Random!

I've been meaning to blog for a while about a few things. Some of them are just random things that I've realized and felt like sharing.

1. About the Chinese language

I don't know what insane part of my mind thought that I'd be able to come, work full time, get to know my team, get to know students, etc... and somehow learn Chinese. Sure, I've learned a little more (which is sort of inevitable when you live in the country...) but my Chinese is still pretty terrible. This leads to a lot of interesting situations.

For instance, I have learned that I have the habit of repeating whatever words I do happen to know. Generally, this works pretty well with Chinese, simply because of the structure of the language. Basically, a lot of questions follow this sort of format:

Now we're going to eat dinner, good or not good?

This thing, do you want or not want?

And to answer, you simply repeat the option that you wanted. Good, not good, want, not want. It's handy.

The problems arise when I really didn't understand any of the rest of the question, but for whatever reason automatically respond as if I had.

This just happened in the photocopy room (seriously, those women are some of my heroes). She held up two of my papers and asked a question. Here's what I heard:

Chinese chinese chinese chinese, keyi a?

Keyi means "can I"/ "may I"/ "is it permitted"/ "is it okay".

My default response to keyi questions is affirmative, which is probably a horrible idea, especially when it's taxi or bong bong che drivers asking.*

"Keyi!" I said.

And it worked out really well, but sometimes it worries me a little bit the number of questions that I answer with only the foggiest of ideas what I was being asked.

*As a disclaimer, I think this is my default because I assume that generally, most Chinese people have a better idea of what is and is not a good idea/what is going on than I do. Someday I'm sure I'll be proven wrong, but in the meantime... it keeps life interesting.

2. Pictures.

For some reason, it makes me really happy that people on the other side of the planet also like to draw things on frosted over windows and that these things include smiley faces and hand-footprints.