Living in a multicultural relationship brings along a lot of challenges that are different comparing to dating someone from your own cultural circle. Recently a friend of mine asked: “But isn’t it quite hard sometimes to be in a relationship with a person whose culture is so different from you?” In this blog post I’ll do my best to answer.

From Finland, China is one of the farthest place you can go, that’s also true in a Finnish-Chinese relationship. We have grown up in such different cultures and having been used to one way of living for 20 years and changing a location isn’t an easy deal. It’s even harder when besides your location also all the communication you have change their settings.

Challenges in language

I’ve written about language difficulties in a relationship before (as a guest post on Speaking of China), but there are few things I would like to add.

First of all Mandarin Chinese is a third language for both of us. My native language is Finnish and second foreign language English. My boyfriend’s mother tongue is Yangjiang dialect and second language Cantonese. We have to use a language in our daily communication that isn’t a native language for either of us.

Besides not knowing all the required vocabulary, there’s also a problem that words have different meanings in different cultures. By communicating more we have to learn what words mean for us and what we mean by certain words or expressions. In some way we creat our own language.

Challenges in communication

Communication isn’t jut words and sentences, it’s also the way you express them. For my ears, Chinese, and especially Cantonese people, are always shouting or arguing. I’ve grown up in a culture when raising your voice means you’re angry, but in China people just use louder voice to begin with. Typical situation is when I’m discussing about something with my boyfriend and I think he is raising his voice. So I raise my voice too, but the difference is that he is just talking, but I’m getting into a fight!

Chinese people also think that complaining is a sign of caring. Family members can say anything that pops into their head without being too polite. Hey, it’s just family! But I’m not used to be criticized so directly and my boyfriend doesn’t always remember that I don’t know he is just caring. But step by step I learn to complain like a real Chinese girlfriend and my boyfriend learns to think before opening his mouth.

So why to get into a relationship with a Chinese guy?

Chinese people usually date to get married and many don’t see the point in having a relationships without future. Meeting the Chinese parents is a sign that it’s the real deal. (In many cases introducing you to the family means that the relationship don’t have to be questioned anymore, everyone knows that the reason to date is to get married, have children and continue the family line.)

So what’s so good about Chinese guys? A lot of women could answer to this, just check out the list on Speaking of China of Western women dating Chinese men and blogging about it.

One thing that I really dislike in relationships is the game. A game where you can’t bring up certain topics because you’re afraid the guy would run away because you wanted commitment, or you wait for years and still don’t know what is the course of your relationship. We all have seen thousands of movies of a guy who freaks out when his girlfriend want’s to get married.

This is not the case with my boyfriend. We both know what we want from the future and can discuss about it together. We don’t have to play any guessing games. Like many Chinese people, my boyfriend likes kids and has a huge feeling (and pressure) to take care of his family and relatives.

My boyfriend cooks my favourite dishes, pours me water all the time and in a Chinese way lets me know what is or isn’t good for my health.

So yes, it can be very hard to be in a multicultural relationship when you are from opposite ends of the earth, like Finland and China. But you also learn so much along the way about another person and another culture that it’s well worth it. I also believe that the longer we are together the often we can forget where we are from. And how many of you have succeeded in not being in a relationship with someone you love?

p.s. Click here if you think my blog is your favourite language learning blog for 2012! And don’t forget to check out my posts about learning Chinese.

While writing Chinese blog posts here and studying teaching Chinese at university, I’ve learned a lot about writing Chinese essays. This Monday I decide to share all my mistakes with you so you don’t have to do the same mistakes I have done! Lets take a look what kind of mistakes happen when writing essays in Chinese and take my mistakes as examples.

Forgetting something important

Usually you forget a word in the sentence where it’s supposed to be.

For example:

如果你选择丁克（的）生活方式，中国父母一定不同意 > Here I forgot to add 的
我对（这些）都感兴趣 > Here I forgot to add 这些
在中国每个地方每个民族(都)有他们的特色菜 > And here I forgot to add 都

When you forget to add something it might turn your sentence not natural, hard to understand and/or grammatically incorrect.

Adding something that shouldn’t be added

This is the opposite to the first one. Here you add something that you think should be in the sentence, but it’s actually incorrect.

For example:

我应该多一点跟中国人聊天 > No need to add 一点 here
这是她第二次来过中国 > Shouldn’t add 过 here
怎么会用这样的话来问别人他们怎么样 > And should remove 他们

Adding something extra can easily become a bad habit. Many learners use too many 了 in the sentence because they don’t know when to use or not to use it. Often these mistakes are because of poor grammar skills.

Choosing the wrong word

This is the challenge for intermediate students! You know many words that have a similar meaning and you don’t know which one to use in one particular sentence. It’s easy to make a mistake and choose wrong one.

For example:

在芬兰中国餐厅的菜跟真真(真正)的中国菜完全不一样。> Chinese doesn’t have a word 真真, should be 真正
那个(样)瑞典菜跟我们差不多 > Common mistake to use the wrong measure word
在芬兰我们一般一次吃一个(道)菜 > This is a measure word mistake also

Putting a word in the wrong place inside a sentence

Sometimes you know which word to use, put you fail to put it in the wrong place in the sentence.

For example:

那时候我是跟她^认识的 > The wrong position of 那时候, should be put to ^ place
但是那个地方^只不是个博物馆  > Wrong position of 不, should be put in front of 只
写中文博客是个很好的方法提高自己的写作水平^ > Wrong position of 方法, should be put in the end of the sentence and add 的 before it (…的方法)

Mixing two sentences into one

This is the monster of mistakes where you put two sentences into one and in the process you make a mistake. Many beginners learn a lot of new sentence structures and can get confused how to use them. But in this case simple is better and you should avoid putting everything together.

Here is one example:

但是我不太喜欢在那里按摩员没有工资 > In this sentence I wanted to say that I don’t like the massage place because masseurs don’t have a salary, it would be better to divide these in two sentences: …，但是我不太喜欢在那里按摩, 是因为按摩师没有工。

How to improve your Chinese essay skills?

After going over all of these mistakes it might feel a bit intimidating to write an essay ever again, but that’s exactly what you (and I) should do!

Here are some tips to improve your Chinese essays:

1. Write a lot of essays and get the corrected by a teacher or a tutor (or a blog reader!)
2. Read a lot in Chinese in order to get a feeling of what is correct writing
3. Study grammar and especially those aspects where you make mistakes, learn why something is correct or incorrect
4. Write a blog post in Chinese and leave a comment to this post with a link to your Chinese blog post!

Besides writing my own Chinese essays and recording me speaking Chinese, I decided that on Mandarin Monday I should also be helping all of you who study Chinese too! Learn from my mistakes, so you can improve faster than I do. And for quick tips on learning Chinese check out How Can I Learn Chinese.

It was a rainy day today, but luckily managed to get some photos in Xiaozhou village, my favourite place in Guangzhou.

My Chinese boyfriend is usually the cook in our house and he can even make a few Finnish dishes as well! But sometimes (when he isn’t at home) I’ll cook my self too. Recently I’ve been making a lot of fried noodles, which is an easy, but tasty meal. And cheap! Just few RMBs.

Cooking this dish takes only 10 to 15 minutes. I noticed that after coming to China and especially recently I’ve been eating much less meat. I make my noodles with onion, paprika and cabbage. I also love tofu, so often there isn’t a need to have a meat dish. And if there is meat, it’s usually just for the taste in a form of few slices in a dish.

Cooking at home is great for someone in a student budget like me. The cost of this dish per one person is about 2RMB which is 0,24EUR or 0,32USD. For few slices of pork I would need to add 2-4RMB.

These are the prices when you buy your vegetables and meat from outside markets. It might not be the most hygienic, but I’ve never got any problems even after eating meat that has been on the table on the heat for hours.

I’m sure there are much better cooks among my readers, right?

Life in a foreign country and in a place like China might sound really exciting and exotic. When I go back to Finland I hear lots of wow’s after telling people where I live at the moment. Sometimes talking about my recent life happening sound like bragging because every sentence starts like “But in China they…” or “In Guangzhou I…”

But when chatting with people in Finland, it’s usually necessary to make clear which place I’m talking about. I’ve been living in China for more than two years now so I can’t really talk about much if I would ban the word China altogether. I’m not sure if other people think like this, but my friend who lives in Malta has similar thoughts too.

I recently got an email which said: “I guess I’m just hoping that since you seem to love the place, you’ll have some cool ideas for stuff to do/ places to visit.”

Unfortunately I have to break the news and tell you, my life is actually quite boring! Go to class, do homework, eat, sleep and watch Chinese TV dramas! I spend most of my free time at home, not exploring Guangzhou or bar hopping. I’m sure many expats have a far more interesting life in here than I do.

I really do like my own boring life here, but it might not be that interesting to hear about it. Or is it?

And finally I would like to introduce my new side project: How Can I Learn Chinese -blog! This new blog is about short introductions and reviews about Chinese learning resources, links, tips and apps. I hope you will find it helpful! I’ve already scheduled post per day for the following week.

My fans on Facebook already know that I visited a Chinese orphanage yesterday. This trip to a orphanage in the outskirts of Guangzhou was organized by BEAN Guangzhou and I was lucky to be the one of the nine people who had the chance to attend.

Even going to the orphanage was an adventure. We met on a distant metro stop in Baiyun district and decided to take a taxi to the destination. Finding the right road was a bit tricky as the taxi drivers usually don’t know that orphanage. We had a small “sight-seeing tour” before founding the right spot.

There are more than 100 Chinese children in the orphanage and they all have different mental and/or physical disabilities. But despite their rough life, they are extremely cute and so excited about everything. We played with 15 kids on the small playground, make paper airplanes, sung songs and colored pictures. The smile on their face was the best kind of reward a volunteer can get.

I’m really happy that I decided to attend this event. It was a new experience for me and totally worth it. I hope I can go there again next time. I you’re interested in going too, follow the BEAN Guangzhou website.

Happy Labor Day! It’s time for my monthly goal check-in.

Listening

I watched 18 episodes of Chinese TV and 15 episodes of American TV. Great! I finished 夫妻那些事 and will be looking for a new TV series to follow. I have now watched three full seasons of Chinese TV since last Autumn: 裸婚时代，幸福三颗星 and now 夫妻那些事.

I’ve also started listen to occasional podcasts from various websites like ChinesePod, ChineseClass101, CSL Pod and Visual Mandarin. I walk to the university every working day and those 20 minutes are a good way to catch up with the podcasts.

Writing

I only wrote one blog post in Chinese this month. I’ve been lacking motivation to write in Chinese here on my blog as well on my writing course.

If you have any suggestions or ideas what to write to my Mandarin Monday, please leave a comment!

Reading

I found a great translated book that fits my level: 公关辣妹的恋爱札记. I’m currently on page 198 so I read almost 200 pages in Chinese this month! I really enjoy reading this book and it feels great to be able to read in Chinese. I mean actual books that are meant for adult native readers. That’s kind of cool!

Skritter

I haven’t really been using Skritter and my goal to Skritter 15 minutes a day feels like a lot right now. I get so easily bored with things and I need a change in order to keep studying fun. Instead I’ve been learning vocabulary with flashcard app made by trainchinese. They have two ways to use the flashcards and I’ve been using the more relaxed version.

But I got a feeling that the Skritter app will be ready sooner than later (that’s what I hope) and will absolutely go back to my 15 minutes goal when it launches. I’m sure the app will give a new and fresh boost to my vocabulary studying. I hope to get back to the days when I was new to Skritter and it felt like play!

Speaking

I posted one video of me speaking in Mandarin. Thank you for the feedback! I’ve got confirmation from a police officer and from my teacher, that tones are my biggest problem in speaking. I’ve been trying different methods to overcome this problem and will write about it in more detail soon.

I’ve had brief exchanges with strangers in Chinese this month, only a few, but I think I’m on my way to a more talkative Chinese way of life. I live in China  so I should use all the opportunities I have to practice my spoken Chinese!

Three weeks ago a new Finn arrived to Guangzhou and started his few months in China. He said that it’s nice here because people are so polite and helpful. But I’m guessing that at some point he will get to the bottom of the culture shock and have not so nice things to say about Chinese. At least that’s how it usually happens with newcomers.

I can understand very well why he said that Chinese people are polite. They compliment your Chinese after hearing you say “Ni hao”, everyone wants to be your friend and get to know you.

Are these the same people who don’t bother to open their mouth behind the cash register and throw your change to the counter? Are these the same people who laugh at your bad tones? Or are these the same people who rush to take the last seat on the metro?

Chinese people can be very polite and extremely impolite at the same time. They ask about your private matters from finances to marital status. They will let you know if you are too fat for their clothes. But if you’re lucky, you can be treated to a nice cup of tea at the tea shop while brushing up your Mandarin.

A well known truth comes to my mind:

After spending a week in China, you can write a whole book about the country. After spending a month in China, you can write a really nice magazine article about it. After a few months, a blog post. And after a year, you can’t write anything, because you discover how little you actually know.

I could add that it becomes impossible to answer questions about China with a simple yes or no.

What do you think? Are Chinese people polite?

(This blog post includes affiliate links.)

Recently I’ve been paying attention to my pronunciation as it’s not as good as it should be. I’ve decided to start from the beginning because I’m not even hearing the tones and pinyin correctly! In order to train my pinyin I tried to find some helpful apps from the App Store.

I found Pinyin Trainer:

Pinyin Trainer is great for beginners who want to learn Chinese pinyin and pronunciation, and also for us intermediate learners who didn’t study properly when it was time. It will test your listening skills and you have to choose the right pinyin or tone. You can listen as many times you like before answering.

You’ll see all your answers on the right and can listen to them again by tapping. Remember to review those you answered incorrectly!

Pinyin Trainer is an simple app that does well what it’s meant to do: train your pinyin.

With the free edition you can answer about 20 questions per day. You can also buy a trainchiense subscription and use the app as much as you like. Because I really want to nail my pronunciation this time around I decided to buy the subscription. I paid 11.84EUR for three months. Besides Pinyin Trainer this  subscription also includes their other apps both for iPhone/iPad and Android. (I’ll review their other apps on a separate blog post.)

You can download this app from the App Store and give it a try for free.

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I have decided to write reviews of Chinese learning apps, softwares and websites. I’ll let you know what I have used myself and found useful for my studies. These posts might include affiliate links and all pennies will be used for my tuition fees.

Are you a developer and have a Chinese learning product? If you want me to review it, please contact via email sara(a)sarajaaksola.com. You can even pay me if you want to, but remember that you can only pay for honesty.

For this week’s Mandarin Monday I want to share a recent homework of mine, and essay about why it’s not a good idea to have plastic surgery in order to find a job.

找工作靠什么

在如今的经济情况下好不容易找到合适的工作(在当今的经济情况下是很不容易找到合适的工作)。据报道，很多的人为了得到好工作而通过（经过）整容改善外貌。靠整容找工作是有很多坏处的方法（靠整容找工作是有很多的坏处），最好是靠自己的能力和知识找合适的职业。

第一个坏处是做整容不一定安全，是因为整容是一种手术，而且每个手术（都）有风险。如果整容的结果不理想，那找工作不(就)会更难吗？而且要是身体受到伤害的话，生活的各个方面(都)会有影响。

第二，整容并不便宜，那些钱你做最好投资教育(这些钱最好拿来投资在进修)。学习新的知识根本没有任何坏处，只有很多好处。譬如，掌握新的技能和新的语言在找工作时有很大的帮助。

第三，外貌很容易失去，人老了，有意外等，所以我们不要太重视它。语言技能，工作经验，任何能力不是那么容易失去的。最好的未来的投资是学好学位，学好各种各样的技能，学好外语。具有这些能力，找到合适工作的可能性更大。

第四，做整容不答应(保证)你能找到合适工作，更不答应你能做好工作。在大部分工作上，工作效果跟外貌没有任何关系。做不到工作时，外貌也没有帮助。

提高自己的能力只有好处，不一样的技能和经历在简历上很有用。反过来(说)，整容有可能会带来身体伤害，也说不定找工作时有没有帮助。所以你最好靠自己的能力找工作，就这样你能找到搭配你的学位，技能和希望的工作。