Today was a busy day. A few hours after we got back from the Bethel tour I was back in my florescently lit bedroom taking a 20 minute nap under the soothing breeze of my new fan, the nap turned into about 35 minutes. I woke up with Chinese curse words on the tip of my tongue (I don't know any, but I could feel them) I threw my Theocratic Chinese Language Learning Binder (my TCLLB) into my back back after putting on a new short sleeved shirt and tie, (the other one from this morning wasn't dry yet, heheh) and hopped on my foot-kick-vehicle (bicycle) feeling that "I look like a Mormon on this thing" feeling that I always feel riding that bike. I raced out of my alley and up Tong An Street, made a bold and risky right turn to save time, and then I merged with traffic along with hundreds of scooters and tens of bikes, and probably a few pedestrians that I don't notice anymore. During my ride I thought about how I was riding my bike with cars and motor scooters. In America drivers are usually pretty unhappy to be behind a bike, but here you're behind a bike, scooter, or a pedestrian more often than behind a car, unless you're on a highway. Also I noticed that I had to slow down for the car in front of me, so most of the side traffic doesn't really move very fast anyway, so why would drivers care either way? But then I don't really know if the drivers get upset with us bikes here, how would I know? I've only been in Taxi's 3 or 4 times when I first got here, and I never understood what they were saying anyway. Traffic has a nice flow to it here though I think, maybe it seems that way because I'm not in a car anymore. But I'm digressing. I'm on my bike behind a taxi, weaving through people overflowing off of the sidewalks, racing towards my "other Chinese class," eying my watch at every turn. The brothers in my hall started a Theocratic Chinese class for us foreigners at 5:30 on Saturdays, even though I only understand about 20% of what's being said it's quite beneficial to my Chinese and encouraging. By the time I locked up my bike and walked into the Kingdom Hall I was 1 minute late to the class, but half the other students were 7 minutes late so nobody noticed. Haha! Bikes are awesome.
We all did a practice presentation in front of the class of about 7 students and then brother Jiu would tell us what was good and what was bad about what we did. He also said something that I have found to be really true he said it Chinese first, then he translated it "They say you don't understand your own language until you learn a foreign language. Then when you learn another language you build on that." I've been almost shocked at how much I don't understand English when people ask me questions about it. All I know is what "sounds right." I've also noticed that with the Taiwanese who speak a little English or whatever, they can simplify their Chinese for you so you can understand them, because they understand what it's like to learn a language, whereas people who don't speak any other languages just talk louder.
You may be either happy or disappointed to hear this, but today, I did not eat any Stinky Tofu. And I didn't even think about it until now. Am I over it? Can I move on with my life? I hope not. (edit 305) Permalink