道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物

"The Way gave birth to one, one gave birth to two, two gave birth to three, three gave birth to a thousand things." -老子

If I remember correctly (and knowing the state of my memory, I could be completely wrong), I opened a 12th grade history position paper with this quote. In the paper, I was arguing that "Ignorance is Bliss" and that Daoism was the better than Confucianism and Legalism when it came to living life and setting up a Chinese Government.

Today, (大) 冯老师, "Big" Feng Laoshi, (not to be confused with 小(small/young)冯老师 - the head of the second year chinese section of HBA), the director of HBA, gave us a lecture about Chinese Religion. It was a complicated lecture and therefore was given in English (something that made all of the second year students, who made up most of the audience, mightily relieved). The first Wednesday afternoon lecture that we had two weeks ago was given in Chinese and, while the subject matter was fascinating (the lives of Chinese farmers) it went completely over my head and the only part that I understood was when, seeing the 二年级 students' perplexed faces, Feng Laoshi began translating every now and then.

After discussing Confucianism, Feng Laoshi moved onto Daoism, and this quote ("道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物") which opened Laozi's book was splashed up upon the projector. It seems so compact and happy in Chinese, where it seems kinda funny in English. But that's one of the beauties of seeing something in its original language.

Now for my own (rather bad) attempt at metaphor (or simile...): life is moving like a tire that that was just pushed down a hill. At the beginning, it kinda rolls/bounces along. Then it gets faster. Now it's moving really really fast because of it's increased acceleration and I think it'll hurt if it hits me.

In two days time, I will be on a bus out to 内蒙古 (Inner Mongolia), one of the regions in Outer China for HBA's week of 社会调查 (social study). I hope to research how Inner Mongolian raise their animals--as they are famous herders--and look into how they make their yarn, which is one of their specialities (and hopefully buy some too!). I'm really looking forward to it, but I won't have internet for a week, so don't expect blog updates until July 16th/17th (my birthday!).

Of course, in two and a half days, I have a midterm. Having a language midterm is a little more than I can fathom. In my brain, Languages are cumulative, so having a midterm seems kind of silly. A final, I understand completely, but a midterm? Really? Is that necessary?

No.

Well...Maybe... I mean, we have learned sooo much it is good to look back and really make sure we have absorbed.

In any case, I find this insanely frustrating. Especially since we have to memorize a skit. And because tomorrow night, I can't really study because I am finally meeting up with my host mother. It took us (my two HBA "siblings" and I) so long to contact her that we didn't dare say that we couldn't meet this Thursday because we are about to go away for a week. I am quite excited to meet her, but I am also nervous about my energy and stress level. I have noticed that they have an inverse relationship...which I find very perplexing.

On a rather unrelated note, I had a recent epiphany about one of the reasons Chinese is so hard. Like Japanese and Korean, it is also a syllabic language. That combined with the tonal aspect of the spoken language makes it VERY hard to remember new words, simply because you have already heard it in some manifestation or other. This is probably something that other people are already aware of, but I found it interesting, and thought I would share...

That's all for now...
Celia