I Saw You; in Amazement, Stumblin’ Through the Day..

November 13, 2008

[Will be updating this post until I fill in all the gaps, just wanted to get something up now, incase it all gets postphoned]

Been trying to write up a post for a month now and constantly find myself with something unfinished and not worthy updating, not so cool. As such, I’m just going to do a bit of a bullet point blitz through the last month or so. Here we go.

13th - 19th October

I think that for a good portion of this week I spent coming to terms with the fact that my most significant Chinese problem is my speaking - and listening comes with the package. This week showed me that - even though a little bit of it is required - I simply cannot bear sitting at my desk and crunching down on characters and articles. I couldn’t stand doing this in Australia and I can’t stand it now. As such in this time I decided that I needed to find myself a ‘language partner’, that is someone with whom I can just practice language with.

In a way it feels a little silly that I am over here, in China, and yet the best way for me to learn is the same way I did in Australia; spending time one-on-one with my friends speaking Chinese. The experience of being here is -without a doubt- worthwhile, but the crux of good language improvement is..well, what I’d already been doing. I don’t want to discredit the merit of being over here, but, well it’s true. I guess it’s reassuring to be right.

Also during this time and the weeks surrounding it, I found myself becoming ever more frustrated with the system in place over here. The fact that people have to struggle through the mind-numbing education system (and, at times, culture) just to live a barely decent life. What frustrates me most is that all of the problems in China can be avoided with a little reform. Yet the people have been trained to not believe in such ideals and as such, the hard life carries on. It hurts me deep, really does. I will have to write up a “list of things that piss me off/are great about China” article soon, to make clear the issues I am talking about.

20th -26th October

The core thing about last week’s revelation regarding language partners is that, without them, I have such a hard time learning my material. I need to “learn through experience” as I often day and as such this basically ensured that this week I’d start my search. The previous friday my classmate asked the teacher about this topic who directed him to a billboard with a post of someone offering to help put people in touch with students from the school. I was going to take a slip but my teacher said that she had a friend who would be better/the two of us could be language partners.

On Monday I asked her more about it, she took my phone number and said that he’d call me sometime. That didn’t really end up happening, but that’s okay. On Tuesday I went out to an itallian restraunt with my Egyptian and French classmates. The French guy suggested that we share an entree of snails, and so we did. Quite chewy.

Wednesday I had some internet troubles when trying to set up security. The problem was essentially with the user ID and password they had provided – I had to reconfigure these options as Windows chucked a skitz. The service agent had illegibly scribbled it down and after trying every combination of interpretations possible, it still didn’t work. Basically we called a guy out who generated a new password, he said that the old one was broken…ah yes, that makes sense? Internet ID and passwords, which you provided, can suddenly break?

Thursday night I went to Hanxue’s and met her Grandparents who had come in from Anhui. After saying a few sentences in Chinese to them, they gave up all effort and just ignored me over the TV. Little disheartening. Got to try some ½ mandarin, ½ rockmelon like fruit from Taiwan…yeah, maybe I will discuss that later when I talk about Chinese fruit and meat. Hanxue was glad to see me -poor girl, so exhausted- and that was reassuring.

Friday afternoon, my French classmate told me that his language partner exchange went well and with this confirmation, I decided to finally take a slip as I didn’t think my teacher’s friend would pull through. That afternoon I sent off an email to this person and after a little organising, I got a response confirming that I could meet someone on Monday, awesome. Something also clicked which prompted me to check out one of the expat websites that I originally checked out to find an apartment. I’m not sure why but I took a squiz. Something on the site (some news article, I think) mentioned something about finding language partners in Shanghai, directing my attention to their personal classifieds page which featured a section for language partners (infact, easily the largest section in the classifieds).

So I spent a few hours setting that up, grappling with the system in place and then giving up after realizing that you needed to pay for a subscription to contact other members and there was no way around it.

On Saturday I gave up, but decided to look around for more classifieds and try my luck, sending off multiple emails and so forth. Hanxue also invited me to go with her and her Grandparents on Sunday to the Shanghai Botanic Gardens which is close to where live. Come Sunday afternoon, she contacted me to say that her Grandpa had a sore leg and even though he had a wheel chair, he still didn’t wish to go. Quite unfortunate considering that the weekend is the only time that Hanxue effectively has to take her folks around the city.

Later I found out that the Grandpa actually didn’t want to go because of my presence and what people would think of a foreigner and a young girl together in public. Hmmm…

Come that night though I had already received a few responses to my emails and postings. I began chatting with one of them and arranged to met up the following night. Awesome, things were finally working out.

27th October -2nd November

On the Monday this email correspondant showed up between the lesson breaks and brought along one of the students. Tall guy, about my age, lives on campus and is quite friendly. We talked for a while, exchanged numbers and I went back to class.

After class I went home, relaxed and then went out that night to have dinner with this person. I waited for them one subway stop away from where I am. After a little while they showed up, name Ashley, female, 23, fashion designer. We then together walked around looking for a restraunt and a place to get some money out. The latter was hard to find but eventually we found a a machine.

We then crossed the road and went to a self serve restraunt, also had fish hot pot as well. I forget the name of the fish but it is meant to be a good quality one, athough supposively the ones they serve in Shanghai aren’t very authentic. The meal was good, except for the fish, it all got cold quickly. Ashley and I talked a bit, I was surprised at how many words she said that were perfecty suited to what she wanted to express. Shows a good deal of understanding which a lot of people here lack. She also seemed much more culturally apt and able to understand this place better than most of the other people I speak too. All good properties. Unfortunately though, since she is working and mainly free during weekends I don’t think that it’ll work out.

On Tuesday I met up with the guy from Monday. His name is Adam, 20/21, quite tall (enough to make me look uncomfortably up) and lives on the campus which I study at. He seemed nice enough, although he makes me feel very uneasy about Chinese young people. I can’t quite put my finger on it though. We spoke mostly english, I don’t like speaking Chinese with him, that’s not so useful.

In class I was discussing clothes with my Egyptian clasmate who handed me a card (she gives me a lot of cards to shops/restraunts/entertainment she likes) to a place that she liked. It was one of those multi-storied complexes, packed to the rafters with fake goods. *clicks* fake market, that’s what! I’ve been to places like this before in Beijing, so I took her card and decided that after class I woud go with Adam to this place, since he could help me snuff out the best price. My Egyptian friend warned me that Chinese people have no idea when it comes to buying clothes (for a reasonable price), but I didn’t think too much of it.

After class, having waited for at least another 30 minutes for this guy to rock up, he finally showed and together we walked. He told me that he didn’t like the place suggested to me by my friend and offered to take me to some other places. So we walked a few blocks down to HuaiHai road (guessing, to many roads here) and popped into a few stores. Each of them were random designer stores that he prefered. He started spurting off names of brands and suggesting that they’d have something that I’d like. God, what is wrong with this kid, I can’t understand this brand language. Maybe that’s why he makes me feel uneasy, because he wastes money on expensive labelled shit instead of getting an airconditioner for his dorm.

Of course, I hate designer. Well, I like attractive clothes, no doubt. But I don’t like going into stores only to find the price of everything being twice the price I would pay Australian…while at the same time being in China; a country that should be giving me basement prices. Everywhere we went the prices were ridiculously expensive. The fashion was considerable…but when you match it against price it’s unavoidably daylight robbery.

So, we spent a few hours of me squabbling through designer stores, trying to find the right shade of brown to match go with the other hues while praying that the price would be reasonable (as well as proper croutch room).

Eventually, after turning down every piece of expensive tripe thrown my way (bar a vest) we headed off to this place on Nanjing road, as recommended by my friend. Luck didn’t prevail there either but I chalk that up to exhaustion and the fact that my friend just wanted to scoot through. So, on the whole, not much success…. actually a failure. At least I managed to pick up one of those prissy beanies with the ear flaps at the fake market.

As soon as I got home I received a call from my Egyptian friend. She asked how it went and it didn’t take long for her to understand. I told her what happen and she seemed totally unsurprised and offered that the to of us go out together next time. Done deal. By this time the number of responses from my postings was increasing and I had already organised to meet with two people on the weekend on either days.

On Friday, I went with my friend after class back to this market. We had lunch together before we left and discussed the various issues egarding our lives in China. She explained to me –with many examples and references- how Chinese life is all about money and how Chinese people like to use westerners for money. She also expalined how she finds Chinese people to lack manners in many circumstances as well. I told her that I have never come across these things but kept it at the back of my mind. We also discussed the issues regarding control, freedom and so forth, she agreed with most of my opinions on the topic, providing her own side of the story as well. Very interesting conversation.

I must confess, I thought that I was good at this bartering business, but I tell you, my friend, she is something of a professional. She was strict with her prices and often we would just throw our cash at them, take the clothes and run for it. That is, when our requested price was within a reasonable difference from the sellers. I managed to pick up a jacket, two pants, two long sleeved winter shirts and a jumper. Lot of laughs along the way, very pleased.

I had to stop off on the way home and drop off my garbage bag of goodies before I went out to tea. As soon as I returned, Auntie and a friend proceeded to critique my clothes and ask me for prices and so forth. I guess this fulfills one part of what my Egyptian friend was saying about Chinese people. From here, I have become evermore frustrated with Auntie and her pathetic clammer for attention.

On the Saturday, I went to the People’s Square Park (that’s a guess translation) and met another person for the first time. Yang, female, 20, very short. It rained on us so we took refuge at a small drinks bar with a group of old dudes smoking their lungs out and making too much noise in the local dialect. The exchange was fine, no worries, after a few hours we packed it in and headed off.

On the Sunday, I had to wait until my contact finished an exam first. I was expecting that to be maybe at around 2:00pm but I received a call at about 10:00am, not long after I woke up. So with that I headed down, near my school, met with this person and together we walked down to some place they wanted to go to and looked for a place to get lunch. The road that they selected was quite nice actually, very traditional in style.

My friend pointed out some restraunt which was like a snazy, chill-out kinda place. Together we went inside, I ordered a beef, avacado and cheese ficashia sandwhich, she had some sort of pasta. BTW, CiCi, 20, Uni student.

So we talked for a while,quite a while perhaps. Plenty of foreigners in the restraunt as well, several of them didn’t speak english though, that always makes me feel kinda wiereded out. Afterwards we went to an art gallery nearby and had a squiz, much better than the Translocomotion one that I went to with Hanxue. From there the two of us walked back to the station, diverged and that’s the week. Been busy for like almost everyday, I did take the Thursday off to rest if I remember correctly.

3rd November - 9th November

On Monday I managed to have tea with Hanxue which was unexpected. I think I just made a mess of myself dribbling about how much of a headache Chinese culture is. Seriously, I find this to be such a difficult issue to tackle. Maybe I will talk about it sometime, if I can find a beginning and end.

I also had my speaking and listening exam on the Wednesday which was bad news. I’d been so busy looking for language partners that I hadn’t had enough time to prepare. And I needed the language partners to improve my speaking, partly for the exam, so on the Tuesday before I spent most of the day with CiCi. We met up in the morning, had breakfast at a bakery (a lot of elegent, sweet stuff) and then had lunch at an Italian restaurant. We met up at an area not so far from her place and together discussed a variety of issues.

On the Wednesday I had my exam, didn’t go too good. I guess I should have seen it coming. I never do too well in Chinese exams. I can master the words, grammar and expressions perfectly, use them in my natural talk as well and yet when it comes to the questions I don’t know what they want from me. I can understand the contents within the tasks put forward but I don’t know how they expect me to answer. The questions all seem so formulaic and fixed, with a binary answer to it. The exams hardly fulfill their purpose.

Friday I met up again with CiCi, I gave her a bottle of Bundaberg Sarsaparilla as I love the stuff and it’s something Australian that I can give as a thank you. I find the bottle collection remark on the pack to be amusing too; can be recycled in SA for 5c. While at the import store I bought a pack of Tim Tams and 100s and 1000s biscuits for Auntie and Hanxue respectively. I was also planning on giving Hanxue a bottle of ginger beer from Australia too, as one night I couldn’t open the damn thing. Urges persisted and I eventually drank it, I told her that I’d buy another one though.

I told Auntie that I bought the the Tim Tams for her. Of course, she shrugged this off, saying the same old phrase which translates to “it’s nothing”. I think that she has a problem with someone gaining face on her. It’s a cultural nuance which she exemplifies with gleeming success. I hate it because she always tries to make her presence so overhwelmingly dominant. I’ve learnt now to just mumble my way out of it, eventually she puts on a cranky attitudes and storms out like a child. Problem fixed.

In anycase, I pointed out that the Tim Tams were for her, for being so good to me. I hate saying that she is ’so’ good to me, as she usually makes me say that to her (again face), while at the same time trying to convince me why my good friend Hanxue is such a bad person. As much as I hate these parts of her, as well as her lazy son, inability to remove stains from clothes, monsterously loud and ugly accent, and her disrespect towards me, she does wash my clothes and ocassionally give me food to eat, so its the least I could do.

Auntie was talking over me again as I told her about the Tim Tams and basically didn’t heed my message. So I just put the biscuits back in the fridge along with the 100s and 1000s. And yes, I didn’t really need to put the latter in the fridge, I just did for some reason.

Later I checked and 3 of the Tim Tams were already eated. Silent victory.

Saturday morning I decided to check the fridge again and to my surprise noticed that both packets were missing. My victory was short lived.

Puzzled, I decided to let the matter rest while I attended to more important matters, like bringing my thermals in from outside. Auntie usually does this…as well as folding my clothes and so forth - my resistance is just wasted energy against her forced take on politeness – but I needed to wear my thermals on that day. I went in search for the giant bar with the claw at the end, as I couldn’t reach my thermals from the cage gating my window from the outside world. I thought that it might have been in the son’s room, so I peeped in there too. Oh and guess what I found? The packet of Hanxue’s 100s and 1000s, half eaten, lying infront of his sacreligious computer. Bastard.

Furious at the possibility that this lazy, do-nothing slob got tucked into my overpriced imports, I had to call someone. So I called home, at this time Auntie also came back, I told her that I was angry that he ate my stuff, she laughed and said that she gave him some, made me even more angry because even if I explained to her what happened she wouldn’t care since the biscits were for Hanxue.

For the rest of the day I met up with my language partner. On Sunday, I went out to take some photographs of the People’s Square. My fears were realized, taking a photo in this country is son very difficult, at least if you want to captue the sky as well. The sky here is so dark that -unless it’s a bright morning- it’s almost impossible to get balanced exposure between the colourless sky and the ground below.Usually it is a case of opposite pollarities, the best photos that can be taken, still make this place look like the end of the earth…or almost completely drowned in monochrome.

10th November - 16th November

I spent Monday after class again with CiCi, we met up at the school and practiced for a few hours. Afterwards we had tea together, which was pleasing since I was getting sick of using the local university’s canteen for my beef n’ noodles. Good stuff though, I love those noodles and the chef is always sure to give me a heads up.

Wednesday was…quite a ride, I must say. I had my second exam which as expected didn’t go to well. I shared my frustrations with my teacher after class. During the breaks, when I went to grab a drink from the water cooler, one of the office ladies asked to speak with me after my classes. So after class I did just that.

Not good news. She told me that staff from the international office called earlier, notifying them that I had actually finished studying my Chinese course. There reasoning was that because I was studying intensively, I had aleady fullfilled a certain allotment of hours, meaning I was done. Yet, the University had originally told me that I would study a semesters worth of Chinese at their school (meaning I’m only ½ way thru, with another 2 months left). All of the paperwork given to me and my university said this and suddenly, they were going to chop my course in half, with a lack of any prior notice.

The office at my campus tried to call back but they were out for lunch. So I decided to call Mrs Hua (my contact at the office), who couldn’t do too much to help. I feel sorry for her, as her position is not to help me with these matters, yet the others are so useless, I’m often left with little choice. As I was calling Mrs Hua, I hurriedly made my way to the subway station to meet CiCi. She’d invited me to see the latest James Bond movie and due to the hold ups I was running late. I got to the subway station in good time and she hadn’t arrived, which was okay, I needed some time to compose my ideas on how to tackle this nonsense that the university had just thrown at me. I figured that after the movie, I might get the chance to go back to the school and check again. Anyways, CiCi arrived, I explained what happened and the two of us headed down to the cinemas. We were quite early, so I ate my lunch and we discussed a few things.

The movie theathre was very quiet, especially considering this movie had just been released, infact we would have been there on launch day since the movie still hadn’t been released in America. Should be noted though that Quantam of Solace was supposively the second highest grossing western movie in China ever. Tickets cost $AUD5.

I must say that all of the internet spillage regarding this movie is dead on. I was petty disappointed, feels like a semi-sequel to Casino Royale, about half the thrills, decent characters and excitement. Action scenes were wildly sporadic and hard to follow, kinda like Spiderman 3, which also wasn’t great either.

After the movie, we had a bit of time to kill, so we went back to the Uni. On the way some Brittish chap called me about a company specializing in retirement funds for expats, said he got my name from a friend called Josh…I have no such friend. I told him to call me later.

At the Uni I got them to call the office again, still not there. I practiced for a little while with CiCi. The guy called back, turns out he was trying to sell me a retirement fund and not a job, which I might have been interested in. After he babbled for a few minutes in a corperate, financial language I couldn’t understand, I asked him: “You know I’m 20 right?” and with that he politely finished up. Nice bloke though.

CiCi and I went to the Italian restaurant where I previously ate the snails. No snails this time. I ordered too much food, which is starting to get a little troublesome. I feel that when I am out, I should stock up on veggies and other nutrients since my regular diet is kinda lacking these a little. I ordered some mushroom pasta stuff, we shared a pizza and had some small sausages for an entree. CiCi also ordered a slice of cheese cake. We (that is, I) needed some time to let the food settle, so we talked for a bit before heading home.

Thursday I called the office back and had a frustrating call with the head of the office who actually didn’t understand much more about the problem herself. She said that I’d have to wait until Monday for the teacher who organised this mess to return from Mongolia. Argh.

Friday I met up with CiCi again (yeah, we both have too much free time, I guess). This time we went to her University, which isn’t too far away from my place, although a little awkward considering how close it is. I brought my laptop along as she was interested in listening to some western music.

We met up at the subway station, caught a bus out and went to a Korean restraunt on the campus. We had a sort of hot pot like dish, although it was more like a really hot, insulated bowl which kept the heat in. It was like a soup, but with a few things we could add. Quite good. Also we shared a smaller dish of spicy octopus and veggies. Also quite good. The chopsticks were metal too which was quite good.

Afterwards we found a classroom to hide in and started scrobling through the tracks. Basically, she hated anything remotely rock, some of the alternative stuff was kinda borning (how can anyone hate Bittersweet Symphony?) but the slower stuff, as well as the popular was not surprising her favourite. They don’t really have rock over here in China, let alone some of the other stuff. You can basically pidgeonwhole it all under the ‘popular’ label and you be 7/8s of the way there.

Afterwards she invited me to play badmington with some of her online forum buddies (hometown board). So we had tea at a restraunt which is completely derrivative of this restraunt my French classmate and I use to go to. I mean, same dishes, same style, same menu, same mugs, same typeface…complete knock off, but just as good. Awesome though, since I liked the other restraunt.

Afterwards we caught the subway, all the way up to where she lives, got a taxi to her place, she grabbed her raquets and then we headed out. Played for a few hours, until 9pm. I originally started off terribly, couldn’t get the hang of it, afterwards though I suddenly click and was surprisingly good. Although, like tennis, I overuse my wrist, instead of using my arm.

The weekend felt like a real waste of time actually. On Saturday I met up with one of my language partners. I don’t really know if I like practicing Chinese with her though. She is great but I am kinda not so much use to practicing with her. We did head out for snacks in which we stumbled across one of the many weekly match making gatherings that goes on every weekend in China. Basically there are a bunch of parents selling their kids soul to be wed, old fashion style, with boards listing their various details and requirements. Most people are just after security (car, house, good job). As you’re probably thinking, soooo far behind the times, this place still needs to execute a little more open thought in this department. Maybe later I will bitch about why I dislike Chinese old people.

On Sunday, I was going to do stuff with people, but kinda let it slide. Stayed at home and played the role of lonely bum. I don’t really feel like doing any study over here to be honest, even with the prospect of returning to school. So I just played some Quake and listened to some a 2hr long Retronauts podcast instead. Man I forgot how good these podcasts are. And that rounds out the week.

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And Turn ‘em Into Monsoons

October 12, 2008

Alright, as expected there isn’t much new to report.

My classes have improved significantly this week as I have managed to correct some of my speaking problems. I still struggling along in this regard but I am getting better, slowly. I’ve also got to know one of my classmates (French of Chinese descent) a little better, we’ve gone out for lunch a few times and he’s shared some incredible insight into this country. His girlfriend works for a French department store (upposively the second largest in the world, to Walmart), she does out to factories and inspects the quality of working conditions and so forth.

I feel that I am finally solidating my thoughts on China. I know one thing is certain, as much as there are some truly wonderful people here, all of the stereotypes are true. No human rights, no freedom of speech, population control and pollution coming out of their ears. The problem is, I look at these issues and then look at my friends. It’s sad but I can see the impact that this oppressive system has had on their lives. It’s tradgic and I just want to do the best for them. I see this and I worry, I’m not sure what to do. This is obviously a problem but am I even in the right position to ‘fix’ it? Furthermore what defines ‘fix’? And if they are happy then is there really a problem? I don’t really know.

This weekend has been surprisingly uneventful, Saturday was spent blogging (phew, got EVERYTHING down, so pleased) and today I was hoping to spend some time with Hanxue to start teaching her english. That didn’t work out. So I called home and then later realized that because I called, she couldn’t get through to invite me out with another friend and hence right now I’m at home being a loner. I swear, I always seem to land myself into these conveniently ironic situations. Argh.

Recently I’ve either been strapped for time or have had too much time on my hands. I just wish I had a little consistentcy, oh well, at least my classes are a little better, I can’t complain about that.

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All Went over My Head

October 3, 2008

I’ve been slacking off with keeping this up to date but it’s not too important since routine is starting to form and there is less to talk about.

Saturday

On Saturday I woke up at 9:35am and realized that Hanxue was meant to be here 5 minutes ago, but more importantly I needed to get ready! So I leaped into the shower, saying good morning to Auntie on the way in. Argh

So I showered with haste - despite my haste I felt very comfortable for some reason – dried myself and just as I was talking to my room Hanxue knocked, so I let her in and quickly threw my shit together.

Myself, Hanxue and Auntie then went down to the internet company to apply for some internet. Auntie took the scooter with me in the back and Hanxue rode a bicycle down there, following along. As you can probably tell, this (again) overwhelmed me with guilt, even more so when before we left Hanxue commented on the hot weather. Argh.

In anycase we went down to this place, only took a few minutes. Once inside, Hanxue and Auntie talked to the customer service agents and we then headed back home. I asked what was going on but didn’t get much of an answer. I am guessing that they just suggested that I buy a router and share the son’s internet as once we returned home, the three of us and the son looked online for a wireless router. After some calls back home to my brother, everything was sorted and the router was meant to ship overnight at the earliest.

By this time it was about lunch time, Auntie had requested she cook something for us but we refused, going to the university instead. So Hanxue and I walked down to the university (not my university, another, where I go to eat) to grab lunch. On the way she asked if I was interested in going to this art exhibition with her, she’d mentioned it before and I expressed my interest. Despite having a little homework to complete I accepted. After that we walked from the University, past her house to the railway station, it was quite a long walk actually, not sure why we didn’t get a bus. On the way we went to a small deli to buy a drink, Hanxue chose some lemon drink and I vouched for the same, at the counter I whipped my money out quicker to ensure that she didn’t have to pay again.

The drinks were terrible, we couldn’t open them despite trying a couple of times each. So we gave up for the time being. On the subway we tried again and I finally had some luck. Unfortunately I also got some bad blisters on my hand from opening them. They still haven’t quite healed two weeks later.

We got off at the People’s Square, asked for directions to the art gallery and then made our way around. Hanxue had brought her camera along as well so she took some photos of me infront of important landmarks on the walk over. We finally found the gallery with a huge line up out the front, this was crazy, the line was so long. Hanxue said that it was much better than the previous weekend (she went last weekend but the line was too long hence why we were there that day). Waiting in the line took ages and the humidity was getting to me, it was simply awful, I was sweating so much. The drink didn’t help it was like 20% pure lemon, I made some jokes about how the drink will kill us.

Finally we could go inside, we’d spent maybe 10 minutes looking around at some frankly terribly indecipherable artwork when a bunch of young school girls came running up to me (it’s my natural charisma that attracts them) to ask a bunch of questions. They spoke english too and spoke it beautifully. Hanxue found out that they were 15 yrs old and had been studying english since kindergarden. Their questions were typical reporter styled questions, they were all practicing to be journos, how cute. They then offered to be tour guides for us but yeah, they kinda of lost their way and didn’t know what to say about each piece.

We looked around some more, baffled at what we were looking at. We hadn’t a clue as to the artist’s meaning or intention was from each piece and frankly the artwork itself was ugh. They had super pixelated pictures of The Bund, boots for horses, photos of Africa and mish mash pieces that didn’t make any sense. The exhibition was titled ‘Trans local motion’ which was clever, unfortunately we failed to see the relationship to Shanghai’s developing transport system.

A few more floors later and we called it quits, Hanxue said that she wanted to go back outside and tell the people in the line not to waste their time. We then looked at some of the stuff outside the mueseum and then returned back home.

By the time we got home it was already getting dark so we grabbed tea together and went our seperate ways.

Sunday

Sunday, the day that internet would return, or so I’d hoped. In the morning the son came in to tell me that the router would be in tommorow, sure no dramas. For most of the day I got stuck into homework, I began blogging about my departure from USST. Auntie made lunch for me, rice, some cucumber and some meat. None of it tasted cooked…not so good, I decided to not let her cook me any meals from now on. I’ve failed at least 3 times.

I really wanted to leave Hanxue alone for that day as ever since I’d moved house she’d been by my side. Unfortunately I wasn’t sure about the canteen and how to buy my food as she hadn’t actually explained that to me. So that night we went back there and she showed me the institutional knowledge of the canteen. It sounds so simple yet it is needlessly complicated as they serve a variety of dishes and have different processes for different types.

We probably spent some time talking afterwards, I’m not sure.

Monday

Monday was the start of what felt like losing grip. I got home and the router had arrived. Yay, so I teamed up with the son and began setting it all up. I realized early on that even though there were instructions in Chinese (no english), the son was basically useless, that’s Chinese and problem solving right there.

When I called home my brother wasn’t there, he was at a mate’s place playing Gears of War. Mum wanted to talk and while we were talking the son began fiddling with stuff, going through each of the steps. Whatever, I couldn’t really care.

Afterwards I played around some more, we managed to get internet on my machine, only problem was that the son lost internet on his machine (his work not mine). Since he’d fiddled around before I hadn’t a clue what he’d done, this was problematic as his machine would give me an IP address…this makes no sense. Anyways, I spent a few more times grappling with the problem only to have no success. Frankly I got the impression that the son didn’t want to share his premium connection with me and as such was resistant to helping me out. I’m not sure, he seemed pretty retarded in his attempt to fix the problem, maybe this is natural…I don’t have a clue, by this point I was so frustrated and mad at the difficulty the problem had presented and the anal nature of the son.

Hanxue rocked up later on to help, which only layered on the guilt as I didn’t want to call on her again. But of course she is willing. It’s funny how some Chinese people can be complete jerks while others incredibly gracious.

She couldn’t get much out of the son. I was feeling pretty hazy and plain exhausted…..and pissed off. Hanxue, myself and Auntie did some talking and then the two of us went out for tea at about 8:00pm. While at tea, I decided to ask some of my I-wish-I-understood-but-perhaps-never-will questions about Chinese people. I was too tired and didn’t justify my question so it made little sense. It’s much like asking someone from a country…why are you guys so different? It is useless since, for them, everything is normal. It made me feel like more of a knob.

Tuesday

On Tuesday I found out Hanxue had called up to organise my internet. Wow I didn’t even ask for the favour. She got me a quote and I decided to apply for this deal. That night myself, Hanxue and Sam went out for tea and headed back to Sam and Ou Yans place for a while. Ou Yan’s brother had arrived in Shanghai, he seems like a reasonably nice guy. Was only staying for a little while.

Also in class, we discussed bad words that we’d learnt in Chinese, I said a few, the teacher and classmates had no idea what I was talking about. They seem to never understand me yet I have never come across these problems before and still don’t, it’s just in class. Anyways it was funny hearing my teacher say ‘fuck’ and ’shit’ in english. ^_^

Wednesday

On Wednesday Auntie had told me that the company would be around tommrow to install the internet. The router wasn’t a waste of money since I would be using it as my access point.

Thursday

Class was pretty sucky again for the second day running, this time I just couldn’t keep up with what we were talking about and then they caught me off guard and yeah, I hate being put in such an uncomfortable spot.

Some service agent rocked up in the afternoon, they took a look around and concluded that they’d have to drill a hole in the wall to get another phoneline through to my room. Suppsoively the chord already in my room was broken. Yeah I don’t really get it either. They buggered off, Auntie called up another place and signed me up for ½ a year of 512k, they’d be round the following day and could supposively thread the chord from outside the window.

Friday

I returned home on Friday after class (which was much better but still shitty) to find my internet all hooked up perfectly. I really don’t understand this but let me try and explain, suppsoively they threaded the phone line from out in the stairway into this already existing hole in my room. I don’t know how, and it looks like they had no problem in doing this but it is done and it works. God bless the hills.

Unfortunately they weren’t kind enough to install security but that was okay. Having been exhausted from trying to organise internet in the past few days and also from my classes, I just spent that afternoon catching up on all of the stuff I’d missed in the past month.

I hadn’t seen Hanxue for a few days and that night we had tea together, we then had some trouble in deciding what to do next beyond grabbing some supplies. We ended up walking the streets for a while until we found refuge in a KFC and talked for the next 2-3 hrs. This time I managed to communicate clearly my question about the differences between the cultures by explaining how I see things and how life is in Australia. I am so surprised at the responses too, very heart felt I’m starting to understand things a lot better now.

Headed home, jumped online to watch some more media and such. Talked to some friends and family, Hanxue was online too so we talked a little more. Phew.

Saturday/Sunday

On the weekend I continue my catch up session of all gaming news, blog articles and media. I watched a few hours of Good Game as well. All of my Chinse friends were heading home during this time as next week was the national week and everyone gets time off.

I also fixed the security problem but had to reset the router as Windows refused my password, something to do with the number of bits in password…hmmmm….if you can’t accept a 64bit password then why the hell allow me input one? This locked me out of the network, on getting back in (a few more wrestling matchs with Windows) the ISP password wouldn’t work. So I called an agent and he got me a new password and user ID, stating that the old one was bad. Yeah, that’s what he said? How does that make sense? How can your user name and password not work after one day? Eh, I had internet, I don’t care, it’s China’s problem, not mine.

Monday – Friday

I won’t lie to you, the last 5 days have been quite uneventful. Since I’ve had the free time I have decided to prioritize this time for study and some blogging to ensure that when school starts again I’ll have a leg up and hence can spend that time doing things with other people. Since, personally I don’t see there being much point in going out by myself unless I am doing an activity which requires me to fly solo, like photography. I’ve done a little of that too.

Most of my time has therefore been centred on the study though and I hate it. My friend Xi was planning on coming to Shanghai but plans change and he’s had so much on his plate it would be unreasonable for him to come to Shanghai. Xi and Hanxue were planning for Xi to come to Shanghai (as he had friend’s in Shanghai which had actually changed their plans too), spend some time with me and then for the two of us to go back to Hanxue’s hometown in Anhui and from there come back home. The problem is plans have changed and tickets are hard to come by, plus it is too difficult for me to get there by myself (6hrs away) , let alone having to find tickets. Hanxue still doesn’t have a return trip to Shanghai.

This means that I’ve been on my own a lot this past week but like I said, this is fine. I need to get my head around this study and I also have the time to just relax, in my own personal space. Do some writing, do some photography. The last 3 nights I have spent talking to Hanxue and Xi for 2-3hrs a night, it’s true, Chinese people stay up very late. Otherwise I’ve been prepping some interviews and cross blogging projects with others for my study on games and culture. I’m looking forward to writing about games from this perspective.

From Now On..

I’m not expecting much to happen. As usual I will be attending class, spending the night time and weekends with friends as well as blogging and photography. There will undoubtedly be less updates as I am now in routine and settled. Maybe once a month or every few weeks, we’ll see how we go.

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Settling In

September 28, 2008

21st September 2008

Thursday

Thursday morning I woke up at 7:45am assuming that it’d give me enough time to get to school. Auntie (the landlady; from here on I call her Auntie in Chinese) was up and already doing stuff. I’d actually woke up a few times before that at 6:30am and then 7:15am since there is so much noise in this complex. Cars honking their horns, people yelling across the street, old people chanting heavily. It ain’t the Spring Festival yet people!

Auntie explained to me some of the procedures of using the shower, like how the hot and cold dials are reversed and that I should close the window while I am using the toilet and shower. The bathroom is as I mentioned previously, very comfortable. The shower too was lovely, water doesn’t small like feces. I didn’t have much time to enjoy it though as time was on a treadmill.

Auntie was also keen to remind me to get Mrs Hua to call her about the police registration since they were all clueless from last night’s banter. She talked some more and I began to feel time running away from me.

It didn’t take long for me to find the bus stop and the right bus. The bus I catch was jammed pack, I entered from the front and realized that this bus line accepts cards from the back. It didn’t take long for me to catch on that passangers were passing each others cards and money along to the middle of the bus where it can be processed. I got off at the right stop and caught the line 1. Much to my bitter disapointment the line 1 during peak hour is even worse than I’d previously imagined. It really is butt check to butt check tight and the temperature climbs to a pressure cooker very quickly. Thankfully it cools down a little once we hit Xuhuijia.

Returning home was much more comfortable as the density of people had decreased. Once I got off at the railway station I lost my way and wandered around the complex for at least 25 minutes. This reminded me of all the other times I had gotten lost and how uncomfortable it felt. Eventually I found my way, I got off at the opposite end and had to walk through an underpass. Returning home from there was fine.

When I got home I called Auntie as I needed a key for the house. Her son answered and it didn’t take me long to realize that he was downstairs playing games so I got the key off him, this was only temporary though.

Once I got inside, I wasn’t too sure what to do. Like the day before, I had finished classes and had about 5hrs to myself. Hanxue was going to come over later and help me with the contract and the rest of it. I decided that It would be best that I work on my homework now since I might not have anytime to later. Even though my bags were still lying there mostly packed up I didn’t want to sort everything into drawers just yet.

In the down time I did some homework and slept a little, I also wrote up another to do list, noting everything I needed to know about the new place. Auntie rocked up later and told me to start sorting my stuff into drawers. She also helped me move the front loader washing machine left on my desk. From there I spent the next few hours unpacking my things. It felt great putting everything away, like things had finally turned my way.

Later on, Hanxue rocked up, the three of us did the routine talk-fest. We were going to arrange the contract and all that jazz but I later realized what it was me who had to set up the contract and not the landlord. Despite my lack of context Hanxue was already getting Ou Yan to get a template for me and would have it by tommorow.

Auntie also said a few things about me getting a webcam and doing a tour of the house for the people back in Australia. She also wanted to talk to my family, despite the different languages.

From there we went out to eat, we went to the same place as the night before, this time just the two of us. This time I let Hanxue order all of the dishes, they were all pretty good. Later on Ou Yan and Sam rocked up and joined in. From there we returned home, I showered (they encourage that I shower twice a day) and then went to sleep. I also called Xi at some stage.

Friday

Friday morning I went with Auntie down to the Police Station to complete the registration. Somehow they’d managed to work out something were I didn’t need all of the stuff on Mrs Hua’s list or something like that. I’m not too sure.

So I woke up, got ready and Auntie and waited a little for Auntie. She told me that we would travel to the police station via scooter. Scooters are extremely popular over here in China. Roads are littered with cars, busses bicycles, scooters and pedestrians. None of them really care about anyone else, they just go. Nobody wears helmets either.

We walked down to a small shed near the end of the compound and Auntie opened up the door and dragged out her scooter. She got on the front and I got on the back. I wasn’t sure where to put my hands, she said on her shoulders. From there we were off.

Ignoring the dangers of crashing and all that, being in the back, bending in and out of the early morning chaos was energising. It was only a short trip to the station. Inside I handed over my passport and signed some forms detailing my personal information. They then gave back my passport and a sheet of paper to say that I was registered along with the details that I’d just supplied.

On the way back Auntie dropped me off at the bus stop and I made my regular commute to school. After class I decided to check out an imported goods store that was recommended to me by one of my classmates. It was situated in the underground floor of a fancy department store.

Inside was packed with goods from around the world, mainly skewed towards American though. All of the sugary breakfast cereals were there, fresh meat, South Australian wines and a few Japanese goods. After searching the whole store I couldn’t find Vegemite and had to ask a staff member to direct me to where it was. I also picked up a can of ginger ale for AUD50c. I figured that I’d deserved it. No beer outside of Japan, China and the US. Tsk.

Once I got home I relaxed and played a short burst of games on my laptop. Auntie then rocked up and wanted to show me the canteens at the local university that I could buy my meals from. So we jumped on the scooter and she did a quick tour of the school. We looked at three canteens in total. A few things worried me about the university, firstly the quality of food was not very high at all, very sloppy, highly unappealing, it was much much lower than what I had been getting over in Yangpu. Secondly the method of transportation. Auntie had said that I could loan her bicycle and ride down to the university for lunch and tea. I didn’t exactly find comfort in the idea of gambling my life on the roads.

We returned home and I probably did some homework. Once again, Hanxue arrived after work to help me out. By this stage I am really unsure of how to handle her politeness, I mean ever since we met she had been helping me everything single day, as much as possible. I am so fortunate.

The three of us organised the contact, got it signed and I handed over the money. I then stored my copy away, nice and safe. We talked a little more about the plans ahead. My to do list had already shrunk as I’d figured out most of my questions (clean water, garbage bin etc.) by myself. I needed to ask a few more and got those out of the way.

Auntie knew of a quality restaurant and recommended that we go there for tea. She led the way and it didn’t take long before the two of us had found it. I was suprirsed at the calibur of this place, it was pretty classy, not quite what I am use to. Reminded me of the hotel from Home Alone 2 with the waiters hand gesturing and saying nice things to us.

Once we were inside we looked around for a spare table. I guess about 20% of the people inside began looking at me, like the foreign beast I am. I couldn’t help but ponder the kinds of thoughts running through there heads about me.

It didn’t take long for us to find a table, it needed a bit of a spruce up and the waiters did that with haste. We then looked at the menu concealed behind the class on the table. The menu was segmented into Chinese and Western dishes. I asked Hanxue if there was anything like the beef and black bean we had before, she found a ’similar’ dish and we ordered that.

I guess I should have been weary about this since it was in the westerners part of the menu but I didn’t think twice about it. We talked for a short while about why everyone looks at me and what they’re probably thinking. It was then that a waiter walked past and made some cluey remark to Hanxue. Ironi that. She said that he suggested that we drink lots of alcohol. Hmmm…

Our meals were finally served up on sizzling plates. The waiter removed the top pan and revealed what I’d describe as the ‘typical American breakfast’. It’s not really breakfast though. There was a slab of beef, pasta and egg all done up in a fatty, American style of cooking. Man, I had never had a meal like this before and it certainly wasn’t the ‘beef and black bean’-esque style of food I had thought it was.

In anycase, we both didn’t mind the meal. I really didn’t think that I’d like it but it was fine. No complaints. From the restaurant Hanxue delivered me home and said that she’d be around 9:30am tommorow to help me register for the internet. Like I said, hospitable.

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