May 27 -racial attitudes & bikes

"I was working with some students to practice their English and asked what kind
of movies they liked. One said 'Wampah'. It took me a while to realize that
she was saying 'Vampire'. The Chinese have a difficult time saying 'v' and use
'w' instead. The 'ah' at the end (instead of 'ire') I think uses the British
pronunciation of the second syllable in 'vampire'. One person said something
that I thought was 'vomitting' that turned out to be 'environment'. One word
that is almost impossible for some people to pronounce is 'refrigerator'; I
told one person they could say 'fridge'. That made her happy.

Race is openly discussed here (at least in the circles I've been in) and
seemingly without embarassment or political correctness as we usually see in the
US. At our boot camp, which included a black teacher and a black manager (both
Americans), they showed a slideshow which a previous student had made about the
different attitudes--in many areas--between Asians and Westerners. One set of
the logos was meant to demonstrate that Westerners lay in the sun to get darker,
while Asians stay out of the sun b/c they DON'T want to get darker. Previously
I had heard a couple of Chinese say in the presence of Terre (black girl from
US) that they avoided the sun b/c they didn't want to get darker, and also used
whitening cream. Terre had already mentioned to me that she was acquainted with
this in Japan as well. I had a Korean roommate many years ago who said that
also. I wonder if part of it is b/c peasants working in the field get darker,
and it's like us not wanting to be considered redneck."


"Another surprise is how big the cars are here compared to Europe. Of course,
there are tons of bikes, bike-rickshaws and other bike-like contraptions, but I
have seen almost no motorcycles here, or those tiny SMART-type cars either. (see photos) If you move up from a bicycle at all, you go straight for a big car, to show that you have arrived. [I've since learned that motorcycles are banned in most of the city. Not sure why].

That's it for now. Hope to buy a cell phone today. Also have to arrange for my
big boxes to be moved from my hotel to my new apartment tonight, when I give
them the earnest money and I move in. They say I can get one of the locals to
move it cheaply on one of the many bike-contraptions they have here."