"ei, Ni hao, zuo yi zuo!"
Hello!
Ah, hello, come sit a while!
This afternoon I visited with Wang Ai Min, a lady who runs a small shop across the street. Her shop is a small storage unit where she sells cigarettes, water, soda, jump ropes, pens, paper, etc. I met her a few weeks ago and she asked me to teach her oral English. I said I would if she would teach me Chinese. However, when I went to her store at the previously appointed time, she wasn't there.
Wang Ai Min is one of the few Chinese names I know. At school, I use the children's English names, and outside of school, I just seem to have a really bad memory for Chinese names. But Wang Ai Min, 王爱民, isn't hard to remember. Wang is common surname, Ai means "love", and Min means "people." This is the same "min" used in " 中华人民共和国" --the People's Republic of China. So her given name means "love the People." It was not uncommon to receive such patriotic names during the Cultural Revolution, or so I've read.
Anyhow, this afternoon I was returning from Sunny's kindergarten and said hello to her when she asked me to sit a while. Her son was also there. He is about ten years old and described by his mother as "very fat." While I was visiting with Wang Ai Min, her cell phone rang. As she talked on the phone, her son talked to me.
"My mother doesn't like that I am fat," he said. "My mother is very thin...she is very ai mei." (Literally it means "love beauty." I thought ai mei was another way to say beautiful, but then I looked it up on http://www.nciku.com---my/ favorite Chinese-English dictionary--and found that it describes someone who cares a lot about their physical appearance.)
Wang Ai Min's son told me about his plans to go watch a movie tonight, and he rambled on and on about how he and his mother are learning to swim and whether or not I had been to Beijing and the history of the Great Wall. (I only say rambled because I didn't understand him eighty percent of the time. My Chinese is very, very poor, but I am grateful that I can communicate with the people here. It is a true blessing.)
He asked me all kinds of questions about "nimen meiguo," "your America." After his mother got off the phone, she joined in our conversation and lamented that her son's English name, Angel, is a girl's name. I told her that both boys and girls have the name "Angel" but I don't think she believed me. She asked me about the difference between British English and American English but my Chinese is nowhere near good enough to explain that! I just told her they were different but I could understand British English. The last time we talked I told her about my family and today she asked me how old my youngest brother was. Five, I said, but I also have a mei mei, a little sister, who is two. As we chatted a man rode down the street on a bicycle selling rice flour cakes. Angel lept up and ran after him with money from his mother. They gave one of the cakes to me, which was so very kind.
I didn't understand all of what Angel was saying about America, but I did pick up "Ao ba ma." Yes, Obama," I said. "Do you like Obama?" I asked Wang Ai Min. She replied, "He is very handsome, isn't he?"
Last night I went shopping for some summer clothes as it is getting quite hot and humid here. I bought a very Chinese shirt. Not in the silk brocade and dragon sense, but in the modern China sense--it's a bright pink, long shirt with the English word "LOVE" written across the front in iridescent sequins. Most of the shirts here have English writing. I once asked a saleslady if she understood the English on a shirt which said "I am love rock roll" and she did not. It is foreign to the Chinese that I read what is written on a shirt before trying it on. Often the English is gramatically incorrect or misspelled, affectionately known as Chinglish. I saw a young girl walking down the street with very obscene language printed on her shirt, but I'm sure she had no idea what it means or implies. Just today I saw a guy whose shirt read something like: "Smoke is gas and particles of an object after burning" and still another shirt, worn by a grandmother, said "LOVE YOUR FACE."
Speaking of clothes, remember how all the children were bundled up in five layers during the months of February and March? Well, the opposite is true now. Babies may now wear only a little bib which covers their stomach and has elastic bands around the uppper thighs. I saw one girl outside wearing a t-shirt and underwear. I thought that was extreme, but reasoned that she was very young. Then I saw one father bring his child to kindergarten wearing a nice polo shirt and boxers! It made me smile.
At Dadi Kindergarten we are preparing for our gigantic, end-of-year performance. We had a dress rehearsal yesterday (Thursday) and will perform next week. It is a huge deal, with the kids wearing costumes and stage makeup and everything. I play the role of a mother rabbit.
All the students, as well as some of the other teachers, were quite amused to see me wearing rabbit ears. The graduating students practiced singing "I Went to Kindergarten"---I simplified the words to a re-write of "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad" which I found online.
Tonight I'm having spaghetti for dinner with genuine imported Hunt's sauce. Tomorrow I'm going to Nanjing for a Fourth of July celebration with the branch members. The activity, ironically, was organized by a sister who is Canadian. :) That's one of the awesome things about living overseas. I've met people from so many different countries: Singapore, South Korea, England, South Africa, Canada, Taiwan, Pakistan and Germany.
Well, this blog post has been very disjointed, I'm afraid, and maybe a little boring, but I think my conversations with Wang Ai Min have been very culturally informative and I was just bubbling with stuff to say.
Thank you for your patience with my ramblings, your love and support.
I love you all!
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