Week 8: 第八周
Poetic poop
I love how spoken Chinese is like poetry and written Chinese is like art. The expression that people use when a gorgeous girl is with a not-so-beautiful guy is "a beautiful flower stuck in cow poop". Amazing. It's music to my ears.
Someone help me please
Somehow I've reached a point in my life that I actually PREFER to use squatty potties. (I don't know what the hole-in-the-ground toilets are actually called.) But now when I do see a Western toilet, which is rare, I'm taken aback and my first thought is, "How do I use that?"
Mall window baby
This is the mall that's right outside my school. It's so big that it has two basement levels in addition to its four above-ground levels.
I'm not sure what these things are or why they're on all the mall benches, but I like them.
My friends and I were passing by the various stores, then we walked by this window and we suddenly realized we were looking at naked babies playing in tiny water tanks with awesome neck floaties. Those blue Chinese characters say "love swim new life" which probably means "the babies enjoy swimming so they feel refreshed" or something like that. I don't know. All I know is that I am enamored with this zoo of semi-aquatic tiny humans. My friend leaned over to me and whispered, "What if they poop? Then everyone in the mall can see."
I'm not sure what kind of place this is that they put adorable naked babies in glass bathing tanks in the mall, and my Chinese isn't amazing, but I think that sign says something like "child health center". The only English on it says "baby touch" which is excellent as well.
High tech
Shanghai seems to be super high tech sometimes, and then sometimes I see stuff that confuses me. There's an employee who literally sticks a red flag out the bus window whenever it's about to stop. I feel like brake lights and the fact that a gigantic bus is obviously slowing down near what's clearly a bus stop should be enough to figure out that the bus is stopping, yet supposedly this tiny flag is helpful to some people, but I have no idea who these people are.
Not a kid-friendly game
I've seen this kind of claw game filled with stuffed animals and toys, but apparently someone thought it was a brilliant idea to fill one with boxes of cigarettes. I guess that's a good way to capitalize on two addictions at once: gambling and smoking. This poor guy couldn't leave the machine alone and kept putting in coin after coin.
Sakura!
I'm so happy it's sakura season. I finally learned how to say Japanese cherry blossom in Chinese (Ying hua 樱花). One of my friends picked a flower and started eating it and everyone looked at her like she was crazy. She gave me a petal to try and I spat it out because it was nasty. She gave a petal to someone else and he spat it out to. Good to look at and not to eat.
My friend wanted to take a picture of my other friend taking a picture, so I took a picture of the both of them. I win. No wait, the Chinese government has cameras everywhere so the Chinese government has video footage of me taking a picture of my friend taking a picture of my other friend taking a picture of flowers. The Chinese government wins.
This is my Japanese classmate. I previously wrote about her on my blog saying I communicated with her in English very, very slowly.
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Anyways, my teacher asked if her neighbor was a boy or a girl and my Japanese classmate couldn't understand her. My teacher asked several times and my classmates tried to help as well.
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"Shi nan de hai shi nu de?"
She was confused.
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"Shi nan shen hai shi nu shen?"
She was still confused.
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"Shi nan hai zi hai shi nu hai zi?"
She was still confused.
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"Is your neighbor a boy or is your neighbor a girl?"
She was still confused.
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"Shi boy hai shi girl?"
She was still confused.
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Then I said, "Boy. Or. Girl?"
And she goes, "Ohhhh! Girl!"
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I am definitely a communication genius.
Thanks for reading!
My French Chinese friend and I were talking about how much we love China. He was originally planning on staying in China for one semester, but he is now staying in China next semester and wants to be somewhere in Asia for an additional year afterwards. I kind of relate to that feeling. I keep getting this urge live in China for a few years, but that probably won't happen. If it does, it won't be for several years. The positive way to look at this annoying urge is that it means I'm enjoying my time here in China, and I'm glad I still have a couple of months left. I really love it here.
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"Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow." -Anita Desai
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I had an awesome 5th week of school, and I will see you all next Thursday! Thanks for reading!