祝我生日快乐: Happy Birthday to Me (Sort of)

Well, my birthday is right around the corner, which turns out to be sort of a weird thing. I hadn't expected it to seem that important a day, really, so I was a bit surprised this afternoon to find myself suddenly meditative about the whole aging process. I guess in part this is because I effectively skipped turning thirty last year: since many Chinese add at least one year to their age*, it was easy to get into the idea that, though I was by stateside standards hitting the big three-oh, I'd already passed it on the mainland, so nothing was really changing--a peculiar little bit of reasoning that kept me from experiencing any major crisis.

This year is only a little different: Since I'm now already thirty-two by Chinese standards, turning thirty-one tomorrow doesn't seem like such a huge deal, but the encroaching birthday, no matter how far away (in geographic if not temporal terms) it may feel right now, provides an explanation for the way I've been feeling the last week. Over the past two or three weeks, my ability to pick up new hanzi has been slowing down a lot, to the point where I'm only able to remember one or two new hanzi per day, and in the last week I've been obsessing over the idea that I'm not getting anywhere with my studying. Part of me knows, of course, that plateaus are a natural part of learning anything, and another part of me knows that I was due for one--you can only make big improvements for so long before the slow-down sets in for a while. But in the last week or so, this little plateau has seemed a bigger deal than it should.

Today it hit me suddenly that this temporary slow-down in my progress seems like a bigger deal than it actually is just because of when it's happening; another year is passing on my internal calender, and since I got a pass last year on the "round number" milestone, this year seems a little bigger than it should. Realizing this, I drew the conclusion that I've been a silly ass for the past week and that it's about time I moved on from there. So today, I spent a good chunk of time cleaning, then I reviewed my hanzi lists from a few chapters in my textbook (reminding myself that I've learned over 600 new hanzi since December--not too shabby a number), then I made a single resolution for the new year (after all, it's really Spring now, and I'm living in a country where the first day of Spring marks the beginning of a new year): "Try not to be too much of a silly ass." It's probably the best resolution I've made in my life.

As for birthday plans, tomorrow I'll likely be having dinner with Nersey and Jia, since Nersey has an oven and has started making pizzas with nan from the Xinjiang restaurant. Then I'll probably go to bed early, since I have to work early the next morning. Since my birthday gives me occasion to mention it, below is the ridiculously simple Chinese "Happy Birthday" song (sung to the tune of "Happy Birthday" to you, though often as not sung for many reasons besides a birthday**).

祝你生日快乐。祝你生日快乐。祝你生日，祝你生日，祝你生日快乐。
Zhu ni shengri kuaile. Zhu ni shengri kuaile. Zhu ni shengri, zhu ni shengri, zhu ni shengri kua le.
(Literal English translation: Wish you birthday happy. Wish you birthday happy. Wish you birthday, wish you birthday, wish you birthday happy.)

*The reasons for these extra years have been explained to me in two ways: Either a child is considered one-year-old at birth, thus adding a year to the overall age, or age is tracked according to the lunar rather than solar calendar, leading to the extremely inflated ages you hear about for seniors in China. If you want to feel older, visit this calculator site and find out your Chinese age.

**Last year at Lao Chongqing (my favorite Sichuanese restaurant in the neighborhood), I sat outside during a particularly riotous celebration. About eighty women from one of the nearby factories had the night off and, crammed into the relatively small restaurant, went through a good amount of food, beer and baijiu. When they weren't busy dancing without music or running in and out of the front door, they spent most of their time singing 祝你生日快乐. The next day, I mentioned the party to a friend, and he asked the head waiter whose birthday party it had been. The head waiter's response (as it was translated for me) was "It was no one's birthday. They were just happy with drinking, so they sang some. People like to sing that song when they're drinking, because everyone knows the words."