Hmm. Well, I had the worst class probably in the history of time today. The day started off as it should, fried-bread-egg-thing, class on time. The first of my two classes was just fine, it was the second one that was awful. I had missed it last week because I wasn't feel well; I wish I could never "feel well" again. The class is a pronunciation class and consists entirely of a the world's loudest Chinese woman (I use that loosely; she's maybe 22), yelling syllable at the top of her lungs from a text book. FOR TWO HOURS. Sigh. It's a bit like:
"ZA! ZAI! ZAN! ZANG! ZAO! ZE! ZEI! ZEN! ZENG! ZHA!" Blah, blah, blah. FOR TWO HOURS.
This class took place after my run-in with my secret arch-enemy. The lady in the bookstore and I have never been very good friends. She speaks zero English, and she pretends like the Chinese I know is some sort of gibberish even though I know I'm communicating something. There was our first encounter, when she needed some one other than me to say "一班" ("Class 1") for her to understand what I meant. Later, when I discovered she had given me the wrong book, her indignation that I had brought a friend's book with me was beyond belief. Today, I discovered that my courses require 5 books, not 4. I marched down there, with a classmate's book again, to explain to her about the mix up. I told her "你给我四本书，你不给我五本书。我想这本书。"("You gave me four books, you didn't give me five books. I need this book."). This made her very angry indeed, she stormed around the room yelling something in Chinese. A few people who spoke both English and Chinese came to try to help, but she was having none of it. She tried to charge me for the book and I attempted to explain that I had paid for it already, but this wasn't working. She actually took my friend's book away from me at one point and threw it onto the pile of books and motioned for me to leave! Eventually, after repeating myself over and over, she gave me two copies of the book and I left.
It doesn't end there. Cut to the blissful period after that awful class ended. There she was, standing in the hallway looking forlorn. She was holding a copy of the book. The book in question contains a CD, you see, and she had given me two new copies. Brian, the classmate whose book I had used, had already removed his copy of the CD, so she was down a disc. She started to say something, giving me sad eyes. I cut here off: "一下" ("One second."). I grabbed the book from her, switched with Brian's copy, and gave her a look that said "Do you see how normal human beings solve very simple problems?"
Anyway. On a brighter note, Xi'an is full of statues. They're everywhere, jutting up in the medians like so many metal-and-steel blooms. It has something to do with this city's 90s renaissance as a cultural haven. It's too bad that most of the art pieces are IN THE MEDIAN OF A SIX LANE HIGHWAY. So, you know, I can't actually get to them to take any pictures. Still, I'll try to update you with some of them from time-to-time.
Over near Saga, there was this art piece:
Saga Art. People running up a mouse, the symbol of the "Electronics District."
It was surprisingly shiny and clean-looking given the amount of air pollution and dust in this city. So, I guess, it can't really be that old.
Hayden
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