Vibes

This is the promised post about going out and meeting people in Dalian. I've come up the brilliant idea of posting a series of videos and pictures 'detailing' nights out, so you can be wildly entertained by our gallivanting - be warned, we get progressively more.....intoxicated.


Just to explain, the title of this post - Vibes - is kind of a private joke between us flatmates. If your a person of normal intelligence, it's probably not a riddle as to what it's in reference to, I won't spell it out as I've been requested to use my discretion...







So you can put names to faces I'll just give you a quick run down of the most important people who appear in these photos. 
There's me [obviously] the only non-white-or-asian to appear in any photo I believe. There's also Holly and Serrena - Holly being the tiny white girl with short hair and Serrena the petite asian with massive hair. The two Chinese ladies who apparently high-jacked my camera at some point are our Chinese 姐姐 [jiějie, elder sister(s)] Connie [short hair] and Vivian [long, brown hair]. Connie's husband Jimmy [or he could be Jamie...we're never quite sure] also pops up every now and again - he's more Connie's bodyguard and chaparone and they run a French Café together.

Hopscotch's DJ and mine and Serrena's adopted 哥哥 [gēge, older brother] JiaoZi is floating around in some of the pictures and even in some of the videos when he can escape from the pressures of putting on a 3 hour playlist and bringing us free shots - the reason why he's not Holly's gege will be explained later on of course, I would never leave you hanging.

The foreign looking guy [you have to admit, he does look foreign] is Alex - he's from Belarus and features more heavily later on in the story.
Finally there are our two American 朋友 [péngyou, friend(s)] Eric [bald, head and shoulders taller than pretty much everyone] and Warren [almost as tall as Eric, but actually has hair and is quite good-looking].


Most of these pictures are taken at a bar called Hopscotch which is pretty much one of four decent places to go in Dalian. The only 'club' club for westerners is a place called JD's which is really not worth the packed bar, lecherous 30-something-year-olds and really, really bad music. Like really bad - I do not have good taste in music but even I can recognize. There are a few other places that are quite enjoyable such as Joe's, Transformer's and Hertz Bar, but the clubbing scene is pretty 马马虎虎[mamahuhu, so-so - literally the most common phrased bandied about] to be honest.




Also I have something to tell you...I'm not gonna lie to you guys - we've started living for the weekends. With 8 o'clock starts everyday and nothing to do in the evening except work, eat and go to bed at 10:30, its all we can do to remember that there is a meaning to life, somewhere. I mean, Serrena does keep me going with such gems as "What would you do if you found out the guy you were sleeping with only has one leg/ a glass eye" and "What would you do if you found out your friend was a prostitute" - but still, livin' ain't easy.


It's a small scene in Dalian, but really enjoyable with the right people. A typical Saturday [so far] has been a mix of going to someone's house, drinking a horrendous amount, going to Hopscotch, drinking even more and then going to Asian Karaoke [KTV], probably with a stop off for McDonalds somewhere along the way. Just so you know, as if you couldn't have guessed, I love KTV - I think it's a magical invention and whoever did invent it made it with me in mind. Surprisingly, noone else is as big a fan as I am - maybe they're just not as cool as me.

Oh yeah - We had our house warming as well! I almost forgot [although this is early on in the story for you guys, I actually added this bit after I had posted] - Pictures below. We managed to bring in a huge crowd, including an impressive number of Koreans [breaking the Koreans is considered an achievement - they move as a pack].


OH and there's bumper cars at the beach [about 3 minutes away from hopscotch] - so basically we become so inebriated that we believe driving into each other at top speed in 'bumper' cars that wouldn't pass a health and safety at the dodgiest fun-fare in Yorkshire is a good idea. Needless to say you feel it on a Sunday morning, and Mondays usually consist of showing off your bruises to those also in pain. Alex neglected to tell me till after I had gone on them for the first time that one time after a session he wasn't able to turn his head for a week. I told you driving in China was dangerous.




Ok, so to explain about Holly and JiaoZi. I know you've been waiting for it. It's not anything too exciting, but it gets amusing in places. So basically [I really need to stop starting sentences like that], Holly and Serrena had met this drumming society before I got to Dalian [African drumming, not Chinese] and had seen JiaoZi playing with them at Hopscotch. Seriously, Hopscotch is the focal point of our lives, so I might just have to shorten it to H - be prepared for that. Long story short, Holly cornered him later on, demanded his phone number along with other private information such as his relationship status. I was obviously informed of the situation before being taken to H for the first time. She had been texting him since this first meeting and was being... well, rather forward and obvious to put it bluntly.
"I don't think he's getting the vibes," she explained when I asked how it was going. She was soon to be proved wrong. I mean, when a guy brings you a Hello Kitty blanket when you mention that it's a bit chilly, there must be something going on right? One time I was sitting in between them and actually had to move because I was being crushed by the vibes. After a long period of 'not getting the vibes' JiaoZi invited Holly back to his place to 'watch a film'....except they really did only just watch a film, which was as disappointing as you could possibly imagine. But ever persistent, Holly eventually just sent him a text message that essentially said "你要不要?" [Directly - and accurately -translated as "Do you want or not?"]. It turns out he did 要 - and the rest is history ;).

Oh, this day was also christened Candle Day - as JiaoZi was sweet enough to bring around his own candle, which he then proceeded to light before...hand. It has been a great source of amusement for us ever since. I like jiaoZi - he's very sweet and extremely polite, sometimes when we wake up in the morning he's even cleaned our house for us! He also enjoys KTV - he's a keeper in my books.


Don't think I was gonna let Serrena get away with it either - she's done enough vibing for 50 people and the doughnut references need a shout out.  So basically, any guy who's...well, any guy really catches her eye. Don't get me wrong, she's not that kinda girl, she's just not very...focused. Well, she's likes boys is what I'm tryna say.

I think she's got some sort of focus now at any rate, which is good, and is also where Alex reappears in the story. She's taken a fancy to him [I think it's his deadpan Russianess] and it all started with a doughnut. Basically, she had already decided that he was attractive, but then he bought her doughnuts. Now, if you're looking for any advice on how to snag Serrena, all you need to know is that Food is the Way to her Heart. Note the capitalization. Then he brought her even more doughnuts, and now he's all she can bloody talk about.

"I caught Alex staring at me, but I don't know if he was just staring at my eyelashes." Is one such gem. She's also taken to learning Russian, or at least enough to impress him...or impress upon him what she wants depending on your interpretation of the situation. Despite warnings that she may be being too forward, especially for a guy as...traditional as Alex, she's persevering, which is very admirable in my opinion. "He knows what he wants" she insists - well, at least there's no mistaking what she wants. I'm a bit worried she's becoming obsessed actually - she's a pro fb stalker, to the extent that she knows when he was last online, and has suddenly developed an interest in becoming fitter. Well, each to their own


And me? Well, I don't really kiss and tell [not about myself anyway], so you're just gonna have to do with other people's gossip! Besides, too many members of my family read this for me to be casually giving out certain details of my...experiences.....
So if we're friends in real life, you can ask me about it [that is not a guarantee that I will tell you] and you can also see the pictures on facebook if it's not working for you here. I hope that's enough information for now, enough to warrant the fact that I haven't posted anything in over a week anyway! Bear in mind that I still don't have the internet on my own computer, and am planning on buying a smaller, functional model soon enough.

The first time you read this post it may not have all the photos/videos up - I just wanted to get something out there for you guys to be jealing over!


Comments & Questions xx *^_^*

Week 1

My first week of lessons is over and I am so f***ing tired it's unbelievable. My timetable looks something like 8 o'clock starts everyday, with lessons till 12 except on a Wednesday when I have lessons till 3. That essentially means waking up everyday at the non-time 6-something-o'clock and sleeping in between classes. There's something refreshing about being around so early in the morning, not to mention the fact that it's quite convenient having your entire afternoon free. But I can imagine winter mornings crammed onto a single-decker bus with all the people who live in Dalian is going to be less than appealing. I may have to walk to lessons instead.


I say lessons, because University here is very much like being back at school again. We have a timetable that tells you exactly what you're going to study in each class, detailing breaks during and in-between classes and list of the names of all your classmates. They're also very strict on attendance -each teacher gives you their phone number so you can call them in advance if you're not going to be able to make it to class, or if you get assaulted by a suspicious Chinese man on a night out. They warn you to be cautious - especially the western girls who like to go out drinking. Make sure you always know where your friends are! And the classrooms are just that - no wandering in late, hungover and sagging into a chair at the back of the class to not listen [if not nap] for 45 minutes. We all but have assigned seats, and the teacher keeps us on our toes by picking on people to read out the answer to their homework, or the texts in the book. Constant concentration is the key to survival.


It's definitely a work hard play hard situation, as Holly would say. Every class has homework, and the homework's usually due in for the next day. So that essentially means you move between your house and the university [and back again] 5 days a week. Lunch times are a nice break - they're almost 2 hours long, so it means a lot of time eating cheap Chinese dishes with your friends. I've made better friends with the people in Holly and Serrena's classes [中一 and 二 respectively ] than in my own class [初二]. And the weekends have become some sort of sacred time, where you must leave the house on a Friday night, or risk going insane - you can't study all the time after all.


But when you're not studying, you're probably doing some sort of revision. As I write this post Holly [on Saturday] is lying next to me doing a vocabulary review, and of course I can't help but over-hear. Putting characters in this post also counts as revision [in my book] and even when we go out with our English-speaking Chinese friends, we demand vocabulary from them. Everything is learning - which I suppose is the point in spending time in China in the first place.
But it's seriously tiring. It's nice to be able  to go home and escape China for a while - I would have hated to be in a home-stay or dorms. It doesn't help that we were all ill this week from our sh*t dribble...y shower.

The round-off to my first week back at school was my 换班考试 [the exam you take if you want to move classes]. I had somehow got it into my head that my class was too easy for me - in my defence we had spent three lessons studying grammar points that I had already studied in Edinburgh, not to mention I already knew half of the 'new' vocabulary we were learning. The start of the test was ok - my Edinburgh classmate Anitra, who took the test with me agrees - but it got hard to the point I didn't understand what the questions were about. I don't think I would have changed class - but only Monday will reveal all!

Serrena is upset that she hasn't had a shout out in this particular post, but I'm sure the next post about Vibes [the post I've been promising about meeting people in Dalian] will have more than enough information about how she spends her time.

Questions & Comments   :S        xxx

Getting to know 大连 Part 2 - 大学

大学 [dàxué - University] for reference. 

This post is mainly gonna be about the University registration process [which is long as, and will probably end up being another virtual rant], the new people I've been meeting, and some of the old ones from Edinburgh. I don't have any pictures, so you're gonna have to make do with descriptions or - for the more professional readers - facebook stalking my recently added friends. 

So the actual process of paying fees, registering and getting my books was a long and strenuous process, lasting about 2 weeks. Needless to say, besides the 4 photos requested, the university seemed to need an extra photo at every stage in the registration process, delaying it by several days. And though the tuition fees are £850 a term, they neglect to mention before I got to China that they would need an extra £50 for registration fees and another £30 for my books. Then they had to confiscate everyone's passport for about a week to change the Visa, which unhappily coincided with me needing to photocopy it to give to the people who had stolen my luggage [I now consider them thieves]. So this Friday had me running around photocopying, faxing and flat out demanding from Chinese people who don't know how to be anything but aggressive or off-hand, and don't understand you if you're neither.

Well at least the testing process was [relatively] painless. It consisted of two tests: a writing/reading/listening which I thought I did well in and a speaking test which I obviously did not do so well in. The reason I say this is because I was put in a class lower than had wanted, but it was to be expected really. Holly was put in one class above me and Serrena two. They were surprised that I wasn't in a higher class, but I wasn't. It was more of a reality check for me and besides they had been in China for a while, so it was probably obvious that they were going to do better than me.

But that aside, the people that we met during, before and after the tests ranged between interesting and the aptly named [by Serrena] 'wet fish'. So I'll make a sort of list. There was an over-keen American [or eager-beaver, Holly's label of choice], a couple of Russians [a 'nice' girl and a Pokemon-catcher], and some cute Japanese girls [and a boy]. Now, to explain the above children's cartoon reference. Basically, a Pokemon-catcher is someone who's fishing for Asians, male or female. The particular male mentioned above actually stole my seat without so much as a backward glance to talk to a cute Japanese girl called Yumi-chan whom I had been chatting with. The term has been bandied about ever since. I love it.

As for the Edinburgh 'crew', I was never really that close to them to begin with and so didn't really expect any of them to...'beg it' shall we say. Most of them don't, of course. When we first arrived we only knew each other [and then the american sort of latched on to an Edinburgh student with the same name-sake], so of course we hung out together, Holly being the most forward and friendly of our flat. However, a certain female who I shall not name here for security reasons has begun to... beg it slightly, a sort of continuation of her behavior in Edinburgh. Well, I don't shirk new friends often, but even I have to say there's a limit to soliciting friendship. 

And that's it really for now - just a quick update. Other news besides includes the fact that my stuff still hasn't arrived and I've found someone who knows how to enabled a blackberry in Dalian! But I'll save news on the small community of waiguo ren in Dalian for a later post

For the more pedantic of readers, the reason there's so many grammatical errors in my previous post [and probably this one as well]  is because I'm not using my own computer at the moment and writing mainly on a friend's iPad. So stop judging.

Comment & Questions                   ;)         xx

You're Studying Chinese? Why?!

A good question... A very good question, and one that I was sure I knew the answer to only two years ago. It's the same question everyone I meet asks me after finding out I'm at Uni.
"Oh, so where do you go? Edinburgh, that's good! So what do you study...?Chinese!! But...Why?"
Usually followed by any number of the following (and more besides): "Isn't that really hard? Doesn't it have like 3 alphabets? What made you do that?" Yes. No. I don't know. I used to know - or I used to think I did. Because I wanted to challenge myself - I'd always enjoyed languages (not French, I hate French. My mum's fluent and she never lets me live it down), because I was diligent at school, because it was different.
After my first year at uni, my reason changed to "Because I refuse to be defeated by this language!" and has now evolved into "Because I wish to master the Chinese language then use my knowledge to destroy China."


If you're currently half-heartedly considering doing Mandarin Chinese at University, I truly, from the bottom of my heart, suggest that you don't. Seriously. I'm not really used to giving out negative advice, but unless you're willing to work until your brain feels like it will fall out of your ears, or [if you're a crier] cry yourself to sleep because you just don't get it, then I suggest you don't even start.
On a less dire note, Chinese is hard. Really hard. Easily the hardest thing I've ever done and probably will ever do. Even those people who had lived in China with mummy and daddy for 8 years found second year Chinese really hard (the reading and writing at any rate). First year was a walk in the park so to speak - if you're focused and used to working almost constantly and enjoy doing work then you'll probably do really well; even those who relied on what little previous knowledge they had breezed through. You don't even have to be good at languages, anyone can do Chinese. But that's the thing - not EVERYONE can do Chinese. My best friend (very much used to breezing through languages whilst doing very little work, if any at all) dropped out of Chinese because she knew she would not cope. And she was probably right to do so. The only thing that stopped me from swapping over to my life-long love Japanese was pure stubborn determination. If this language thinks I'm giving up that easily, it is sooooo wrong.


But don't just take my word from it, hey, I've only been learning it for 2 years. I found an article by a guy who's been learning it for the better part of 6 years and still struggles (http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html#_ftnref11). Again - it's not the speaking that gets you down: you struggle with the tones at first [there are four and every word has them in different combinations] but everyone does unless their first language is tonal. It's the reading and writing, the constant battle to memorise and stuff as many characters into your head as possible and keep them there whilst trying to learn how to read and write more again. I constantly forget how to write 谢谢 (xiè xiè, thank you), which is like the most basic word and something you learn in oh....week two?


But if you have chosen to persevere anyway - congratulations! You're one of the chosen few and I sincerely wish you the best in your studies. Just be aware that studying Mandarin may come at a price (if you've been reading carefully so far, you may have guessed that mine was my sanity).


But it's too late for me now because next week my very-limited-knowledge-of-China-and-Chinese and myself are darting off to the beautiful coastal city of Dalian in Northeast China for my compulsory year abroad. People keep asking me if I'm 'afraid' or 'nervous' or 'excited', but the truth is I can't really muster any of those emotions. Maybe it's because I've know I was gonna go for so long or maybe it won't hit me till I get there, but I've never really been a very emotionally expressive person(?). I've never been to China before, so I guess I could say I'm interested....but I'm most definitely looking forward to it!


I'm not really sure how I'm meant to sign off one of these things...Just look out for my posts on things I used for studying, my preparation for China and [eventually] my Journey to the East!


TTFN...ta ta for now!(does that work? I think I'm gonna have to find something else....Oh! How about comments and question?) x