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I survived the first week and settled a little. After the first week I know very well how to use the subways, I know how to find my place and the school and also explored the city a little with help of my teacher. I actually would’ve been completely lost without my teacher! She’s very kind to me and gives me a lot of tips! I like her very much and I learn a lot from here about chinese culture as well as about the chinese language.
In this first week I learned 172 chinese words, not all of them were actually new to me, lucky me, because this is much to learn for just one week! I also had a lot of homework. Not all homework is for language and from my chinese book, but I get also homework like how to use the chopsticks, writing chinese characters, counting to 100 each day twice and talk to chinese people on the street. The last one is the hardest for me, because I’m all nervous about using my language skills. I can think about a sentence or question before, but when someone answers I usually don’t understand the answer. Like this I cannot discuss with anybody. But I try and will try more. My reading always was good and still is but my hearing is lousy as well as my pronunciation of the chinese tones!
I told you about my cold room and the bugs. At least I haven’t got any bugs inside my clothes now, because I put my clothes inside my bag now every night. The room is still very cold, therefore I bought a sleeping bag on my third day. This is something very common but becomes really adventurous in a foreign country. I can’t tell you how much I’m missing Google! Luckily apple has also a map app on iphone otherwise I would’ve been lost! The chinese have http://badu.cn instead of Google, but of course it’s in chinese as well as the results. There are some english pages as well, but not much (not enough!). I didn’t know where to find something like a sleeping bag here, that’s why I searched for a Jack Wolfskin store and found one near enough. But it was not so easy to find the place on foot with my apple map app (it’s actually not so precise and sometimes even wrong). But a nice guy saw me wandering around and asked if I needed any help. Of course he wasn’t chinese, because they wouldn’t have asked me or even wonder about me. He was Canadian! And he guided me to the right place, where all the shops are: Dongmen Market. It is very crowded, always and there are many shops, really! Also many thieves, so you have to watch your bags, but you have to do this anyways, because there are many thieves everywhere my teacher told me. That’s also why every one wears the backpack actually in front so here it is more like sort of a frontpack. I found a bigger shopping center with a whole floor with outdoor stuff. This was also the address of the Jack Wolfskin store, but I didn’t find it there, but I did find several sleeping bags and chose one for about 300 yuan. It only took me 3 hours to find the store! After that I went home and didn’t look at the other stores (thousands!), but planned to come back and I did. But my sleeping bag is great! I hadn’t had a freezing night since!
The stores are all different to what I know. There are big shopping malls, you can even find some western stuff (which is always more expensive of course), but most of the shops are very small. Always someone is screaming to advertise, someone asks you (polite or not) to come in and buy or come in and getting some sort of service like cutting hair, makeup or so on. I even bought a sweater and trousers, but I couldn’t try them on. The trousers were to small for all the chinese are very thin and small, even I’m a big person here with my 163 centimeters! I tried to return them, but they didn’t let me even my teacher helped me. I was only allowed to pick something else instead so I picked the biggest trousers I could find. They fit but are a little bit too short. Too short for me, can you imagine! At home all trousers are always too long for me!
Clothes and food can be bought every where. The clothes look very different to what I’m used to. I see a lot of clothes I would describe as vintage. No one needs to starve here, there are persons selling food all over the city! Some subway stations come together with shopping centers and at the station Laojie you have to walk nearly by all shops in the center to get to the subway. So I asked myself what was first: the mall or the station? Chicken or egg? But it works great for the shops, because people are actually buying stuff and I got distracted as well of course for i love to shop! And the chinese sell those cute things I like so much, like some manga stuff and others!
Every building has its own guard and my teacher told me that every community is hidden behind a wall. All for safety or at least the illusion of safety. She asked me if we don’t have fences and guards. Of course we also have fences but more around our gardens and we don’t have guards inside the buildings, we have a lock at the front door. But of course a human guard can actually judge differently and my teacher also told me, that this also generates jobs and there are many people who need a job! I think this is a very easy job, because it looks like those guards are just sitting there for the whole day. Very easy and very boring as well! But there is military and police everywhere, even at the train station, there is a soldier looking out that people are standing in line and behave what they not always do!
Public toilets are just a hole in the ground where you can flush water and mostly you have to bring your own toilet paper! It reminds me at the toilets in Italy. Inside the appartements there are of course also toilets to sit down. The better (or more expensive) the place, the better the toilets, we say and this is also true here. Better toilet can mean, soap for washing your hand, toilet paper, paper to dry your hand or even a toilet to sit down as I have seen in the Shenzhen library, a very nice place to learn but also a little cold inside. I never liked those kind of toilets, but I can understand that it is easier to maintain and clean when so many people are using the toilets all the time! So after a week I got quite used to it.
There are also a lot of escalators. You only have to climb stairs if you are going downstairs, never upstairs, but the escalators seemed to be broken a lot as well, as I could see a lot of broken ones and men fixing them. I think this is also because so many people are using the escalators each day!
The food is great and cheap and I can understand people (like my host I still haven’t seen yet) don’t cook anymore if you can get a meal at a price from 20 – 50 yuan (about 3.- to 7.- Fr.) and it’s always enough! I love the chinese food, but it’s not always so easy to choose a restaurant if you’re not able to read the menu. But mostly there are big pictures on the menus and sometimes even english descriptions. But today I was in a real chinese restaurants with no english at all and I didn’t know how it worked and maybe it was Szechuan or I don’t know what but it was very very very hot! The hottest I’ve ever eaten in my life. My lips still burn and I cannot feel my tongue anymore!
Chinese fast food at least seems to be still healthy and they don’t have so many waste like Mac Donalds has, because the chinese fast food is all served on dishes as well (gets the plate a little heavy). But there are also many Mac Donalds, KFCs (Kentucky Fried Chicken) and Pizza Hats now.
Fortunately there are many Starbucks in the city as well, although Starbucks is very expensive like everywhere. But as I do now you can just sit there for some hours and learn or write and no one cares. It’s not much warmer then in my appartement (so I still wear a coat), but at least I’m not completely all by myself and can hear some Chinese shouting or talking.
I noticed the Chinese watch also like us Western all day there mobile phones, it’s really a bad behavior of our time and we will all get buckled!
I had to made also some plans for the weekend where I didn’t have to go to school. As I woke up pretty early I wanted to try to take a train to Guangzhou. But I didn’t manage to buy a ticket even I tried both saturday and sunday. On saturday I waited at the wrong queue on the wrong side of the station and I didn’t find a ticket vending machine which could also switch to English (maybe I really didn’t see the chinese sign for Hanyu like my teacher said but I’m not sure). But a guy tried to sell me a tour to Guangzhou for 200 yuan when I knew the train only costs 50 yuan so I disagreed (and wouldn’t go with a stranger anyways). After one hour I gave up for it was already too late to go there. The second day I waited at the right queue but the woman send me away and said something like the train would only leave once at six o’clock. I tried once more to ask a person (there is some helping staff around) and they guided me to another queue I waited half an hour again and got the same answer. I tried to argue in chinese, but the guy just didn’t understand me and I didn’t understand him. And there was no one who could speak English. From the internet I knew that there is a train leaving every quarter and I tried to tell him but with no luck. After that I was very frustrated, because the easiest things become so hard if you cannot speak the native language. Or read. Or understand. And everything is written with chinese signs which are so hard to translate! At least I can redraw them on my iphone but that takes very long!
But I had some other plans instead and on saturday I went to a park and on a very small hill and watched the chinese children play. In the park there were a lot of small shops selling kites and other toys for the children to play like soap bubble guns and of course also food. I ate a strange looking sausage. And the toilets really were very good with own toilet paper, very nice!
In the book mall (there are so big and great book malls here, I really love them and would love to buy many chinese books I’m not able to read! Yes, not even the children book.) the toilets were also very nice although you had to queue up all the time, but it doesn’t take long to wait. My hair was annoying me from the very first day in Shenzhen because of the moist climate and I really wanted the hair out of my face and shorter. I also thought that for the current circumstances it would be better to get along with shorter hair. So I went to a hairdresser. There was some English written on the door and I hoped that maybe someone can speak a little English. One woman could but my cutter couldn’t and I had to try to speak some chinese. It worked out not even so bad. He could understand me a little and I could understand him a little (not everything though). He really spoke extra slow for me! He was a very nice guy and tried best to manage me to look like the woman on the picture I showed him. Now my hair is pretty short and I first must get used to that look, but it surely is very handy and I got my first chinese haircut! The place was more expensive than usual I think, for I payed 128 yuan (around 19.- Fr.) which is still very cheap in comparison to Switzerland. Normally you should get a cut for around 70 yuan my teacher told me and I will surely try again in some weeks when my hair grows again.
At night I went to Seaworld. A funny place for tourists with many international restaurants and bars. There was even German beer! Paulaner and others and I could see two or three western faces in the crowd more than everywhere else in the city. The staff of the restaurants could even speak english. I had a nice italian meal (or what they call italian), watched a band play and a water show with music which was really great! 
On sunday after not getting a ticket to Guangzhou again I tried to find the bus to the Shenzhen beach (Dameisha or Xiaomeisha). It took me 4 hours! As easy it is to use the subway as hard it is to do same with busses. Because all time schedules are completely written in chinese signs! Inside the busses the stations are also called on English (what I didn’t always understand though), but you need to find the right bus first! My teacher drew the signs for me but I couldn’t find them! But I took once the wrong bus, because I thought better to recognize one of the signs than none (bad idea!). I also tried to ask a bus driver, but they have no time for questions. Finally I asked Yahoo (no Google!) and got some hint where else to watch out. By this time I must have crossed the city once by subway and wrong bus. On that other station I finally managed to find a bus to Xiaomeisha (the little beach). It is outside the city, approximately a one hour bus ride. 
If anyone else lost in Shenzhen finds my blog and looks for the Xiaomeisha beach. Take subway line 1 to Guomao (it’s near Dongmen Market). Unfortunately I don’t know which exit I took, because of course I took the wrong one first and had to wander around before finding the bus. But you can take bus line number 387 which has Xiaomeisha as the final station. The ride costs 6 yuan from Guomao and there is a woman selling tickets inside the bus as soon as you sit down. This woman even looked up some English word to help me, very nice! You can take the same bus back again, it is right in front of the beach. The entrance fee is 30 yuan. If you get off earlier you can also get to Dameisha beach (big beach) which costs no entrance, but there are more thieves, so keep always an eye on your belongings. But I don’t know to go off on which stop, because I just saw the bigger beach when driving back.
The beach is very nice, a real sandy beach. Too cold to swim in winter now although there were some people inside the water. But after my 2 hours ticket search and 4 hours bus search I didn’t have much time to spend there and was already too tired. So after one hour and a half I went back. But at least I left the city for the first time and managed to complete one quest!
I wasn’t all so happy at that time but very hungry and tired. I must confess that I don’t manage to eat and drink so well here this first week. I ate and drank too less and will hopefully do better next week! Although you can buy food everywhere I’m not always sure about what I should eat and what not, if it is clean to buy food from some very small shops or not. My school schedule is different each day and overlaps with some meal times. I still didn’t get a hang on what to eat on breakfast and normally I eat a banana or buy some soft bred. The bred indeed is very special here! All fluffy and sweet and covered with strange things!
And at sunday night I had enough of the thousands of thousands of people that are every where. It is so crowded here! I just wanted to go to my room or even become a hermit! 
As you can see I experienced a lot this week! Although I manage a little better I still cannot do the easiest and every day life things. My only friend is my teacher. She went eating and shopping with me and showed me around a little. But as I am alone in class and my host still doesn’t show up, I’m all by myself most of the time and feeling lonely. It’s not easy to make friends if you don’t speak the language! But now I know how it is too feel strange. To be in a place where you cannot read or understand anything. To not feel in place. 
There are some other guests in my apartement that speak English and I talked to them shortly. But actually the guy pees every night all over the place so I have to clean up the toilet first thing in the morning, therefore I’m actually happy when they leave this week. Also they always get home very late and take a shower then or talk very loudly so I wake up. But most surely there will be other guests coming after them. At least I’ve found out how to use the shower. It is a little bit strange to take a shower inside the bathroom with no separate place so the whole place will get wet, but I get used to it. You just have to fold up the toilet seat first. But if someone can not target so well you can also take the shower head and simply clean the seat which is very useful. 
Fortunately I haven’t seen any more bigger bugs and didn’t find any in my bed and actually my sleeping bag covers me very well. When sitting in my room I have to wear a coat and the new warm trousers I’ve bought from the outdoor shop, but I got used to that. Drinking some hot water helps, unfortunately there isn’t mostly none in the apartment left when I get home. 
What I said about the easiest and normal things that can get hard. I cannot even read the remote control for the air conditioner or the washing machine. I had to translate these by my teacher. Although there is a button on the air conditioner for heating, it is not working for my air condition so I can’t still heat, but luckily this week the weather is getting warmer and over 20 degrees!
I work and learn hard for my chinese might get better soon. I do a lot of things, visiting the city and so I don’t have much time to blog, I hope you apologize! And I don’t like to stay all day or too long in my room for it is not so cosy. That’s why today I took my macbook with me to Starbucks to tell you all that I’m fine and getting along maybe not good but better than the very first days! I hope I can extend my range more and more and maybe one day talk more than a few words with someone.
I also wrote a complaint to my school about the place I stay. They apologized but don’t change anything, but maybe the stay in Shanghai gets better. I have got the address for my stay now. Unfortunately it still seems not to be within a family, but I have some person to show me around. And also my chinese friend from Switzerland comes to Shanghai next month for two weeks and I’m very happy about that for she can show me around and I finally have someone to talk! I’m looking very forward to that! Also in Shanghai there are more people talking English than in Shenzhen. That’s why I look at this first month as a month I have to pay for getting along and finding my way. 
Keep you all safe out there! I read that Switzerland has lots and lots of snow! I like my twenty degree Shenzhen winter better I think although I’m also really missing Switzerland!