Xiaojun

My roommate’s name is Xiaojun. Her name means something like “Sovereign of the Dawn” which I think is pretty cool (my name, for those who don’t know, means something along the lines of “Happy Root Vegetables”). She is (I think) studying mechanical engineering. She is from the South, just across the strait from Taiwan, which means she drops the ‘h’ out of her ch, sh and zh sounds. For someone who has spent two years trying to master Chinese phonetics, it is frustrating to suddenly lose several sounds, and have the word for “pig” start to sound like “rent”. Though I’d encountered this accent before in movies and such, I’d never had to understand it, and it took some adjusting, even for the simpler stuff. The first day I got here she asked me if I’d eaten yet, and I probably made her repeat the question three times. The worst was when she offered to take me to a supermarket. The word I learned was “chaoji shichang” which she abbreviated to “chao shi” and said as “cao si”, which sounds sort of like “grass four”. Now of course I rarely have to think about her accent, and can’t help but be amused when my classmates don’t understand her simple questions.

Xiaojun puts her arm around my shoulder to steer me down the street. She seems convinced I will get hit by a car or particularly aggressive bicycle. When she comes in the door she announces, “I’ve come back!” and she makes a similar declaration when I return. She spends a lot of time online talking to friends and family, or watching illegally downloaded movies, thus proving that college students everywhere are mostly the same. Also it gives me a chance to watch my much beloved Asian soap operas.

Xiaojun snacks a lot, which is dangerous for me because it means she’s constantly handing me fruit, pumpkin seeds, fried crepes from the back gate stands, and various rice-based snack items. The first week I was here she handed me half a watermelon in a plastic bag, and a spoon (it was a watermelon about the size of a cantaloupe, but still).

I’m definitely enjoying living with her, though our interaction has dwindled since we’re now both in class. This seems to be the case for a lot of people. I think once our schedules even out we’ll see more of each other during the day.