Week 12 of 23: 第十二周
Such a good problem to have
ECNU has adorable cats and dogs that live on campus. A university employee takes a big bag of cat food and puts it by his feet on his electric motorcycle and drives around campus dropping food on the group where the cats like to hang out. The cats are pretty sweet. In America, I'm normally a dog person, but the dogs in China are kind of a gamble. My favorite cat is this orange cat named Ming Ming. He loves everyone. He has an eye problem, so he can't open his eyes very wide. He's a real Chinese cat with his squinty eyes.
There's another cat that looks similar to Ming Ming and he always sits by the door of one of the on-campus shops. We didn't know his name, so we started calling him Men Men because "men" in Chinese means "door." Not very creative, but he's always by the door, so now we call him "door door."
Sometimes students want to pet the cats then walk away, but the cat then snuggles up between your legs. Feeling trapped by a cute cat is such a good problem to have.
These cats remind me of a song sung to me in high school by my Korean friend. He sang it to the tune of "Soft Kitty" from "The Big Bang Theory." The original song is: "Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur. Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr purr purr." My friend sang: "Soft Asian, warm Asian, little ball of rice. Happy Asian, sleepy Asian, we have tiny eyes."
It's kind of racist, but it was sung to an Asian by an Asian, so maybe it's okay?
Numbers
In China, 666 is a lucky number. In countries like America and France, some people consider 666 a bad number, and Friday the 13th is an unlucky day. In Italy, the worst number is 17 and the worst day is Friday the 17th. Italians prefer to have 1 tattoo, 3 tattoos, or 5 tattoos, as it's bad to have even pairs of 2, 4, or 6 tattoos. In China, a lot of people like to get married on even dates because they're better than odd ones. I remember staying in a hotel in Nanjing, where the elevator omitted floors 4, 13, and 14. 4 and 14 were omitted out of consideration for Chinese guests because when pronounced in Chinese, 4 and 14 sound similar to "death" or "will die." The 13th floor was omitted out of consideration for non-Chinese guests. Even though I have a favorite number (it's six because of soccer and MathCounts), I don't believe in the luck of numbers, but it's interesting learning about different countries traditions surrounding numbers.
White and yellow flowers
Last semester, a Chinese teacher at ECNU hurt her leg. Her students all liked her, and one of them wanted to send her flowers while she was in the hospital. But this student was not Chinese, so he had no clue about Chinese traditions. This student sent his teacher white and yellow flowers. These flowers, especially white flowers, are only sent whenever there is a funeral. So her student basically sent her a death omen. This is a good example of the Chinese idiom "哭笑不得" which means you don't know whether to laugh or to cry because it's both funny and horrible. I immediately started laughing really hard and at no point was I near tears, so I guess the idiom mostly applied to the teacher and not to me.
I'm not sure what these are but I bought three
I'd been seeing girls ranging from small kids to young adults wearing these. And maybe a few guys. I'm absolutely clueless as to what these are. I think the mass production of these is probably wasteful and not great for the environment. But the people who stand on the streets selling them make a tiny bit of money, so that's good. I wanted these strange unnecessary things, so I got a duck, a pinwheel, and a small dog wearing a hat. I think the dog's hat needs a hat, so I could have hat-ception. I'm wearing the dog who is wearing a hat that needs its own hat. The pinwheel spins and makes a slight noise when there's a breeze or when you ride a bike. The duck lost an eye but it's still beautiful in its own way. These trinkets are currently sitting by my gourd, so I now have 4 decorative items in my room.
Thanks for reading!
This was a good week because we only had class Wednesday through Friday, whereas last week we had class Monday through Saturday and three of six those days were midterms. Chinese schools are very set on only giving you one day off for a holiday. Since Tuesday was May Day, and we had Monday's class last Saturday but only 6 people showed up because foreigners are very much opposed to the idea of school on the weekend.
I'm not diligently studying, so my Chinese is never going to be at a native level, and my English is actually getting worse every day, which is mildly distressing. But that hasn't stopped me from wanting to learn a tiny bit of Italian for when I go to Italy. My Italian friends laugh at me when I randomly say things like "I am American" and "water bottle", so I think my Italian is already amazing, practically fluent.
Thanks for reading, and see you next Thursday!