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 ;-).