First couple weeksof School

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So I am at the end of me second week of school, and I couldn’t be happier. I have class every morning except Mondays (when it is in the afternoon). Starting next week, I will also be taking a class in Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Chinese calligraphy (the last one surprises me also). Our language classes are divided up into 3 different courses: Grammar, Spoken and Listening. Grammar is our core class which we have every day. My teacher even gave me a Chinese name Jiang Xu (pronounced Jee-ang Shoe). Jiang is the Surname and is a common one here in China. Xu means the brilliance of the rising sun or a display of youthful vigor and vitality. Obviously I really impressed my teacher if she is comparing my essence to a rising sun. So I was really feeling quite confident full of youthful vigor and vitality until someone told me that my teacher most likely gave me that name because it sounds somewhat similar to Josh… I think that is just a coincidence.
On the first day of class, the grammar teacher drew a bunch of pictures (like of rain, mountains, water, sun etc…) on the board and had everyone in the class and had students come up and write what the words were for the pictures in their native language. In a class of 25, we had eight other languages besides English (which the class is taught in) and Chinese on the board (French, Spanish, Nigerian, Malaysian, Arabic, Kazakhstani, Japanese and Korean). So to say the least, my class is quite diverse ranging from a Kazakhstani 17 year old, who graduated high school early and wanted to study Chinese, to two Spanish 35 year olds, who are here to learn Chinese for their business.
And then there are the Americans… There are a group of about 10 Americans which half are in my class that are from a university called global college which is part of Long Island University. Basically for their four years of undergrad, they spend 3.5 years abroad and a semester in Brooklyn then walk out with their B.A. They are all sophomores and are spending the year in Hangzhou. Last year they were all in Costa Rica. I had a blast during my undergrad, but this seems like the coolest opportunity I have ever heard of for attending college. So it’s fun to have some of my fellow countrymen hanging around even if they are mostly college-age girls… lucky me again, haha.
Class is not too boring, but this is based solely on a comparison to law school classes, which are extremely boring. Another benefit to Chinese classes compared to law school is, at least in the beginner class, there are no gunners. (Gunners are a unique anomaly that occurs to certain individuals that attend law school and love to hear themselves talk so much that they will continue to raise their hand to talk even if they do have the slightest basis for their opinion. Now some of you might be thinking that I do talk a lot and I must be one of these “gunners.” NOT TRUE. I may obnoxious but I do not begin to touch upon the level of annoying that these creatures amount to… but I digress). So… basically no one in beginner Chinese can speak Chinese meaning no one can talk more than a few words which follows that there are no “gunners” which make me incredibly not annoyed which means I can learn like a good student who doesn’t have the constant desire towards aggravated assault. Ok I am done droning on about how much I loved law school .
Chinese is quite an interesting language to study. First, it is incredibly difficult because there are different tones. Further, if one is tone deaf and has absolutely no ability to change the pitch of his voice in a coherent manner, the tones can be extremely difficult (My speaking teacher learned my name quite fast because of how many times she keeps asking me to repeat the words that I pronounce incorrectly. Second, there is the romanticized version of the language called Pinyin but most of the letters do not really sound like their English counterparts. So learning pinyin is like learning a whole new language itself. Then there are the characters… Although this is the most interesting part of the Chinese language because usually a character has many parts that mean different things, it is also the hardest. For example, the word hao which means good is composed of the characters for daughter and son. This is because the Chinese believe that it is good to have a son and daughter (at least before one child policy).
So to come full circle, as I said, I could not be happier here and thank you to all that keep in touch.

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Comments

[Brittany Maly]

Of course you did...
stay away from the young girls Josh!!! ha ha And please stop denying your true inner-"gunner-ness" :) Glad you're having a great time!