Happy Easter

This posting will serve two purposes today. The first is to wish you all a Happy Easter!

The funny thing that is time zones, and rotating earth and all is that my Easter Sunday festivities are ended and I'm relaxing at home again. But all of you haven't even woken up for your sunday yet. Crazy.... Here we had an event for our friends on Saturday making eggs and crafts and telling the story of Easter. Then today (Sun.) we had breakfast at 9 followed by service at 10. We had 14 of us in attendance. It was good. =)

And.... He is Risen!

The second is to answer a question from one of my readers! A few posts prior to this I asked if you had any questions about China or my life over here. I got one response, and I'm gonna own up to my promise and answer it.

"How well are you able to communicate with the Chinese? Do most know a little English?"

Excellent question! I'm going to answer the last one first. Do most people know a little English? The answer is no. But I'm spoiled because I live on a college campus where many of the students are english majors or have a small grasp on english. However, out in town English is hard to find. There are a few people who know a word or two but many know nothing. Which brings us to the first question... How well do I communicate? It depends on the situation. In some cases there is a lot of pointing and gesturing. For example, when I first arrived in China and wanted to order food I would point to what I wanted. Then I learned the word 'jigga' which means 'this' or 'that.' So I point and say jigga. Now I can speak a bit of Chinese. Some of the Chinese words I know are egg, bacon, noodles, rice, potato, beef, fried bread, dumplings.... and that's just food.

I've found that listening to the language is getting easier, and I'm beginning to understand more and more... it's finding the right words to respond that is hard. I can usually figure out when someone is asking me where I'm from and what I do... And I can respond in Chinese with teacher, America, and if they ask I can say where I teach ... the Shimao kindergarten. I can say where I live and where the other team members live which comes in handy when I need to take a taxi.

Some other things I can say are hello, how are you?, is it good?, I love you, and a few other simple phrases... I mostly pick up words here and there as I need them. Like I learned 'lemonade' because I wanted to be able to order it... and I've learned the names of most of the fruits available here because I like to ask if something is what I think it is... Because the fruit doesn't always look like I think it should. Haha.

I think I'm spewing now... I hope that answered the question. Sometimes I think I don't know much, but then I'll realize that I spoke in Chinese just as much as in English for the day. If I didn't teach in English I would probably speak more Chinese in a day. And it is definitely a major triumph when I can communicate for something I need and don't need help. (But I have a chinese dictionary on my phone just in case).

Until next time. =)