Hungry??

One of my favorite pictures!! Look closely! Look whats hanging over all the fruit--- slabs of meat. Its a one stop shop! (this was another one of those moments where my mom questioned me and asked if that was normal...)

Every part of Chicken and some beef part imaginable

And, its all available as fast food on the street!

Now this is the good stuff-lamb! This is from my city- since we have such a large Muslim population here we can get lamb everywhere- its so good! Cooked and sold right off the street!

We call this "xiao chi's" - small speciality foods famous in its city (this was one of Chengdu's-I'll get some pictures for my city)


Since I love to eat- and especially love Chinese food and all the different diverse foods here- I'll continue to post pictures of it

My mom noticed this...

I was walking down the street (in Chengdu) and wanted to get a picture of the Monk that I was about to walk by... that was my main objective!



Later, when I was talking to my mom on the phone, the first thing she noticed was not the Monk.... but the car on the walkway!

"Stacy.... umm.... is that car on the walkway.... why isn't it on the street and why is coming straight towards you in the picture." Asked my mom.

"Oh.... yeah.... thats common. I just move out of the way... sometimes people will drive on the walkway instead of the road. Not sure why, but oh well.... you just kinda get of the way." I replied.

Now... to me this was very normal... and I had just become accustomed to it. But for my mom she was just astonished. Realizing now that certain things that would seem abnormal or unusual, or out of the ordinary.... just doesn't even phase me anymore but are common.

"I am going to vomit..."

I just wanted to share with you another huge, significant, funny, language blunder that I have been struggling with! (-thats a lot of adjectives-but the only way I could describe it).

This time its with my pronunciation of the C and T sound in Chinese - to anyone who speaks English- it sounds very, very close. However, in Chinese the sounds are completely opposite.


But for the most best humorous part of this all.... is the actual definitions of the words I was attempting to say....


Its so important to use the new words we learn, so I started slowly trying it out a new phrase I learned....before I used "I am not correct," but learned a different way to say it which translates as "I am wrong." However, after I used it in some situations people would take a step or two away from me.... I was a little confused. I wasn't sure if I was offending them or what...

One evening I went out with two good friends and in the middle of the conversation I used my new "I am wrong" statement. My friend quickly asked me if I had eaten something wrong or if I needed help... I was so confused... after another minute of me butchering the 'I am wrong' statement and smiling as I did it, they just busted out laughing when they had realized what I had meant to say and what I had actually said....!!

Instead of saying "I am wrong," I was actually saying "I am going to vomit!"

We laughed about it for a long time and I sat there and thought about the few times I had used it before and remembered how the person would step away from me.... it all makes sense... I was accidentally saying "I am going to throw up."

Also... to add more to the fire.... with just the slightest different sound it means "I am going to steal." So.... anyway I say it, its not going to be good if I mess it up. So I will be spending a lot of time this week with my tutor listening and mimicking the sounds and pronunciation!

Just for fun, below are the characters, pinyin, and definitions

tǔ
吐
vomit

cuò
错
wrong

tōu
偷
steal

Trip to Chengdu!

About two weeks ago I went to Chengdu with Sean and Krista! Sichuan is famous for its spicy food and pandas!

Sichuan is also where the earthquake was in May where an estimated 70,000 or more people died and around 18,000 still claimed as missing. We got to talk to some of the people there and it was interesting to hear how people are still fearful for another earthquake, and if they hear of a report will sleep outside. One lady we spoke with said her daughter is still very scared about having her class on the 3rd floor-however it was cool to hear how she said people are really coming together as a community and she explained how she is experiencing how people are looking after one another.

It was such a great trip-to get away for a few days, rest, and have a lot of fun! I also just posted tons of pictures from the trip - Click here to see!

A bowl full of red hot lazi (Spice-Sichuan is the spiciest) and green beans with ma (hot numbing spice) - What a great lunch!

We got to see the cute pandas!

Bamboo walkways!

The cubs were adorable!!

I ate Yak! Its Tibetan food- and definitely is now considered one of my favorites!

Our hostel was located in the Tibetan section of town- the streets were lined with these stores full of golden statues of Buddha, clothing, jewelry, everything you can think of to use to worship Buddha...


It was very interesting culturally... to be passing Buddhist monks from Tibet on the streets and then to be eating with them in the restaurants


Downtown they had these huge dragon water fountains/statues

The huge statue of Mao in front of the university


We found a TCBY in Chengdu!! Chengdu is definitely more western then our city, so this was a special treat!

Sean and Krista standing in front of the museum-just loved this pic

One of the BEST highlights of my trip was visiting this museum!

These were the two owners! - It was located in the most bizarre place-middle of a neighborhoodIt consisted of a small room completely packed literally from the floor to the ceiling with Mao Zedong paraphernalia

The owner had collected all the stuff from the Cultural Revolution-he had an amazing story!

Look what we found!! This is definitely not in our city!! We were so excited!!!


This was such a special treat for us to be able to eat real pizza!! We don't eat a lot of western food in our home city - mostly stick to noodles and rice dishes (and some home cooked meals)- but this was so great!

Do you have worms?

I went down to the Muslim part of town and met some of my friends. Over eating a really good bowl of noodles and chatting in Chinese... my friend was explaining to me that she sometimes gets sick when eating Chinese spice (lazi). Here its a very open and okay to talk about bathroom talk- and I was asking her if it hurt her stomach 'often...' and instead I had accidentally asked her "Do you have worms?" I had said the correct word 'often' in Chinese but said the wrong tone... and the look on her face when I asked.... Oh goodness! When we both realized what had happened.... we just started laughing! I love learning Chinese, and its fun along the way with my friends, as they continue to help me and laugh along the way with some of my language blunders.