Jim in China

I have a new roommate. Her name is Wang Meng.

We have been roommates and co-workers now for one month.

She is our group’s new finance manager, after Mazhen returned to Jinan to help care for her mom’s mom.I miss dear Zhen very, very much and think of her often.

Meng is thoroughly engaging. She is fluent in French, after living in Reims for three years and Paris for two, but her accent is atrocious and her spelling is even worse. She uses “d’ for “t” and “b” for “p”, so “peut-etre ce matin” comes out as “beut-edre ce madin”, and I have to yell “Qu’est que c’est?” But her vocabulary is much, much better than mine.So we can communicate after a fashion, though I must dive for my Larousse frequently.

She is living in Beijing while she works on her emigration dossier for entry into Canada.

Ainsi, nous parlons en Francais, et je parle en Anglais au Meng, et elle parle en Chinoise a moi! Nous sommes ensemble un maison avec trois langues! I have also hired a Chinese tutor, Sophie, a 24 year old graduate of Beijing Language and Cultural University. We work together now about five hours a week. I can now read and write about a hundred words. Today, I had my first real conversation in Chinese! I spoke with the owner of the little grocery store in our neighborhood; I introduced myself, and said where I was from. She said she could understand my Chinese. I’ll take that!

Meng loves, absolutely loves the CCTV historical romances, so we have many conversations about these TV shows. But I talk too much and Meng always politely reminds me that she wants to watch the show! Pardonnez moi! (or in Chinese, dui bu qi).