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.