Children’s Songs

My office is right next to a preschool, and for about an hour every morning they play English children’s songs at very high volume. They have all the classics — the Hokey Pokey, A Dog Named Bingo, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes — and some that generally wouldn’t be played daily, like Silent Night. The songs, combined with the cacophony that dozens of little kids anywhere in the world naturally produce, makes it a wee bit difficult to concentrate in the mornings.

One thing I wonder, though, is how the playing of English children’s songs to little Chinese kids will affect their development. For most of them it really is just unintelligible sound, with none of the educational value that such songs have for little English speaking children. I know that teaching English is important in China, but wouldn’t it be better for the kids to be listening to Chinese songs?

Maybe that’s just crazy talk.

New Digs

Yesterday, my wife and I signed a contract for a new apartment. It was rather fast, but we found one that we really liked and decided that it was worth the extra money to move early (our current contract runs out on January 6, and our new one starts on December 8).

The apartment is about the same size as our place now — 50sqm, give or take — but is older and set back from the main road. It is, however, slightly closer to the subway station, which is what’s important in our public transportation-centric lives, and in a very quiet neighborhood.  It’s also cheaper than our current rent — 1850 RMB versus 2200 RMB — and far cheaper than the 3200 RMB our current landlord wanted to charge us for next year. The landlord is an older couple, and the wife if ludicrously nice and accommodating, a sharp contrast to the cheap, unhelpful bitch to whom we currently pay rent.

Since the apartment is so close to our current one and we have plenty of time before we have to leave our current place, we’re going to move our things ant-like over a couple of weeks, depositing a box or two during our daily after-dinner walks.

I’m really looking forward to having a new place.What I’d really like is to be able to get to know the neighbors, but I’ll have to wait to see what kind of reception the lumbering 老外 is going to get.

My Brother the Airman

My little brother called last night. I was great to hear his voice, even if a nasty cold and a bad international connection made the conversation a little difficult.

After going through some rough patches, he decided to join the Air Force, and shipped off to basic training at the beginning of October. He was only allowed to communicate with the outside world via letters and the occasional phone call, and since calling China was impractical and apparently none of my letters got to him, last night was the first time I had talked to him since he left for training.

He’s going to be an aircraft technician, and hopes to get posted to Germany or Italy. On the phone, he sounded a lot more grown up than he did two months ago. I’m really proud of him.

New Language Smell

Starting to learn a new language is terrific. Everything has that “new language smell,” and even tiny successes are a joy. Yesterday, I managed to say “muchos gracias por los cacahuates deliciosos” to my Spanish coworkers after they gave me some of the (really delicious) peanuts that they were eating. A simple phrase, and seeing their expressions after I said it made it worthwhile.

After work, I met my wife for dinner and we spent the evening speaking Chinese. It is no longer significantly more effort to speak Chinese than it is to speak English, and though my vocabulary and usage is still a bit spotty (I guessed, correctly, that 降职 meant “demote,” for instance, and I used 合理 a couple of times when I meant 合算) there is essentially nothing I can’t express. Being able to “just talk” is a great feeling, but it lacks the emotional impact of those first, fledgling efforts.

Perhaps that is why I always feel the urge to start learning a new language – starting fresh is just more fun.

Speaking in (Many) Tongues

I enjoy studying foreign languages. I didn’t in high school – despite Frau Stabno’s best efforts, I’ve retained precious little German – but after my first trip to China in 2001 I realized how incredibly interesting and fun communicating in another language could be, and have been hooked ever since.

Though there’s still plenty of Chinese to learn, I’ve been broadening my learning efforts for the last few years. I’m slowly but surely working on Spanish and Japanese, and I want to keep pushing forward with German. I’ll pick up Cantonese next, because I want to end up in Hong Kong eventually. I’d like to learn French and Italian, if only because they sound nice, and Swahili and Arabic because they’re used as common languages in large parts of the world.

That’s nine languages (plus English, for a total of ten). It’s a lot, but I don’t plan on dying any time soon, so I’ve got a while. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to get a grip on all of them over the next half century – no problem takes forever to solve. As the Chinese would say, 只是时间的问题 – “it’s just a matter of time.”