A couple tongue twisters

Other Laoshi hit us with a couple tongue twisters today as we learned the correct pronunciation for “sh” in Chinese, a pronunciation many local people eschew in favor of the easier “s”, along with “c” for “ch” and “z” for “zh”.

Si4 shi4 si4, shi2 shi4 shi2.

四是四，十是十。

Shi2 si4 shi4 shi2 si4.

十四是十四。


Si4 shi2 shi4 si4 shi2.

四十是四十。

All that’s another way of saying: 4 is 4, 10 is 10. 14 is 14. 40 is 40.

Another, much harder one:


Zhe4 que4shi4 shi4 shi4shi2.

这确实是实事。

This is really a fact. 

Chinese Classes at Wuhan University – Days Nine and Ten: First Test

The chart.

The chart.

The god damn chart.

It’s been about two weeks and we are STILL going over that fucking chart. It’s the schedule with classes, class times, days of the week (of the 明天, 今天 variety) and all the assorted questions. Me and Ka Li Sa (Pakistani guy) keep getting it right. The others keep having trouble, for perfectly understandable reasons, and Cute Laoshi keeps losing her patience.

In other words, nothing’s changed.

Well, maybe one thing: Cute Laoshi gave the older guy a tutor to help him practice. But until we all produce like native speakers, I fully expect to see that fucking chart each and every day, listening to her complain about how we’re behind the other classes afterwards.

I think I’ll start a running bet of when we stop going over the chart.

China practices golden week holidays. What this means is that time you had off during the government sponsored vacation? It’s only off temporary. Later it comes back on.

Ours came on last Saturday. It was actually supposed to be Friday, but Cute Laoshi had some friends visiting. So we delayed class. Note: we didn’t cancel class. We just delayed it. Date TBD.

Saturday the Other Laoshi announced we would have a test. Staring this week, each Monday will have a test on that week’s lessons.

We had the test today. Identify the initials, the finals, write the characters for the pinyin, write the pinyin for the characters, and answer questions in either pinyin and characters.

Since we had yet to review characters the proper way (stroke order, etc.), it is difficult for us to recognize the characters. I think I did fine, if only because I wrote out the characters and studied.

She gave us character paper today—special paper cut into sections to practice and write characters. Why not before? We were expected to know certain characters for today’s test. Why not before?

Anyways, there’s some homework to do. Some actual organization seems to be coming in to place. Organization.

With Chinese characteristics.

Words Learned These Two Days:

Xi1′an1 – 西安

Lian4′ai4 – 恋爱 – To fall in love

kong4 – 空 – free time

you3 kong4 ma? – 有空吗？

ken3 de2 ji1 – 肯德基 – KFC

tu2 shu1 guan3 – 图书馆 – library

shen2 me shi2 hou4 – 什么时候 – when? (not what time)

ni3 shen2 me shi2 hou4 qu4 gu4 gong1 de? – 你什么时候去故宫的？

(When are you going to Gugong?)

ru2 guo3 – 如果 – If

 ru2 guo3 jin1 tian1 you3 xia4 wu3 ke4, wo3 hen3 lei4 – 如果今天有下午课，我很累。 (If there’s class tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be tired)

To eat certain meals:

zao3 shang4 – 早上 – morning

zao3 shang4 chi1 fan4 becomes…

chi1 zao3 fan4 – 吃早饭 – eat breakfast.

Ni3 ji3 dian3 chi1 zao3 fan4? – 你几点吃早饭？- What time do you eat breakfast?

Wo3 liu4 dian3 chi1 zao3 fan4. – 我六点吃早饭。 – I eat breakfast at six .

Tai4 zao3 le! – 套早了！- That’s way too early! 

shu1 dian4 – 书店 – bookstore

Today we learned that the character for cha2 (tea), 茶 is composed of the character for grass, 人 ren2 (person), and 木 mu4 (tree).

 

What I like about being a foreign English teacher

I come off as negative about this job and this industry sometimes, but in all honesty, I like it.

What else would I be doing right now but this? Without getting overly long and sentimental, let’s say the positive aspects greatly outweigh the negative ones and compared to say, fighting traffic to go to an office each morning or God forbid law school, where I would’ve gone just to have something to do, it’s wonderful.

I wouldn’t rather be doing anything else at the moment.

Perhaps you could think of it as “college without the classes”. It’s somewhat accurate.

Chinese Classes at Wuhan University – Days Four through Eight: You should know this already

Cute Laoshi has no patience.

As of this writing (post Day Eight), we’ve been reviewing months, days and time for the past few days. Same material. Same Powerpoints.

Same “schedule”.

The schedule appears on the Powerpoint. People gasp. They shudder. Some duck and hide.

It lists classes in pinyin and characters under a time frame beginning with qian2 tian4 (day before yesterday) to hou4 tian1 (day after tomorrow) and classes occur either in the shang4 wu3 (morning) or xia4 wu3 (afternoon), with wu3 in this case being noon, so literally shang4 (“above”) noon or xia4 (“down/below” noon). In case that helps.

She asks us questions. Makes us ask each other questions. I know what to say. The guy from Pakistan knows what to say. The others…

“Zuo2 tian1”, she says.

“Zuo…”

“Zuo tian!”

He looks at her helplessly.

“Zuo tian!”

And that’s when she gets out the pickaxe.

Rather than offer correct our mistakes in a gentle way, we find our help coming in deamning admonishments, frequently a “you should already know this” type of way. To be fair, since we’ve reviewed the same material for a few days, we should know it. I mean, it’s also been our homework the past few days as well. At some point you have to expect the students to honor their part of the agreement too.

But the teacher should not roll her eyes and fold her arms when a 55 year old man has trouble differentiating between the “x” and “q” sounds.

“Xing1 xi1…”

She folds her arms. “Xi? Is it xi?”

“X..xi? Xi?”

Her eyes widen. Every time he opened his mouth, her eyes widened. Like that episode of The Simpsons where Moe opens a family restaurant. All you need is for someone to complain about the sodee hurting their teef.

Another problem is that she speaks English. The idea that the best way to acquire spoken language is for the teacher to speak only in the target language (more on that in a minute) aside, we’re not all native speakers of English. Hell, come to think of it, I’m the only one in this class who can claim English as a mother tongue. The Pakistani guy and Sam, the Indian guy, have both learned it from childhood, so they’re in okay shape, but the 55 year old man is French-Canadian. Francais, c’est ta langue maternelle. And God help the Spanish guy—he mind hops from Spanish to English to Chinese but just barely speaks English and admitted as much in class.

She could teach us by a) speaking only in the target language and b) speaking to each of us in turn, correcting our mistakes by speaking the target words slowly, enunciating and just…you know…giving us some individual attention rather than throwing up a Powerpoint full of characters.

Yes, characters. We got a pleasant surprise one morning. It was Day Five or Six, I think. She brought up the Powerpoint and there it is: characters plus the lovely pinyin to help guide us.

Then she pinyin vanishes. And she commands us to read.

I’d like to say thank God I studied the night before, but “studying” has little to do with it. For many people, it’s not a simple task just to look at a Chinese character and then remember the word plus the tone. To properly write and remember Chinese characters, you need to know the stroke order. There are some where you can sort of deduce the general meaning from the smaller characters that compose the larger one, such as ma1 妈 where nu3 女 means “female” and the other part is “ma” the question marker.

But we don’t learn how to write characters. We’ve asked the other teacher and she always responds with later. Okay. Later.

Yet we’re expected to know them for the other class.

The homework for Cute Laoshi’s class consist of a) vocabulary words with the character and pinyin and b) small characters in sentences and c) fill in the blank with the characters. Yes. With the characters. Despite the aforementioned lack of stroke order, we should write them anyways.

As for the other teacher, she too speaks English but does make more of an effort to give us individual attention. Not much—nothing like my French and German classes. But a little goes a long way.

Especially compared to nothing.

It bears mentioning that this is Cute Laoshi’s first time teaching. Perhaps that explains it. She’s also an only child, and only child-Chinese are reputed to have certain personality quirks like the ones I talked about.

Whatever. While it would be better if Cute Laoshi developed patience and offered us individual help on our mistakes rather than outright admonishments, I’m having no problems with the material.

It’s easy. So far. So far, of course, but before we get cocky, let’s anchor ourselves to the Earth using the following:

You cannot carry on a conversation beyond “I am from…” and “My name is…”.
You have trouble remembering how to change the 3rd tone in spoken Chinese.
Yes, you can recognize characters, but can you write them all?
Etc. etc.

It looks promising. As more material comes in, hopefully I can keep it up and improve.

Now, on to the words…

This is not a complete list of the words learned over the four day period. Just enough to give you an idea of where we are:

Xian4 zai4 ji3 dian3 – – what time is it?

Jin1 tian1 xing1 qi1 ji3? – – what day (of the week) is it (today)?

Zuo2 tian1 xing1 qi1 ji3? – – what day (of the week) was it yesterday?

102 – yi1 bai3 ling2 er4
112 – yi1 bai3 yi1 shi2

1950年 – yi1 jiu3 wu3 ling2 nian2 – 一九五零年

Yu3 fa3 – 语法 – grammar

Ke3 yi3 – 可以 – can/may

Wo3 ke3 yi3 wen4 yi1 ge4 wen4 ti2 ma? – 我可以问一个问题吗？ – May/Can I ask you a question?

Bang1 zhu4 – 帮助 – to help do something.

Jiu4 ming4 ! – 救命 – Help!

Chun1 – 春 – spring

Xia4 – 夏 – summer

Qiu1 – 秋 – autumn

Dong1- 冬 -winter

Xi3 huan1 – 喜欢 – like

Hao3 chi1 – 好吃 – delicious (food)

Hao3 he1 – 好喝 – delicious (applies to drinks)

Jia1 – 家 – family

Ji3 – 几 – how many/much

Ni3 jia1 you3 ji3 ge4 ren2? – 你家有个人？ – how many family members do you have?

Ye2 ye – 爷爷 – grandpa

Er2 zi – 儿子 – son.

Nu3 er2 – 女儿 – daughter

Zhang4 fu – 丈夫 – husband

Qi1 zi3 – 妻子 – wife

Ge1 ge – 哥哥 – older brother

Di4 di – 弟弟 – younger brother

Jie3 jie – 姐姐 – older sister

Mei4 mei – 妹妹 – younger sister.

So…for instance:

Wo3 jia1 you3 wu3 ge4 ren2. Ba4 ba, ma1 ma, liang3 ge4 mei4 mei he2 wo3. – 我家有五个人：爸爸，妈妈，两个妹妹和我。 – There are five people in my family: father, mother, two little sisters and me.

Ni3 duo1 da4 le? – 你多大了？ – How old are you?

Wo3 er4 shi2 san1 sui4 le. – 我二十三岁了。- I’m 23 (years old).

Ni3 ji3 sui4 le? – 你几岁了？- How old are you? – for younger people below 15 or so.
Wo3 mei4 mei wu3 sui4 le. – 我妹妹五岁了。- My little sister is five years old.

Xia4 wu3 – 下午 – afternoon

Shang4 wu3 – 上午 – morning

Zao3 fan – 早饭 – breakfast

Wu3 fan4 – 午饭 – lunch

Wan4 fan4 – 晚饭 – dinner

Ji3 dian3 le? – 几点了？- what time is it?

Ke4 cheng2 biao3 – 课程表 – schedule

Ji3 dian3 kai1 shi3 shang4 ke4? – 几点开始上课？- What time does class begin?
Ba1 dian3 kai1 shi3 shang4 ke4 – 八点开始上课 – Class starts at 8 o clock.
Although, “kai1 shi3” is not necessary.

Yi3 hou4 – 以后 – After…
Su4 she4 – 宿舍 – Dorm
Yi4 qi3 – 一起 – together

Hui2 – 回 – to return/go back

A sentence we had to read aloud, with Cute Laoshi’s… “guidance”:

Xia4 ke4 yi3 hou4 wo3 men yi4 qi3 hui2 su4 she4 ba. – 下课以后我们一起回宿舍吧。- After class let’s go back to the dorm together.

Asking for phone numbers…

Hao4 – 号 – number.

Ni3 ke2 yi3 gao4 su4 wo3, ni3 de dian4 hua4 hao4 ma3 ma? – 你可以告诉我，你的电话号码吗？ – Could you please give me your phone number?

Possible negative answers to this question:

Bu4 xing2 – 不行 – can’t. (literally: no permission)

Bu4 hao3 yi4 si1 – 不好意思 – I’m sorry, I’m shy.

Wo3 bu4 neng2 gao4 su4 ni3 – 我不能告诉你 – I can’t tell you.

Ka3 – 卡 – card.

Yin2 hang2 – 银行 – bank.
银行卡 – bank card.

Yu3 – 雨 – rain
Xue3 – 雪 – snow
San3 – 伞 – umbrella

Xia4 yu3 le. – 下雨了 – It’s raining.
Xia4 xue3 le – 下雪了 – It’s snowing.

Xue3 ren2 – 雪人 – snowman.

I got tennis practice on Wednesday

From an English book:

“On Wednesday, I have tennis training with the school team.”

Shouldn’t that be “I have tennis practice.”

Would anyone say “I have tennis training with the school team.”

?

Chinese Classes at Wuhan University – Day Three: 汉语不太难

The entertainment value on these posts will probably start dropping, as I move more toward “what happened today”, a direct account. Don’t read every post expecting an exciting entry simply not every day does something exciting happen.

But you should still read every post. I won’t let you off the hook that easily.

I missed what should have been Day Three because I had to teach that morning. Since the freshmen go through military training during September, they made up a training class composed of teachers from the School of Economics and Law.

Most training classes tend to suck, but mine’s going well. They pretty dictate the curriculum, one consisting of dialogues. They’re friendly and willing to work. Plus, one of the teachers is a Chinese woman in her thirties and has that certain level of hotness that only older Chinese women can have. It’s hard to describe unless you’ve seen it.

I tried to get them to move my class, but that would have required requesting another room to use and finding time for everyone to come. But really, the big problem was requesting another room to use. That would entail dealing with Chinese bureaucracy. That would entail a sudden death heart attack at the young age of 23.

I get up at 5 am on the replacement day three and march across campus to the bus stop here with an hour to spare. That ought to be enough to beat the morning traffic. I hop on, plenty of seats available and sit, musing about my classes.

I missed my stop.

I blamed the driver for mysteriously taking a different route and stopping at in a random area that just happened to have bus washers, and I accept this version of events although my girlfriend was insulting enough to suggest that perhaps closing my eyes on a rather relaxing ride had something to do with it.

Ho hum.

The first two periods followed a Powerpoint containing material found in the book. We went over predicate adjectives and that we should not use shi4 (to be) but rather hen3 (very), but the translation is not always “very”. But it can be.

For instance:

Wo3 hen3 lei4 – 我很累 – I am tired.

However, if the English is very, you can translate very as hen in the sentence.

Wo3 hen3 lei4 – 我很累 – I am very tired.

When the first two periods finished, we got a new teacher for the last two periods.

Her: You ask me now.

Me: Okay. Ni3 jiao1…

I stop. She DOES NOT look happy.

Her: Nin2.

Me: ?

Her: It is for respect.

I don’t know about respect, but I wish I knew what I’m supposed to say for cute. She is CUTE. She is. Not in a sexually attractive sense but neither is she cute in the way babies and puppies are. She strikes a good balance between the two, but I won’t be leaving my girlfriend any time soon.

We have still yet to cover any characters in depth. So far, we’ve done greetings, days of the week, a few descriptions, and of course, respect.

Stuff learned today

Days of the week:

Xing1 qi1 yi1 – 星期一 – Monday
Xing qi er2 – 星期二 – Tuesday

Etc. Until

Xing1 qi1 tian1 – 星期天 – Sunday
Xing1 qi1 ri3 – 星期日 – Sunday

Jin1 tian1 (shi4) xing1 qi1 yi1 – 今天（是）星期一 – Today is Monday, with “shi4″ for “to be” being optional.

Ming2 tian1 xing1 qi1 er4 – 明天星期二 – Tomorrow is Tuesday.

Hou4 tian1 xing1 qi1 san3 – 后天星期三 – The day after tomorrow is Wednesday.

Fei1 chang2 gan3 xie4 – 非常感谢 – Thank you very much.

Zuo2 tian1 – 昨天 – yesterday

qian2 tian – 前天 – the day before yesterday

Suan1 tian2 ku3 la4 xian2 – 酸甜苦辣咸 – a “rich” life, a live well-lived, etc.

Suan1 nai3 – 酸奶 – yogurt

Ka1 fei1 hen3 ku3 – 咖啡很苦 – a coffee that tastes very bitter

Bao1 – 包 – bag
Shu1 bao1 – 书包 – bookbag (backpack)
Qian2 bao1 – 钱包 – wallet
Cun2 bao1 – 存包 – locker/cubby
Su4 liao4 dai4 – 塑料袋 – plastic bag
Dai4 zi – 袋子 – bag that can be tied (i.e. grocery bag)
Kou1 dai4 – 口袋 – pocket

Yao4 – 要 – want

Bu4 yao4 – 不要 – the negation of 要

Yi4 ping2 – 一瓶 – one bottle of。。。

Xiang3 – 想 – want/desire to do something. Thinking of/considering doing something.
Yao4 – need/want strongly.

Gao1 – 高 – tall

Han4 yu3 bu4 tai4 nan2 – 汉语不太难 – chinese is not difficult。

Mai3 – 买 – to buy

Mai3 dong1 xi – 买东西 – to go shopping.

Chinese Classes at Wuhan University – Day Two: Wo3 zai4 si4 ban1 (我在四班）

We come back Monday morning and hand in the photos. They had told me several weeks prior that I would take a diagnostic test to determine which level I’d go in.

Here’s what happened:

Officer Worker: (something in Chinese)

Me: Huh?

Him: You go in beginner.

Beginner. Four class periods, five mornings per week. They handed me a form in Chinese characters with one row highlighted in blue. This is my schedule. My girlfriend and I spent several minutes trying to figure out not only what the classes were but also if I were getting what I paid for: the same as everyone else at that level.

We couldn’t come to any real conclusion without me first going into the classes. Since the first two periods were nearly over with, we waited until the last two.

What happened in the last two periods?

First off, the teacher spoke more English than I expected her to. Better than I expected too. No “none of my business” Chinglish. It’s very relieving after the past year. Very relieving.

I had the books. Not the current versions you buy down the hall from our class. My girlfriend leveraged her guanxi to get me all the books I need. While the order of, say the vocabulary words, was different, the content remains the same.

The focus, at least in the last two periods, was more on learning words, phrases, and repeating them. We did not sketch out characters in the correct order. We only began to practice tones at the end. Listen. Repeat. Listen. Repeat.

Not much happened that day. I can only give impressions based on two class periods. It seems to be a relaxed atmosphere. Plenty of tolerance for mistakes.

There are four of us in this class. More in other classes. Those students are more advanced, some on scholarship. It appears segregated by race—all the Africans in one class, the non-Chinese Asians in another, misc. in mine.

The big question for me is one of worth. Is it worth 8650 RMB? I don’t think so. To me, if I’m paying that much money, I’d prefer an all day intensive course with plenty of laboratory listening and speaking and tutorials on how to properly write characters. I understand we’re beginner, so they don’t want to throw characters at us right away.

But I do. I want the characters launched at us. I want everything. I just want feel like the money that I spent is indeed money well spent.

Of course, this is higher education. That lovable stamp on your hand that signifies a pulse and little else.

However, I believe these classes will be very worthwhile in the long run no matter want. I just want to the absolute most out of them that I can.

A feat which ultimately ends with me.

Words Learned and Used Today

Xia4 – 下 – down
Xia4 ke4 – 下课 – class is over.

Shang4 – 上 – up

Da3 kai1 shu1 – 打开书 – open your book. “Da kai” can be used as “turn on”, as in “turn on” the light, the computer, etc.

Fan1 dao4 di4 page # ye4 – 翻到第 page # 页 – turn to page #

Hao3 – 好 – good

Nan2 – 男 – male

Ren2 – 人 – person

Ni3 – 你 – you

Ta1 – 他 – he

Ta1 – 她 – she

Sheng1 ci4 – 生词 – new words

Yi1 – 一 – 1
Er2 – 二 – 2
San1 – 三 – 3
Si4 – 四 – 4
Wu3 – 五 – 5

Ni3 zai4 ji3 ban1? – 你在几班？- which class are you in？
Wo3 zai4 si4 ban1 – 我在四班。- I am in class four。

Xian4 zai4 wo3 zai4 zhong1 guo2. – 现在我在中国。 – Now I’m in China.

Ni3 zai4 na3? – 你在哪？- Where are you?
Wo3 zai4… – 我在 – I’m。。。

Xiao3 xue2 – 小学 – primary school
Zhong1 xue2 – 中学 – middle school
Da4 xue2 – 大学 – university

Xue2 yuan4 – 学院 – college*
Fa3 xue2 yuan4 – 法学院 – law school

Dao4 zhong1 guo2 yi3 qian2.. – 到中国以前… – Before coming to China…

*The difference between da xue and xue yuan: xue yuan is not “college” in the American sense of the word. For instance, “I’m in college at the University of Tennessee”, Tennessee is still 田纳西大学 – tian na xi da xue, still a “university”.

Previously:

Day One

Screw you, I find this kind of stuff funny (part two)

A sample from an MSN conversation last night. We are sitting beside each other on our laptops.

Travis said (21:45):
hi

says:

Travis says:
I miss you

says:

me too

Travis says:
Aw…sweet

says:
of course

Travis says:

When can I see you again?

says:

any time you want
i’m always beside you

Travis says:

sweet
I feel like you’re beside me right now

says:
[right hug emoticon]

Travis says:
[left hug emoticon]

says:
[heart emoticon]

Screw you, I find this kind of stuff funny (part one)

Me: Okay. I need you to listen to me very carefully. I don’t have time to repeat myself.

Him: Huh?

Chinese Classes at Wuhan University – Day One: Registration

Wuhan University (武汉大学) is a key university in the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. What that means is it gets a lot of government funding. Other schools, such as, say, WUSE, get little to none. Obviously, the well funded school is going to be better and will attract the top scorers on the national exam. The others…you can see for yourself.

I recently began taking Chinese language classes at Wuhan University. I’m going to chronicle what happens there. You can read along if you want. It’s real simple. There’s no catch. Scout’s honor.

Day One – Registration:

Before I go into the first day, let’s step back and talk about what lead up to it.

I had decided that if I were going to stay in China, I would take Chinese classes as early as February. My original choice was Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Then it went to Huazhong Normal University. I came close to taking classes there. In fact, I had put in an application and paid their application fee, somewhere on the order of 500 RMB.

What changed?

After talking to people, they told me that it would be better to take classes at Wuhan University (武汉大学). Why?

“Because it’s better.”

Okay. I get you. But why is it better?

“It’s a very prestigious university.”

Prestige = more expensive = better quality. Well, I guess the difference would ultimately be negligible, as we all follow the same books and the same general plan. So why Wu Da?

For face. As if it weren’t obvious.

I signed with a new school in May. If you’ve never switched schools in China before, let me give you an insider’s perspective on what that’s like:

Me: Hey, I hear you’re looking for teachers.

FAO: Welcome aboard!

Feel free to email me if you have any questions about that, as I tend to get a bit too technical. It’s a fault I’m willing to live with though.

I told them upfront that I was taking classes in September. I needed the September salary to help pay tuition. They told me that I would be paid the first week of September, their exact words being September 7.

September 7 rolls around. No salary.

I am not surprised. I call and they assure me that it will be next week.

Next week rolls around. No salary.

Again, I am not surprised. If I were a neophyte to China’s ESL Industry, I may have raised hell. As it stood, I was low on money—something like 400 RMB I could spend for a month, down to the point where I had to borrow money from my girlfriend. But I had become enurred to this sort of thing.

Third week rolls around. Tuesday morning the office calls me. It seems they’ve paid me. Cool. I check the bank account.

Nothing in it. Yeah, no surprise…

Wednesday – Thursday – this pattern followed until Friday morning and several phone calls in which the FAO (Foreign Affairs Officer) assured me that I would be paid the following part of the day. Tomorrow morning! This afternoon! Tonight at least!

I am not shocked by any of this. If you are thinking of teaching English in China, you should definitely be prepared for this sort of thing. While not as bad as some of the horror stories I’ve heard of Korean private schools, it can be stressful. That kind of goes without saying, I suppose.

We go to pay the tuition on Friday, September 18. The deadline was September 14. When I get there, there is a long line of students waiting to register. Surprise? Hello? Surprise? Where are you?

Although I had applied and been accepted in early June, when we got there they had no idea who I am. I was not in the computer. Yes. I know. Anyways, they pulled folders from under the desk and we soon came upon mine lying under a thin layer of dust.

They got my name wrong.

They got my fucking name wrong.

It turns out I am in the computer. But I am not William Travis Lee. No. I’m Lee William, “Travis” having gone on permanent vacation. To tell you the truth, I never much liked that asshole and am glad to see him go.

They also gave me a Chinese name, a Sino version of my name. Li Wei Lian (李威廉). It’s just a Sinocization of my real name: Lee William. Lee William. Li Wei Lian. Easy to remember.

After this, I had to go to four different offices and get each one to sign a statement swearing we’ve dropped by. I do not remember what each one was for except for the long line one: to pay the tuition.

All 8650 RMB of it.

You may be thinking, “Travis that’s not a lot of money. There’s what, 7 RMB for every dollar?”

Yeah. If you’re scraping together dollars and coming over here to study Chinese, then fine. Only $1267. But I’m paid in the local currency. I do not have the advantage of converting from a stronger foreign currency.

So I was nearly broke afterward.

8650 RMB. Is it worth it?

After tuition payment, we went to two different rooms. I don’t know what for. My girlfriend spoke to them, they signed the paper and we left. To the student registration room.

Me: Here are all my documents.

Office worker: (looking them over) Um, do you have any photos?

Me: No. No one told me to bring any.

He hands me back my forms.

Office worker: Sorry.

I had woken up at 6 or so. I had ridden the bus to two banks, hauling a backpack containing my girlfriend’s laptop. All the while it was raining. And I was sneezing. Plus my stomach hurt and I suspect there may have been some internal bleeding. Maybe. Not too sure on that one. Just a hunch.

Me: Is that really necessary? I mean, I’ve already paid the fees and done everything else. Can I not just bring the photos on Monday but go ahead and get my schedule today? I need my schedule because I also teach and they need it to help coordinate my classes and make sure there is no overlap which would prevent me from studying Chinese, something I have been wanting to do for many months, something that will help me communicate with my wife’s family, not to mention open new future paths.

Office worker: No.

We left. We had to get photos and come back on Monday morning to complete the registration process. Then I could start classes.

On the way out, I started complaining about the whole thing.

Girlfriend: Why do you complain? There’s nothing you can do to change it.

I was about to retort when I realized she had a really good point. So I shut the fuck up.

Words Learned and Used Today:

Ta ma de! – 他妈的！

Bendan! – 笨蛋

Qu si ba！ – 去死吧！