Class days

Sculpture outside the museum




Poster for Wu Guanzhong's exhibit outside the museum



Wu did a painting of Victoria Harbor and the museum has superimposed a rendition of it onto the windows facing the harbor




Two swallows - the artist says this is his most important work



One of Wu's more modern works



I am really glad that I didn't take the CUHK course. I am enjoying my class but I feel I haven't absorbed one day's lesson before I go to the next. Taking class every day is intense enough for me. And actually I know a lot of the vocabulary, so it is the structure of the language that I am working on the most. It is on one hand good, it is making me realize how much I know. But on the other hand, there is still so much vocabulary I don't know. I am trying to add to this by asking specific questions, like how do I go to the movie theater, ask for a ticket, pick my seat, etc.

One of my big problems is constructing sentences. I was advised by a fellow blogger to work with patterns so I am trying to apply that to the individual sentences they are giving me in class and within the dialogues in the text. The more I absorb the patterns, the easier it will be for me to think in Cantonese I am told.

My class is in the middle of the day which I find awkward. II am doing my best to work around it. I take my time going and coming, trying to take various routes so as to take the Star Ferry (my favorite form of transportation). I had an early lunch with a fellow blogger and new friend on tuesday, wednesday I went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art afterwards and today I went to the Hong Kong Space Museum today.

Am I speaking Cantonese? Well, my record is spotty I admit. It is really too damn easy to speak English here. So it depends on my mood or my level of confidence which can vary immensely in a short space of time. In one restaurant I might order in Cantonese and in the next in English. Yes, they speak to me in English most of the time, but if I am feeling confident I just continue in Cantonese.

The space museum was interesting because it was a different perspective of the history of space exploration--in other words, not American-centric like one would get in the U.S. The only point I quibbled with was one of the first things I read, it was about how the Romans based their gods on the heavens and mentioned the goddess of the moon and yet didn't mention her name? How hard it is it to say her name was Diana? HMM? But since the Romans acquired (or stole, depending on your perspective) their gods and goddesses via the Greeks and the Greeks got no mention at all, I guess I need to let the Diana "dis" slide.

The Museum of Art has some really cool stuff. The contemporary art display had a variety of types of art, sculpture, painting, video. There was one video which is an elevator door opening and closing, each time you see different people in the elevator. No one gets on or off, you just see these people reacting or not reacting to the door opening. The pottery was beautiful, I had no idea there were so many different styles. I especially liked the Wu Guanzhong exhibit, he seems to have found a Chinese way to do modern art. I can't exactly explain it but it feels a bit like Hong Kong to me, a blending of East and West.

If you are interested I will tell you about my humbling experience in a hot pot restaurant next time.