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Published: September 29th 2009
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In addition to my Chinese classes, I started going to an optional Chinese painting class (Zhong Guo Hua’r Ke) once a week. Essentially, I go and listen to an old Chinese teacher/painter talk in mumbled Chinese for about 45 minutes, as he demonstrates painting something, then we make an effort to do it ourselves for 45 minutes. Apparently, today he was talking about how we swirl our wrist to make the brush do what we want, but joked that his hand was unsteady because he is old and has drank too much! Too bad I only get it through translation, but at least someone told me. Good to know our Laoshi (teacher) has a sense of humor. So, last week we just practiced brush strokes, but this week we started to actually paint a scene. So far we are only using ink and water, but I’m sure we’ll get into color soon.
I really enjoy doing this and though I was super frustrated with life this afternoon, I went to the class anyway and now I have a semi-recognizable sort-of Chinese painting to show for it and can continue to experiment with the ink and water.
After class, I
came home to try to study for our last day of classes before the Chinese National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holiday. I won’t be back in class until a week from Monday and it is a welcomed break. However, I was unable to settle down and focus on studying. I was restless, anxious and frustrated with studying Chinese and with living here in general. Soooo, I took a walk.
I intended to simply go for a walk and get some food for dinner, but once I stepped out onto the street, I couldn’t decide where to go. So, I just started walking. I stopped nearby my apartment to buy a street map of Kunming, which I had wanted for awhile. (I have a large one on my bedroom wall that is 3-D and really great (I love maps), but not practical to carry around.) Then I just kept walking. Downtown didn’t look too far according to the map, so I headed south toward the city center and big buildings. It wasn’t too far, so once I was near that, I kept walking. I turned east and kept on going and going and going. I had it in the back
of my mind that I would eat McDonalds tonight because I have not had McDonalds since I returned to China. I wasn’t even really craving it, but in my funky mood, I thought it might help me. But when I came to a McDonalds, I didn’t want to go in, so I kept walking.
About an hour into the walk, I came across a small side street where the air was foggy with smoke from street bar-b-que and small food stalls. It looked thoroughly local, so I turned off the main road and finally felt like I was in China. Since I’ve been here, I haven’t really received too many double-takes or Hellos, but tonight was different. Nearly everybody that I passed watched me go by and I heard Hello! Hello! on every block. The streets were crowded with people out on a pleasantly cool evening and there seemed to be a buzz in the air, perhaps from anticipation of the impending holiday. There was also an obvious police presence everywhere. I often found myself walking at the back of a straight line of solders with batons at their sides marching down the street….kind of difficult to breeze by…or
a crowd of uniforms on a street corner carrying on about something or another. Supposedly, the security is beefed up to ensure the peacefulness of the people during the holiday.
Since I had passed up the McDonalds, I had become quite hungry, so I found a small dumpling shop to grab some food. I ordered a basket of zhu rou jiaozi (pork meat steamed dumplings) and sat at one of two tables inside the stall. At the other table was a trio of well-dressed women whose conversation sounded like gossip, though I couldn’t catch the exact words. The cooks were surprised to see me enjoying their food, but they were friendly and we tried to have a conversation, which went the way of a typical conversation when I’m alone:
Actual Interaction-
Chinese person (typically a street food vendor): <
> “Meiguo ren ma?”
Me: “Dui, wo shi meiguo ren.”
Chinese: <> “Ni shuo Zhongguo hua ma?”
Me: “Yi dian. Wo zai Yunda xuexi Hanyu.”
Chinese: <> “A! <> Yi dian! <>”
Me: “Xiexie. Zaijian.”
Translation-
Chinese: “You’re American?”
Me: “Yes, I’m from America”
Chinese: “Do you How I feel...
This is the image I had in my head when I woke up recently, being smothered by Chinese words. They never stop falling long enough for me to get up and put them in my brain, where they belong. speak Chinese?”
Me: “A little. I study Chinese at Yunnan University.”
Chinese: “<> A little! <>
Me: “Thank you. See ya.”
How it feels-
Chinese: “You’re a strange foreigner, why are you here?”
Me: “I don’t know, but thank you for pointing out my weakness and taking my money. Goodbye.”
And then I kept walking. Now, I pride myself on my feichang hao (very very good) sense of direction. I think most people who know me agree that I do, in fact, have a good sense of direction and while it did not fail me tonight, it did take me quite a bit longer than I would have liked to get myself back to a place I recognized without falling into a bed of wet concrete in the dark, getting hit by a bus/motorbike/car/fellow walker, tripping on extremely uneven and often nonexistent sidewalks or any number of worse things that go through ones mind when they are a young female alone, in the dark, in a foreign country, in an unknown part of town. Now, while none of those things happened, one thing did happen that made me realize I had turned the wrong way. I found myself walking under an elevated highway that led to the equivalent of the mixing bowl (DC area) or spaghetti junction (ATL) interchanges in the states. I was on the ground level underneath this tangle of highways floating high in the air. There were very few people or cars around. What I didn’t know was which interchange I was at. If it had been a hash, it would have been perfect! But alas, I was alone. Was it the first ring road? Was it the second ring road? I had no clue, so I just kept on going across roads, across gravel, across pits and ditches, by groups of men hunched around fires cooking their dinners next to piles of random items that probably doubled as their beds, by cars and motorbikes driving through it as randomly as I was walking until eventually I found a way out!
And then I kept walking. It had been about two and a half hours at this point, but I felt myself making my way back to the lights of downtown and the familiar bustle. Eventually, (another 30 or so minutes) I made it back to a street I recognized and was able to find a bus to take me the rest of the way home. Oh yeah, and all the shops nearby had just closed, so the bus was packed like sardines. Fun stuff, but hey, I got on, so no complaints there.
The point of sharing all this is that even though I am probably only going to know a third of my words for dictation tomorrow in class, I feel better now for having gone on my walkabout. I interacted with some local Chinese people, saw a new part of town, finally got some decent exercise (did I mention I was walking fast the entire time …ya know, so it looked like I knew where the heck I was going…also why I didn’t stop to take pictures or look at my new map, except for at the interchange which I thought I was trapped in!) and got to engage my sense of direction…something I’m actually good at. Next time…I guess I’ll go west.
Xiexie. Zaijian.
PS. To my Meridian friends: Happy Fiscal New Year's Eve! Close a budget for me! Haha.
PSS. It was the second ring road.
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Magoo
non-member comment
love the drawing of language absorbtion
Jen, I have felt like your picture many times over the years .. different countries different words .... and me who sucks and any language!!!! What a great expression... only thing missing is the midl finger pointing toward the words !!!!! Sounds like you scouted your first hash trail including the On On On .... walk abouts are important part of understanding the culture ... hope you have many more this year!