bu hao

The Chinese is not going great.
Last, week, Paul and I skipped class (our only missed class of the semester) because it was raining and winding too hard, and we were lazy.

This week, there’s no class because the teacher is playing hookie.
Week before last was Thanksgiving holiday.
So, we’re a few weeks without our dear Du Laoshi to tell us zombie stories and insist that she doesn’t eat dog. Or was it that she hadn’t eaten dog yet? I’m not sure. I’ll need another semester to be sure.

We’re supposed to have a conversation about food, drinks, weather and time-based stuff for 6 minutes. Time based stuff is basically, days of the week and things like “last week,” “day after tomorrow,” etc.

We wrote a script and it’s the most retarded conversation you can imagine. It’s pretty funny to imagine that there’s a whole half the world just standing around having the following conversation:

1: You good!
2: Do you live in San Francisco?
1: I do not. I live in Berkeley.
2: Does it rain much in Berkeley.
1: It doesn’t rain much. Do you like cake?
2: I do not like cake. I want one glass of beer.
1: I also want one glass of beer. I study Chinese.
2: What day do you study Chinese?
1: Is you mother fat?
2: My mother is very fat. Is your dad rich?
1: He’s not rich. Please have a cup of coffee.

I mean, from the vocabulary and grammar I have, that’s about as coherent as my conversation can get. Feels a little ridiculous, but then again, what is your Chinese vocabulary? I only know a few things in Cantonese, and none of that is formal or sentence-like.

Anyway, we are somewhat determined, but only inasmuch as it doesn’t interfere with my beer drinking. I don’t know whether we’ll continue next semester. I kind of want to, but it’s also possible that we ought to start from the beginning with a real Chinese class (characters and grammar, not just conversational) but actually, that just sounds even worse.

I wish I wish I wish I had been raised bilingual from a young age. This is totally my parents’ fault.