i think i'm turning chinese

Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I did 1. Order vegetarian baozi (Chinese steamed bun) in Chinese and had the person actually understand me. Normally when I order baozi I just say "Bu yao rou" which is literally "I don't want meat" and a very childish way of saying it. My 8th graders tried to teach me how to say vegetable in Chinese (shucai), but since I'm self-diagnosed tone deaf, I thought it would be impossible for me to ever get it right.

But I did it! And it wasn't even at my regular bao zi place so I know for sure that they understood me (that and they actually gave me the vegetable baozi I asked for). Having a visitor was definitely eye opening in terms of how much Chinese I actually know. By no means am I conversational, but I was able to order from street vendors, give taxi drivers directions, and shoo away people selling knock-off merchandise all in mandarin!

Me with my victory vegetable baozi:


I know it's not much, but it's exciting to me that I know a little bit of Chinese, plus, I can understand a lot of what people are saying, I just can't respond back. This summer I'm considering taking a mandarin course when all my graduate courses are over and my teaching internship is done, that way I can concentrate on it 100%.