Learning Chinese

OK learning chinese is really really hard, especially when most people know english so you are not forced to use it. When I was in Australia I bought some CD's to learn Chinese, I listened to the first ten minutes 8 or 10 times. My progress was discouraging. So far I know hello: Nee how, water: shway, and thank you: shay shay. I think grasshopper is mung gee, tried to learn that one yesterday from our cook: QQ, we were walking thru a rice paddy to take lunch out to the students and he caught a huge grasshopper 4 inches long. He was going to cook it up at dinner so I could try it but one of the american employees took it from him and made him let it go (there are several vegetarians working here, he said it was too beautiful to eat) So I will have to wait to try grasshopper. The picture is the rice paddy and twin gates, the climbing area we were headed out to. My first climbing in Yangshuo was here.