Hanging out in Hangzhou

Day ?? -- I think 23

Sorry for the long absence - I've been sick and quite busy.

So, I've been here for just over three weeks. Is it what I expected? Yes, and a bit more. I felt slightly confident in my Chinese language skills. At least enough to order a bite to eat, use the taxi, and order a beer. Maybe have a simple conversation. After three weeks, I must say -- I am ignorant. Don't get me wrong - I have a better grasp of Chinese than, say, my mom, but I am having a difficult time.

This weekend, I have had a case of the self-doubts. It happens from time to time. I'm feeling like I am not progressing well enough in class. I'm learning words, learning characters, but I just don't have the verbal stuff down....i.e. I can't hold a freaking conversation. I can slightly get by with the taxi drivers and a few of the local shops I frequent. But in all reality - I am mute and deaf to the world here. I went to buy some movies today and felt more confident when I told the shopkeep to leave me alone. But still - the self doubt in me says "you should be much further along than this". I have a couple of ideas of what I should do -- the first being to upgrade 2 hours of my lessons to private tutoring. This will cost a bit, but whatever. I need pure verbal skills. The second is to find a language partner. The problem is that I need someone who speaks as much English as I speak Chinese. I was talking to someone for a bit -- but she speaks English very well -- and it was difficult to communicate in Chinese -- so much so, that we kept defaulting to English.

So, I'm setting up a couple of goals for myself for the next week.

1) I bought Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code". In Chinese. I am going to start translating it. Yes, it will be difficult. But I think this will enhance my reading comprehension three fold.
2) Start studying more. I'm almost done with two separate projects outside of Chinese -- once these are off the table - I can focus more on studying.
3) Learn how to use my computer to write hanzi. Sorry, Zhang Laoshi -- I haven't written yet cuz I'm dumb.
4) Eat better. I've fallen into the "buy some cheese and crackers and eat it for dinner" mode. Yeah -- not good. I just feel so sick all the time otherwise though -- western diets corrupt the body.
5) Ignore shopping. Even though I'm going to have a suit made next week. My roomie and I were speculating the cost of a custom made suit in America made from the material we found here. We estimated about $2500. I'm hoping the wonderfully, nice, old shopkeeper (he looks 110 years old) will hook it up -- he has probably been in business for 90 years.
6) start excercising. I think i might join the boxing club. it is cheaper than the workout facility. plus the workout facility has nothing more than a few hamster wheels and free weights - plus it runs $40USD/month.

Ok. Back to the regularly scheduled program.

Last Monday, my class and I went to a tea village southwest of Hangzhou. I was pretty frustrated by the whole unorganization of the process. We were supposed to leave at 1 PM to have lunch there. The van was not available. 2 PM rolls around -- we are still waiting (after having been told 1:30, then 1:45). Finally leave at 2:15. By this time, I was starving and grumpy from not eating all day. I sat in the front seat -- and low and behold - the driver doesn't know where he's going! He speaks no English, so I gave up trying to direct him via the map. After a while, we finally get there. The food was ready for us -- slightly cold of course. It was decent, nothing special though. A bit expensive for what we received. As is life. Afterwards, we all headed to the shopkeeper's place to buy some tea. Everything is sold "per jin" -- 1 jin = 1/2 kilo = about 1.1 pounds. They had 4 varieties: 800 Y; 700Y; 200Y; 100Y per jin. We decided to purchase a jin of the 200Y kind. Ian and I split this with Miikka and ended up with 5 canisters of really nice tea.



Entire Tea Village set

After the tea village, we headed to a bamboo forest. By this time, everyone was cranky -- the 8Y entry fee didn't make things better either. Luckily, I was able to go off by myself for a while and enjoy nature. This really made me miss both Denver and my hometown. Very rarely does a person get time with no one around here. I loved this place. The bamboo forest seemed slightly manufactured though. The bamboo was real, yes -- but it seemed like the forest was planted there and maintained as a bamboo forest. Regardless, it was nice.



Entire Bamboo Forest set

A bunch of other stuff to say, but I'm tired now. Hopefully will update tomorrow. Until next time.

posted by Mike @ 10:30 PM