磁带: Cassette Tapes

Ironically, out of the 4 teachers I have teaching me Chinese, the one that teaches speaking and listening is by far the hardest to understand. Although most of my classmates probably wouldn’t mind seeing her hit by biker carrying three refrigerators (these exist), I actually kind of enjoy this class. For me, I think this is some of the best practice we can get in a classroom for listening comprehension, and I am fully aware that most people in China do not have the crystal clear speaking skills of my other three teachers. Also, this teacher is by far the best looking.

However, today even I was a little bit frustrated during this class. There is a cassette tape (these exist) that comes with our book, and we were actually using it. From my experience, when a book comes with a CD, you are supposed to either lose it, or use it as a coaster in your dorm room, until you forget about it and end up losing it. When your book comes with a cassette tape, you are supposed to transfer universities immediately. I don’t really have this option, so I decided to stick it out.

After about ten minutes of rewinding, stopping, playing, fast-forwarding, stopping, playing, rewinding, and making noises that have been copyrighted by the Beastie Boys, we got to the appropriate spot on the tape. When nobody was able to answer the first question, our teacher was kind enough to rewind the tape so that we could hear that sentence again. To make sure we would get all the way back to the beginning of the sentence, our teacher would rewind the tape back to about 1996, where the tape would be playing Hootie and the Blowfish, and we would have to go through the process of fast-forwarding, stopping, and playing again until we caught back up to the point where it was no longer “cool” to wear flannel shirts or have holes in the knees of your jeans.

I think this says a lot about the Chinese education system. It also says a lot about relatively attractive girls in China, and how they are completely OK with doing things that would be social catastrophes in other countries. For example, it is not uncommon to be walking down the street and discover that the shocking sound coming from behind you is not somebody killing Bigfoot with a javelin, but a cute girl hocking a loogie the size of Nebraska onto the sidewalk.

My second favorite thing to see is a group of girls sauntering down the street, decked out in their Hello Kitty backpacks with stuffed animals hanging off of their key chains, probably chatting about normal girl things like makeup and Brad Pitt, eating squid off of a stick like they were M&Ms. This is made even more amusing by the guys checking them out. “Man, did you see the way she just ate that whole squid in one bite? I’m going to go ask her for her number!”

I love it here.