Radical Eclecticity

<continues singing along with the Barenaked Ladies song>

There are now several things to discuss, none of which are the items I thought my next post would be about. So I guess the first thing I should tell you that I learned is to stop giving teasers and previews of blog posts. I will probably write the bit about giving English names at some point, but not in this post. Other points trumped it (that, and Xiaofeng is proving to be somewhat indecisive).

I have now been here for one full week. Actually, as of this writing, I’m about 8 hours shy of a week, but that’s close enough for me. That completes about one seventh of my total stay. No… I can’t let myself get away with that. I’m a math teacher, and I’m going to be here for seven and a half weeks, so that means I have completed two fifteenths of my stay. Either way, it’s a trip of just the right length that none of my fractions will simplify very easily, so 没关系 (“whatever”).

In the last day of this first week, three things happened that are worth reporting. Let’s start with the good ol’ Internet, shall we? I am posting this blog entry from my own, in-house, land-line access to the net. <insert sound of a cheering crowd here>. My hosts came and finished preparing everything and hooking it all up yesterday afternoon. Not only is it significantly faster than my at&t wireless card, it is also significantly less expensive.

I’ll still have to pay my monthly minimum for the at&t service, but I’m not going to have sport the $5 for each extra meg of data, now. I might even make my data limits this month too, which would be cool. I’m still really glad that I went with the at&t contract, though. Without it, I would have failed one of my classes at UCF already, and my grade in the second would have seriously suffered.

By way of an odd segue, which really only makes sense to me until we get to the end of this bit, I can no longer cast aspersions on Starbucks while I’m here. I have often identified Starbucks as a source of corporate evil (or a corporate source of evil, 都可以 (“whatever”)). I’m going to have to retract that statement, at least as it applies to 常州. Since I’ve arrived, I have surprised myself by making coffee a daily part of my beverage regimen. I normally just drink a lot of water, but at home I have a sink-mounted filter and I fill up three liter-sized bottles of water for the day. I don’t often get through them all, but I always have three liters available. These bottles are either in my classroom, in my living room, or I carry one around with me.

I have been spoiled by the taste of my spiffy filter and the convenience of my big liter-sized bottles. The water doesn’t taste right to me here. Mind you, faucet water from home doesn’t taste right to me either, so I’m not saying China has bad water, I’m saying I’m a wimp. In the absence of all this water to drink I was getting ridiculously thirsty. I got some tea, some packets of instant milk-tea (read, “tea with milk in it”), and some packets of instant coffee. I’ve been rotating through them all as part of my morning routine. The coffee, though not horrible, is not real coffee. If I didn’t get anything even remotely like coffee while I was here, I’m sure I would have been fine with it, but having this “almost coffee” on a regular basis has left me craving the real thing.

So I asked my contact (I’d say “friend” but that seems presumptuous. Sometimes I think he must shake his head and either chuckle or sigh at some of the questions I’ve sent him.) that had taught in 常州 for two years where to find fresh-brewed coffee and how to ask for it correctly. He replied simply, “There’s not a Starbucks at 南大街 anymore?”

Duh! Starbucks is everywhere! Of course they would have a location at the biggest, most popular shopping venue in any city in China that’s large enough to have an Olympic venue! I felt like a total dummy-head. They do; I found it; and it was yummy. But that’s not all! They also have free wireless Internet! (hence the segue that only made sense to me until now). Given that I almost always wind up completing my weekly work for my online reading class in a single weekly marathon session, I may be going to Starbucks once a week, much like I used to go to the Dandelion once a week. The dandelion is still cooler, but you go with what you’ve got. Now, I am attempting to pace out my work more effectively so I can avoid that, but we’ll see how that works out.

Third (and finally, because I’ve written a lot), I had my first completely successful outing on my own. I’ve gone out on my own before, but I didn’t accomplish the things I set out to do. Yesterday, I set out to buy a map, have lunch, check out the Starbucks, and get some books for next year. I did all of those things successfully, and more. I found my way, without getting lost (I didn’t even need to use my map for that bit), ordered my own lunch, found Starbucks, had coffee, got my books, made it back here, and gave myself a “w00t”. At the bookstore, I spent $80 on books that I intend to ship back for use next year. For that amount, I got two smallish dictionaries for student use, one large Chinese to English dictionary (the title, 汉英大词典, literally means “Chinese English Big Dictionary”), one large English to Chinese dictionary, four large wall maps, and all seven Harry Potter books written in Chinese. In the states, half of the Potter collection, alone, would have busted that total. Now, my price tag isn’t totally complete, mind you. I still have to ship them home. But I’ve done this early enough that I should be able to use the cheapest method and not worry about them showing up a month after I need them.

LINGUISTIC NOTE: You may have noticed that I used two different phrases, and translated them both as “whatever.” If you think about the way we use that word in English, it does have several different meanings, and those uses get translated in different ways. This includes the third one that I’ve listed below, but didn’t use in my post.

• 没关系 - mei guan xi - lit. “There is no relation.” Used in the sense of “it doesn’t matter”
• 都可以 - dou ke yi - lit. “all are O.K.” Used in the sense of “it’s all good”
• 算了 - suan le - “whatever” in the dismissive or angry sense, like “forget it,” or “leave me alone,” or to imply that the speaker doesn’t care