Nihao he xie xie he panda

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Nihao. Wo jiao Elizabeth. I have had three Chinese lessons with a very patient Sally, one of our Chinese teachers at Aston 3. She teaches a class for us foreign teachers for an hour each week. I am not good at Chinese at all... yet. With Sally's help, I hope to get better over the next year. I may hire a private tutor eventually, but first I need to get some of the basics down! I cannot relay the tones on this blog, but imagine accent symbols over the top of the vowels of each word. Everything we are learning is in pinyin, the Romanization of the Chinese characters. I have to write the phrase in my notebook in Chinese pinyin, then how to pronounce it in English, then what it means in English. Needless to say, I am fumbling with pronounciation and trying to remember what the words are supposed to sound like etc.

I have learned quite a bit in the three weeks with Sally and from eating out at the local restaurants. "Hello" is "Nihao" and "thank you" is "xie xie" and "I don't eat meat" is "Wo bu chi rou." "Tofu" is "dou fu" and "rice" is "mi fan." "Yes" is "shi" or "dui" ("agreed") and "no" is "bu shi." "American" is "mei gou ren" and "English" (language) is "ying yu" I could go on and on but I'll leave it at that. So much to learn! My brain wants to convert everything into something more familiar, like English or French or German. But I try, and I need to practice more and I will get it eventually.

Randomly, I went with a few other teachers to the Jinan Zoo yesterday. I received a call from Gao Jie inviting me and my roommates to go with her friend who is a journalist for a local newspaper. We went to see the oldest panda in China (and the world). Tao Tao is 34 years old, which is the equivalent of a 100-year-old person! She is quite old and frail and blind. How amazing to see her though! We were there with one newspaper, a women's daily, but were also interviewed by another paper and a couple of us were interviewed by a local TV news program. When I arrived at Aston today, a couple of the teachers said that they saw me and the others on TV last night!

But that is not the story. The fact is I am still in awe about seeing a live panda as she was taking her afternoon nap. She rolled over a couple of times. We were watching her through the glass of her cage, she was sleeping on a wooden mat. They let us foreigners and the journalists go into the room where she was sleeping, I was a few feet away from this sleeping treasure! She was beautiful, so sleepy and cute with those black ears and black and white fur, just like you would imagine. Zoos always make me sad, and this one was no different. Her cage was so bare, and I had to go outside to see her outdoor habitat, to make sure that she had a decent place to roam. It was small but she is so old.... I looked up information about here and they are trying to raise money so they can build a better habitat for her to live in for her remaining years. What a very random, special, heartbreaking, magical event.

I will try to post some photos of her but in the meantime, here are some photos of Tao Tao:
http://english.cri.cn/3100/2007/04/02/[e-mail]

Zaijian (goodbye) for now!

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Comments

[Kristine]

Chinese Zoo
How could you go to a zoo, knowing what you know? I am so ashamed of you!! You need a good whack in the head!!

[Mom]

Panda
Zoo's are sad unless there is space galore for the animals to roam, but, how fortunate you were to have the experience of seeing the panda up close. I'm amazed that they let you get so close to her. So, are you now a TV star? What was the interview experience like? Any make-up prep? Just kidding. Was it a man/woman in the zoo type of interview? Love you