While "random photos from around Asia" might not be the greatest blog title this is in essence what these are. I quite like the photo of the Beijing Bird's Nest Stadium and the tourist with the drone from Laos. Overall I think I am most happy with this set of photos. I guess with travel I saw new places so consequently the photos of those places are new. In Shanghai I often did just my daily life or saw the same things several times.
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Note: This is just my observations of English in China, I didn't do any research into the subject nor did I run a scientific test on English in China. A few days ago I ordered a dish at the ECNU canteen called "Beef and Mushroom Rice" and this is what I got. As I read over the Chinese on my receipt I discovered that this dish should have been more properly called "Beef and Mushroom Soup." I am not sure why the translator made the decision to call this "Beef and Mushroom Rice" but it did get me thinking about Sino-English and English in China. There is a surprisingly high level of English proficiency in China. Even if people can't read, write, or speak in English they have a command of the English alphabet since English letters are use for labels. For instance a Shanghai licence plate might be something like "沪AB12345." Furthermore, many young Chinese are taught the characters using Pinyin, which is a system to romanticize Chinese which uses Latin letters. I have noticed that most people's readings stills are above their speaking skills since China's national college entrance exam, the Gaikai, only tests English reading and writing. Chinese high schools will usually focus on only English reading and writing before the test. For the Chinese who can speak English, I have noticed three accents which I will call Sino-British, Sino-American, and Chinese-English (I am not sure if there is an official name for any of these so I just made one up). Most people who speak with a Sino-British or Sino-American accent have studied in ether the UK or the US (sometimes Canada or Ireland but mostly the UK and US) and have kind of picked up the accent of the place where they studied. I have noticed that most of the people who speak with a foreign twinge to their accent are younger and wealthier, since they could afford to and were permitted to study English abroad. In a kind of random note, some Chinese have full received pronunciation British accents like they just stepped out of a P.G Wodehouse novel or a BBC Masterpiece Theater production. When my class asked a visiting professor with who spoke with this accent where he picked it up he said he taught it to himself because he didn't like his Chinese accent and now kind of regrets it. Finally, those who don't study abroad speak with a standard Chinese-English accent. Speaking with a Chinese-English accent doesn't indicate English proficiency though, while people who speak with Sino-British or Sino-American accents have very good English, people who speak with Chinese-English accents English proficiency varies form "I know how to say Hello, how are you" to "I can discuss complicated teaching methods with you in English." On a final note, I noticed that people in a Starbucks anywhere in the country have a descent grasp on English. I don't think this is because Starbucks coffee improves your English skills. I believe that the type of people who can buy 30RMB coffee are also the type of people are more likely to speak English. Starbucks, trying to look cool, hires English speaking Chinese to cater to the English speaking Chinese. Even in Changsha I found several English speakers in the local Starbuckses (Starbucki?) I am a man who has a frequent problem with sunburn. Usually I prevent this by wearing a silly hat with a wide brim. My previous sun hat (a Panama hat I got in Puerto Rico) has been falling apart for some time now so I decided to switch to a new hat. Fortunately, hard plastic wide brimmed sun hats are a common in Vietnam and sign of your support for the global communist revolution in Laos. The Chinese though saw my new hat a bit differently. Instead of being a sign for my love of the united workers of the world losing their chains, my hat is a sign that my hypothetical wife is having hypothetical sex with other hypothetical men and was apparently quite funny to everyone in Changsha's airport. In Chinese 戴绿帽子, wearing a green hat, is a euphemism for a man's wife cheating on him. While this often doesn't come up it is this stigma around green hats is occasionally a problem for foreigners. Sometimes Boston Celtics, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, or weirdos who buy a hat because they saw a picture of Ho Chi Minh in the same hat will end up accidentally wearing a green hat in China, wondering why everyone thinks they are funny. I have also read stories online of foreign businessmen, and women, throwing Christmas parties in China or with Chinese getting in trouble because they tried to get everyone to wear green elf hats. I guess take my mistake as a lesson in what not to do in China or when throwing Christmas parties for Chinese. My last two days weren't super exciting. I basically walked around, ate, and tried to get bus tickets to Zhangjiajie. The guy I was originally trying to buy them from went AWOL so I had to go to the bus station to buy tickets myself. The food in Changsha has been interesting, they seem to do a lot of roast meat. Last night I bought a whole, albeit small, roast chicken from a storefront. For dinner tonight I had a slightly different type of roast chicken. To be honest, the one I got from the random storefront and ate with gloves was better though the roast chicken I got tonight came with a rather interesting soup that I think was fruit based. The most interesting thing I ate, for me at least, was the soy sauce brazed noodles (红烧牛肉面), which is also one of my favorite dishes at Lamian in Shanghai. The lady I got lunch from does it very differently from Lamian. It was spicier, less soupy, had thicker noodles, included peanuts, and included pickled radish. While it was warming and did hit the spot I like Lamian's a bit more.
For those of you who don't know, Hunan Province, the province who's capital is Changsha, is the home of Chairman Mao Zedong. Mao was born in a village about an hour away from Changsha and graduated from Hunan Normal University in Changsha. It is only fitting then that one of Changsha's major sites is a massive bust of a young Chairman Mao. Forentually, this bust is located on Orange Island (橘子洲), basically a large park on an island, within walking distance from my hotel. The walk might possibly have been nice in warmer weather, but alas it is a chilly 43F in Changsha so it wasn't that nice of a walk. I did notice that the Changsharen are much more interested in me than the Shanghaiese. I caught several people openly talking about me (I guess under the assumption I don't know any Chinese so couldn't understand them talking about the 外国人), more people quietly pointing me out to their buddies, and one little girl who just openly took pictures of me. Obvious foreigners are still a novelty in Changsha, unlike Shanghai who gets a large amount of white folks passing through. After my long walk I went to get some lunch. Octopus is one of Changsha's kings of street food and I must admit the spicy grilled octopus I had was very good. I actually had two versions, one which was spicier dry rub and the other was a smokier sauce. I also had these doughnuts that were most like Israeli Chanukkah Sufganiyot without any jelly. I would also like to note that Hunanese stinky tofu, the other king of Changsha street food, is less appetizing then Shanghaiese stinky tofu since it is black, in addition to reeking of death. I will never understand why in a country with such good tofu do the locals insist on eating the tofu that smells like sewer. I then went to Walmart to pick up some gifts for Chinese New Year. If you are worried about American companies, I can tell you Walmart of Changsha is having no problems getting customers in the door. Walmart is kind of like McDonalds in that they can adapt their business to any environment. Unlike the Walmart of Huntingdon, PA, which is the kind of place where you can pick up bread, a radar detector, and a shotgun, the Walmart of Changsha feels like any other Chinese grocery store. I picked up some gifts, a small bottle of nice baijiu, and a small bottle of Chinese brandy. I really didn't want the baijiu though, a local girl insisted on helping me pick Chinese New Years gifts in the alcohol section with myself being unable to tell her I was buying for myself. I am having a harder time with the language here then I thought, but I refuse to take responsibility for this. The locals don't seem to speak standard Mandarin and aren't use to foreign accents. It didn't prevent me from doing anything, it is just a bit annoying.
I have made it to my hotel room in Changsha, Hunan, China and am doing fine. Changsha seems way more Chinese than Shanghai. I had to go to the special customes line for diplomats and the like because all the regular forigner lines were closed for the night. While the border guard did speak some English he did prefer me to anwser in Chinese and only seemed to vaguly understand the student visa system. He was ready to get angry at me for entering on a cancelled visa before he relized that having a cancelled X1 student visa means you were issued a residency permit which lets you into the country. I guess they don't see many forign students. The airport cabbie didn't understand my spoken Chinese at all, he did understand my written Chinese so everything worked out in the end. Once at the hotel, the lady at the desk could only communicate with me through her phone's translator. I did get my room, even though I am now Mr. Jared, Mr. Paul Miller Jared to be specific.
South East Asia retrospective at some point soon. Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Changsha, confused yet? I am now sitting in Chiang Mai International Airport waiting to my flight to Changsha, Hunan Proviance, China. I think the names should start to get less confusing from here on out. My only problem is I can't take an airplane picture from out of the windows in the airport.
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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