A slow, hot summer

The last two weeks have been pretty slow. After a reasonably cool phase, it's getting hotter and hotter again. Last week, I thought I had contracted a fever but it turned I was just incredibly hot. I did, however, contract 'laduzi' ('lose bowels') again, and have had it ever since. It's just inconvenient more than anything, having to carry a loo roll everywhere, and timing activities so that every 3-5 hours I am within sprinting distance of a suitable place. I think by year's end I will be able to go to a fancy dress party in what looks like one of those skeleton outfits, but in fact is really just me.

I've been doing some intensive study recently. I haven't spoken a lot of Chinese this month, but have been revising characters and reading a lot. I've discovered I can now more or less read simple newspaper articles. This is enormously satisfying. When I glance across the paper, it just looks less daunting and more familiar than a while ago.

I thought I would read one thoroughly, a rather amusing piece about how an Australian tourist in Beijing collapsed to the ground after being harrassed by a very perserving beggar. On first glance, I could get most of it. Then I went through it with a red pen, underlining all the characters and bits that I didn't fully understand. When I finished, it looked like it had suffered death by firing squad, such was the amount of red ink smattered all over it.

Obviously, Chinese is monstrously difficult. One of the multitude of reasons is that many characters have more than meaning. Used on their own, or with other characters, or in different contexts, their meaning changes, often completely. Another thing is that it's very difficult to tell proper nouns from ordinary words. In English, capital letters give the reader a big clue, but there is no equivalent here, so sometimes you just don't have the foggiest idea. Reading headlines is nearly impossible, I need a picture to give me a headstart.

Yesterday I was practising writing characters. My tutor said that all foreigners write characters very big and like 5 year olds, and I'm no exception. It's quite easy for Chinese people to write English normally, but foreigners writing characters is quite hard. I'm also told that being left-handed makes writing properly impossible, which is really great news.

So I'm at my desk, writing away. And while I like doing this, it is pretty boring. It was really hot, and I was pretty tired anyway, so I just thought I would rest my head on the desk for a bit. 3 hours later, I wake up and for a fraction of a second I thought I was blind, but it turns out it was just the paper stuck to my forehead. If only I could get vocabulary to stick in my head as firmly as that paper was stuck to my forehead, I would be sorted.

Besides this, I have been tutoring a kid English. Unfortunately, he has gone back to Shanghai this weekend, so my income has disappeared. Although I can't say I enjoyed it hugely, it was pretty easy and he was a really nice kid. Last week, he said 'After playing basketball, I am hot, so I like to drink a glass of beard'. He got mixed up with 'beer', but it's still quite funny even if he had said beer, he's 10 years old. It does at least mean I don't have to take taxis to his house anymore. I am getting less and less used to the driving here, and more specifically the pedestrians. Some of them just do not look when crossing the road. It is something I really don't get, walking around like they're in a deserted field, seemingly not noticing the hordes of buses, taxis, cars, mopeds, scooters, bikes, rickshaws heading their way.

Last week, I went out and about and discovered a nice park not far from my flat. It was only half finished, so had plenty of trees and grass, had quite a nice 'garden' feel about it. Because it hasn't been properly opened, and not yet completely covered in fake marble paving stones and bathroom tiles, there was no-one there. I still think I need to get out of Xi'an - my German flatmate has been on holiday 4 times in less than 6 months, I haven't been further than an hour outside of town. First, however, I need some bowel stablisation before I can consider such a move.