Just when you think everything is going according to plan...you remember you're in China :P After all the kerfuffle with Becka's passport, which she is getting back tomorrow, we thought that our trip to Suzhou was definitely going ahead. However, it turns out that Ruth, the girl who is buying the wedding dress and the raison d'etre for the trip, hasn't got her passport back. Even though she was supposed to get it days ago... and because of the holiday, tomorrow is her last chance...
So we are all holding our breath to see if she gets it back tomorrow!
As my flipflops and flat shoes have pretty much both died by now, and my other flat shoes insist on carving grooves into my feet, Becka and I had a little browze among the stalls by the street for some new ones. However we have big, Westerm, clodhopper feet and as Chinese women have dainty feet we had several Ugly Sister moments where no matter how hard we tried, the shoes were just not big enough... This means we will have to make a trip to a more upmarket shop, and more expensive, for something large enough for our flippers.
In other news I received a phone call today from Kit, a friend from Edinburgh Uni who studied Chinese last year. He has now graduated and got himself rather a nice little job working in a bilingual magazine in Nanjing. It was lovely to hear from him and there is a slight possibility we might see him next week. He was coming to Qingdao for National Week, which was annoying as I won't be here, but he might instead cancel that and come meet us in Suzhou or somewhere.
We got told a joke in Chinese today. Translated in English it goes thus:
Two ants are walking along. One sees a big pear in the way and goes "oh a big pear!". The second one is at first confused, and then realises before going "ohhh a big pear I see!".
It loses a bit in translation :P Basically a big pear in Chinese is 大梨, dali. "Oh a big pear" is 矣大梨!, yidali! 矣 being an exclamation of surprise. "Ohh a big pear I see" is 奥大梨呀!, aodaliya. 奥 and 呀 are exclamations implying you understand. The crux of the joke is that 矣大梨 and 奥大梨呀 sound like 意大利 and 澳大利亚, yidali and aodaliya, which mean Italy and Australia... so it sounds like the ants have gone Italy! Australia!
...geddit? On second thoughts, it doesn't really gain much in translation...
2 comments:
Hello Louise:
I have been enjoying your blog at the urging of your proud grandfather. We leave for a visit to March and london today. Harry and Carol are dear fiends from The Cavendish School. I hope tos ee your Mom and Dad in London. Thanks for the blog. Michael Glennon
Glad you like it:) Please do comment on anything you have an interest in/want to know more about.
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