個(gè)人簡(jiǎn)介：
Name :?Thara McDonald
姓名：Thara McDonald
Country of Origin :?New Zealand (half Kiwi, half Thai)
國(guó)籍：新西蘭（新泰混血）
Occupation :?Educator
職業(yè)：教師
Years in China :?Approximately 2 Years
在華居住時(shí)間：大約2年
How did your journey in China begin?
你的中國(guó)之旅是怎樣開始的?
In 2017 I was living in New Zealand and at that time, applying for jobs in China since I always wanted to experience living here. I got an offer to teach in an extremely rural district in Jiangxi, however, after talking with my mom she advised me to explore the possibility of teaching in Thailand since she is originally from there. I ultimately caved in, moved to Thailand to teach and didn’t take the offer in China, instead I suggested that my best friend, Rob, would be a good fit for the Jiangxi job. After a year of teaching in Thailand I decided to visit China for the first time to see how my friend Rob was settling in. It was ironic that when I first went to Thailand, the lady who sat next to me was from Yunnan and we became really good friends which led to me having an extra reason to visit here! I travelled around China for a bit to see what living here was really like and I was extremely impressed! I had an awesome holiday and decided in January 2019 that I would move here. I got an offer from a school I liked around March but however, due to some complications, it was extremely difficult to process my visa and it ended up taking close to 6 months. Just as my luck would have it, 2 weeks before I moved, I got into a motorcycle accident which injured my leg and would mean that I would have to limp onto my flight. To add insult in injury, on the day that I was supposed to move to China, I ended up missing my flight even though I got to the airport 20 hours early! I felt as if fate was not allowing me to move to China. Luckily in the end, I moved to Fuzhou and worked there for close to a year and now I live in Shaoxing.
2017年，當(dāng)時(shí)還在新西蘭的我一直想去中國(guó)工作，因?yàn)槲蚁塍w驗(yàn)?zāi)抢锏纳?。我得到了一份offer，在江西一個(gè)非常偏遠(yuǎn)的農(nóng)村教書。但是，我和媽媽交流后，她建議如果有可能的話，就在泰國(guó)教書，因?yàn)樗翘﹪?guó)人。我最終聽從了她的建議，來(lái)到泰國(guó)教書，并沒(méi)有接受中國(guó)的offer，而是把這個(gè)機(jī)會(huì)讓給了最好的朋友 Rob，因?yàn)樗苓m合。在泰國(guó)教了一年書后，我決定首次前往中國(guó)，我想看看 Rob 能否適應(yīng)那里的生活。巧合的是，在首次去往泰國(guó)的飛機(jī)上，坐在我旁邊的女士竟然來(lái)自云南，我們成了非常要好的朋友，這也是我去中國(guó)的另一個(gè)原因。我在中國(guó)玩了一段時(shí)間，這里的生活方式給我留下了非常深刻的印象！我在中國(guó)度過(guò)了一個(gè)很棒的假期。2019 年1月，我決定搬到中國(guó)。3月左右我收到了一封心儀學(xué)校的錄用通知書。但由于一些復(fù)雜的原因，辦理簽證極其困難，花了將近 6個(gè)月的時(shí)間。禍不單行，搬去中國(guó)的前兩周，我遭遇了一場(chǎng)摩托車事故，腿受傷了，這意味著我必須一瘸一拐地登上飛機(jī)。雪上加霜的是，前往中國(guó)當(dāng)天，即使我提前 20個(gè)小時(shí)到了機(jī)場(chǎng)，還是錯(cuò)過(guò)了航班！我覺(jué)得命運(yùn)似乎不讓我搬到中國(guó)。但結(jié)局終歸是幸運(yùn)的，我來(lái)到了福州，在那里工作了將近一年。我現(xiàn)在住在紹興。
What do you like most about your city and China as a whole?
你生活過(guò)的城市，哪一點(diǎn)最吸引你？你最喜歡中國(guó)的什么呢？
I love Shaoxing because there’s water and canals everywhere which fascinates me! Everyone always calls Shaoxing the “Venice of China” and I would see why it could be described in that way! The canals and waterways actually inspired me to build my own boat but I elaborate on that later on.
我愛(ài)紹興，那里到處都是水和運(yùn)河，讓我著迷！紹興被譽(yù)為“中國(guó)的威尼斯”實(shí)至名歸！運(yùn)河和水道激發(fā)我造船的想法，我稍后會(huì)詳細(xì)說(shuō)明。
What fascinated you the most about living in China??
生活在中國(guó)，最吸引你的是什么？
I love the sheer convenience of living in China! Even when I visited here as a tourist, I loved using WeChat Pay and was fascinated by just how convenient the average Chinese person lives their lives. Waimai, Didi and TaoBao are some of my favorites, especially since you can get anything on TaoBao (I even ordered baby chickens once! And considered buying an ostrich but got discouraged by my good friends).
在中國(guó)，生活處處充滿便利，我愛(ài)這種感覺(jué)！我在中國(guó)旅游時(shí)也喜歡使用微信支付，每個(gè)普通的中國(guó)人都能享受如此便利的生活，這深深地觸動(dòng)了我。外賣、滴滴和淘寶是我的最愛(ài)，因?yàn)槟憧梢栽谔詫毶腺I到任何東西（我甚至買過(guò)一次小雞！我還考慮過(guò)買鴕鳥，但我的好朋友勸我別買）。
What is your unique China story? Tell us something that you experienced that made you love living here even more.?
你在中國(guó)有什么獨(dú)特的故事嗎？告訴我們是什么樣的經(jīng)歷，讓你愛(ài)上住在這里。
I have plenty! The first would be the story on how I randomly decided to build a boat. What I love the most about China is that I can have an idea and I could make my idea a reality because I can find anything here. A couple months ago, I was having a discussion about buoyancy with the Physics teacher at the school I work at and I wondered what would it take for me to build a boat and it not sink. Luckily, there is a huge lumber market near my apartment so I picked up my skateboard and skated there to get some wood for my boat. In my mind, I wanted my boat to be 3 meters long but I ended up with enough wood to build 4 meters. I couldn’t take the wood back to my apartment on my skateboard so a kind gentleman at the market offered to drop me to my apartment with everything I bought! I’m happy to report that my boat worked and I was actually able to sail it to the supermarket, buy groceries and come back!
我有很多故事！第一個(gè)故事就是我心血來(lái)潮，想建造一艘船。我最喜歡中國(guó)的一點(diǎn)就是，我可以把所思所想變成現(xiàn)實(shí)，因?yàn)樵谶@里我可以找到想要的任何東西。幾個(gè)月前，我和同事，一位物理老師討論了浮力問(wèn)題，我想知道建造一艘船需要什么材料才能保證它不會(huì)下沉。幸運(yùn)的是，我住的公寓附近有一個(gè)大型木材市場(chǎng)。我隨即拎起滑板沖向那里，買些造船的木材。我只想造3米的船，但我買的木材足夠造4米。我用滑板可扛不回這些木材，幸好遇到一位好心人幫我把木材運(yùn)回公寓！我很高興地告訴大家，船造得了，我可以開船去超市，買些雜貨然后回來(lái)！
The second unique story that I would like to share would be the time I tried to hike from Fuqing, Fujian to Fuzhou. My friend and I had a plan of walking between the two places without going on any established trails or tracks. However, in the middle of the hike we discovered that we had no water with us or in any of the surrounding areas which led to us being extremely dehydrated so we headed back to where we started. The journey back was terrible as the bush was extremely thick and I felt like we were walking on tree tops for over 12 hours with no water. To make matters worse, I accidentally went through a hornets’ nest and got stung more than 20 times!!!
我想分享的第二個(gè)獨(dú)特的故事是，我試著從福清步行到福州。我和朋友計(jì)劃徒步穿越兩座城市，不走任何人工建造的道路。然而，在徒步過(guò)程中，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)沒(méi)有帶水，附近也沒(méi)有水源，所以我們極度脫水，我們只好回到起點(diǎn)?；爻毯芷D難，因?yàn)楣嗄緟卜浅Ｃ埽覀兿袷窃跇漤斏献吡?2多個(gè)小時(shí)，沒(méi)喝一滴水。更糟糕的是，我不小心捅了馬蜂窩，被蜇了20多下?。?！
Add a random fun fact about your country or hometown.?
說(shuō)說(shuō)關(guān)于你的祖國(guó)和家鄉(xiāng)一些有趣的事吧。
Even though I am originally from New Zealand, I feel extremely nomadic and I sincerely believe that home is where the heart is.
Thara loves Li Bai’s poem and he likes to recite his favourite one when he meets new Chinese friends:
新西蘭是我的祖國(guó)，但我感到漂泊無(wú)所依，我真心覺(jué)得家是心之所在。
天生我材必有用，千金散盡還復(fù)來(lái)。
With talent, even if I lose everything, I can still make it back.
作者：Thara McDonald 翻譯：潘澤彬
If you would like to contribute your story, feel free to contact us.
Email: luz@mts-tech.com
你相信人可以重獲新生嗎？我相信。我叫 Julian Quander（杰酷）。2010年，我獲得了一個(gè)千載難逢的機(jī)會(huì)，將改變我的人生……
I was a Spanish, English and Chinese translation major in my undergrad years. After 4 years of part-time Chinese learning, I could translate written texts, but could barely utter a few Chinese sentences with the tones all mixed-up… Luckily, the chance to visit China came with a scholarship from the Confucius Institute of the University of Granada, Spain. My classmates and I enjoyed our first China-experience at Beijing University in 2014, and that encouraged me to learn Chinese in Xiamen for 10 months. Then, after a year of work in Spain, I chose to pursue a Master’s Degree in Chinese translation at Xiamen university which led to working at MTS, and here I am!?我本科主修西班牙語(yǔ)、英語(yǔ)和漢語(yǔ)翻譯。斷斷續(xù)續(xù)學(xué)了4年漢語(yǔ)，我可以翻譯書面文字，但卻說(shuō)不了幾句漢語(yǔ)，聲調(diào)是混亂的……幸好西班牙格拉納達(dá)大學(xué)孔子學(xué)院提供獎(jiǎng)學(xué)金來(lái)華游學(xué)。2014 年，我和同學(xué)來(lái)到北京大學(xué)，那是我第一次來(lái)中國(guó)，然后我到廈門學(xué)習(xí)了 10 個(gè)月漢語(yǔ)。接著，在西班牙工作一年后，我選擇在廈門大學(xué)攻讀漢語(yǔ)翻譯碩士學(xué)位，之后我選擇在精藝達(dá)工作，也就是我現(xiàn)在工作的地方！
