December 5, 2012

It has been a while since I've posted...that's due to a combination of being busier these days, not carrying around my notebook as often and then forgetting gags that I would normally share, and mainly just settling into a daily routine where not much "new" happens.  I could write a daily breakdown of the driving challenges that happened that day, but know that would get boring to most. 

Speaking of challenges, I heard this thing about the word in Chinese for both challenge and opportunity is the same.  Meant to ask my teacher about that one today and forgot, but I am doubting that is true as it sounds like motivational speak to me.  Chinese class is getting harder for sure.  If it was just vocabulary memorization, it wouldn't be so bad, but the sentence structure is just so different that the combination of the two is intimidating and is making the need to study more (and post entries less).  We lost the Grandma for good and Wales has put up the white flag.  She said today that she is just going to keep coming in hopes of picking up a word or two.  We added two new students that came back from the level two class as they were struggling and wanted to re-learn the level one stuff.  One of them is from Russia and is the sister-in-law of one of our closer friends here...met her when we were both drunk at Octoberfest.  She seems nice and well prepared, and she was funny the night we got loaded, but she doesn't like Maya Pizza preferring the thicker crust at the Pizza Hut.  No one is perfect I guess.  The other lady is an American and haven't decided if I like her or not yet.  We were learning about the days off the week today and the teacher asked what day is the start of the week for the Chinese and gave us the hint that it is based on the Bible.  American lady said Sunday, but the teacher said that it is Monday (and on the 7th day he rested and all).  America said that she was wrong as she is Jewish and I volunteered that God was a Jew 

Have been trying to work on my Chinese with the doormen and so I was asking one of the guys his name.  Mr Chang was his name and I told him mine was John.  John is pretty common and he had no problem with that, but then he asked my daughter Carolyn what her name was.  When we named her, we did not give much thought to how the name would sound to the Chinese...the letter "L" is not an easy one for them to say and comes out more like an "R".  Always smile when my mother-in-law tries to say it, but when the doorman tried to say Carolyn in his deep voice, it sounded like Frankenstein as he was just getting off the table.  I am sensitive to others hacking up English as I know I am pulverizing Mandarin, so try not to laugh, but the way he said her name was damn hilarious.

We have a friend in town this week...Carolyn's best friend since forever's dad (Kevin) works for HTC, which is a Taiwanese company, and he is here this week on business.  We got to hang out with him last Sunday and was nice to share some of our experiences first hand with one of our Homies.  He was interested in seeing bike shops as he is an avid cyclist and Taiwan manufactures a lot of top end brands.  Before moving here, my mentality had always associated Made in Taiwan with cheap crap.  This sentiment comes from my youth when Taiwan was in their manufacturing infancy and you would only see that label on cheap t-shirts or other crappy merchandise.  But they have come a long way and now manufacture 1/3 of the worlds laptops and other high tech gear, and high performance clothing and bicycles.  A local friend of ours swears by the audio equipment made by this company called Usher.  Kevin has traveled a lot in his life and we were sharing some of our cultural observations.  One of mine has to do about how diet affects body oder and how I noticed that mine has changed since arrival...much more garlic-y.  We both agreed that people from India smell of curry and he was telling me of a trip he made there and asked an Indian fella what Westerners smell like.  The guy was so happy because no one had ever asked him before and he told Kevin that we smell of dairy.  Totally makes sense.

Another reason for my diary posting absence has been that I have been studying up for our trip to Italy...reading some history books and planning our daily schedule.  Today, just purchased tickets for the whole family to see Roma AS play InterMilan at Olympic Stadium the night we get in.  Totally pumped up for that.  Other exciting tours booked are of the Coliseum and Forum area and a X-mas Eve tour of the Vatican.  Can hardly wait to see the Sistine Chapel.  Only a couple weeks away!  Going to have to work on some new Italian jokes...did I tell this one already?  Why do Italian men wear gold chains?  So they know where to stop shaving.