May 18, 2008

#100: Keyi Chi Yu

This is the 100th post on this blog. Yay!! I honestly thought that, after my insane post-up in January, I wouldn't be able to keep up the pace. And while it's dropped since then, I continually find things to post about. Good times.

This one post is just to say that the best part of last night was seeing a Chinese cover band doing a bluegrass version of "Something in the Way" (the best line of which is in Chinese in the subject of this post).

My ayi is here now and she continues to serve as a great way to learn Chinese. I rarely see her because she usually comes while I'm at work, but this week she is here on Sunday. I told her my grandpa (wai gong, or mother's father) passed away and so I had to go to America last week. I also managed to convey that he was happy that I was in Shanghai -- Ta xihuan wo zai Shanghai kuai le, if I'm not mistaken :-)

Like many things in life, my Chinese (spoken, understanding, and now even a little bit of reading) improves when I don't think about it. So I'm trying a new approach. The idea is still to surround myself with Chinese (which is not difficult to do, given the circumstances) but instead of concentrating on words and sending them straight to my conscious, I'm going to try letting my unconscious do most of the work. Things seem to work better when I do that, even if it might take longer to bring words to the forefront.

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