I have been having a great time learning Chinese recently. There have been only a few occasions where I feel it’s hopeless. The best thing for me to do then is to just stop practicing Chinese and go back into the world of English, get my confidence back, and try again later. Even though I can understand almost nothing that’s said to me, speaking is at least semi-functional with my limited vocabulary. Except the times when I say something simple and I just get blank stares that indicate no understanding…those times are the frustrating ones. Here are my observations so far in learning Chinese:

Chinese is easy where English is difficult:

• Grammar – there are no conjugations! So the sentences “I go”, “He goes”, “We went” are almost identical in Chinese. The verb is “qu” and it never changes.
• There are no articles. So there are no “a”s, “the”s, etc.
• I haven’t quite figured this out yet, but there doesn’t seem to be any plurals. So, you don’t need to change the article or add an “s” to the end.
• The words are mostly mono syllabic and you create fancier words by putting multiple words together. I can’t remember the exact phrase, but bicycle is something like “self powered vehicle”. I only know vehicle which is “che”. If you say “Qi che” (no sure how it’s spelled) it means “car”. If you say “Chu zhu che”, it means taxi. Taxi is something like “For rent car”.

Chinese is very hard where English is easy (easier):

• Pronunciation! One word spelled the same way can mean something completely different. Yes, English has this, but the complexity of Chinese is that it’s much more common and, what’s worse, the words differ only by tone! So, if the same word has an up intonation and another has a dip intonation (down then up) it means something completely different. For example, if you just drop the end of this phrase “jiu dian” it means “hotel”. If you don’t, it means “nine o’clock”! “Hello, I need a ride to the nine o’clock.” (I made this exact mistake one day) This is very difficult for us English speakers, but it’s important. One thing you have to cure yourself of is the natural inclination of English, maybe western, speakers to end questions with an up intonation. This completely breaks down in Chinese. Instead, you can add on words, like “ma” with an even high pitch, to indicate a question. Of course, that’s only for certain questions.

I’ve picked a few favorite words and listed them here. I like these because they sound weird. My favorite words so far:

• Si – “four” Imagine you want to say “suh” phonetically, but you don’t finish the vowel sound, you stop just as the vowel sound is coming out.
• Shi – “yes” or “to be”. Say this by saying “shuh” phonetically, but keep your front two top teeth and your bottom two front teeth touching while you say it.
• Zhu – “Pig” To say this, try saying something close to “choo”, except really purse your lips together, do not change the vowel sound, and say it in a high tone.
• Yu – “Fish” This is my favorite. Start in a low tone saying “yoo”, never altering the vowel sounds, and ending high. This one sound really weird to me.

I was able to pull off this sentence on my own today:

“Have you ever been to the factory?” “Ni qu go guan cha ma?” (I have no idea if I spelled factory right but that’s pretty close. I was proud of this one.)

I couldn’t take it anymore so I learned the word for “hair” (toufa) and cut (“gien”).   I walked down the street to the barber shop / salon that I saw the other day.   I live in one of the more expensive parts of town which is also know for having the highest percentage of expatriates.   So, I was expecting to get “ripped off”.   Well, I needed a baseline for prices and I was desperate for a cut, so I bit the bullet and went.   I ended up paying 120 RMB (Yuan)…

I walked in and said, “Hello, hair cut please!” and made liberal use of my “I don’t understand.”   But I got the gist of it.   I followed a woman to have my hair washed and was prompted to lie down on a small platform, much like a massage table, where my head was positioned above a sink.   Now, whenever I had my hair washed, it was in an uncomfortable chair that I had to slouch in and cock my head back so far that it wasn’t uncommon to have a neck ache when done.   Plus, the shampoos were strictly utilitarian and lasted maybe two minutes.   This washing was maybe twenty minutes and including neck and scalp rubs.   Wow, fantastic.   Afterwards, I went back to the barber’s chair and while I waited for the barber, the woman rubbed my shoulders which were incredibly tight.   The day before, walking around Huaqiang Bei, I started feeling sharp pains in my shoulders, so…good timing.   As soon as the barber showed up, he paid very close attention to the haircut, taking plenty of time, and did an excellent job.   Afterwards, I went back to the table and had my hair rinsed followed by a shorter rub down.   I was glad to pay the 120 RMB – about $15.   I found out later though that haircuts can go as low as about 65 cents.

I got up Sunday morning and played some ping pong with the apartment staff.   Of course, every one of them was a good player with all sorts of weird moves and strokes.   But, I managed to save my dignity during the games.   The important thing was that I learned how to keep score in Chinese and say things like, “Good ball” and “spin”.

After that, a bunch of people, college students, I think, came to the OCT (Overseas China Town…where I live) and did traditional Chinese calisthenics.   A couple of foreigners, myself and Don from South Wales, participated.   It’s a pretty mellow work out but there are lots of moves.   I was on the fringes of the crowd and had a hard time following the moves, especially when we rotated and I ended up in the front.   Don was the smart one and picked the very middle.   At one point of the sequence, we turned to the middle and bow.   I had a good laugh watching everyone bow at Don and him return the favor.

(l-r) Don’s in the middle, my teacher

I had a great time “chatting” with Michael’s son, Eric.   He had assembled this little homemade comic book and was telling me all about it.   Of course, I had no idea what he was saying, but it was delightful just listening.   Then he grabbed his English songbook with all the old classics a la “Ten Little Indians”, “If You’re Happy and Ya Know It…”, etc.   I alternated between saying, “I know that one!” and “I don’t know that one!” (in Chinese) and he got a kick out of each time I said it.   Check out the video:   Eric, the kid

Lucky pig!

I went looking for some decent shirts for work.   I should have bought them when I had the chance at Luoho the week before, but I was more interested in observing the whole bargaining process rather than participating in it.   Michael was kind enough to accompany me to Huaqiang Bei, but it turned out to be more for electronics than clothing.   Well, there’s plenty of clothing, but nothing that I was looking for.   Anyway, the point of this story is that this was the place that met my expectations of crowded China.   Oh man, the market was jammed shoulder to shoulder with people.   Check out the video here:   Huaqiang Bei.   Even more impressive was the electronics market, which is what the place is famous for.   It’s a wild bazzar where any electronic item you can dream of, or build, can be bought.   People can actually assemble electronics on the spot.   Want a custom mouse?   They’ll build it right there.   This was a feast for my eyes and ears.   I gave up after an hour looking for shirts to buy.

More neat buildings are under construction here.   This one, as all the others, are encased in bamboo scaffolding.   There’s a more durable frame of iron around the bamboo, but it’s still bamboo.   Check out this picture.   The dark scaffolding is the metal.   Oh yeah, look at the huge crane waaay up at the top:

Here’s a shot of the busy street.   Note the woman in the foreground.   She’s selling copies of Windows Vista.

This morning, Judy, Michael, Tina, Heidi, and I hiked up the Mount Si of Shenzhen, Tang Lang Shang.   This was a far cry for the wilderness experience of Mount Si.   Putting the words   “wilderness experience” and “Mount Si” together is normally wrong, but compared to Tang Lang Shang, it certainly is true.   But, regardless of the presence of progress everywhere, I enjoyed it and was a even little sore the following day, so it’s a good workout too.   This is a popular walk among the locals and features a paved road all the way to the top, like a miniature Pikes Peak.   I would say that the elevation gain is maybe 1500 feet, maybe a little more, so it’s certainly less demanding than Mount Si.   Also, this was a winter ascent (in comfortable sunny weather in the 60′s).   There is the option to take rough dusty trails that often are steeply cut dirt steps, but we stuck to the road for most of the time.   Part of the mountain is being chewed apart by heavy machinery and some of them were sitting dangerously close to the edge of an artificial cliff cut out of the mountain.   These particular machines were drilling straight down into the earth and I was half-expecting part of the mountain to cleave off.

Here’s one of the shortcuts.   This one starts out as a very steep dirt stairway then turns into this comfortable concrete staircase.   You also can get cell phone reception:

I got my first look at some of the real foothills (I guess) of China from near the top of the mountain.   Despite the haze, the pictures turned out clear.   We continued on to the top only to have the road end and the final stairway with a board across it warding off the hikers, I mean walkers, from continuing on.   Normally, I would have gone off the trail here, but figured it best to follow the rules.

A view of the foothills from the slopes of Tang Lang Shang:

Here’s a shot of my two colleagues and me:   Michael and Judy.   I look like a giant barbarian invader.   Peace, man.

Oh, this is a funny story. The other night I figured I should take advantage of the gym nearby and start toning up. So, I donned my iPod and headed straight for the free weights where I did a few reps of light bench presses, some curls, flies, and other exercises whose name I’ve now forgotten. Anyway, there was only me in the gym at 9:30pm until a young girl with two young little boys came in. The kids started playing all around the free weights, lifting up dumbbells, rolling them around, and so on. When I started doing flies, the youngest kid, probably around six, came up to me and started grabbing my arms and pressing in; I guess he was feeling my muscles. Well, I just smiled and kept doing the exercises (remember I had on the iPod). Eventually, he turns his attention to my ear buds and starts jumping up to grab them out of my ear. Well, I just leaned out of the way until I thought I would be fun to give him something to listen to. Instantly, I had made my selection. See, I could have had him listen to Respighi, Mozart, Bruch, or maybe even some Frozen Taco, but nope. What did I pick? Ludacris! I queued up “Number One Spot” and handed the youngster the ear buds and pressed play. The next thing I heard was his raucous imitation of the opening: “Yeah, baby! Yeaaah!!!” – Ludacris’s a capella reference to the movie  Austin Powers. I couldn’t help but think to myself, “What have I done?!” as he and his older brother and sister (I guess) left the gym with him still singing, “Yeah baby! Yeaahh!!” over and over. Who do I blame? I blame Aidan for  playing rap on the way to climbs the previous two climbing seasons! OK, just kidding, Aidan; it’s not your fault.

A few people have reported that the comments aren’t working.   I confirmed it was broken a couple of days ago.   No idea what’s going on.   I’ll see what I can do.

There’s a cafeteria in my building. Every day at noon it’s jam packed with people, all with chopsticks in hand. The food is incredibly cheap, but the quality can be hit or miss. Here’s a shot of Marshall and his food with mine in the foreground. Each meal is about $1.25.

The Chinese frequently make loud sucking sounds while eating which is the opposite of what most Americans are taught and are used to. (“Don’t make that noise!”) So, the first time I had dinner with a Chinese person (a couple of years before coming to China), I was a somewhat taken aback. OK, now I’m in the country where this is the norm so I’m getting more used to it. I still can’t shake my conciousness of trying to stay quiet when I eat. Actually, I don’t want too. But, I do tend to suck it up from time to time. There’s simply no such thing as cutting noodles with chopsticks (or maybe only for the truly skilled), so pick the long noodles or sprouts up, grasp on with your teeth or lips, pull it in a little further…now the noodle’s on the hook, don’t let this one get away!

By the way, my chopsticks technique is pretty lousy, but getting better quickly. I’ve been watching lots of different techniques. Most people, especially Americans, use at least three fingers and a thumb to eat with chopsticks. I think this is the powerchord (guitar reference) equivalent of chopstick technique. So, I became fascinated with Marshall’s technique which only uses two fingers – the index and middle (check out the picture above). I’m still trying to figure this method out.

When I got home, there was some activity going on in the lobby. Turned out it was the last day of work for one of the employees. She had a “lucky pig” with her. I couldn’t understand much about the significance of it, but I was invited to pose in the going away pictures. I had to take one myself. These are some of the folks that went biking last weekend. Here’s the pic:

Back in my apartment, I finally got a chance to read part of the newspaper again. The front page had a picture of Daniel Craig, the new 007, and proclaimed that Casino Royale was now showing in China! Huh, really? Gosh, I saw it in the Luohu merchandise center on DVD this past weekend.

Sometimes the smog in Shenzhen is awful. I haven’t actually seen the factories yet, perhaps next week, but I’ve certainly seen the effects. Today was one of the worst days that I’ve seen; I couldn’t even see the mountain in the distance that’s not that far away. I read the newspaper in English though and there certainly seems to be a lot of talk about cleaning up the environment, setting new standards and goals, etc. The smog is ephemeral though and tends to vanish on the weekends, when the factories are closed.

The smog is smothering us today!:

I’ve been told to be cautious of exercising when the smog is bad and it turned out that my colleague, Michael, and I went looking for restaurants other than the expensive ones in my immediate area. We ended up walking quite far checking various places out. I remember looking across the street and seeing the illuminated haze around the streetlights and wondering how bad it was to be breathing this stuff during a brisk walk. It may have been psychosomatic but I started to feel a little weird in the lungs. Anyway, we ironically settled on a Chinese restuarant near where I lived that happened to be very tasty and quite cheap, at least from my point of view.