Merkel doing the splits between Europe and Russia. The abyss is opening in the Ukraine.
Breaking news: English people don't go to bed wearing nightcaps anymore!
26 Sept 2014
24 Sept 2014
Let Me Entertain You
Hello again!
It's been a week since you last heard from me, so time for another update from China.
Classes have now well and truly started. We have four hours of classes every day, starting at 8 and ending at 12. There are five different 'subjects': listening, speaking, writing, reading and general (this is most like normal European language class). Most of the teachers are very nice and competent and I can actually understand their Chinese *_* There are a lot of Koreans in my class, who can speak very good Chinese, then a few Europeans, most of which have already been mentioned in a previous post and quite a few people from Tajikistan. So all in all, so far, I'm pretty happy with my classes.
Last Thursday I had some very important business that kept me away from university: I had to get my health checked. Every foreigner that comes to live in China has to prove that they are not bringing any diseases that could threaten the people's wellbeing with them. So you have to have your blood tested, your eyesight tested, your blood pressure measured, get an ultrasound, ECG and X-ray. Fun for the whole family. It took two hours to finish the whole thing, a lot of which was spent sitting around and waiting. First of all, waiting for the doctor to find my vein ( :'( ), then waiting half an hour for the electricity to come back on in the X-ray room and finally waiting half an hour again for a blood pressure measurement. Let's just say, I think I've had enough of Chinese hospitals for a while.
Luckily Friday was a much more fun day, we went to a karaoke bar. Now for those of you who are only familiar with European karaoke bars, which I am going to assume is most of you, I will give you a short introduction to KTV, which is the Chinese name for karaoke. A karaoke bar in China is usually a huge building. You usually go there with huge groups of people. You then rent a private room for however many hours you want. Then, paradise. These places have giant collections of songs and the best thing is, you don't have to sing in front of complete strangers, you're singing in front of your friends who, ideally, are shouting the lyrics out along with you. 10 stars out of 10. The only downside really is that the drinks there are astronomically expensive, but it's also very easy to smuggle some in with you :)
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So after getting to know 'young and modern' China on Friday, I got to experience 'old and traditional' China on Saturday. I was invited by a friend to join her family for a barbecue. Her father drove us to where the dinner was to take place and I honestly had no idea what to expect. I imagined we would be sitting in a small garden, somewhere in the city. But the actual place was a thousand times better than what I had expected. We drove for about an hour, leaving the city behind us and driving through a few villages that consisted only of around 10 houses. Then we left those behind as well and started going up a very steep mountain road with VERY sharp turns. The place we finally arrived at was a small farm on top of a mountain from which you could see for miles and miles. I don't think I can accurately convey how happy I felt. The air was clear and the sky was blue (!!). The family had prepared an amazing dinner, consisting of about 15 different dishes, each one of them absolutely delicious. They made me feel very at home, despite the small language barrier and I am so grateful to them! Later at night, we could even see the stars. One of the best evenings I've had in China so far.
On the weekend I also did some sight-seeing around Xi'an with my roommate, the Italians and the Austrian. We went to see the Small Goose Pagoda, a very beautiful place. From the top, you had a great view of the city, which was sadly clouded in smog. Yes, it's starting to happen. As soon as the rain stopped, the smog came. It's not that bad yet though, so don't worry about me.
That's about all I got :) Take care you guys! (Also, if anyone would want to send me some Nutella, I'd be so down for that)
Chinese Word(s) of the Day: 梅花 meihua, 黑桃 heitao, 红桃 hongtao, 方块 fangkuai
clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds (Kreuz, Pik, Herz und Karo)
I successfully taught some Chinese friends Skat. Achievement unlocked.
It's been a week since you last heard from me, so time for another update from China.
Classes have now well and truly started. We have four hours of classes every day, starting at 8 and ending at 12. There are five different 'subjects': listening, speaking, writing, reading and general (this is most like normal European language class). Most of the teachers are very nice and competent and I can actually understand their Chinese *_* There are a lot of Koreans in my class, who can speak very good Chinese, then a few Europeans, most of which have already been mentioned in a previous post and quite a few people from Tajikistan. So all in all, so far, I'm pretty happy with my classes.
Last Thursday I had some very important business that kept me away from university: I had to get my health checked. Every foreigner that comes to live in China has to prove that they are not bringing any diseases that could threaten the people's wellbeing with them. So you have to have your blood tested, your eyesight tested, your blood pressure measured, get an ultrasound, ECG and X-ray. Fun for the whole family. It took two hours to finish the whole thing, a lot of which was spent sitting around and waiting. First of all, waiting for the doctor to find my vein ( :'( ), then waiting half an hour for the electricity to come back on in the X-ray room and finally waiting half an hour again for a blood pressure measurement. Let's just say, I think I've had enough of Chinese hospitals for a while.
Luckily Friday was a much more fun day, we went to a karaoke bar. Now for those of you who are only familiar with European karaoke bars, which I am going to assume is most of you, I will give you a short introduction to KTV, which is the Chinese name for karaoke. A karaoke bar in China is usually a huge building. You usually go there with huge groups of people. You then rent a private room for however many hours you want. Then, paradise. These places have giant collections of songs and the best thing is, you don't have to sing in front of complete strangers, you're singing in front of your friends who, ideally, are shouting the lyrics out along with you. 10 stars out of 10. The only downside really is that the drinks there are astronomically expensive, but it's also very easy to smuggle some in with you :)
The mascot of the KTV place we went to.
So after getting to know 'young and modern' China on Friday, I got to experience 'old and traditional' China on Saturday. I was invited by a friend to join her family for a barbecue. Her father drove us to where the dinner was to take place and I honestly had no idea what to expect. I imagined we would be sitting in a small garden, somewhere in the city. But the actual place was a thousand times better than what I had expected. We drove for about an hour, leaving the city behind us and driving through a few villages that consisted only of around 10 houses. Then we left those behind as well and started going up a very steep mountain road with VERY sharp turns. The place we finally arrived at was a small farm on top of a mountain from which you could see for miles and miles. I don't think I can accurately convey how happy I felt. The air was clear and the sky was blue (!!). The family had prepared an amazing dinner, consisting of about 15 different dishes, each one of them absolutely delicious. They made me feel very at home, despite the small language barrier and I am so grateful to them! Later at night, we could even see the stars. One of the best evenings I've had in China so far.
On the weekend I also did some sight-seeing around Xi'an with my roommate, the Italians and the Austrian. We went to see the Small Goose Pagoda, a very beautiful place. From the top, you had a great view of the city, which was sadly clouded in smog. Yes, it's starting to happen. As soon as the rain stopped, the smog came. It's not that bad yet though, so don't worry about me.
That's about all I got :) Take care you guys! (Also, if anyone would want to send me some Nutella, I'd be so down for that)
Chinese Word(s) of the Day: 梅花 meihua, 黑桃 heitao, 红桃 hongtao, 方块 fangkuai
clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds (Kreuz, Pik, Herz und Karo)
I successfully taught some Chinese friends Skat. Achievement unlocked.
16 Sept 2014
Kiss the Rain
Hi everyone!
This is the view from my window right now. But rest assured, the poor visibility is not due to smog (phew), it's just that it's been raining pretty non stop since I got here. Even the people from Xi'an say this is the longest period of rain they have seen in a long time. This leads to bizarre scenes, like a person sweeping water off the sidewalk with a giant broom. This is necessary because Xi'an has no gullies. None. Also, in places that aren't deemed important enough for water sweeping, there are often puddles up to 10cm deep. Result? Soaked shoes and an overwhelming desire for wellies.
The hundreds of colourful umbrellas that dot the streets of the campus make for another interesting picture. I am so far probably the only person on campus who doesn't own an umbrella because I stick to my trustworthy German all-weather jacket. I've noticed though that going out without an umbrella is actually quite dangerous, since it leaves you unprotected against the umbrellas of other students. Today I've already almost had my eye taken out twice. Anyway, enough about the weather, it's supposed to turn sunny again next weekend :)
I can't believe I've only been here five days. Every day has consisted of running around from place to place, trying to finish the registration procedure. On Thursday, I went to the bank to get a 银行卡 yinhangka debit card. There it turned out that my name is simply too complicated for Chinese bureaucracy. It took four hours on Thursday and two hours on Friday for me to finally open a bank account on my full name. For the record, I would have been fine with an account on just my surname, but apparently that was not acceptable to the bank. The good thing is that during all the sitting and waiting at the bank I got to know my fellow Hanban scholars. So far I know two Italians who brought coffee from home :) an Austrian and my roommate from Lithuania.
After having received my 银行卡, I went to get my 校园卡 xiaoyuanka campus card, which lets me use the university's cafeterias and shops. You might already notice that Xi'an is big on 卡s. I now also have a 公交卡 gongjiaoka public transport card, a rechargeable bus ticket. I had a little misunderstanding while buying the public transport card. These misunderstandings are very common when talking to another person behind a glass screen, which unfortunately you often do. So here's that story: The assistant asked me 你要买几张？ The last two characters are pronounced ji zhang, and the sentence means How many do you want? What I heard though was 你要买机场吗？ The last three characters here are pronounced ji chang ma, and the sentence means Do you want to buy the airport? You can imagine the hilarity which ensued.
On Friday we had our placement test which was going to tell us which class we should go to. There are 4 different levels, 1 being the lowest and 4 being the highest. The written part was very similar to the tests that we took back in Germany and the spoken part consisted of a Chinese teacher talking to three of us in the corridor for five minutes. I was put into the third class along with my roommate and the aforementioned Austrian.
Then on Saturday there was a campus tour which was a little uncomfortable due to the ongoing rain. Afterwards the Chinese students who had shown us around invited us to a restaurant which serves 川菜 chuancai, the local food from Sichuan province. Which brings me to a very important point. The food here is Amazing. AMAZING. Even the cafeteria food tastes great. For example, today I went to the cafeteria which sells 饺子 jiaozi, Chinese dumplings. So good. There is a small restaurant just 2 minutes from where I live which sells great local food at ridiculously low prices. For those of you that are worried I might not be getting enough chocolate, there is a store nearby where you can buy Cadbury's (yay), kinder Schokolade (YAY) and Rausch (OH.MY.GOD).
Sunday evening, my roommate and me went to an audition for the university's music club. There we had to sing in front of five judges, which was daunting to say the least. The only song I could think of on the spot was Oh Du Schöner Rosengarten, a traditional German song. So any of you that ever sang with me: Thank you! Then I had to play something on the piano, so I played the only piece of music that I can play by heart, a rondo that we learned in year 7. So Ms Ebeling: Thank you! I got accepted and on Thursday we have our first meeting :) My roommate also got accepted and we're both very excited!
Yesterday, on Monday, we had our first day of classes. It was pretty boring, and a few of us decided to go check out the fourth level today. It was much more fun there, so I'm probably going to switch classes by the end of the week. Monday evening I wanted to meet a Chinese friend, a project that proved more difficult than one might think. Since my Chinese is not quite at I-Understand-Everything-Level yet, I thought we were meeting in front of my dorm and she thought we were meeting in front of the cafeteria. After three very confusing and very funny phone calls (A lot of 对不起，听不懂 and 没事，没事)* I sadly had to leave because I was meeting my Chinese teacher from Germany for dinner. The dinner was delicious and it was great seeing her!
That's about it for now, if you want even more detailed tales, send me an e-mail or talk to me on Skype :)
Chinese Word of the Day: 短信 duanxin text message. One of the most important words so far.
*Sorry, I don't understand and It doesn't matter.
This is the view from my window right now. But rest assured, the poor visibility is not due to smog (phew), it's just that it's been raining pretty non stop since I got here. Even the people from Xi'an say this is the longest period of rain they have seen in a long time. This leads to bizarre scenes, like a person sweeping water off the sidewalk with a giant broom. This is necessary because Xi'an has no gullies. None. Also, in places that aren't deemed important enough for water sweeping, there are often puddles up to 10cm deep. Result? Soaked shoes and an overwhelming desire for wellies.
The hundreds of colourful umbrellas that dot the streets of the campus make for another interesting picture. I am so far probably the only person on campus who doesn't own an umbrella because I stick to my trustworthy German all-weather jacket. I've noticed though that going out without an umbrella is actually quite dangerous, since it leaves you unprotected against the umbrellas of other students. Today I've already almost had my eye taken out twice. Anyway, enough about the weather, it's supposed to turn sunny again next weekend :)
I can't believe I've only been here five days. Every day has consisted of running around from place to place, trying to finish the registration procedure. On Thursday, I went to the bank to get a 银行卡 yinhangka debit card. There it turned out that my name is simply too complicated for Chinese bureaucracy. It took four hours on Thursday and two hours on Friday for me to finally open a bank account on my full name. For the record, I would have been fine with an account on just my surname, but apparently that was not acceptable to the bank. The good thing is that during all the sitting and waiting at the bank I got to know my fellow Hanban scholars. So far I know two Italians who brought coffee from home :) an Austrian and my roommate from Lithuania.
After having received my 银行卡, I went to get my 校园卡 xiaoyuanka campus card, which lets me use the university's cafeterias and shops. You might already notice that Xi'an is big on 卡s. I now also have a 公交卡 gongjiaoka public transport card, a rechargeable bus ticket. I had a little misunderstanding while buying the public transport card. These misunderstandings are very common when talking to another person behind a glass screen, which unfortunately you often do. So here's that story: The assistant asked me 你要买几张？ The last two characters are pronounced ji zhang, and the sentence means How many do you want? What I heard though was 你要买机场吗？ The last three characters here are pronounced ji chang ma, and the sentence means Do you want to buy the airport? You can imagine the hilarity which ensued.
On Friday we had our placement test which was going to tell us which class we should go to. There are 4 different levels, 1 being the lowest and 4 being the highest. The written part was very similar to the tests that we took back in Germany and the spoken part consisted of a Chinese teacher talking to three of us in the corridor for five minutes. I was put into the third class along with my roommate and the aforementioned Austrian.
Then on Saturday there was a campus tour which was a little uncomfortable due to the ongoing rain. Afterwards the Chinese students who had shown us around invited us to a restaurant which serves 川菜 chuancai, the local food from Sichuan province. Which brings me to a very important point. The food here is Amazing. AMAZING. Even the cafeteria food tastes great. For example, today I went to the cafeteria which sells 饺子 jiaozi, Chinese dumplings. So good. There is a small restaurant just 2 minutes from where I live which sells great local food at ridiculously low prices. For those of you that are worried I might not be getting enough chocolate, there is a store nearby where you can buy Cadbury's (yay), kinder Schokolade (YAY) and Rausch (OH.MY.GOD).
Sunday evening, my roommate and me went to an audition for the university's music club. There we had to sing in front of five judges, which was daunting to say the least. The only song I could think of on the spot was Oh Du Schöner Rosengarten, a traditional German song. So any of you that ever sang with me: Thank you! Then I had to play something on the piano, so I played the only piece of music that I can play by heart, a rondo that we learned in year 7. So Ms Ebeling: Thank you! I got accepted and on Thursday we have our first meeting :) My roommate also got accepted and we're both very excited!
Yesterday, on Monday, we had our first day of classes. It was pretty boring, and a few of us decided to go check out the fourth level today. It was much more fun there, so I'm probably going to switch classes by the end of the week. Monday evening I wanted to meet a Chinese friend, a project that proved more difficult than one might think. Since my Chinese is not quite at I-Understand-Everything-Level yet, I thought we were meeting in front of my dorm and she thought we were meeting in front of the cafeteria. After three very confusing and very funny phone calls (A lot of 对不起，听不懂 and 没事，没事)* I sadly had to leave because I was meeting my Chinese teacher from Germany for dinner. The dinner was delicious and it was great seeing her!
That's about it for now, if you want even more detailed tales, send me an e-mail or talk to me on Skype :)
Chinese Word of the Day: 短信 duanxin text message. One of the most important words so far.
*Sorry, I don't understand and It doesn't matter.
11 Sept 2014
Goodbye Germany, Hello China!
During my last week in Germany I
Had Italian ice-cream,
Had coffee and cake at 4 o'clock in the afternoon,
Spent about 2 hours waiting for various trains,
Went to an oldtown beer festival,
Watched the Germany-Scotland game in said oldtown's pub
and Played Doppelkopf.
In short, I had the essential German experience.
On Wednesday I got up at 4:30 (joy) to catch the train to Frankfurt Airport. Got everything checked in and ready to go, and of course I still had 2 hours to spare. So I decided to have the fanciest cup of tea ever served at an airport. The teabag was made of silk and lace.
The flight to Helsinki was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that every stewardess spoke to me in Finnish only to realize that I don't understand a word of their language (actually not completely true, I recognized the word 2 (kaksi) because of Minna's excellent teaching skills).
Then at Helsinki airport there was the first sign of what life in China might be like. Four women travelling together had brought a tiny kettle in their carry-on baggage and were making tea in the waiting area. They were obviously instant best friends with everyone else waiting for the flight.
On the flight I had a whole row to myself, since the flight was not fully booked and there was noone sitting in row 47. For those of you that don't know, the number 4 is very unlucky in Chinese culture. Sadly, even though I could lay down, I didn't get a minute of sleep. It's safe to say that I was pretty knackered when I arrived at Xi'an airport. I got myself onto a bus with what felt like 100 Chinese people that would bring me into the city center, which it did. Right at the station I got quite a nice welcome, there were about 30 Chinese women dancing together. I got a lot of stares as well, guess I'll have to get used to that.
Then I made my way to the campus, at this point I was so tired, I just wanted a bed. I walked onto campus and was greeted by the morning school ritual being blasted from speakers at every street corner. It goes like this:
Yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Er, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba. Two, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
And then it goes on, and repeats itself at different speeds for about 10 minutes.
As I was walking down the busy campus street, I found myself falling into step with the music. A tiny burst of panic, am I becoming part of the machine? After earning a few puzzled looks, I then finally arrived at the International Students dorm. I registered, got my key and at last I got to my room. It's a double bedroom which I'm sharing with a girl from Lithuania. The bathroom and kitchen are shared with the whole floor. So far I really like the dorm, there are a lot of students here that can help me with my problems. Most of them have been here for a while, so they know what to do, where to go etc.
A girl from Pakistan took me out to lunch, where I almost fell asleep sitting down. Then we went to buy a SIM card, what an experience. She wasn't very fluent in Chinese, so I had to do all the talking, not knowing at all what the pieces on a phone are even called. Anyway, it took about half an hour, five minutes of which were spent, translating "Three G" to "San G". In the end I got my card though, if any of you want to know my Chinese number, send me an e-mail. My German number is out of service for the next year.
I spent some time in the afternoon walking around on campus and found some very nice places to sit and relax. Afterwards it was time to go to the International Students Office to finish registration. Unfortunately the girl who helped me didn't speak English at all and spoke Chinese very quickly, so communication was a little difficult. Anyway, I have to go back to the office tomorrow to get my student ID and other fun things.
That's about all I have for you guys right now. I'm not sure how I feel about living in China, but for the moment I feel very very foreign. Kind of like a game is being played that I don't know the rules to yet. My instinct is to try to fit in, but that seems virtually impossible, seeing as my looks already make me stick out like a sore thumb.
Chinese Word of the Day: 冰箱 bingxiang refrigerator, of which we have none in our dorm.
Pictures to follow :)
Had Italian ice-cream,
Had coffee and cake at 4 o'clock in the afternoon,
Spent about 2 hours waiting for various trains,
Went to an oldtown beer festival,
Watched the Germany-Scotland game in said oldtown's pub
and Played Doppelkopf.
In short, I had the essential German experience.
On Wednesday I got up at 4:30 (joy) to catch the train to Frankfurt Airport. Got everything checked in and ready to go, and of course I still had 2 hours to spare. So I decided to have the fanciest cup of tea ever served at an airport. The teabag was made of silk and lace.
The flight to Helsinki was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that every stewardess spoke to me in Finnish only to realize that I don't understand a word of their language (actually not completely true, I recognized the word 2 (kaksi) because of Minna's excellent teaching skills).
Then at Helsinki airport there was the first sign of what life in China might be like. Four women travelling together had brought a tiny kettle in their carry-on baggage and were making tea in the waiting area. They were obviously instant best friends with everyone else waiting for the flight.
On the flight I had a whole row to myself, since the flight was not fully booked and there was noone sitting in row 47. For those of you that don't know, the number 4 is very unlucky in Chinese culture. Sadly, even though I could lay down, I didn't get a minute of sleep. It's safe to say that I was pretty knackered when I arrived at Xi'an airport. I got myself onto a bus with what felt like 100 Chinese people that would bring me into the city center, which it did. Right at the station I got quite a nice welcome, there were about 30 Chinese women dancing together. I got a lot of stares as well, guess I'll have to get used to that.
Then I made my way to the campus, at this point I was so tired, I just wanted a bed. I walked onto campus and was greeted by the morning school ritual being blasted from speakers at every street corner. It goes like this:
Yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Er, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba. Two, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
And then it goes on, and repeats itself at different speeds for about 10 minutes.
As I was walking down the busy campus street, I found myself falling into step with the music. A tiny burst of panic, am I becoming part of the machine? After earning a few puzzled looks, I then finally arrived at the International Students dorm. I registered, got my key and at last I got to my room. It's a double bedroom which I'm sharing with a girl from Lithuania. The bathroom and kitchen are shared with the whole floor. So far I really like the dorm, there are a lot of students here that can help me with my problems. Most of them have been here for a while, so they know what to do, where to go etc.
A girl from Pakistan took me out to lunch, where I almost fell asleep sitting down. Then we went to buy a SIM card, what an experience. She wasn't very fluent in Chinese, so I had to do all the talking, not knowing at all what the pieces on a phone are even called. Anyway, it took about half an hour, five minutes of which were spent, translating "Three G" to "San G". In the end I got my card though, if any of you want to know my Chinese number, send me an e-mail. My German number is out of service for the next year.
I spent some time in the afternoon walking around on campus and found some very nice places to sit and relax. Afterwards it was time to go to the International Students Office to finish registration. Unfortunately the girl who helped me didn't speak English at all and spoke Chinese very quickly, so communication was a little difficult. Anyway, I have to go back to the office tomorrow to get my student ID and other fun things.
That's about all I have for you guys right now. I'm not sure how I feel about living in China, but for the moment I feel very very foreign. Kind of like a game is being played that I don't know the rules to yet. My instinct is to try to fit in, but that seems virtually impossible, seeing as my looks already make me stick out like a sore thumb.
Chinese Word of the Day: 冰箱 bingxiang refrigerator, of which we have none in our dorm.
Pictures to follow :)
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