Been a while since my last post! The last few weeks have been really good in terms of learning and progressing in my Chinese (at least I think). Whilst I'm not fluent by any means, I can semi understand what people are saying if they aren't speaking too fast and my vocabulary, grammar and sentence construction has improved to the point. I think the thing which sorta motivates me is that many of my 'zhongguoren' friends are telling my Chinese is 'tigao' (improving).
It's getting to a semi practical level. I can order food at a restaurant, read some chinese menus, go to a post office and send a package to Australia, talk to and direct taxi drivers, negotiate and bargain at markets, etc. Although anything that's a bit deeper and more meaningful is a much bigger challenge.
Just been preparing to leave Beijing and go to Shanghai (this Sunday). Should be a fun time and hopefully will be able to make the most of the rest of the time I have left overseas. The plan at the moment is to go to Suzhou and Hangzhao, as well as stay a few days to check out the humongous metropolis that is Shanghai.
Finally went to BICF (Beijing International Christian Fellowship - church in other words) the other day and it was awesome to be able to go after 7 weeks of no church or fellowship. Met some cool people and had lunch with a few huarens (foreign chinese) who are working in Beijing. Was interesting and I guess a litle encouraging to hear their stories and perspectives about working in Beijing. I think they managed to plant little seeds in my head which might grow enough to convince me to look for a few years of work in Beijing.
Also finally starting to adapt to the cold weather, it's all good now!
Belated Happy Australia Day yo!
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Monday, January 15, 2007
Harbin!
I survived Harbin! Woooooooooooot!
Actually it wasn't that bad but it was a trip where I was a little bit worried. This was because of the forecasted -25 - 35 degree temperatures that it gets to around this time of the year.
However, on the weekend when I went to Harbin, the temperature was above average and only reached -15 to -20 degrees so I didn't totally freeze my butt off! Having said that it was still incredibly cold and can safely say I've never experienced that type of weather.
Harbin itself was great. The city has alot of Russian architecture (being so close to Russia) and also it used to be a Russian city before China got back control of it. At night the city lights up and looks incredible. But the main attraction (and the reason to go at this time of the year) was the various ice festivals going on. We managed to look at three different parks which had ice festivals going on. The amount of work needed to create these sculptures is amazing. Some of them are so big and some of the smaller ones are so intricate. Too bad I haven't found a way to put my photos up on the net, otherwise I'd show you guys, but I definitely took stacks of photos (at the expense of my right hand) to relive the visual memories. Will put them up once back home in Oz.
So now I am into my 6th week at China. After this week I have 2 more weeks left learning Chinese then I'll be off to Shanghai. I think 8 weeks was just about right in terms of duration of stay in Beijing. At the end of 8 weeks I'll be ready to leave Beijing but also will have learnt enough to satisfy me. The Chinese is definitely improving and I can see the progress every week.
Looking forward to going back to Oz and talking in Chinese to everyone (admittedly Chinese with bad pronounciation and no tones).
Interesting statistic :
Number of jiaozi's (dumplings) eaten from Saturday to Monday - 50 (damn I love jiaozi).
Zai Jian!
Kris
Actually it wasn't that bad but it was a trip where I was a little bit worried. This was because of the forecasted -25 - 35 degree temperatures that it gets to around this time of the year.
However, on the weekend when I went to Harbin, the temperature was above average and only reached -15 to -20 degrees so I didn't totally freeze my butt off! Having said that it was still incredibly cold and can safely say I've never experienced that type of weather.
Harbin itself was great. The city has alot of Russian architecture (being so close to Russia) and also it used to be a Russian city before China got back control of it. At night the city lights up and looks incredible. But the main attraction (and the reason to go at this time of the year) was the various ice festivals going on. We managed to look at three different parks which had ice festivals going on. The amount of work needed to create these sculptures is amazing. Some of them are so big and some of the smaller ones are so intricate. Too bad I haven't found a way to put my photos up on the net, otherwise I'd show you guys, but I definitely took stacks of photos (at the expense of my right hand) to relive the visual memories. Will put them up once back home in Oz.
So now I am into my 6th week at China. After this week I have 2 more weeks left learning Chinese then I'll be off to Shanghai. I think 8 weeks was just about right in terms of duration of stay in Beijing. At the end of 8 weeks I'll be ready to leave Beijing but also will have learnt enough to satisfy me. The Chinese is definitely improving and I can see the progress every week.
Looking forward to going back to Oz and talking in Chinese to everyone (admittedly Chinese with bad pronounciation and no tones).
Interesting statistic :
Number of jiaozi's (dumplings) eaten from Saturday to Monday - 50 (damn I love jiaozi).
Zai Jian!
Kris
Monday, January 8, 2007
Back to full speed...I think
More than 1 post in 1 week...what's going on!
Since my last post, my so called cold has deteriorated into a flu/virus/stomach bug. So the last weekend felt like a pretty crappy one (at least since i got to China). I basically slept all Friday night, Saturday, Sunday and today.
Friday was the last day for many students in the school, and most of the good friends I had made were leaving Beijing on the Saturday morning. So the timing of the sickness sucked because I couldn't hang out with the guys for one last night. Rafael, Judy and Mandi went out to various bars, nightspots on their last night, but I had to farewell them in my PJ's from my apartment. I managed to squeeze in a quick drink with Edmund & Rick before they went to Shanghai and that was only because it was at John's apartment (2 floors above mine).
Saturday I visited Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) with Ashley (fellow Sydneysider) and Maggie (local from Suzhou). When talking with Maggie I realise how much my CHinese sucks...hahaha. But it makes me want to improve so much more. The weather was cold, but the wind chill....ahhhhhhh...it got me again. It was blasting away at us, and taking photos was painful (because it required removing our gloves, thus causing frozen hands). Nevertheless, Tiantan was remarkable and probably the best sight I've seen in Beijing (Great Wall not counted). Afterwards, I felt like crap and by the time I got home I collapsed into bed and slept for like 15 hours straight.
So I missed out visiting BICF (Beijing Inter Church Fellowship) again, but my symptoms were slightly improved. I guess on a diet of plain bread and bananas (on doctors orders) you can't go wrong. I still had a major case of the 'jolly johns' so by today I decided it was time to hit the international clinic. After getting the medication I decided to sit out school today so I can go back with good health tomorrow.
But despite this short illness, I think it's been a good thing for me. With all the time I've nearly finished off the 1st book I planned to read whilst I was here ('Courageous Leadership' by Bill Hybels). I've also had alot of time just to think and for some reason my mind kept shifting to the Annual Youth Conference to be held in Sydney at the end of 2006. Yes, alot of anxious thoughts but also alot of excitement.
Random Observations
Women here spit too! Might sound like a dumb and obvious thing, but I thought women wouldn't do it so openly. I'm walking behind two student looking young women and they accumulate their spit with the oh so familiar 'CROOOOOOOOOOOIIK' and hurl it sideways...dayum! Then like 2 minutes later I'm about to get into a lift when a lady just hurls a big ass spit ball like 2 feet away from me. Then there are also guys who are experts at hurling big ass snotballs through one nose more than one metre distance. As impressive as it is disgusting!
They should add these new sports just for the Beijing olympics!
Man, I'm fully craving for a meat pie! Or a big steak! Or a BBQ chicken! But most of all some of mum's home cooked food (like Chinese food minus MSG, excess salt, etc).
Oh yeah, watch out for Mongolian girls if you ever come to China. It helps if you're not bai ren (white person) but it doesn't make you immune.
Ciao!
Since my last post, my so called cold has deteriorated into a flu/virus/stomach bug. So the last weekend felt like a pretty crappy one (at least since i got to China). I basically slept all Friday night, Saturday, Sunday and today.
Friday was the last day for many students in the school, and most of the good friends I had made were leaving Beijing on the Saturday morning. So the timing of the sickness sucked because I couldn't hang out with the guys for one last night. Rafael, Judy and Mandi went out to various bars, nightspots on their last night, but I had to farewell them in my PJ's from my apartment. I managed to squeeze in a quick drink with Edmund & Rick before they went to Shanghai and that was only because it was at John's apartment (2 floors above mine).
Saturday I visited Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) with Ashley (fellow Sydneysider) and Maggie (local from Suzhou). When talking with Maggie I realise how much my CHinese sucks...hahaha. But it makes me want to improve so much more. The weather was cold, but the wind chill....ahhhhhhh...it got me again. It was blasting away at us, and taking photos was painful (because it required removing our gloves, thus causing frozen hands). Nevertheless, Tiantan was remarkable and probably the best sight I've seen in Beijing (Great Wall not counted). Afterwards, I felt like crap and by the time I got home I collapsed into bed and slept for like 15 hours straight.
So I missed out visiting BICF (Beijing Inter Church Fellowship) again, but my symptoms were slightly improved. I guess on a diet of plain bread and bananas (on doctors orders) you can't go wrong. I still had a major case of the 'jolly johns' so by today I decided it was time to hit the international clinic. After getting the medication I decided to sit out school today so I can go back with good health tomorrow.
But despite this short illness, I think it's been a good thing for me. With all the time I've nearly finished off the 1st book I planned to read whilst I was here ('Courageous Leadership' by Bill Hybels). I've also had alot of time just to think and for some reason my mind kept shifting to the Annual Youth Conference to be held in Sydney at the end of 2006. Yes, alot of anxious thoughts but also alot of excitement.
Random Observations
Women here spit too! Might sound like a dumb and obvious thing, but I thought women wouldn't do it so openly. I'm walking behind two student looking young women and they accumulate their spit with the oh so familiar 'CROOOOOOOOOOOIIK' and hurl it sideways...dayum! Then like 2 minutes later I'm about to get into a lift when a lady just hurls a big ass spit ball like 2 feet away from me. Then there are also guys who are experts at hurling big ass snotballs through one nose more than one metre distance. As impressive as it is disgusting!
They should add these new sports just for the Beijing olympics!
Man, I'm fully craving for a meat pie! Or a big steak! Or a BBQ chicken! But most of all some of mum's home cooked food (like Chinese food minus MSG, excess salt, etc).
Oh yeah, watch out for Mongolian girls if you ever come to China. It helps if you're not bai ren (white person) but it doesn't make you immune.
Ciao!
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
New Year's!
It's been a while since my last post. Things have settled down a bit, not going out every night now. Nevertheless I am feeling quite burnt out and exhausted from doing so much and I guess a lack of sleep at times. So yesterday I think I started coming down with some flu/cold like symptoms. After a marathon sleep I feel alot better today.
So what's been happening? Well, NYE isn't that big of a deal here, because the Chinese people have Chinese NY. I went to Tian'anmen square and there were stacks of laowai's (foreigners) there doing countdowns. It was pretty funny because there were about 6 seperate countdowns (there was no official timer so everyone went by their watches). We were supposed to hit a club after that but it took us around 40 minutes to find a taxi. When we finally caught one we felt tired and couldn't be bothered going to a club so just had a quiet one at home chatting and drinking with some mates.
I think my Chinese is definitely starting to improve now, I can see the progress. My ordering ability at restaurants is still very limited but is better than the 1st week when I was just pointing and not speaking one word. I can also talk to cab drivers and direct them if need be, although our conversations are pretty limited and usually about the same things.
Definitely missing everyone back in Australia, can't wait to see everyone when I get back. Will be going to BICF this Sunday hopefully (Beijing Inter Church Fellowship) with a few friends from the language school. Was chatting to a mate from the methodist church in Perth about stuff after NYE and was just encouraging I guess and it felt like God was giving me a kick up the butt for slacking off whilst in Beijing.
Zai Jian!
So what's been happening? Well, NYE isn't that big of a deal here, because the Chinese people have Chinese NY. I went to Tian'anmen square and there were stacks of laowai's (foreigners) there doing countdowns. It was pretty funny because there were about 6 seperate countdowns (there was no official timer so everyone went by their watches). We were supposed to hit a club after that but it took us around 40 minutes to find a taxi. When we finally caught one we felt tired and couldn't be bothered going to a club so just had a quiet one at home chatting and drinking with some mates.
I think my Chinese is definitely starting to improve now, I can see the progress. My ordering ability at restaurants is still very limited but is better than the 1st week when I was just pointing and not speaking one word. I can also talk to cab drivers and direct them if need be, although our conversations are pretty limited and usually about the same things.
Definitely missing everyone back in Australia, can't wait to see everyone when I get back. Will be going to BICF this Sunday hopefully (Beijing Inter Church Fellowship) with a few friends from the language school. Was chatting to a mate from the methodist church in Perth about stuff after NYE and was just encouraging I guess and it felt like God was giving me a kick up the butt for slacking off whilst in Beijing.
Zai Jian!
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