Chinese Practice

Nov. 21, 2003

Ni hao,

Are you enjoying life? The cold darkness of winter is descending upon Beijing, as my Israeli friend Eran told me, "Soon there will be no sun and we will all die." As you can tell, he is an optimist. On the night of the premier of Matrix Revolution (a movie so disappointing that I have lost faith the American film industry), we had our first snow fall. Revelry and a constant barrage of snowballs at Korean girls marked the next day. I pegged one them on the side of the head from 50 feet away. The snow was soon replaced by freezing cold rain.

You might be wondering how my chinese language is going. You may think of it as a type of slow painful torture. Some days I am flying high. I can have a 20 minute conversation without blinking an eye. However, the majority of days I am filled with insane rage. Chinese is not the easiest thing in the world. Fortunately for me, the chinese have established an ingenius system to help those who lack the highly developed right side brain. They call it "language peng you" which literally means Language Friend. The system starts out with a chinese person (usually an attractive female) who then approaches a foreigner (me) and then asks if they could practice their english with them. In return, the foreigner can then practice their chinese with their new friend. I currently have 9 language peng you’s (all of whom are females). The system is very practical for many other things besides language.

Well I have to run. It is time for some language practice.

Sincerely striving for excellence,


Jason