Just a quick rant

I had gotten used to 随便 [suibian, lit 'as you please', here casually] studying and going to class as I wished, sometimes going out for dinner with friends, sometimes not even doing my homework. However, in the last few weeks everything's 差不多[chabuduo, more or less] gone to sh*t. Excuse the chinglish, you will soon discover why.

So we have exams soon. 'What of Christmas?!' I hear you cry, outraged from your fully decorated, Christmas ready homes. 'What is this Christmas of which you speak?' I reply, while you try as hard as you can to ignore the single tear rolling down my cheek. Do you know what I'm doing on Christmas eve and, more than likely, New Year's? Revising. Why take it to such extremes? Maybe because the Chinese have never heard of study leave. Now, I know my mum's gonna bring up some old school 3rd world crap about how back in her day there was none of this 'study leave' business, but I've already 习惯了d [xiguanle, gotten used to, the 'd' on the end is deliberate]. You can't just take it away like that! So, generally stressed about exams, as one tends to be.

So, knowing that we haven't yet finished our courses, you'd think the study-happy Chinese people would leave us to 努力学习[nuli xuexi, study really, really hard] in peace - after all we still have homework on top of revision. But no, ooooohhh no. What do they give us instead. An end of year 外国人[waiguoren, foreigners] production - singing, dancing, acting the lot. Now, in the next case of stressing my life, I wholly blame myself. Not wanting to take part in a mundane international rendition of 'Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer', I volunteered myself to be a bit creative and write a Kungfu Play [stay tuned for a post on that one]. Nothing too complicated, just a bit of 'you killed my father?!' here, a bit of 'Shifu, please teach me well!' there. But it turns out I'm now the director of this play. Now, you know what I'm like when I'm in control - perfection is required. From everyone.

I cast the cast, wrote the story, wrote half the lines, creative and [in places] musically directed and set up and ran rehearsals. Sorry, I'm using the past tense too much. THIS IS STILL GOING ON. This bloody thing is in two days we have a total of 1/2 of the costumes, some of it practised, most people not coming to practise, no props and too many last minute decisions. 'Why don't we add this music here' 'Why don't we fight like this' 'Why don't we make some scenery'. This is why: WE HAVE NO TIME FOR THIS BS. Just read your lines and maybe we'll get away with it being a bit on the jokes side. Please. Just...please. To be honest, thank god I'm in control, if I was just participating I would have killed a few people by now... I refuse to mention names. At least from my position I have the power to inform people they will no longer be participating.

So this has all been going on until now- I had calmed down a bit when I realised that actually the main characters were quite reliable and I'm no longer in charge of every aspect, but then possibly the last thing that I could have wanted to happen JUST happened. Baring in mind this performance is occurring on Friday, and I have a part in this play as narrator as well as having to schedule more rehearsals, my teacher just called me to tell me I would be one of the hosts of the WHOLE production. I'm sorry, what? You want to tell me this................................................................................................now? Right now, is when you're telling me? We're not talking about a week ago, or preferably when I asked my teacher in passing about a month ago and just assumed I hadn't been chosen. You tell me 2 HOURS AGO that I am the 主持人 [zhuchiren, self-exaplanatory, if not look it up]?!?!?!?!?!!?!

Screw you China. Screw you.

So, now you understand why I haven't post anything in a while - because my life, at the moment, is balls. It is so balls, in fact, that I was originally going to call this post just 'Balls', but I thought the meaning would be lost upon those of you not among my immediate acquaintances. And Shinya.
Excuse me while I have no time to go and cry in a corner.

Comments & Help!       :'(      xx

Concrete Plans

Today I'm just going to outline my holiday plans for the period before I come back to the UK. Be jealous. Be very jealous. After a lot of shifting, sifting, advice and an absolutely disgusting amount of maths, I've kinda, sorta come up with something that looks like a travel itinerary. I use the word 'concrete' extremely loosely, as - since I've just been informed that flights in China are cheaper the closer you get to the date - I haven't booked anything yet. But yeah, consider this a free history [and tourism] lesson!

So first off I'm planning on going to Xi'an.

Here be 西安

Xi'an is, essentially, where a lot of sh*t went down in the past, and  one of the most important places you have to go to if you actually want to be taken seriously when you say 'I've travelled around China'. It was the capital of China for about 1000 years, and is where Qin Shi Huangdi, the first Emperor of China, reigned. If you've forgotten who that is, just watch Hero or The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. So, as the paranoid, I'm gonna say slightly superstitious 1st Emperor of the whole of China from 221BC, Shi Huangdi had his Terracotta Warriors commissioned from the weapons he confiscated from his enemies. Today, they are the number one attraction in what some tour guides and even historians are calling western China. Looks pretty central to me, but I'm just gonna roll with it. I suppose it's pretty west compared to everything else going on in China.

Besides the Terracotta statues, there is also the Ming Dynasty tombs and Drum and Bell towers to explore. Xi'an city wall is also the oldest, most complete CITY wall [yeah, we all know what other wall I'm referring to here] still standing in China, having been built during the Ming Dynasty [1368-1644]. Apparently Xi'an also has a great Muslim quarter, the Muslims having arrived very early on as Xi'an is the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, an ancient trading route running from Europe to China through Asia. It's mainly the street food that everyone raves about though.

From Xi'an I will be taking a really long night train [roughly 13 hours] to the modern capital of China Beijing.

Thar' be 北京

We all know what Beijing is and what it's about, but a little reminder is always nice. China's second largest city after Shanghai, Beijing has been the seat of power in China since the Ming Dynasty. Another nice little fact Wikipedia informs me, is that Beijing is really flat and only has 3 hills. I guess that's why so many people cycle there. Obvious top attractions include the Great Wall, the Forbidden City [the largest ancient palatial structure in the world], Tiananmen Square and the more recent Bird's Nest Stadium.

There's plenty else to discover in Beijing of course, as there always is with a major city. The city has many narrow, winding streets called hutongs, something only found in Beijing. Apparently very nice for a wander, but very easy to get lost in as many are not marked on maps. The Southern Gong and Drum lane is one such street and is the most famous and one of the oldest hutongs in Beijing, as well as being very popular with foreigners. The Beijing Ancient Observatory also caught my eye, but that's mainly because I'm a history geek. Also I think it's free to get in. As I'm only in Beijing for 4 days and 3 nights, I found Wikipedia's travel guide very useful for organising my trip, especially in terms of prioritising - 3 Days in Beijing.

After a quick zip back to Dalian and a few days rest, I'm off to my final destination in the frozen North of China, Harbin.

Here lies 哈尔滨...and 北京 again

China's northernmost major city, Harbin has a lot of Russian influence, as well as being famous for being the best place to study in the north-eastern part of China. It's really cold in winter though. If you read one of my previous posts [下雪，下学] you would know that my reason for visiting such a place in the middle of winter is for Harbin's famous Ice Festival. 

I don't really feel the need to show you anymore pictures, so I'll tell you what else there is to do, you know, in case you're thinking of visiting for some reason. There are a suspicious amount of religious buildings, such as the Synagogue [it's actually called the New Jewish Synagogue, but I thought it's Jewishness would be evident from...Synagogue] the St. Sophia [Orthodox] Catherdral and a Confucius temple or 文庙 [wenmiao]. There's also a lot of Russian architecture, which I have absolutely no interest in as well as the Stalin Park, which I'm strangely curious about. Also, I've heard people go swimming in the Songhua river during the deep winter. Now that I gotta see.

Comments & Questions      ^.^   Xx

News and Culture: All the Brains in the World

We all know there's a sh*t load of people in China, but did you know they're all really smart? Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but that must be what it seems like to every Chinese parent, high school student and soon-to-be graduate. In a recent lesson, a teacher asked us whether we thought a Chinese student's life was fulfilled. We, of course, replied that we didn't know, we hardly ever see them. The teacher laughed, "Of course not" she said, “Chinese students only go to lessons, to the canteen and back to their rooms to study". And it's true - the university I'm at has no adverts for extra-curricular activities, and as far as sports teams go it seems you're either in them or you're not. There's not even a collegiate Hoodie for crying out loud! 

The point I'm trying to make is that this week's post is going to be about why the Chinese are so obsessed with studying and getting good grades. I feel that this is relevant as I seem to have entered into an educational system where 70% is considered slacking. "Why is China so mean?!" asks Sophie, when I tell her this. Well, this is why.

In 2011 [so I'm gonna say now] there will be [are] 7.3 million University graduates in China and in 2003 alone the number of people in higher education was 17 million. In 2009 in the UK, the number of graduates was almost 335,000, whilst the number of people applying for university in 2011 was 633,811 for 490,000 places. Bai Yong, a teacher and expert on graduate employment [no, I don't know what that is either], points out that it's just as difficult for companies as it is for students concerning employment. It's all fine and dandy for those with no education, but graduates expect something for having worked so hard, and that's where they're running into problems. He stays positive however, it's always nicer to have a smart population [Interview]. The point I picked up on however, is that noone wants to end up in a job where the wages are low, the hours are long and the work tiring as opposed to tiresome. Or at least, their parents don't want them to. Therefore everyone wants to get into university to avoid this problem - but surely it can't be that easy? So why is it that so many people are getting into Higher education? Why, it's all that hard work of course.

According to a China daily article, Chinese children have no time to play, to the extent that they spend more time in the classroom than their parents do at work. The story of one girl, Zhuzhu, is actually quite disheartening - she, like most Chinese children, has extra-curricular activities on the weekend as well as tutoring [some people get home tutoring, others go to day school]. All this because her mother is so aware of the competition for University places and, later, jobs. "She'll have time to play after she enters University" apparently. Mate, not from what I've seen.  Another girl apparently committed suicide because she didn't get into the Highschool she wanted. And you thought the job market in the UK was tough. [Article]

My favourite segment from an article I just read about a 'wolf-dad' who has brought up 4 'stereo-typically successful children' reads: "Xiao’s children’s life before college was an endless round trip between school and home. No extracurricular activities, playdates, or sleepovers were allowed. At home, TV, soft drinks, free access to the Internet, snacks and air conditioning were all banned. Even visiting a classmate’s house involved a complicated application procedure, including getting the signature of the kids’ headmaster." Lol? [Article]

In one of our listening lessons, our teacher showed us this video clip:10 Minutes to learn about China [Watch it 0.o]. It's a great intro to China if you've just been perusing my blog without actually knowing anything about the place I'm living in, but the main part I want to highlight is at 3:28, the bit about education [although at 1:50 something hilarious and kinda sad occurs. Just watch the whole thing, it's quite interesting and mainly accurate.] For those of you who didn't bother, it basically says that Chinese kids can memorise a lot of info, but don't have the ability to analyse this information, or do anything else basically. They don't participate in extra-curricular activities, mainly cause they're too busy preparing for those exams they seem to have at every second of their lives. It's actually something you notice in China too - you don't see any children over the age of about 7 out playing, or even out! You'd be surprised how many listening exercises revolve around people's kids not getting into a good middle school because they only have a 75% grade average.

In sort of other news, but along the same lines, a phrase that keeps popping up in my life more and more often nowadays is 'networking'. Not really sure of what it means, I panic less for myself and more for my already graduated/ soon to graduate friends.

"I need to network!" Exclaimed Eva, graduating from the LSE this year.

"I don't want to enter the real world!" I exclaimed in return. Why can't we just continue studying forever? We agreed.

And if we feel like that, how do Chinese students -  who have done nothing their entire lives besides studying -  feel? Do they have this concept of networking? And how easy - in a country famous for corruption - is it for those without connections to work their way to the top? Well, if you continued to watch the video, at about 7 minutes in  when it starts talking about 面子 [mianzi, lit. face] and 关系 [guanxi, relationships/ connections], you'll see that they do have this concept, in fact possibly to a further degree than we do in the west. It's all about keeping/saving face in China, as our teachers constantly remind us.

So something to think about, when you think that it's all going horribly wrong for you at any particular point in your career, or you're finding things a bit 'hard': Life for Chinese children is a competition. An uphill struggle. I would even go as far to say it's a fight. From the minute they enter school, everyday for the next 12 years is going to be hell... Wow, ok that was a bit much, but yes. Life is hard for Chinese children, and now you know why. Pray for them, because they don't have the time to.


Comments & Questions           :(     xx

下雪，下学 (Xiàxuě, Xiàxué)

As you can see from the title of my post, I'm now good enough at Chinese to make my wit international. The literal meaning of the title is 'Snowing, Finish school', which, conveniently enough, is what I want to talk about. Oh, and for those of you still in awe: that's right, I punned in Mandarin.

So Dalian is 冻死了【Dongsile, essentially 'cold enough to kill a person'】at the moment, to the extent that my teacher actually thanked us for coming into class today. The Belarussians just nodded gravely - they're used to this sh*t. But not me, and certainly not at this time of the year. You can all see the date, right? On Tuesday [the 22nd, depending on when I post this] it started snowing. S-n-o-w-i-n-g. It's f***ing November! As Serrena would say "Are you sh*tting on my face?!" Today I was actually raped by the wind on my way to school, to the extent that a normally 15-20 minute walk took just over half an hour. They wouldn't call a snow day, not even in the UK [the snow will not settle with these gale force winds] but it's already -3 degrees. But that's ok, it won't stay like this. It will get colder and colder every month reaching [declining to?] a peak [how do you say this?!] of -15. Excuse me? People actually live like this? Until APRIL?! Needless to say, I'm not 一直 [yizhi, continuously, always] staying here.

I'm planning to 回国 [huiguo, return to the motherland] for a few weeks between Jan and mid-Feb, but besides that I've decided that Dalian is just too... anyway, I can't stay here. Holly and Serrena are going travelling and so am I. Having complained about cold for this long, I feel now is the right time to tell you that I'm going to Harbin for a few days to see the Ice festival at the northern-most region of China during the coldest part of the year... ^-^! In my defence, being an Ice festival it only takes place in winter, and I'm only going to be around at the beginning of the holidays [when it will be all nice and fresh] or at the end [when it would have been trampled down into slushy brown puddles of something-that-used-to-be-a-statue-of-Mao-but-now-looks-like-something-my-dog-threw-up-ness]. And look how pretty and extravagant and Asian everything is:

And look how nice my Hostel of Choice sounds.

I also wanted to go Dandong to wave at some North Koreans from across the border, but I was informed that Winter may not be the best time for that. 'That' being going outside. I may also squeeze Beijing in there somewhere before I return to the UK. In February, I may take a trip down south to Hainan Dao [Dao = Island] a place in China where there is no winter [why am I in the North again?] or somewhere else warm and fun. We'll see what the funds are saying.

Sorry about all the Chinglish today guys! I'd just finished doing my homework - you're lucky I didn't write this in Chinese first then google translate yo' ass. 

Comments & Questions  ^.^     Xx

P.S. I was recently informed that the URL for my blog was incorrect, as I do speak Chinese, and that my blog was, indeed, not as witty nor as entertaining as I thought [or think] it was [is]. Well, to that person, 1. I do not speak Chinese, and you know this! And 2. Find something better to do with your time then, and stop wasting it reading boring things. Hmph.

News and Culture: China is Taking Over the World

I thought I was having trouble finding something to write about this week, as everything I was reading was about this G20 and APEC [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation] meetings and you know... I don't really get economics. But I eventually realised that that was the story. You know how we all know that China's going to take over the world? Well, apparently it's happening a lot sooner than we thought.

As you may or may not know, depending on your outlook on international politics, the G20 summit took place at  some point in Cannes, as did the APEC [in Honolulu, that's right, the top dogs got a holiday to Hawaii] and the big news was meetings between China's current paramount leader Hu Jintao and the man himself, Obama. You can read more about that on your own time. At the summit in general, Hu talked about the need for development in the APEC and the need for equal economic development opportunities. The article is available for you to read here, but the gist I got from it is that China is going to try and develop with a bigger focus on balance and green energy, and countries need to back-off with the protectionism.

If you don't know about Big Hu, here's a little bit for you. Coming from seriously humble origins and rising to power despite his father's denunciation during the Cultural Rev,  Hu was a bright pupil and managed to rise through the ranks of the Communist party. Although he's not got much going on in the sparkle department, he has presided over a period of continuous growth in China, cementing it as a world power. And, you know, a scandal free government's always nice. He seems like a sweet guy.

Anyway, during the APEC all eyes seemed to be on China. In the G20 as well, China couldn't help but take the centre stage as European countries look to what is essentially still a developing country for some bailout: China Daily article. And why is this? Why, because China is the most important country in the world all of a sudden. "Yuan to replace Dollar in 10 years" and "US vs China: Who rules?" are just a couple of examples of headlines that have popped up after the first few weeks of November [China - rt]. Being one of the only countries in the world whose economy has not taken a hit but, on the contrary, has steadily increased for over a decade, there are rumours flying that China is going to be number one sooner than we all thought and that the Yuan might soon be the world's reserve currency. Though that might get a bit irritating as their largest note is the equivalent of a tenner.

And the US? Well, apparently they're on the way out and [surprisingly enough] aren't taking it too well. But before you pin me as a sensationalist, here's the article that I'm summarising for you to glance over: http://rt.com/news/us-china-yuan-tension-229/, as well as China post's front page http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/. So yeah, just so you can't say you weren't warned, China's comin' to get ya'. Good luck to you, westerners!

In other news, here's some Interesting Shorts I found whilst perusing, enjoy!

Comments & Questions

News and Culture: Singles Day

In order to force myself to read more about Chinese news and culture I've decided that I'm going to do a discussion/homework style post every week - this way we can all be well informed :-). Don't worry though, I'll try and include all the usual levels of wit and academically profound writing style.

This week's post is going to focus on the Chinese 'pop-culture' holiday Singles Day or 光棍节 [guangunjie], which takes place on the 11th of November. No, they don't celebrate Armistice Day in China. Although 节[jié] in this context means 'festival', as you don't get any time off and Hallmark doesn't make a card for it, I think just 'day' or even 'evening' would be a much more appropriate translation. Originating in Nanjing University in 1993, Single's Day is meant to be celebrated with single friends either eating dinner or going on 'blind dates' to bid farewell to their single lives. It's also a day where Chinese people depart from their usual manner of trying to pay for everyone else and everyone pays for themselves instead, sort of as a show of independence.

According to Wikipedia [look, it's not coursework ok?]: "For breakfast on Singles Day, singles often eat four Youtiao (deep-fried dough sticks) representing the four "ones" in "11.11" and one Baozi(steamed stuffed bun) representing the middle dot." See, you learn something new everyday. Did you know they were planning on making a card for it? Although, someone pointed out "who would send a card to a single person?"...Slightly harsh.

We went to our usual haunt [if you don't know it's Hopscotch, you obviously haven't been reading the blog very carefully], and I saw the most Chinese people I had ever seen there. We had remarked that the number of Chinese coming to H lately had been more than usual, but seriously. It's like they had all been at home being too busy and single to ever come out before - but here they all were, all at once. DJ Jiaozi [you remember him?] was going around handing out glow-stick wristbands to all singles, so that they were easily identifiable. However, as some of my Chinese friends told me, there weren't any 帅哥[guys, specifically good-looking on a day like this] to tempt them. We went to a Chinese club later as well and, as expected, that was packed too. Although it could have just been a typical Friday night.

So, to sum up: Singles Day, get involved! I think it would help liven up Armistice day as well: a sober day followed by a not-so-sober evening. To be honest, from what I've seen the Chinese one is pretty tame so they might be a bit offended by a western take on the whole thing, especially if there's a Geordie Shore Special on it.


A couple of other news items:
1. The Chinese seem suspiciously excited that Berlusconi is resigning - 'Berlusconi resigns, crowds in Rome celebrate'. Also, I love how the new guy in charge is called Mario - go Italy!
2. Did you know they're opening an Angry Birds shop?! Come on now people... '1st Angry Birds shop
3.Pandas coming to Edinburgh! Now I will actually have to go to Edinburgh Zoo...again when I get back - Pandas coming soon to UK
4. For those of you who actually care about China's economy [Tim], a little light reading about the woes of protectionism - China's boom a boon to US business


Aaaannnnd finally, I couldn't be bothered to find an article about it, but congratulations World on containing 7 billion people! Random interesting fact, did you know the population of the world has more than doubled in the past 50 years? Another fact, 25% of the world's population is on the 406 bus that I get to Uni every morning.

Comments & Questions    XxX

Curry! (Amongst other things)

Many of you are probably questioning the exclamation mark in the post title and, as usual, I've taken it upon myself to explain what all the hub-bub is about. So, on Wednesday night we went out for curry - Indian Curry. It was incredible. Now, I don't want to be one of those blogger-dicks who talks about how amazing all their experiences in the country that you're not in are [I'm already one of those two laptop-dicks], but I need to talk about this Curry. Why? Because it wasn't Chinese food. It could've actually been sh*t [the butter chicken wasn't that great], but if it doesn't come with rice, noodles or some very suspicious cuts of meat it usually tastes like it was made by the gods to us ex-pats. You're probably thinking "But Chinese food is great!" Well, I resent your 'but' and throw back in your face the point that not only is Chinese food not  the same as what you get from 'down-the-road', but even you [yes, you] would get sick of it if you had to eat it everyday.

Chinese food back home [wherever that may be for you] is usually made by some well-off restaurant owning Cantonese family, who cater to the western unadventurous palate and don't use MSG. In China, they list MSG as one of the ingredients in their dishes, and even have some on the side next to the Salt and Pepper pots. Sure, the rice is cooked to perfection and the sauces and vegetables different and often delicious, but the meat is usually suspicious. If you want non-suspicious meat you're gonna have to cough up for it, but if you wanna eat for under 10 kuai [1 Brit Pound] don't question anything. But make sure you learn the character for dog.

So anyway we ordered about 5 or 6 different types of curry between us [there were 6 of us] as well as rice and some naan bread. And they had this amazing, cheese-filled Naan as well - I don't know who came up with that but they're a legend in my eyes. The meat was, of course, suspicious, but the rice as I mentioned before was beyond perfection. I had a small food coma after, always nice. Also, beer goes really well with Curry. Wow, I'm becoming more British everyday...


In other news, remember that speech competition I was complaining about [see 'Speech!'], well the school one was held today and I got Second place :-). I should explain that I wasn't the only one to get second - the competition was divided into classes, but out of 30 people I was 1 of 4 to get second. My Flatmates helped me film it, although they kept flipping the camera around and the sound on my camera isn't very good. But it's shot in black and white so it looks quite cool. Here's the link if you're interested:

My Speech

My Certificate of Awesomeness - 二等 means second place

After practising it to death everyday for a week, I found that it wasn't actually that difficult speaking in a language I don't speak in front of some hundred people. My teacher hugged me afterwards [I'm her favourite] and my Korean friends took more pictures than was really necessary, so it was all good fun in the end. I kept telling everyone I didn't want to do it and how annoying it was, but between you and me, I carried my prize under my arm all the way home.

My Prize- A collection of Beijing Opera Costume Make-up  panels

Comments & Questions     ^-^         Xx