I Live Yet Another Day

Soooo..... Today we had a culture class on Chinese painting. Perhaps the most interesting part was how the teacher started out pointing out the differences that it has compared to the Western style of oil painting. Much of the point of this blog (and indeed this entire study abroad trip) is to describe how things are both the same and different as at home. I thought the most significant comment she made was that Chinese painting focuses on capturing the spirit of what is being drawn while Western paintings focus more on creating a representation of reality. Of course, my interest could simply be because most of the other differences had to be with the actual technique of the drawing rather than the intent behind it.

At the end of the class, we got to try drawing ourselves. Let's just say my picture wasn't very pretty. It was however, at least one step (or even two!) above a stick figure.

I can't think of a witty subtitle.

As far as our Chinese language class, it's interesting to compare the order at which we learn certain things compared to how they teach it at Maryland. We just went over the various types of classes today, but that was something we never touched upon until my fourth semester of Chinese classes back home. But I suppose you can't do everything at once.

Unfortunately, the class is a bit behind what I've learned already, so I'm not really learning any new grammar. However, it has been a good chance for me to perfect the basics of the language (tones, pronunciation, etc.) without having to worry about being overwhelmed by the amount of new material. Plus, I also have to get acquainted to the simplified style of writing characters. In some ways it's almost like a completely new alphabet, although fortunately many of the characters are the same between both writing systems.

On a completely different note, it seems I got really lucky getting that picture up. My camera battery just died.

Also, as much as I've complained about the food, I have to say there's one thing I'll definitely miss (two if you count the prices). Bubble tea is almost everywhere. Already I know of at least three places to get it around Tianjin, which is more than I even am aware of at home. You can even get it at the grocery store. Also, for that matter, Coke is even better here (or Kele, as it's called in Chinese). I think they use actual sugar here as opposed to the corn syrup they use back home. It means it tastes really awesome without leaving a sort of sticky and disgusting aftertaste in your mouth. But I suppose it has to be better to balance out the whole lack of water apart from bottled water.