coolest dude in Vietnam...

happy viewing

7 month review

So, China's second most bored workers (second only to the countless door people who stand outside hotels, apartments, shops, restaurants for 8+ hours straight) - the 40,000 or so who scan internet sites for inappropriate material, must be doing their regular 1-2 monthly scan of blogger. It's been down for the last 3 or 4 days. I suppose I should spice this entry up a bit, to give them some good reading?

Have I mentioned before that occasionally you'll be watching BBC World News when a report on China, a not so favourable report begins, and then unexplainably, the TV goes black? Changing the channel, you realise that its only BBC World. Hmmm... very coincidental I think. It's happened about 4 times to me so far since I've been here. But most of the time I just hear enough to get the general idea... protests in Guangdong by farmers who are forcibly being removed from their land, public shaming of prostitutes in the streets of big cities... etc etc. The other day I saw a CNN feature about people employed in Beijing whose job it is to 'clean up the place' and introduce Western manners etc. They monitor bus and train 'queues' and try to ensure people get on the bus in an orderly fashion. They are also trying to persuade the public to not pick their nose in public, or spit, or wee in the streets etc.... It's quite funny. Scary that this sort of behaviour even needs to be addressed. But I can't but help think that for a country this big, changing so quickly, that it's not China that's going to catch up to the rest of the world, but it's the rest of the world who are going to have to get used to the way China does things. I don't think some things here will ever change.

Here's my 7 month report card:

Things I miss: friends (you guys!), film theatres, live bands, anonymity (in terms of being stared at), going for a drive when we feel like it, being able to read and understand labels of food in shops, being able to find food that you like, fast internet speeds, being able to access ALL internet sites, seeing the AFL on TV, a sense of order (and not chaos), being able to buy shoes that fit, being able to buy clothes that fit...

Things I don't miss: Seeing John Howard on TV, listening to politicians, TV ads, annoying TV personalities (Stand up Chris Bombalis, that smug guy on morning TV... Kochie, Naomi Robson etc), Over-saturation of all things Broncos, Ocker Aussie dudes grunting about footy, beer and chicks (on some strange level I do miss this, though), bad TV programs and the annoying adds that accompany them, my old work, driving around in cars (well, this is in both lists)...

university

Studying at university again is fun. For the last two and a bit weeks I've been studying Chinese at Suzhou University from 8.30am each morning until 11.50am. The lessons are all in Chinese which is actually really good - just what I have needed to boost my language skills along a little bit. Learning a foreign language in your native language is really slow going and I think, quite limiting. It then becomes a language built around translation, which is difficult to maintain. By hearing everything in Chinese, hopefully we will start to imitate our teacher more and more - which is probably the main way that children learn language. At first of course, it is probably useful to learn Chinese in English.

Our class is small - 15 students at last count. 8 Korean, 3 American, 1 American/Pakistan, 1 Czech Republic, 1 German and me. I'm quite lucky because many of the other classes have 20-30+ students. We are all at a fairly equal level which is also useful, however, there is 1 Korean woman with terrible pronunciation who unfortunately speaks in a really loud voice, which the less intuitive teachers hear and then assume that all of us are struggling with pronunciation. If she'd only drop down to a lower level class, then we'd all be a bit happier. Anyway, I'd rather feel like the classes are a little slow, than too fast. The one area that is moving fast is the characters. On our very first day we were required to learn 7 characters, on the second day 10 new characters, the third day 14 new characters etc... This pace will no doubt continue, but with around 3000-5000 characters needed to understand and read in China, its understandable why they introduce them so fast.

I just went for lunch at a restaurant with Nina (my German classmate) and Lenke (my Czech classmate). It was fun - we ordered a bunch of dishes having no idea what any of them were, as there weren't many pictures, and we couldn't quite understand the characters. I just found out from my boss that the main dish we were eating was Pig Intestines. We kinda had a feeling it was going to be one of 'those' dishes, we were just hoping it wasn't dog, or cat, so I think I can live with that. In China eating a part of the body is supposed to be good for that part in your body. So hopefully, I've just down a bit of good work for my intestines!

Some more thoughts

Here's a couple more of the photos from our Vietnam trip. I'm forever taking photos of scenery, buildings and the environment. But I think these capture the typical image of Vietnam.

TEACHER.

It's a terrible photo (in my opinion), but I think my bio sounds impressive, hey? Would you want to learn English from me?

new baby pic

Not ours - but Russ and Donna's new girlie - Finlay Isabella Jade Geddes. Russ asked me to upload it for all of you...