Here’s my absolutely blurry picture of the Eugene Asian Market (sorry about that) sign from my phone! It’s located on East 11th Avenue, and is easily found through a GPS system of any kind (Google maps?). Anyway, I chose this place because I frequent it often, as I cook with my roommates and often make Asian food. I’m not entirely sure what the Chinese characters mean, but I do know that if an Asian store has Chinese characters then it’s probably good. One thing I notice that I can connect to what I learned in class is the design of the characters, and how there are two characters on the left and write sides of the word for some of them. Another thing I notice is the detail in the lower characters versus the characters above the “Eugene Asian Market”. I don’t really know why that is, though. Anyway, I’m pretty sure they used the characters here to let other Asian (probably Chinese) people know that it’s a more authentic market, or to appeal to them and gain more sales. Definitely worked on me.
As for my learning in this class, I still think that the history and similarities/differences between the writing systems of each language (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) was by far the most interesting topic we’ve covered so far. The other topics were still interesting, but the writing systems was just very intriguing. The most challenging thing about the class is that it’s quite early in the morning for me, so it gets hard to focus at times. I’m most engaged in learning when it’s either super interesting to me or if it’s hands-on, like with the tea lecture (which was great, by the way). And lastly, the strategies that have helped me the most to learn are to drink tea in the morning, because it helps to both wake and warm me up in the morning when it’s really cold. Overall, I’m having a lot of fun in the class, and I hope to learn more interesting things!