Flowers are blooming, little lizardy things are hopping around, the air is fragrant and warm. This weekend Yang Yang (not pronounced yang- like rang. Its a long a- like in... a pronunciation we don't really use in the midwest... but its a long a) came down from Shanghai and we hiked up to the tower and played some frisbee. Speaking of pronunciation, let me briefly explain some of the trickier spellings in Chinese:
The nearby city of Hangzhou has a "zh". "zh" has a slight j sound- so it is pronounced similar to Hang-joe. Again, this is a long a- they don't pronounce it the nasally way we say "hang" (to hang something on the wall). To say thank you in Chinese you say "xie xie". Here, the x sound like a weak "sh" sound so it is similar to "shay shay" (although a little more sharp). I don't know if this is really beneficial at all.. The "a" issue is also in Shanghai. "ang" is really common, but its all with a long a. So people always pronounce Shanghai wrong at home because they will always say ang like "twang" or "dang"- and the only examples of long a's I can think of are in Chinese...
So, other than the improving weather, I've been super busy, trying to get back in to a running remine, and trying to read more English books to keep my vocabulary from degrading. Currently reading "Tender is the Night". From a bookstore, English books typically run around 100 RMB (15USD). Thankfully, in Shanghai there are people with carts selling pirated copies of books for the low price of 15-20RMB ($2-$3). Horribly illegal- wonderful for my pocketbook. Some of my students have taken interest in running with me- so that would be nice. I'm much more motivated if I have someone else depending on me to run with them.
Time for bed!
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