GUYS. MONDAY IS COMING. On midterms week. This means I won't be able to post for awhile. Could be a loooong while; I don't know. Then again, I'm pass-failing everything here except my anth credit (thank yooouu Rice transfer credit policy) so I may be on every night. Remains to be seen.
Just thought I'd let you know, our activity this weekend was touring Japan's Unit 731 Germ Warfare Base here in Harbin. It was a bit discomforting, but I would say not much more so than the wiki site. Check it out.
After, we went out to dinner to celebrate Li Mo's and Pan MingAn's birthdays, a most gallant affair. Tasty food, tasty cake, good company, then the crew went to Sky bar.
Guys. I spoke some English. Two of the girls who came with us don't really speak Chinese, and the Chinese guys wanted to practice English (cusswords) and what was I supposed to do hmmm? It was super discombobulating to hear English and answer in Chinese for the boys and English for the girls and Chinese but then English and let alone my Chinglesh thoughts and then aaaaAAHHH!!
Also, as discovered en route to said Sky bar, here is a foolproof way to get Cat Swanson to fall in love with you:
Chinese Boy: Hey
Cat: Ni hao
Chinese Boy: (Chinese) Oh you're speaking Chinese
Cat: (Chinese) Yeah I do that a lot as of late.
Chinese Boy: (English) So where are you from?
Cat: (English) Texas. (Chinese) lol what language should we speak?
Chinese Boy: (English) Whatever you want (smile).
Cat: (Universal) (swoon)
Keep in mind this methodology is only effective if you're decently tall, have a low voice, need to lean in close in order to hear one another on the street, and you don't freaking IGNORE HER for the rest of the night. MMGghgghgrumph!
Sorry, that's the closest to entertaining gossip I can give you.
If you put a xianggua and cantaloupe in a cage match the cantaloupe would lose but at least it would be a good sport,
China-Cat
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Inside My Head
Here is a sample of my most important thoughts for the week:
First, who the HECK opens a window in the bathroom on a breezy 20 freakin' degrees afternoon? I don't care how badly you've gotta go, when that first listerine-cool gust greets your bare (squatting because it's China) butt, there ain't nothing gonna happen except scrambling for your pants. I'm gonna blame the Russian students for this one.
Speaking of Russians, they're a weird lot. No really, if you haven't met any true-life Russians before, you're probably underestimating this sentiment. I've met my fair share, say in Alaska, here, and a shout-out to Eugene at Rice, and my conclusion is that the cold has resulted in a slightly warped species up there. First, let's address style. Yesterday, I was walking behind a girl with unnaturally streaked blondish hair wearing tall brown boots and shiny gold tights under a long black coat that had a thick shiny black plastic belt, all under a rhinestoned floppyish black hat. She accessorized this ensemble with baby pink gloves, and an absurdly oversized blackish-purple purse/hammock. This is a fairly common look. Really, the pink gloves? You had to go there? FURTHERMORE, too much cologne/perfume is apparently a Russian cultural mainstay. I do not know why. Perhaps frozen nosebuds. Either way, for these reasons Russians do not mistake me for Russian, while because I am blonde most Chinese people do.
Lunch today at the less-then-amazing cafeteria was really interesting, though I suspect only true Sysco connoisseurs (aka camp staff) will properly appreciate why. You know that cafeteria-food taste? It is perhaps most evident in canned corn..that sorta-not-good, mass-produced, in-no-way-related-to-fresh, kinda-bland flavor that permeates everything from those sheet pizzas to soup to salad dressing. You know what I mean? Well anyway, my lunch today was a sort of porridge that was completely characterized by that flavor. Usually, you can detect its presence around the flavor of whatever the dish is supposed to be, and thus properly refer to such cuisine as cafeteria chicken pot pie, or cafeteria hamburgers, but this soup thing had no flavor except cafeteria. I found this sort of okay tasting (as most cafeteria food is) and strangely comforting because it reminded me of camp. Would I eat it again? Maybe...but tonight I'm going to a restaurant because today I've had quite enough of cafeteria the flavor.
The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. The truth of this sentiment hit me today as I realized that if and when I really do plan to get serious about washing the far-too-large pile of laundry in my closet and/or wearing something clean for a change, I will indeed have to buy some laundry tokens first. Which I did after forcing myself to stop downstairs and fish out some change, subsequently relearning how to say "laundry token" in Chinese (衣币）and later proceeding to actually xi some yifu.
A lot of doors around here open both inward and outward, but they're all marked either "拉" or "推" ("pull" or "push", respectively). I have a moral aversion to opening the door in any but the specified fashion. Why? Because it's more efficient in some master architectural sense? Because it's foolproof? No. Because I took the time to learn those goddang characters and there is no way I am going to voluntarily nullify even one tidbit of Chinese knowledge I have put the effort in to acquire. I religiously push or pull as directed.
Screw The Weather Center. Every ten-day forecast says today is cold, tomorrow will be warmer, the third day it will snow, and from then conditions will rapidly improve into the 50's. Except for the snow part, this is a blatant lie. It is f-ing cold today, tomorrow will be similar, the third day it will indeed snow, and then the process will repeat itself. Screw you and your false hope, mr. forecast, I've had enough.
China created the best possible translation for mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes are disgusting, and their translation is "土豆泥," or "potato mud." Go China go. (Okay fine, it's technically potato-paste, but 泥 literally means "mud" so I rest my case.) Ugh potatoes.
I BOUGHT A XIANGGUA! (But haven't eaten it yet),
China-Cat
PS Check out the sweet new Nciku widget- it's a Chinese-English dictionary. Look up characters, pinyin or English, all xing.
First, who the HECK opens a window in the bathroom on a breezy 20 freakin' degrees afternoon? I don't care how badly you've gotta go, when that first listerine-cool gust greets your bare (squatting because it's China) butt, there ain't nothing gonna happen except scrambling for your pants. I'm gonna blame the Russian students for this one.
Speaking of Russians, they're a weird lot. No really, if you haven't met any true-life Russians before, you're probably underestimating this sentiment. I've met my fair share, say in Alaska, here, and a shout-out to Eugene at Rice, and my conclusion is that the cold has resulted in a slightly warped species up there. First, let's address style. Yesterday, I was walking behind a girl with unnaturally streaked blondish hair wearing tall brown boots and shiny gold tights under a long black coat that had a thick shiny black plastic belt, all under a rhinestoned floppyish black hat. She accessorized this ensemble with baby pink gloves, and an absurdly oversized blackish-purple purse/hammock. This is a fairly common look. Really, the pink gloves? You had to go there? FURTHERMORE, too much cologne/perfume is apparently a Russian cultural mainstay. I do not know why. Perhaps frozen nosebuds. Either way, for these reasons Russians do not mistake me for Russian, while because I am blonde most Chinese people do.
Lunch today at the less-then-amazing cafeteria was really interesting, though I suspect only true Sysco connoisseurs (aka camp staff) will properly appreciate why. You know that cafeteria-food taste? It is perhaps most evident in canned corn..that sorta-not-good, mass-produced, in-no-way-related-to-fresh, kinda-bland flavor that permeates everything from those sheet pizzas to soup to salad dressing. You know what I mean? Well anyway, my lunch today was a sort of porridge that was completely characterized by that flavor. Usually, you can detect its presence around the flavor of whatever the dish is supposed to be, and thus properly refer to such cuisine as cafeteria chicken pot pie, or cafeteria hamburgers, but this soup thing had no flavor except cafeteria. I found this sort of okay tasting (as most cafeteria food is) and strangely comforting because it reminded me of camp. Would I eat it again? Maybe...but tonight I'm going to a restaurant because today I've had quite enough of cafeteria the flavor.
The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. The truth of this sentiment hit me today as I realized that if and when I really do plan to get serious about washing the far-too-large pile of laundry in my closet and/or wearing something clean for a change, I will indeed have to buy some laundry tokens first. Which I did after forcing myself to stop downstairs and fish out some change, subsequently relearning how to say "laundry token" in Chinese (衣币）and later proceeding to actually xi some yifu.
A lot of doors around here open both inward and outward, but they're all marked either "拉" or "推" ("pull" or "push", respectively). I have a moral aversion to opening the door in any but the specified fashion. Why? Because it's more efficient in some master architectural sense? Because it's foolproof? No. Because I took the time to learn those goddang characters and there is no way I am going to voluntarily nullify even one tidbit of Chinese knowledge I have put the effort in to acquire. I religiously push or pull as directed.
Screw The Weather Center. Every ten-day forecast says today is cold, tomorrow will be warmer, the third day it will snow, and from then conditions will rapidly improve into the 50's. Except for the snow part, this is a blatant lie. It is f-ing cold today, tomorrow will be similar, the third day it will indeed snow, and then the process will repeat itself. Screw you and your false hope, mr. forecast, I've had enough.
China created the best possible translation for mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes are disgusting, and their translation is "土豆泥," or "potato mud." Go China go. (Okay fine, it's technically potato-paste, but 泥 literally means "mud" so I rest my case.) Ugh potatoes.
I BOUGHT A XIANGGUA! (But haven't eaten it yet),
China-Cat
PS Check out the sweet new Nciku widget- it's a Chinese-English dictionary. Look up characters, pinyin or English, all xing.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Awww, you care!
I like getting bothered about updating, it makes me feel like if I don't clue you in you actually get upset and miss me and such.
So, here's what's up:
1. Chinese Kindergarten!! Tiny Chinese children love love loooove tall blonde American girls with silly putty and stickers. Here are a few pictures for your "aawww wook at de widdle kiddies" pleasure:
2. Dreaming in Chinese. Sounds cool right? WRONG. I am studying vocab in my sleep, but the problem is I'm not actually capable of learning news words in my sleep, so I just make up words and definitions to teach myself. Then I wake up freakin' confused and disoriented with a brand new repertoire of words never before heard by actual Chinese speakers. I'm serious. Before I can talk in the morning I have to stop and remember if I've actually studied these words or just unconciously formulated them. This is a legitimate problem. Takes my morning fog to new heights of confusion.
3. Condoms! LOOK! I ask you this: WHAT THE HECK ARE "JEANS" CONDOMS?? Now don't get me wrong, I have complete faith in the effectiveness of Chinese birth control (only kids with
a sibling in the whole dang Kindergarten class were the twins), but what the heck does this MEAN? Are they denim?? You tell me THAT!
4.Writing in Chinese. I just wrote an essay. It was painful. I thought it might kill me. It's done now though, all I have to do is re-write those couple thousand characters by hand and turn it in. Honestly, I don't really know if it is any good or not, but it's my best and I'm sure my teacher will cover it in red ink and hand it back. That's fine, this class is baaasically pass-fail anyway. And it seriously is the best I can do.
5. The average height here is about three inches shorter than in America I think. This is in no way an empirical assesment but really, what did you expect from me? Anyway, the problem is the average height of EVERYTHING is about three inches shorter than in America. My desk. Chairs. The bathroom mirror. My bed. Daylight. I'm starting to have some back trouble and I hope I can just ignore it until my triumphant American return.
6. Muslim restaurant and Old Harbin! This Saturday we wandered around Old Habin for awhile and then ate some delicious beef-oriented food (for a change). Old Harbin is...small? Dirty? Cold? I finally got to see the silly SongHua River at least...that was cool, see below:
Well, now I'm off to do the homework I typically do during the weekend but haven't yet because this essay sapped my soul. Grab some Mac & Cheese and think of me!
Planning to see the wall at Spring Break,
China-Cat
So, here's what's up:
1. Chinese Kindergarten!! Tiny Chinese children love love loooove tall blonde American girls with silly putty and stickers. Here are a few pictures for your "aawww wook at de widdle kiddies" pleasure:
2. Dreaming in Chinese. Sounds cool right? WRONG. I am studying vocab in my sleep, but the problem is I'm not actually capable of learning news words in my sleep, so I just make up words and definitions to teach myself. Then I wake up freakin' confused and disoriented with a brand new repertoire of words never before heard by actual Chinese speakers. I'm serious. Before I can talk in the morning I have to stop and remember if I've actually studied these words or just unconciously formulated them. This is a legitimate problem. Takes my morning fog to new heights of confusion.
3. Condoms! LOOK! I ask you this: WHAT THE HECK ARE "JEANS" CONDOMS?? Now don't get me wrong, I have complete faith in the effectiveness of Chinese birth control (only kids with
a sibling in the whole dang Kindergarten class were the twins), but what the heck does this MEAN? Are they denim?? You tell me THAT!4.Writing in Chinese. I just wrote an essay. It was painful. I thought it might kill me. It's done now though, all I have to do is re-write those couple thousand characters by hand and turn it in. Honestly, I don't really know if it is any good or not, but it's my best and I'm sure my teacher will cover it in red ink and hand it back. That's fine, this class is baaasically pass-fail anyway. And it seriously is the best I can do.
5. The average height here is about three inches shorter than in America I think. This is in no way an empirical assesment but really, what did you expect from me? Anyway, the problem is the average height of EVERYTHING is about three inches shorter than in America. My desk. Chairs. The bathroom mirror. My bed. Daylight. I'm starting to have some back trouble and I hope I can just ignore it until my triumphant American return.
6. Muslim restaurant and Old Harbin! This Saturday we wandered around Old Habin for awhile and then ate some delicious beef-oriented food (for a change). Old Harbin is...small? Dirty? Cold? I finally got to see the silly SongHua River at least...that was cool, see below:
Well, now I'm off to do the homework I typically do during the weekend but haven't yet because this essay sapped my soul. Grab some Mac & Cheese and think of me!
Planning to see the wall at Spring Break,
China-Cat
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
I MADE A PUN
Okay okay this was awesome! My very first Chinese pun!!! Here is how it happened:
Huangwei thought he did perfectly on a writing test. As it turned out though, he missed one stroke. The two GIRLS of the class, on the other hand, did in fact get perfect scores. He was mildly disappointed. I told him in a sympathetic tone:
你的生活太难了。。或者...太男了！！
aahhahhahahahahaaaHAAhaha!.. I'm awesome.
Spring coiled back up into its original packaging under an onslaught of snow,
China-Cat
Huangwei thought he did perfectly on a writing test. As it turned out though, he missed one stroke. The two GIRLS of the class, on the other hand, did in fact get perfect scores. He was mildly disappointed. I told him in a sympathetic tone:
你的生活太难了。。或者...太男了！！
aahhahhahahahahaaaHAAhaha!.. I'm awesome.
Spring coiled back up into its original packaging under an onslaught of snow,
China-Cat
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Spring dang Sprung
大家好!
Well, I promised to update you on this past weekend's dumpling-making extravaganza, so here are some beautiful photos for you to enjoy.
That lady is the wife of the teacher that volunteered to host this lil' get together, and she can bao jiaozi like a bamf (mother/foreigner translation: is truly exceptional at wrapping dumplings). I have some skills myself now, or at least some theoretical knowledge...if you premixed all the ingredients and conveniently laid them out before starting the actually cooking process (you know, like the pros do), I am pretty sure I could make them all by myself. Sorry I didn't take any in-progress photos; my hands were a bit dirty at the time. Let's just say that one on the bottom with green filling leaking out is not mine, but that cute fat one two dumplings to the right is a product of yours truly. Mmmm.
Dumplings aside, my time here is still passing fairly pleasantly I suppose. My one-on-one teacher (the aforementioned Mr. Tang) is happy because I am progressing quite quickly. I like to measure my progress by the examples he makes up in class:
Week 1: 史凯灵 (that's me) doesn't understand Chinese culture or language.
Week 2: 史凯灵 needs to study hard in order to advance her language skills.
Week 3: 史凯灵 is making progress in her study of Chinese.
Week 4: When 史凯灵 came to China, she studied with Mr. Tang.
I'm hoping week five will be like, Mr. Tang actually admits this class is sort of fun. On the other hand, some days I have experiences that make me realize I know so little about this language I don't even know how little I know. Even looking back over assignments from three weeks ago- assignments I thought I had a pretty solid grasp on- makes me realize how far from comprehension I really was (am?). This is moderately depressing, because it feels like no matter how hard I study and how quickly I remember words and how frequently I practice, if it takes me two minutes to remember every new word I will never, ever achieve fluency. Gosh darn it (friend translation: #$%* my life).
But, hopeless as the process is, I am here for another two and a half months and will study diligently because I bloody well don't have any other options now do I. This notion is actually comforting more so than depressing.
As a final aside, I would like to brag that today's weather has been absolutely marvelous. A nice warm breeze (36 degrees baby), open windows (so I left my jacket on for class), and ice melting (at least 40% gone). Awesome.
Wo shasi Mufasa,
China-Cat
Well, I promised to update you on this past weekend's dumpling-making extravaganza, so here are some beautiful photos for you to enjoy.
That lady is the wife of the teacher that volunteered to host this lil' get together, and she can bao jiaozi like a bamf (mother/foreigner translation: is truly exceptional at wrapping dumplings). I have some skills myself now, or at least some theoretical knowledge...if you premixed all the ingredients and conveniently laid them out before starting the actually cooking process (you know, like the pros do), I am pretty sure I could make them all by myself. Sorry I didn't take any in-progress photos; my hands were a bit dirty at the time. Let's just say that one on the bottom with green filling leaking out is not mine, but that cute fat one two dumplings to the right is a product of yours truly. Mmmm.
Dumplings aside, my time here is still passing fairly pleasantly I suppose. My one-on-one teacher (the aforementioned Mr. Tang) is happy because I am progressing quite quickly. I like to measure my progress by the examples he makes up in class:
Week 1: 史凯灵 (that's me) doesn't understand Chinese culture or language.
Week 2: 史凯灵 needs to study hard in order to advance her language skills.
Week 3: 史凯灵 is making progress in her study of Chinese.
Week 4: When 史凯灵 came to China, she studied with Mr. Tang.
I'm hoping week five will be like, Mr. Tang actually admits this class is sort of fun. On the other hand, some days I have experiences that make me realize I know so little about this language I don't even know how little I know. Even looking back over assignments from three weeks ago- assignments I thought I had a pretty solid grasp on- makes me realize how far from comprehension I really was (am?). This is moderately depressing, because it feels like no matter how hard I study and how quickly I remember words and how frequently I practice, if it takes me two minutes to remember every new word I will never, ever achieve fluency. Gosh darn it (friend translation: #$%* my life).
But, hopeless as the process is, I am here for another two and a half months and will study diligently because I bloody well don't have any other options now do I. This notion is actually comforting more so than depressing.
As a final aside, I would like to brag that today's weather has been absolutely marvelous. A nice warm breeze (36 degrees baby), open windows (so I left my jacket on for class), and ice melting (at least 40% gone). Awesome.
Wo shasi Mufasa,
China-Cat
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Weekend posting time!
Hey guys,
It snowed a crapton this week. I fell on my butt twice (*ed: biffed it twice).
My conversation class has covered the following topics thus far: health, marriage, extramarital affairs, remarriage late in life, society's historic division of labor, and the life of handicapped people. Needless to say, I am well-equipped for the real world.
I read "Good Omens" (should be underlined but this program doesn't have that capability). It was pretty good and funny and exciting, but reading good and funny and exciting books stresses me out. Once I get into the story I don't want to put it down and will stay up all night reading, and/or forget whether the story-world or my life is the true state of affairs. It's most inconvenient when you have to force yourself to reprioritize homework as an actually consequential affair.
I had a salad today at the newly opened "Western Coffee Shop" on campus. The salad was terrible in that seven-shreds-of-lettuce-with-fifteen-cherry-tomatoes-and-some-corn-topped-with-mayo way. Salad is really not very complicated at all people. Just start with a lot of lettuce, look around your kitchen, throw that stuff on top, and then develop a concept called "ranch dressing," which I don't even like but am accustomed to turning down. That being said, the coffee and chocolate cake were not at all bad.
Tonight is "visit a traditional Chinese home" night. I'll keep you posted.
Ratatat is just awesome,
Cat
It snowed a crapton this week. I fell on my butt twice (*ed: biffed it twice).
My conversation class has covered the following topics thus far: health, marriage, extramarital affairs, remarriage late in life, society's historic division of labor, and the life of handicapped people. Needless to say, I am well-equipped for the real world.
I read "Good Omens" (should be underlined but this program doesn't have that capability). It was pretty good and funny and exciting, but reading good and funny and exciting books stresses me out. Once I get into the story I don't want to put it down and will stay up all night reading, and/or forget whether the story-world or my life is the true state of affairs. It's most inconvenient when you have to force yourself to reprioritize homework as an actually consequential affair.
I had a salad today at the newly opened "Western Coffee Shop" on campus. The salad was terrible in that seven-shreds-of-lettuce-with-fifteen-cherry-tomatoes-and-some-corn-topped-with-mayo way. Salad is really not very complicated at all people. Just start with a lot of lettuce, look around your kitchen, throw that stuff on top, and then develop a concept called "ranch dressing," which I don't even like but am accustomed to turning down. That being said, the coffee and chocolate cake were not at all bad.
Tonight is "visit a traditional Chinese home" night. I'll keep you posted.
Ratatat is just awesome,
Cat
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Erring on the side of American
Hey, nobody's perfect. Case Study A:
I have this one-on-one "History of Chinese Anthropology" class, right? It's just me and good 'ole Mr. Tang, who is a professor at a nearby college and can read some English but doesn't really speak any per se, as if he was allowed to speak English to me anyway. I'm pretty sure he doesn't much like spending four hours a week teaching me anthropology vocab words in the framework of a bare bones survey of Chinese anthropology, but I like it so hey, good enough.
Anyway, today he asked me to make a sentence using "核心," which is Chinese for "nucleus" or "core" or "center." Well, after mulling it over in my head for a bit, I proffered the following:
"哲学古代的核心是欧洲," or "The center of ancient philosophical thought was Europe."
My surprised and visually offended teacher responded with "No. No, what about China?? China was the center of ancient philosophical thought! China!"
Oh riiight...sorry...my bad. I sorta...forgot. No really, sorry. You're right, or at least not at all wrong...Please excuse me and my cultural discrepancies....ok thanks. We both laughed.
Yeah whoops.
Blonde in any language,
China-Cat
I have this one-on-one "History of Chinese Anthropology" class, right? It's just me and good 'ole Mr. Tang, who is a professor at a nearby college and can read some English but doesn't really speak any per se, as if he was allowed to speak English to me anyway. I'm pretty sure he doesn't much like spending four hours a week teaching me anthropology vocab words in the framework of a bare bones survey of Chinese anthropology, but I like it so hey, good enough.
Anyway, today he asked me to make a sentence using "核心," which is Chinese for "nucleus" or "core" or "center." Well, after mulling it over in my head for a bit, I proffered the following:
"哲学古代的核心是欧洲," or "The center of ancient philosophical thought was Europe."
My surprised and visually offended teacher responded with "No. No, what about China?? China was the center of ancient philosophical thought! China!"
Oh riiight...sorry...my bad. I sorta...forgot. No really, sorry. You're right, or at least not at all wrong...Please excuse me and my cultural discrepancies....ok thanks. We both laughed.
Yeah whoops.
Blonde in any language,
China-Cat
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