Level 2

After a two month break, I am back in classes. With just a week finished, things are going well and I am getting back into the routine. Though I have been incredibly tired each night as my brain gets used to working again! :-) Both of my teachers seem really good. But I must confess that I find my grammar/character teacher just a little scary. She is an incredible teacher, but just on the strict side (from the old school of teaching in China). And can I just say for the record, that I think level 2 is going to be hard!? But I will attempt to prevail in this ongoing battle against Chinese....

One change this term is that I am riding the bus every day (last term I was fortunate enough to get a ride with a friend on the way to school). Just a week down, and I have already had bus adventures. One day there was an accident further up the road fairly closer to where I get off. Traffic was just stopped. In fact, the bus driver had turned off the bus. After sitting there for several minutes, I knew that I was going to be late for class if I didn't get out and just walk it. So I went up and asked the driver if I could get off. He wasn't happy about it (we were not at a stop) and grumbled for a few minutes but let me off. I had this suspicion that I would start walking only for the bus to pass me a few minutes later. Thankfully I was proved wrong on that count and the bus never did catch up to me. Another day I was humored to hear two people talking about me as they sat behind me. Just as a side note, this happens ALL the time. Many laowi (a slang word for "foreigners") who live here can't speak Chinese, so most Chinese assume that they are safe discussing the laowi right in their presence. Sometimes as people are discussing me, I join in the discussion (and often shock them speechless) and sometimes I just let it go and eavesdrop. This time I opted for the second route. A little girl was sitting with her grandpa and the conversation went something like this:

Girl: Yeye (grandpa), why does that foreigner have golden hair?

Yeye: Why do you have black hair?

Girl: I don't know. I have never seen hair like that. How did it get like that?

Yeye: It just is.

I must say that I really like the yeye's response. Cause after all, we are each just people -- individually and wonderfully created. Though it can be hard to see that diversity in a country of 1.something billion people who look very much like you do.