39 of 69

Tonight I was sitting at a restaurant and glanced at the menu. 

I recognized 39 of the 69 characters on the page. 

It's been an amazing journey down the rapids of the Mandarin River. Chinese is so opposite of English - sight, sound, stroke; but after a year and eight months, I'm not as clueless as I once was. 

When I first landed in China, I didn't care about characters, I was totally concentrated on eating. Every word I learned was memorized in the pursuit of food. If I could speak, I could eat. 

But around February last year, I had a mental metamorphosis. Instead of just ignoring Chinese characters on menus, signs and text messages, I began to search and identify the few that I recognized. Well, the more I studied, the more I recognized. And slowly the pieces of the puzzle weren't so jumbled and gray. The pieces were coming together. And just like when a kid with eye issues puts on glasses fro the first time the fuzziness becomes clear, so my China life has been getting a little less fuzzy every day. 

Hopefully in a month I'll know 44 of the 69. And next year, hopefully 55 of the 69. 

When in Rome...

米佳