Last week I had entered the photo above into a competition and today I was informed that I had won. My prize is 100 RMB. The following text is from the judge of the competition: Congratulations to 叶问浩 for winning this week’s photo contest with this dizzying shot of a kitschy souvenir shop. What makes this photo a winner? The vibrant color and texture gives a glimpse into China’s frenzied retail world. The shallow depth of field helps isolate the girl in the foreground from the frantic background. How could it be better? I really wish the girl was facing the camera instead of looking away. Don’t be afraid to ask, “你好！可以拍照吗？” Anyways, by now you must be wondering what la du zi. Well, it is the act of having loose bowels. In China, conversing about one's bowel movements is rather ordinary. It is so standard that today the class' topic was about diarrhea. I mentioned before that I have a large class and a small class. This week the administration happened to put the 4 class jokers, myself included, in the same small class setting. 4 guys, a young teacher, and literally shit as the topic, made for the greatest day I have had here so far. It was 2 hours of non-stop joking, but the great thing was that it was all in Chinese. Side note: I have been suffering from la du zi all day because I ate some street food. People here are so comfortable with talking about bowel movements that I had a conversation with my teacher, over lunch, about la du zi. So what how does learning and talking about diarrhea help my proficiency at all? My conversation with my teacher turned into one on American politics, Chinese culture, and partying. Very random topics, but the fact is that I had flowing conversation about these two topics all in Chinese; if this isn't improvement I don't know what is. This is my story of how la du zi helped me learn Chinese. Now if you don't mind, I am going to end this post here and head to the loo.
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