My classes are on the 32nd floor of the SOHO building and I have an excellent view of the city from there. Of course there is heavy construction across the street – a new shopping mall. I noticed today what they say is true; there is not a floor 4. And no floor 14 or 24, or even 13. There are some other floors like M1, M2, M3 which I think fill in those gaps. When spoken in Chinese, the word four sounds very similar the word death. So no one wants to rent space on a floor possibly connected to death.
I think the class is getting kind of exhausting. Especially reading and writing Chinese characters is very tough. But I’m here to see for myself how challenging this is. I learned I will probably be the only student in the class for the first three weeks.