“Wo bu mingbai,” means, “I don’t understand,” and I literally do not understand much of what is going on here.
I was trying to figure out how to dial out on my room phone, and dialed the operator by mistake. “Ni hao!” she said (which means “hello”), and then a bunch of other stuff I didn’t understand. I babbled something in English about not understanding and sorry, and she cheerily said, “OK!” and hung up.
Ni hao from Duke Kunshan University! (I did figure out how to use the coffee machine. It only took me two tries.)
I turned on my TV and it popped up a blue error message. Without Google Translate, I may have never figured out that it was a cable connection error (the fault of the cable company, I gather), and not just me being a dumb-dumb.
I tried to use the wrong card to pay for my fruit cup this morning. The lady said a bunch of stuff. I looked at her blankly and she handed back my card (my Duke Kunshan ID card) and said, “No money.” I handed her the proper card and it went through, and I think I said something approximating “xiexie,” which means, “thank you,” and sounds more like “shay shay” when I say it because I can’t quite get that first consonant sound to come out of my mouth.
The white fruit with black seeds is dragonfruit. It is kind of amazing.
Janet (who picked me up from the airport yesterday) took me to IT this morning to get my VPN set up (which means I can now access Facebook, Instagram and Twitter again, hooray!), and I told her, “Oh if you have something better to do, I can find my way back.” But she conversed quickly with the IT guy, who shook his head emphatically, and she sat down. I assume the conversation went something like, “Is it ok if I leave her here with you?” and then, “Absolutely not, I have no idea what she’s saying.”
I am now trying to figure out how to go to the Kunqu Opera, but all I have is a paragraph in questionable English in a brochure that’s from 2016, so it might not even be right anymore. I found the website, which is all in Chinese, of course, and I can’t tell if Google Translate is unhelpful or if the actual website is unhelpful. I may have to ask one of my China-native colleagues to help me out with this one.
So far, my Duke Kunshan colleagues have all been wonderful. There are so few of them, and yet they run a full-on communications office. Looking forward to rolling up my sleeves to see how I can help.
P.S. You can follow my Instagram for real-time pictures and stories if one blog post a day isn’t enough.
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