Lately I have really been getting the feel for life in China. I am not sure how to explain what has happened, but I think I have made it over the hump that is culture shock. Now I am used to most oddities that exist throughout China. Squat toilets, babies pooping in the street, people cutting in line. The little parts of life that seem so BIG when westerners come to China. I have only just realized this though.
Other westerners who are fairly new to China have helped me look back on my experience and think "Oh, that was me just a few months ago!" Usually when people are new to China (especially if they are here long term) they just complain or rant about the smallest things. At first these "newbies" annoyed me to death. Then I took a step away from myself and figured out that I did the exact same thing. I just ranted, raved, and vented for a total of four months until I simply dropped it. The only thing to do is to accept it. However hard that may be, one must merely accept that what they are raving, ranting, screaming, crying, and complaining about may just be normal in China.
This feeling of realization, of growing accustomed to the way China works has really comforted me. I think living on campus also has helped a lot. Because now I am around my classmates more.
(For those of you who don't know: I moved out of my old family's apartment several weeks ago, and have been living in limbo. I live with a 21 year old British teacher named Ben. He came to Chongqing around the same time as me. He teaches spoken English at my school. I sleep on a mattress on the living room floor of his flat. We get along really well. I still hope to find a host family soon. My AFS teacher is supposed to be on the job.) I can talk with my classmates during break, go with them to lunch, practice jumping rope with them for the sports festival, answer their English grammar questions etc. Now I just need to walk up eleven flights of stairs to go "home."
My spoken Chinese has really improved. My English is slowly disintegrating. Even now as I type on this computer I have to think for a few seconds before I type the next sentence. Speaking "Chinglish" is more comfortable. For example when Ben and I talk I usually jokingly say things like:
"Tonight, I go down get ramen. Want 不 [bu] Want?"
(Getting some ramen from downstairs, want any?)
here are a few other examples
"Oh 今天[jin tian], so tired!" (I am so tired today!)
"Have you 吃[chr]ed any 饭[fan]?" (Have you eaten yet?)
"I 不要 [bu yao] go to the park!" (I don't want to go to the park!) ***
Ben thinks it is a joke. But the words come out faster this way! Immersion really does work! Because I am so fascinated by languages (thank you Mrs. Pam Davis) I really get excited by weird linguistic things like this. My reading comprehension has improved as well. I can understand more of newspapers now a days. (Even though this doesn't have much to do with reading comprehension) Television is pretty difficult still. News casters talk very fast and use formal Chinese. Many programs have subtitles to improve literacy, but news programs don't! If the program on TV has subtitles I have a much easier time.
As for news... there have been at least two shootings in Chongqing. The locals claim that a "Terrorist Tibetan Group" is responsible for the violence. But according to BBC one of the shootings was a mentally ill man who grabbed a policeman's weapon and shot people in a grocery store. Luckily all of this happened in a different district than the one in which I live. The day it happened many of my friends sent me text messages warning me to stay indoors, or leave Chongqing because of the Tibetan terrorists. Chinese people tend to be a bit over dramatic I find.
As long as the "terrorists" don't take away my beef noodles I will be alright!
***Note, those lines aren't me making fun of Chinese people. I don't want anyone to take that the wrong way. Chinese grammar has no past, present, or future tense. So if one literally translates Chinese into English it will look like this. Sometimes that happens because I am so used to speaking Chinese.
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