now I know that reading about Chinese characters and the Chinese language isn't that interesting to people that aren't studying it, but I'm doing a lesson about music, and i just learned the word for "serenade." at first i was really annoyed because i have most certainly never used the word in english, and i hate taking the time to learn the characters and pronunciation of something i will never say. but i noticed that if you directly translate its characters 小夜曲 (xiao ye qu), it literally means a "little night music." how cute is that? i'm also learning how to say the names of all the famous composers, like Mozart (mo zha te) and Chopin (xiao bang), so that when i someday learn anything about them, i will be able to engage in witty and intelligent conversation with my chinese companions.
also, this saturday i will begin my career as an english tutor. i'm not sure how it is going to work out, as i don't think i really impressed my future tutees in our preliminary meeting. they are all around 35, and their english is pretty good, so i think they might have realized that 22 year old me can't teach them much about business english. either way though, they were really awesome. they're all from taiwan, and they've formed a sort of group of taiwanese and other non-mainland chinesers that hang out and do activities and stuff together. they were really friendly, and invited me to participate in their weekly badminton game. i think this could be a fabulous opportunity to make some friends (as well as work on my badminton skills). taiwanese people are sort of easier to be friends with, because they are so different from mainlanders. they haven't come from such a sheltered upbringing, and their culture is not so profoundly chinese. taiwanese people are citizens of the world, very knowledgable on all kinds of culture, and they, too, think that the way beijingers spit everywhere is gross. yay for new friends!