I've been really cramming my head full of Chinese lately. In addition to my regular Chinese lessons, I also have a textbook, and audio book. If you thought these were all from the same system, you are greatly mistaken. Sure there are some overlaps between them, but all are separate. I'm just about to wrap up the first unit in my audio books. That may not sound like a lot, but there are 30 chapters in each unit. And after unit 3, you're supposed to be somewhat conversational. Now I need to go back and learn characters, which seems daunting but I'm starting to really get them.

I was talking to a friend on how the character system works on the computer, maybe someone out there would find it interesting? Anywho, Chinese is composed of several tones. 5 in total: Neutral (what we usually use), Up, Down, High, and Down up. So when you say "Ni", like in "Ni hao!", it could be many things depending on pronunciation. You actually type "Ni", and when you press space you get a list of characters. You choose which one you need depending on what you're trying to say. In the case of "Ni hao!", I want "你", which means "you". It happens to be the first in the list, so I type "Ni", and then press 1. However there are many more. "Ni" 2 through 5 are 泥 拟 腻 and 逆. I don't have a clue what they mean.

And while I have you on the edge of your seat talking about Chinese linguistics <squeeee!>, I realize there's something I've never mentioned before - how incredibly impatient the Chinese are. You'd think the founders of Confucianism would know how to chill out, but everyone is in a really big hurry. Yeah everyone drives a bit crazy, but its because they're on a godamn mission to get from point A to B, and everyone in their way can suck it. Horns are constantly being used, as well as flashing their brights. Queuing is a concept not fully realized. It's like everyone is thinking "Hey, we really should queue to be fair for everyone... ah to hell with it". What results are these "pseudo-queues" where everyone sort of gets in a line at the coffee shop, but its an amorphous blob that can spontaneously propel people forwards or backwards. The employees move really fast as well, I suppose in fear of blob retaliation.

It's funny, but the more time I spend here the less I find to write about. Not because I've said it before, but because you just get used to it and stop seeing it as unique. This turned out to be longer than usual, so maybe next time I'll talk about restaurant etiquette and this cool tea house I discovered on a lake - albeit with no pictures.