Yes, There is Spellcheck in China

Ok, yes, I corrected my spelling in the previous post. I won’t claim it was a typing error. (Mom, you’ve know since 3rd grade and my chronic mis-spelling of “once” — wunce? wense? — that I’m just a terrible speller.) Anyway, my trusty google spellcheck is misbehaving, so I promise to run everything through OpenOffice before publishing… Sheesh… Everybody’s a critic!

I should also respond to your questions (Mom and Jeremy’s Ma) about the way I’ve been typing Mandarin. It’s one of the romanizations of the language: pinyin with the numbers indicate tone. You also can indicate tone with different marks above the vowels. For a better explanation of the four tones, try wikipedia or this site is also a good place to start: http://www.chinese-outpost.com/language/pronunciation/

I had another productive day in China today. I wonder what I’m going to do without little missions. Well, anyway, I spent all day with my speaking teacher, Cindy/刘老师 (Liu2 Lao3shi1). After our class, we had lunch. She introduced me to “over the bridge” noodles. All of the shops translate it “cross-bridge noodles.” I heard the story last time I was in Kunming, but this was the first time giving them a try. Legend has it that a woman was puzzling over how to deliver a hot meal to her husband. Apparently he was a scholar studying for an examination and would retreat over the bridge. By the time she could arrive with his meal, it would be cold, but she discovered that a bowl of chicken broth with a layer of oil on top would insulate a pot of rice noodles. In this way, she was able to make sure he received a hot meal every day and he passed his exam! It’s a local dish. Everyone seems to think that rice noodles are even better than rice here! They say rice noodles keep you skinny… all sorts of nonsense. You get a pot of super hot broth and the ingredients are served on the side. You add the noodles, vegetables, and meat yourself and it all kind of cooks in your bowl. I’m not sure I can attest to all the hype, but maybe I’m missing something since I had it without meat. Certainly popular — the place was packed at lunch time.

After lunch 刘老师 helped me buy a phone and a calling plan. I tried for the most modest options and spent 433 RMB (~ 55 USD). It was $45 for the phone and $10 for the calling plan, which includes about 400 minutes talking time. Not so bad. Considering the tremendous variety of phones you can buy here, I thought they might be even cheaper. I can’t really complain. Of course, text messaging is the preferred method of communication here so I really need to get better at reading. You input each character phonetically, in pinyin, and then choose the correct Chinese character from a list. It’s easy if you know how to say something and also recognize the character.

刘老师 asked me to accompany her to her part-time job. A little strange, I thought, but I’m not going to turn down an invitation for an adventure so we hop on a bus and we go to her office. It’s a small company that distributes fancy tea. At this point I’m sill entirely unclear of her position or job title. When we arrive it’s a normal looking office with merchandise shelves along one wall full of all kinds of tea accessories — tea cups and tea pots and gift boxes of tea. There are several cubicles with computers. Two men are playing some computer game at one terminal. In the middle of the room is a coffee (tea) table with two black leather sofas arranged around it. A man is asleep on one of the sofas. On the tea table is a tea “bed” that stretches almost the full surface of the small table. It’s a smooth, irregularly shaped piece of dark wood with a large reclining buddha carved on the side and a very shallow basin in the middle. There is a tiny drain from the basin to a bucket placed discretely on the floor. My teacher introduces me to her co-workers then starts the elaborate process of making tea.

I didn’t get out of there until 6 p.m. The moment she started making tea the rest of the office gathered round and drank and talked. Eventually her boss arrived and several other people in the company. All the men in China seem to smoke, even in offices! So, they’re drinking and smoking and joking around. It was really exhausting. I mostly listened and when ever I could get the nerve up, I asked 刘老师　to translate what was going on. They won’t let me leave empty handed, so in spite of my protests they send me off with a brick of tea. I guess this means I have to buy their tea later on. 　It really is incredible tea, so they don’t have to twist my arm.

I offered to help them translate their website into English. I don’t know if you’ll be able to pull it up, but here’s the address: http://www.tengwang.com.cn/ (You might enjoy the featured “propagandize” button.) I had some problems getting it to resolve, even here, so I didn’t explore it much. Anyway, there’s not the same kind of interest in the web like there is in the U.S. China is a more cash-in-palm kind of society. So I suspect these folks only have a website so they can print it on their business cards. It’s fancy though — lots of animation.

What else? Oh, I ate my first western meal this evening. I went to a foreigner cafe, where they serve American food. I had a veggie “burger” with fries and an enormous beer — all for 3 USD. The World Cup just started this evening, so everyone’s out and about, but the foreigner cafes were relatively quiet. (No t.v.’s.) I was bold and invited another foreigner to eat with me. It was nice to have some conversation in English. Antoinne is actually French, but he spent some of his childhood in Charleston, South Carolina so his accent is totally ambiguous. He’s an engineer in Kunming on business for the next couple of weeks. Turns out to be very well read, so we talked books and politics. How nice.
Oh, yes. I have a Chinese name: 姜丽 (Jiang1 Li4). The first and last names are reversed in Chinese — Surname then Given Name. Literally the first character is “ginger” and the second is “beautiful.” It’s a nice common name, so all my Chinese friends will remember it.