what i’ve been missing. a salami sandwich, a salad with peaches, carrots, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes topped with oil and vinegar. yes, olive oil. i had a grilled cheese sandwich yesterday and a pb & jelly sandwich today. hehe…it’s been too long.

i’ve been in china almost three years but this to my memory is the first time to make my own salad and sandwich. wow… last week i saw a classmate’s section of the third floor refrigerator packed full of her goodies. i wanted to do the same. on sunday i went to the grocery store again. i bought 400RMB ($58) worth of groceries. that’s insane because if i ate what i usually do, something chinese, that could last me over a month (breakfast, lunch and dinner)!

NTS: do not shop at the grocery store in wangfujing anymore. wal-mart has got to be cheaper.

olive oil is the price of two people eating a good meal with a couple of drinks. (遥遥头) cereal, deli meat, cheese, spices, i haven’t stocked up on thee things before. back home though $50 at the grocery store wouldn’t open my eyes. but it’s been so long since i’ve done so. i kinda feel like i spent too much. 环境会改变人

anyways..

I’ve been in China for one year. I studied Chinese for one month in Beijing at BLCU. In Taiwan, I haven’t taken any classes until just recently with my one-on-one. I was studying on my own off and on for the past few months. While in Taiwan, I’ve been learning mostly from just living experiences and trying to speak the language. Like at the post office, bank and with friends. One time I had to write a note to the person living below me to help get my t-shirt that had fallen. I had to look up quite a few words when I wanted to buy my motorcycle and wanted some repairs done.

Before coming to China I studied for about 1 year. Though I didn’t finish a year’s worth of material. That is I took my first semester of Chinese during my senior year in college. Two years later I took Chinese 101 again part-time while I was working at a community college. I took two semesters partime there but we only finished Level 1, Part 1 of the Integrated Chinese Series. I like that textbook and bought Part 2 before I left the States. Now, with my teacher we are using it. There’s a textbook, character book and workbook. I like it because the dialogues and character book use both simplified and traditional characters.

I was thinking about going to ShiDa to study but I didn’t like the textbooks much and also going to class everyday would make me really busy. Shida and the other schools foreigners usually go to use the same textbook (like TaiDa or WenHua…). The dialogues are only in traditional characters and I didn’t like the topics. I think it’s because I like what I started with.

When I was studying on my own I was working on radicals. This proved to be really beneficial because I have been trying to read everything on the street and can understand quite a bit more now. When I first got to Taiwan I could only read words here and there. I’ve been using this book, The Most Common Chinese Radicals by Zhang Pengpeng. This book doesn’t give the traditional characters with vocabulary words so I always used another book to look up each word. This was really tedious at first but I got used to it and now like to do it. I use this book, Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary by Rick Harbaugh, it has proven to be wonderful. It helps to understand, appreciate and remember Chinese characters by looking at how the character came to be. In this way, I really like traditional characters. I like reading them and seeing how they’re made of different parts. But I don’t like writing them too much. I write using simplified because it’s easier and what I started with.

So, my level of Chinese. I’ve been studying for two years but not continuously. From now on it will be. I’d say I’m a beginning intermediate (中級). I focused on speaking in the beginning and now that and my listening are better than my reading and writing. But sometimes I get stumped easily. My vocabulary isn’t big enough, my grammar is often wrong and my speech is very simple. I need to stop hanging around the elementary level (初級) and move on up.

Take long walks often.

I went for a stroll yesterday morning because I had to drop off my motorcycle at the shop. On the way back I stopped at the Forestry Museum and the Heritage and Culture Education Center. Walked through two markets close to my house I never knew were there. Found a bustling restaurant with meat congee to return to. Next semester I have Tuesdays off and that will be my day to roam about.