Staying Alive on Beijing's Streets

If you are a person who believes that risking your life makes you feel alive, then you ought to come to China and cross a busy street during rush hour. Why? Let’s just say that traffic in China is a lot more ‘free-flowing’ than in the states. By free-flowing, I mean that drivers there tend to follow the traffic laws, unless they decide the rules aren’t convenient. If you could stand at an intersection and watch traffic for a while, you would see that red lights usually mean stop, cars usually stay in their lanes and bikes and motorcycles usually go in the same direction as the rest of the traffic. However, you would also see that at certain times during the day, many of the rules are thrown out the window and chaos reigns. Check out the video to see what I mean.

Click to read more ...

Despedidos (Farewells)

This post I dedicate to all my new friends, especially my Spanish friends—Silvia, Daniel, Luis, Susana and Konstantina (not quite Spanish, but close enough), os echo de menos.

One of the most difficult parts of coming to a place like BLCU for a month is that time goes by so quickly, and just when you are beginning to make good friends, you have to say farewell and go back to your own countries. At the end of each of the last several days, I have had to say goodbye to lots of new friends, wondering each time if it would be the last time I ever saw them. We always hope to meet again, but the truth is that you never know, so you wish each other the best in life, wherever it may take you.

Click to read more ...

Living Behind the Great Firewall

One of the things that US media frequently mentions is the issue of internet censorship in China. This year, Google got into a row with the Chinese government over Google’s refusal block some of the search results that the Chinese government deems too sensitive for the general public (things got so bad at one point that Google announced it was pulling out of China completely. The company and the government have since reached some type of agreement, though I expect the tensions to arise again in the future). 

If you search for Tiananmen square, for example, you get lots of search results about the square’s history, design, annual visitors, etc. However, if you add 1989 to the search, you get a message that Google is not available. If you try to go back to the search page, you get the same message and will have to wait a few minutes for Google’s services to return. On Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, you can search for Tiananmen 1989, but if you click on any result that has ‘protests’ or ‘massacre’ in the description, you get nowhere.

Click to read more ...

Who are You? Names in China

If you ever decide to study Chinese, as a foreigner one of the first things the teacher will do is help you select a Chinese name. It is tradition that everyone who studies the language has a Chinese name. Students also learn to write their name in characters (hanzi), and the name will stick with you for as long as you study Chinese. I suppose it’s possible to change it, but I don’t know many people who have.

You might find it interesting to know how the teachers come up with the names. There are two parts to the name, and the family name is written first, unlike in most countries in the West. Some students, from Korea and Japan in particular, already have names that can be written in traditional Chinese characters. The pronunciation is different, but the meaning is the same. Park Junwoo becomes Piao Junyou, for example. For people from other countries, the teacher often takes the first couple letters of each of your first and last names and tries to find names that sound similar to those syllables and also have a nice meaning. For example, Jennie Griffen becomes Zhen Gui, which sounds like Jenny and means ‘really honorable.’

Click to read more ...

Chinglish of the Day

Two more interesting translations. I know some people who would like to have "infiniti" hair (I think).

Click to read more ...

The Old Summer Palace

A couple of Sundays ago, Antonella, Roberta and I visited the old summer palace. Many Americans (and others) come to Beijing and visit the new summer palace as part of the standard Beijing tour (as touristy as it is, the new summer palace is certainly something I recommend). Fewer go to visit the old one. If you come to Beijing and have time, the old summer palace is a nice place to visit. Just don’t do it on a Sunday afternoon.

Click to read more ...

Finals

The gray air was back this morning, just in time for our final exams. Appropriate, if you ask me.  Our program had three classes (listening comprehension, speaking and reading) and thus three finals. As I have said before, the classes were hard. The finals were no different, and  I went into them resigned to fail each one.

Our listening comprehension final took place last Thursday. I’m still convinced that the teacher didn’t tell us about it beforehand, but then again, in the past I had misunderstood at least two (out of 4) homework assignments in that class. For the final exam, I was shooting for anything above zero—and I did it! I don’t think I passed, but for me the point of coming to China was to improve, not to pass a test. So I guess you could say I succeeded.

Our listening teacher. . .Don't ask me what she said

Click to read more ...