我终于找到了，它比我想象的要好吃。我讲的就是那个非常著名的中国菜—biangbiang面。我的电脑甚至写不出来biang这个字。bb面是山西省的一种面，但它不是因其味道而著名。正相反，是因为它的字—biang是中文最复杂的一个字，一共有58笔画。我已经几次记住并忘却了怎么写这个字。一般说这个字的形象反映面的形象，但我觉得这一汉子与bb面没有那么密切的关系。而且我其实认为不能辩解为一个面而创造如此复杂麻烦的汉子。话虽如此，我还喜欢它的味道。
biang biang noodles – Samuel Franklin, January 2015
过去一个月，在一个方面，我的生活比较安静认真。三个星期前我考了期末考试。不幸的是，考试的那一周我感冒了，第一天我上不了课，所以要在两天之内考所有大约10个小时的试。说实话，在一定的程度上，这些考试的成绩并不那么重要，因为它不会影响我最后学位的成绩，但在另一方面中国考试的内容和问题的类型颇有意思。比如，服从那个文化模式，在我的文学考试我需要背诵木兰诗和6首诗并重写原文以便考好试。不过，在别的科目有幸的是我不用勤奋努力背诵很多事。例如，在我的口语考试中，我和教授花了10分钟讨论是否建筑师要多重视建筑的作用或者外面。
现在我在一所律师事务所实习两个星期工作。我每天从早到晚我尽力避免麻烦我的同事。在工作时，我要处理很多不一样的事，但对我中文能力最有影响力的就是从英文道中文的法律翻译，因为律师经常使用比较复杂的句子机构，而且很多案件概述包括许多生词。这几天我可能翻译了30多个小时。如果读者觉得我最近的经历太激烈，希望他们马上就会告诉我。
一月的北京有点儿闷，最近的空气污染特别严重，同时每天多么冷。但是还有一些愉快的事情。我曾享受在北大的未名湖上滑冰。这周我还在准备旅游到日本和云南。
Samuel Franklin – January 2015
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
I finally found it! And it tastes better than I had imagined too! I am of course referring to that well known Chinese dish – biang biang noodles. My computer won’t actually let me type out the character for it. Biang biang is a type of noodle from Shanxi province, but it is not famous for its flavour. Rather it is due to its Chinese character – biang is the single most complicated character in Chinese, with a total of 58 strokes. I have already learnt and forgotten the character several times. It is often said that the form of the character reflects the shape of the noodles, but personally I don’t perceive a particularly close relationship. Moreover, I actually think it is not really justifiable creating such a complex character just for the sake of a noodle. That said, I still enjoy the dish.
The last month, in some respect, has been quite a quiet and serious one for me. About three weeks ago, I had my end of term exams. Unfortunately, I was ill that week and wasn’t able to get to class on the first day, so had to take all 10 hours or so of exams in two days. Truthfully, the result of these papers does not matter too much, as the grades don’t affect my final degree class. On the other hand it was quite interesting experiencing Chinese-style exams. For example, following that cultural stereotype, in my literature exam I had to memorise the whole of Mulan and six love poems, then rewrite them to pass. Fortunately in other subjects, I did not have to memorise so diligently. In my oral exam, the professor and I discussed whether architects should prioritise form or function in buildings for ten minutes.
Samuel Franklin – January 2015
Presently, I am in the middle of two weeks of work experience in a law firm. Every day from early until late, I do my best to avoid overly bothering my colleagues. At work I have been given various assignments, but the ones most useful for my Chinese have been the legal translations from English to Chinese. Lawyers often use complex sentence structures and the deal summaries contain plenty of new vocabulary. In the last few days, I’ve probably translated over 30 hours of texts. Should the reader feel that my experiences here of late are excessively exciting, I hope that he or she will alert me immediately.
January in Beijing has been somewhat oppressive; the pollution has been particularly severe, whilst every day it is bitingly cold. However, there are some happy things. I have enjoyed ice skating on Peking University’s Weiming Lake and I am currently preparing to start my travels to Japan and then Yunnan next week.