olympimania!

beijing welcomes you!

well olympic fever is well and truly here! i was at an art exhibition yesterday and was surprised (why?) by the amount of art featuring the olympic 'babies' (known in Chinese as the Fuwa 福娃）- Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying and Nini. Their names go together to mean 'Beijing welcomes you' (北京欢迎你）

Fuwa thangkas (usually thangkas are religious paintings)

Fuwa paper cuts
The one that cracks me up the most is 'Yingying' (the orange one). I always get confused about which ones his eyes are: the big ones or the small ones? it's like one of those optical illusion things. From one angle, you think his eyes are the small ones on top and then from the other side they're the big ones in the middle of his face. Hours of fun!

Any votes on your favourite Olympic mascots (current or otherwise?)

princesses, paintings and playing

mafan 麻烦！

one online chinese dictionary defines 'mafan' 麻烦 as 'trouble/troublesome' but let me tell you that doesn't even begin to describe what 'mafan' means in daily life here. 

this is what 麻烦 means to me:

the hose in the shower broke on thursday - the rubber bit on the inside had busted so there was water spraying everywhere. it wasn't too big a deal as i had another hose that i wasn't using so my flatmate's boyfriend kindly helped us replace it. 

on friday, that hose busted too. so i went out to buy a new one. again the flatmate's boyfriend kindly fixed it.

on saturday morning, my flatmate was having her shower and guess what? yes. we had 3 busted hoses in as many days. 

today, my flatmate's boyfriend is fixing it once again, even as i type. let's see how long this one lasts...

while i'm on the subject of water disasters. over here we get large bottles of water delivered (can't drink tap water here). we usually get two delivered at a time. last monday the delivery man dropped one just outside our door and there was water all over our stairwell. after that, i asked my friend who was visiting to help us put one of the bottles onto the dispenser. there is a bit of a trick to it as ours is not like normal dispensers and also my poor friend was feeling a bit nervous after having seen the  delivery man drop the other one in the stairwell so he ended up dropping it too. it smashed on the ground and we ended up with 5 gallons of water all over our dining room. as we mopped up the water, waves of bad memories from the Great Apartment Flood of 2006 came flooding back to me (sorry about the pun). 

so i don't know why we seem to have been plagued with water worries this last week but it's 麻烦的很 (very mafan)! that's my gripe for this week.

what's in a name?

i've been thinking about bit about names recently as i'm trying to get a T name for myself. it's harder than  you would think! More about this later...

the exact meaning and origins of the name 'Melinda' are hard to pinpoint (from the extensive research i've done...ok, just a few websites). some sites say greek origin, others say english, some say latin. quite a few sites say that it has no real meaning but is just a mixture of 'mel' and 'linda' or maybe a variation on 'melanie' or 'melissa'. although i did find one site that said in greek it means 'one who is gentle'. 

i like that last definition cause it sort of fits in with my chinese name： 梅淑缘(mei2 shu1 yuan2). in order to let people know what characters each chinese word is, you have to put it in context so i've gotten used to rattling off  “梅花的梅， 淑女的淑， 缘分的缘” ('mei2' as in the plum flower, 'shu1' as in beautiful and refined lady, 'yuan2' as in destiny/fate which brings people together). and whenever i write my name, locals marvel and say 'wow you write chinese characters really well'. i laugh and say 'they are about the only three characters i CAN write!' 

this was the name given to me at birth and i've always loved the sound and meaning of it. and since i started studying chinese, i have been amused by the closeness of the (supposed) meanings of 'melinda' and 淑 (shu1 = refined/feminine). if you've seen me down a bowl of noodles, you'll know that these definitions don't quite describe me fully!

getting a T name is another story though. i've had 2 names suggested to me: 'mei toc mtso' (meaning flower and sea) and 'gar ma tso' (star and sea) but later discovered that with both names i have other (foreign) friends who have already taken these names. so the search continues...

any thoughts on names and their meanings? how do you feel about your name? any T speakers out there who would like to suggest a new name for me?

numbers

either i misread the news reports last night or the death toll from the earthquake has risen significantly over night. today's news reports 10,000 deaths, and rising. that's devastating. let's continue to ask for mercy, healing and peace for those who have been affected.

tulips and earthquakes

while i was strolling around a park with a couple of good friends this afternoon admiring the tulip festival, an earthquake rocked a neighbouring province. apparently some people in our city did feel the tremors but i was completely oblivious. 

500 people have reportedly been killed and 10,000 injured. it truly is an interesting time to be living in this part of the world. please do remember the victims and their families at this time. 

click on this link to view some photos from our outing today:

2008 may tulips

by the way, my back is much better now - thanks to ibuprofen, lots of rest and intercession by some good friends. from now on i promise to be good to my back!