Chinese Phrases and Something Different

Our beautiful and highly organized dance... highly organized.

风雨无阻 is one of my favorite phrases in Chinese. Its meaning is parallel to that of one of my favorite tongue twisters: whether the weather is cold or whether the weather is hot, we’ll weather the weather whatever the weather whether we like it or not. This phrase is a Chinese idiom that helps improve your Chinese language fluency by making your speaking more natural. I especially like this one because it applies to my weird running tendencies. I have ran in the snow, rain, wind, and even swarms of bugs, and I’d do it again if I have to.

For our cultural activity today, we danced around with our masks. We learned a little bit more about the Beijing Opera and sang a simple song about it. The Beijing Opera consists of four main characters as revealed by this phrase: 生旦净丑. The four main characters are the guy, the girl, the comic role, and the painted-face role. Each role has characteristic actions. For example, the girl moves around quickly with small steps, acts shy, moves her hands around very daintily, and sings extremely high with some serious vibrato. Of course we had to perform at the end of our class, and as you can tell from the picture, we looked pretty foolish.

After another long ride home and another delicious, home-cooked dinner, I sat down with my host mom and host sister to work on my homework with a little bit of Chinese television. I was working on writing about what I usually eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In intently watching me write, my host mom asked me if I wanted to eat something different for breakfast with which I replied... sure? I thoroughly enjoy fruit, corn, and oatmeal, but why not try something different. In America, I typically eat the exact same breakfast every day. I can't say I've gotten tired of it.