December 28, 2006

Christmas in China

Just got back from my short Christmas break. The first one I've spent with my family in five years! Didn't feel the Christmas spirit though; maybe it was from the lack of many things such as, snow, caroling, and common Christmas awareness. There were times I forgot it was Christmas. There were decorations hanging on walls, but they all seemed so ---- fake, so artificial. Still, it was nice to be at home having dinner with your own family for once.

Confusing night that it was. Culture wise of course. My brother came up with the idea of having "noche buena," which meant having dinner really late around the hours of 11pm to wait for the coming of Christmas but my dad had a different idea. When he heard about it, he thought about inviting friends and having a Christmas dinner party Chinese style ---- which was around 6-7pm. So while my brother was preparing BBQ and Bibingka cakes for about 10 people for midnight, my dad was inviting friends and their family over for 7pm!

I was caught in the middle, answering calls between them; my dad telling me who else and what time a certain person was coming and my brother asking, "WHY?!" and telling me to tell dad that noche buena was at midnight. My dad says, this is China! Hehe... Almost glad I ran out of load in my mobile then.

Overall it turned out well. There were leftovers and everyone stayed through midnight. Merry Christmas! There's actually supposed to be another party tomorrow for New Year's. Glad I don't have to be in another party. I like small friends and family gatherings, but they always turn into this big "party" which I really find awkward. Anyway... I wonder what the New Year will bring this time.

December 21, 2006

Beta R.I.P, long live Blogger

Hahaha... Was wondering why I couldn't get in my blogger account...those google people killed Beta :) hehe...

Wow! Been quite awhile since I last wrote! Been busy, and had no time to relax and write in here. Kind of missed just writing in here. So went to the Summer Palace for the third time this Saturday with a friend. Now, being a foreigner but Asian; especially having oriental features, I noticed something when I’m out in Beijing with white-western friends. I was taking my friend from England to the supermarket. He speaks absolutely no Chinese and so most of the time I was there translating for him. Sales attendants tried to listen in to out conversations, I assumed because they wanted to learn English or because they wanted to test their English level and see how much they could understand. This happened a lot in elevators, public busses, on the street while waiting for the bus; but this was the first time I was asked questions in a supermarket, and also the first time I was asked if I was learning English, when I said I wasn’t and that I was actually learning Chinese, she asked if I was a translator. I told her I wasn’t and that I was just out with my friend who just came to China.

Later that day, on the same day, we went to the Summer Palace. As we were buying drinks, the sales lady asked if I studied abroad, assuming that I learned English outside, met my “foreign” friend, and now taking my “foreign-western” friend back to “my country” to show him around. Not complaining, and there’s really nothing to complain about; just thought to mention it. Just the common annoyance of being prejudged. Could’ve been worst, once someone thought I
was my older brother’s Chinese girlfriend, talk about sic!

December 17, 2006

How To Improve My Chinese?

Freezing cold these days! I miss the tropical heat of South Asia. I finally called my mom to asks how she might be spending Christmas this year. Hope she comes to China. She asked about my brothers, whom I haven't heard from either, and so I told her that her guess was as good as mine. Then she asked if my little brother is finally in a class to learn Mandarin Chinese. I told her that I wasn’t sure, last I heard he wasn’t, but that was a few weeks ago. After more talk about hoping to see her come to Beijing one day, we said good-bye and hung up the phone. I was suddenly overcome with a strange feeling of guilt. This time, it wasn’t over making a call I was worried my mom wasn’t going to get, but over my own Chinese skills. After all, I’m the one in Beijing, where they “speak it right.” It’s finally happening, my fears of excess expectation, but instead of my dad, it’s coming from me.

Now that my oral Chinese is better, I get a persistent feeling of the need to improve on it, and I still keep asking myself, “how to learn Chinese?” How to study Chinese in such a way that will take me even further without having to join another Chinese language course.

I’ve heard of schools using Chinese learning software as a modern teaching technique. But which kinds of Chinese learning materials really work, and how do you know which ones work best for you? I think there are too many Chinese schools in Beijing! Not only are there Chinese learning institutions but even universities in Beijing alone offer Chinese language learning programs. Normally people choose schools they hear more about, but lately it’s becoming more evident that not all schools you hear about are great; they just happen to spend more time doing their marketing. So who and how do you know which to trust? I want to improve my Chinese, but am I better off self-studying?

Another part of me is thinking, maybe I should try to learn a different language. Like Spanish! When I told my dad about Spain and my plan, he wasn’t as excited (at all) and said that everyone is doing business in China, and that I must learn Chinese in Beijing, where they spoke the "real" Putonghua (Mandarin)! Well now, I can speak Mandarin, but I still sure can’t speak any business Chinese.
Right now, my baby brother is probably the only one in my family who hasn’t had official Chinese language training in China (like me, he had a useless one outside the country), and so my grandfather, who doesn’t speak Mandarin himself, would constantly tell him to join a Chinese language course to make him learn to speak mandarin. But my brother has actually had his own Chinese crash course lesson whenever he was out flirting and playing with the local Chinese down where we lived. I envy that he seems to be soak up the language faster than I did in the beginning.

December 12, 2006

Life of a Student

Beijing is so big that it is common to live far away from where you work or study. One reason, as I've mentioned early on, is because it’s cheaper to live as far away from the center of the city as possible. On my first year in Beijing I was living in the school dormitory, so every morning I was late to go to my Chinese classes. The first few days I was on time, but eventually that wore off, and I woke up telling myself class was just three minutes away and therefore there was no need to get up so soon. A year later, my freshmen year, we had to move to the actual school campus, which meant we had to live somewhere hopefully closer to the school. Well anything too close to school was expensive, and because my roommates and I just weren't experienced enough in Beijing to look for a good cheap place we found something far and expensive.

I wasn't in Beijing at the time, and left the work for my roommates look for a place. Being that they were Koreans and we didn't have much experience in searching a place to move into, they found a Korean agent whom they could communicate with and wouldn’t feel like they were being ripped off. We ended up living in a nice Korean residential community (that place I got locked out from) forty-five minutes by bus away from our school. We hired a driver to take us to school every morning so we didn’t risk waiting for a bus that would be late. Going home was the tiring part, I went home around seven more or less. By the time I got home, I'd be starving and tired and had to decide between eating or just going to bed. This meant going to bed around nine!

I was such a good student, hahaha… Got up each morning around six, the first one in class, stayed in school for at least ten hours, and went to sleep starving at nine! Hahaha… What made me get up each morning was knowing that the driver taking us to school would be waiting downstairs; I hate making people wait. Imagine how early he had to get up. It was good motivation in making me wake up early each morning. Miss those days...

A year later, we had to move where our department building really stood, which was back where I had my Chinese classes the previous year. My roommates decided to move into the dormitory, and I made some new friend from freshmen year who were now my new roommates. We lived in an old, about to be demolished building, (the one with the scary lady incident) a fifteen minute walk away from school. I was back to getting up late. I went home earlier, still starving sometimes, and sleeping at later hours, or sometimes barely sleeping in order to finish some project. Such is the life of a student.

December 10, 2006

Titanic 2?

Living in China is great! Not always, and it takes some getting used to, but the perks are great. For one thing, there's the limitless abundance of pirated dvds. Movies tend to be out on dvd here before they're even out in most other Asian theatres. Not only that, but you can find almost any type of dvds here; tv series from all over the world and all types of old and rare movies you can't find anymore; somehow they accumulated and ended up here in China. Cheesy old movies, 1960's English dubbed Kung Fu fighting movies, low-budget films like “Titanic 2.” Hahaha…. Titanic 2! I want to see that movie! My friend told me about it and I thought she was joking. But she was serious, I was completely skeptic about it and kept saying how was it possible? What kind of story can they possibly come up with?! Jack's dead last I remember! Or are they replacing him, or are they just changing the whole story? She said no, it was a continuation, something about Jack coming back from the dead in present time! I was “Wah!” She continues to say that there's a trailer online if I wanted to see (I regret I didn't), and that apparently Jack's body was preserved by the icebergs that we thought killed him in the first place. So it's like “Demolition Man” and “Forever Young” put together. So Jack comes back from the dead---from the icebergs I mean, all young and handsome to see old, wrinkly Rose. I'm really curious what story they came up with! And who are the stars playing them?! Then again, is it really possible, this movie is out there somewhere? There's a trailer, but maybe there's ONLY a trailer available and nothing else? Should go search for it sometime, when I'm not so lazy.



Chinese Pirates VS. Free Online Downloads

Even better than cheap pirated dvds, is to be able to download practically anything for free over the internet. From movies to games, anything! The drawback is the chances of your computer getting a virus. Which most of my Chinese friends have encountered. I've heard them curse and buy new hard-drives (I'm not an exception) for their computers, but in the end, they’re back downloading “Prison Break.” I sound like an advertiser once again, but there comes a time when I must remind myself the beauty of being in this country. Because otherwise it's easy to focus on the vendors who try to cheat you, or just tire you out when all you really want is a pair of warm, cheap socks. Some websites are not easy to go into; I've heard stories where people have gotten calls from unknown callers telling them to stop trying to get into certain sites, scary. Also the fact that holidays you used to spend, such as Christmas, no longer exists and your family are all far away, and even friends, the foreign ones, are either not going to be here for long or have already gone away. That is why I love dvds!!!



More Appraisal of Food

What else is great about living in Beijing, and this time not necessarily the whole of China, is the food! I mentioned that before too but it’s true. It’s not just the variety of Chinese food available, but also the variety of food from all over the world. I can’t eat too much, but I sure do love to eat good food. Also the foreigners I’ve met in Beijing, you must understand and try to imagine that although Beijing is the capital of the country, it isn’t quite the most comfortable, cleanest, or the most modern place in China, which is the reason a lot of people choose to go somewhere more urban chic, like Shanghai. The people who do choose to live here, whether it’s to open business or to learn the Chinese language, I find, tend to be more into culture (obviously) and very adventurous; there are a lot more travelers than tourists. Love the foreigners who dare come to this place, they are great, we are great!!! Oh yeah~

December 6, 2006

Another SARS Moment

I think I mention before that I will tell you about the time I stupidly got locked out of my own apartment! Lol…Good times, good times… So this happened during the Sars epidemic. Those days I couldn’t even go to my own classes because the schools in Beijing were closing their gate to keep students outside (except the “xiao mai bu fu wu yuan,” the sales ladies) from getting in and “contaminating” the rest of campus civilization. Another reason was to keep people in the school from getting out, which people still did despite restrictions. These are universities in Beijing. I believe it was all of universities in China not letting students in school! But they were letting the woman who sell cake in the store go in.

During this time, schools have asked foreign students to go back home to their countries and come back when things have calmed down. Remember I was one of the few stuck-in-Beijing-SARS-survivors? Yah, so that day, my roommates were going back to Korea. It was early morning and I was helping them take their luggages downstairs to help get them into a taxi. I remember it actually crossed my mind; I was thinking, now that I’m alone, if I get locked out, there’ll be no one to open the door for me. That thought went through my head in one split second without me putting any emphasis on it, because it was something that never happened before (as all things that eventually happen are). So right after they left, I got back in the house and started cleaning. To sort of start my “new” life alone. It was a beautiful windy morning, the sun was up and shinning and everything was quiet because everyone thought they could get the disease by walking outside. I should explain first that the key we used was not just one of those typical flat keys. We had one of those complicated crossed keys; hard to copy and hard to pick. So I was wearing my house cleaning clothes, I remember my shorts were one of those boxers short types with little pink and red hearts on it. At one point I had to take the trash out, and as soon as I stepped out, a gust of wind from the hallway window swooshed my iron door shut! I stood frozen with two bags of trash, one on each hand, still a bit in denial of what just happened. Then I looked down and stared at my pocket-less outfit. S@#t!! I put the trash where I intentionally wanted them to be first and started thinking about what to do. Call the landlord and admit stupidity? No need, no phone!

Then I remembered a few months ago, when my next door neighbour couldn't get in his apartment and had asked to borrow my key. I decided not to debate how another household key was going to help me get into my apartment, nor that if it could, how dangerous that would actually mean. I knocked, or rang my neighbours door, can't remember exactly, and a different guy I didn't recognize answered the door. I told him my problem and watched his eyes laugh at my pink and red hearted boxer shorts. He says he can't help. I explain to him that last time his friend asked me for my keys to open up their place. He says their door was originally messed up and so any key would've helped. I said thanks. What now? Who should I look for? Didn't have nobody's number, and certainly didn't have a phone with me. So I held my head high and made my way down to the main front desk to ask for help. Of course they couldn't break my door down but they did have the number for somebody who opened locks; they gave me the number. I go to a nearby Chinese convenience store to use their phone (all in my “cute outfit”). I plead with the store manager if I could use his phone for free and pay him later by explaining what happened. He believed me right away for some reason and handed me the phone. I made arrangements to meet the lock picker.

I learned a lot of interesting things about lock pickers that day, except “how” to pick locks. I never knew they were really concerned about picking the right locks for the right person, because the first thing he asked me was that he needed to see my passport as soon as he opens the door to prove I really am the one staying in the apartment. Also, I might've been duped, but before he got to work, he explained the price to me, he said with the crossed styled key it was harder to pick locks and that it was going to cost me, if I remember correctly, 250rmb, or 300rmb, can't really remember. I couldn't believe it cost that much! But I had no choice, I thought maybe, I'll have him pick the lock and try to bargain with him later.

As he worked, I asked him some questions to practice my Chinese and pass the time. It turned out he made a living out of picking locks because he got to do 3-5 doors daily on an average day around Wang Jing. All my ego heard was, “yay! I'm not alone! There are people getting themselves locked out on a daily basis!” He told of certain nationalities he doesn't enjoy dealing with and the whys. We talked and talked, but those are the only ones I really remember from that talk. He did eventually open my door and it was such a feeling of pure relief! I showed him my passport (he threatened that he'll have to lock the door once again if I couldn't prove I lived in it. I thought that was cool). Oh and I paid him full (so sue me). Now tell me that wasn't an eventful morning
.

December 5, 2006

The Wonderful World of Toilet Experiences in China

I find washroom experiences in China very interesting. Public washrooms in the suburbs are extra special but I'm beginning to find city public restrooms are catching up quickly in their own way. Ask anyone living in China and you will get a“WC experience”; sometimes funny, other times interesting, most of the time just a great story.

Yesterday, a person I just met for the first time shared a story about his washroom experience somewhere in WuDaoKou. He says he doesn't know if it's the same in the women's washroom (so far never had this experience and I can't imagine there ever being any in the women's WC), but one time while he was in the restroom, and this was in one of those with foreigners going, he was standing (of course), doing his “business” when suddenly he felt a pair of hands on his back. He turns around a bit to take a look and see the male-Chinese restroom attendant trying to give him a massage! This guy telling the story wasn't homophobic, and he says it wasn't done in any misleading way, but still, as he put it, doing your business in the urinal is one of the most personal things a person can do and to have someone there suddenly touching you from behind is just plain strange. But he was nice about it, he made a “no, thanks for the service” gesture and the attendant moved on to the next victim. My other friend and I were transfixed to his story, wow, we never knew this type of thing happens in male washrooms, and why? Who in the world would want that kind of service? Well, we concluded that some people do probably like getting this sort of treatment; otherwise it would be hard to come up with this kind of gimmick. It would then be a washroom brawl just waiting to happen.

I also shared one of my many interesting washroom experiences. I don’t have any bad experiences that I can remember right now, just a lot of smelly and eye-opening experiences. One of my most unforgettable one was during a trip outside of Beijing, on a mountain-temple trip. We stayed in like a one-floor, square type facility, with a public washroom to share. But the thing was, I think the carpenters who built the place must’ve forgotten to install a washroom, coz the room I went into was an actual room with no floor! The whole room was the urinal!Maybe half-way making it, they counted and suddenly realized they’ve built 10 rooms and haven’t gotten to a working washroom, so someone yelled, “Halt! Stop, don’t continue, forget about the flooring, we’ll say this is the washroom.” Have you seen the Japanese movie, “The Ring”? That’s the first thing that came to mind when I stepped in. Oh yah, they had wooden planks for you to walk on so you don’t fall in the hole---the well---room, oh whatever! A single orange bulb lighted the whole gray concrete walled room. I made my way to the middle and did my business, all the while thinking and imagining what could be down there. It was pitch black, I couldn’t see anything. Not even of what a previous visitor might have left there before I did. Suddenly just when I decided to focus my sight on the door in front of me, I felt a hand grab my ankles. I looked down and saw eyes so white I screamed! Just kidding. Nothing happened, I left the smelly dump in one piece, and for the rest of the stay tried to hold my bladder in as much as I could so that I didn’t have to go back in there.

During the same trip, same mountain, but different area, just after a meal, I decided to go look for a washroom. Now this one was quite pleasant. How can I describe it properly but that it was simply an outdoor urinal with concrete and bricks to wall you in just enough so nobody can see the lower part of your body and what you’re really doing inside. But still open enough to let you feel the cool breeze of the wind and overlook people about a few hundred meters away walking about minding their business, not realizing they are being watched by people like me. Even if they saw you that far away, they would only see a head poking out. I remember there was a stream running right between where those people were walking about and the outdoor-toilet. It gave the whole thing sort of a zen feel to it. The idea that you're the one doing your "business" but is also the one doing the peeking at other people is kind of amusing.

December 4, 2006

Random Food Blabbers

One of the best things about living in Beijing is the variety of food available. It has a lot of everything: Japanese, Italian, French, American, Korean, Thai etc. Even the Chinese food available in the city come from different places in China, making you wonder which in fact are considered by outsiders (foreigners outside of China) to be Chinese food? What is missing though is a Filipino restaurant! Where can I get a decent lechon kawali, sisig, langgonisa, etc. around here? In fairness, I remember going to some big supermarket that sell "pandesal." It's a sweet bun people usually eat in the morning, crispy on the outside for the butter to melt over, and fluffy-soft in the inside, great with or without anything. I miss pandesal!!!

I was out for lunch today and ordered a bowl of beef noodles. It was good; I liked the thick noodles, and I liked the thin, easy to chew beef that came with it, but oh my, I could count exactly how many slices of beef they put in there. You'd think they're trying to save us from cow disease. I was just really disappointed; I wanted more beef in my noodle bowl! Needless to say, I wasn't full when I got out of there. So I had a popsicle too, which was also disappointing because it was vanilla covered with fake chocolate.

Why am I talking about food? Am I still hungry? No. In fact I'm starting to feel the early pangs of a stomach ache. “la du zi” now that is another something anyone who's in Beijing has got to experience before they can say they've been here. There's no better indication that you live in Beijing than getting “la du zi” and getting your bike stolen (over and over again).

What am I saying?! Bottom line is, you got good days and bad days, but eating out in Beijing is (most of the time) a treat; a great treat! I love eating here. I sound like a lame advertiser, but I'm not promoting Beijing. Some think the food here is too oily or fattening or what, but that's the thing, you can find all kinds of food here, whatever it may be that you like. Personally, I like dining here, but of course I know many won't agree, but I don't care, I'm just saying that I! I like it! I enjoy the food Beijing has to offer, whatever country or province it may be from (but not all).

December 3, 2006

Learning Chinese continuation... (part 3)

I was already attending first Year College in the Philippines then, and although I sort of enjoyed the idea of being somewhere new and far away, I was also a bit skeptical. I knew Beijing meant studying in China, which would mean learning to speak Mandarin once again, and I was really sick of it. I also knew going there to get my degree meant, higher standard Chinese, how in the world could I learn Chinese in one year, when I couldn't in the two years I did before that, and get in college or university! And say I couldn't, then I would've wasted another year, when right then I could've just finished my college degree and try to learn Chinese after I graduated. What to do?! My school was actually good, but my life in Manila just wasn't satisfying, I felt I didn't have enough freedom, and aside from going back and forth to school to my house, I felt like I wasn't learning much about life itself. I could finish school alright, but I knew there were more important things school just wasn't going to teach me about. I guess I was beginning to feel dumb.

Oh, the self-doubt! The fear of not knowing if this decision was right! What if I can't learn enough Chinese to get in school?! For some reason I had this idea that failure meant not being able to go back home, I really honestly felt I had nowhere to go back to if I chose to really do this and failed. I really wished someone would take the decision from my hands and just tell me what to do! This way, if anything went wrong, at least I wouldn't completely hate myself, this way I had someone else to blame my failure on. But nobody came to my rescue! My dad just kept giving me a choice. And others just gave me more doubts, and questions like, “do you think you can do it?” in a tone that said they didn't. I just answered with fear and honesty, “I don't know, I've never tried it.” So scared was I and couldn't even show it. When people doubt you, it's natural to become defensive about the subject. So instead of saying, “no, maybe I shouldn't go,” or “I change my mind, I don't think I can do this alone.” I tried to come up with sentence structures where, the other person is able to take the responsibility of deciding for me not to go, because as the day grew closer for me to move, I got bolder in thinking I shouldn't go. But my pride wouldn’t let me admit it. I wanted someone else to say, “don't go!” and me just agreeing. So one last time, I asked my dad, and explained the burden it might be to have me go, I even gave him options to just have me go to the nearby school that would cost less, and would be more convenient for everyone, that is, if he thought me going to Beijing wasn't the best idea. He said, “it's up to you.” :S My brothers said not to go, they were right, I knew that by going, I would increase expectation and pressure on myself in the future. I was “the one” who went to Beijing, my Chinese should be better than everyone else in the family, that kind of mentality might arise in the future, which would destroy the freedom I so longed for! With a heavy heart I chose to go to Beijing anyway.


In Beijing

It’s funny how you worry most about the little things you normally don’t notice when you’re super duper scared. I remember, my number one problem was figuring out how to get my heavy luggage up to my room alone. Seems stupid now, but I was WORRIED, I knew there was no way I could do it alone, and I had no idea how I was going to get someone to help me nor if I could even find anyone to help out. About a day or so before my departure, my dad asks if I wanted him to come with me (of course I did! The luggage! The luggage!). I said no. Oh dad, why must you ask all the time! Why didn’t you just come with me! Apparently we are more alike than it may seem; we’ve got pride the size of mount Olympus.



Beijing Now

Fast forward to the present. I’ve graduated recently from a Chinese university, and my family wants me to go back home but I don’t. Through the years, there were new challenges, and obstacles to be hurdled while living here in Beijing, but then I would find myself sitting alone in a public bus and silently reflect on everything. And everything just feeling so right. I’m glad I was forced by circumstances to make a decision, and I’m glad I didn’t let fear let me choose against coming to Beijing. I’ve met a lot of interesting and wonderful people. People who make you think maybe you came to meet them. Most of all, I got to know myself in ways that surprise even me. I sometimes wonder how my life would be, and what kind of a person I would be now, if I hadn’t chosen to come.

Another thing, learning Chinese in China, especially in Beijing, was a completely different experience for me than learning Chinese in other countries. I guess I’m one of those people who learn more in terms of being in the actual environment with people who constantly and only speak to you in their native language.