I read about a fantastic opportunity on the Confucius Society website. They will pay for people to go to china, including airfare and accommodations, given a set of criteria. Once Lin Crowley returns I hope to speak with her further before contacting the society directly. They recommend setting up the arrangement 9 months in advance, but maybe with some great referral and a show of commitment they may bend the rules for me. This could mean an immersive experience in China prior to attending the Wuyi University in Wuyishan.
The hosts of popupchinese.com seem to be aware that language is fluid and while a book or teacher may show you the formal way to say something, once you actually speak to a native speaker you’ll likely come off as an ass. I have gotten couple of phrases down, but I really value this resource as more of a way to prepare myself for future immersive learning by beginning to understand some of the nuances and pitfalls of learning Chinese.
Wuyi University is in the city of Wuyishan, in the province of Fujian, China. It rests at the base of Wuyi Mountain which boasts 36 peaks and is said to be a scenic wonder of cascading waterfalls and lush forest. I am personally excited to have a new practically endless forest playground. And where there are mountains, there may very well be climbers! I hope to find local rock climbing gyms as I hear it is as popular sport in China as it is in the US. If not, a crash pad and a hunt for suitable boulders would be in order!
I spent a significant portion of a day researching the best software for my purpose, to keep track of various recipes and lineages of kombuchas. I tried mind mapping software but it wouldn’t allow for the insertion of tables, which make things much more visually apparent. So I checked on some brewing apps, the trouble here is I have a Chromebook and the highest reputed brewing apps aren’t compatible, those which are aren’t worth the trouble. I ended up with Lucidchart.com as it has a chrome extension and all the functionalities I was looking for. I can create a flow chart of several kombucha lineages, from one file, which include recipe and other information in table form. The final product can be exported into pdf, jpg, and other formats.
I plan to start my Chinese Veggie garden in two places, a raised bed in the on-campus housing community garden area and in the community garden located next to Evergreen’s Organic Farm. Here and in future posts I may refer to the garden near my housing as the raised bed and the garden by the Organic Farm as the community garden or CG. The raised bed is due to be weeded by Friday of week 3, we should have a drying patch that will allow for efficient weeding. This bed will receive the greens. The CG garden will be worked on Friday of week 3, here I’ll plant some greens and all of my beans and peas.