Chinese Lessons and My New Name

I started my Chinese lessons this week. Twice a week for 40 minutes. We have almost made it through the pronunciation of the letters. I am not kidding. I think it is harder to pronounce the letters than to figure out the tones. Some are very similar to English and other make no sense at all. It basically consists of us entertaining the Chinese teachers with our horrible pronunciation. Of course it's not as bad as I make it seem. I am progressing and the teachers think I can say things very well. Hopefully by the end of this I will speak proficient Chinese. I keep telling them that the teachers will be speaking English and I will be speaking Chinese and then we can talk "Chinglish" with each other.

I also received a Chinese name from my FAO. Xiao Mei = Sho May. Xiao means young and Mei is a flower that blooms in the winter and is one for the four very prized flowers in China. So I am official Chinese now, I have been inducted. It is and isn't a big deal at the same time. They do not call me by it yet but maybe they will start, I don't know.