Language partner et al

Now that I am wrapping up, I have been thinking of all the people to meet and wrapping up things.
Taking pictures is on my to-do list and I just realized that I did not take a picture with my language partner when I met her for the last time ! That prompted me to write a blog about her and other related things.

Earlier in the semester, my room-mate found me a language partner. One of her Korean friends, wanted to improve her English and I could definitely benefit from learning some Chinese. It started off with good intentions with a focus on language but then deviated to culture and food. Which I am not complaining about. Either way, made a good friend.

I had never realized that teaching English would be difficult. Never having had to "learn" a foreign language (minus Mandarin which kind of failed), teaching someone ended up being more difficult than I had imagined. Luckily, my friend had a Korean-Chinese-English book to follow. It was an interesting layout. My friend knew how to read and write English but had a decent vocabulary but it was the grammar and sentence construction that was mainly lacking. I personally hate grammar, I remember Wren & Martin as one of the prescribed books in middle school, but never ever used it. So using this Korean-Chinese-English book was interesting. It was divided into use of verbs and adjectives mainly.

The verbs started with give, take, go, come etc. And then usage of each verb was illustrated by sentence formation. When we got to the verb "come" - all the sentences were he comes, he came, he is going to come , he will be coming etc etc and this whole time I was trying not to say that's what she said and crack up laughing at the lack of imagination with the sentences. And then for adjectives, it was the same process. So teaching was more grueling than I anticipated but as a solace, our meetings were usually over coffee/Korean food/hot pot so the calories helped with the learning.

At the end what helped the most was just talking to her in English. By the end of 4 months, she carried on a conversation with less pauses. If we were more disciplined, I think it could have been a lot better. But it was nice to have a buddy here. She tried to teach me Mandarin but my vocabulary level of < a 2 year old's and inability to understand the script made us give up. She did help a bit with pronunciation. However, I had less motivation to learn the language knowing that I was returning in January.

Before coming to China I had wondered if I would want to move here, but now after spending 5 months here, I have realized that I would never move to China. I would be totally open to doing a 1 or 2 year short term project as part of a job, live in the expat area, have more cash etc but not a permanent move. I guess I am going to be content with survival Mandarin for the rest of my life :)

On a side note, this is what my friend and I had for dinner at our last meeting. A whole grilled fish swimming in hot spicy sauce :D

Things I will miss when I leave China

Seems that the Chinese gods got upset at my last blog post and hence, it has been windier than usual and my throat is scratchy. To appease them, I am going to write about the things I will miss once I leave China:
   

1. Pandas/panda merchandise - I have never seen so many things Panda, ever. I will miss the street shops selling Panda hats/gloves/socks and souvenir stores selling panda magnets, pictures,bookmarks etc. 
2. Getting away with wearing a panda hat EVERY DAY - If I did that in Atlanta, people would think I was a freak, after the first week. Here, it is adorable and I get compliments all the time and once I even had my own panda hat stalker who tracked me down in the dorm.
3. Cheap food - Lunch for $1 and dinner for $1. Just have to bike to get the food. There isn't a better deal than that.
4. Public transport - The subway system is awesome. Minus the morning rush hour when they have people who are employed to just push you inside the door (true story)
5. Getting offered a job - A stranger on the street offered me a job as an English teacher, would never happen in the US.
6. Street food - Right from street sushi, to fried potatoes and even meat on stick, the food carts offer cheap deliciousness while traveling.
7. Compliments - I don't think I will hear anyone say again - "I like your skin color". Also, my eyes are way pretty in China apparently.
8. Special preference - Being a foreigner has its perks, it is racism in a nice way. People are nicer and more helpful, at most places. 
9. Clean living room - The place where I stay includes cleaning service for the outside room+bathroom. All I have to do is sweep all the dust from my room, under the door and someone else takes care of it.
10. Bargaining - The joy of buying something at 30RMB when the shopkeeper started at 280RMB. 
11. Trophy friend - One of my friend's invited me to a christmas party so that she could be cool, bringing the foreigner to a Chinese event. I was a good trophy friend and single-handedly helped the girls team win Pictionary.
12. Sleeping - Not going out/having cable tv/high speed internet has led to more sleep time, 8 hours is my minimum now.
13. Train system - Clean and efficient and makes traveling a whole lot easier in the mainland.
14. Asking to be photographed - It is nice when total strangers want to take a picture of you (but its creepy when they are taking a picture *of* you without asking/telling)
15. Hot pot - One of my favorite foods here. Debated about buying a hot pot on amazon but realized I won't be able to recreate the Chinese flavors :(

Update: Missed mentioning cat loving BFF (in my defense, he is not bound to China, he shall be back)
     0. My BFF Warren

Things to look forward to in Atlanta

The last post was about things to do in China, but looking forward as I must, there are so many things that are going to make me happy. Again, not talking about work, but life-wise here is why Atlanta will be awesome to return to:

1. English (Hindi/Marathi) speaking friends/ friends, in general
2. STABLE HIGH SPEED INTERNET :-) (It will be nice to not have to wait 5 minutes, before streaming a 5 minute video on youtube)
3. Not having to use VPN or visit baidu.com
4. Not having to bike in freezing weather conditions
5. Unlimited hot water - Don't have to worry about the monthly hot water supply running out in the middle of the shower ever again.
6. Cheese
7. Desserts (which are actually sweet unlike Chinese red bean desserts)
8. Being able to cook again
9. Buying things with a credit card rather than having to carry wads of cash
10. Ordering food without having to point/gesture/use iphone app dictionary
11. No pollution, being able to see the sun EVERY DAY !!! (minus rainy/cloudy days)
12. People not spitting on the street
13. Being able to understand conversations about me - It won't be "Tanu ...chinese rambling...Tanu...more rambling ...." -esque conversations in lab
14. Going out on weekends/having a life - parties, movies, dinners, potlucks and all that jazz
15. Not having to eat unknown pieces of meat that taste funky
16. A soft bed with normal pillows - Not the extremely firm twin bed with pillows that cause you to have a crick in your neck
17. Shower placed in a tub - no more perpetually wet bathroom floors
18. Deep frying all sorts of things in my *new* deep fryer
19. Shopping in supermarkets based on aisle name rather than going aisle to aisle in search of what I want
20. Smartphone with a data plan that is useful

How to Operate a Microwave - The Chinese version

The photo may look similar to a lot of kitchenettes in the US dorms. And it is.
It is a microwave. 
Now that it is getting cold and I hate biking in the winter, I have taken to packing my dinner during lunch and bringing it home. Hence the need to heat up my food before eating it. I have hardly spent time in front of the microwave in China. And I have been in the kitchen a couple of times, which also houses the laundry but never had to spend more than a minute. Now, that I have to heat up cold food, I am spending more time in front of the microwave. And honestly, reading the instructions is way more entertaining than playing another game of Word Warp on my phone. Till now using the microwave was easy - open, stuff food in, punch a button/turn the dial, take food out and make sure not to burn your fingers.
But in China, you need to follow a lot more instructions. Some of which may require acquiring a ruler.

I really did not want to type up ALL SIXTEEN of the bullet points, so here are some of my favorites:

1. Please stop using when the outer cover, door were broken
     Wouldn't it just stop working if the door were broken?

2.You can't cover the persiennes, so as to control the temperature
    Persiennes is defined as "outside window shutters having louvres to keep out the sun while    
    ventilation" Also called Persian blinds. (French word) 
    I had to google the meaning of Persiennes to figure out that the instruction means to not cover the     
    back of the microwave as temperature control. Still doesn't make sense technically, but still....

3. Please don't startup the microwave when it is empty. It's very harmful to the microwave if idle running
     I thought you would want less radiation from the microwave affecting humans, but no, here, the  
     microwave running is *very harmful* to the microwave itself

4. It can't hit up the fresh and cooked eggs, please break the yolks when you fry them. Or they will explode.
     Self explanatory - no "hit up" = EXPLOSION !!!

5. Please use the slow fire when you hit up the waterless food or un-heat-resisting package
     Microwaves are supposed to use waves, not fire, or so I thing. 

6. Ensure the food is >3.5 cm shorter than top of the container
     Not 3cm or 4cm, it is specifically noted to be 3.5 cm.(This is where a ruler would come handy)
     I am assuming there might be an EXPLOSION otherwise. 

7. You should stay 1m away from the microwave.
     1m = 3.3 ft. Need I say more?

The rest of the instructions are below.
And I live in the International student dorm, the best dorm on campus.
But hey, I am not complaining, despite the wacky instructions we get to have a microwave on each floor and that means I can conserve body heat by not having to bike to the dining halls when it is freezing outside.

Erm, there is a dead rat on my bike

My research involves performing animal experiments. I work with rat models. So needless to say, it also involves sacrificing animals for the sake of science. It isn't a pleasant thing to do, but it's one of the many things science demands.

At least in the US, the most transfer of animals I had to do was limited within one building. However, China is a different story. First, to get approval has been a long process. They had to do a special training for me in English... Our first preliminary study involved just some characterization, so not an extensive experiment. My lab mate told me to meet him at lab and then we would proceed. So I biked to lab and on getting there he told me that we need to go to the Life sciences building. The life sciences building is a 5-10 minute bike ride  from my lab. So we headed off there. My lab-mate is essential here, he speaks Chinese and can communicate with the animal lab official who don't speak English.We get there, and the officials first hand us a live rat. This is the conversation that follows:

Me (M) - Why did they give us a live rat?
Labmate (L) - We asked for a live rat
M - We need to sacrifice the rat, we can't take a live rat back to lab (which is 10 mins away)
L - What, we don't?
M - How do we sacrifice a rat at our lab? (Our lab is mainly cellular biology)
L - Don't we bleed it to death ?
M - NOOooOoOOOoo
L - Oh.
M- Erm...
L - So what do we do?
M - Can you ask them if they have a method to do it here in the animal lab?
Much conversation in Chinese ensues
L - There is another way, they have CO2
(I heave a sigh of relief, I did not want to deal with a bloody rat)
M - That works
L - Okay

So then they sacrifice the rat, and put it in a shoe box with some bedding and hand it to us...
Now my lab-mate is holding a cardboard box with a dead rat body inside. And we still need to get back to lab. We come outside the life sciences building and then he goes - "Oh, your bike has a basket". We then arrange the cardboard box with a dead rat inside it on my bike and we head back. (While I am screaming inside my head, there is a dead rat on my bike)

That is the story of how I got a dead rat on my bike.

(When our animal numbers increased, we could no longer bike due to the need of a "bigger box". Now we walk a whole 15 mins, when it is below freezing outside to get more samples back in a bigger thermocol box that once housed some machine...)