Mandarin Lessons

Last night was our third Mandarin language lesson. We decided to go with iMandarin as I had talked to several other folks who were taking lessons from them. Our teacher comes to our house on Thursdays at 5:30 p.m. and Sundays at 10:00 a.m. The class length is two hours. Our teacher's name is Sammie. I will refrain from writing her Chinese name, though her surname is Chen. The first night was pretty rough. Pronouncing some of the characters is pretty rough and both Tom and I were pretty overwhelmed with the uphill journey we realized we had embarked upon. The 2nd class was a little frustrating as sounds I could pronounce the week before now seemed to come out completely wrong. And I seemed to get confused trying to remember simple things like My Name Is Shelly. By the third class now, I have started to feel a little more comfortable. The teacher keeps telling us how "clever" we are. Which must be how the Chinese describe people who ask lots of questions. Tom had a clarifying question for each exercise. Last night she got stuck on telling Tom that she "know his type" and that he is really focused on "success" and must "do everything as perfect". She told him he must be "clever" to ask such questions. She is right, Tom feels compelled to do this well. He studied for two hours yesterday morning, rewriting the exercises and words, typing them up unto a nice little cheat sheet for himself. I guess I had forgotten what Tom was like in school. We have been together for so long you would not think that his determination would ever catch me by surprise, but it does. He got so frustrated by his inability to correctly pronounce a particular sound correctly, he practiced and practiced until now, the teacher says "yes, good job". I on the other hand find myself chuckling and have decided I am going to enjoy the learning process as opposed to going in head first. I guess that is what happens when you take some time to smell the roses!

Many of you have enjoyed watching Natalie's Ballet Recital videos on YouTube. It was pretty interesting for me to see. Granted she only attended for part of the session, so really she had three classes before this day. But it is interesting to see a lot of Tom's personality coming out in her! She just doesn't like doing something if she can't do it perfectly! I guess this didn't really hit home until the language lessons showed me that side of Tom again. She also really wants to the teacher to be focused on her as opposed to other students in the class. She seems disinterested in the videos, but part of that was due to her annoyance that the teacher paid some attention to the other students! Anyway, we had to move Natalie's class from Thursday to Tuesday and I guess the new class has a lot more students in it. It will be interesting to see what happens next. She still wants to continue, but she may get more frustrated with even less of the teachers time available to her.

This week in China is the annual Labor Holiday. Most workers are supposed to be off work 1-3 days this week. If they do work, they are compensated 2-3 times their normal pay. So it is pretty quiet around here. Tom has been off since Tuesday, though he had to work last Saturday and Sunday to make up for it. Tom let our driver have off Tue-Thur, so it has been pretty quiet here. We have limited our excursions to bike-riding distances, so we haven't ventured too far. We did head down to the Yatai Xinyang fashion and gift market near the Science & Technology Museum to do some shopping. It is a crazy market where everyone tries to get you to buy from their choice stall. And being western makes you quite the target for the hawkers! They will grab your shirt sleeves and physically try to pull you into their shop. Yuk. I made Tom go with me as it is much easier to cower behind him and let him take on the brunt of the assault. We didn't buy anything, but I got a few stalls that I want to go back to. It just takes me a few visits to feel comfortable walking around in it. More to come on that...