r e a l i z a t i o n :
Chinese people aren't rude, they just have a different system of politeness. for example, they'll cut you in line and let the door slam in your face, but they (usually) won't go so far as to push you out of the way, and if you learn how to play their game of "I got here first," they'll honor the system. similarly, although the drivers might appear to be reckless, with no regard for human life, taxi drivers won't allow 5 passengers to ride in a 4-passenger car, and it's understood that cutting another driver off on the freeway is stupid and rude.
f i r s t d a y o f c l a s s :
Chinese class is a complete drag. i'm not used to learning first year chinese with non-bilingual students, so the class moves INCREDIBLY slow compared to what i'm used to. and what i'm used to was already pretty slow. seriously though, the teacher repeats simple phrases like "let's learn lesson 1" over and over, and puts a half-second pause between each word. and then she'll stop and say, "do you understand?" a;liwaw;lgiu and then we read the lesson by REPEATING AFTER HER instead of reading it ourselves. we do this repeating thing like three times, and then she asks us questions about the reading, and then we read it again. gawleghlhaeu; ALSO, i do not enjoy writing simplified chinese. it's ugly and it feels awkward :( conclusion: stanford is nice. this is not the only thing at beida that's brought me to this conclusion, but it'd take too long to get into it all. all i will say for now is that my time here so far has taught me how extremely blessed i am to go to a school like stanford, and to live in the U.S.
f i r s t R E A L d a y o f c l a s s :
Economic Development of Greater China with Scott Rozelle
this should prove to be a pretty awesome class. it's only been one day, but Rozelle is a very engaging lecturer, and i feel like i'm actually learning! the sensation of my brain expanding is so wonderful :] and it's a pretty general class, but since i know almost nothing about the economic development of greater China, i think it will be great for me. AND we get to take a bunch of cool field trips to do field research on migration in China. AND Rozelle is working on this program called REAP, to research and improve the education for migrant children--apparently, it's the fastest-growing part of the education system in China right now, but also the most neglected. and while we're here, we get to volunteer with his program to teach english to kids in the migrant schools! i'm so excited! i hope i get really small cute ones haha ;alweiuge i love little kids!
m o u n t a i n :
i might climb tai shan this weekend. stay tuned!
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Your realization about rudeness (or the apparent rudeness that we Americans see) is what I realized too. But still, I would get really angry when Chinese people would SCREAM their sneezes in the middle of restaurants and nobody would care.
ReplyDeleteuhahahahaha
ReplyDeleteYes. Korean people also have different perceptions of politeness. I had to pee very badly at the airport in Shanghai, I had been praying for my bladder the whole bumpy ride there.. but thankfully when I ran into the bathroom I was the only one there. Until a swarm of women rushed in behind me and beside me, thronging around each of the four stall doors.. and while everybody was pushing and shoving,I spread my arms out very pathetically, stretching them and waving them limply, as if I was scratching my back or fixing my hair or fanning myself, when I was really just trying to protect my door.. until I had inched close enough that my nose was almost touching it, and the lady behind me knocked to make sure the person inside did not forget we were outside..
anyways. I think I forgot this was your blog, sorry!! I was wondering if you'd individually spaced out every single letter in your subheadings.. but the "post a comment" heading looks very similar.
I must say, RE:firstREALdayofclass -- You so lucky!! I hope you get small cute ones too. Although I am sure you will show your wonderful undiscriminating love to the great big plain ones too HAHAHAHA :)
a d d o i l ! !
Now I understand. You weren't being rude, just operating on a "different system" of politeness... wow, that could have saved us a lot of roommate drama, let me tell YOU.
ReplyDeleteBADDA DA DA DA DA CHUHH CHUHH CHUHH CHUHH CHUHH CHUHH!!! *Happy dance*
HAHAHAHAHAHAH i love awa's comment
ReplyDeleteHAAHHAHAH.
hi christina. mom said you could see these comments but im not so sure about that
how is you? i love you<3
i say with so much authority in the Chinese language that i got super irritated with simplified characters also. i first learned Chinese with Traditional and then later had to learn Simplified and got so confused. now, of course, i don't know anything...but i just wanted to share that cause i felt amazed that i could identify haha
ReplyDeletealso, this relates to a previous post, but the fact that asian countries don't separate the shower from the rest of the bathroom is MY BIGGEST PET PEEVE. i think because of that alone i decided i could not live in asia. standing in dirty water is gross to me and it was just that every single morning and night...
my house in Singapore isn't like that though. maybe cause my gma is so Americanized