大家好！This week I have a 有趣的故事想告诉大家. Earlier this week I went to an area of Taipei called 中山, which is apparently well known for its vintage stores. And to be honest the stores were meh, but I did meet 2 really amazing people while walking around this little street market I found. I love the small conversations you have when you least expect it. One of them was jeweler who made these really cool beaded silver pieces that I went over to check out. She noticed my bubble tea was from a shop far away, I told her I got it from 台大 where I was studying, I asked about her jewelry making process and soon we had been talking for 10 minutes! Then I went over to this shop that was selling meringues, and she asked about how long I had studied Chinese and where I was from and I asked about the different meringues she had and so she gave me a few testers and I ended up buying these sour meringues that were so good, and it was just such a fun little experience. I really loved being able to communicate in Chinese and actually feeling really comfortable with it. I think when I started this summer I found it really hard to make connections with people in Chinese because the language felt like it was not a part of me, and so anything I said in Chinese felt distant and insincere, but now I’m really feeling like perhaps this language can be a part of who I am and I really feel happy when I’m meeting new people in Chinese, it feels all the sudden like all these new possibilities have been unlocked and I’m so excited. Anyway, that was my 小 story.
Unrelated but just some updates on my week, we had a 4 class week this week which was 不好 (usually we have 3 classes a week and then a review and then exams, but this week we had 4 and no review which is annoying but in order to finish the classes we had to). I also went to a rollerskating rink with friends which was epic, for just $3 we got lights, music, and a few hours of chaotic fun (I am really bad at 轮滑). Then yesterday I went to this Harvard networking event, which was interesting, but did come with free baseball tickets so I went to go see a Taiwan 棒球比赛 which did end up being really cool. All in all, pretty good week! 一会儿见！