We've been in Beijing for just about a week and a half now. We have our own apartment, Austin has one small job, and we have learned a handful of Chinese phrases.
First impressions of Beijing? The buildings are big, the pollution is bad, the driving is crazy; there are lots of people and lots of places to buy everything you ever wanted and more; there are nice places and dumpy places...basically, it's exactly like any other big city I've been to anywhere else in the world. (Well, that's just US, Mexico, Canada, and England. But still, they're all basically the same.) The only real differences are that there are WAY more bikes, and I can't understand anything anyone is saying.
So, having studied languages, I know that Chinese is unrelated to English or anything else I've ever learned. But the thing that has been the hardest for me to grasp is that there are NO similarities between the languages--yes, no, vocal inflections...it's blowing my mind! The other day we found out that our landlord's husband studied Spanish, so he and Austin spoke in Spanish for a bit. And even though I don't speak Spanish, I understand enough and I recognize even more. And it was such a relief to my brain to hear a foreign language that I could grasp and understand!
But the good news is that I have learned a few Chinese words now, and when I hear them in conversation, my mind is able to grasp onto them and feel that small sense of relief again. Hopefully I can start to take classes soon. In the meantime, I'll just keep my nose buried in my phrase book and hope I can guess at pronouncing everything correctly.
Carson is definitely a big hit over here. I was warned that people would flock to us and try to touch him and hold him. That hasn't been the case here as much, but he still gets smiles and hellos everywhere we go.
This is such a big city, and this area especially has lots of other foreigners. Again, things just haven't been as different as I thought! This weekend we are going on a camping excursion to the Great Wall. So maybe being out of the city will open my eyes to the real China.
I'll keep you posted as I can. Next step: Get Internet in our apartment!
Hailing you from the other side of the world...
Erynn and Family
3 comments:
It sounds so unreal, I still can't believe you are out there. Be sure to do a little jig on the great wall for me!
Yay for being able to update us! I was worried there would be no contact. Amazing experiences. Good luck.
You guys are great! What an adventure. You probably have a lot of compassion for immigrants to America now. Language barriers.
Thanks for the news.
Post a Comment