Wow. Has it really been around four months since we moved to Shanghai? It feels like just yesterday we moved here. Time really does fly!

Our lives, so far, have been amazing. We found new places to go, enjoying life and the luxuries of being in China… where things are not expensive compared to the U.S. dollar. Not to say it isn’t expensive, Shanghai definitely has expensive things (even compared to USD) but we are living it up here. Some of my favorite activities have been hanging with friends, meeting new people, Chinese lessons and exploring new places to go.

I have been going to the doctor a lot this past week. Not to worry, it was more of a checkup of sorts. I have been talking to a few friends about why and everything is looking good. But as a precautionary measure, my doctor asked me to go see a dentist. Not because she thinks I have bad teeth but she was saying how the teeth and gums are related to our body health. I went to the dentist and guess what? My dentist is from NYC, he was a professor at NYU and he’s leading conferences and working in Shanghai for the past 3 years. It was nice to see a face similar to mine, an Asian-American in Shanghai. Most of the foreigners I’ve been meeting have been non-Asian and I do love that. But sometimes it’s nice to commiserate with other Asian Americans about people yelling at you, assuming you are Chinese, saying your Chinese is terrible. Then telling them, “Oh, actually… I’m Korean!” and their response suddenly changes to: “Good! Your Chinese is good then!”. Makes me laugh but I really needed someone like me to talk about this to. I’ve found a few friends who get it.

So yes, back to my story. I went to the dentist and guess what? My first cavity EVER. The nice doctor gave me a filling and that’s done. I felt a little ashamed of getting a cavity, I take so much time to brush and floss everyday. But he assured me that my teeth look quite healthy and that I should be happy that it wasn’t a root canal! So yes, I’ll take the cavity instead. But now I’m paranoid about brushing and flossing even more than before.

I was reading my physical journal from when we moved here and it was exactly what I thought. I was lonely, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself and I felt like a burden to my husband. I think that’s pretty normal for anyone who moves to another country, who doesn’t speak the language and happens to not have a job. But it’s funny since now that I’m looking back, I’ve made it to this point… quite fast. I’m no longer lonely, I feel happy and 每天 （every day)… I find myself extremely busy. 

My average day is usually:
-起床 (get up), 吃早餐 (eat breakfast) and see the hubs off to work (or sleep in)
-go to the grocery store and buy stuff for the day or a few days
-回家 （come home）, put laundry in the washer and hang it when done (the dryer SUCKS, so everything needs to be air-dried)
-学习汉语 study Chinese (usually for a few hours)
- 吃午饭(eat lunch), check email, look on pintrest, celeb gossip
-practice 钢琴 （piano） and/or write 音乐（music ）
-write an email to 我的妈妈 (my mother in law, but I consider her my mother) in CHINESE
-run errands, doctor appointments or other things
-晚饭 (dinner), whether I cook or we go out
-sometimes Skype with my adorable niece Claire and Aerin in the background looking awesome. Sometimes with my in laws but I try to talk to my in laws in the morning so that it’s night time where they are.
- 睡觉 (bedtime)

This is just a typical day. Usually on the 周末 (weekend) we see our friends. Sometimes on the weekday, we have dinner with friends… maybe if the hubs is off, we have a date day. But generally this has been my sort of schedule.

Did you notice anything in bold?  Well, I am in the process of writing music. I know, WHAT? I’m writing music for my portfolio to present to a producer in May! If he likes any of the songs, he’ll show them to his artists/singers/bands and if they like it… they’ll buy it! So technically, I guess I have a job. I’m supposed to have at least 100 songs by May so we’ll see. But I have to say, it feels good to play music, to get the creative juices running again. Being able to play my piano has made me sane again.

Anyway. Yes, life has been good. Can’t complain at all. If you’re noticing some Chinese words in my posts, it’s only because I want to practice typing Chinese. I’m too lazy to do every single word I know but I’ll insert some here and there. By the way, I’m loving Chinese. I can now hold a basic conversation in Mandarin for about 20 minutes. My teacher timed me. Though I can’t talk about deep feelings and politics… I feel pretty good about how far I’ve come in only 11 lessons. YAY!

Expat life is pretty darn good. Loving Shanghai, dare I say… more than New York City.

thanks to my BIL to catching my Chinese mistakes.  

汉语很难。该学习汉语了。
Chinese is very hard. It’s time to study Chinese.

I’ve been studying for the past two hours in a coffee shop. Another 30 minutes and then dinner with a friend!

Hi friends, do you have any idea how difficult the Chinese language is? Yes – It’s crazy I tell you. But I’m still plugging away with the lessons and although my teacher says that I’m learning much faster than her other students…. I sometimes feel overwhelmed when I’m outside of a lesson setting. I freeze like a deer in headlights when I’m on my own and for some reason I forget the things that were so easy for me to say in my lessons.

Sigh.

If any of you are expats, I’m sure you understand how moving to a new country can be lonely and scary. Moving to China has been one of the worst and best experiences for me.

I guess I shouldn’t say “worst” because I’m doing ok. I do have to say, trying to learn a language you don’t know AT ALL…. not to mention, it’s not romanized, is tough. I’m learning to speak, read, and write. WRITING IS HARD. I just have to memorize a bunch of characters that are not phonetic. But…. I am having fun and love being able to speak when I can. It does get easier each time I’m on my own and I’m forced to remember my Chinese. 

But being an expat made me whole heartedly appreciate everything I have in my life. My wonderful family back in NJ, my amazing friends in NYC and made me (in a way) grow up, really fast. In the beginning, I couldn’t do anything without my husband. You know why?! Because – I don’t speak Chinese. I felt so useless and bothersome. I spent most of my days feeling like a prisoner in my own home because I was too scared to go out on my own.

Shanghai is actually a lot like New York. The subway system is so easy, the signs are in English and it’s pretty straight forward. If you go to an expat grocery store, then things are in English but if you go to the local market – - – forget it. You need to know some Chinese. I can now have basic conversations, know the numbers and other general things that are used in a market. 

I was so tired of not having any friends and so sick of being lonely. I do have two wonderful family friends here in Shanghai but I don’t want to solely rely on them all the time. Though, I still do. But they are awesome and understanding so it’s ok. 

Anyway, like I was saying – I was SICK of being lonely. I ended up doing some internet searches and we also heard from some friends about Shanghaimamas.org. I wanted to meet other “moms” or other women who are wanting to get pregnant. I am so glad I did because I met with two ladies for lunch today from SHM and I had so much fun. All I wanted was to speak English for longer than 5 minutes at a time and have someone who “gets” me. It was a glorious two hour lunch where we talked about what it’s like to be an expat in China. Fabulous. Seriously, just what I needed.

I think that’s what I’m going to do. I have to go searching for people, I don’t know how else I’ll find friends especially since I don’t have a job or school. I was talking to the ladies today and they told me there were yoga classes that are taught in English for expats and that is also a good way to meet friends. I have to say, today really was amazing. I needed that.

Today’s blog entry is very scattered and not organized. I’m very tired, didn’t sleep well, so excuse my poor writing. What can I say? I’m a musician, not a writer.  

For those of you that are expats and you’re feeling lonely….

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.  

Hang in there and keep your hopes up. And if you get super lonely – you can always write me an email because I love having virtual penpals. Although, my email seems to send ok but not receive. Hmmmm. Got to fix that. 

Oh my goodness! I had another intensive course of Chinese and my teacher was saying that I’m learning 3 times faster than her other students! I’m so happy and scared because she keeps giving me more and more to study and I feel stressed trying to learn everything in time. I have 2 hour lessons, twice a week and the intensive course is designed to pack what you learn in two and a half weeks into one. Then on top of that I’m learning 3 times what a normal student would and that is a lot of INFO. But I enjoy it and have an unusual talent for picking up languages, probably from being a musician.

I’m learning how to read, speak and write! So I’ve been emailing my MIL and FIL with the Chinese that I learn instead of English when I can. They are so impressed! I’m so happy because it would be my dream to be able to converse with my MIL without the language barrier. My FIL told me yesterday that he’s impressed with my speaking too, my MIL said that my pronunciation and tones are perfect. YAY!

I’m typing on my computer and iPhone with pinyin to type out the characters but I also know how to write them as well. So I will try to write some things, that probably won’t really flow well but I want to practice!

I texted my husband and I did great with the Chinese I wrote (above) except the last word I wrote was used incorrectly.

Me: I drink green tea. I learned Chinese.
W: wow that’s great!
Me: Thank you! Laugh. I am tired, I will rest today. I love you!
W: haha I love you!
Me: Do you understand? I’m fine, come home (soon)!
Me: Please
W: I understand! (english)
 
W told me after his last text (I couldn’t fit it all here) that the word I used “please” wasn’t correct in this context. lol Well anyway, it was fun! I have a feeling I’ll be writing more and more Chinese as I learn! Wish me luck.

Source

Being a musician has made it both easy and difficult to learn the different tones in Chinese. There are four main tones: really high, middle to high, middle-low-middle, high to low. The reason why I say it’s easy is because I can mimic pitches.. for instance, when I hear the teacher say something, I hear the solfège (actual pitches) and when repeating her it makes it extremely easy.

Example: Teacher: ba [really high]= G4

Repeating her is so easy since I have pitch. Basically, I hear something, my brain automatically knows what note and which register it is (as long as the instrument is in tune or as long as it’s a voice).

Here comes the problem though… The CD in the book she gave me has two voices on it. A male and a female. The male’s pitches are clearly different from the woman. Obviously, men have a different vocal range. But the woman who is speaking on it has different pitches than my teacher. The recordings, which help me with pronouncing the actual pinyin, doesn’t help with the tones.

Example: CD lady: ba [ready high]=Ab4 When I read along with the CD, I was saying the high pitch according to what my teacher’s pitches were. When I do the highest tone, it was a G4 for me while the lady reading had her high tone at Ab4. The pitches are a half step apart and it was giving me a headache! I switched to the CD’s pitches of Ab4 but my brain was using the original G4. Of course the other tones don’t really have actual pitches but more the inflection of your voice, so it’s easier. But that first tone (really high) is killing me. My mouth is saying Ab4 at the same time my brain is saying G4. 

I’ve been really listening to people when they speak and when they say things in that high tone, I’ve noticed that everyone has a different pitch even for the same word. It varies from person to person. 

I wonder how other musicians with perfect pitch have this problem with tonal languages. I remember around 2005, I had the biggest headache of my life… Two songs were playing at the same time: Beethoven’s 3rd symphony and a pop song. The two songs weren’t loud but I could hear them, it drove me crazy mainly because they were in different keys, different tempos and their clash made my brain hurt. The headache was so bad that I ended up crying and I threw up. That is the one and only time that music literally made me physically sick. 

English, Korean and most of the European languages I am familiar is more speech/talk than pitches. I find languages and music so interesting. Cantonese has tones too but I don’t know any of them, I just repeat everything I learn to the best of my ability. If you say the wrong tone, you could be cursing and completely saying a different word. I’ll never forget when I couldn’t remember which word was diarrhea or hungry. Those two words are similar but different tones… and I’ve embarrassed myself plenty of times by mixing up the two words.

I had my second intensive course yesterday (2 hours) and my teacher said her high tone at the exact same pitch as last time (G4). I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Chinese musicians have perfect pitch. I forced myself to not really pay attention to the pitch but the general tone and it was ok. I still say my high tone at the same pitch every time and I can hear by the way people talk what their own tones are. During my second lesson we were already having some basic conversations, even more words to write and more vocabulary. I do have to say, intensive is really intense! There’s a lot to learn and I have 4 hours a week that I’m learning Chinese. I feel like I’m in college all over again. 

I have my third course on Friday. I hope I can memorize all of this, she gave me more than double the amount of things to have ready since my first lesson. Learning languages is so fun, I really wish I could just speak fluently already but hopefully by the end of the year I’ll be able to speak at least half the amount that I can with Korean. *crossing my fingers*

I had my first Mandarin lesson today and I loved it! It was approximately two hours long and my teacher, Y, is amazing. We started off learning about pinyin (the tones for the Chinese language) and then she taught me the “initials” (b-p-m-f-d-t-n-l) and then the “finals” (which are the vowel sounds). She said that I caught on way faster than she expected since her other foreigner students have such a hard time with the beginning. 

It was so much fun to be able to speak, even if it’s just little words here and there. Y asked me if I was interested in learning to read and write. Most of her students only want to speak especially since the Chinese language is so difficult. So I told her I want to learn since I love learning languages! So we got through quite a few words that she’ll quiz me on next week and I am beyond thrilled with everything I learned today. I have a lot to study till our next lesson on Tuesday.

I even got to “read” my first Chinese/pinyin today and it was a serious tongue twister. I kept bobbing my head up and down with the different tones but after a few tries I got it. I really hope I remember everything the next time I see her.

After the lesson I went to the grocery store and guess what? I was able to use the Chinese I had learned earlier to ask questions and talk to the cashier. It was amazing. I finally feel more comfortable even though I only know a few things. 

Y was telling me that she found it so hilarious that I kept speaking Cantonese when she would ask me to say it in Mandarin. Then I said it in Korean, not knowing I said it in Korean. But eventually I got the hang of it. She told me that in a few weeks I should be able to speak conversationally, especially with how quickly I’m picking it up. I think a lot has to do with my excitement about learning… I think if it was something I absolutely disliked then it would be a lot more difficult.

I feel so happy.