The End (Take Two)

Today is my last day in China this time. I have no idea how four weeks have managed to go by so fast. I have, like always, had an amazing time in China. There are a lot of things I look forward to coming home to, but I also realise that Sweden is nowhere near as interesting as China.

Nobody parks their scooter in restaurants back home.

No Swedish buses have Playboy seat covers (I hope). 

In Sweden you never see couples wearing matching T-shirts. 

And nobody drives around in a Hello Kitty car. 

Hangzhou Trip

The main event this weekend was a trip to Hangzhou, a city located about 200 kilometres south-west of Shanghai. Hangzhou is famous for it's beautiful scenery, especially by the West Lake. The city itself is just a typical Chinese city, but the environment surrounding the West Lake is absolutely amazing.

The train from Shanghai to Hangzhou takes only 55 minutes. It's all super modern, just like the huge train stations with boarding gates just like in airports.

Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station

As you can see, there's a reason why Hanzhou is famous for it's beautiful scenery. 

Hangzhou is also very famous for the Longjing tea that is produced nearby. It is pretty expensive, but apparently a must when you are in Hangzhou, so therefore we visited a traditional Chinese tea house, rebuilt in 1985 as an exact copy of the previous tea house built there in 934 AD.

Weekend Adventure

Yesterday I went to the Hongkou district with some Norwegians to visit a park and a genuine Chinese market street. The weather was (unfortunately) lovely, which meant 36°C and sunny. There were not many people in the park, except for a large group of elderly playing mahjong and Chinese chess. 

The market street was narrow, crowded and stinky. It was packed with vendors selling everything from sheets to eel. We were the only foreigners there, all with a very Scandinavian appearance, which made the Chinese look even more at us.

I ended up only buying some fruit, but I helped the Norwegians bargain for some sheets and cleaning utilities. It was an interesting day that made us all extremely tired. However, I like making these types of excursions to non-typical tourist attractions, because it gets me closer to the "real" China. 

 

 

River Cruise

For the first time since I got to China I have had some trouble accessing the internet. Therefore, I am a little late with my update.

Two days ago the university arranged for the summer course students to go on a river cruise on Huangpujiang, the river that divides Shanghai into Pudong and Puxi. A lot of students were going, and I went with my two Japanese room mates.

It was a beautiful scenery. Pudong, the finance district, with all its buildings were lit up beautifully. On the other shore the colonial western style buildings were also illuminated.  Below you can see some of it, as good as my camera could caption it in the dark.

Beside my room mates, I also met up with some other friends from school, among them a huge group of Norwegians!

Maki, Japan, and Adrian, Norway

Pudong by night

Valeria, Italy, and Michelle, USA

Valeria and I

Oriental Pearl Tower

Room mates, Norwegians and I

Espen, Norway, 197 cm next to mini Chinese guy

Frank, USA and Espen, Norway

Friday thoughts

Firstly, I am posting a picture of the Fudan University main building as promised.

Pretty impressive, huh?

Secondly, I'm going to list two things about China that I find strange. The first think is that every time you walk into a store (the larger kind), there is a person helping you find the thing that you want to buy. That person then writes you a note that you take to the cashier to pay for the item. You thereafter have to go back to the first salesperson to collect the item, after showing the receipt to prove that you've paid. Isn't that strange?

The second thing I find strange is Coke float. I know this is something that is originally American, but the Chinese are crazy about it! For those of you who don't know what  Coke float is, I can tell you that it's basically a Coke with a scoop of ice cream in it. You can order it almost everywhere here, and they have so many different types, I've even seen a green tea float!

Now I have to go and put make-up on, I am going out with a bunch of other students to discover the Shanghai nightlife. Again!

Cancelled class

Late last night I received a text from the school saying that classes were cancelled today because of the typhoon. I have never experienced a typhoon before, and when I got the text I realised that it actually was kind of serious! So I slept in this morning, for the first time since I got to China. I have woken up before 7am every day, didn't even get chance to sleep the jet lag off. Right now the wind is so strong the trees are bending, there is a wall of rain blowing from west to east and you can hear the wind really loudly outside the window. I don't know how long this will last, but I'm sitting here in my room eating, studying and watching Glee. My food supply consist of instant noodles, cereal with milk, dried pineapple and peanuts.

Hopefully this will be over soon so that classes can be held like normal tomorrow. However, if I know the Chinese right, they will just make up for the missed classes by having them during the weekend instead. I will let you know.

Webcam and Typhoon

Second update from today: I just got home from Suning, an electronics store I went to to buy a webcam (my computer refuses to let me use the built-in one). I cannot describe how huge it is. Four floors with tons of products. Here are some pictures:

Also, this was put up outside the elevator when I got back home:

I guess I'm staying in tonight...

Study study study

The day after the registration all new students took a placement test. In Beijing, the test consisted of one listening comprehension test and one reading and writing test. Depending on your test score you were divided into a group that suited your Chinese level. At Fudan University however, the test was individual, one-on-one with a teacher. There are ten different levels at the school, and there were tests in ten classrooms, one test for each level. They just told you to take the test for the level you think suited you best. How do you measure your own Chinese skills on a scale one to ten?

 I first tried level 5, which seemed like a safe number somewhere in the middle. The teacher told me I could be in level five, but if I wanted to I could do the test for the 6th level as well. When I had lined up a second time to do the test, the teacher conducting that test told me that level 6 was "way to easy" for me. "Go to room seven." "Now?" "NOW!!"

After a third test I ended up in level seven. "Way to easy" might have been a little bit exaggerated... I have now had my first two days of class, and I have decided to stick with this level, although I yesterday was debating going down a level.  Every day we do one chapter with 50 characters to learn. Many of them are new to me, maybe 80 % , which means that every day I have 40 new words to learn. If my goal had been to get a great score on the final test, it might have been smarter to step down a level, but now I'm focusing on learning as much as possible during the short period of time I'm here. I have a lot to study, but now I have reached a level where I learn "cool" and useful words that enrich my vocabulary, so it's quite fun and motivating to study. I'm no longer only learning the names of colours and fruit (maybe I should though, just realised I don't know what pink or grapes are called any more...).

Speaking of fruit, today I found a great fruit store close to where I live. Now my mum doesn't have to worry so much about me not eating any fruit in China!

I'm back!

Yesterday I landed at Pudong International Airport, Shanghai, 2 hours later than expected. I had only 4 hours until registration at the university closed, and if you read about the registration process I had in Beijing 2010, you will understand that I felt a bit stressed.

The travel itself went smoothly, I sat next to a friendly Chinese man on the plane and that way I revived my oral Chinese just in time before arriving in China. In the airport a lady asked me if I needed a taxi, and I said yes. She said that it would take about 50 minutes to Fudan University, where I now study, which seemed reasonable. 300 kuai, she said. I just laughed and replied in Chinese "Are you kidding me?" and walked away. I'm not an easily fooled foreigner anymore!!

5 minutes later I wished I had taken the 300 kuai-cab. The legit taxi only cost me 180 yuan, but only a couple of minutes in to the ride the taxi driver told me how beautiful I was and how he wanted us to "hang out" sometime. When I said that probably wasn't a good idea, he tried to convince me that it was by telling me he had studied massage therapy. For 50 minutes I nicely tried to decline his proposals. But I got to the university. Sucess!

The registration was to take place at the Guanghua Towers, which are hard to miss. It's the massive main building of the university with two towers (photo will be uploaded shortly). The only problem was that I was carrying a 20 kg suitcase with me and to reach the entrance there were about 10 steps. Oh, and there were also about 10 different entrances to the building. On my third try I found the right one. At that point I had pulled my suitcase up and down 50 steps. In 33°C. 


When I finally found the registration place it all proceeded very smoothly. After registration a shuttle bus took me to the dorm where I'm staying. I had reserved a single room with private bathroom. Private bathroom apparently means that we're only 3 girls sharing. But that's fine, compared to what I was used to in Beijing. When I arrived all sweaty I decided to take a shower. Then I found out the shared private bathroom didn't have a lock. Oh China.

This is what my room looks like:

 

The End Is Near

I have been so busy the last couple of weeks and my vpn has decided to stop working. I have studied like crazy for the past two weeks and today I had my last exam at Beijing Language University. I have had two oral tests, one listening comprehension, grammar test, reading comprehension and essay writing. I am finally done.

It feels strange that the year is almost over, the time has passed extremely fast. What awaits now is a trip to Hainan, an island in southern China, a popular Chinese holiday resort. It's to China what Hawaii is to America. Robin and I are going together and will meet up with some friends down there. I'm looking forward to the trip very much, after the past few weeks' intense studying I feel like I deserve a week on the beach.

We are coming back on the 7th of July, the following day is our "graduation ceremony" where we will be handed our marks and a certificate. On the 9th I will celebrate my birthday and then I have three more days to enjoy China before I go back to Sweden on the 13th.

I will now enjoy a week's vacation and will write something on the blog when I get back to Beijing!

The Culture Week Performance

I have had some trouble accessing blogger.com, but now I'm finally here to tell about the culture week performance! Among the 12 programs in the show I was the opening one. My song "I Love You China" was supposed to set the theme; students performing Chinese cultural programs. I am very happy with my performance, it went well and the audience seemed pleased. I was wearing my new red qipao, and I had two background dancers from Georgia, two girls I know from class and my old dorm.

The other programs were performed by students from all over the world. There were singing, dancing, skits, Chinese traditional instruments etc. What was interesting was a skit about the Beijing Olympics 2008 that the Chinese loved. I wonder how long China will praise that event, we are reminded about it every day; commercial on television, logos all over the city and now as a play in school.

After all the performances we were called up to the stage. The headmaster and officials from the school management handed out certificates to some performers. My name was called last, and I received the "最高艺术奖", the "highest skill award", or as google translate would put it; "top art prize". It is a beautiful certificate, a silk-covered red book with the certificate on the inside describing the award. I am very honoured, this is a wonderful item to bring back home as a memory of my participation.

Now it is back to studying, next Friday is the last day of class and then the exams start. These are the final exams here in China, so I really want to perform well. On the 8th of July there will be some sort of "graduation" ceremony where we will receive our results and certificates.

The Culture Week has begun

Yesterday was the first day of the culture week and the opening show was a program of traditional Chinese performances. It was Beijing opera, acrobatics etc., and it was, as always, amazing to watch. I was nervous throughout the whole show, maybe the the guy who did a handstand on top of five chairs might fall or maybe the girl who balanced a giant urn with a man inside on her feet might collapse from the weight.

The pictures from my mobile camera are not that great but you will at least get a feeling of the performance. It was a great opening ceremony and I'm looking forward to the rest of the week!

Qipao Hunting

Suddenly it's all about the Culture Week performance and all the teachers are very enthusiastic. They asked me what I was planning on wearing, and I said that it was up to them to decide what was appropriate. Half of them thought a long dress would look nice, while the other half considered a qipao to be the only appropriate outfit for that song.

A qipao is the traditional Chinese dress that women wear at special occasions. I already have two back home, one that I purchased for my participation in the Chinese Bridge competition in 2009, and one I got in February this year when I sang the same song (I Love You China) at a Chinese Spring Festival celebration in Stockholm. None of them are really fitting or well-cut so I didn't bother to bring them with me to China. I have been planning on tailor making one here instead. The problem is that I haven't found any reasonable tailor, they are all extremely "touristy", the fabrics are of no good quality and the prices are ridiculous.

        Qipao

Anyway, today after trying on 57 different dresses (all extremely hideous) the teachers agreed that a qipao would look much better. It is only about a week until the performance and I told the teachers that I need to tailor make one if it should be worth buying one. "Okay, go to the tailor at campus" they said. I tried to inform them that I already had and that the tailor wanted 650 yuan (ca 650 SEK ca 100 USD) and I was not willing to pay that much for the fabrics he had. "No, you have to go to Mr. Lu at the West gate!" the teachers replied. I was very sceptic. However, I did as the teachers said and started walking to the opposite end of campus. There is only a fruit store there and then the gate, so I thought I would have seen it before. But behind the fruit store in a little room without windows sat Mr. Lu among half-finished garments, fabrics and sewing cotton.

Ten minutes after I entered the store Mr. Lu had taken my measurements, I had picked a fabric and told him what type of qipao I wanted. I could see a few samples of his work and the qipao:s were beautiful. Outside the door he had hung pictures of previous customers in their tailored garments, the pictures on the top were in black and white, which indicates that he has probably had his shop for many many years. The price came to 380 yuan, which seemed much more reasonable. I paid half of it and will return on Friday to try the dress. Within three days Mr. Lu finishes any garment ordered. I love you, China.

文化周 - Culture Week

The first week in June our school hosts a "Culture Week", a week where both Chinese and foreign students and some other Chinese performers show, perform and experience Chinese culture. There will be performances, exhibitions etc. My participation in the Culture Week is singing in the final show.

Every class had to present one performance of some sort for the Culture Week. Last Thursday the teachers held an audition for all the performances and chose twelve for the final show. My performance was one of them. I am going to sing "我爱你中国", "I Love You China", a famous Chinese folk song.  Today was the first rehearsal in the university auditorium where the final show is held. I am the first performance in the program and I hope I will make a good start!

The Auditorium

Debate and Mid-terms

Yesterday in class we were all fully prepared for our first debate. Our Laoshi had told us the structure, there were two groups debating and one observing. Every group chose a leader who started every argument topic. I was elected leader of the observation/commenting team, and that apparently made me the debate leader. I had to start the debate, control the time and comment on the arguments. It is a pretty cool feeling to lead a debate in Chinese when you see the teams divided in the room arguing and opposing. I learned a lot of new words thanks to this hour-long debate and it definitely improved my talking skills speaking in front of a large group.

Also I realized I haven't written anything about my mid-term exams. This time I had four of them, and I got over 92% on all of them. Best was the listening comprehension result, believe it or not, with 97/100. I'm very happy with that and can only hope that I will perform that good on my finals in June as well.

Xi'an

好久不见！

A couple of weeks ago Robin and I visited Xi'an, the city where the famous Terracotta Army is located. It is a very old city with more than 3000 years of history. Before the Ming dynasty the city was called Chang'an (the long peace) and was previously one of China's capital cities.

The biggest tourist attraction in Xi'an is obviously the terracotta army, which is located about one hour from the city. We took a bus straight from the train station to the terracotta army for 7 yuan = 7 kr = 1 dollar. It is an amazing experience to stand before the massive figures facing you. Today the figures have a brown/grey colour, but 2000 years ago they were all painted in bright colours. We were told some of the warriors still had fragments of paint on them, but we never got to see that. It is impossible to describe the layouts of the pits (there are three of them), so just scroll down and look at the pictures!

Terracotta Amry Pit 1

Close-up of "The Kneeling Archer"

 Besides visiting the terracotta army, we also watched a famous fountain show and biked around the whole city on the city wall, which was build in the 14th century. At 8 am we rented two bikes and started biking, and about two hours later we had completed the tour.

Me on the City Wall

Chinese people

Chinese people are interesting. They are outstanding at everything that has to do with their own culture, for example if you start humming a Chinese folk song every Chinese person present starts to sing with you, no matter what song it is, because they know all of them.

The Beijing I live in is very two-sided. Sometimes I walk around in hutongs (small narrow alleys) and chat with real Beijingers and eat street food, and sometimes I eat pizza with my Western friends at the pizza place in Wudaokou, the centre close to our school. Beijing is becoming a modern multi-million city with skyscrapers, international business and luxury stores. However, the common Beijing workers still live in their hutongs, drive their flatbed mopeds and shop at the outdoor markets, and that's the way they want to keep it.

Still, the young generation has more and more access to Western culture with music, tv, internet etc. New Western restaurants are frequently opened and especially around Wudaokou where several universities are located. Last Sunday Robin and I decided to indulge ourselves breakfast at an American restaurant. Usually my breakfast consists of cereal or jian bing, an egg pancake with spices that street vendors cook on the back of their bikes.  Anyway, at the restaurant there were several Chinese couples ordering food, and they ordered omelettes, steak, pasta and they shared all the dishes. The Chinese way of eating is to order several smaller dishes to share, and so the Chinese eat Western food that way too. If you would see it, you would realize how strange it looks when a couple split a steak with mashed potatoes, a seafood pasta and a ham and cheese omelette, and all they use is one fork each.

Chinese people at the gym are also an interesting sight. The majority are not wearing sport shoes, and the treadmill is only used for walking. When you think about Chinese sports and training you think about Kung fu, Tai chi (Taiji) and Qigong. It is common to see Chinese people training in parks, they do different types of simple exercises. At many places there are small outdoor gyms, with some tools and easy machines that the Chinese earnestly use. At the school gym however, I sometimes wonder how much physical training they really get. Every time I'm there I see some guy using the machines completely wrong, definitely without effect.

Most Western articles are still quite new in China, but the more the Chinese are exposed to it the more they learn, especially from contact with Westerners. However, this makes me quite sad. Of course I want China to be open to the outer world and for us to be able to get to know Chinese people, but I'm afraid that it might be too much Western. I'm here to learn about China and the Chinese culture, not for China to become what I have back home. Globalisation makes it easier for us to explore other countries, but it also makes us all more the same. I want China to preserve their own culture and old ways of cooking food, play music and live in hutongs. That is what is so unique about China; the amazing ancient culture.

Spring, where art thou?

A note in the elevator told me that from the 15th of March, the central heating will be turned off. This means that there is no heating in the apartment and I'm waking up ice cold every morning. I'm just waiting for the weather to become warmer, it is nice during the day, around 10-15 °C, but night time the temperature is sometimes below zero.

One thing that I'm not particularly looking forward to are the sandstorms that occur in Beijing during springtime. During a couple of weeks, usually in April, there are masses of sand swirling around in the city. It will be the first time I use the famous mask you've probably seen Asian people wear.

Ps. My mask is not from Hello Kitty

Apart from going to school I'm not doing very much, the days are pretty much the same. Last Friday though, I celebrated my first St. Patrick's Day. The party was at a friend's apartment, we were all dressed in green and there was a fun mix of people at the party, we mixed all languages and had a lot of fun!

Dear China

Today my mother went back to Sweden after spending a week in China. Our Shanghai trip was great, we stayed at a nice hotel and experienced a lot, Nanjing Lu (shopping street), Yu yuan garden (temple/park), dinner at the 45th floor spinning restaurant, jazz band at Peace Hotel with 70-year old men who had played together for decades. Below are some interesting pictures from China in general, starting with the old jazz band.

Spring cleaning - time to get rid of all the bikes

A woman washing her hair in the back of the restaurant. Nothing strange at all.