Chinglish in ChangCheng

First off, an addendum to the previous post:
Regarding the series of hospital adventures last weekend, I wanted to mention that while Hospital 304 was not the most comfortable of locations, the second and third hospitals we visited were clean and luxurious. More than anything else, it demonstrated the existence of a class system in what is supposed to be a classless system. The Chinese follow a Communist philosophy, in which all things are supposed to be equal for all people, whether it be access to food or access to medical care. What the experience last weekend showed me was that money can buy you better conditions wherever you go - even in China. Just being an American helps you climb the social ladders, because if you are an American, you are automatically assumed to be made of money. It is hard to live with the idea that to an everyday Chinese person, Hospital 304, which would be the equivalent of the USC medical clinic in Los Angeles, is the definition of a hospital; yet, there too exist "International hospitals" and spa resort-type hospitals that exceed the conditions that celebrity patients are offered at Cedars Sinai. Has the Communist system led to a complacent acceptance of low quality facilities? Or are the communists evolving into capitalists?

That aside, this weekend we've managed to survive yet another Chinese adventure. You might think it involves climbing the Great Wall, and though that was an adventure in and of itself, it was not our most entertaining. The real adventure this weekend happened after we returned from one of the Seven Wonders of the World and involves the one thing you know that your mom will always be able to do better than you will - laundry. Now, this is no small feat in the land where spin cycles are dysfunctional and dryers shred your clothing. There have been many horror stories of innocent students, often with much practiced laundry skills, suffering at the hands of these seemingly ferocious, but essential mechanical boxes. Lucky for us, there is a laundry service on campus that we may use. But again, this is not quite like the ones in the States. Thankfully, they washed our clothes for us (for only 5 kuai, I might add, which is less than the amount I pay for one load of a washing machine back at Yale), but they for some reason left the drying up to us. So let's picture this: three girls walking a block from the laundromat of sorts back to the dorms, their arms full of sopping wet clothing, and...it's raining. It was quite the sight, to say the least. Now, my bedroom looks like a second hand thrift shop with shirts, shorts, pants, sweatshirts, and towels hanging from the curtain railing, cabinet doors, bathroom racks, and chairs. Oh yes, and the TV is covered in socks. Lots of white socks. We aren't quite sure when the clothes will dry, or if they ever will for that matter, but at least they're clean. Well, at least until the mildew settles in.

Now we can move onto ChangCheng, or the Great Wall - the more touristy adventure of the weekend. All of us students packed into two coaches for the three hours from Beijing to Simatai. Simatai is one of the less traveled parts of the Great Wall, and one of the oldest. It is not as well preserved as some of the more picturesque segments of the Great Wall, but don't fret, at least it was the steepest. We arrived at around 5 pm on Friday evening, settling into a beautiful little hotel on the base of the mountain that bordered a small river. Asleep by 10:30, we were up again by 3am to begin our hike up the mountain to the Great Wall. I don't know how the Chinese guards those thousands of years ago managed to run from tower to tower, because I couldn't even run from one to the next, let alone from Tower 1 to Tower 12. Every time we would arrive at one tower, we would carefully turn the corner, shyly looking upward, fearing of the amount of stairs that would greet us yet again. Without fail, every time we peeked across, there were at least 100 steps (just picture a neverending series of the Santa Monica/Malibu stairs), some of which were entirely vertical, one step level with my feet, and the next with my waist. It was more of a climb than a leisurely walk, but we finally made it to the twelfth tower, which is the end point of this particular section. Beyond it lies a poorly preserved segment of the wall, which has been closed off "due to multiple deaths". Though some people dared to cross the boundary, I had had my share of adventure for one day - and a brush with death didn't seem too appealing after climbing what seemed like Mt Everest. Although we had set out at 3am to catch the sunrise from the top, sadly, we didn't get to see any of it since the fog covered most of it up, but nevertheless, it was sort of this surreal experience. We were literally sitting amongst the clouds on one of the most ancient and fascinating physical structures the world has seen, and while I was probably more sweaty and sleep deprived than anything else at that point, I felt as if I had conquered THE massive wall. I know it's a little cheesy, but I couldn't help but picture myself looking up at the Wall from the base of the mountain as if I was an infantryman of an invading army. From that viewpoint, the Wall is intimidating, austere and punishing. It makes the Han Empire - China - seem almost like this majestic, impervious bloc. But from the top, it feels like you're on the top of the world. And yes, someone did bring back the famous Leo "King of World" moment from Titanic. I don't think anyone could resist doing so.

During this little excursion of ours, too, I noticed an interesting twist in many of my and other Chinese students' language patterns. Technically, we're not supposed to be speaking English at all while we're here, but finding that very hard to maintain, most of our English has devolved into a sort of Chinglish, in which Chinese words are substituted into English grammar constructions. For instance, a typical sentence may sound like "Wow, her Zhongwen today was hen hao", meaning: her Chinese today was very good. Or maybe, "I need to go to Wu Mei to mai some mianbao"; read: I need to go to Wu Mart to buy some bread. It's actually quite amusing, and I think most of us are fearing that the habits will stick, making certain Chinese phrases permanent fixtures in our everyday speech. So if I slip up and say, or write, something in "Zhongwen", bare with me, I'm stuck in Chinglish.

Another very important fixture of this weekend was the purchase of my new digital camera. While I didn't bargain as well as I think I could have (I cut the price in half, but it was still a little steep for my newfound bargaining mentality), I now have a working camera, which is the most important part. While it's sad to leave my old camera behind (after all, we've been through so much together), this also means that I will actually have pictures of my trip to China, which, hopefully, I will be able to upload at some point too - if the Internet ever runs faster than a 1996 modem connection.

That's all for now. I have to return to the daily grind of character memorization before tomorrow's class. More to come soon.

Signing off,
Tess