thankfully reality is better than the dream

A few nights ago I had this dream, where I was speaking Chinese and I suddenly heard how other people heard me (I think it was a recording or something) and realized they don't here what I hear at all! It was a total shock: My pronunciation, grammar and tones were all off, and it was a regular ' western foreigner' accent. I felt just terrible.

Now, I do know that when I speak with people I am not used to speaking with, I don't speak as smoothly as when I speak with close friends, and when I discuss something not in my normal discussion-range I also get stuttery and caught-up, but it actually took me a few days to get over the dream (well, it took me a couple days to realize it was the dream that was making me feel yuck about my Chinese XD).

Fortunately, I am back to knowing it's not as bad as it was in the dream.

------[note: if you don't like braggingness and bigheadedness,

please do not keep reading]------

On Tuesday (my birthday...I ran a about two weeks worth of errands that day, the majority of which were marriage-registration related...making it a wonderfully efficient and productive celebration) I called the household registration office in Judge's hometown (where we have to go to register to be married-under-law) and asked them for details on what we needed etc. She couldn't tell I wasn't Taiwanese...told me we both need to bring each our household registrations (which only a Taiwanese will have). Woop!!

Then I've also recently gotten another "you're a foreigner right?" question...one where I'm face-to-face with the person and after we have some back-and-forth about something-or-other they just need to confirm for themselves that their eyes are not playing tricks on them. I seriously love these moments!

And finally, today the Taiwanese embassy in Norway called me, and when I answered the phone, she asked whether a foreigner under the name Johanna lived here...when I said "this is she - may I ask who's calling?" I got a silent moment, then a "you shocked me, your Chinese really is too good!".

Ahhh. Feeling much better!

.