Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Mental gymnastics – My first Chinese class

I was evaluated by a Chinese instructor at Microsoft and put in the B class. Instead of the toddler class which is A. That is because the past 10 months in Redmond I studied some Chinese by myself. So last night I went to the B class for the first time. I was mentally exhausted after 1.5 hours. I could only understand 30% of the things being said. The classes are from 6:30PM-8PM. After a full day of work I am not sure how much my brain will absorb that material. But I have to stick to it and see what happens.

Work is going well. We are making good progress. But after so many years of managing projects it comes pretty naturally to manage risk, resources, schedules, etc. My biggest challenge at the moment is a pretty mundane one. I have a big load of laundry which I am not sure what to do with. The hotel wants to charge me US prices and almost wash each sock separately. So I need to find another reasonable alternative. I am very glad I brought everything from Redmond with me because buying little things are very inconvenient and time consuming. It took a few hours to buy a deodorant. I was looking for something without antiperspirant but since I could not read any of the labels I had to choose one almost randomly.

This reminds me of interesting conversation. As I was scratching my brain looking at the deodorant a Chinese girl started to talk to me to ask me for advice on which one she should buy for her boyfriend. I was pretty impressed. Generally people try to avoid having conversation in English if they can. It was her first time buying a deodorant and she was not sure which one to choose. I tried to explain the concept of antiperspirant but I am not sure she fully got it. Eventually she just picked the one that I chose at random. J

For the next class I need to memorize these. Both the Pingying (Romanized characters) and the Chinese characters. It is pretty hopeless at this point. Hopefully it will get better soon.

Morning

Zaoshang3

早上

First

Xian1

Brush teeth

Shua1 ya2

刷牙

Then, afterward

Ran2hou4

然后

Take a shower

Xi3 zao3

洗澡

Wear, put on

Chuan1

穿

Clothing

Yi1

衣服

Slice

Pian4

bread

mian4bao2

面包

Drink

He1

Cup, glass

Bei1

Coffee

Ka1fei1

咖啡

Classroom

Jiao4shi4

教室

Sometimes

You3 shi2hou

有时候

Noon

Zhong1wu3

中午

Dining hall, canteen

Can1ting1

餐厅

Lunch

Wu3fan4

午饭

Participate

Can2jia1

参加

About

Zuo3you4

左右

Write

Xie3

Homework

Huo4zhe3

或者

Surf internet

Shang4 wang3

上网

go to bed

Shang4 chuang2

上床

Sleep

Shui4jiao4

睡觉


3 comments:

joe_dadzie said...

Good for you man.

Ju Gordon said...

Hi David:
Wld appreciate your advise:
To apply for a Z visa, you'll need to get a health check first. Did you get this in Beijing?
What documents do you submit to the Consultate in Hongkong?
Thank you: Ju Gordon

David Dehghan said...

yes. you can get your health check exam done in Beijing. There is a special hospital for that purpose. It will take about 2hrs.