I thought this post had been deleted - it was just hiding.

(I wrote this last Thursday, the pictures will come later)

Some days here are harder than others.

Yesterday was my first painting class - that was great. It started off with the laoshi giving us all paintings of his own, and saying that if we show up to every class he'll give us all REAL paintings at the end of the semester.

Then, I'm not really sure what we learned. Basically we put some windex on the paintings facing downward, then kind of glued them to the table, then took another piece of wax-ish paper, pressed that to the glued painting, and then mounted the finished product on the wall. I think it was to make it sturdier.

Side note - I swear people, I can speak some Chinese. Every day, with real Chinese people, I speak Chinese.

Back to this. So, in general, that was a pleasant experience.

My brain wasn't really on in class today, and I'm becoming increasingly annoyed at some people's lack of interest in studying Chinese here at this... Chinese language pledge program. It's one thing if you struggle with tones and phonetics (do tones fall under that category?), but you're trying, it's another if you throw in a (in English) "like" between your gutteral, pseudo-Chinese grammar every three seconds. If you want to party, stay at home. Or pick another study abroad program. Why people would decide to do a language pledge program when they really just want to travel is beyond me. I probably wouldn't look down on these people if this were some different kind of program! It totally affects the way I perceive them! At any rate, there are really just two people who've consistently gotten on my nerves, but, whatever.

Today was my ping pong class. I hadn't ever used the grip we used - it was like holding a tennis raquette. I won't go into the specifics of the lesson, because it is nowhere near as interesting as what happened near the end:

Our laoshi was an older Chinese woman wearing a sweater adorned with flowers. But she was tough. Were she dressed to her personality I'd put her head to toe in sweats. Near the end of the lesson, there were about eight of us, and she pointed to a piano in the middle of the activity room.

"So there's a piano here, huh? I play piano. I play piano and I sing. Hey, after this lesson I'll play piano for you all. While you guys practice your serves, you guys go play some piano. I'll play after class."

...What? Okay.

Class ends. She rolls up her sleeves. Some older men without many teeth who are playing ping pong nearby walk over and watch. She sits herself down at the piano,

"You know this song?" She starts banging the keys, accurately so - ah, a vocalist - everyone nods. "Wo ai Zhongguo!" (I love China!) "Do you all know the words?" Everyone shakes their heads. "You don't know? I'll sing, maybe you'll know."

Then she sang, and it was incredible. Her piano playing was sufficient at best (I shouldn't be so hard on her because technically those notes were correct), but she could warble with the best of them. Music, I can do that. It hadn't been a good ping pong lesson for Cheng Cheng.

One of the older men joined in, singing opera-style (I have no idea the word for it). Wooooo aiiiii Zhongguooooooo shenmeshenmeshenmeshenmeshenme

My fingers got angry they didn't have a violin under them. I tried to figure out where I'd be playing, were I playing the violin.

When she was done, everyone ran off to dinner, but I was resolved.

"Laoshi, you sing beautifully. Do you teach voice, too?"
"Do you want to sing?" she pulls out the piano bench, "We'll sing right now."
"NO GOD I don't want to sing (okay I don't know 'god')... but I was wondering if you have...a...*violin motion*?"
"A violin? Why? Do you play?"
"I do play! Do you have a violin at your house?"
"How long have you played?"
"About... ten years?"
"Ten years?! That's great, Cheng Cheng!"
"Well... I feel that, it would be better if I started when I was about five. But I didn't, so... Anyway, if you bring your violin next week I could play music with you?"

then she turns to the old man who'd been listening to us and said something so quickly that I clearly wasn't supposed to understand.

"What did you say?"
"Eh?"
"Next week?"
"I'll teach you ping pong next week.... bhabhalbh...violin.... give you a look."
"You'll bring a violin next week?"
"Yeah, and bhablhlahb give you a look." She turns to the man beside her, "She doesn't speak Chinese very well."
"I know."
"You know what?"
"I know I don't speak Chinese very well."

Gah that was awkward.


Everything was so bizarre to me, and this was the first time here where someone has been kinda upront about being mean to me about my lack of language skills. I'm also pretty sure this may be one of the first times someone has mistaken me for a generally stupid person because of my lack of language skills. Hm. I should be less out of wack about this, maybe she just thinks I'm a stupid looking person. Or maybe she thought my ping pong playing was only reflective of a body without a mind. These are all possibilities that I should not forget...!

Anyway, today was a little hard for me, if I'm honest. Sometimes in America I feel like I don't have any skills, and that's magnified when you can't at least face save to someone through language. Like using humor.

My happy of the day was sitting on the unibed with Tan Qing, Mickey and Pumpkin, Li Xuan, and Rebecca, and actually having a conversation. They asked me questions about life in America, and I answered them. I told a few stories and they laughed genuinely, and I understood plenty of what they said. One could even say it was a conversation among new friends.

Another happy -

The Lipton tea here is wonderful. Tan Qing turned me onto their rose tea, which I'm pretty sure they don't have in 'murrica.

Rose tea in Beijing with Ms. Tan Qing, what could be finer.