One year on:

I have just realised that this site is now exactly one year and two days old and damn, does time fly. Since that time, we passed the one year anniversary of our return from China which forces us to reflect on everything we have achieved since. Depressingly – well partially anyway – we haven’t come all that far since when we left off, and the whole venture to that other most interesting of countries, didn’t change as much as we would have liked.

On one hand, Courtney has changed more than me, though it’s funny how quickly we get back into new routines. I myself have found my way into a different industry, but the work itself is not what I would call ideal, and I had hoped things would be otherwise. Then again, we have just entered into a new decade, and with various activities on the side, I hope this next ten years brings considerably more change than the previous.

Beyond that, life is good. Both of us still maintain a heavy interest in Chinese culture, news and current affairs, and continue to spend time learning Mandarin. We’re still not conversational, but between us we know quite a lot now, and I would be interested to return to China to test just how far we’ve come.

We still struggle with actually speaking the language however, as even though we live in a suburb that has a huge Chinese population; so much so that when we go into town, we once more feel more in the minority (except this time we enjoy it!), and despite the fact we hear spoken Chinese all around us, we still never seek to actually use the language, feeling absolutely foolish whenever given the opportunity. I bet there are devout learners out there who use it to order meals in restaurants, or when dealing with various shop-keepers, but not us.

It cracked me up the other day how I specifically was talking to Courtney about random things we have learned. While we can not hold a proper conversation as such, we do know a considerable amount of Mandarin snippets. Is that your pen? Those adults are running. What is that? It’s a cat! How much is this? That’s too expensive! Where is the restaurant? Is it far? yadda yadda yadda…..specifically though, I said to her, “It’s funny, we know so many things, but never really anything relevant. Like we’d go to China and have no use for, How many people in your family?”

And then Courtney goes into Box Hill and is buying groceries from one of the local Chinese supermarkets. An old guy working on the register was super chatty and asked her specifcally, “How many people are in your family!”

And goddamn if we both don’t know how to answer that in Chinese! I definitely had a go at her over that one, talk about perfectly missed opportunity! Then again, I likely wouldnt have either, but…I wish I could have!

Anyway, happy one year and two days Life After China, sorry I have been neglecting you lately!

Happy Site Birthday!

Tags: Birthday, China, Life after China, Mandarin Chinese, Progress