in the first few weeks, eventually I "caught up" and thoroughly enjoyed getting to know my teacher. A native of northern Hebei Province, she has been in Beijing for a few years now working on a PhD in classical Chinese literature. The bonus here is that she knows the etymology and breakdown of almost every character which is a HUGE help for me when trying to memorize those squiggles.

It's just been the two of us these past few weeks (the other girl left) and we've developed an amusing mother/son sort of relationship in which she asks if I've had my vegetables and I complain about having to get up early everyday. She is very interested in learning English so after class a few times a week I've helped her decipher various essays and answered questions for her. Like most Chinese, her reading comprehension is pretty solid while her speaking lags really far behind.

Today in class she was attempting to explain a phrase that seems to be the Chinese designation for something akin to "that sucks." It took a lot of elaborate explication (in Chinese) but after a while I felt I had a good handle on the nuances. As I paused to write down the definition in my notebook, she says in almost perfect English, "It's like saying that something is 'weak sauce'." I figured I must have misheard her so I asked her to repeat it at which point I almost fell out of my chair laughing. In the course of one calendar year here, I have never ever heard a Chinese person utter teenage/young-adult American slang like that. We both had a serious laugh about it and I decided to use it as a teaching moment and explain (to the best of my ability) the derivation of a phrase like that. It was hilarious.

Other than that, my football team hit an obstacle in our last tournament game as we dominated the first half against the Italians but decided to let them score 6 unanswered in the second half to lose by two. Ugh. My last match is tonight against a team of Argentinians. I fear they will go Diego Maradona on us and send us home packing. Of course in my case that sort of works out okay because I do need to pack up tomorrow before flying back to GZ on Saturday...