"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes" - Marcel ProustI started intensive Chinese class last Monday and so far it’s kept me really busy. I love it, and I’m already starting to understand some things I hear around me, but it is extremely difficult to learn because pronunciation is so different from English and you have to learn to speak in four tones, not one like English. The class will last until late August – I’m hoping by then I’ll be able to make my way around this city relatively easily. I know fluency won't come so quickly, but it's a start.
I'm finding it strange how quickly a person adapts to new surroundings. The first week here for us was outrageous. We took pictures of everything we saw. I blogged every day. Everything was completely new and foreign and interesting. But now after three weeks, it all seems fairly normal. We don’t stop to take pictures of chickens with black legs and heads still on at the grocery store anymore.
I ignore the men in the park doing Tai Chi that I can see out my office window every morning.
I barely hear the tinkle of mahjong tiles in the park as I walk by. And the smell of stinky tofu (chou do fu) doesn’t assault my senses the way it did the first time I smelled it.
I’ve always wondered about early explorers and adventurers. Especially women explorers. How would it feel to be one of these people, going to a completely new place that you had only heard about? You’d never seen this place on CNN. You didn’t study this place in your college history class. You have no idea what to expect. Did these early explorers adapt as quickly as my husband and I have? Is it a part of human nature that new experiences become dulled after they’ve been experienced for a while?
I’m trying as hard as I can to stay excited and surprised by everything. But I can feel the shock of it all wearing off as daily life takes over. I wake up and write, have my breakfast (which I still cook at home). I study some then make my way to class (which takes me about an hour each way). I sit through class for three hours every afternoon and leave with a brain heavy with the singsong of Chinese. I go back home and eat dinner, read a little, watch some t.v. Go to bed. I don’t think about the strange things of the day – the butcher with large cuts of meat dripping onto the sidewalk in the heat, the blaring noise at the grocery store on a Sunday, the kids in all their different brightly colored school uniforms. It’s just another day in the life now.
