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.

No comments:

Post a Comment