wo bu mingbai

I find myself saying this quite often. It means “I don’t understand.” Although I am getting pretty good at my Mandarin, I still can’t understand when people say the few phrases I do know. Except….well, I don’t know how to spell “I don’t know” in pinyin. I’m getting good though, trust me. Or skype me and I’ll show you. (skype name: mikelle.norton)
As you can see, I found a way to post my blogs in Narnia (I don’t want to say the actual one just in case this is censored). If you’re still confused, asking Jillian or my parents for an explanation. This might be a bit of a jumbled post though because so much has happened since Hong Kong and I haven’t been able to put my thoughts together anywhere but my journal yet. You’re actually pretty lucky that I didn’t post on Monday because it would have been pretty whiney. Monday wasn’t the best day; reality just kind of hit me. But now everything’s good and I’m not really stressed about much anymore so you’ll be spared all of that rubbish and complaining about bed bugs and no heat.
Let’s start with the last bit of Hong Kong:
We went to a Cantonese ward that met in the Hong Kong temple for sacrament meeting. We were just planning on listening in Cantonese but they offered to get out the headsets and have someone translate for us, so that was pretty neat. As sacrament meeting was beginning, the elders walked in and we discovered what a small world it actually is. One of the elders went to school with one of our teachers, Jaimie, so that was also pretty neat.
I knew there was something worth sharing about Sunday and I just remembered what it was! First, after church we went to a bakery to grab a bite to eat. Abby, Jaimie, and I were afraid that it was the last bakery we would see, so we loaded up on about six different items and shared them. Coconut bread is delicious. If you ever come to Hong Kong (or any of China as you will soon see) you have to get coconut bread. I’ve heard pineapple bread is also good but I can’t say that for myself. Anyway, we ate it all and it was the first time I’ve been full since I’ve been out here. It was glorious. Then we met Tina and Lola. I love them! They work at Bond (the school where I work) and were coming to pick us up from Hong Kong. Tina speaks almost perfect English, but Lola speaks none at all, which was just wonderful when she tried to teach us a game. We still don’t understand it but it was fun and I won a few times! While playing this game, Tina tried to teach us some more Mandarin, and maybe we were yelling them a bit too loud, because Chinese people started surrounding us to watch the spectacle of the white girls yelling “one, two, three, four!” and playing “shir san jan” (again, I don’t know how to spell the pin yin, but it means 13 cards).
Finally, we boarded the ferry and were on our way to Zhongshan! As we got closer, scenes of Chinese movies that I’ve seen started flooding my head because that’s pretty much how Zhongshan looks. It was very foggy, or misty, or something as we pulled in at just about dusk. Quite picturesque. And it smelled amazing! Like these wonderful little flowers. I still haven’t figured out what it is yet but you can be sure I will. Basically, I’m not going to stink when I come home if it always smells like this. Afterwards, we were taken to our flat in Kaiyin but still couldn’t really see anything because it was dark and still misty. The flat is very nice but a little bit dirty. Nothing that I can’t take care of due to my mother’s wonderful OCD traits I inherited. There will be four of us living in this flat but living situations won’t be quite settled for another two weeks or so.
On Monday, we went to Bond and met some of the Chinese teachers and more of the English teachers who are here teaching the Cambridge method (not with ILP). A few of them are from London and their vocabulary is already starting to rub off a bit. Which I’m definitely ok with. It was a VERY long day because the school is basically open to the outside and doesn’t have heaters anyway so we were kind of freezing. We’re kind of always freezing here because the only heater we’ve seen is the tiny space heater in our flat. It builds character, right? At least the showers are warm.
Just for a review, the food in Hong Kong wasn’t so great, so it was quite pleasant to be greeted with the food in Zhongshan on Sunday night, even if the meat was still gristly and with bones. I think I’ll actually be going completely veggie over here. I was going to try and be adventurous and try all the food I could, but I just couldn’t handle the pig skin in tonight’s dinner. Monday’s dinner was incredible though. We went to a nicer Hunan restaurant for Shaila’s and Suki’s respective birthdays and I was lucky enough to sit at the table with our UK friends, Imogen, Natalya, and Bruce who are all vegetarians. A few meat items were ordered for our table but mostly vegetables; eggplant, green beans, taro root, and some tofu. It was divine and I’m never ordering meat again while I’m here.
All in all, it’s been a successful first few days in Zhongshan (don’t get confused if I ever refer to it as Shiqi or Kaiyin; Guandong is the province, Zhongshan the area, and Shiqi and Kaiyin are a few of the cities). I’m starting to really get along with the other teachers, I’ve fallen in love with the people, and if I just look around, I have to sometimes remind myself that I’m not living in Hawaii. One of my favorite things is talking to the Chinese people; it’s like we try to use all of our Chinese at every chance we get and they try to use all of their English as well. It’s pretty amusing. They are such kind people. And just a clarification, just because I’m falling in love with the people does not mean I will come home and marry an Asian. I’m still not feeling the attraction. No offense to anyone I hope. And sorry if some was taken.
Also, my apologies for the lack of quirky anecdotes and theories, I’m just trying to catch up with the last few days that have kind of turned my world on its head. I’m sure they’ll be back in no time.
Hope all is well in America. Wan an.