Days 134 to 136 - Mon March 16 to Wed March 18 - Chinese is a Holey Cheese, or: Hey, they're doing that verb

Any other time that I've taken a long trip like this, the Internet has been either not quite as accessible or not as well established.  This time round, I'm enjoying how much easier having the internet makes some things, especially searching for information.  

I spend a lot of my free time (Pierre's work hours) working at my desk, picking away at a few projects I had planned for our time in Huizhou.  One of these projects is language study, especially Chinese and French. The more I search the internet, the more I find fabulous multimedia tools for language study.

Recently, I came across France's TV5 Monde which has a section called Apprendre.tv that they've dedicated to teaching French via video clips and quizzes.  My favourite section at the moment is called "Double Je" and consists of a series of interviews with artists and writers who have mastered French as a second language.  The interviews touch on the process of learning a second language and various aspects of being bilingual.  My favourite interview so far is with Shan Sha , a Chinese woman who published her first novel, in French, only seven years after she moved to France and started learning the language.

At one point in her interview she describes a few false starts she had with trying to learn French:

"Je faisais des phrases en français, c'est un peu comme le fromage, le gruyère, il y a des trous, alors dans ces trous, sortaient les mots chinois, que je regardais dans les dictionnaires, que j'installais dans la langue française." *

* this roughly translates to: I made sentences in French, a bit like cheese, like a gruyère that has holes, and in those holes were Chinese words that I looked up in the dictionary, and that I then plugged back into the French language."

I love this image because for us, right now, Chinese is definitely a holey cheese.  We stumble on holes all the time.

To be clear: I have a grip on reality.  I realize that Chinese will largely remain one big gap even by the time we leave.  Even if I were to spend all of my time flailing away at the dictionary,  it wouldn't download into my brain in the short time we're here.  Still, I have a basic standard: I prefer to be able to basic, everyday things somewhat gracefully (read: with as little grunting and pointing as possible.)  If I run into a situation where I'm lacking a word or a phrase, I make an effort to make sure I look it up and learn it so that the next time I need it, it's there.

It seems to be working well, though basic things slip my mind.  At the teacher's canteen, Pierre and I can proudly say the words of most food we want because we order them every day.  But there are still many times when I come across something we've forgotten to learn though I've made a note of it more than once.

"Please give me bok choy, eggplant, one egg, and...uh... that."

Note to self again : look up the word for "duck meat".

The dictionary is great for filling gaps, sometimes imperfectly.  I know that I can't look up the words for "snow" and "flake" and put them together to talk about winter.  Just as easily as I stumble on gaps in conversation, I stumble across useful words while searching for something else in the Chinese-English side of my Oxford Concise.  I share some of my finds from these dictionary-dips with Pierre from time to time.

"Hey neat," I yell to Pierre in the next room. "The word for snowflake is snow flower."

Most of the words I stumble across are gaps that I instinctively know exist.  Things with equivalents in my English-speaking mind, like shoe, forget, love.  What I find even more interesting are the words I come across that fill gaps that I didn't even know existed.  

"Hey," I tell  Pierre on the bus, "I just found out there's a word in chinese for a friendship spanning two or generations." (shi-4 jiao-1; generation + friend) 

There are some newly discovered gaps I haven't found fillers for yet.  For example, I'm curious if there's a name for the split-bottom pants that so many young toddlers wear here instead of diapers.  Instead of wallowing around in their mess, kids are held up and out by a parent (usually over a sewer grate or near a wall) while the child discreetly (or not) does its business.   There must be a name for these pants, but the search continues.

Every language has things that are hard for students to take seriously until they find out that yes, people actually use that grammar point.  A lot.  In my experience, most English students find the present perfect ("I have ___ed") hard to take seriously, and they often don't bother learning it well.  

I used to find Chinese measure words* hard to take seriously, but now I know they're used constantly, and these too are spread throughout the dictionary.  

*(RE Chinese measure words: it's a bit like the way we might say two cups of tea, three sheets of paper, or one box of chocolates.  Chinese has words like this for every noun, most of which English doesn't have an equivalent for.  Like "three ___ of book" and "one ___ of mattress" and so on.)

"There's a word for things that can be carried in pairs on a yoke," I tell Pierre while we wait for a bus.  We admire this idea for a moment, because it's actually quite practical in a culture with a history of farming and carrying things around on yokes.  We eventually end up in a conversation about English's obsession on names for groups of animals.  A herd of elephants.  A litter of puppies.  A murder of crows.  An ostentation of peacocks.  

Some of the random dictionary words I share with Pierre appear to stick with him.  

"Hey," he says on the bus, and points out the window to a young family on the sidewalk.  "They're doing that verb."

Ba. Third tone. To hold a baby while it relieves itself.

Days 130 to 133 - Thurs March 12 to Sun March 15 - Huizhou West Lake

Huizhou isn't getting a lot of sun right now.  Most days, it's cloudy, some days it rains. Our apartment, like most apartments in south China, has no insulation or heating, so when it's 10 or 12 degrees outside the apartment is only slightly warmer inside.  On cold days, we walk around the house with layers of clothes - I shuffle around in long johns, pants, several layers of shirts and wrapped in a blanket; Pierre curls up in his fleece jacket and a toque.  At night it's even colder, so we curl up under several layers of blanket in several layers of clothes.  It's a bit like being on a camping trip with no fixed end date.  We buy an electric kettle and drink many pots of hot water.

After a short (or long) stretch of these cold cloudy days, we appreciate even more those days when the sun comes out.  On Day 132 the sky is blue and air warms up so we throw on a couple of light jackets and head out to check out the West Lake area of Huizhou.  

On the subject of West Lake, our Huizhou map says: "With time passing by, there are some changes having taken place.  West Lake has become a resort for holidays."  This translates into: there's been a lot of work done to make/keep the area beautiful (about 3 sq km) and it's a popular tourist spot.  From what we know of Huizhou it's one of the few "touristy" things to do in town - other than the scenic area at West Lake,  the city mainly caters to eating, working and shopping. Mostly the latter two.

Because of this, West Lake seems to be the place to find large numbers of families with small children, and the sellers have plenty of toys for them.  My small experience with kids in Canada tells me that most Canadian toddlers are pretty koo-koo for balloons.  In Huizhou, toy windmills seem to be the big sellers: 

Windmills = less torment for toddlers than balloons.  They don't float away or explode.  (Plus you're more likely to avoid situations like Billy's Balloon :)

West Lake also seems to be a popular date spot.  It's a beautiful spot (5 lakes, 6 bridges) and it's cheap, only 10 kwai/2 $CAN for a ticket to visit three main sites that are offered: pagoda, bridges and a landscaped hilly area (<- not quite sure what it's called).  We see throngs of couples wandering around taking advantage of the weather.   The majority we run into at this pagoda, (re)built in the 1600s:

It's possible to walk up to the top and get a good view of the area.  There are maybe 10 or so flights of steep wooden stairs leading up to the top.  Each flight of stairs is only wide enough for one person to climb up or down using both hands and feet, so it takes a while to reach the top, especially when it's crowded. The walls are about 6 feet thick with recessed windows below geometric patterns like these:

Other windows have small stairways that lead up to them, and where you can get a view of the city:

Here, someone (top left) is sneaking a peek of us taking a picture: 

Pierre's been here before, so he's on a mission to find a doorway that he took a picture of last time with his old camera, and that he wasn't happy with.  So he takes it again:  

We're not in top tourist form today - since we're enjoying the weather and the chance to get some photos.  I know we'll be back so I don't pay too much attention to the historical details this time round.  We learn that a famous poet, Su Dongpo, lived in Huizhou during the Song Dynasty (around the 1000s). We see a a statue dedicated to him and wander through a museum with calligraphied copies of his poems.  Other than that, we just enjoy looking around.  We see what looks like a grave:

...check out some stone detailing...

...and a great old tree outside a temple:

We stop for a quick dinner of duck and veggies, and then head off to catch city bus #7 back to the university before sundown:

photo credits: P, P, P, D, D, P, P, P, P, P

Days 125 to 129 - Sat March 7 to Wed March 11 - Mr.Unlucky Feet is Not Money

Everything done in translation is a little adventure - whenever I'm not travelling, this is what I miss the most.  

Pierre and I both have a history with Mandarin.  Pierre has visited China several times over the past few years, and has been working hard on the Pimsleur Mandarin tapes; I taught in Taiwan for a couple of years and picked up enough to get by on day-to-day things.  In addition to our small potluck of words, Pierre's brother Dre has learned a lot during his 5 years here and kindly takes on the role of our intrepid interpreter whenever necessary.  Some days, especially in the beginning, this was quite often.

Now that we're settled in at home, Pierre and I head out on our own from time to time and try our hand(s) at communicating.  Some days we pass the real-life "ordering food" dialogues with flying colours (Two orders of the Ginger Onion Beef, please) followed by trips to the grocery store to buy steamed buns (Two please, to go). 

Things break down whenever we hit less familiar territory.  One day we need to break a 5 kwai bill to catch the bus.  

We bus, I tell the cashier, can five?

Not so elegant but it works well enough - we get our change.

Usually most of our conversations in China revolve around food (hunger is a great motivator), transportation and, lately, shoes.  

Pierre needs shoes to replace his old ratty sneakers that have gotten him this far but which aren't very multi-purpose anymore.  Over the course of several weeks we make many, many (many) trips to into town to hunt down the just-right pair: suitable for working, hiking and walking through puddles.  Pierre quickly masters his foot size in Mandarin:  he's a 44 which, with the tones identified via numbers, is transcribed something like: si-4 shr-2 si-4.  

Pierre also quickly masters "mei-2 you-3" which he hears a lot in return. This rhymes with the first two syllables of "mayonnaise" and in this context means: sorry, we don't have any.  

At first, we're surprised that only one or two of the stores we visit seems to carry anything in a 44.  Eventually, we're more or less resigned to it.  Most Chinese feet, it seems, only go up to 43, so most stores only carry mens' shoes up to that size.  I also have another theory (only slightly serious):  

Four is an unlucky number in China (and other parts of Asia).  If it's said with the wrong tone it sounds like the Mandarin word for "to die" or "death."  My theory is that the double four of 44 is just too unlucky a size to carry in bulk, especially when the majority of the population doesn't need shoes that size.  

Regardless, we and Mr. Unlucky Feet manage to track down a few pairs of shoes that fit - the winning pair are hiking shoes (in 44!) that are in stock at a local adventure store.  After a few group visits, Pierre wanders in alone one day to check them out again.   We meet up with him again a few moments after he leaves the store.  

"I wanted to tell them I don't have any money on me right now," Pierre says,  "but I don't think I said it right."  He translates in his head for a moment.  "I told them: I am not money."

Pierre should have been money that day.  A few days later we go back and find that shoes have mysteriously disappeared.  (It's a mystery to us, not to the shopkeepers - perhaps another foreigner in another town needed them?) .  Pierre orders in another pair of the same shoes.  He and his unlucky 44s wade through a week's worth of work and rainstorms in soggy old shoes. His waterproofs arrive the day the rain stops. 

Days 108 to 124 - Wed Feb 18 to Fri Mar 6 - Settling in

We arrive safe and sound on the Day 108 and after a few days of reorienting ourselves to the city, Pierre teaches his first classes on February 23. Verdict: likes it. The next few weeks are a mix of classes, visits with family, trips downtown to get set up, and so on.

Best of all (for me, at least), we get to check out our new place. As part of Pierre's salary as a English teacher/prof at Huizhou University, the school provides us with a furnished apartment in the teacher's residences for the duration of his contract.

Our first visit on day 110 is just a re-con mission - we aren't sure what the apartment does or doesn't have, or what kind of shape it's in. The previous tenant was another teacher who moved out in January, and before that were a string of other English teachers who have come and gone.

Since it's an apartment that changes hands often, it's in good shape but mildly neglected. There are plastic hooks glued to the walls at strange heights and lots of smudge marks. We move around the furniture and tuck away any stuff left behind that we don't plan to use - miscellaneous computer cords, picture frames, Christmas tree, Santa hats still wrapped in Christmas wrapping (prizes for students?). Once it's done, the place feels more like ours, smudges and all.

When we move our stuff in on Day 114, it's sad to leave Dre's comfy place with all the amenities and the option of insta-visits at the kitchen table or living room sofa.  Still, visits are only a short walk away (about a 10 minutes) and it feels good to unpack our bags, get some groceries in the fridge and settle down for awhile.

Our dining room/living room are different ends of the same room.   (All the furniture, appliances, linens, hardware, etc, belongs to the school and came with the apartment).  

The kitchen is bright and has a screened in balcony so on nice days we open up the door to let in fresh air.

Next to the kitchen and our bathroom, is a bedroom that I'm using as an office.  Great desk, great light...

...and a broken couch that we spruce up a bit with some material we bought in Cambodia.  We also dry our laundry in here most days.

There's also a computer room...

...right next to our bedroom:

The view outside our window is not very picturesque at the moment - half of the hillside behind us is being torn down and reinforced.  The area reclaimed (taken?) from the hill is being used to build a swimming stadium for an upcoming competition that Huizhou will be hosting.   (Asia Games? Junior Asia Games?)  From our living room we see this:

...and when we go on that balcony (where our washing machine is) we see this:

The construction crew works steadily - on weekdays they start around 7:00 am and wrap up around 7:00 pm; on weekends, they seem to work a bit later.  Work stops for lunch (12:00 to 2:00/3:00) and when the rain is heavy.  

The balcony closest to the construction site is very dusty, so we just dry clothes in the house and keep the windows closed on that side of the apartment.  The noise is pretty constant during the day, but it doesn't bother us.  We rarely notice it and even manage to sleep through it.  Usually, it's nomore disruptive than having a dishwasher and a washing machine running indoors at the same time.

photo credits: all D