Behold! I give you...a BLOG!

Welcome to “Learning to Eat With Chopsticks,” a blog which, as the title explains, is all about the life I will be having in China for (hopefully) this next school year. I will be spending my first semester in Beijing through the Skidmore in Beijing Program, a program which is, not surprisingly, associated with Skidmore College and an organization called IES. My second semester is, as of now, still a little tentative. The Skidmore program only lasts one semester, meaning I will have to go through the application process again (joy oh joy) with another program for the second semester. I have a few lined up and ready to go, so it shouldn’t be an issue. I will either stay in Beijing, or I will go to Nanjing, a city in southern China. I’m putting this decision on hold for a bit until I decide just how much I like living in Beijing. Of course, it’ll also depend on which programs accept me, but that’s another matter. Now, enough with this boring blather.

Like I said, this is a BLOG. Those of you who two years ago were riveted by the weekly email news feed you received when I studied in Spain may be confused by this new format, but I promise this is better. It’ll be easier to manage, you won’t have to worry about deleting emails accidentally, and everyone’s inboxes will be safer, healthier, and less crowded. However, the rules for the past emails still apply to this blog:

1. This is interactive – I know one thing I loved about being in Spain for the summer is that I got to hear all sorts of questions from people back home. “What’s the fashion like?” “Do they eat exotic foods?” “What are bathrooms like?” The inquiries ranged from everything from the simple to the just flat out weird, and I thought it was extremely entertaining. I love answering questions, so please ask them! You can ask me anything, no subject is taboo. Ask away, and I shall do my best to answer in a timely fashion via a “Question and Answers” section in each blog post. However, with the blog there is one thing to remember: EVERYTHING IS PUBLIC. While you’re questions were private when you emailed them directly, when you post them on a blog, everyone can read them. EVERYONE. So please, if you wouldn’t want your five-year-old child to hear it, or if you suspect it might induce a cardiac arrest with your 95-year-old grandmother, I recommend that you do not post it. If you do, it won’t bother me a bit, but everyone else who reads it will most likely be shocked and horrified, and will probably laugh at you. So, if you feel uncomfortable, just email the question to me. My address is LIGray121288@gmail.com. I’ll still answer it, but in a more private fashion.
   
2. Tell me who you are – If you post on my blog, please be sure to write your name before you publish it. Otherwise I’ll have no idea who you are, and that’ll make me sad.
   
3. The more the merrier – I’ve racked my brain and tried to invite every possible acquaintance I know who might be interested in these ramblings, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I forgot someone. So, if you happen to notice that I did, tell me, or invite them yourselves. On top of that, if you happen to know someone (ie: family member, neighbor, friend, etc.) who might want to read this as well, by all means send them the link! I’m doing this partially in order to stay in touch with people, so by all accounts I welcome all readers.
4. Weekly fun and joy – Ok, this rule is a little tentative, but I’m hoping it will still apply. I’d like to give an update once a week. Now, updates probably won’t occur the same day every week, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that there will at least be something new within every seven day time window. I’m still not exactly sure what my schedule and work load is going to be like over there, so this rule may be tweaked slightly based on the situation.
   
   

Now, if at any point during the past paragraph or two you ever thought something along the lines of, “What the-? ‘Blog?’ What is this mystery term?” then you need to read this explanation. Those of you who are more technologically sound can skip all of this. Picture a blog like a giant bulletin board. When I write a note, I tack it on for everyone to see. When I write a different note and stick it on, the older note that I wrote previously is still there. When I write on this blog, the newest updates will automatically appear at the top of the webpage. You can scroll down to read older posts, and, when the number of posts increases dramatically, you’ll be able to click a link at the bottom of the page that’ll take you to even older posts. So, you can view it all at this website, www.learningtoeatwithchopsticks.com, instead of sifting through a bajillion emails. Now, just like with a bulletin board, you can stick notes on it as well. After each update that I make, you’ll see something that says “Posted by Lyndsey at (some specific time).” Next to that you’ll see a link that has the word “comments.” Click on it. Type your note in the box under the phrase “Leave your comment." Next you'll see some big, funky letters. Retype those in the box next to "Word verification." This is just something Blogger.com does for security reasons. Next, scroll down below “Choose an identity” and click the circle next to “Name/URL,” write your name, and then click the button “Publish your comment.” And waala! That’s it. You are now on your way to becoming a blogging star.

Now Lyndsey this is all well in good, you say, but what on God’s green earth made you decide to go to China? And why now, when you’ve only studied the language for one year? How oh how did all of this happen? Good question, I answer. The simplest response is this: It’s the only way to get what I want. Sound like an incredibly vague answer? Well it is. For a reason. You wouldn’t believe how many people have asked me those questions in the past month alone. No offense, but it’s getting old. So behold! My super condensed speed-read version: Lyndsey wants a nifty biology degree from CMU plus two language minors = many, many mandatory classes = no time to take fun, funky, weird courses = inevitable college burn out = decision to clear language credits in fastest way possible to open up credit slots = MAGIC SOLUTION TO STUDY ABROAD = decision to go for a year since a summer isn’t enough to gain language and culture fluency and a semester is impossible due to the college schedule = no choice but to go next year before I start my heavy science courses (Think about it: one year I take organic chemistry, take a year off and frolic in China, and then come back to Genetics 101? Oh no. Baaaaaad idea.). Tada! Mystery solved.

I’m sure you’re thinking this plan sounds unbelievably smooth and clear. Well, that’s what I thought, at least, when my academic advisor and I first sat down and talked about it. You see, I realize now I sort of viewed Chinese like some grand battle strategy, something that would be done and conquered and this grand master plan was the way to make that happen. I never really stopped and considered the language itself and what, exactly, it would be like to learn it. So naturally when I started my first class of Elementary Chinese this summer, I entered with the confidence and self assuredness of a five star general. I took out my books, rolled up my sleeves, whipped out my pencil and was ready for battle, utterly convinced that I would force Chinese into some sort of unwilling submission and have an easy-breezy summer. Oh how quickly the mighty fall.

Chinese proved to be a more formidable foe than I ever imagined it would be. I always knew Chinese would be difficult, but good LORD. Why didn’t anyone warn me?! How could I have been so blind?! All of my carefully laid out battle strategies and tactics were just about as useful as a piece of cardboard in holding back a tidal wave and I watched, horror struck, as they crumbled one by one after a mere five sentences from my teacher’s mouth. To be honest, that first day is sort of like a white blur to me, just a fuzzy haze with the occasional handful of sparkles. I vaguely remember Zhang Laoshi’s (Teacher Zhang) opening remarks to be something along the lines of this: “Welcome to Elementary Chinese I! I will be your teacher, Dongbo Zhang, and you may call me Zhang Laoshi. Now, if you will please turn to page one in your book we shall begin with our first lesson. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!” That last part was me going brain dead, because from then on out Zhang Laoshi spoke pretty much nothing but Chinese. It’s rather difficult to describe the feeling. Have you ever gone to a subway and stood past the yellow line, even though you know you’re not supposed to, and then a train plows past with that deafening roar and you can still hear the ringing in your ears even when it finally stops? Yea, it’s kind of like that. Only I got to feel it for weeks until it finally went away. And the ringing was painful, veeeeerry painful, and usually manifested itself as a headache. As I futilely willed every cell in my body to magically translate the Chinese being thrown at me at what seemed like 100 mph, I slowly began to realize just what I had gotten myself into and I suddenly found the words “HOLY SH#% WHAT HAVE YOU DONE??!!!” flashing in my head in neon lights.

I suspect that many of you, although not all, probably have a similar outlook to the one I had before my Chinese class. You know Chinese is a difficult language, you have a vague idea as to just how many characters there are and something or another about the tonal system, but you don’t really, fully appreciate just how mind numbing it is. I’m not saying this in order to make myself look superior for attempting to learn it, but rather I would genuinely like you to gain a better appreciation for this fascinating language and realize just how different it is from English. So, I’d like to give a brief overview using some of my textbook’s explanations as well as some of my own:

1. 
   Pretty squiggles – Characters are aesthetically beautiful and very fun to write, but extremely hard for a non-native speaker to get used to. Each character represents a different word, and different combinations of characters can mean new words. For example, che (车) means “car,” xiao (校) has to do with schools, and xiaoche (校车) means school bus. Each character has a stroke order, meaning you draw the lines in each character in a specific sequence, which also needs to be memorized. Also, there is no, and I mean absolutely no way to figure out how the character is pronounced simply by looking at it. You have to look it up in a dictionary or hear it verbally pronounced. In addition, the characters mentioned earlier are simplified characters. Originally Chinese was written with traditional characters, which have more strokes to each character and are thus harder to write. In an effort to increase literacy in China during the 1950’s, the writing system was edited to cut down on the number of strokes, thereby making Chinese easier to learn. How drastic is this difference, you ask? Well, sometimes words look essentially the same or weren’t changed at all. Other words have extreme changes, such as with the word keting, which means “living room.” With simplified characters it’s 客厅, while with traditional characters it’s 客廳. Traditional characters are used in everyday life, while traditional ones can appear during festivals, sometimes on signs, and on official documents and such. There are over 87,000 characters in the Chinese language, but you only need about 3,500 to get around and only 6,000-7,000 to be considered fluent. That’s right, no need to panic.
2. Not one but three – As I quickly learned, learning Chinese actually seems like you’re learning three languages: pinyin, simplified characters, and traditional characters. Now, the italicized words mentioned earlier (che, xiao) are how the Chinese words are pronounced (although normally they’d have accent marks to indicate what tone you would use to pronounce them). This is pinyin. Now note, this is NOT how you pronounce them in English. Far from it. You have to learn all the new pronunciation marks. For example /zh/ is really a /j/, /z/ is a /ds/, /x/ is a /sh/, /c/ is a /ts/, and /r/ sounds more like the “s” in the word “usually.”
3. Do re mi – Tones…yea, they’re hard. There are four tones: flat pitch, low to high pitch, high to low to high pitch, and high to low pitch. If you say the same word in the wrong tone, you could be in trouble. For example, e (yes that is a word) when pronounced in the low to high pitch means “goose” while in the high to low pitch means “hungry.” BIG difference.
   Number everything – Chinese uses measure words, words that have no concrete meaning, but help identify the quantity of a certain item. Different types of items have different measure words. There is a similar parallel with English. For instance, you have a dozen eggs, a herd of buffalo, a gaggle of geese, a pack of dogs, etc. The same is true for Chinese. If you’re going to say how many books you have, you can’t just say “I have three books.” You have to say, “I have three ben books.”
4. Now, here is a passage from my book to explain the rest:
   
   

“Chinese is a non-inflectional language. That means it generally does not change word endings to reflect person, gender, tense, number, or case. For example, the verb ‘work’ in English can change to forms such as ‘worked,’ ‘is working,’ or ‘had worked’ to indicate different aspects of the action. In Chinese, the time of an action (past, present, or future) is usually expressed by time words such as qunian (去年) or ‘last year,’ xianzai (现在) ‘now,’ and mingtian (明天) ‘tomorrow,’ rather than by changing the ending of the verb. Moreover, the various aspects of an action (e.g., progressive, completion, continuous, about to happen, or showing past experience) are indicated by aspect particles, such as le (了) (for a finished action or to indicate a change in state); adverbs, such as ye (也) ‘also,’ hen (很) ‘very,’ zai (再) ‘again;’ optative verbs, such as yao (要) (to indicate you intend to do this action), hui (会) (to indicate you know how to, are capable of, or will do this action), keyi (可以) (to indicate you can or you may do something), yinggai (应该) (to indicate you should do this action), neng (能) (to indicate you can or have an innate knowledge on how to do an action), or modal particles, such as ma (吗) (used to indicate you’re asking a question).”

I think by now it’s safe to assume I did not have the “easy-breezy” summer I was expecting. However, I still had a blast learning Chinese, and now through much blood, sweat, and tears I’ve successfully memorized a stack of vocab flashcards that is approximately 9” tall (sorry, too lazy to count them).

To be honest, I’m kind of glad I started this journey in a rather naïve state. I don’t know how things would have gone if I had had a clearer picture from the get-go. I know I would have made all the same choices and would most definitely still be going to China, but I don’t know what my attitude would have been like. Going in guns blazin’ and completely ignorant made me trip and fall flat on my face quite early in the game, but picking myself back up was half the fun and made me even more determined to learn more. That’s a good thing, actually, considering the fact that I’m sure I’ll be falling on my face quite often once I arrive in China. But hey, at least that will make some funny stories for all of you, right?

Well, until next time, I guess I’ll see you on the other side. China, here I come.