Long Time No See! - 好久不见！

So there are three reasons why I haven’t written here in a while. Firstly, my last post on this “unsearcheable” blog attracted 11,000 views and as cool as I am, I don’t have that many friends. Hence, please be polite and generic, anything you say on the Internet should be seen as open to the world (irony that I’m writing this through a proxy). Secondly, I have been working and playing hard. Thirdly, it was National Day in China and so I didn’t want to blog anything at all. Security was so tight that I couldn’t even get into my own office without clearance.

I’ve found that moving country is a great way to try a whole new set of stuff. My old routine is gone (a surprisingly powerful factor) and I’m used to looking stupid without feeling bad. I have sung karaoke three times now and tried football (I still hate it), badminton and basketball. I also tried volleyball, our laowai team was sufficiently bad that Chinese students stopped to take photos. There was however a disproportionate amount of celebration the first time that we managed to return the ball. Simplistically, attitudes towards us on campus tend to be curious and good natured. Today, I sat on centre court at the China Open and saw Djokavic and Dementieva play (80 yuan = £7). I’ve never taken the slightest interest in these things in the UK, I can’t really explain why I’m so open to them now. I was conscious that my life at university in the UK had become very 2D, I didn’t really do much. In my spare time I just mooched about or watched re-runs of TV shows. It seemed fine at the time.

How is my Chinese going? Well, my friends are British, American, Canadian, Ukrainian, Korean and Swiss. My Mandarin is getting good for haggling, taxis and food, but that’s it. Today I bought myself a coursebook for a series of Chinese lessons (汉语口语二) at a school just off campus as an incentive. I also bought a Learn Japanese book (みなの日本語一)as a break, I don’t want to get Chinesed out. No they aren’t the same. Japanese has no tones, did I mention that whoever invented tonal languages was an idiot?

I feel this post has been a kind of plinky plonky this is how I am post, sorry if it bored you. Tough really if you are reading this sentence.