Still finals but just thought I’d post this seeing as it’s probably one of the most important tools for Chinese learners… Back to work!
汉语桥
好久不见, So this last week has been pretty hectic. Last weekend I was informed by my 老师 that there would be the first Chinese Bridge(汉语桥) competition for Massachusetts Colleges at UMASS Boston this past Satuday. Chinese Bridge is an event put on by of the Confucius institute(孔子学院） , a instituion created by the Chinese government to help bridge the gap between Chinese culture and everywhere else in the world, and also to entertain CCTV viewers who love to watch 老外 try to struggle speaking the Chinese language language.
无论如何… I told my teacher if we could meet everyday for a week before the competition I would possibly not be able to make a complete fool of myself. Mission sort of accomplished. Even though it was really short notice I figured that even if I did completely horrible It would still be an experience.
Only five competitors showed up. I was the first one up and forgot a large chunk of my speech( I’m not an experienced public speaker) but I was still able get a few laughs, mostly when I said…
我喜欢学习中文，还因为我的女朋友是中国人。
We were told to keep our speeches around four minuets and right when I was about to say my 成语 I got dinged by the egg-timer! Which sucked because I was the ONLY ONE they used the timer on and it ran out at 3:30! I mean this was their first time they’ve done the competition and their still working out all the kinks but I was still a little discouraged… But I have to say that every one after me did a way better job and they made a lot more use of their time. Afterwards we each had to perform a talent.Pretty much everyone sang(I use that word loosely) a Chinese song. I got meet some good people and I definitely recommend that if you ever have the chance to participate in something like this you should take it, no matter what skill level you’re at. You get a free t-shirt no matter what!
~I want to add some more detail to this story so I’ll be posting some more info and probably some photos soon!~
