Busy Bee

Hello my darlings!

Christmas, China.

Today an update on what's been keeping me busy these days. Thought you might want to know what my time is occupied with when I'm not out exploring.

Recently I've been spending a lot of time with my academic supervisor rehearsing for...a speech competition. Remember that time when Thomas was here and I dragged him to one? Turns out, that was but the first round and I now have to go on to participate in the province-wide competition. Now let me tell you something about speech competitions in China. The word for this kind of contest is 演讲比赛, "act-tell-competition". Meaning that not only do you have to tell a story, you also have to act it out. We'll see how that goes for me. For now, cross your fingers on the 16th.

Apart from that I've also been rehearsing for a concert on the 12th. Yes, you read correctly, a concert. I'm singing again :) Basically, my roommate is an amazing singer and is now leading a little a-capella group. 8 girls, all also amazing. (Just the way they are, you can guess what song we're currently rehearsing) Also, my roommate took part in a singing contest recently, of course a lot of our classmates came to cheer her on. Afterwards we got some beer, some snacks (2,50 Euros per person), and had an awesome room party. Let me at this point just say, that I love Korean drinking games. Also Koreans.

Other than that, I can now borrow books from the university library. Of course I promptly used that ability to get two books on how to teach English. Remember that Bachelor thesis that I have to write at some point in the future? Yeah, me neither. Anyway, I would really like to write it on teaching methods that are used here. Hence the research. So far I've made it through one chapter, hilariously filled with quotes by Marx and on Marx. ("Did you know Marx was great at language learning? Would you like to learn from him?")

What else do I do? Mainly eat. We went to a great Indian restaurant yesterday. I really missed that food. Also sometime last week we went to a restaurant that promised to bring all the food you ordered within 25 minutes. They even had an hourglass there. If it ran out before all the food came, dinner was free. They made it in time.

"We promise to bring you a table full of good food within 25 minutes."

My first semester here is almost over, exams are at the end of December and then it's time to TRAVEL! Hope you're all well and enjoying Christmas. Love to you all!

Chinese Word of the Day: 圣诞树 shengdanshu, Christmas tree.

Also, here are a few strange and wonderful things.

This morning. Beautiful.

Actual trashcan.

Another cool one.

And another one.

We went down to the river anyway.

And it was not there. Like so many rivers in China.

Random? But I do think it frames the tree behind it quite nicely.

Who knew there was a wormhole from Shaolin temple to Estonia...

Sadly, we were not adopted here.

I have a lot of love for English translations on Chinese signs.

Grab Your Passport and My Hand

I hope you're all doing well. Happy beginning of December! For me it's very strange to be in a place where there is absolutely no Christmas spirit whatsoever. I just really miss the Christmas market and Glühwein and advent calendars. Light some candles for me :)

So anyway, what I really want to talk about in this post is the amazing weekend I've had. Me and six other students of my university (2 Italians, 1 Austrian, 1 Lithuanian, 1 Korean, 1 Chinese and me) took a little trip to Luoyang 洛阳 in Henan, the province that lies to the East of Shaanxi. The train there only takes 5 hours and 50 Yuan, about 6 Euros. Why Luoyang? For one thing, it's one of the four ancient capitals of China (Beijing, Nanjing, Chang'an, Luoyang; I've now almost been to all of them, only missing Beijing), it was the capital during the Eastern Zhou (770-249BC), the Han (25-220BC, not the dates of the dynasty, Luoyang was the capital during these years) and the Northern Wei (moved their capital there in 493BC). Also Wu Zetian (Tang dynasty, reg. 690-705), the only woman to ever rule China as emperor without a regent, made Luoyang her capital. A fascinating historical figure, she was ruthless in her pursuit for power, exiling her own sons to eliminate competition. Once she was emperor, the Chinese empire expanded to include parts of Central Asia and the Northern Korean peninsula. Also she increased support for Buddhism and literature within the empire. A place filled with this much history has to be visited.

We took a train on Friday after classes, had a nice trainride playing Doppelkopf and arrived in Luoyang at 7 o'clock. Also there was first class entertainment in hard-seater class: a guy tried to sell towels. And he was very enthusiastic about them. Made the whole carriage count down while he was drying his hair. The first evening was spent finding our hostel and then having dinner in the town centre. The hostel was really nice and full of cats *_* there was a little kitten that was just the cutest ball of joy.

Cutiepie.

On Saturday it was time to visit the other reason that we had for coming to Luoyang: the Shaolin temple. Sound familiar? Best known as the place where Shaolin-Kungfu was invented. Founded in 495 during the Northern Wei dynasty, it's today probably the most well-known Buddhist temple of China. So we took a bus from Luoyang to Dengfeng, a small town with a lot of Kungfu schools and arrived at the temple after two hours. The first thing that greeted us there was cold. And fog. Maybe not ideal circumstances for sight-seeing but it actually made for an amazing atmosphere. Due to the weather there were fewer people there than usual and often it felt like we were alone on the street.

Inside the temple.

The training ground.

Empty streets.

It does have something, doesn't it?

Of course we watched a performance by monks/students, we weren't quite sure on that front. It was very impressive either way. The way they have control over their own bodies just baffles me.

After the performance we wandered around a little and found a sign pointing to something called the "Dharma cave". We decided to go check it out and started walking down a path. Little did we know that this cave was actually about 3km away and up on a mountain. So unknowingly we had signed up for a little hike that would take up the rest of the day. These things happen. It was wonderful by the way, no regrets. We met some other people hiking up the same path (they obviously knew where they were going) who told us how 好厉害, awesome we were to climb up this hill. The nature around us was breathtaking, even with the fog all around. And when we finally got to the cave, we were in for another surprise. Unknowingly we had hiked to the place where according to legend Zen-Buddhism was invented by Bodhi Dharma, who is said to have sat in this cave for 9 years in meditation. Amazing how these things happen :) After marvelling at the beauty of the landscape and life in general we started our descent. We got to the main tourist area just as darkness fell. A great end to our day. The only problem was that because we had extended our stay at the temple for so long, we missed the last bus back to Luoyang. Fortunately it's very easy to find so-called 黑车, black cars, which are basically unlicensed taxis. So we were driven back to our hostel in a very nice car by a guy who was making some money on the side this way. Time for more pictures!

We went towards that small temple.

And looking back.

Like a painting.

On Sunday we didn't have to travel quite as far to get to our destination. We visited the Longmen grottoes, much like the Maijishan grottoes in Tianshui they are also Buddhist statues carved into stone. They look completely different from those though. A lot of the caves were carved during the Tang dynasty and especially during the reign of Wu Zetian. It's an absolutely beautiful place.

Buddhas in all sizes.

Tiny Buddhas.

Big Buddhas from afar.

Big Buddhas up close.

After we visited the caves we still had enough time to visit Xiangshan temple, where emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty came to appreciate the beautiful scenery of Longmen. Also Chiang Kai-shek had a villa here where he met with representatives of the CCP. It seems like Chiang Kai-shek chose the prettiest places to live and plot.

Emperor Qianlong wrote this poem while he was at the temple.

Our last stop was the grave of Bai Juyi, a poet who lived during the Tang dynasty and left behind over 2800 poems. He spent the last years of his life at Xiangshan temple in the company of some of the greatest literary minds of the time. His grave is now located in a beautiful park nearby. Here is one of his poems about peonies, a flower that grows everywhere in Luoyang (obviously not while we were there).

惆怅阶前红牡丹，

晚来唯有两枝残。

明朝风起应吹尽，

夜惜衰红把火看。

I‘m saddened by the peonies before the steps, so red,
As evening came I found that only two remained.
Once morning's winds have blown, they surely won't survive.
At night I gaze by lamplight, to cherish the fading red.

Mural of Bai Juyi in Xiangshan temple.

The view from his grave.

When we were done visiting the grave, it was time for us to say goodbye to Luoyang. We had dinner in one of the worst Sichuan restaurants I've ever been to (never ask me about it) and then got on our train. Which was delayed for two hours. Then we had quite a nice trainride back to Xi'an, where we were the attraction of the carriage. There was a little girl who really wanted to talk to us but was kind of afraid. So cute, she always asked something, listened to the answer and then ran away again. I love riding trains in China.

We got back to our dorm at 1:30 at night, had to wake up the very disgruntled night watch and then finally fell into bed. It was an amazing trip, thanks to everyone who came!

Chinese Word of the Day: 善哉 shanzai, often said by Buddhist monks. It basically means good, as far as I understand. There was a song playing at Shaolin temple which contained this word a lot. It made me very happy because every time they sang it, it sounded like 香菜 xiangcai, cilantro to me. I was laughing about it all day.

Another Brick in the Wall

Hey!

Today I'm going to tell you guys a little bit about my experience with education in China. After all, it's what I'm consuming most of during my time here.

So first of all, a little bit about my Chinese classes. Avid readers will already know that I have class every day from 8 to 12. There are five different types of classes, namely reading, writing, speaking, listening and general teaching. There is a different textbook for every class and it is expected of the teachers to finish them within the semester. Teaching methods differ from teacher to teacher, but all-encompassing is the desire to stick to the books. There are classes in which we practically do nothing but the exercises given in the book. These are unsurprisingly very boring. It's generally quite rare to be asked about one's own opinion, at most there are two open questions to the class in every lesson. There are redeeming qualities though. For example, our reading teacher makes two students hold a presentation on a topic of their choice every week. Afterwards the class discusses. Our speaking teacher uses a teaching style that is most similar to the teaching methods I'm used to from Europe. He lets us come up with little sketches and makes us talk. That obviously doesn't stop him from spending half an hour minutely going through every single new word that we learn. Well, you win some you lose some. All in all, the classes are not ideal, but I do feel like I'm learning something. In the afternoon we have the possibility of going to additional classes. Right now I'm going to "Appreciation of Ancient Chinese Poems" and "Chinese-English Translation". Both of these classes are very cool and interesting. Also they are a lot more interactive than the language classes. Oh, if any of you are wondering, all my classes are taught in Chinese.

Now on to what I've heard about the university education for normal Bachelor/Master students. I've never been to one of their classes, but here's what's been told to me by other students. First of all, a lot of them have classes on the weekend (yikes). Not even Sunday is safe. Also, they sometimes have classes until 9 in the evening. I'm not sure if you can still learn anything that late at night to be honest. Their courses are a lot like school. There is a textbook which the teacher follows and from what I gather not so much choice on how and what you want to learn. The craziest thing that they have to do in my opinion is take sports classes and run 800m in a certain time every semester. I guess if they're not fast enough they fail their degree? I mean, just what?

The last thing I want to talk about is something that took me a while to notice, but after I did, I started seeing it everywhere. I'm talking about the way that the country is educating its citizens to adhere to certain values. There are 12 "core values"  and the list of them can be seen wherever you go in China. On highways there are huge signs with them, they are shown on the little info-TVs on public transport, small and big posters on pretty much every street remind you of them. The 12 values are as follows: 富强, rich and powerful; 民主, democracy; 文明, civilization (as in civilized conduct); 和谐, harmony; 自由, freedom; 平等 equality; 公正 justice; 法治 adherence to law; 爱国 love of one's country; 敬业 respect one's work/ be dedicated to one's work; 诚信 honesty; 友善 friendliness.
I'm not going to comment too much on this list. The one thing I am going to say is that it's quite impressive how pervasive it is. I see this list every day. There is basically no way to live here without coming into regular contact with it. I guess unless you never leave your house.

One of the signs, on the steps leading up to a temple.

In December I will have the opportunity to go to a 高中 (high school) to see how the children are taught there. I will of course report later. :)

For now, bye-bye and until next time!

Chinese Word of the Day: 写画 paint a picture with ink. It literally means "write a picture". In China, works of calligraphy often contain a picture, a poem/description of the picture and always the seal of the artist. I went to a calligraphy exhibition today which was amazing :)

It's A Wonderful World

The last three days have been amazing. Let me tell you all about it.

Wednesday was the 11th November, 11-11, a day that in most countries has some significance. In Germany it is the beginning of carnival. In the UK it's Remembrance Day. And in China? It's Singles' Day. Because hey, we need some celebration too. Who needs Valentine's Day anyway? This day is mainly celebrated by shops offering crazy discounts on everything. So naturally, after classes ended I went to a nearby mall to check them out. There were in fact a lot of things on discount, mainly shoes, the problem was that it was impossible to find a pair that fit me. So, momentarily beaten I returned to my dorm. But I am  not one to give up so easily, so I took to the Internet. Sites similar to Amazon and Ebay are very common in China and you can get practically anything online. Also, delivery usually only takes two days. So I logged into my 淘宝 account and started my search. And bam, like magic, I found shoes and a coat, both for around 10 Euros. Pretty insane, right? The shoes have already arrived, turns out I accidentally ordered two pairs, but I don't really care because they're amazing and I love them. So much for online shopping in China.

Me and my new shoes.

Thursday and Friday my university took us Chinese language students on a class trip. We started our trip Thursday morning at 7 o'clock. A little early for my taste but luckily we had a two hour long bus ride for sleeping. Our destination was Baoji (宝鸡), a "small" city of 3.7 million inhabitants. There we visited the Baoji Bronze Museum. They have bronze ware from as early as the Zhou Dynasty, which lasted from around 1000 BC to 256 BC. There are mainly household articles, like bowls and cups exhibited there, but also some weapons and of course ritual vessels. The bronze findings are especially valuable because in ancient China they were also used for writing on (paper only appeared in the Han Dynasty). They hold historical records and also show the development of Chinese characters. Although it wasn't always easy to understand the Chinese guide, ,it was a very interesting place. So here, have some pictures!

Cool architecture, right?

中国, China. This word first appeared on bronze that is exhibited here. At the time it meant "middle land", it was only used to name the country later.

Alcohol containers. Bronze household articles were mainly used by families of high social status, the common folk used pottery, which I guess is exhibited in some other museum.

For all the Sinologists - ge! A kind of Chinese halberd.

After the Bronze museum we went to the Jintai temple of Baoji, a Daoist temple on a beautiful little hill. It was a lovely place and we were once again shown around by a Chinese guide. There were sadly so many statues of holy figures that I now don't remember any of them. Also no pictures, because I always feel like it would be rude to take pictures of these places of worship.

Okay, you get ONE picture.

Also look at these Ginkgo trees. So pretty.

We were still not done with our day of sight-seeing, so we hopped on the bus again and were taken up the hill on a street of questionable safety and arrived at the mausoleum of Tang emperor Qin and his wife. The two are buried in seperate graves which both have their own entrance tunnel. One 20m underground, the other one 18m. So down we went, to admire the statues and bronzeware that were left to accompany them into the world of the dead. No pictures allowed though.

A sign that shows how the spot where the mausoleum is built is in accordance with Fengshui principles. The mausoleum itself is the snake (not pictured), there is a turtle in the North (a hill), a dragon in the East (also a hill), a tiger in the West (a hill that is smaller than the dragon) and a phoenix in the South (a river). I recommend you inform yourselves if you're interested in this, I can't really make this caption any longer.

Then it was time to get back on the bus and be taken to Tianshui (天水) in Gansu (甘肃) province, another small city of 3.9 inhabitants. We drove through 34(!!) tunnels and the journey took about three hours. Unfortunately it was already quite late, thus impossible to appreciate the landscape. Instead I spent the busride marvelling at the dark night sky and the stars. It had been too long since I've seen them. I even saw a shooting star :) We spent the night in a very fancy hotel with not so fancy KFC for dinner. (We didn't choose to be fed this, it was bought for us by the travel company, just so you know. I would never choose to eat at KFC voluntarily.)

So after a night's rest in the most comfortable bed ever, we were on our feet again at 8 in the morning. We visited the 伏羲庙, Fuxi temple of Tianshui. Fuxi is a legendary figure who is said to have created humankind from clay, together with his wife, who was also his sister. Also he taught humans how to hunt, fish and cook. What he is most famous for is that the 8 trigrams (八卦) were revealed to him in the form of a dragon horse with markings. These trigrams are combinations of three continuous or broken lines, which represent different natural phenomena, directions, body parts...They represent a lot of things. A broken line here stands for yin 阴, the female/passive and an unbroken line stands for yang 阳, the male/active. These, according to Daoism, are complementary forces that interact in the world and always need each other to exist. Basically everything contains both yin and yang, which are always influencing each other. So, everything is constantly in flux, nothing ever constant. The trigrams were then combined to form 64 hexagrams which were and are used for predicting the future (see Yijing 已经, also known as I Ching, the Book of Changes. Traditionally thought to have been written by Fuxi.) Basically Fuxi was a pretty great guy. Thanks.

This tree was planted in the Tang dynasty, even before the temple was built (Ming dynasty). According to our guide, it has been hollow for a long time and because people would put offerings into the hole, there were 40 valuable pieces of ancient art found inside it. Also it survived being struck by lightning.

In the middle, the eight trigrams, around them the 64 hexagrams.

Nature vs. Architecture.

Our last stop on this trip was also the most spectacular one. We went to one of the four Buddhist grottoes of China, Maijishan (麦积山) grottoes. These are 194 caves carved into Maiji mountain, most of them have a Buddha/Bodhisattva statue inside of them. The statues range in age from the Northern Wei (386-534) to Qing (1644-1912). Because of this, visiting the grottoes gives one an overview of over 1000 years of art history. We learned that during the Wei rule, it was common to make Buddha statues very slim, they turned fatter during the Sui dynasty. We also saw a statue of a Western Bodhisattva, who according to legend brought music to China. It was a wonderful place and the air was clean!! It smelled of snow, almost brought me to tears. A perfect end to our trip.

For those who don't like to walk.

Beautiful landscape. Note also the loudspeakers in the tall tree. Which we suspect to not be entirely natural.

There it is :)

Face to face with the giant Bodhisattvas.

Looking down. What a great view these statues have.

Slim.

Fat. Also this is the Westerner, recognizable by his beautiful wavy hair.

These cute little puppies.

They decided to follow us down the mountain, hoping for some food. They were adorable.

So those of you who are still with me, thank you for reading this slightly longer than normal post. Love from me!

Also, here are a few more oddities.

Rules for waiters. The seven "no"s of bringing food. Don't give the food to customers if: the ingredients aren't correct, the plates aren't clean, the temperature isn't high enough, the colour isn't correct, the quantity isn't enough, the name isn't right, the number of the chef isn't provided. These lists of don'ts are quite commonly seen in China.

They quite often get the "unrecyclable" wrong. Frequently with hilarious results.

"Wonderful circumstances"

Chinese Word of the Day: 导游 daoyou, tour guide.