A Lesson in Mandarin

Today has been a really interesting, yet a brain-hurting day. We started our Mandarin Language course this morning and let's just say that it's as easy as it looks. Looks tough? Yah; it is. However, I am so glad to be learning a language in the home land where it was created. Trying to be trilingual is such a defeat in itself. Knowing English fluently, everyone here tries to talk to me so they can enhance their language skills. Except it's hard to help them when I can't understand their broken English. Taking a few years of Spanish in high school; I remember hating it. Now all I wish is to go back to it, haha. About twice now, I have accidentally diverted to Spanish when trying to talk with the locals. When learning Mandarin, I find it extremely difficult to speak the tones and sounds their words make.

If you threw me into Mexico City, I would most likely be able to ask simple questions, order food and/or communicate with the locals. Here, I have no prior knowledge of this language. Because I have a background in Spanish, I often try to pronounce the Chinese words with either a Spanish accent or even try to say words with Spanish tones - I don't know - I'm just confusing myself even more. However, Mandarin is the most widely spoken language in the world so I need to keep pushing myself to learn it!

Class is at random times throughout the semester with about 5 hours of class each day we have it. Class, for the most part, goes by fast. Even though I love school in general, I have never been the type of individual to speak/participate  while in class. I hated it in English, Spanish and I now I hate it even more here in China. Basically, you need to practice as much as possible to learn it, right? Of course. Out of everything else on this trip, this is the one thing that I will need to push myself to do the most. I'm not exactly excited.

Anyway, care to learn something? Sure you do.

In China, the family name of a person comes first. For example, my name would be Foote Tyler. My Chinese professor's name is, Mi Nan, so her last name would therefore me Mi. We call her 'laoshi Mi' which basically means Professor Mi. Throughout China, there are eight different dialect groups. We are learning Mandarin, which is most commonly spoken. It was originally founded in Beijing. Think of it as if each accent in the United States was a different language - crazy, right? Apparently, people who speak Mandarin can't understand the dialects in Hong Kong. Could you imagine having a language barrier between Wisconsin and Kentucky?

Mandarin speakers didn't originally have an 'English' version of their language so they came up with a system called 'pinyin'. It literally transcribes the sounds of Mandarin using the Roman alphabet. Our professor told us that they learned basic pinyin words for two years in elementary school - then the rest was character memorization. For foreign learners, pinyin allows us to start learning how each character is pronounced and what each one means. To make this even tougher, Mandarin has four tones within the language.

For example, the word 'ma' can mean four different words. This chart doesn't show the accent marks about the 'a' in each 'ma' phrase but I liked how the chart was set up. After the chart, I have the accent marks written out.

http://phonetics.ucla.edu/vowels/chapter2/chinese/recording2.1.html

I also have included a chart showing characters, pinyin and English translation of two different phrases. You can see that each pinyin has an accent mark above particular vowels. Looking at the marks, Mandarin learning students know how to pronounce each word. By referring to this chart, let's go back and pronounce the 'ma' phrase.

' mā '  is a flat tone. Pronounce it without changing tones with a fairly high voice. This is the easiest to do pronounce. 

' má ' is a rising tone. Literally pronounce the vowel by rising the tone of your voice...not a lot, just enough to make it a distinction between the first one. 

' mǎ ' is a falling/rising tone. This one is fun to do! You start high, go low, then back up to where you started. 

' mà '  is a falling tone. Start the vowel high then drop it. 

It's SOOO important to use the correct tone when you talk so you don't end up saying: "I love my hemp" when you really mean "I love my Mom." Yikes. 

http://tx.english-ch.com/teacher/alvi/home/mandarin-chinese-most-useful-business-language-/

Often when you hear people speak Mandarin, you hear them almost 'sing' the phrases. It's because they use the different tones to make a rhythm. It's very beautiful - yet super hard to grasp. On a quick note, written characters are just as beautiful. With over 10,000 known and readable characters, Mandarin speakers memorize quite a bit of them! From ancient times, pictures drawn from nature were translated to a written language. Look at this cool picture!! 

http://goldstarteachers.com/challenges-learning-mandarin/

The first drawing is of mountains, and the actual character in today's language is drawn below it. Pinyin: Shān. Can you guess the second one? It's supposed to represent a tree. Pinyin: Mù Overall, Mandarin characters are both interesting and cool to look at and learn. If I had to pick either written or spoken Mandarin, I would choose the written form. However, then I would have to worry about stroke counts, stroke angles and pitches and other random things. Either way, I'm not going down without a fight! I will learn you, Mandarin! 

Maybe you learned something? It would be so  much easier to explain this in person! 

Take it easy, 

Ty

"Learning is the road map to a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going." - Rita Mae Brown 

Care to Take the Bus?

Transportation in China is so interesting. While here, I have experienced all forms of public transportation. First off, the plane ride from Chicago to Shanghai went surprisingly well. The whole experience at the airport, security, ticket desk – everything – went way better than planned. I hope the way home goes just as well. On the plane, I sat next to a professor from the University of Arkansas. He teaches Poultry Sciences and was going to Shanghai to work with large commercial farms on the Bird Flu Epidemic. Throughout the flight, we often talked about agricultural practices both different and the same between China and America. It was all so interesting!!

After the 17 hour flight, I met up with everyone else in our group at the airport and we took a three hour shuttle bus ride to our campus. I noticed right off the bat that driving was fairly hectic. The bus driver was constantly honking his horn. I thought that this was just a highway bus thing…NO. It’s an EVERYDAY THING. I sometimes go crazy while walking down the street because everyone is honking their horns. Whether it’s at other cars, busses, people, bikes, or apparently just for no reason at all. Gosh dangit. I’ve yelled a few times: “STOP THE HONKING” but apparently a crazy American yelling at the cars doesn't help the matter.

The Chinese Metro is so easy and clean...better than the American train system!

Anyway, the bus system is so much fun to ride on. We can get on the bus in one part of the city and end up somewhere else new and exciting. From our campus, we can walk about 10 minutes either way on the highway to get to a bus stop. I already know that bus 82 goes to Walmart, bus 25 goes to West Lake and bus K11 takes you to Hangzhou Tower (a ritzy shopping district…anyone care to buy a $12,000 ceramic china bowl? I think not) and the Silk Market. It’s such an adventure every time you ride the bus. There can be times that there are only ten people occupying the bus, but most times my whole hometown seems to be crammed into the bus. Who would have thought having to fight for your life to get on, find a standing spot, and an exit plan could be so entertaining.

Someone is probably honking in this picture...

The first full day in China, we all decided to go to a family style restaurant after a rainy day at West Lake. After we ate, we needed to catch a taxi to get home. The first time I rode a taxi, ever in my life, was here in China. Crazy, I know. However, my first taxi experience didn’t exactly turn out perfect. A group of us flagged down a taxi and jumped in. Showing the driver the card to our campus, we went zooming off. Growing up, I gained an extremely good sense of direction and I’m not sure why. But I realized that we were headed the wrong way the second the driver did as well. So, here I am, sitting in the front seat of a taxi, trying to give directions to the driver. English and Mandarin have no correlation at all. AT ALL. But whatever, because we got home safe (:

Bike fix-it shop! They're everywhere around town

I wish you call could some explore this city with me – I can’t fully describe in words how exciting the public transportation is. You just have to experience it.

Go drive safely and DO NOT honk your horn at unnecessary times. Yikes. 

Tyler

Oh, and by the way, I decided to save money and boil my water instead of buying bottled water. Here in this part of China, it’s not safe to drink the water; even the locals don’t. So – Hopefully this goes well, haha. 

Umbrella? Nah.

When in China – you go on adventures. The seven days I have been here, I have just about hit my quota for adventure time. However, I love every single second of it. Today was no exception. While in our third lecture of the semester, we learned about Chinese politics and the economy. Boring. I can hardly understand our political system so trying to follow Chinese politics went way over my head. After class, we went to lunch in the cafeteria. Talk about an experience in itself. We are the only American students here on campus. It’s weird to walk in and be the minority. The cafeteria is sorta like what you would think of at the mall – a lot of different types of restaurants in the food court. However, don’t picture the glory or cleanliness of the mall because it is definitely NOT what this cafeteria is,..haha. But all the separate places are so good to eat at. I often jump to get different food each time I eat. It’s so fun and yummy!!

After lunch, a few friends and I decided to go explore the city. We looked at a map and said, LET’S GO! to a shopping/new part of Hangzhou. We memorized the route to get there and walked down the busy street outside the campus. But of course, we found cool things along the way and re-routed our way to our destination. Even though Hangzhou is HUGE, it is still super easy to find your way around the city. Once you can pick out certain buildings, roads, etc,..you can go about anywhere and not get lost.

Throughout China, there are lots of ‘black market’ stores that you can barter and buy specialized products from. Today, we ended up in a sketchy shoe market where you could honestly buy any shoe in any size, color, brand,..you name it,..you could probably find it there. Absolutely insane.  

Sketchy Shoe Shop!

China is such an interesting place. We can go from the above picture where all you see is basically dirty, run down markets to shopping malls with floors upon floors of things to buy. Just a short distance walk can take you from one extreme to another.

One last thing before I go – it’s raining here again ): The amount of umbrellas that the Chinese use is craaaaazy! Everybody and anyone uses one. However, since I am too cheap to buy one, I just walk around with my hood up. The locals look at me and try to sell me and other passers who don’t have one. I suppose I could spend the 2RMB (which equals about $0.33) but hey, why spend it on an umbrella when I can go buy steamed buns for that price? Haha, whatever.

Stay warm at home!! 

It doesn't seem real!

When you picture China, what do you imagine? I know that when I first realized that I would be studying in China, I imagined crowded cities, pollution, weird food and so forth and so on. I’m sure for the most part, that is what everyone thinks of when they picture China. I’ve only been here for two days and I have witnessed all of what I imagined it to be. However, like I had hoped, there is so much more. The amount of beauty that you see in movies really does reside here. Hangzhou, considered Heaven on Earth to the locals, exceeded my expectations. Even though I haven't experienced anything too crazy yet, I have definitely seen Hangzhou's beauty.

Mountain view on West Lake in Hangzhou; my hometown. 

I have found that it is incredibly hard to write a blog while in China! I go out adventuring during the day/night and come back to my dorm to sleep. However, I know it is important to write down what I do so I can remember everything when I return to the States. I wish everyone I knew could come to China; it's amazing. Everything I have witnessed has made me rethink how we live in America. From processed foods to public transportation, the United States sometimes at a downfall compared to China. For example, the bus system is amazing! I can ride the bus to and from West Lake for about $1.00 total. It's so convenient but SUPER crowded. I don't know the words to describe how I feel when I am on the bus. I guess, like sardines? Haha

Classes have started and they are going well! We are basically learning about Chinese culture, norms and customs. Taught by Chinese professors, in English of course, we really get a sense of culture. I absolutely love being in the classroom again. Being in China feels amazing! I have already tried eel, octopus, lamb lungs and random food I have no idea what it was. It's all so good, so I'm not too worried!

A busy street near my campus

I will write again soon! I have a lot of experiences to share and I have only been here for a week. I wish this place was closer to home because I am already sad about leaving this country. All so amazing. 

Love to all, 

Ty

Hello, Wisconsin!

Because I finished, for the most part, packing three days before my departure, I now have what seems like an unlimited time to ponder and think about this trip. By ponder - I mean going through every emotion in the book. Being nervous is usually followed by excitement which eventually turns into restfulness which turns back around into nerves – you get the picture. Anyway, I actually anticipate and like all these feelings because I know I am getting ready for a trip of a life time. Preparing for this has definitely been an experience in itself!  

...we always use our time wisely in our AGED classes

Sitting at home, I am watching That '70s Show. I can’t help but think of Eric’s friend group as mine,…both from high school and at college. But don’t worry mom, we’re not drinking or doing drugs and dad doesn’t have to come down the stairs and yell, “I’ll put my foot in your ass!” I say this because Eric has an amazing friend group. They stand by him and help him when he needs any assistance. I am so thankful for my friends and how much they have backed me up and helped me accomplish my dreams of going to China. Those who I attended high school with and those who hold a special place in my heart from River Falls, thank you so much! I will miss you like crazy but I can't wait to share all my experiences with you when I come home. 

Speaking of River Falls, I always knew I wanted to attend the University of Wisconsin – River Falls. Majoring in Agricultural Education, I found my love and passion for a career in Education. This place is my home and it was a hard decision to leave, but I am excited to be a part of the Experience China Study Abroad Program.

The most popular Study Abroad trip at River Falls, Wisconsin in Scotland, was always an option for me. However, when I heard of the China program, I knew it was meant to be. A fairly new program at school, not many students have had the chance to travel here – so of course I jumped at the opportunity. Located in Hangzhou, China, I will be studying Chinese history, culture, business, cuisine and my personal favorite; agriculture. Focusing on the rice terracing industry of Southern China, I will learn about the impact of rice on the economy of China as well as how rice impacts the world’s food source. I hope to experience as much Chinese Agriculture as possible so I will be on the constant look-out to jump at any opportunity that presents itself to me.

Once again, thank you to everyone who has inspired me and helped me through my choices in life.  Even though my friends and I might not be exactly like Eric’s friends (thank goodness), I still have an amazing group of friends. My family, friends, teachers, professors and advisors – you all inspire me and I am thankful for you all. 

I hope to post most of my pictures to Instagram, so if you would like to see what I am up to (or just nosy, because that is fine too!) follow me at  tyler_s_foote. 

I will write again when I arrive in China. Cheers! 

Tyler   

"Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything." 

-Muhammad Ali 

Adventure Awaits!

To start off, packing my life in one suitcase to last four months is way harder than one would think! I have clothes scattered everywhere, toiletries flung across the floor and shoes stacked in the center of the room. It doesn't help that the cat thinks she can help me by hiding in my suitcase and attacking any fingers that come near. Back when I first applied for the Experience China Program, I thought this week would never come. It’s an incredible feeling to know that in one week, I will be in China!

I've never been outside of the United States before, so the idea of getting a passport, applying for a visa and ordering plane tickets was extremely exciting and stressful! This has so far been an adventure and I have yet to set foot in China. Studying at the Zhejiang International Studies University in Hangzhou, I will be taking classes, experiencing daily Chinese life and exploring my surroundings. I can't wait to start exploring my new home!!  

I am writing this blog for several reasons. The first is to keep in contact with friends and family back home. With most social media sites blocked in China, I will have no way to let anyone know what I am up to. It is going to be hard not being able to text or call mom and dad; but it's something to get used to, I guess! Another reason why I chose to write this blog is to keep a documentation of my journey. I hope you find my adventures fun to read as I am sure I will have lots of cool, and knowing me, embarrassing stories to share. 

Thank you to my parents, sister, family and friends as you all have been an inspiration and motivator for this trip. Thanks for backing me in all my decisions - I'll make sure to bring you home a present(:

See you later, America! I will see you in four months. In the mean time, I will be discovering mysterious China. 

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain 

Hangzhou is just a little bit bigger - only about 8 million people...yikes!