戴的 ✦ Days with Dais ✦ 日子
Progress is progress, no matter how small.
小小的一步，也是往前。
Nice to meet you!
I’m Jessica Daisley, or 戴晨曦 (Dai Chenxi). I’m from the UK and am passionate about making life as peaceful, creative and magical as possible.
I found a love for the Chinese language in my early 20’s, when I moved to China as an escape from my soulless retail job. My year in China eventually led me to pursue a degree in Chinese, and to spend several years living in Taiwan, where I spent my days cycling along the coastal roads, trying as many independent coffeeshops as possible, and exploring the small rural towns.
As a lifelong introvert, those years reinforced my desire for a slow life; centred around learning, creativity, hobbies and little adventures. Back in the UK again, I’m trying to infuse my hobbies with Chinese and Taiwanese culture wherever I can, with calligraphy in my paintings, Qigong in my yoga practice, and of course this bilingual blog.
I’m excited to have you here 🙂
很高興認識你！
我叫戴晨曦，英文名是Jessica Daisley。我來自英國，是一個熱愛讓生活中寧靜，創作和魔法感的人。
我大概二十歲時，為了逃離毫無靈魂的零售工作前往中國生活，發現我愛中文。在中國的那一年最終讓我決定攻讀中文學位，並在台灣生活了幾年。在台灣我每天在海邊騎腳踏車，去儘量多的獨立咖啡店，並去鄉村小鎮探索。
作為一個終身內向者，這段經歷更加堅定了我對慢生活的渴望；以讀書，創造力，小愛好和本地旅行為中心。我已經回英國了，嘗試把中國和台灣文化融入到我的愛好中，例如在畫作中加入書法元素，在瑜伽中結合氣功的影響，當然也有這個雙語博客。
我很開心你在這裡 🙂
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英國到中國和台灣
我學習中文的旅程在 2016 年 9 月開始了。那時候我 20 歲，決定在當地語言中心上每個禮拜一次的中文課。我已經在那裡試過日文，俄文，韓文，都覺得不太喜歡，可是我一直很想學習一個新語言。我非常喜歡我的中文課和中國的文化，所以一年半後，因為在英國覺得生活停滯，困住了，我決定飛到中國南方的一個小镇叫三乡教數學和英文了。
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我在中國深深愛了中文。可是諷刺的是，因爲每天忙的不得了，還有我教學都是用英文的，所以我沒有時間學習中文。於是，那一年結束侯我回到英國總算上大學，主修中文了。
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我的學位課程包含一年到台灣學習，而那一年深深影響了我的人生。那段時間我經歷了很多掙扎，墜入了愛河，經常去探索，還有整個人因此改變了。畢業後，我決定又搬回台灣進行更深入的語言學習，這段經歷一點點都沒有讓我失望。現在我已經回到英國，好好喘口氣，可是同時也開始迫不及待地想再回到那片地方。
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你可能會以為，這樣算一算我學中文快十年了，應該已經非常流利吧？我説真的，學中文是一輩子的事。有時，我可以跟住家大樓的管理老男聊一聊好幾個小時；有時，別人隨意地問我今天過得怎麼樣，我腦袋就完全空白。可是，小小的一步也是往前。
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UK to China & Taiwan
My Chinese learning journey started in September 2016 when I was 20 years old and decided to start weekly Chinese classes at the local language centre. I’d already tried out Japanese, Russian and Korean without connecting to them, but really wanted to learn a new language. I enjoyed my Chinese classes and found the culture interesting, so a year and a half later when feeling trapped and stagnant in the UK, I hopped on a plane to southern China to teach Maths and English in a small village called Sanxiang.
In China, I absolutely fell in love with the language and culture. Ironically, I had no time to study Chinese as my teaching was all in English and my days were so hectic! So, after an intense year, I returned to the UK to head to unversity and complete a degree in Chinese.
My degree included a year abroad to Taiwan, which turned out to be the most formative year of my life. I struggled a lot, fell in love, went on regular adventures and wholly changed as a person. I decided to move back to Taiwan post-graduation for another year of intensive language study and was not disappointed in the slightest. I’m back in the UK now and am happy to have a breather, but definitely missing my time there.
After almost 10 years of study, you’d probably expect me to be fluent, but it really is a lifelong endeavour! Some days I could happily chat for hours to the old uncle who manned the front desk of my apartment, other days a simple ‘how’s your day?’ would leave me completely blank. But, progress is progress! (no matter how small)
My plans for this blog
Some things you can expect to see on this blog：
- Posts and stories about my time in China and Taiwan, and my language learning journey.
- Creative corner, where I will talk about my creative endeavours and various hobbies (painting, jewellery making, yoga, hiking and being in nature, sustainable fashion, makeup and haircare, veggie/vegan baking and cooking, building on the sims etc!)
- Personal posts and random topics, just for some fun vocab practice!
- A monthly book club!
- Reviews of little independent coffeeshops in Taiwan, the UK and beyond. If I run out of Taiwanese coffeeshops to review, maybe I’ll just have to go back for more…
I don’t think I’ll run out of things to talk about! I would always welcome suggestions though, if you have any ideas let me know and I’ll add it to my list!
我對這個博客的計畫
可以在這個博客上期盼看到的內容：
- 關於我在中國和台灣的生活經歷故事，還有我的語言學習旅程的文章。
- 創意小角落：我會分享我的創作和各種愛好（包括繪畫，飾品製作，瑜伽，爬山和享受大自然，永續時尚，彩妝和護髮，素食/全素烘焙和料理，還有玩Sims蓋房子等等！)
- 一些個人文章和各種主題，當作輕鬆的中文詞匯練習。
- 每月讀書會！
- 台灣，英國，甚至其他地方的小獨立咖啡店評論。如果有一天台灣的咖啡店都寫完了。。。那我可能就要再回去台灣多喝了。
我覺得我應該不太可能沒話題討論。不過，我也非常歡迎大家給我建議，如果你有任何點子，歡迎告訴我，我會把它加進我的清單裡！
