One of the highlights of this, my first week in Taiyuan, (the city I will be living and teaching in for the next ten months) has been the delightful car rides with our driver, Mr. Wang. He is the Head of the Transportation Department at Shanxi Modern Bilingual School, SMBS, where we will start teaching Monday. :)
At first, when the three American girls piled in his car to go to the police station to get residence permits, he didn't say much. But after a little "Ni hao, ni zhenmeyang?" (Hello, what's up?) .. (pardon my loose translation..) And a little singing along to his party mix of music, he started to chat with us. Or rather, chat AT us, because to be honest, we weren't getting much transfer of information to happen. However, using some of my very rudimentary Chinese, I let him know that we were all Americans, we were all teachers, and that our Chinese was not good. "Wo de Zhongwen bu hao."
Then, the Chinese lessons commenced. Wang Laoshi was at the wheel, driving us through the buzzing, dusty streets of Taiyuan, pointing at things and telling us the Chinese names. Occasionally he would say a phrase in Chinese and ask us how to say it in English. I did a lot of "wo ting bu dong" (I hear, not understand) and he would laugh and say "ni ting bu dong" right back. (you hear, not understand.)
I learned so much Chinese in two car rides with him, including:
At first, when the three American girls piled in his car to go to the police station to get residence permits, he didn't say much. But after a little "Ni hao, ni zhenmeyang?" (Hello, what's up?) .. (pardon my loose translation..) And a little singing along to his party mix of music, he started to chat with us. Or rather, chat AT us, because to be honest, we weren't getting much transfer of information to happen. However, using some of my very rudimentary Chinese, I let him know that we were all Americans, we were all teachers, and that our Chinese was not good. "Wo de Zhongwen bu hao."
Then, the Chinese lessons commenced. Wang Laoshi was at the wheel, driving us through the buzzing, dusty streets of Taiyuan, pointing at things and telling us the Chinese names. Occasionally he would say a phrase in Chinese and ask us how to say it in English. I did a lot of "wo ting bu dong" (I hear, not understand) and he would laugh and say "ni ting bu dong" right back. (you hear, not understand.)
I learned so much Chinese in two car rides with him, including:
- the names of almost every vehicle likely to be found on the streets of any city, including
- truck
- car
- bike
- motorbike
- fire truck
- taxi
- cement truck
- van
- small van
- bus
- trolley
- electric bike
- Random vocabulary to do with music, such as:
- Mongolian music
- Singing,
- Dancing,
- louder/softer
- Shanxi music
- And much, much more.
P.S. Roomie commitment was made today. In addition to our page of "Things we are Thankful For Today" that we write each night, we will also look up one Chinese word/Character to learn and practice and write down. Let's see if we can do it. Tonight's word is brown sugar, because we had a hilarious time in the store today trying to find it. I think I asked where the "red salt" was, at one point. Whoops.
