Day 99 - Day to Day

Monday, May 16th, 2016

Smog Level: 3/3 Mountains

Degradation

As the weeks have passed, the walkway on the way to the gym has been getting progressively worse. First it was one brick-slate that was kicked loose, then a second, then a couple scattered around.. It was looking pretty torn up and ratty. That is until today! Finally, they have them cemented in place with the particular spots sectioned off. Glad to see they’re finally cleaning the place up a bit.

Non-Carden Side

I Finally Found It

On my way to school, I see Non-carden AJ. I wave to him, and he half-heartedly waves back. Those guys have been acting progressively weirder as time has passed on. They don’t try to talk to me, and seem to feel as though I’ve snubbed them. Not intentional, I just run into them less often. Oh well. 

In Class

On break, I noticed that it’s mostly the girls that swarm me, and the guys go wild in the hall. You’d think the boys would be interested in jumping really high, but I guess not.* The girls will hug me, do push ups, cartwheels, and just demand my attention. I’ve gotten better at drawing the line after a short while. It’s hilarious to see them scatter, shouting when I start counting down from 3. 

I Am Going To

Mandarin class had a small, but significant breakthrough today. I thought I knew most of the temporal words - how to place a statement in time. "Yesterday I did this," "just now I did this," "I’m going to do that," and "later I’ll do this." I only recently learned that huì (can) is used for the middle future - I'm going to do X soon. But today we learned that jiù is the immediate future. I knew the immediate past, gāng, and didn’t realize that this was the future counterpart to it. Awesome. So useful.

'Dem Busses

The class itself is coming together pretty well. Practicing the sounds at the beginning, learn some words, practicing grammar, and then a dialogue. She speaks to us in mandarin for the most part, though a lot of it is lost on me. My ear really sucks at this, still. 

How 'Bout Some Suppah?

After class, Helena and I catch dinner. She asks me, as a foreign guy, if it’s a big deal that she accidentally lost the ring her boyfriend gave her. It depends on the guy, I say, but so long as she’s open and honest, I’m sure he’ll be understanding. If he’s not.. then maybe that’s a sign.

Corruption

We talk about China and the corruption there. One of the things that makes a country poor is corruption, or, at least, what makes a country rich is having less corruption. It seems like it goes all the way to the top. The way we got to this is because of a news story where a reporter lost his job due to going undercover and exposing improperly manufactured immunization shots. 80% of them were not up to standard! And yet the hospital had no penalty - only the reporter was punished for doing his job.

I liked how amazed that guy seems. This was to demonstrate "showing"

It’s so bad sometimes that the seal of approval for some products here are ones that say “no step in production came from China.” This, as far as I can tell, was only for milk because of a scandal where the company had watered their milk down and a lot of babies were sick/killed.

I ask if she plans on staying in China, and she says yes. I encourage her to travel - even just to one or two other countries - before making her decision.

After dinner, I went home.

*In case you forgot, I let them hold onto my arm and have an assisted jump, reaching close to my height.

Words of the Day

English - Mandarin [pronunciation]

Middle future (modifier)
huì
[hway]
e.g. Wǒ huì dǎ nǐ
[wo-ah hway dah nee]
"I'm going to hit you soon"
Immediate Future (modifier)
jiù

[jee-oh]
e.g. wǒ jiù dǎ nǐ, tóngzhì!
[wo-ah jee-oh dah nee]
"I'm literally about to hit you, comrade!"

Editing Music
Dead and Gone
The Black Keys