Miscellany

Other observations that don't fit any themes:


Garbage trucks play music here. It's usually a children's song, and in a high pitched, v. audible way, and they wind slowly along the streets. They're musical so that people know that they are coming, and can run out with their garbage. There are no household garbage cans on the street that you can drag out on a certain day; you have to make sure to be around at musical truck time so you don't get stuck with it in your house for another week. The music is persistent, but isn't around enough for it to bother me that much. When I told my aunt and cousin that musical vehicles in the states means that an ice cream truck was coming, they almost fell on the floor laughing.





There are gold class movie theaters here. That means, for 15 bucks, you can have your own barcalounger, and eat fried foods and spaghetti that they bring in for you during the movie, on real plates with real silverware. You also get a blanket, but only if you look Chinese so they can offer it to you since they don't know how to say blanket in English. (My white friends did not get them.) Not bad, considering it's only a bit more than I'd pay for a regular movie with kids kicking my chairs in the states. I took my mother, cousin, and uncle, and we had the theater to ourselves so I did a lap around it for fun.



Haha, I accidentally clicked on Hindi for the next part, and can't figure out how to change it back, so you get it इन हिन्दी।

There अरे household गोड्स हियर. अप्प्रोक्सिमातेली ओने पैर मोंठ. आईटी अल देपेंड्स on व्होम यौर फॅमिली हस त्रदिशनाल्ली वोर्शिप्पेद; लिखे थे सी गोद फॉर अ शिपिंग फॅमिली और सोमेथिंग ओब्विऔस लिखे ठाट. अल फमिलिएस हवे अ रूम विथ अन आल्टर (उसुअल्ल्य लार्ज शिनी मरूं तब्लेस ठाट अरे प्रेत्टी हाई) on थे टॉप फ़लूर, एंड हवे वरिओउस रेड लम्प्स, इदोल्स, एंड व्रितिन्ग्स on थेम. इ थिंक थे व्रितिन्ग्स ओफ्तें हवे सोमेथिंग तो दो विथ वेयर थे फॅमिली इस ओरिगिनाल्ली फ्रॉम. ओद्द तो थिंक ऑफ़ फमिलिएस हविंग अन्सस्त्रल होमेतोव्न्स on अन इस्लंद थिस साइज़. अन्य्वय, थे फॅमिली एल्देर्स मके आईटी उप तेरे तो प्रे विथ इन्सनसे एंड फ़ूड ओफ्फेरिंग्स, व्हेन थे हौसेहोल्ड गोद डे कोमेस अरौंद, उसुअल्ल्य अबाउट ११प्म. इ दोन'टी थिंक तैवानेसे पीपुल अरे पर्तिकुलार्ली रेलिगिऔस, बुत थे अल बेलिएवे इन स्पिरिट्स एंड बाद लुक्क, एंड यू क्नोव, बेत्टर सफे थान सॉरी. एंड थें थे अल सेट ऑफ फिरेवोर्क्स आफ्टर प्रयिंग!

Further on language...

The problem with Chinese is that it's psychologically different for me than another language. I can be the cutesy tourist in Spanish or Bulgarian, because there's no reason that I _should_ speak it. Therefore I feel free to spew as much ungrammatical filth out of my mouth as possible when I travel, and that's why I pick up words relatively quickly. I'm unafraid to use them. But here, at least when I arrived, I felt as if I should know the language, since I look Chinese, and grew up in an immigrant family. I know, I know, you will reassure me that there's no reason for me to feel bad, I grew up in the states, it's not my fault... but inside there was still a sense of shame. It's better now, mostly because my language is better, and I've gotten used to immediately explaining that I'm not from here. I remember the sting pretty well, though.

But I've been progressing steadily (which amazes me), and now can pick out two or three words per written sentence, as opposed to one. They're still mostly prepositions or simple nouns, but that's okay, it's coming along. I have some books that someone recommended for me, and I study for like half an hour a day, which isn't a lot, but it's enough for me to keep going. And living in the environment reinforces it immediately and incredibly; once I've seen it on a sign outside, then I've got it.

That being said, I still have some difficulties. Okay, I have a lot of difficulties. The thing with Mandarin is that it's not phonetic. So all of the characters are sheer memorization. However, characters that have similar bases often sound the same, or they have similar meanings. So if you recognize the largest part of the character for rice, you know that anything with it probably relates to food. Or possibly sounds like the word for rice (fan(4)). So even if you don't know the particular character, you have a shot at knowing what it sounds like OR means, or possibly both.

But another thing about Mandarin is that most characters come in sets of two. Adjectives are often two words; so are nouns. This can be more problematic than helpful to me right now, since halves are recombined with other halves and then have completely different meanings. For example, let's say you have the word beautiful. You can combine -tiful with half of another word and have something entirely new. It might have something to do with beauty, but you can't be sure. It might have something to do with bountiful since they both end the same way. And it might not have anything to do with either, but just sound like one of them. And let's face it, often I am not thinking fast enough to recognize the "tiful" as part of beautiful. I just realize the two characters are an unrecognized combination and therefore I have to be like, "Sorry, hua(2) qiao(2) (grew up somewhere else), what does that mean?" On occasion, I can read all of the characters in sentence, and still have no idea what the sentence means. (That happens to my mom, too... she would read signs here and turn to my uncle and cousin and be like, what's that supposed to mean?! And then all three would argue... maybe this thing is endemic. Maybe it's just my family.)

I have no problem with admitting that I don't get it any more. It's usually the second or third phrase out of my mouth in a conversation, but I've still gotten a lot better at Mandarin. (And a lot better at skimming over the parts that I don't understand and just prattling on. Now I understand ESL people who did that to me.) I don't necessarily think that my vocabulary has improved any. I could probably tell you the five new words that I learned. But my language synapses seem to be firing more quickly. I can now recognize halves of words much more quickly than before, and continue using context clues (like we all do) to figure out what someone might be saying. For example, if I've just asked for less sugar at the tea stand, and the cashier gives me a skeptical look while saying something unrecognized, I figure he's probably like, "Are you SURE you want to take the sugar out of that? Are you m**feckin' crazy?!"

This all reminds me of the time I went to China for two months, and upon rearrival in the United States, my Spanish was better. It wasn't that I had been practicing Spanish; it's just that the language area of my brain had been really active so everything was up and running. After two months in China, my Chinese went through the roof, and it feels much better now that I've been here for six months. Baby steps, baby steps. I'm not really that afraid to talk to people any more, and the increase in confidence is worth as much as the increase in language. Maybe I will be fluent by the time this is all done. But it doesn't really matter if I'm fluent, because everyone thinks that I'm Korean anyway. Recently, someone asked me whether I was before I even opened my mouth and gave away the non-Taiwanese accent. I should've taken out my crowbar and been like, Do I look Korean to you?! Freakin' Taiwanese.