From zero degrees to 30 to 18

Hmmm...I can't believe it's already been three weeks since I left Beijing...and I have been in three different countries since then. I've found myself in Genting, Malaysia...via Chiangmai and Singapore....and in the meantime, have been eating, eating, and eating (amongst catching up with family and some friends)...munching my way through Nasi Lamaks and Laksas and Chicken rice.  

Beijing was so cold when I left (it's even colder now), Singapore was warm and humid, around 30 degrees, and Malaysia, I guess would be around the same, except for the monsoon rain in the afternoon which kept us cool. Genting is on top of a mountain about an hour or so from KL, so I do appreciate the cooler temperature. Genting, I guess, could be described as playground for Malaysians and people of neighbouring countries - may be even a mini Las Vegas - not that I've ever been there. It's a huge complex of hotels and casinos, as well as amusement parks, shops, etc, etc, and boasts to have the world's biggest hotel with over 6000 something rooms. It's kind of strange though to have this "thing" on top of such a beautiful mountain. Imagine mountaintops crowned by clouds and mist and this huge rainbow coloured building on top! Yes, the "First World Hotel" - the world's biggest hotel looks like a rainbow!...I guess the people do like it though - no vacancies around this period unless you book quite sometime ahead....and I must say the amusement park was a lot of fun! 

It's an interesting experience though. Genting is one big money making machine - from its casinos and amusement parks, through its rental spaces and food outlets, conference centres, etc etc, and brings busloads of tourists from Singapore daily. It was all started by one man, Mr Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, and when he first proposed the idea, people thought he was crazy and so he couldn't find any business partners. It took him 2 years to build the road up the mountain and another 4 to build the first hotel...and what a great success it is now. It's a fantastic story of one man who was virtually penniless and faced many obstacles, but nevertheless, followed his dreams and never gave up. On the way back down to KL we drove past the site with was meant to be the founder's mausoleum - a new tourist attraction- so the man is still making money - even in his death! 

I've attached the photo of the "First World Hotel" - the hotel with the most number of rooms in the world.

This will be my last entry in this "Beijing blog" - I will now go back to my other "Alice-out-of-town" blog at http://alice-out-of-town.blogspot.com  and will return to the "Beijing blog" when I go back to Beijing in February. 

北京，明年见！

These last few days have been days of goodbyes - I said goodbye to
the teachers, the classmates, chinese friends, other friends, the
fruit shop lady and the DVD man. Some people I will see again, and
others, perhaps not. One of the things I have learnt during this time
in Beijing is how precious each moment is and how important it is to
appreciate everything and everyone- the time we have here is so short
and every opportunity that presents itself may never come again. No
point saying will do this thing next time, or talk to this person
next time, or that next time I will do this better...because we will
simply run out of time! ....and I still haven't found those famous
Chocolate fish in Wudaokou yet! Luckily I will come back in February
for a semester next year - the chocolate fish will just have to wait!

考试考完了！

Hmm I hope I wrote the title up correctly - tell me if I didn't! I've
learnt so much over the last 11 weeks I think everything is all mixed
up in my brain!

...So, you might have guessed that I have just had exams, so have
been pretty busy preparing for that. The 综合考试(Comprehension
class) turned out to be pretty easy. the 听力考试(listening) was
quite challenging - mainly because it was a multiple choice exam, all
written in Chinese! We not only have to listen, but quickly read the
answer choices in Chinese as well....a lot of it I can read (or
guess), but I am so slow at reading- not fast enough to comprehend
the meaning of the different choices and then listen to the next
question. 口试 (oral exam) was OK - we had several topics to
prepare, as well as answering the teacher's questions and read a
portion of a passage (with pinyin - pretty painless).

Anyway, 11 weeks have flown by very quickly. I only have 3 days of
lessons left. What will I do on my last week here? I have a lot of
friends to catch up with, may be need go shopping and buy stuff and
decide what to pack and what to leave in Beijing. I will be back in
February and don't really want to bring things back and forth.

I think one of the best thing about coming to Beijing is of course,
that my Chinese has improved a lot (from next to nothing) and I feel
more confident speaking it. I really enjoyed the course and the
teachers are really great. 谢谢老师们！ The other really
wonderful thing is that I am able to meet and make a lot of new
friends from all around the world. 认识你们我很高兴！The only
thing is that with a 12 week course is that by this time you're just
getting to know friends or form closer relationships then you
already have to say goodbye...but hopefully we will be able to meet
again at some point in the future!

By the way, "Vanto" left a comment on my blog - thanks for that! : )
I was going to leave a comment on "Vanto"'s blog but I couldn't
because blogspot is blocked in China. I could only view blogs through
a proxy server...anyway, looking forward to reading more of your
blog, Vanto.

加油！

Zhu 老师 just made a comment on Facebook to encourage me: "加油！"add oil" - a Chinese way of saying "Keep fighting, keep going, etc". 谢谢 Zhu 老师！

Actually, reading back on my previous entries, it seems like I'm feeling a bit negative about it all, it's only because I feel tired. I am actually really enjoying the course and the challenge - this is part of what I am here for and challenges can only make us grow. I really feel very happy and fortunate to be in Beijing. It has always been my dream to study and live in another country. I have made so many wonderful friends and I think we are all creating wonderful memories for ourselves. I don't want to go home, and get back into the real world just yet! : )

Today has been quite relaxing for me. Thanks to the class "汉字比赛" - chinese words writing competition yesterday (which was a lot of fun, by the way), we only have one homework. I studied in the morning, and had lunch and spent the afternoon and evening with friends - couldn't ask for a better way to have a good time! 

Getting sporty

It's 11.59pm Friday night and I don't feel like sleeping yet...but
I'm feeling so tired I probably should go to bed....so may be this
entry won't make much sense. I've been sleeping this late (and later)
this week studying, etc, but I won't go on about it again! he he! I
did also join the gym for my last month here. I have been
procrastinating for the last 2 months, telling myself that I can
exercise myself - may be by walking around the school or the football
field - well, got turned off that idea when I was hit by a stray
soccer ball, or since the heaters were not turned on till 1st
November, I had actually been exercising in my room - doing crunches,
squats, etc, trying to keep myself warm...well, that worked to a
certain extent until 1st November - I have no longer a reason to do
all those crunches! ...So no more excuses! Off to the gym I went with
Abby. Now that I have paid, I must get my money's worth! We've been
going pretty much every couple of days, mostly to the various classes
from latin to belly dancing to X-combat. I'm really enjoying X-combat
- a combination of moves from various boxing styles and funky music.
As for latin and other dances, I really enjoy those too, but am
feeling very un-co...ah well, it's good fun anyway.

Only 2 and a bit weeks to go!

Does time fly! Final exams are coming up end of next week and the
classes officially finish with a party on 5th December! At the moment
I'm torn between studying and trying to go out as much as I can on
the weekends - not that I go out that much, but it seems like there
are so many places I still want to go in Beijing, and there are so
little time left. The other thing is to try to catch up with as many
friends as possible - as I might not see some of them again!

In the end, I ended up balancing everything (of course!)- not that I
don't need to study more. 6 hours a day of classes (if I haven't
mentioned earlier), is hard work - usually after doing homework,
there is little time left to prepare for the next lesson, let alone
revise the previous lessons....so as a result, i find myself doing
remembering today's words, but forgetting previous days...so a lot of
revision to do!!!

At this point, I decided to come back to BLCU again next year for the
Spring semester. I was tossing up between coming back or to go to a
different city, but I thought Beijing is probably the best place to
study Mandarin and I really like BLCU's program, even if there are a
lot of English speakers, making it tempting to just speak English all
the time. I thought I might as well continue to study rather than
just leaving it here, otherwise I'll probably just forget everything.

Xi'an

Not sure why the rest of my entry didn't come up in the last entry, but anyway, here it is:

By the way, as I mentioned earlier, I went to Xi'an for the weekend. It was a bit of a whirlwind trip - leaving right after class at 4.30pm on Friday afternoon and arriving back in Beijing on Monday morning at 7.15am, just in time for the 8am start. I find Xi'an a really special city - so much history! I think, if I remember correctly, Xi'an is considered to be amongst the 4(?) ancient civilisations of the world. There, we visited the Banpo museum where the remains of a 6000 year old village was found. Unlike Beijing, a lot of the old historical buildings and the city wall has been preserved in Xi'an. We also visited a factory to learn how the Terracotta Warriors were made (using the traditional method, of course!) and have the opportunity to buy good quality but quite expensive reproductions of the Terracotta Warriors. Later we also visited the actual Terracotta Warriors. They were actually found in the tomb of the Emperor Qin, and were there to protect the Emperor in the afterlife - the tomb is very extensive and the Terracotta Warriors even have a their own command centre - really!

The other highlight for me was visiting the Xi'an Beilin Museum. As paper records are easily destroyed, a lot of China's historical records, Confucius teachings, Buddhist translations, important Poetry, etc, are carved on stone tablets. This museum contains a fantastic collection of these stone tablets. It's quite awesome (for me anyway), to look at a stone tablet (and even recognising some characters!) that was produced in the year 640AD. I would love to come back one day when my Chinese is a LOT better and be able to read and understand what is written on these tablets.

Other places we visited included the city wall, a dumpling restaurant - Xi'an is apparently famous for it's dumplings and we experienced a dumpling banquite - 16 different types in total - delicious! Afterwards, we also enjoyed a Tang Music and Dance Performance.

From Beijing to Xi'an

> 暖气开了！ 我很高兴！ I'm really happy that the central
> heating in my hotel has been turned on!! Yeah!! I went away to
> Xi'an for the weekend, and when I came back, I found that the
> weather has suddenly gone colder. Apparently it was around 1 degree
> around 8am in the morning! It's really cold in the room at night
> and I have been keeping myself warm by doing sit ups and exercising
> in my room and drinking warm water, and was really missing my
> electric blanket! Winter is just around the corner though,
> officially starting end of this month....and all I can say is that
> I'm glad I won't be here for winter- my course finishes on the 5th
> December. By the way, most buildings turn on their central heating
> around mid November, so I've been told, so I've been quite lucky to
> have heating today.
>
> Things have been quite busy (actually, really busy) for me. As the
> temperature drops in Beijing, my study load has increased. I only
> have around 4 weeks left of my course and the teachers are quite
> keen to get through as much as possible - which is a good thing,
> but means lotsand lots of newer and harder words to remember each
> day - 我记不住！- I can't remember!- I think my brain is full
> of new words, so is refusing to take any more in...he he! OK, it's
> not THAT bad, but can feel that way sometimes...Chinese is very
> interesting - a lot of words are made up of a combination of
> characters, so I find if I already know the characters, remembering
> the word is not very hard, but if it's a new word and totally new
> characters, then I have a lot of trouble. I have to be patient, I
> think, and just stick at it. One of the teachers told me that
> Chinese is quite hard when we first start to learn it, but as you
> get over the beginner's stage, things will get a lot easier...I
> think she is right. I'm really enjoying it all though.
>

Language Corner

A Japanese friend invited me to a language corner in the university.
Here you can have language exchange with Chinese Students. It turned
out I was the only English speaker there tonight (there were lots of
Japanese-Chinese speaking students) so I became quite popular with a
small group of Chinese students studying English. Chinese students
actually study English since high school, so I would say most if not
all can speak English. I also think that their English is usually
quite good, they just need to practise speaking more. We were
conversing in a mixture of mandarin and English, well, initially
mandarin until my mandarin runs out and then we spoke mostly
English...Then, I heard one of them commented (in mandarin), "her
pronunciation is good!"...huh? Did they mean my mandarin
pronunciation? It turned out that they meant that my English
pronunciation is quite good....hmmm....I sure hope so!! ha ha! Just
as an aside - they said that because last year they had an Australian
teacher and they couldn't understand a word he said! I find it really
funny when people say that my English is very good!!!

One of the girls wants us to become language partners, which is fine
with me. This means that we help each other - I help her with her
English and she helps me with my mandarin. She is really enthusiastic
though, and wants to meet for two hours every day!! I told her I
think we will start with meeting twice a week. I think I will share
her with another friend. Another girl wants to give my number to
another friend studying at Tsinghua University - she wants a language
partner on the weekends. I think I will be quite busy from now on!

It's actually a really good thing to have Chinese friends because
this will help my mandarin a lot. I'm also interested in their lives
- eg. what they do, how they live, etc. I've already had a glimpse -
one of the girls was curious about my dorm - how many people do I
share my room with, etc. I actually have my own room. Chinese
students have to share their rooms with 4-6 people, and often have to
share a common bathroom with everyone in the building. So I'll have
to count myself very lucky with my room (although quite expensive for
Chinese standards), but then I visited another foreign student's
dorm, which I find quite OK - clean but old...I'd would have to say
my little room is quite luxurious, even if the bathroom floods during
showers & no heating until November 15th!

Beijing Street Food

Apparently you haven't been to Beijing if you haven't tried the
street food, so my friends told me...so being the one who likes to
try new things (just in case it might be nice!) I gladly went along.
So this is it, a little stall in front of the No3 Dining Hall at
BLCU, behind Dormitory 17. There were no tables or chairs - what you
see is what you get - variety of meatballs, fish balls, tofu, vegies,
etc on skewers being boiled in curry like soup. You can also get
grilled mantous (chinese bread), squid, chicken skin, beef, lamb,
etc, etc. They provide green plates wrapped in plastic bags - I guess
because the plates won't get dirty and they won't have to wash them??
Each "boiled" skewer is 0.5 yuan, and grilled ones range from 1
yuan-5 yuan....and the food was...fantastic!! Very tasty and fairly
"healthy" compared to most of the Chinese food restaurants which I
find too oily for me.

Immersion in Chinese Culture

Part of learning about the Chinese Culture is catching public 

transport. Today, another really beautiful day, one my friends and I
set off to Wangfujing, a nice shopping area in the city. We took the
train from Wudaokou (very close to BLCU). This was the first time I
caught the train (actually, subway) in Beijing and I was quite
excited to see what it would be like! Just the night before, I saw on
the news that a new train line has opened in Beijing and the
government decided to reduce the price of the train fare from 3 yuan
to 2 yuan per single trip (very cheap!!) to encourage more people to
use the train. I thought it was a good idea as it will reduce the
horrendous traffic jams in the city. However, one of the passengers
interviewed said he was concerned that more people will use the
train. Can't be THAT bad, I thought!

It started off well enough. I bought a public transport card for 20
yuan and added 30 yuan. The train on this line is actually quite new,
similar to Singapore's MRT. On the way back though, there were SO
many people! I'm not sure if it's normal to have so many people
catching the train, or if it's because it's the last day of the week-
long national holidays, but the station and trains were packed like
sardines in cans! From Wangfujing we had to change trains 3 times and
at some stations we had to wait for the next train as we couldn't
squeeze in! On top of that, these interchange stations & trains on
these lines are quite old - no aircond. It was actually quite a cold
day, but it was quite warm in the station and the train, especially
in our autumn gear (a bit like Sydney's winter at the moment)- I
can't imagine what summer would be like!

As I said before, may be there were a lot of people because it's the
last day of the holidays, and hopefully my next train travel
experience will be more comfortable! I'll try to avoid peak hours
though!

Still, it was another interesting experience. The train (subway) is
really convenient and for 2 yuan, I can't really complain! ...but
hopefully the government will increase the number of trains (which is
already quite frequent) and the number of carriages.

Tips for taking Beijing Subway:
- The public transport card is very convenient and can also be used
on buses. The best thing is we don't have to queue up each time to
get a train ticket.
- Take care of valuables & watch out for pickpockets!
- Avoid peak hours if possible - I haven't tried it (and not game
to!) but I think it will be pretty crowded!
-and like what one of my friends told me before coming to China - be
patient and have an open mind! I say - have a good sense of humour
and go with the flow. Remember , when in Rome... I think this works
out pretty well since like the locals, we have to push (sometimes
"fight") our way into and out of the train! : )

Just a little note on the word "train" - when I use the word train
here, people look at me funny. I only use the word "train" because
this is what we call them in Australia. "Train" in China actually
means country trains. I should really call it "subway", or "ditie"
which literally translates to "ground iron", although it's not always
underground - sometimes (like at Wudaokou), it's above ground...may
be then it should be called "tiantie" or "sky iron" ...but then no
one will know what I'm talking about...hmm...

This is getting silly - I'd better go back to studying!

The grassland on horseback

Blue sky and vast grassland

I just came back this morning (5am!!) from a trip with the school to Inner Mongolia. The word Mongolia, to me, is shrouded in mystery - mainly because I didn't know anything about it!

It was a nice trip, though not terribly well organised. It would have been a lot more meaningful if the tour guide could explain more about the history of the area, as well as the cuture of the Inner Mongolia people and how they lived...the tour guide spoke quite good English, but then I guess it would be difficult to actually explain things deeply in a foreign language.

May be my expectation was too high, and may be this is China, where you have to be a little bit more independent eg. doing a bit of your own research. In the end though, it was an enjoyable trip and I met some really nice people. The landscape of Inner Mongolia is beautiful - the grassland and the desert were so vast, and the blue sky stretched as far as the horizon.

We left Beijing Sunday night, taking the hard-sleeper train, which turned out to be better than expected, and the toilets were actually OK!

On Monday we visited the Xilamuren Grassland, rode horses and visited a local family for traditional snacks, which were quite interesting. I would have liked to see how the family lived, what they do each day, etc - but then their "job" is most probably to entertain tourists like us. Horse riding was fantastic though. Here you can experience and appreciate the wonderful landscape of the grassland.

On the second day we went to the edge of the Kubuqi Desert and visited the Yinkenxiang Sand-Bay, which is a bit like an amusement park in the desert - you can do lots of activities like camel riding, 4-wheel driving, toboggan down the sand dunes, horse riding, etc. The camel riding was a lot of fun.

Day 3 we went to the Inner Mongolia Museum. The museum was a sparkling brand new structure. It was completed only 2-3 weeks ago. A very nice museum (and nice toilets too!) - quite interesting as well, and would be more so if I could read Chinese!

Day 4 we went to the Five Towers Lamasery. The Lamasary was fasinating and is one of the 5 Indian style temples in China. Then took a really long bus ride (I think 5 hours in total, including lunch!) to Datong and visited Yun'gang Caves. It was a bit of a miserable rainy day and we were all grumpy by yet another long bus ride (I guess China is so big it takes half a day to get to one location each day!). The caves were spectacular though. There were huge buddha images carved into the walls of the caves. Unfortunately I don't know much about it since the tour guide didn't say anything about it at all. I would have liked to know a bit about the history of the area - guess will have to google it!

Later we went to Datong city, arriving just after dark. The tour guide plonked us down at the "Nine-dragons wall" - again, no explanation while she disappeared (to get our train tickets, as she explained later). It was cold, dark, wet, and we were all hungry! : ( ....luckily we were in good company....and then I managed to step into a puddle, and so with one wet shoe and foot, I wasn't too happy! ...but I suppose I was lucky in that it was an old pair of shoes!

The Mongolian Hotpot dinner turned out to be quite good, even if the driver got us lost for quite a while and the tour guide had to get a taxi to show us the way! May be it was his first day on the job? Anyway, after dinner all is well again and we were all happy, especially the table that drank a little too much!

The train left Datong at 11pm, arriving in Beijing at 5am the next morning....and some of us were ready to go out for pizza tonight, having eaten only Chinese food over the past week.

Great Wall

It was the most beautiful Beiing day! Actually, the weather has been so nice over the last week, but yesterday it was perfect! ...and no smog! The sky was so blue...

We were on a school excursion! Haven't been on one of those in a while! We went to the Mutianyu section, which turned out to be fantastic! Mutianyu is not as popular a destination as Bedaling, being a bit further away. I think, though, that Mutianyu is much better, especially because there are a lot less people here and the wall is not as steep as at Bedaling. The scenery around the Mutianyu Great Wall was amazing, as I heard a French man exclaimed, "C'est manifique!" (hopefully I spelt that right!).

Although there was the option of taking the cable car, we decided to brave it and walk up. Some of us were already tired by the time we got to the entrance! It was pretty hard walking up all those stairs, but the views were more than worth it! ...and we tobogganed down the Great Wall - what a touristy thing to do - but a lot of fun!

The course begins (or rather, began)!

We are coming into the second week of our class. It's getting quite tiring, particularly in the afternoons! (I'm doing the intensive course - 6 hours per day.) Oh, by the way, after the placement test, I got into the A7 class, which I think, suit me quite well. The next class up is a lot more difficult, B6, I think, and the next class down is mainly for complete beginners, so they are going a lot slower.

In the first few days, we had pinyin review - practising different sounds and tones- very tiring and repetitive, but I think, very important. In the Chinese language, a different sound or tone can mean a different word. For example, the word for goldfish and whale (we were told), sounds very similar - jin and jing, so you could easily be asking for a whale if you mean to get a pet goldfish! Another example is, someone's name, Zhang (eg the actress Zhang Ziyi) and the word for "dirty" - "zang". If you mispronounce (I actually have a lot of trouble with the sounds z- and zh-), you, or rather, I, could be calling someone "Mr or Ms Dirty"!! Hmmm...I'd better keep practising!

We have three teachers - listening, speaking, and a comprehension teacher who teaches a combination of listening, speaking and writing. I find all the teachers quite good. The listening teacher is quite young, and a lot of fun, making the class interesting. The comprehension teacher is our "main teacher" looking after us - she is very nice and gives us her mobile number and tells us to call her if we have any problems. The speaking teacher is very professional and experienced, and doesn't take non-sense from some of the people in the class! Overall quite a good combination, I think.

As for the students in my class, there are 14 people from all around the world - from Hong Kong, England, Korea, Japan, Australia, Mauritius , Canada, South Africa, Thailand and the States - a mini-UN.

The couse also includes several excursions, or "field trips", as they call it. Last Friday we went to a nice Chinese Restaurant to eat (of course!) and learn how to order food. This coming Friday we are going to the Great Wall.

We have classes next weekend though, because of the one week National Holiday - called "golden week".

Friendship Store and Sino-Japan relationship

OK, the title is a bit misleading. About the only thing the above have in common is the word "friendship"! Anyway, this is about my weekend...

I’ve found my way to the famed “Friendship Store” on campus. I’ve heard about it several times, and one of the girls in my class was raving on about it. I had to find this place! It’s definitely very cool – almost a “godsend” to students living on campus. You can find almost everything here – it’s a little supermarket with lots of things a student living on campus would need - snacks to keep us going, instant noodles, cereals, water, wine, as well as little electrical things like plastic lamps, fans… There are also buckets, cleaning materials, stationery, computer supplies… There are of course other shops “near by”, off campus, at least they look close on the map, but in reality quite a long walk. There is also a very nice little fruit shop next door. How very convenient!

I spent this weekend with my parents. We attended a small get together of SGI members. Meetings are not allowed in China. However, every now and then, some SGI members get together for afternoon tea. It was great for me since I was able to make some new friends (and mum feels better since there are lots of very nice people to look after me!!). There is also a Singaporean girl starting a course at a nearby university not too far from where I am.

Mum, dad and I were also invited to a recital of Pres Ikeda’s poems at Beijing University next Saturday night. Apparently this year marks an important anniversary of Sino-Japan relationship (possibly 35th anniversary??). This recital is organised by the students of Beijing University, not by SGI.

I was quite surprised how much Pres Ikeda is respected in China. We watched a DVD of a documentary recently aired on TV in China about the friendship between Japan and China. The producers of the program initially interviewed someone from a non-profit organisation (not SGI) dedicated to the friendship between China and Japan. From there, they traced this relationship back to the Min-On Association, a cultural/arts exchange organisation originally set up by Pres Ikeda…and from there, the producers traced the China-Japan relationship back to Pres Ikeda’s meeting with Premier Zhou Enlai. I have heard about this meeting before, but had not realised the impact it had on the two countries’ relationship.

..So it was all very interesting, and all in mandarin. No, my mandarin is not that good yet! Perhaps I caught a few words! Fortunately, I had a very good translator. Hopefully I will get as good has her one day!

Ni Hao from Beijing

Beijing is a BIG city. I arrived on the 10th with my parents (aka my translators – how fortunate for me!). We stayed at a nice hotel in the city and I officially moved to the Conference Centre Hotel in BLCU yesterday.

In the mean time, I managed to get myself registered, paid for tuition, and got my student card. Fortunately it wasn’t too tricky. Everything was quite organised in a chaotic way! The queues were long though.

So far, the atmosphere has been great – so much energy about! There are so many people from different countries here – a lot of students from Korea and Japan, as well as Indonesia and Thailand. There are also lots of Americans, and it seems, Australians and other countries. Incidentally I have even met someone who came from Hurstville! (in case you don’t know, it’s very close to my home in Sydney) – imagine being half way around the world and meeting someone from the next suburb!

My room at the Conference Centre (CC) is small, but nice and clean. I’m happy with it. There’s even a window that I can open to let fresh air in. The bathroom, though, gets flooded during a shower, as there’s no shower recess, only a shower curtain…I was wondering what the carpet stain in front of the shower was, then I realised that after a longer shower (eg. After hair washing), some of the water overflowed out of the bathroom!...may be this is a strategy to reduce water usage…ie we can’t shower for too long? The only other thing is the hard bed (feels like sleeping on a wooden block), but I was reassured by one of the girls I met that the beds here at CC are the best in uni. The other nicer place is Dorm 17, which is apparently quite nice, but the beds there are even harder, she told me! OK, to be fair, even the beds at the nice 4 star Capital Hotel in the city were quite hard as well (but not as hard!!!).

Otherwise, CC is a great place – very convenient - only 2 minutes from the classrooms, and there are a couple of nice and cheap restaurants downstairs (Chinese and Japanese) and even a little convenient store. There’s also a laundry with dryer costing 3 yuan per wash and 6 yuan each time we use the dryer.

I had my placement test this morning too. It was a bit of a disaster! : ) The test itself was fairly simple and may be even painless, actually – a teacher comes to you and have a chat to gauge your level of mandarin. Well, this is when I realised how different it is to study phrases – how to go shopping, whatever, and to actually speak to an actual person! In reality, people don’t actually follow the scripts in textbooks! So I guess this is the value for me in being in China right now – I have to practise as much as possible in real situations, not just in the classroom. I find out which class I will go into tomorrow morning, and have till the 17th to change class if needed.

Roadtest

With a bit of time I have left, I've been perusing some discussions relating to living in China and learning mandarin forums. Quite a good forum is Chinese-forums. There's plenty of information there and people can ask questions and get lots of tips on a variety of topics. eg. people's experiences at various language schools, how to find accommodation, discussion on the actual mandarin language itself, etc.

It is on this forum that I found links to various online Chinese Study Tools, which I find very useful. In particular I have roadtested a couple of very cool Chinese-English dictionaries where you can also hear how the word should be pronounced, as well as how to write words. With this there is also a function to translate English names to Chinese names, and even put the names on a chinese painting and print it out - a lot of fun!

There is also a Pinyin Practice site which is very useful for beginners.

Definitely check out the above sites if you are interested in learning mandarin.

Vaccination

Ok, 10 days to go! I left it a bit late - should have done it a couple of weeks ago...actually, I should have done it before leaving Australia! Anyway, I decided to go get my vaccination for Hepatitis A. The doctor also suggested Typhoid vaccine...so I had that as well. 2 needles! Ouch! ...actually it wasn't too bad. The nurse was very skillful and didn't hurt at all...until now...the left arm is aching from the typhoid vaccine. : ( ...so I'm now covered...almost...my uncle, who is a doctor in Singapore, also suggested the Japanese Encephalitis vaccine. After reading more into it though, I've left it a bit late as 3 injections are required. I think the risk is a lot higher in rural areas. Japanese Encaphalitis is transmitted via mosquitos from infected pigs and wild birds. I guess the risk would be higher here in Chiang Mai than Beijing. Still, I'd better be careful with mosquitoes since they also transmit malaria and dengue fever (quite prevalent in Thailand).

Travel health information are available here if anyone is interested.
http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/destinationChina.aspx
http://www.mdtravelhealth.com/destinations/asia/china.html
They are quite detailed. I think it's worth being prepared than to have problems later.

Since I am a pharmacist, I can't help but prepare my "medicine kit"! I know I can probably get most things, especially basic stuff, in China...but I think when you are sick, the last thing you want to do is run around looking for a pharmacy and explaining to the pharmacist what you want, particularly if your language skill isn't that good!

..so this is what I'm taking (so far!):
Paracetamol
Stomach stuff - antacids
Insect repellent
Antihistamines - in case of allergy
Actifed - for colds
An antibiotic
Vitamin C
Imodium
Multivitamin

Should be enough! : )

Beijing, here I come!

Hi everyone! I've started this blog to document my upcoming experience in Beijing. I'll be going there to study mandarin for 12 weeks from September-December 07. I chose to go to Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) basically because it seems like a good place to start. Lots of foreign students and it's also a college teaching would-be Chinese Language teachers. Most of the universities (apparently) use BLCU text books.

Originally, I was planning to start off with the 12 weeks intensive course, and see how I go, possibly changing to a different university later on. Also not too keen to be in Beijing for winter! After my visit earlier this year, I'm not sure if I would want to stay in Beijing after this 12 week stint - basically because of all the smog! Not sure if I can handle all the pollution! Anyway, I will see how I go...probably will get better as the Olympic approaches.

As for preparation, I have been studying BLCU's book, "A Study Tour for Learners of Chinese" by Dr Andrew Lynn. A very useful book. I've leant to say, amongst other things, "Yao liang ping pijiu" - "I want two bottles of beers", "Wo yao xilanhua" -"I want broccoli"...he he! I can see myself eating a lot of broccoli in China! The book also teaches lots of useful expressions for various situations eg. how to bargain, "Da zhe ma?" - "Can I have a discount", and "Tai gui le!"- "Too expensive!", also when catching a taxi, "Qing ni bu yao tai kuai, wo haipa." - "Please don't go too fast, I'm scared" - if you've been to Beijing (or may be China in general?) you'll understand why this is such an important expression!

So, Beijing, here I come! It should be a great experience, and please feel free to leave any comments and questions in the comment section...and hopefully this blog will work when I'm in China since apparently blogger is blocked there!!!! I think I will be able to update it but might have difficulty viewing it from China. Anyway, see how I go!