上课了！

It's the first day of class tomorrow. I have my first 汉语 hanyu language class tomorrow at 8am in the morning! I have not had an 8am class since my first semester of Freshman year. Class blocks are 1 hour and 50 minutes each.. so unlike the 50 minutes class blocks that we have back in Miami. I am either going to be half asleep throughout class or awake and alert throughout it. I'm hoping it's going to be the latter. I was just having a corridor conversation with a bunch of my program people, and one of them is a CIEE student from last semester. Her Chinese name is Hua Mulan.. Yeah, Mulan from the Disney movie. She's this really charismatic African American from California... and boy is she Chinese. No... she is really Chinese... She knows all the happening places to go to at nights, she knows where to get really good street food, she has no qualms about jumping queues and elbowing other Chinese people to get in line. Her Chinese is a combination of African American slang and Beijing slang. It is awesome! Never have I seen, or heard anyone like her before. Totally perfect amazing mix of two of would seem like very opposite cultures. I wonder if I will ever actually become familiar with Beijing as much as she has. One of the past students told me that the best way to get to know local Chinese people is to just randomly talk to them when standing in line or when in a bar. That is how the made friends with the locals. How am I ever supposed to do that? I don't even feel comfortable enough with randomly chatting with people in America or even in Malaysia for that matter! Will I be able to get to know how to move around the city by myself, will I be able to point out to other people which restaurant is better to eat at, or which street food vendor has the cheapest food? That would be so amazing if I could be an 'almost Beijing-er' at the end of these few months.. then when my mum comes over, I can actually be her tour guide and show her around.

Annika (my roommate) and I met with our tutor for dinner today. It was pretty awkward. I have not experienced communication breakdowns due to language barriers in a very long time. The one that stands out most in my memory was when I was on the plane to Dayton. Hui, Joliana and were all sitting on the exit aisle. It was my first time flying alone and my first time sitting in the exit aisle. You know how before the plane takes off, the stewardess comes to ask you if you are willing to help others out of the exit during an emergency landing...? And if you are unwilling, they will switch your seats? Yeah.. the stewardess asked me that.. and I could not for the life of me understand what she was saying. The American accent was just completely above me. I kept shaking my head and saying no and she kept asking me if I wanted to change seats, and I kept saying no and shaking my head. I don't think Hui and Joliana realized what was happening with me since we weren't sitting next to each other. In the end the stewardess just gave up and decided to let me be. It was only halfway through the flight that I randomly picked up the safety card and started reading it that I understood what she was asking me... That was my first communication breakdown in America. Today I had my first one in China. Actually, it isn't my first one. I've had quite a few, duh. But this one was really long and intense. It was pretty difficult trying to have even a decent conversation when you have absolutely no idea what words to use to convey what you wanted to say. Luckily she could understand a little English, and so Annika and I could mix it up a little to make ourselves understood. It was truly an experience. Oh and we had dinner at one of the cafeterias and she brought me to her favorite stall that had Guangdong and Fujian food.. (Yes daddy, Fujian food). And I was like.. 啊我是福建人！(I am Hokkien) I have to admit, I got rather excited with eating Fujian food, not like I could really differentiate it with other Chinese food.... and it wasn't like I really knew what to order or how to read the menu (as usual). Decided on the conventional 牛肉面 beef noodles in the end. But still, I was excited.

Okay, time for a shower, a cup of hot water (yeah, I've gotten used to drinking hot water from my red Chinese flask every night and every morning), an attempt at reading through my first chapter of my book and then off to bed!