五道口 Is a place in Beijing with a lot of universites nearby. Consequentially, it also has a preponderance (your english word of the day) of bars, clubs and restaurants than other areas. Some friends and I are making plans as we speak (well, if you're reading aloud, as you speak, I don't talk to myself when I'm writing) to go there for a night on the town tomorrow evening. Last weekend was quite enjoyable, my cooperate sponsor, Tracy, the kind intern who escorts me to tourist places invited me out with some friends. We met her hometown friend first, who's name is 李娜，lee nah, english name: crystal. She is 24 and working on food safety in china. She informed me that often, in china even though a foodstuff maysay it is safe, it's not always true. Her job is to try and correct that.
Brief interlude: here in China, moreover in Beijing, it's important to be able to tell the difference between real and fake. In america, you can pretty much take it for granted that if something says genuine, it better be, otherwise, some money-grubbing walking hazard of a citizen will find a way to make money off the false advertising through a lawsuit. This is one perspective. Another is, a concerned citizen assumed that if someone claimed something was in fact, genuine, then it was not. Upon realizing the deception, this emotionally and potentially physically injured individual sued the company making false statements for the equivalent value of money to damage dealt. In this fashion, the majority of statements in america are relatively accurate. Relatively. Anyway, here in China, such widespread accountability does not exist as of yet.
When you think about how many people live in Beijing, and how little money most people have, it should come as no surprise that some are taking advantage of this opening.
The chinese terms are 真的 (zhende) and 假的(jiade)。Real and bogus, jen duh or jeeyah duh. Most will freely admit 假的, since you're familiar enough to ask. Not everyone though. Sometimes, it can be hard to be aure as a consumer, as well. While it may sound too good to be true that those fancy Dr. Dre beats headphones only cost 20$, it could just be that the man selling them has a sister working in the factory that can get her hands on runoff. So, while a land of peril (potentially) Beijing is also a land of potential treasure. So many things are actually made China, after all.
So, with that said, I don't feel overly concerned with whether the food I eat is zhende safe or jiade safe. If I'm eating near campus, or as usual, at the campus cafeteria, I should be fine. If I decided to randomly eat from a street cart, the risk would be, do I chance this delicious taste for a terrible gut destroying disease? Usually, I say "No", even though the risk is lower than it seems.
It just seems like a safely hedged bet to me not to eat potentially gut-destroying food.
So, after I met Crystal, we joined two more friends of Tracy's, Henri and 小柏 (Xiaobai she-ow bye)。Henri is Australian, 小柏，obviously, is Chinese. When I first heard Henri speaking, I was astounded at how fluent and casual he sounded with english. His parents are chinese, but live in Australia, so he's here studying Mandarin.
We had a blast dancing with an absolutely crowded dancefloor. When I say crowded, I mean options for arm movement were close to the chest, or above the head, people were packed in so close. You may think that sounds unpleasent, but with cheesy, bad american pop playing, where I know absolutely every song because my friends all listen to it (I'm looking at you, Reuben) and everyone is having a good time without worrying over much about how they dance, (I've seen better, but that's not the point.) the energy of that setup is wonderful. You are all familiar with how light my frame is, so imagine me bouncing around off bodies in a small pinball machine, and you'll get a wildly inaccurate, but fun idea of how the dancing went.
Anyway, we're planning to go for round 2 this time around.
On another note, we had our first chinese test today. I was sick yesterday and didn't even try to attend class, but felt well enough today to get up and move about. The test wasn't terribly challenging, but the sheer amount of new words I've been introduced to over the last 3 weeks (somewhere above 600 and counting) makes studying them all challenging. Luckily. This means I'm learning a lot. But, afterward, I joined my friend 许娟娟 (Xu Juanjuan shhh-ewe jew-ahnjuhwen) at the library, and from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, we studied. There were food breaks and talk about english and chinese breaks, but for the most part, it was good hard studying. I'm turning out to be better at the student thing than I'd thought!
One of the best things I discovered today is that as most crass youngsters in America often do, crass youngsters in China often do the same. For instance, we crass youngsters all like to joke about people who are fond of order as being slightly OCD. The chinese term is 强迫症 (Qiangpozheng Chi-ahn-ge poh gee-uhn-ge). According to 娟娟, if you said this to an older person, they wouldn't understand.
Other than that, I just want to ask, would you like me to continue providing my self-created guide to pronouncing pinyin? It's becoming harder and harder to know how to make certIn sounds using english letters instead of just using pinyin, because that's just the way it sounds, right?
Anyway, will write more soon.
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