Day One

2/28/10 6:35 PM

I don’t know how to react, is probably the best thing to say. It’s the lantern festival, which (I think) means its two weeks after the Chinese new year, and they’re celebrating one last time. Going up to Naiyi’s apartment, in the elevator, a guy was loading on a bunch of fireworks. And the same is true for the rest of the city. I mostly hear the bangs, but now I’m seeing a nice flurry far off in the city. I wonder if it is official, and not consumer-grade like I’m hearing.

But, I’ve been distracted by the bangs. The family is very nice, but I don’t think I’m what they expected. I told them I’d been taking mandarin every day for four years, which is essentially true, but gives the impression that I can communicate. Which I really can’t. I think I hear the sounds of hundreds of car alarms going off, across the city, because of the fireworks. Everything They want to say to me, or I want to say to them, essentially has to go through Naiyi, who is far better at English than I am at Mandarin. Which I was expecting, but I didn’t quite expect how much I wind up asking of him, and how embarrassing it feels, in general. I’d gotten the impression on the flight over, by reading the subtitles of Finding Nemo and Whip It! twice each, that I had some sort of handle on the language. But I don’t. This is me not kidding myself. Not bringing my Mandarin book was on the order of idiotic.

There was something of a kerfuffle (I spelled that right on the first try) around the computer situation. I wanted to use my computer, and (I have enough mandarin to generally, occasionally understand what they’re talking about, but not enough to respond in an intelligent and relevant way) they talked about how the computer they have in my room is expensive and that it should be used. I invited Naiyi to use it whenever he would like, as he normally would, but I think it might take some work to get him to feel comfortable with it. The computer makes a “knocking” sound every once in a while. I have no explanation for this. In China, (because, after all, “knocking” is onomatopoeia in our language, too), “knock” is “ke,” as in “ke ke ke” for knock knock knock, so when the computer “knocks,” it sounds more like “ke ke ke.” I think I remember that the same thing happens with interpreting duck quacks and things. Dog barks, and whatnot.

3/1/10 7:52 PM

First day of school. Pretty amazing. Naiyi’s dad drove us to school, which I sort of think will be the norm, even though we took the underground home. More on that later. The driving is basically what you’d expect, but more so. People drive like they walk, I heard someone say, which is a very good way of putting it. I’m not sure why they even put one-way streets in China, because you have people going both ways, on bikes, motorcycles, and cars, regardless. I was going to say “two lanes of traffic” instead of “people going both ways,” but there aren’t really lanes to speak of. Traffic lights are obeyed, which I was surprised by, and turn signals are used often. Despite this, you can’t be lazy, and cars will hit you if you’re in their way. Everyone has the right of way.

Oh, this morning I had a fruit drink for breakfast, which was very interesting. Made with apples and oranges and cucumbers. Baba likes to have it, because it makes breakfast very simple, and he gets extra sleep. That way he looks younger than he is. I said, “I can see that,” and he laughed. We were received in the reception room again, which I’ll have to take a picture of, because we’re beginning to spend a lot of time in there, and it seems important. I remember the kids from last year talking about the comfy couches, and now I realize their “comfiness” is relative to the other beds and chairs, which tend to be rock solid. My bed, (grammatically difficult joke about my tail-bone not thanking me for sitting on it), is quite hard, but the sheets are very warm (because no one can stop talking about how cold it is, and they won’t believe me when I tell them I’m used to it), and I slept through a constant stream of fireworks last night, so I think I’ll manage. They say it’s good for the back.

We were officially welcomed to the school today, which took place in an empty-but-one-single-class auditorium. We were only told to prepare a short speech, but weren’t told any of the rest of the ceremonial whatsis. So, we got up awkwardly when the rest of the auditorium got up, and were told to sit back down by the English teacher under whose wing we’ve been taken, and realized that it was the Chinese national anthem they were singing, and there was misstep 1. Then, remaining standing, they sang the school song, which was a very snazzy thing to hear, as a mildly music-theory-familiar sort of guy. Nice cadence at the end. The principle gave a speech, which I thought was very professionally delivered, but just turned out to be a pretty straightforward account of what our collective deal was, when translated later. Then we were invited on stage. I was sitting in the closest seat to the stage, so I figured I’d lead the way, and then I figured I’d grab the mic, and then I figured I’d say “zao,” for good morning, and then I realized that everyone thought it was ridiculous that the teacher from America wasn’t addressing the school first. So I handed the mic over, and she read a very nice prepared speech, which got laughs at her smiley awkwardness and her good try at speaking, and handed the mic to me. I, which I later found out, hardly spoke into the mic at all and no one could hear what I thought was a very good series of pause-laden mandarin sentences to exactly the same effect, I later found out, of my peers.

We got a tour of the school, and got shown the physics and bio and chem labs, which were very well equipped, even about as well equipped as our own. It is wonderful how universal everything is. In our physics class in 10^th grade, we did a bunch of experiments with cars down a track, to learn about simple, 1-dimensional motion. We would hook up a car to a weight, which would hang off a pulley, that, when released, would cause the car to move, the movement of which would be recorded by a fancy measuring device that recorded how fast the car was moving. This information would be sent straight to the computer, in a program that would graph a distance/time graph for us, and we could analyze from there. They have the exact same set up. When I started gesturing to my peers how the cars worked (they don’t care for physics), the teacher recognized that I knew how it worked. Similar, but less exciting things happened in both the bio and chem labs. 

It’s funny the sort of things that are uniformly different. Light switches and stairs, mostly. The switches are mostly unremarkable, but the stairs. Oh, the stairs. There are almost always two metal strips at the front of each step, designed to meet the ball of the foot, for gripping the stairs, but in fact, when properly installed, promotes a constant state of uneasiness. Thankfully, many steps in the city at large have these strips removed, but the school and apartments and things like Naiyi’s building have the firmly in place. Whether a link was established between the epidemic of broken jaws and these strips and they were intentionally removed or angry stair-goers unleashed their own style of vigilante justice remains uncertain.

There is a TV channel, ICS, International Channel Shanghai, that Naiyi and I watch. It has a lot of American-and-otherwise-English-speaking shows, with mandarin subtitles. It is good for both of us to watch. We speak during the commercials, (which is quite long, mom, so don’t worry). I have a great picture of iCarly (please don’t make me explain this, other than that it is prefabricated Disney Channel pap) with mandarin subtitles.

 My vocab surprises me, sometimes, even though I’m much more consistently surprised by Naiyi’s vocab. He woke me up with a “ke ke ke” (have you read the one before? I don’t feel like explaining this again), and I fairly quickly remembered the phrase (or an improvised, ad hoc version of the same) for “come in,” even though I was awaking from the sleep of an 18 year old who had not slept for nearly 30 hours.

More school stuff? We worked on getting our classes today, which was fun. I mentioned cooking, because I thought I remembered last year’s kids having done some traditional cooking, but they hadn’t, so it wound up sort of imposing upon the school to arrange a cooking venue of sorts. This line of thought distracts me into a more interesting discussion of food, in general, and now I realize that talking about classes that we only might have is sort of stupid, especially since I’ll be able to talk about the classes that I will have tomorrow, tomorrow. The food tends to be sort of spicy, which I realized yesterday somewhat, but today a lot more. It’s an entirely different spice, though, than what we tend to think of as “spicy.” Not hot or peppery or stingy, but tangy and like a general push on the mouth, rather than a series of pricks. It is very often an integral part of the flavor, and generally a welcome addition to the food.

I’m beginning to realize that there is no way I’ll possibly be able to say all that I’m thinking, so I’m going to list things that happened. Hopefully they’ll be compelling enough on their own.

-      Went to KFC right when I got off the underground. It was amazing seeing the stream of people leave from the underground and walk straight into KFC. Must be busy constantly. Spiciest thing I’ve eaten yet. Quite good, but I’m not generally a fan of fried chicken, which, despite what they say, is fairly similar to what we’ve got over in the states. This isn’t just a bullet point. It has a description also. I’ll be better next time.

-      We met Jason, a crazy cool kid who speaks perfect American English, and hung out with the trip from last year. Can do a killer Mr. Brooke imitation, and is tired of Jessie talking to him on IM all the time.

-      We’re going to read a passage about the Phantom of the Opera to Gao lao shi’s English class. Rote memorization. Awesome.

-      Those commercials for “occasional irregularities” have followed me to Shanghai. You know, those ones for Dannon yogurt to treat “occasional irregularities” in women’s digestive tracks? I want to ask how they translate “occasional irregularities,” but I have no idea how to approach the question.

-      We went into a Starbucks, and realized that the coffee with a reasonable amount of fixin’s is about as expensive as a hair dryer, so we just sat around and watched a guy play world of warcraft on his laptop. It looks identical to American Starbucks.

-      I have yet to buy something, I just realized. Naiyi ordered my KFC burger. I’ve said “bu yao” a couple times to tourist-attack street vendors, translated literally (and famously [those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, search “do not want star wars translation” on youtube]) to “Do not want.”

-      Everything is government infused, somehow. More on this once my thoughts solidify.

-      There was a chopsticks dispenser in the teacher’s lunch room.

-      I’ve been complemented on my chopstick skills. Gao lao shi, the English teacher mentioned before, brings her own spoon along to school, because she’s not adept enough with chopsticks. I really want to buy my own pair. They seem to have a uniform style of dark, treated, wooden chopsticks to be used as public utensils, like a college would have metal forks and knives to be washed and put out the next day. There is also some (man, I’m tired. My sentence structure is going out the window) personal chopsticks, which I noticed my mama has one, (the only one I’ve seen), like a more popular version of dad’s fork. Same basic cut, length and feel (which is much more robust than the wimpy wooden ones we get from restaurants) as the public ones, but with a more refined design to it. I want to buy at least one of each.

-      I think I can buy security cameras for about 15 bucks. I’m racking my brains for an excuse to buy one. 

-      It’s easy to write off the city as impractical, ridiculous and dirty, but there is a constant sort of magic to it. Again, this needs more thought put into it, but merits a larger discussion later on.

-      First thing I saw in the morning was the remains of fireworks from last  night, since cleaned up. (Certainly a part of the planned discussion above.)

-      The gesture that I would interpret to mean “go away,” actually means “come here” in China.

-      I’m beginning to think the education problem in the states can be attributed to the culture at large, as can the drinking problem. What else do you think happens when you base an entire country around the concept of entitlement?

-      All of my applications are internet-based, both on the iphone and on my computer, and wi-fi is basically nowhere to be found, or maybe not a good idea to use.

-      I Purell’d my feet the other day after my shower.

-      The school’s bells announcing class changes are awesome bits of music. I’m reminded of the Curse of the Golden Flower.

-      The Elegant Universe is superb. Not that it has anything to do with China. But its superb.

-      I can’t even understand “how did you feel today,” apparently. My dad came in and asked how things went, and I can basically respond in bits and pieces, with a slow reaction time, but I’m really frustrated with how useless my mandarin vocab is. Last year, far more time was spent learning genres and descriptions of movies and tv than directions and transportation vocab. And here I find myself, on the Chinese underground, and I don’t know how to say “how many more stops until I get off the train?” Which I could say, at one point, in the sterile class environment, but certainly not on the wicked crowded train thing. I want to ask the English teacher here to help work on the curriculum back at school, but I’ll need to approach her for that later. A diplomatic sort of request.

-      I’m tired.

-      There is a noodle stand directly across from the school, were they make fresh noodles outside. I’m going to go there for lunch soon. Naiyi says its very good, which means it’s incredibly delicious, because what he thinks of as even sort of good is far better (I love you, mom!) than most of what we (the “collective America” sort of “we,” not the “immediate family” sort of “we”) eat.

-      I’m tired.

-      The mother won’t let me help with preparing the meal or doing the laundry or anything. I’m going to offer again, but I feel like she really wants to be hospitable, and would be disappointed or put out or something.

-      Same goes for me paying for stuff. I wanted to pay for my underground pass, and for my KFC burger, but it didn’t work. Naiyi already had a pass for me, and he put the burger on his card, and all I had was a ¥100 (alt+Y on macs = ¥, the currency symbol for the Chinese Yuan), so I couldn’t really break it.