I can see it now, sitting down to an interview and the interviewer notices an eight month stay in China, "So what do you know how to say in Chinese?" and my response is "hello and thank you." Luckily, Monday marks the start of my first Chinese lesson and only six weeks late! To prepare, I have taken it upon myself to drastically reduce the amount of time spent surrounded by English. It started off with saying goodbye to my music collection for an indefinite amount of time. To still make use of my iPod I found a nice collection of underground Chinese hip hop to listen to. During work tomorrow I shall collect suggestions for Chinese musicians to sample. Secondly, and more importantly, I've found some rather good podcasts on iTunes which I can download for free and listen to so that during my hour and a half commute I can get some lessons. Along with my music collection goes the stupid things I waste my time doing on the computer. If the websites are not related to Chinese, they don't get a visit. Luckily this blog falls in the "Chinese" category and will still receive attention but far removed from my Chinese immersion. How I go about that I am not sure yet. Finally, we arrive at the most important point, Chinese roommates. I am rather comfortable with my current living situation but my coworkers have notified me that there awaits an apartment at half the price I pay now and right next to work. This cost and transit time reduction would be amazing and is rather tempting. If Chinese goes well I may just end up living with non English speakers.
Lesson Learned: If you're going to live somewhere at least make an attempt to learn some simple vocabulary it's amazing how many times I've wanted to say things like no thank you, sorry, and excuse me but couldn't because I never bothered to learn them until now.
