2 more weeks!!!

The big countdown has started. I'm leaving China in 2 weeks. I have been looking forward to going to America since I pretty much got to China, and I still am. Just the fact that I'm not coming back (to China) gives me mixed emotions.

I met really nice people lately; and just started to see how I've progressed with Chinese.

Oh, I will miss China :( I'm sure. But I also do want to go back. . .(home)

But now, my final exams start on Tuesday, end on Thursday (when the fun will start again)

So wish me luck :)

I miss everyone and I'll see you soon ;)

Suzhou Weekend Trip ;)

I still haven't written anything about my trip to Sanya. Maybe I'm lazy or maybe there are many more appealing things. It's not even like I can take a look at the photos from Sanya, simply because I didn't take that many. What I want to remember from there will stay in for a little while I think.

So this time I'll write about my trip to Suzhou. I basically just stepped off the train, put my computer on, downloaded photos, and now I will write about it.

Suzhou was absolutely amazing. I went there with my Chinese friend – Sophie, so it was a very nice Chinese experience. Sophie guided me to a special ancient street in Suzhou, where we were wandering on Friday evening, constantly clicking with our cameras, and opening our mouths as wide as possible express ''WOW'' in Chinese. So beautiful. The hostel staff was right, one should go there in the evening. I cannot say we were wandering aimlessly, we were searching for the breathtaking spots. It would be easy to suffocate that way, so we stopped in a little alley where houses were on the river. Simply wonderful.

One thing we might have had problems with is finding food. Every time we tried it took us about an hour. I think it's a catastrophe to put two indecisive girls together. Thankfully, it's survive-able if they can entertain each other while walking into the 15^th restaurant and deciding that 'it's not the one'.

So next day, today... We went to the Lion Forest Garden. It's not very big, but definitely takes a couple hours to walk it all. That place would be a heaven for climbers (and fishermen). You walk on man-made stone mountains, walking into the 'caves' and back up again. All around a lake.

There are absolutely huge fishes swimming there and fishing is prohibited. :D Well, even there we were taking photos of everything, whether moving or not.

It was all nice, so I will not write about how we almost missed the train, just to remember the beauty of Suzhou and nice company :)

China Experiences

People say that we experience new things every day. Being in China has supplied me with quite a few new experiences. I've experienced how people change by the new culture or in some cases how they remain the same. I have experienced many breathtaking scenes: the sea, the mountains, the cities; but also many sights that destroyed the picture I would like to have: the pushing crowds, the spitting women, the polluted sky. I have also experienced a whole new range of foods and smells. Some sweet ones that take you to heaven and some others that are best not to mention.

Being here has given me a lot perspective on life, on myself and on people around me (far or close, and sometimes the latter being much worse.)

Being far away from home caused many tears to drop and made my dear ones spent hours on-line consoling me. Right now I can't really say if it was worth it, but in perspective I think I have achieved a great lot. I still have little more than a month of what should be hard-work and interaction with the Chinese, to use my time in the very best way. I'm not sure how well I will accomplish that... I certainly want to wish good luck to myself.

Sometimes it's easier to do what you're supposed to, and in other circumstances it's impossible. I'd say that the environment that Nanjing University provided for us foreign students requites a lot of effort to fulfill oneself. I think the worst thing is that we're all put in a foreign student's building, where the only Chinese we meet are the 'fuwuyuan' (receptionists, guards, food sellers, servants etc.) There are extremely few Chinese students that we can meet on a regular basis. We are definitely not provided with many opportunities to befriend them. This is a harsh reality, where only the daring devils get a chance to understand this culture. Others are deprived of it. And to be totally honest, I think it's can be difficult to feel confident in a place that doesn't resemble home in any way.

Some of us are lucky. They get Chinese boyfriends/girlfriends; they go traveling, they find a hobby... and that way they get out of the foreign bubble. Others think that the ones dating a Chinese merely want language advantages; they travel in groups of foreigners or have foreign hobbies, such as drinking and smoking. I don't think I can be placed in any of those groups. I have tried to avoid contacts with foreigners but I haven't been very lucky in melting into the Chinese world. Maybe in the time that remains for me here, I'll adjust that slightly. Maybe I'll change my eye color to black and use the whitening cream for my tanned skin? ;)

Happy life

So today is much nicer than yesterday. While yesterday all our deer teachers (including the ''GUI'' Sheffield ones) basically told us that we are a bunch of lazy bastards that are all going to fail. And after the 4^th person says that you start feeling that it's not only failing uni they mean, but also failing life. I'm also angry that they open the running track at 4 pm so until then relieving any tension is basically impossible unless you're called Jin and you can jump from one building to another.

So while yesterday the whole freakin world was against me, and I cried myself to sleep... today is much much better. Our reading teacher decided to give us another chance, and I feel bad saying that I didn't like her. And even thought most people in our class only like to mind their own business, one person actually did stand up for me and it made me really happy :)

Then I received some nice consolation and I am having a happy life once again :)

❤ China ❤ Olympics ❤ Go Beijing ❤

Today I changed my msn status to:

❤ China ❤ Olympics ❤ Go Beijing ❤

The reason: I want to show a little irony here... Do as all young Chinese are doing. Except for... it wouldn't make much sense if I wrote as some of them: ''May our motherland grow greater and stronger''. The Olympics in China certainly makes the Chinese proud and I think it awakes feelings of nationalism. Especially, when other countries are trying so hard to pick on China. Lately an American journalist called Chinese people something I cannot translate to English (but it's nothing good), and their products imported junk. The common people are the ones who react to this type of anti-Chinese comments. They become more committed to their government and their nation. They see the West as an enemy. Now, is this supposed to be any good?

Protesters will not put pressure on China – they will offend them and cause a defensive reaction. Most of those people who protest do not know how harmful what they're doing is. What do they want to achieve? Do they want to stop what's happening in Tibet, or show that they have freedom of speech? I think the westerners think that they are the one who know, the ones who are better, the ones who should teach China. But China is not by any means a country which will let 'the people who have no idea what they're protesting about' to teach them.

So if some people really want to go to a protest, exert pressure on the government or something like that, common, better try to engage in other topics. By protesting and trying to intimidate China, the effect will be the opposite, better follow the Chinese custom and keep quiet about things that you have no influence over. And if you want your viewpoint to be heard, study some history, and write a book.

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After the week of rain, cold and rain the sun finally made it's way through the clouds of Nanjing City. Yesterday was a horrible day, but in the end something wonderful happened, which gives me power to keep going for one more week. I'm now only running on spare batteries, but in about a week I'm gonna load. My hope is up, and I'm waiting, anticipating and preparing...

.

Yes, I'm preparing for one thing, but then the exams are coming up.. like... tomorrow, so I need to go and prepare for them before I prepare for anything else.

They

She was wondering what they might be thinking about,
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She tried to answer the question, but what could the right words be?
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She tried to understand their feelings, but she could only understand her own heart.
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Then she thought for a second that it's best to ask, but they said it's too easy, she has to find the answer herself.
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Maybe copying them would solve the mystery, but even if she appeared as one of them, she couln't become one of them.
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Resigned, she was walking in the rain, bumping into them, she already knew who they were, so she didn't bother to rise her head.
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She forgot about them for a while, and searched for other answers, when she found it.
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They were black, white and blue... the letters. And inbetween the lines she saw that strangers think about ghosts, and ghosts think about strangers.

Ban in China

Oh My God,
I can't believe they banned my blog in China for the post about Tibet.
It's kind of funny actually...

Nanjing and the Olympics

The last couple of days have been pretty dull. Except for a walk on the purple mountain together with David, nothing interesting, stimulating and mind-absorbing has happened. I recovered from the cold I got on the Jiu Hua Shan, but the weather in Nanjing is still a good suicide incentive.

Hopefully, the life is going to become a little brighter after the exams (which we get no revision for at all). The lectures are also a wast of time according to the majority of my classmates. So once again, I'm waiting for better days, or at least warmer days.

What surprises me tho, is an article I read about China. Apparently they spent loads and loads to install anti-rain rockets, so that if rain clouds will be around for the opening ceremony, they will destroy them. It's funny tho, that around the world the people are following the Olympic torch and protesting, while China itself is proudly making sure that every single detail of the Olympics will be perfect.

If you want to read the article on weather and Olympics:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080411/sc_nm/olympics_weather_dc

Tibet and JiuHuaShan

Well, I made a mistake. People still talk about Tibet, maybe even more... what I really meant tho, is that I haven't seen many reportages from Tibet lately. Maybe it's because I am in China, and they do screw up the news... Or maybe there really are no direct coverages of what's happening there. Are people being killed? Has the resistance dropped? Anything? What's Dalai Lama saying? I've got no idea. Yet, I think that all the protests in London and Paris, are definitely NOT good signs...

And the Chinese act like real Chinese... they won't fix the problem because there is no problem...

Dah...

Well, so I went to so called JiuHuaShan (九华山）with Yan, Jin and a William. Arrived there after a long bus ride, slept at a house in the mountains. Then set out, walking 4 km up... narrow stairs, going up... Was totally amazing, sun was shining, the views were breathtaking. Then we had to walk back down... in rain... in heavy shoes... 4km down. That hurt. And then a long bus drive back.

That's it... Photos will say more than I can, and besides... I'm going to sleep now, because 'heavy showers' hit Nanjing... and that actually is sleepy weather.

Xue Xi Zhong Wen Again

Once again, I totally neglected my blog. I don't even remember the last time I wrote something.

No, actually, I do. I did write about my feelings about Tibet, but since I'm scared the Chinese government would buy me a ticket back home and ban me, like they banned Bjork, therefore I didn't post it. Now it's all quiet on the 'western' front. Neither Chinese media, nor Western media are reporting, speculating or even mentioning Tibet. So I will go with the flow, and write about more important things.

So, my day...

No just kiddin... I don't think anything extraordinary has happened to me. Tomorrow we are free, whole 3 days, I was supposed to spend in Suzhou, but unfortunately, I will not. Either you do everything yourself, or you wait for others until the hotels are all booked...

There are good things about life though, still. I have to wait a couple days for my tailor made dresses, and I'm dying of excitement. You cannot get 3 items of clothing, especially made for you, for about £15 anywhere in England. China is cheap. That's one bright side of life.

The other is that they just opened the running track, which is totally awesome! Indescribable.

There is also the nature here, which I plan to photograph soon. It's still pretty cold, and the sun doesn't always shine but there are pretty green, pink and white trees everywhere. Flowers are slowly appearing as well, and I think this should be enough to keep me out of the room.

Unfortunately, there is a thing that keeps me inside... It's the so- called TING XIE, or in other words homework... Which I should start paying more attention to, having mid-terms starting in 2 weeks...

And those are the news from China. Today – no photos. ( I temporarily lost it)

So now I must start trying harder, working better, and making my dreams come true.

I solemnly swear I will take photos once again; I'll keep in good shape, I'll read a lot of Chinese newspapers, and read a lot of good books (which I'm doing anyway) :P

Happy New Year

I've been in Beijing since a couple of days. The city is cleaner, much more modern than Nanjing. It reminds me of the capitals in the West. We live in a really pleasant hostel. There are always people sitting in the common room/cafe downstairs. The food here is excellent, and overall spending time in the hostel is without a doubt something that might make us prolong our stay in Beijing. So far we've seen the Summer Palace, which is probably meant to be seen in the summer. It was very pretty in the winter scene, but most likely the flowers would make seeing the Summer Palace, much more interesting. Then, yesterday we went to see the Lama Temple. It was really chilly, but the sun was shining, and I took lots of photos ^^.

And today I'm very excited to see Mao's dead body, the Tiananmen square... I just hope it'll all be open. I'm not sure because it's the New Year today, and everyone is at homes with their families.

But on such an important day why would they disable people seeing such an 'important' person?

Shopping

So today was a really pretty day. I think that pretty is a really good word to describe it. The sun was shining and the clouds were gone some place else. The snow covered all the palm trees, all the green trees. It all looked so warm, especially with a little bit of sunshine. And the campus was full of 'snowmen'. Not just 3 big ball ones. The biggest one on the bottom and the smallest one on the top. There were huge, fat guys with tiny Chinese eyes, and even mice (as the year of the mouse is here) And then we went shopping, and I have a sweater and leg warmers: black and yellow stripes so that I look like a bee.

How I survived.

The trains in China are very fast and efficient. They start at a given time and overall it's not too hard to find your way. If you have any problems you can always find one of the hundreds of guards who will gladly help a foreigner. This all turns to hell around the spring festival when there is a little bit of snow. The Chinese people are afraid of snow. They think that it's romantic, they like throwing snowballs but snow paralyzes them. They think that snow is a good reason for buses and trains to stop running, or that it's best to stay at home and sleep through the 'winter'. I couldn't believe that snow could be a reason to turn a perfectly disciplined nation to a chaotic mass of blood eaters.

It all looked like people screaming for fresh meat, and pushing forward, without any regard to anything. It is like that normally, the Chinese people don't know the concept of a queue, but imagine that, and about one million people pushing forward to ask the policemen where the hell to go, and why the hell they blocked the entrance. After some disoriented pushing I asked the policeman:

'Why is this entrance closed' – 'It's because of the snow, some trains aren't running' – 'Where should I go (I showed him the ticket)' – 'forward'

So I went to this other entrance where all the village people were sitting on the floor, on their huge Russian-style bags. Rather than like passengers they looked like beggars. They have already waited for hours in this tunnel that was supposedly a passage-way. There were no guards there, and everything looked dirty, hard to imagine this squatter is the train station of the grand city – Shanghai. The notice board didn't have our train on it, so we went out again to ask the police what to do. I said:

'Where am I supposed to go?' - 'Go straight' – 'Straight where? What am I supposed to do, I've already been there!' - 'Go straight' – 'Straight where?' and he looked at me as if I cracked the joke of the century and said 'Do you have any more questions?'

I think at that point I started swearing at him in Polish, and I went to ask another policeman. Who of course didn't care either. All the time there was a constant babble being broadcasted, people rushing and no one to answer any questions, while we started asking ourselves one. Is China really going to match the standards of the developed world?

Shanghai once again

So once again I'm in the city of Shanghai. I start feeling like I could update the guidebooks, or write my own. But more about this later. It's snowing, and a little depressing. We asked the cleaner where we should go when the weather is like that, and she said to stay in and sleep. And she pointed out that we have a TV so we can watch it. But I really wanted to show Shanghai to my mum, so we went out. First we went to the People's square (again) and although it was pouring with rain, I still really liked it. This time we discovered a Starbucks and had a nice coffee. Oh then we set out for the Shanghai Museum, which I have never seen before. Unfortunately, (here starts the guidebook) you can only buy tickets till 4am, and it was already 5, so we never got to see it. Normal tickets were 20 kuai, and student tickets were 5. I am very very disappointed not to have seen old vases and paintings. Then we took the metro to the Pudong area, and went into the big shopping mall. Even if you are set on spending money, a thin T-shirt for 400 kuai feels like a 'slight' exaggeration. So we went for food, and I must say that the place we chose wasn't the best choice either. Afterwards we were heading for the Jin Mao tower, and a bar on the 87^th floor. Jin Mao tower has 88 flors. And the 88^th floor is an observatory for 88 kuai. (88 in China is pronounced ba ba, somehow similar to bye bye, and therefore it's widely used online to say bye. Funny that in Europe it can mean Hail Hitler (H being the 8^th letter in the alphabet.) and neo-nazis use it.) That's just an interesting thing, I wanted to write. Well, so, on the 87^th floor there is a bar. You have to spend at least 120 kuai there + 15% service fee. The drinks they serve aren't outstanding, neither is the coffee nor the ice-cream. Surrounded by businessmen and rich people, it's easy to feel a bit 'out'. The bar's atmosphere is a bit scary, but definitely something worth experiencing. Being so high up, you can't really see down, Shanghai is a very polluted city, and you'd have to be lucky to experience a clear day. I don't really like the skyscrapers, I really prefer the pagodas and temples. Shanghai is a little bit pathetic I think. Showing the enormous economical success, building towers to show it's greatness, having expensive western shops, while there are beggars just around the corner from all this richness. And all I see is the huge economical gap instead of thinking 'wow, this city really is awesome'. No, I don't think so. And I don't think it will be able to impress me in a long time. But then, who am I to impress? I'm not sure a businessman, who gets to live in a hundred star hotel, on the 80^th floor is able to see outside the world he's used to. But hmm.. I got into this whole discussion with myself.

I hope this all doesn't sound too pessimistic. Even if I am rather disappointed, this day was a good lesson for me, and gave me a lot to think about.

But in the end, all I really want is just a nice, sunny, warm day to enjoy, and not to freeze.

I'm happy.

Yes, I'm finally done with them. Goodbye Bellamy. I wish you (the boss especially) all the worst. I hope that your shit company will reach the bottom, lose all the money, and you guys really suck, and the kids don't learn anything. Despite the obvious anger displayed in the last sentence, I'm not angry at all, I'm very happy that they will not cheat me again, that they will not order me to come in and work without getting payed.

I'm so happy now :) And my mum's coming tomorrow!! Yay :)

A big surprise today: It's snowing! Not just some little snow, but it's really snowing A LOT! Right now it's something like 4 cm snow. Since I woke up early, I feel like studying a bit. And THAT doesn't happen so often nowadays. ^^

The Holidays so far

It's Saturday. I know I haven't been writing here for a while so here comes a little update on what I've been up to. Unexpectedly, it started snowing in Nanjing. People say there was no snow the last years few years, so everyone is very excited. Even I must admit, that even though I hate cold and snow, this time, it's a nice change to the grayness and pollution. The last two weeks, I've been trying to do as much reading, learning, and overall staying in and not stressing too much about what's going on outside. I must say, that I'm impressed with myself. I managed to do a lot of things I have been missing, and I even went to some karate classes. I'm half way though a book (One flew over cuckoo's nest), I have been reading about photography (which is really interesting) etc. So even if I'm not traveling now, I've got the whole life in front of me to do that. I bet this is not my last time in China (if of course I'm meant to have a long life as opposed to a short one). So not having to go and do something every day is good for me.

Except for times when I miss home, my friends in England, Poland, and all those other things people miss when they realize they are alone in a country far, far, far away. Still, my mum is coming in a week, and another exciting adventure is about to start. Except for going to Beijing, I think I'll plan massages, manicures and all the things that make a woman look gorgeous and feel like a new-born (hopefully). Huhm... If that doesn't sound exciting enough, there is always the gastronomic side of China, which still remains undiscovered to travelers who come here with a guide and only eat in expensive, clean restaurants... We're going to eat side by side with the cockroaches, breathing in the smoke (because of course everyone smokes in China, in restaurants, malls, taxis, buses, all the other buildings).

Haha, we'll see how much of this will be true :P

Welcome to China Mum!! :D