David goes to China

Another Chinese lesson yesterday. Two hours of trying to cram Mandarin into my head is too long and I'm not the only one; I see others in the class rubbing their foreheads and staring glassy-eyed into space after about 45 minutes.
How on earth do Chinese readers and writers memorise it all?
But we also learned the joys of Word (Sssssss!) in Chinese - and that is very very good.