I’m illiterate now!

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I’m illiterate and can’t talk to anyone!

When I look out the window, or walk across campus to get the bus for the suburban campus where my classes are held, I’m amazed at how different this life is. I was very tired the last few days; I think I’m crashing from having to be “on” all the time. I’m totally illiterate; I can’t talk to most people. I can’t even count to 10!

There are some big drawbacks to not speaking the language. I’m supposed to start lessons soon. Since it’s a 40 minute bus ride, today I decided to at least learn the numbers, then some other phrases on my own. I must sound funny to the Chinese. “1,2,3,4,5,6,6,6,7,8,8,8,9,9,9,10,10,10” and then repeat! It sounds like “eee, er, san, sir, woo, liu,liu,liu, etc.” I have a CD of Chinese lessons and will start practicing again with it.

Imagine being illiterate. My computer is in English, but the computers I use in the classrooms are in Chinese. Since the screen is being projected for the students, I often ask, “Is this ‘OK”?” At the end of the last class today, I was trying to shut down the computer. I hit ‘start’ and a dialogue box came up. I put the cursor over a box and the students yelled, “No!” so I stopped and let the class monitor finish shutting down. I still don’t know what I was doing—couldn’t read it.

Do you realize, I’m like illiterate Americans. I can’t read road signs, newspapers, even student ads on the bulletin boards with those tear off phone numbers. I can’t read the remote on my TV or the directions on my washing machine. I had a text message today in Chinese and asked a friend to read it. I had a flyer stuck in my apartment door. I asked a friend, and he said, “Junk mail advertising an optical company.” I thought it may have been from a repair man. Plus, even though I’m generally optimistic, I believe I still won’t be able to read by the end of the year.

Food—an ever interesting topic. Tonight I decided to buy some soup from a street vendor. He comes every night and I have watched him, his wife and the customers a lot. He has baskets of cut up food on wooden skewers. He has a pot of boiling water and another one of boiling broth. They hand you a plastic basket and you choose which skewers you want—lettuce, eggs, meat balls (2 kinds), cauliflower, cabbage, and several other things, some recognizable and some not. He then puts your food in a metal basket and lowers it into the hot water. Sort of like French fries are done in hot grease. After a short while his wife has a plastic bag in a Styrofoam bowl ready for the vegetables and meat. He adds a ladle of hot broth. She ties it all up and sells it to you. I had a lot of good things and it cost me 3.5¥ ($.40). It’s healthy, clean, and delicious. The broth is like hot and sour soup, a little spicy. I stopped at the next vendor and got a crepe like pancake mixed with lots of egg and vegetables. Then I stopped at the fruit stand and got a pretty yellow apple. Finally, I stopped at the man sitting on the ground and bought some muscadines or scuppernongs—the purple ones. I brought it all to my apartment and had a great supper.

I now get milk delivered. Every day I pick up a pint of milk from the lobby. It’s cow’s milk although Linell says she hasn’t seen any cows in all the years here. We surmise that it’s imported from Korea. I don’t know how we’ll find out the truth.

I just finished my teaching week, 16 hours of teaching, no classes on Fridays. I do have a lot of work to do. Most of my students don’t have a textbook, so I’m designing the course. Lots of reports, panels, dialogues, some games and pronunciation exercises. I have wonderful students. This week I was interviewed by every class. It was fun. How would you answer: Are American and Chinese students the same? If not, how do they differ? Did you vote for George W. Bush? (Heck No!) I showed pictures of my children (Joey, April and Mike) and of my goddaughter and her sister.

Safety: If you disapprove of using a cell phone in a car, imagine using one on a bike or motor scooter. I see few helmets, lots of babies and young children, plus all the cars, taxis, trucks and busses. Street life is fast paced here and people don’t stay between the lane lines. The best way to cross the street, so I’ve been told, is to forge ahead, don’t change direction, don’t look anyone in the eye. But, watch out for ‘right on red.’

Just had a great phone conversation through Skype with my son, Mike. A free, fifteen minute international phone call!

So long for now. I’m 12 hours ahead of you and it was a great day that you’ll get next.

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Photos

my shower
Here's part of my bathroom

hotel breakfast
Nanshan Hotel breakfast. Seaweed is in back and looks like beans.

first 'banquet'
The office of Foreign Affairs invited us four Americans to lunch

tea and me
At the Nanshan hotel I took a picture of the water boiler and cups and got me in the mirror.

my kitchen
Here's my kitchen. Behind the door is a microwave. Notice, no oven.

spare bedroom
Here's my spare bedroom.

my view
Here's the view from my 13th floor apartment.

neon gargoyle
On the old campus here's a gargoyle outlined in neon.

preserved old campus
The old campus buildings with a backdrop of new sky scrapers.

small gargoyles
These gargoyles look like ducks instead of dragons.

front gate Damen
Here's the front gate, looking away from campus. It's called the damen.

vegetable shopping
She sells great, fresh veggies.

suburban campus
Here's a picture from the English pages for Nanjing Normal University.

Comments

[Nan Grogan Orrock]

Great to hear from you!
Love the account of your first days! and the photos. Are you expecting company with that spare bed? room? I didn't know you could eat fresh grapes from a steet vendor and handle that, intestinally speaking? Am I way behind the times? what don't I know that you do? Spoke fondly of you last night at dinner at coffins: howard, wise, b goodman, and Anne and Tom Perry!!! who passed thru from Fla. to NY, w pix of 2d grandchild! planning their retirement in 3 to 5 years! Bush is here today, big demo mounted of course. Mark Marshall coming by to perform miracles on my back porch! Think of you every time I pass your house. You were so smart to take off on this great adventure! Much love and warmest wishes for incredible awakenings and experiences!

[Linell]

Living with illiteracy
Being illiterate does take getting used to. Your frustration makes me ask myself how I cope with it. I have been here for years and still do not read Chinese, so I sincerely doubt that you will be literate by the end of a year here. My advice is, forget literacy. It is overrated. Instead focus on listening and speaking and non-verbal communication. I learned the numbers by listening to students doing their morning exercises - yi, er, san si (1,2,3,4) wu, liu, qi, ba (5,6,7,8). This method assures that you will learn the proper tones. Another tip: Get a student to open up and shut down the computer in the classroom. I just hand the student my flash disk and say, I want the ppt named . . . Chinese students expect to help their teachers. In fact, they often run up and take the eraser out of my hand when I start erasing the blackboard. Another thing - Chinese society is so commercialized that you can assume that any unsolicited messages you receive are advertisements. Throw them away or delete them immediately. What you might want to read are the notices on the boards in the foreign languages department. I hang out in front of them, and then when an English speaker approaches I say, "Is there anything here I should know?" Usually there isn't, but it is nice to know that you don't have to know all that stuff. Look on the bright side. You are immune from all sales pitches. You form relationships with people when you ask them to help you. You empathize with the millions around the world who are also illiterate. Some of the English translations you find in China will make you laugh.

[Stephanie Coffin]

Wonderful report
Bob sent me your blog. I must admit you sound like my students! Except in reverse. Keep writing, I love the street details. Let me know if you want analysis of Chinese grammar and I will see if I can get it sent to you. It might be useful. Stephanie Coffin

[Gailey]

Your apt. looks great!! Spacious and clean! Must be such an adventure, though tiring! Stay well! Love, Gailey

[Naomi]

I love your pictures
I guess I'm a natural born girl lacking of skills of photography. Pictures taken by me are always quite ugly. I love beatles because I consider them to be the most talented band of rock n' roll history. George Harrison is my favourite band-member. I have his CD. NIRVANA is a great band, from seattle., worth listening to. http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/1225866885 It's my blog, but all in CHinese. :-)

[long]

try more
The beginning of studyin' a new language is really hard. I almost killed myself in my early days of Japanese ! How could I remember those words without someone to talk? Wish you could get through it.Someday you can speak fabulous Chinese!