258 dtg (i got married)
Shang ge xing-qi wo gen yi ge fei-chang piao-liang de gu-nian yi-qi jie-hun le. Ke-shi, wo-de xing-niang fa-xian-guo wo-de pu-tong-hua hen bu hao, suo-yi ta ma-shang jiu zou le.
(Last week I got married to an extraordinarily beautiful woman. But, my wife discovered my Chinese was really bad, so she immediately left me).
It all happened in Si-chuan (four rivers), a province (sheng) in Western China (Xi-fang Zhong-guo). About 40 of us (mostly my Korean fellow students) went on a university organised guided tour (lu-you) to E-mei Shan (High Eyebrow Mountain), Le Shan (Happy Mountain) and Jiu-zhai-gou (9 Fort Trenches). If you have seen the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or Hero (Ying-xiong), then you will be familiar with the beautiful landscape at Jiu-zhai-gou.
The minority people (xiao-shu min-zu) who have traditionally lived at Jiu-zhai-gou are the Zang-zu. Luckily for us, they happened to be hosting a cultural evening, which was a great chance to learn about them and their way of life. Evidently, an important consideration in the selection of a groom (ma-fu) is his ability to win tug-of-war contests (bi-sai), and of the eight males selected at random from the audience, the winner happened to be me.
As you know, my listening skill is pretty bad, so I didn't understand most of what was said for the next twenty minutes, but with a bit of help from the MC and our tour guide (dao-you), I managed to get married (jie-hun). Now, tradtional Zang-zu marriages involve the bride and groom meeting on the big day itself, and so it was not until I pulled back the veil that I actually got to see my wife (lao-po) for the first time. Well, she was gorgeous. Unfortunately, I wasn't quite what she was expecting, hence our separation (fen-bie) just three minutes later (the show was over and it was getting late).
To all of the people who have suggested I will get married more than once, I meekly submit that you were right. I will try to invite more of you to marriage Number 2 - as well getting more than 15 minutes notice myself. To my darling ex-wife (I'd use her name if only I knew it), I am sorry that things didn't work out - but I want you to know life was bliss during out short time together.
Paulie
ps: I will post photos just as soon as I manage to get them on to a computer.
21 Comments:
so the fortune teller in delhi was right...about two marriages...?
: )
ps you need flickr.com baby, you need flickr.com!
Give Flickr the arse, I really don't know why it is so popular with nomadlifers.
photobucket.com is much better!
Check my blog (and the link to the photos on the side of my blog) for an example!
What school do you go to? I've head mixed things about Ocean U. and was wondering about Qingdao U.
Would you mind commenting on what some of your expenses are (apartment, school, tutor, food)?
I'm planning to come to either Shandong or Jiangsu and do the same thing that you are, but without the $1k bonus.
I agree about Pimsleur, but www.cheappimsleur.com is the cheapest on the Internet. I just bought Rosetta Stone and it seems like a great program once you know some vocabulary.
Good work man. As Britney Spears will tell you, marriage is sweetest when unconsumated and quickly followed by divorce...
re: photos ... i'm already a dedicated smug-mugger, so they will be there ... they're coming
re: school ... i go to ocean u. the china business program they offer i would not join if you want to study chinese, but they have a pure language course (that i study) and i reckon it is great. get yourself a private home-teacher as well, make some chinese friends, avoid people that speak the same language as you and you should be fine. tuition costs at ocean u are 7,000 RMB for six months (one semester).
living costs ... rent is 1,000 kuai (RMB) per month ... i live on about 30 RMB per day ... break fast is 1 RMB, lunch around 8 RMB, dinner between 5 and 25 depending on where i eat ... it's pretty cheap, tutor is 20 rmb per hour which is also good value (because i am very lucky to have found a good one) .. i work with her for a few hours every day.
if you chose to go out and drink a lot every night you can spend loads more money, but you really don't need that much to get by.
Hey man, good idea to learn mandarin chinese... So what method do you use to study the language? total immersion, uni, self-study, girlfriend?
I've worked in China for a year and a half, and I speak conversational mandarin. Enough to get by anyway.
Do you listen to music by any chance? Check out Wong Faye, and her lyrics. And another site you might find interesting: www.zompist.com
Take care,
it's more or less immersion ... i try to avoid speaking english wherever i can and although it's not always easy to spend time with my chinese friends (they do get sick of having to talk at the pace of a four year old eventually!) i find that my korean co-students are great to spend time with ... we just make our mistakes together and keep going.
i do part university and then part self-study, plan to do this for a year ...
re: chinese music ... my good friend vega gave me a whole bunch of chinese music before i came to qingdao, and wang faye is definitely a favourite! i checked out zopmist ... now i just have to work out if i have any of those songs on my ipod!
Jiu-zhai-gou actually means Nine Valley Villages, named mainly for the traditional nine Tibetan villages in the Valley.
Indeed, it is a very beautiful place...
Wang Faye is classy. She is defintely in those songs I have passed to you. Try to find them out and learn how to sing! :)
There is this one scene in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon where they are out west on a green step, beside some untouched mountains in a yurt. I've actually been to an identical place, in Xinjiang, up by the Mongolian border, close to Lake Kanas... it was magical. Beware of Uighur dances, you might find yourself married at the end of the dance like I did. But then I told her a good story which ended with "goodbye."
We might be making a trip together into the frontier of China sooner than you know; sharpen your horseback skills. :)
paulie ni hao, dui bu qi, wo de pinyin bu tai hao, wo hen jiu mei you xie pinyin. screw this, is been too long, but i'll make sure my pu-tong-hua is up to scratch before i visit you in qingdao.
hey there,
gonna be in Qingdao from about June and looking for a chinese tutor for about 4 hrs/day 5 days a week. am a third year student doing a chinese degree in the uk and need to spend summer focusing on newspaper chinese and chinese literature, do you think your tutor would have time this summer? Also am trying to move in with chinese people and looking for some sort of flat share in Qingdao, any advice? sorry about the demanding nature of this, meant to go out in two weeks and as yet nothing sorted,
THANKS Liza
hey there,
gonna be in Qingdao from about June and looking for a chinese tutor for about 4 hrs/day 5 days a week. am a third year student doing a chinese degree in the uk and need to spend summer focusing on newspaper chinese and chinese literature, do you think your tutor would have time this summer? Also am trying to move in with chinese people and looking for some sort of flat share in Qingdao, any advice? sorry about the demanding nature of this, meant to go out in two weeks and as yet nothing sorted,
THANKS Liza
liza - happy to make the introduction, send me an email (paulie@nomadlife.org) before you arrive and i will put you in touch with my teacher
re: living with chinese .. remember that very few chinese people can afford to live in the kind of place that you would be happy to live in .. so it's not really that easy a thing to do ... try posting an ad on www.myredstar.com.cn and see how you go
Your blog reminds me of the great time I had at BLCU - keep up the good work.
I'll be going to Jiuzhaigou this summer - already looking forward to it.
thanks alot, will be in touch
thanks so much, will be in touch soon
Hi Paulie,
Great experience, so you joined the club of married or soon-to-be ;) Have not visited your blog for a while but it loooks you are mking great progress in mastering chinese. BTW thanks for a dictionary of French you left me in Rotterdam - I am mastering French and it is handy to have already dictionary!
Wishes from Bruxelles,
Volodja
hey there, have arrived in qingdao and thanks to suggestion of that redstar website have found a place and a possible tutor, thanks loads
Liza
Paulie, need your help on chinese tutor. I will be traveling to Qingdao for a project at the end of June and would be staying there until Sep. I need to brush up my mandarin and plan to hire a tutor after work for an hour or so. Can you introduce me to a tutor. Please email me at jjyap@hotmail.com for further details. Appreciate your help.
one more from me - since you are in the business of writing letters in chinese, could you please send one to violet li?
violet li sits in the cube next to me. i have never spoken to her but she seems awfully worried all the time. this is particularly evident when she speaks on the phone in mandarin to her hommies. sometimes, i feel she is about to burst into tears.
i have tried to taunt my china connection, most notably by saying "wai" when i pick up the phone. she does overhear but only proceeds to talk softer. in her cube, she has hung a large photo of herself smiling. i feel it is to remind herself of happier days.
however, violet does not humor me. in hindi, this is translated as she does not give me any 'pata', which in turn means "she does not give me any leaf". which does not make sense but the expression connotes what i am trying to say - violet does not want to be friends with me
perhaps a letter in chinese telling her that life is short, or at least her present life is short and she should live it up would help. also, something about loving office neighbours?
tell me if you are game and i will send you the add
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