wow...it's been a long time! i see now that it's been over a month actually since i last posted anything--this is partly due to busy-ness, and partly due to an extreme loss of motivation to write. with soo many twists and turns in my life in the last month, i sort of voluntarily chose not to write...unsure of what to say or not say...but i think maybe now i can give it another shot?
so yeah, my new 'goal' i think [as decided like...a few hours ago, ha] is that i'll try to write something everyday. probably nothing terribly long, or even very important sometimes...because writing such long entries like i was doing before--while fulfilling--is just very draining. that being said, i plan on today or tomorrow trying to compile a short-hand summary of the highlights of this past month!
tonight, however, i'll just write something short...and pretty silly actually.
so right now i'm in my roommate's hometown [changzhou]. lu chao and i took the train up tonight from shanghai, and will probably return tomorrow night [since he says there's just not much to do here...it's 'too small'--which is what he considers a little over 6,000,000 people to be! ha] it's been soo nice already just meeting his parents and seeing the area.
when we got off the train, lu chao told me i should buy some food from mcdonald's near the station because he didn't think i'd like the food his parents had prepared too much...and he wanted me to "chi bao le"-->"get full". haha...sooo, reluctantly i gave in, and i got just a double-cheeseburger [plain...] and we then caught a cab and headed out to 'the country' as he called it--to his home. he said he lived in the city for 17 years, but then when he was needing to study for and focus on his "gao kao" [高考]-->"big test", his family moved out of the city to give him an environment more conducive to studying. it's a very big deal i think that they were able to mobilize so relatively easy...and i'm very happy they had the means to do so! it's also very convenient that lu chao's father is an engineer--and that his company is literally down the street from this house. it is a quiet area, but that's a very nice change-up from the bustling shanghai we're used to. i really like shanghai...i'd say it's definitely my favorite city to date, but being here in changzhou feels a little bit like going home back in tennessee. although nashville's nowhere near as large as shanghai [heck, even near as big as changzhou!], the transition from nashville to humboldt feels very similar to this shanghai-changzhou movement. the peace and quiet is very fulfilling!
anyways, i'll keep this short--so after dinner [which was very good actually...i had some rice, beef, and some potato-derived dish...well, and that double-cheeseburger! ha.] lu chao and i took his dog ["lulu" as in "lu chao"'s 'lu'...which LC informed me that his nickname was, in fact, "chao chao"] for a walk down the street, across this pretty bridge, and back. [and] as we talked [in chinese no doubt! :)], i told him about something that, since arriving in china, has been very funny/interesting to me--dogs.
i relayed to him that when i first saw dogs here in china, i thought nothing of it. however, upon further meditation, i began to amuse myself by thinking about the fact that these dogs must "speak chinese". haha...as obvious as that sounds, it really just made [makes] me laugh thinking about it! i mean, honestly, until i left the u.s., i innately assumed that all dogs essentially "spoke" english! ha [not seriously, but you know what i mean!]...and so when i got here and witnessed dogs taking orders in chinese, i found it excessively interesting! :p...lulu's very smart, too...[as LC says, 'this kind of dog everywhere else is mainly used for...hunting?!] in still a rather large city, lulu requires no leash, only commands which she loyally obeys.
[and] so i told LC of my amusement with this phenomenon, and i think he thinks i'm disgraceful...since i don't think he really understands that i didn't really believe that all dogs spoke english! haha :P...but i told him about my two dogs, and how my "xiao gou" [小狗] "small dog", furgy, is very smart, very clever, and often makes fun/messes with my "da gou" [大狗] "big dog", king. [and that] king isn't too bright, but he's sooo very happy, cute, and awesome! and so i said it'd be very interesting to 'hear' our dogs 'talk'. i told him, i wonder if all dogs have a universal language that they 'speak'...or if king and lulu genuinely could not understand each other's foreign dialects?! very interesting...[okay, maybe not; but it got me thinking!] it also has made me really miss home, and really miss my king! :(...and after seeing this, the 2nd person in recent memory, practicing regular, consistent dog-walking every day in the morning and after dinner...i really want to try to implement that either with my current furry pals or with the dog i have officially decided i must have someday 'when i'm grown'...ha.
[and] so, i'll end with that story for tonight [--my 'doggy-dialect-dilemma'], and am going to try to get some sleep. like i said, hopefully tomorrow i'll be able to at least begin outlining some of the past month's events...as well as give some updates from changzhou!
until then,"wan an" [ 晚安] "good night",
w/p
04/24/09. 11:15pm. [changzhou.]
[[[pictures: [#1.] 这是陆陆！"this is lulu!" [#2.] 我跟陆超的妈妈! "me with LC's mom!"]]]
