I finally managed to score a decent Mandarin conversation at Brown. The guy was sitting next to me in math class, obviously bored because he kept doodling little parallelograms all over his notes. I was doodling kanji on mine. He noticed and mistook my random scribblings for Chinese characters (even though they were appended by hiragana), so when the class ended he asked me, in Mandarin, if I was from China. Since opportunities to converse in Mandarin don't present themselves too often (PRCs want to speak English, the Hongkongers mostly speak perfectly Americanised English and/or Cantonese, most of the ABCs have lost the language, and Singaporeans always use Singlish what), I happily replied in Mandarin and it went on from there, all the way across the campus to my next class.
My new conversational partner was an American-born Taiwanese, so the accent difference wasn't much of a problem. And we did not lapse into English at all, (except for place names, of course, but that's forgivable), even upon hitting awkward snags where our fluency proved lacking. I hope this new acquaintance goes somewhere, though - I'm sick of being a social underachiever, capable only of conducting annoyingly cliched conversations while people bond all around me but never with me. It's been - what? - 4 weeks already, and I do try, but somehow things never seem to go anywhere.
Inanely anal internal dialogue, courtesy of a brain pumped up on caffeine:
- My social life sucks. I need to make a conscious effort to be less self-conscious.
- Isn't that rather paradoxical?
- I'll have to remember not to be so self-conscious about it, then.
words were spilled on Friday, September 23, 2005
Comments:
... funnily enough, my classmates are all very disconcerted that i can speak fairly fluent mandarin chinese. even though i've told them before that english was my second language.
yay you have a new acquaintance!
(well... it's been seven weeks here, and my lot's still not got past banter, mostly. the gender divide's still there, too.)
love, and take care.
yay you have a new acquaintance!
(well... it's been seven weeks here, and my lot's still not got past banter, mostly. the gender divide's still there, too.)
love, and take care.
# posted by 
: 10:48 PM
: 10:48 PM
Yeah!! Be less self conscious... be more confident of yourself.
Friends do not come easily. Don't get fed up by the difficulties along the way. If the right ones come, then good lah. We're all introverts what. Can't help it you know...
we don't tend to make friends easily. Most people who make friends easily look happy, and this makes other people want to know them.
Believe or not, if you wanna make friends more easily, you'll have to ''put on an act'' and in the end the act becomes second nature!
What a sad truth. :P
Good luck sweetie!
P.s Who needs friends anyway? They are going to leave sooner or later. Well, we need CLOSE friends but not friends. And you already have close friends already! Sg-ers! haha~
Friends do not come easily. Don't get fed up by the difficulties along the way. If the right ones come, then good lah. We're all introverts what. Can't help it you know...
we don't tend to make friends easily. Most people who make friends easily look happy, and this makes other people want to know them.
Believe or not, if you wanna make friends more easily, you'll have to ''put on an act'' and in the end the act becomes second nature!
What a sad truth. :P
Good luck sweetie!
P.s Who needs friends anyway? They are going to leave sooner or later. Well, we need CLOSE friends but not friends. And you already have close friends already! Sg-ers! haha~
# posted by : 9:06 PM
: 9:06 PM
Just my take on a minor point... PRCs don't want to speak English - they'll only be too pleased to speak Chinese with anyone who doesn't mangle up the language (which only leaves themselves, in most cases.) I've been in LSE for two days now, & what I found is that there is an instant bonding when PRCs identify each other by their (somewhat less than mutual) accents. Chatted with one during the fire drill (in between shivering in short sleeves & slippers) and ended up inviting her up to my room. ^_^
# posted by : 6:42 PM
: 6:42 PM
jy: well, some americans are surprised that i'm actually fluent in english, and they compliment me on it, which is well-meaning but irritating nonetheless.
lin: hey, you have delurked! or was this the first time you came? a lot of prcs here studied at international schools, i think. i went out for dinner with a group of friends that included a prc guy once, though. we went to the chinese food stall and he asked the abc on the other side of the counter, in perfect prc mandarin, if they had white rice. the girl didn't understand a word.
yh: i LOVE you. try not to be a delinquent, ok?
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lin: hey, you have delurked! or was this the first time you came? a lot of prcs here studied at international schools, i think. i went out for dinner with a group of friends that included a prc guy once, though. we went to the chinese food stall and he asked the abc on the other side of the counter, in perfect prc mandarin, if they had white rice. the girl didn't understand a word.
yh: i LOVE you. try not to be a delinquent, ok?
