When 5°C gets warm.

So apparently, once you've had your more-than-fair share of cooooold weather (-15°C) there comes a moment when you step out of the apartment and go back in quickly to take off your jacket, because it's WARM outside. Just in passing, you check the temperature on the internet: 5°C. Having lived in Holland, I know the glorious feeling of 15°C after the winter, but I had never considered that it would be possible to experience the same with only-just-above°C temperatures. Heck, these days I don't even notice the cold as much, even when it is the aforementioned ridiculously-cold cold. It becomes a part of life to be largely ignored except for in the conversations regarding weather ('tā mā de lěng!'- don't look that one up on google translate). There are some nasty little diseases going around our group of outsiders, probably because we miss all kinds of vital defence systems Chinese people can count on. This week has not been particularly my week, and I must admit that every now and then I dream of being in a warm, beautiful, colourful and natural place. Beijing can be so grey and ugly, and whatever plant existed is now a silhouette of grime-encrusted twigs- the pollution gets everywhere. 

But I have some things to catch up on, so here we go!

Thanks to everyone who congratulated me on my birthday, the 31st of January. It felt pretty weird to celebrate my birthday so far away from all of my family and by far most of my friends. As a natural consequence, I had the slightest birthday-blues in the morning- but before night I managed to collect a group of about twenty people to go eat dinner with in Dongzhimen (there are lots of restaurants there). Afterwards, I went out with a whole lot of them in Sanlitun. It was a lot of fun, and although I still missed a lot of people 'back home' (wherever that may be), I enjoyed my 19th birthday quite a lot. I got a lot of nasty looks for saying I was feeling old! ^^

About a week later we went to KTV. To those of you who do not know the phenomenon that is KTV yet, I'll start off with what I know about KTV. KTV is karaoke in private rooms, and it is apparently more or less the favourite pastime of Chinese people- they go there for parties and get together to drink just a little (Chinese people are notoriously easily drunk) and sing (terribly). It doesn't really matter at all how well you sing, which in my opinion makes sense since I would barely be able to read the Chinese lyrics on time. Apparently, KTV is regarded as a bit higher-class than going to a bar- in the sense that if you are looking for a 'decent' Chinese girl, you shouldn't be looking for them in bars. The cool thing about Chinese people is that instead of being judgemental towards 'us western girls' (who would go to bars as a normal social activity) they amend their statements regarding the decency of girls in bars with 'but of course in your culture it is different'. Anyway, we showed up at a KTV not far from the U. school with what turned out to be a massive 35 people. You might enjoy picturing a cute clerk relaxing a bit, handing out rooms to customers when suddenly he sees a few foreigners come it. An unusual sight- foreigners wouldn't go to KTV, certainly not in this area. A few more of the aliens trickle in, until the entire lobby is filled to the brim with clearly-not-Chinese people speaking a myriad of languages seemingly randomly. We caused quite the commotion.
We were divided into two rooms: One big one and one small one. At the beginning everyone stayed in the big room- there was quite a lot of room if you squished in, and small rooms are way too private. It is an interesting fact that until some alcohol shows up absolutely no-one is willing to sing solo- but after an hour or so we got the hang of it and were having a blast with terrible renditions of Beatles' songs and assorted rap music (who chose that anyway?). Eventually, though, I had to leave the large room since there are quite a lot of smokers amongst U. school members and the room was growing grey with the stuff. I went off to the smaller room, where the fun really began: Since there were only a few people, you got to sing all you wanted all alone, and you could even choose your own songs. All in all, a lot of fun, and I would like to do it a lot more often, even if the next day your voice is completely gone.


Oh, big news! Today it rained. Since I couldn't sleep (I wouldn't be writing this otherwise) I went out for a midnight walk around the city. (Dear parents, I'm still alive so shhhhh. I love you.) There are two things special about it raining today. One is that it is not ice, but water coming down from the sky- indicating a slooooow appearance of what will probably be the hottest summer of my life. The second is simply that it is raining 'an sich'. It's the first time it has rained since I came to Beijing 1,5 months ago. Rain has a redeeming quality that one might easily forget when cursing it back in Holland- the sky and the earth smell just a slightly bit fresher, black tiles outside turn out to be white after all. Beijing is truly the safest city I have ever known. There is no other city in the world I would go for a walk alone at this hour, even in busy parts of cities, even when I actually understand what people are saying. Obviously I'm still careful and my radars are up, but really I am very impressed at how safe you can feel in this city. I get the feeling that it has a lot to do with alcohol-and-drugs intake. Whilst Chinese people usually get drunk quite easily, it is not the scary, aggressive kind of drunk one might see in for example Europe. Oops... I'm sorry if my observations sound terribly racist- obviously I am oversimplifying everything I see around me for the sake of distilling differences and similarities. It might simply be a case of control from the government- it would probably be unnerving to know the statistics on how many cameras populate Beijing. Either way, it does one good to take a late-night walk around Beijing whilst it rains just a little. The city is almost peaceful at this time, almost beautiful. I can almost feel at home. Could this ever be my real home? I don't think so. It's too difficult to assimilate, too difficult to contact people even when you speak a little Chinese. The pollution is horrible, the weather weird and different. But... I could feel at ease. I'm working on getting guitar lessons and teaching English, I'm keeping my house clean and working on making my room cozy. In short, I'm creating a little life for me right here. They say 'when you are at peace with yourself any place is home' and I agree. When I'm fine, Beijing is fine. When I'm not okay, nowhere would be okay. I like to keep it in mind. Of course, some things help. This afternoon I saw a couple looking decidedly lost close to my home. I walked up to them and asked if I could help them. They were looking for nanluoguxiang. Now, nanluoguxiang is quite close to my apartment- it is a hutong which got popular and now has a collection of cute little shops, nice roads and uplifting bars- completely different from my hutong across the street, beiluoguxiang, where there are still only toilets outside houses and people live and work in rooms-anex-shops about 4 meters squared. Of course they were looking for nanluoguxiang. Funny (to me) was that they were already in nanluoguxiang- it is an area really, but it is very well known for one particular street. I was quite glad I stopped to ask whether they were okay, because a Chinese person would have never understood their pronunciation. And you can imagine my pride when I was able to tell them: 'Go straight here and after a while you will see a sign on your left saying 'Pool Bar'. After that, go to the left and then walk straight for a while, and you will start seeing the shops you are looking for.'

Last but not least, I would like to tell you about last weekend. Anyone with a weak or sentimental heart might want to skip this part. Last weekend on saturday I went with a small group of people from the U. school to a place about an hour away from Beijing where a couple lives with about 10 adoptive children, all with some kind of handicap. The neighbourhood was surprisingly beautiful- nice, large buildings, clean streets, a relaxed atmosphere and parks with trees, water and grass- apparently living just outside Beijing is so much cheaper than living in Beijing that even middle-class people can afford to live at this luxurious standard of life. And believe me, it is luxury in its own way. The couple and children lived in an apartment there. The sight of handicapped children is always very saddening of course, but I was amazed personally at how much care was being given there. Some of the children were really young and couldn't even move by themselves, but had to be picked up and carried around. Some children seemed physically fine but clearly had some difficulty speaking or 'being sociable'. The most shocking sight was that of a little boy, with scars all over his face, head, arms and hands. His hands were also disfigured. I later heard form a friend at the U. school that the most probable explanation for his scars was that his parents had deemed him an unfit child and had (too gruesome for words) set the child on fire and left him for dead, after which he had been found by other people. Since I haven't been able to find much information on the subject on the internet (and I didn't want to ask) I am keeping the less horrific option open of a (rare) (skin) disease which caused the little boy's parents to abandon him. Either way it was really horrible. Sometimes I am confronted with more than I think I can handle. I have some other stories that I might share some other time; for now this was more than enough. Anyway, whilst part of our group set out to clean and organise the apartment, three of us (moi inclus) volunteered to teach English to three young kids. 
English is important here in China, and the parents are very interested in the kids learning it. Since my Chinese was the best of the three (haha... that sounds so funny to me) I didn't have much trouble explaining little exercises and translating simple Chinese to simple English. Kids are the best to talk to- they don't have pronounced accents yet and speak using simple words, so they are easy to understand. At the same time, they are open-minded about grammar and pronunciation mistakes, unlike adults. I even designed a few tricks, working from Chinese, for words she couldn't seem to remember. 日, meaning sun, is conveniently pronounced just like the 'r' from red, so it made for a nice memory aid. Outside in Chinese is 外, 'wai', pronounced just like the beginning of of the word white (the weather was cloudy, haha).
The little girl I was teaching was so sweet and hard-working. It's such an eye-opener to think about how her life would be back in Holland. She wouldn't have to rely on charity to survive. I think sometimes we take for granted what it means to be rich. It's not TV's and cars we should be counting, but lives that are happy and safe, people that can't take care of themselves and that we as a collective take care of. It might just be the greatest gift of our society, and we seem to forget it sometimes.

This little boy had 'stolen' a camera from one of my friends before, to which she had reacted a tad nervously (of course it was a nice camera so I completely understood). Since my camera is nearly broken and since I care more about a happy kid than my camera and all the pictures inside it, I lent the little boy my camera, showing him to put the cord around his arm in the process. It turned out to be a blessing- he walked around taking pictures of absolutely everything, even things I would have been ashamed to take pictures of, such as the younger children with little mobility and the toilet. He was good at it too! I even managed to explain how he could look at the pictures he had just taken, which is quite the task for such a young kid. All in all, it was a very fulfilling albeit tiring day. 
Other than the kids I mentioned, I also met a little girl proudly wearing a new hearing aid that immediately became my friend when I danced along to some little tune coming from a toy piano. Some pictures here ;-).
So I'm up to date! I'm sorry for the huge post. I'll try to write more regularly from now on, but that tends not to work out properly. I'm really tired now, so I'll check the grammar and spelling tomorrow, I hope the mistakes aren't too terrible. Good night!
Love, Sophie.

Fire extinguishers and why you shouldn't mess with them

Hello there!


Tragically, I have no pictures of the events that took place since my last post untill now.
You see, I have this friend, let's call him A. -I've mentioned him before, he's Dutch- who comes over quite often. One day, we were playing card games with some other friends and he decided that the best possible idea was to use the fire extinguisher to scare one of my other friends. To use it inside the house of course. I don't know what kind of extinguisher it was/is, but I gotta tell you, I now know more about that kind of extinguisher than I would have wanted to. Although it looked harmless enough the first minute (it seemed smoke-ish in density and looked like it was going to disappear quickly) it soon filled the room with a toxic-tasting smog that lasted for ten minutes. As we rushed to open all the windows in the apartment so we could breathe, the smog turned into dust- and soon, there was a centimetre of dust on every single surface of the house. Now that sounds kind of funny and it almost was, until we had to clean it: without A.'s help of course, because he reeeeally had to leave with his (girl)friend. And then the rest too, leaving only me and my old german friend from when I first started school here to clean the mess. It took us four full hours to clean the kitchen-anex-living room. First we took all the important stuff out of the room, put them into the only clean room of the house (my absent-roommates' room) and cleaned them- my computer, phones and camera's, the TV, every wire, etc. Then we took out all the other, larger things that were less important but small enough to be carried out- we put these into a little corridor I have which is never used and which was already completely dirty anyway. Next we moved all the furniture left in the room to one side and started cleaning the other side, after which we cleaned the furniture and put it back. It was horrible work, because it meant we were constantly breathing in the toxic-y fumes from that nasty extinguisher. Not only that, but we were also working in lower-than-0-degrees temperature because it was better than keeping the windows closed, wearing only T-shirts because all the coats were filled with dust and/or already in the washing machine. If I need to remind anyone, the temperatures here at night are around -15, but I must say I'm so used to my fingers, ears, nose and lips almost freezing off that I wasn't all too impressed. Have you ever tried to clean a lot of dust in an enclosed area? You clean and clean, but the dust just goes from one place to the other, so you have to start over and over again.
And this dust didn't even mix properly with water. Anyway, a frustrating 4 hours later I finally could sleep in a completely bare but dust-empty room, whilst the toilet, my room and the corridor were still a soul-clenching mess. The kitchen I tackled the next day, throwing away everything left open (sugar, salt, spices...) and doing all the dishes. The toilet came a few days after. My room took a bit longer, a bit longer than a week even, because it has so many little nooks and crannies that can get so dirty. As for the corridor, well... To be honest I left that to clean together with the cleaning man (!) that is hired by the U. school. I've never been so happy to see a person suddenly appear in my apartment. Poor guy. I would have given him a tip, but in China that is considered an offence- even in restaurants the waiters will not accept money left behind as a tip in any way. Which leads to complicated little issues- who gets the change if it can't be split into 14?
But why no pics, you might ask. Well, the only thing damaged by the incident turned out to be my trustworthy little camera, with pictures of the new year park fairs and our trip to KTV. I was very put off. You see, in China in the week after new year there are temple fairs. Certain parks (with temples in them) are filled to the brim with people, classic fair-games, vendors, food, drinks, little kitsch items (Chinese love those!) and other things. I had my fun- I am proud to say I am now the owner of a panda-head-carpet (not REAL, of course, come on guys), a teddy-bear head hat, weird mugs and some pretty feathers. Yes, I am pathetic, but it's fun and oh well, my house needed some decorating.
I'm sorry for the late and incomplete update, but this little alien's health is not doing very well and she should get some sleep. Remind me to tell you of my fun trip to KTV next time! And I'll try to make some pictures of my now-kindof-decorated room, somehow!


Love,


Soof

Haunted Disneyland, skating and New Year!

BOOM. boom-boom-boom-boom BOOM. Trarararararara. It's new year in China and that's hard to miss. I believe even my new little fish, Zhigga, can hear it. Yes, I'm quite settled down in this apartment, although I haven't fully unpacked yet. School life is in full swing, and this time, I want to get it right from the start- so I'm learning my characters dutifully. And to my great surprise, it's paying off- I am actually becoming good at this 'hanzi' thing. Well, good is the wrong word of course- I can recognize a few characters every now and then, just like before, except now I recognize a few more. I am aware it doesn't sound like much, but it does feel like it!
And other than that, it was a good first week! I saw some of my friends back, the ones that didn't leave yet or that have come back already. I've discovered my neighbourhood, with the help of some of said friends. It is a great neighbourhood, as I expected. 

On friday I went to an awesome place! In the outskirts of Beijing lies an eerie set of structures, clearly intended to have become an attraction park called Wonderland. But in time, conflicts began to arise with neighbours and the constructors ran out of money.  The result is a skeleton of castles and other buildings, in some parts adorned to perfection and in other completely empty. To put it in the words of others: 

'Drive north along the Badaling Expressway for about 25 miles to Changping County, take the Chenzhuang exit and you will set eyes on a magical vision of archaic Western buildings and castles rising out of the farmland. Don’t worry, this isn’t some drug-induced episode, but Beijing’s answer to Disneyland, or rather the abandoned version of it.

This is one of the city’s forgotten landmarks; a source of much curiosity for passers-by, and the sort of place the Scooby-Doo gang might battle a headless popcorn seller.

Back in 1998, local company Reignwood Group invested in a massive theme park project set

 to span over 120 acres. Its aim was to create the biggest amusement park in Asia. However, financial problems stalled the scheme in its infancy; almost a decade and a half later, the developers have still to reach an agreement with local farmers on the rights to the land.

In the mid-2000s, Reignwood executives seemed poised to restart the project, but the local government and farmers raised the stakes as land prices had been rising ahead of the Olympics. The company refused and the project was left in limbo again.

Today, the park lies rotting, a monument to unrealised grand plans, while photographers travel to take shots of a dreamland that remains little more than the stuff of dreams.' (from: Timeout Beijing).

So obviously we had to see for ourselves. And it was just as creepy and exhilirating as we thought it would be. From the outside the place looked like dysneyland, only slightly unkept and completely devoid of human life. Inside the mighty castle, however, there was almost nothing. We walked around completely freely, climbing up and down beginnings of staircases and into pitch-black 'rooms'. There was quite a lot of (Chinese) graffiti, which was quite funny- one of the 'pieces' was the entire periodic table of elements! In one room we met a very troubling sight: In a ditch lay ten or so dead hedgehogs, some with mouths wide open, where they had obviously fallen and couldn't come out anymore. There was also a sickening, almost-mumified cat. It was quite upsetting and I'm not going to post any pictures of that right here. 

Outside the main body of the castle- like front building there was a huge skeleton for a hall, witch was also unfinished, and where my companions and I met the true meaning of fear: Walking up a subtle ramp which was easily thick enough to walk on, only a few meters above the ground- and we were terrified. All of us. Not one of us made it up the entire ramp.

Behind the skeleton of a building lay a little unfinished castle. There was a lot of graffiti around there, too, but we found no easy way in without getting stuck in some underground areas, so we just walked around a little more before heading back home to Beijing. But the experience was amazing, I would encourage anyone with a little time to go and visit this place- especially accompanied by friends who know a lot of horror movies. Apparently, since I was the only girl, I would have survived!

The weekend didn't start as I had hoped- in the morning I suddenly got a strong fever that had me hallucinating for hours, quite the shocking new experience for me. By the time I was sane enough to make my own tea, I got well quickly enough. In the afternoon I went ice-skating at Hou Hai, which is now obviously very much frozen. Just like the rest of China, by the way- the Chinese system of spitting on the floor creates some hilarious results!
Skating was fun, there were all kinds of activities going on like ice-biking and some kind of sleighs you could propel forward using little sticks. It was good fun, although it was really cold.
And the day afterwards, on sunday, it was time to celebrate new year! Again! I thought I was done analysing the year past, but here I was again- not with champagne but baijiu this time, and not in my cozy Dutch neighbourhood but in Beijing. First step was to buy some fireworks. We had no idea what the rules were on buying and using fireworks, and the guys got a bit carried away (behaving like 10 year olds, of course). BUT we weren't kicked out of the country, which was positive. I had been invited with some other people to celebrate new year on the top floor of a hotel, with windows everywhere, head to toe, overlooking the city.
It was an old Dutch friend from the U. school who asked, who is now working in a 5-star hotel. Good to have connections here!
It was a beautiful day of course- as is every important day here in Beijing. Rumour has it that is by no means an accident. After buying and using some fireworks, we went to have dinner with some co-workers of my friend, who turned out to be a lot of fun. We spoke half in Chinese and half in English, and they seemed quite impressed at my pronunciation in Chinese (hahaha). 

We had some ehm.. interesting food, called hotpot. It's a traditional dish here- the basics are similar to fondu but in boiling water. After 'cooking' your food in this way, you are supposed to dip it into a strange sauce. It's edible, although you might want to start with other dishes if you are new to Chinese cuisine. We had some nice moments of Chino-Western Confusion, such as when we asked for desert and got salty dishes of course.

And of course don't forget the cow stomach!

After that we set out in the large group to watch fireworks outside, and join in the fun. Chinese people are very content when you wish them a happy new year in Chinese! (The pictures here are of the co-workers of my friend.) And then we said goodbye to the Chinese people and headed up the hotel to the 27th floor to watch the fireworks. From above you could see the extent of new year for Chinese people. They have spent weeks now preparing for the new year- replacing old 'decorations' with new ones and buying a lot of fireworks. And I must say, although usually loud fireworks really annoy me and hurt my ears, somehow being here makes them a lot more bearable. It's part of culture here, and this part and the dedication to it really amaze me. So without further ado, here are some pictures of fireworks, I hope you enjoy! And have a happy Dragon's year! 


Love,
Soof

Massive noisy fireworks!

Leftovers, quickly cleaned up by thousands of workers.

BACK!

So I'm back in Beijing! And back 'for good' this time, or for better in any case. I'll be staying quite a lot longer than the last time, about twice as long- and I'm looking forward to it. 
My nice old roommates are living in Dongzhimen, the popular area somewhat closer to Sanlitun, so I didn't feel much like going back to my old apartment. Instead, I asked the school for other options, and am proud to present myself as the sole inhabitant of a little flat in the booming centre of a Hutong. And I mean, HUTONG. We're talking poop and other substances thrown away everywhere, toilets on the streets because some homes do not own them (!), small grey buildings made of bricks and adorned by faded dirty red lanterns, kitchy shiny poster-like items portraying welcoming cats and other rarities all around and thick black cables hanging low over the buildings twisting into... well 'things' hairdressers would be jealous of. All in all; amazing! And very much China. What makes the situation even more fun is that whilst my particular part of the Hutong is kind of quiet, I'm 10 minutes away from the booming Hutongs where Chinese people are starting to invest in really getting the tourism and culture to the Hutongs- Pretty little shops are springing into existence before my very eyes and bars and cafés with english menus are coming up. And my school is at a 14-minute walking distance from my house. 
Actually coming back was almost like coming back home. I was greeted by an old friend and by a LOT of pollution. It was easy enough to find the way to the gate outside the Hutong, but it was slightly more complicated inside, so we had a little help from a nice guy who had lived in the apartment himself. It was really fantastic, he could tell us in 5 minutes how to reach all the important areas from the apartment (small shops, subway, big shops, school, places to go out)!
China is so recognizable... like I'm back in this intricate dream I had woken up from for a while. The difference is that now it's a cold dream! There is ice everywhere on account of people throwing liquid waste out on the streets. The air is really cold, but for some reason (maybe because it's very dry) it doesn't feel as bad as expected. By now I've had my first kouyu and hanzi classes. Chinese comes back to the mind really quickly, I don't think I've forgotten much since I left. I am working on getting my room and apartment liveable, and am looking forward to getting a new roommate ^^, although it's nice to have some time to figure out the neighbourhood and apartment alone.
I'll write soon. To those who are worried: skype bailed on me... I'm trying to get back on it, but it might take a while.
Love,
Su Fei

Almost back in Holland

As most of you may know, I am now entering my last week in Zhongguo for the time being. This world around me, once absolutely surreal, has become my reality. I've become caught up in the life here. I have made friends with people all over the world- my german and italian, particularly, have improved greatly. I have made enemies too- well just the one, and I still don't know exactly why, haha. I have survived the barren path that it is to study Chinese for three months, where quite a few around me have given up on at least part of it. It's not an American-comedy-success-story: There were moments when sitting through another class seemed unbearable- the Chinese was difficult, and there was this one person scoffing at my failures and questions constantly. Yesterday was a particularly good day actually- I was going home after the worst speaking class I've ever sat through (because I didn't understand anything.. there are good and bad days!). I didn't feel like facing character class- but then I decided I wouldn't let a random person dictate what I do and don't do in life. So I went back to class. Wrote down the damn characters for the day. And asked the person what her problem was with me. I should have done it a while ago, but I guess I never wanted to see more trouble than was actually there... In any case, even though there were no concrete results, I'm glad I faced the issue.
I made friends with a local dog who now follows me around jumping happily every time he sees me, to great amusement of everyone around. I have tried nearly all the food available. And honestly, if someone were to tell me now that I would never eat Western food again, only Chinese food, I'd be fine with it. How can I ever go back to potatoes?? Or knives and forks for that matter! I can even say the simplest things in Chinese now- not much, really not much at all,  but enough for everyday life.
But the biggest changes are in attitude. I've grown to accept failure and awkwardness when attempting to speak in Chinese. I've become used to not understanding almost anything that goes on around me. My ever-reading eyes can now handle not being able to read the 'letters' around me. My hearing adapted to different sounds, my health adapted to different air. I have been with people who are older than me, often much older, and I got along with them just fine. I lived alone, washed my own clothes (didn't even ruin anything!) cleaned my room, handled my money, made my own decisions. I can handle people staring at me, even when I walk in the wrong direction. Hell, I can handle any type of situation basically. As we'd say in Dutch- kom maar op!


What can I say? It is a form of success. To everyone who thought going to China alone was stupid, or crazy, or that I wouldn't be able to do it? Yeah, no. With many failures and some bad moments, I came out okay. Not perfect, but changed and I think quite a lot stronger. I have proven what I wanted to prove- but I'm not done yet. I've been here for three months almost, and I really don't feel like leaving at all- it's time to have a little time off and to visit home, but my job here is not done ;-).


Lots of love!


Su fei

Meh.

So, I thought this would be a story about me in Beijing (Soof @ China and all) but I'm starting to become convinced this might end up being the story of a young asthmatic patient in Beijing. I missed yet another day of school today because I was exhausted and had a huge headache- but the thing is, I've never slept more in my entire life. Okay, so maybe as a baby, but still. I'm sleeping 7-8 hours a day! And I'm tired. How pathetic. Yesterday I  spent the entire day outside more or less- I went to get my iPod fixed and decided I wanted to walk to Sanlitun from one of the subway stations (a good 45 mins walk), walked back the same distance and at night I played football outside with some U. school people for two hours. And that is obviously ignoring the time I spend outside everyday. I keep saying I'm ill, but I don't think so any more- I only remember having felt like this back when I came to China for the first time (and didn't want to leave my hotel room and put up a big fuss about walking around, after which we luckily figured out what was going on). If it is the same deal, though, I'm at a loss as to what I should do now. I guess I should start taking the asthma medicine more diligently, but God knows I'm going to forget that.
Unrelated, it's starting to get cold here, especially in the morning and at night, so I'm washing an extra blanket to use. It's also starting to get reeeeally dry- everyone is complaining about dry lips and mouths, and I'm actually making my 2 liters/day minimum of water (I mean.. wow!).


Okay, so new plan: drink a lot of water, take medicine, take vitamins. It's gonna have to do, there is no way in hell I'm going to miss another class, I feel guilty enough as it is. Also, it's quite a lot of fun, I understand so much more of what's going on these days! And the teachers are very nice. Character class is tricky. We have quite a few students in the class who speak Chinese but don't write it. Combined with a teacher whose English isn't very good, the inevitable occurs- lessons are in Chinese. Impossible as it is, it must be good for something- ideally that 'something' being my Chinese. Although I'm making very good friends in this class too- that's quite awesome as well. I'm really going to miss all these people =(.


That's it for today! Love, Soof

Chinese

I am slightly proud of myself and ridiculously tired right now.

Proud because this morning I woke up on time, made myself a nice sandwich and a cup of tea, got dressed, packed my stuff and brushed my teeth before leaving for school. On time. Perfectly controlled. Non-tired. It was beautiful, just beautiful. Oh and also, I've been studying non-stop for two days for this stupid Chinese test. And tired- well it's more 'intellectually defeated', really. I haven't even reached grammar just yet, and already these words are swirling inside my head. Some internal monologue for you:

'Was it bàngōngshì... or maybe... bángōngshí? I'm pretty sure the gong was a gōng, but maybe it might have been gòng, as in yígòng, all together. Hey, wait, 'in total' was yī gōng, right? Wait a second! But... that's the same thing? Maybe I should check the characters for a second... Oops, same characters, so one of the two is PROBABLY wrong... hmmm... the teacher taught me one of them, wait what was teacher again anyway? Laoshi... eh.. lǎoshì? Let's look that one up again.. *sigh* damnit that was one of the first words! Lǎoshī, lǎoshī, lǎoshī, Soof, come ON! At least I know bù. Oh wait, bù changes tone! Oh F*** what was the rule for changing tones? I don't even remember where I wrote that down. Okay, let's just... eh, some old words, let's get some confidence for tomorrow. Chī, right, shénme, that's ok, jiǎozi, miántiào.. no. miàntiáo! Okay I've had it.'

In other words, this is DIFFICULT. Or maybe I'm just not very good at it, which is very possible. Anyway, I'm giving up for now, I'll see what happens tomorrow. Goodnight everyone!

The roommates as they are now!

Another week of class has been and gone. Next tuesday we're getting a big test on spoken Chinese- on the entire book. It's a big book. It's about 500 words in pinyin, as well as being able to make them into sentences. Ther hardest thing for me is the tones though. I can remember that a dish is called 'dzai', and I can even remember that in pinyin I'm supposed to write 'cai' (don't ask), but 'cai' alone means absolutely nothing and is completely wrong- because it's supposed to be 'cài'. It's not like french, where people would sneer at you if you missed an accent- it's just the wrong word. As if you say cat instead of motorcycle. No wonder Chinese people never understand what you're trying to say.  No wonder they laugh. The sentences we must be saying!

Smoggy Beijing

Pretty little temple-like
building at the top of a hill.

This week we went to a park north of Tien'anmen (sky-air-gate).  It's quite a big park with a few pretty high hills. I wonder whether these are man-made, but I expect they aren't, and in that case they're quite the freaks of geography. They have cute little temples on their tops and steep little winding rock-staircases to get there. It was a bad day in Beijing that day which was quite a pity because otherwise the view from up there is said to be amazing. Smog is weird- it actually looks a lot as if the city is shrouded in a soft, distorting, semi-transparent white hue. On a bad day, first thing you think is 'oh, it's a cloudy day', after which you realise you can't really see that apartment over there, which is actually quite close. And beyond that apartment is some kind of a dark shadow compared to the air next to it, so that must be an apartment too!

Stairs!

We've been having a few more bad days here. Every time it rains (which is not very often- I've had 3 'rainy' days since I arrived, and then it only really rains for a few hours, not like in endless-raining-Holland) the skies clear for a few days, and breathing is a fantastic experience. Well, I'm overstressing the point- in fact being asthmatic I had expected to be really bothered by the smog, but actually I'm quite fine most of the time. What gets to me more is that we're starting the cold period over here (already!). For the last 3 days it's been cold enough for Dutch and German students to start wearing warm-ish sweaters, so obviously my Ecuadorian friend is dying. As for me, I'm just a little colder than the Dutch students, of course. How's the weather in the Netherlands anyway? What's going on with the world? For the first time in 6 years I haven't touched a newspaper for a month and a half, and I feel like a hermit. I think we would barely get the news of a new world war, especially if China is not in it. Maybe if someone bothered to tell us, but to be honest I don't know the Chinese word for war. I wish I could read the newspaper... even though that might not even get me anywhere in China. I sometimes watch the English version of Chinese news, and that's all about China too.

I just liked this flower.

If anyone is wondering how the visit to the police station went- it is a great success story! As always when I want to go/do/get something specific I translated a few sentences into Chinese using Google translate and my own knowledge of Chinese (haha). I set of, first to ask where the police station was exactly. I asked someone who completely ignored my question and almost turned back (you try that kind of rejection when you're feeling sick in a country you don't know), but I managed to find someone who explained where it was. I walked into what ended up being the backdoor of the police station, which was actually closed, but because I was there and it was easier helping me than trying to explain it was closed, or maybe because the policewoman was a really good person, the whole thing was arranged in a few minutes. Which was nice, very nice. We need some successes here, to get over the times people don't understand you want a coke and bring you a sprite ('kuhluh' and 'schwepie'... I mean, really?!).

New Soof?
(Inside parent joke)

I ALSO met a Chinese friend of my Chinese friend-that-lives-in-Holland, which was... interesting. It's difficult to make conversation, since I don't really know what the glass houses are in China. Also, who pays what? She showed me around this really cool hutong and we went for dinner. Her absolute favourite? Chicken feet. Let me repeat that, just to make sure you understand this: Chicken Feet. So of course, I tried one, said that it tasted really nice and no problem, she could have the rest since she liked them so much! We kind of arranged to meet again, but I wonder whether that's going to happen- I mean, in Brazil that would mean little to nothing.


This isn't all I've done- it was actually a busy week after all! I'll be trying to keep the blog juuust a bit more updated, since it's come to my attention that some people actually like to read it or in any case do so ;-).