I don’t understand this weather. Yesterday was the biggest thunderstorm of my life, and today is so ridiculously hot that you can see sweat through my shirt. Anyways, this morning I was late to class by an hour because I overslept, but so did Geneva and Joanna, so I didn’t feel so bad. Actually, Geneva didn’t go to class at all because she overslept, and Joanna came about an hour after I did. Anyways, class was alright today. Same as always. I think I’m burning out, though, because I’m not studying as much as I did at the beginning and I don’t listen as much in class. I’m still keeping up, but not as much as I used to. It’s hard to motivate myself to work that hard again…I feel like I just need a rest from Chinese, but I have to keep studying it everyday. After class, I came back to the hotel to CHANGE CLOTHES because I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, which was NOT a good idea. But after that, I had to walk BACK to school because our teacher is going to the doctor on Thursday, so she taught us Thursday’s lesson today. So, we had class for two extra hours today, but don’t start class until two hours later tomorrow (yay! I get to sleep in! Sort of. Class starts at 10 instead of 8). Anyways, after that I walked back to the hotel from class, and it started RAINING AGAIN. I hate this weather. I completely don’t understand it. In less than 10 minutes, it went from bright, sunny, and SUPER HOT to dark, cloudy, and raining with thunder. Completely ridiculous. Anyways, after I got back, Raintree came over to practice Chinese with me and Joanna again. Yeah, for like 2 hours. So, that’s a total of 6.5 hours devoted to learning Chinese today. That’s a whole lot of Chinese. I’m Chinese’d out. Luckily I don’t have to start class tomorrow until 10am, so it’ll be good to sleep in.
Man, all the Fudan students are starting to move into their dorms on campus. As I walk through campus everyday, there are tons of families and students moving their things in, and it makes me sad! I want to move into my new townhouse in SD too!
OH, so something I wanted to put in my blog that I forgot to put was that on Sunday, after we got out of church, we were trying to get a taxi to go to the subway station, and then two white ladies just out of nowhere come over and take our taxi! They were clearly foreigners because they had a terrible Chinese accent. As they were getting into OUR taxi that WE flagged down, they said, “对不起 (dui bu qi)” which means “Sorry.” I was so shocked that I didn’t say anything, but now I’m like, wtheck was that?? First of all, we clearly flagged down that taxi and we were waiting for a taxi before they were, so it was CRYSTAL clear that it was OUR taxi. I mean, I might expect a local Chinese person to steal my taxi, but even then I’d be a little surprised. The Chinese people that I’ve encountered aren’t even that rude. But these were two white ladies, who clearly weren’t local. I mean, in China, everyone kinda does their own thing even if it’s rude, because that’s just the culture. Like, it’s not rude to push people out of the way, because that’s their culture. But in other cultures like in America, that is rude. In most cultures there’s a consideration for the other people around you, even if you don’t know them, but not in China. That’s definitely something I’m learning to deal with. A lot of times I’ll attribute a person’s behavior to their personality, but I have to remind myself that that’s just how the culture is…there’s no rude or courteous in China, it’s just culture, so it’s not like they know they’re being rude to you. But anyways, back to my story. Since the women were clearly foreigners, I felt like they should have this sense of courtesy since they’re most likely from a culture where stealing a taxi from someone else is in fact considered rude. I think that’s why it took me so much by surprise, because I totally did not expect them to be rude to us, especially since we just got out of church (they were in the church service with us). And on top of that, they didn’t provide an explanation or anything, they just got in the taxi and left. And on top of that, they said sorry, which doesn’t make it any better that you’re stealing my taxi. And on top of that, they said it in Chinese, which shouldn’t really surprise me given that I look Chinese, but for some reason it did.
I’ve gotten used to being stared at when I speak English and being given funny looks when a Chinese person finds out that I don’t speak Chinese, but for some reason it surprised me when this foreigner considered me a local. I don’t even know why that surprised me. It really shouldn’t, since I do look Chinese. So why did it bother me? Maybe because I identify myself as an American, so when she spoke to me in Chinese it was like she misidentified me and because my identity as an American is so obvious to me, it surprised me. Or maybe because her classification of me as Chinese bothered me because I am American like her (I’m assuming she was), but she didn’t consider me one. So it was like I didn’t belong in her group, but I don’t belong with the Chinese either. Like an identity crisis. Or maybe it bothered me because it reminded me that I don’t look like the stereotypical person of the country I identify with. I’m not Caucasian, so I will always be mistaken for Chinese. Not that I’m not Chinese, but I’m Chinese-American; the key word for me there is American, though. It’s probably a mixture of all those things. I don’t know why it bothered me so much; it actually bothers me that it bothers me so much. What a silly little loop I have going on.
On a side note, I feel completely out of tune with American pop culture. On Facebook, there was a list of the top 10 box office movies for the week, and I haven’t heard of ANY of them. Granted, I don’t usually really keep up with movies when I’m at home either, but usually I’ve heard of at least ONE of the box office toppers. I’d also like some pancakes. With chocolate chips, or blueberries, but not both.
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