Well I had a big day, but to start, many years ago, while having a breakfast of pork dumplings in chung ching (重庆) and enjoying every moment of it and while listening to people complaining about how the chinese do not know how to fry eggs, I remembered a song. It was happy birthday and I wanted to cry. I do not know why I feel so sad singing this song in mandarin (普通话). A few days ago I was listening to a chinese pod lesson on happy birthday. I was not taking much notice as I was driving into the car park at work. When they said happy birthday, it was like a switch again switched on. Suddenly I understood about a dozen words. It is quite interesting and something I had been hoping would happen. I do not know how many more words I know from when I was 5 years old. The upshot was today, when I was watching The Return of the Condor Heroes my comprehension had improved markedly, now I need to focus on vocabulary. In fact while before I could not handle more than three episodes in a row, we watched 5 episodes, including 1.5 on my own and I could have continued. The show has changed from being comfortingly familiar (as opposed to western shows which are normally a bit alien) to one where I am enjoying the story and plot lines. In fact I cannot wait to get back to see the rest of the story. Hopefully my vocabulary will be increased when I return.
金輪法王 – the evil Tibetan monk