Saturday, November 15, 2014

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Apps in China

Smartphones are as big in China as anywhere else. (Among other things, they are an integral part of the eerily Swedish-like, no-eye-contact subway-riding culture.) You won't look out of place if you've got your nose buried in your phone all the time, so seize the moment and download some particularly helpful China-specific apps.

 Pleco
I've already given Pleco its own post, but if you don't feel like reading it, what you need to know is that a) it's a dictionary, and b) you really need it in your life. I mean, really. You and Pleco should basically get married. I'll bring cake.

 HSK
If you're planning on doing an HSK test (the standardized Chinese proficiency test), you should know that a lot of it is about knowing your vocabulary. To prepare for HSK level 3 back in Sweden, and level 4 here in China, I've been using HSK apps with flashcard-style quizzes to really help pound the words in.

 AQI app
I have this installed so I can always keep an eye on what the Shanghai air quality is like. It's not an essential requirement or anything, but I kind of like knowing. It helps with paranoia. And knowing when to breathe.

 WeChat
This is an app that a lot of Westerners have never heard of but find themselves immediately needing the moment come to China. WeChat is a simple instant messenger, and everyone has it. It is the first go-to for staying in touch.

 Apparently, there is also a Smart Shanghai app that is supposed to have a bunch of info about what is currently going on in Shanghai at any given time, but it is iPhone exclusive and as I am what they refer to as an "Android heathen" I can't offer any insight there. :(

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

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Royal Straight Flush?

For some reason, here in China I've ended up with a lot of cards in my hand. And no, I'm not talking about gambling.

 It seems that every facet of daily life requires some kind of card. So far, I've accumulated:
  • Dorm room key
  • Consumption card (for hot water and canteen food)
  • Student ID card
  • Bank of China card
  • Student hospital card
  • Subway card
  • Library card

Add this to all the cards I still have left over from Sweden, and I've basically got the whole deck. I'm not sure why they're so big on cards here, but I suppose there are worse systems one could use.

Time to devise a fortune-telling method and rake in the only thing better than cards: cold hard cash.


pick a card, any card

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

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Ducking awesome

Living in Sweden, you kind of get used to the fact that the rest of the world doesn't really care what people are getting up to in your little corner of the universe. Not so in Shanghai, a full-fledged world metropolis, and the global giving-a-shit-o-meter most recently went off with the arrival of...
IT'S HERE.
...the Big Yellow Duck.

 It is currently stationed in Shanghai's Century Park (to quote the advert, 大黄鸭真来世纪公园啦!), and will remain there until November 23.

 This was one of those "whoa what the duck" moments for me, since I have seen countless pictures of the Big Yellow Duck on the internet without ever believing I would witness it with my own myopic eyes. But sometimes fun surprises are in store.
I usually don't like taking pictures of myself,
but some opportunities you just don't pass up

Monday, October 27, 2014

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Your Personal Stalker

Some Chinese shops seem to have a very strange idea about customer service. As a Swede - springing from a less-talkative, chillier culture - I'm most comfortable if the clerk says hello and asks if they can help (not saying hi is rude, OK Sweden?), but lets me do my own looking once I've declined.

 Here, though, entering a shop might get you hitched with a bodyguard/parasite/human surveillance camera. A staff member who does not say hello or welcome or anything at all will latch onto you and silently follow you around the store. At some point they might try forcing wares on you or informing you about deals (which, often, you won't be able to understand). But it doesn't matter whether or not you are interested: they will keep heeling you until the moment you leave. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be some sort of butler concept or if shoplifting is a big problem in China, but it makes me feel like either a wanted criminal, or someone being stalked by a restless ghost.
general tip: if your staff is giving off a slenderman vibe, you're probably doing it wrong?

 In other stores, they take customer service to unprecedented heights. I visited a small shop selling hair accessories. Its two rooms could easily have been staffed by one, two, or perhaps even three people on a busy day, but there were five or six women working simultaneously. Several women would greet you as you walked in and one would follow you, anticipating what you wanted to look at as soon as you took a step or turned your head. It was extremely difficult to move around because each customer had their own attendant standing behind them - usually in another customer's (read: my) way.

 A Beijing tea shop actually had two women race each other to see who could get to my friend first. The entire time we were there we had the shop assistant breathing down our necks and shoving teas in our faces for us to smell. At a clothing shop with no other customers, the girl behind the counter followed me with her eyes and proffered products to me but didn't speak a word. It's really weird. And usually makes me leave a shop prematurely, because I'm not comfortable shopping while my spine crawls.

 I mean, I understand that the shop personnel are going to be extremely annoying in a fake-goods market where all that matters is being able to hawk the loudest and most insistently. But in a genuine store? Terrible idea, that drives customers away. Independence is the name of the game.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

3:09 PM - , No comments

Class Time

Here, finally, is what you've all been waiting for: the big reveal of what I do in school.

 [awed gasps]

 I have 20 hours of class a week, meaning four class hours per day. Each class consists of two 45-minute periods, with a ten-minute break in between. Two days a week, I have two different classes on one day; the other three days are each spent with a massive four-hour stretch of the same class. For extra in-depth learning, and extra exhaustion by the end! The perfect deal.

 I'm in 中等一级, or Intermediate Level 1. At this level, Chinese learning is divided into five different classes that each focus on their own aspect of the language.

 Intensive Reading（精读）
This is the most straightforward class. Our textbook is split into lessons, each consisting of a text, a list of new words, and grammar exercises. We learn all the new words and read the text until we understand it completely, then do the exercises. The following week, we have a dictation where the teacher reads out a selection of the new words (and, if we're ~lucky~, sentences) that we have to write in Chinese characters. This is the most structured and familiar class. It's relatively easy to study for, and I feel like I really learn a lot each week.

Extensive Reading（阅读）
One of the more challenging classes, all the material for Extensive Reading is way too freaking hard. However, this is all deliberate, since we're not supposed to understand every single word and sentence - or in some cases, not understand anything at all. Extensive Reading teaches you how to read a text, and focuses on structure and different ways of finding relevant information. There's also some work on character radicals, morphemes, and other more linguistic aspects of Chinese, which not only gets me very excited but also proves beyond a doubt that I am a humongous dork.

 Listening（听力）
My least favorite class, for a variety of reasons. Since I'm largely self-taught, I did very little listening practice and feel a bit behind in that department. But then there's also the combination of a poorly designed textbook and a lack in the teaching department: aka, a perfect recipe for disaster. One of my main beefs with the way the class is laid out is that we just listen to extremely fast texts and are then expected to answer extremely specific questions, usually hinging on one or two completely new words. This doesn't mirror what listening comprehension is like in real life, where it's more context-based and intimately involved with speaking and discussion. Oh well. I just hope I pass the exam :(

 Writing（写作）
Writing class really makes me aware that we are at the intermediate level. It focuses less on what you write and more on how you write it: you get extra points for making the text varied and interesting to read. That's why I find it kind of enigmatic that the topics are still so pedestrian (daily routines, where you are from, coming to China etc). I wish we'd actively learn more sentence structures, grammar patterns, and stylistic devices. That would help a lot more than the teacher reading through five people's texts, in a row, in front of everyone, as time moves slower and slower and attention spans grow shorter and shorter.

 Speaking（口语）
This class is one of, if not the, most immediately useful and practical classes. Most other classes consist of listening to the teacher, taking notes, and reading in the textbook, so there's very little active participation on the part of the students. Speaking class is the complete opposite: we're there to talk. Even if it can feel awkward, it's so important just to get the ball rolling. After all, if you say something wrong, you can always correct or explain yourself. If you say nothing at all, well, no one will ever know what you're thinking. For a chatterbox like me, the choice is simple.

 All the classes are taught entirely in Chinese. (I never cease to be amazed how I can understand and follow 95% of what the teachers are saying, but be completely baffled as soon as I have an encounter with an actual, out-of-classroom Chinese. Or, well, the listening class CD.) This has both good and bad sides. The main con is that the teachers will often ask questions that I know the answer to, but my Chinese just isn't good enough to express it yet. Becoming actively involved in class can be difficult when you're simply missing communicative ability. But, of course, the positive aspect of being totally immersed in Mandarin greatly outweighs this nuisance. It also gives you a goal to work towards. So on we soldier. 加油!

Friday, October 17, 2014

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Suzhou story

I mentioned that during Golden Week I made a day trip to Suzhou with some other Swedes I met at Starbucks. Here's the payout: a picture-heavy post.
Train station packed with Golden Week traffic

First we visited this Buddhist temple, and climbed all the way to the top. Much taller and steeper than it looked from the outside...



Suzhou is famous for being built on canals.





Then there are the quaint streets and shops. Very touristy, geared mostly at Chinese tourists (featuring popular delicacies such as chicken feet), so we agreed we wouldn't really want to go back. Worth a day's look, though!

 





an interesting offer
Also found a cat café! Pretty much all of the cats were asleep, but I can cross another item off my bucket list. I would like to visit one with more sociable cats, though, and I've heard rumors of one in Shanghai's Tianzifang...




Monday, October 13, 2014

5:24 AM - No comments

I get to stay!

So after much ado, I finally got my residence permit!!

This little sticker is my key not only for living in China, but also for traveling in and out as much as I want to. I don't know if that will be often, but I've actually booked a trip already...

 That's the good news. The bad news is that my cold has gotten worse, with the added bonus of pinkeye. This did, however, let me locate the school hospital and manage an entire doctor's appointment in Chinese. We only had to use a phone to translate two words ("allergy" and "conjunctivitis" so who can blame me). Suddenly those boring textbook passages don't seem as pointless anymore.

Friday, October 10, 2014

1:50 PM - , 1 comment

What's been up

I haven't been around in realtime for a while, and of course everyone is dying to know exactly what has been going on, down to what I've been having for breakfast.

The past week was a holiday, courtesy of the Chinese National Day. Hence Sunday school last week, and Saturday school this week, because nothing comes for free. Because so many people are off during this holiday, touristy locations are absolutely packed, making travel pretty pointless unless you're really cool with sharing your space. Along with a lot of others, I stayed in Shanghai for the duration of the week, exempting one day trip to the nearby city of Suzhou. More pictures will come in another post!


I have also gone swimming, for which I had to buy a Chinese swimsuit. Made the mistake of trusting the lady who said the cute cherry-patterned one would fit me, only to realize later that the chest is about 3 sizes too small. It was a fight against gravity, hard-won.

The Shanghai swimming pool was an experience in itself. To get in, you first have to sign a form confirming that you do not suffer from an array of ailments, including diarrhea, AIDS, and hemorrhaging conjunctivitis. In the pool, you are required to wear a cap to avoid getting hair in the water. There were about 6 lifeguards on duty at once. The sign marking the deep end of the pool was charmingly translated as "profundity zone." A perfect example of what China is like: the same, but always different.

Briefly visited Xintiandi, and an exhibit about the Communist Party of China, where a Chinese guy in a knockoff t-shirt sporting the Republican elephant and the word "EVERYONE" was seen having his picture taken in front of a patriotic Chinese display. A guy in our group found this so hilarious that he chased the pseudo-Republican down and made him pose for another picture.

xintiandi

The exhibit itself was, of course, extremely biased. But it made me wonder how biased the information in textbooks and museums in the West really is. My guess is: probably not as much as here, but a hell of a lot. Source criticism and awareness, guys.

I've also been exploring some of the restaurants available in the area and appreciating the amazing joy of late opening hours. I can come home from school, nap all afternoon, and when I wake up around six or seven I can cruise down to the malls and window shop until after 9 PM. Being able to hang out in the bookstore pretty much around the clock is a privilege everyone should have.

Finally, and most disappointingly, I've gotten sick. I am now juggling classes with a cough and a bit of headachiness. Today I bought myself a rescue kit in the shape of chamomile tea, honey, and an herbal Chinese cough syrup recommended by a friend. We'll see how well it works, but the first verdict is that it's extremely delicious and I could probably just drink it straight out of the bottle if I didn't know better.

11:00 AM - 1 comment

Crouching Blogger, Hidden Facebook: Using a VPN

Internet censorship is one of the first things foreigners going to China start worrying about. As most people know, a lot of our most commonly used websites are blocked, including Facebook, YouTube, and various Google platforms. The way to get around this is called VPN (Virtual Private Network).

I am (regrettably) not a tech-head, so I'm not going to explain the hows and whats of VPN, simply because I don't know. But as of recently, I have experience as a user, which I will share here. So, if you've been wondering how to internet from China, I tell everything I know in true-to-goodness clueless layman's terms under the cut. Don't Trust Anything I Say.

Read more »

Monday, October 6, 2014

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Beijing To-Do: Hit the Stage

This is the last post about my trip to Beijing!

 You know the Great Wall and the Forbidden City already, but what else is there to do in Beijing? Well…

Through London musicals and theater-student friends, I’ve recently discovered how much fun it is to go see a real on-stage performance. It feels more genuine than a movie, since the performance is happening live, right in front of you. In Beijing, we went to see two stage performances that were both well worth the money.

First, the incredible acrobatics show at Chaoyang Theatre is absolutely necessary for anybody visiting Beijing. Think people flying through the air, 12 girls 1 bike, and some crazy shit with motorcycles, and you’re getting there. If you book tickets in advance by emailing the theatre, you get a lovely discount of 150 yuan, making good seats quite affordable.

i wasn't kidding. from meiguoxing.com

Then, we went to Chang’an Grand Theatre to watch an opera. The show for the evening wasn’t a traditional Beijing opera, but a modern piece from Henan province. This might have been lucky for us, since Beijing opera is notorious for being hard on foreign ears. Anyway, even though we couldn’t understand much of what they were saying, the costumes, singing, and incredible live orchestra music made this worth our while.



Wednesday, October 1, 2014

11:00 AM - , 1 comment

Pleco

Any serious learner of Chinese needs to download Pleco. Sure it's named after a sucker fish, but you're the only sucker if you don't have it already.

I was getting by with another dictionary app (i.e., being a sucker) until a friend tipped me off to this one, and it definitely is the bee’s knees. I've been using Pleco for about a year, and it has yet to disappoint.

 Besides having clear but thorough definitions, usually with examples, Pleco’s interface is smooth, minimalistic and easy to use. There are a number of customizable options so that you can decide for yourself how much, and how detailed, information you want to see. It has all kinds of words, too: how about "克苏鲁 (Kèsūlǔ) = Cthulhu, fictional cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft"?

 Pleco also isn’t idiotic; if you type in a string of characters, the app will split it into different words on its own, rather than telling you that you’ve fed it something garbled it can’t decipher.

Best of all, though, is the handwriting function. You can draw any character with your fingertip and the app will bring up suggestions. This is invaluable for a language with no phonetic alphabet. I got through the entire first volume of Sailor Moon in Mandarin with Pleco by my side.

Oh, and did I mention this is just the free version?

Pleco is available for Android and iOS!


Tuesday, September 30, 2014

11:00 AM - 1 comment

Pictures from the past week

Skipped class last Thursday to go on the school's so-called "city tour", which was more a bus dumping us in two places to look around and then taking us back to Jiao Tong. Pretty nice nevertheless, with beautiful sunny weather and blue skies.

 First was Lujiazui, the financial district in Pudong.





Second, the extremely touristy area around Yuyuan Garden. There was a student discount for entering the garden itself, so why not?








And then we returned home. But I'm still majorly enjoying the summery weather (20+ degrees Celsius every day!). If I ever get homesick, I just remember the fact that it's almost October and I'm still wearing shorts.

Monday, September 29, 2014

12:50 PM - 1 comment

¥⌣¥

Sooooo something finally came through today, and for once in life I was lucky.

Because the scholarship people have been too slow in opening my bank account, my allowance for September and October was to be given to me in cash. I am now 5200 RMB richer and all I had to do for it was stand in line.

 can't hear my past self being emo over all these cash register noises


PA-CHING
PA-CHING
PA-CHING

don't need my panda fan no more

11:00 AM - , No comments

Beijing To-Do: Find Something to Read

This is one of several posts about my trip to Beijing in July, up on Mondays.

 You know the Great Wall and the Forbidden City already, but what else is there to do in Beijing? Well…

 I’m incapable of visiting a foreign city without stopping at a minimum of one bookshop, and Beijing was no exception. Expat haven The Bookworm is small, located off the main street and elevated from the ground. Their poetic motto 吃，喝，读 (eat, drink, read) spoke to my soul. And after falling into a panic when I realized that hot, greasy Chinese food really disagrees with my system, eating the 20-yuan, no-strings-attached house salad at The Bookworm was practically religious. For a higher price, they serve other classic Western dishes, but the 45-yuan cocktails more than make up for that.
food of the gods i swear 2 u

After tiny, three-room The Bookworm, the massive, multi-story Xinhua Bookstore in Wangfujing was incredibly exciting, even though 90% of these floors are all in Chinese. They do have a floor of imported books, but most importantly, a massive section of Chinese language textbooks … and by Western standards, for cheap. Think 30-50 RMB per book. The avid learner needs to make a pitstop here. Also, the inspirational bookshop culture of tons of people sitting on the floor reading has to be seen to be believed.

Sunday, September 28, 2014

5:26 AM - 1 comment

Sunday School

I'm writing this from my room a little less than two hours before class. That's right, as in school. A public holiday is coming up, which means a week's break, which means no classes. That's the point of a break, right? "Nah," they said, and so we have to make up for the class we miss on Monday... today.

 Great way to end a week, eh? I wanted to do calligraphy as an optional course, but its Monday afternoon time slot clashed with my schedule. Today, though, I'm glad that I have afternoon class on Mondays. Pity the fools who needed to get up at 7 on a Sunday... only to get up at 7 again the next day, to have the same class again. Groundhog Day, Chinese university style.
ok, diverse group of cloned children, but allow me to disagree

 So what else? Finally got all my papers + passport collected for the visa center, only to get there and realize the school had forgotten to put their official seal on my papers. My papers only. This was probably because I was first in line, and the girl behind the desk hadn't quite gotten her brain kicked into gear yet. I did what any neurotic idiot would do: flew into a complete panic. Luckily, there were people with me who told me to calm down and just go to the desk and give it a try. And lo and behold, they did accept my papers, stampless and naked as they were.

 So here's hoping nothing else goes wrong. And giving myself a New Year's resolution, but in September, because I'm not very good at waiting: next time something goes Terribly Wrong, put it in perspective. And just relax.

 People have been telling me this forever, but sometimes we gotta arrive at our own conclusions. So shhh. Time for zen.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

5:37 AM - No comments

Water you waiting for???

Word-of-mouth really is the best. Thanks to some other people in my dorm, I found out about the most amazingly convenient service.

 As you may know, the tap water in China is undrinkable. (Some people claim you can drink it once it's been boiled, but the funky aftertaste kind of puts me off that, not to mention whatever's in there that can't be boiled away...) Thus, bottled water is your life's blood. At first, I figured this meant lugging home 4-liter water bottles (about 8 RMB apiece) several times a week. Not fun, but necessary.

 But if you call a number, you can order water and have it delivered straight to your door! You just tell them where you live (even if it's a dorm room) and what brand of water you want, and they bring you a 19-liter jug within half an hour. The first time, you have to pay 20 RMB for the dispenser and 20 RMB as a deposit in addition to the water, but from now on I only need to spend around 20 RMB on water a few times per month - all from the comfort of my room. No more raw palms or small, unwieldy bottles!

 These are the kinds of things that make me excited about living in the middle of a big city, instead of in a little suburb. Convenience and effectiveness are always close on hand. I've heard rumors of door-to-door food delivery as well. Options that require exploration...
my water jug, ft. minifridge and fruit bowl.
basically everything keeping me alive.

(If someone is still wondering about the hot water, that's resolved! The office was open, and it was smooth sailing from there on out. I can shower comfortably. For now.)

Monday, September 22, 2014

11:00 AM - , No comments

Beijing To-Do: Go Shopping

This is one of several posts about my trip to Beijing in July, up on Mondays.

 You know the Great Wall and the Forbidden City already, but what else is there to do in Beijing? Well…

Beijing is full of massive-scale department stores that often span ten floors or more. Of course, there will be different types for different people. For ultra-cheap knockoffs and a whole room full of pirated films, visit Yashow, where you’re also guaranteed a glimpse of other foreign faces.

k-drama, anyone?

If you’re into manga and anime (presuming you know some Chinese) and its accompanying merch and action figures (not presuming anything), Soshow has an entire floor dubbed “Cartoon Town” dedicated to the kind of otaku that a Western weeaboo twelve-year-old could never even imagine. (Think body pillows.)


We spent a lot of our time at Xidan, which is an entire district of these massive stores. You can find anything from places where cheap and negotiable fake-goods vendors do their business back to back with brand-name chains like Etude House to ultramodern, gorgeous malls where everything is genuine and expensive. For more of these, the fancier district Wangfujing has plenty. We spent a day in this area, which was pretty, air-conditioned, and clean.


The top floor of any department store will usually feature a food court. Juice and smoothie places are popular, where you can either get a classic bubble tea or a drink made from fruit pressed for you on the spot. And for the homesick, everything from Burger King to Starbucks can be found in these malls.

or you could get this... but i wouldn't

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