Tag Archives: iMandarin

No lucky start in Shanghai so far

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I didn’t blog for a long time for I couldn’t make any connection to my blog since I arrived in Shanghai. Unfortunately the Wifi at my place is really bad I can also hardly skype with my friends from home, so I’m pretty cut off. Today I managed to publish from my mobile phone over the mobile connection. That’s actually not what I was hoping for but better than nothing. Unfortunately I cannot upload much with that connection either so I can’t show you any pictures right now, I hope you understand that.First it actually was a good start in the new city or seemed at least to be. I already knew that it was still pretty cold in Shanghai and I sent my sleeping bag with a courier to Shanghai so it arrived even before me. Unfortunately because of Chinese New Year the courier just started to work and didn’t want to transport my heater for they were afraid it could break and they didn’t have any wrapping material at the moment. Therefore I sent my heater on the slow trail by the chinese post. I had some nice and warm last days in Shenzhen in company of my teacher and some of here friends. She invited me in her home which was great honour for me and we climbed a small mountain together with her friends. I still would say that it was a hill, but it was a little bit taller than the one I climbed in Guangzhou. At the end of the month I was pretty said to leave, for I finally managed to get around somehow and I really enjoyed the weather! Especially to say goodbye to my teacher was pretty hard for we spent a lot time together, saw each other every day and became really good friends!Nevertheless I had to pack my bags and take my flight to Shanghai where someone from the school should pick me up. I left pretty early to the airport, ate lunch there and checked in in time. I also had absolutely no problem with my big overweight for I booked another 10 kilo on the phone with help of a chinese friend before and so I was pretty satisfied sitting in the waiting hall. And sitting. And sitting. The plane was delayed and no one could tell us for how long. I wrote a message to my contact that the plane was delayed just the moment when they called us. I wrote another message for I thought, we would just leave now, but unfortunately this was false alarm. They just gave us some snack for we had to wait even longer. I tried to send another message, but this didn’t work anymore and I was pretty sure that I had no money left on the SIM card. But I absolutely needed to contact the person again! I run through the airport looking for a shop to recharge the SIM and found one, but a chinese credit card was neede, which I didn’t had. Luckily they could provide me one and I could pay cash. Problem solved. The plane still didn’t arrive, that’s what happens when you book your flight with a cheap airline! 1,5 hours later the plane finally showed up and left pretty quick the ground. I sat in the first row, I never sat there before! It was a pretty nice and quick flight, about 2 hours and we also got dinner. During the flight I read about Shanghai and learned my vocabulary. A guy from staff had to present a lot of things you could buy and do some gymnastics at the end of the flight with us.When landed I already had a message from my contact, that he was all in red today and a little fat. I thought it was very funny that he introduced himself as fat. As I suspected he wasn’t really fat but maybe not so thin as the majority of the chinese people. He was big, really all in red and had a huge smile! I was actually pretty glad that he was so big for he handled my overweight luggage very easily through the subway. The subway was pretty full and he warned me that on normal days you couldn’t even fall down or breathe in the subway, because there were so many people squeezing in! I took it on the light shoulder and replied that like this I could at least get my free hugs a day. He was surprised that there was a person even more optimistic than him. Actually I don’t think I’m really such an optimistic person! He really seemed to think that there were too many people in the city. For he was a local he was surely right about that and I was a little concerned for I had to use the subway every day and the subway is still the only thing I can use without problems!We had to change the subway line and for that we had to leave the subway and walk a good way to the other line. I wasn’t used to that from Shenzhen or Guangzhou where you could always switch lines within the subway and didn’t have to walk over ground. Also there were many stairs and my poor contact carried my luggage up and down. I’m not sure if I would have done that so easily! At the end we took a taxi from the station to my host but the driver didn’t know the address! Luckily my contact could call my host and she told him the direction so the driver could find the place. It was already getting dark when I arrived my new place to stay for this month. The lady was already waiting for us, a woman about my age, she seemed very nice, had cooked dinner for me and showed me my room. I was happy I could eat the dumplings and I liked my room at once for I finally I had something like a wardrobe! It was actually a wardrobe out of cotton, we normally use similar on the attic to store away clothes. I had a big desk with many drawers, but a small bed. She told me she gave me the room where one could learn better. The other room had a bigger bed but only a very small desk and was better to sleep than to learn in. For the first time I could really take all my stuff out of my luggage and put it into the wardrobe and the drawers of the desk. That felt good and I felt like arriving much better. Also the air condition had a heating function and the room was already pretty warm when I arrived. My sleeping bag also arrived before me so I wouldn’t have a big problem for the night. My landlady already spoke chinese with me but she could also speak very well English and seemed be willing to talk with me. My chinese friend from Switzerland would come to Shanghai soon and also another contact from school promised me to show me around in the city. So I thought this month everything would be better!

So I thought …

So I hoped, but that wasn’t really the case. I went to school for the first two days. I had again private lessons for they didn’t find enough people on my level, but less private hours than in Shenzhen, I have no idea why, maybe they miscalculated the time in Shenzhen and I had too much lessons then, I don’t know. The calculation they made in Shanghai, seemed right, I just didn’t understand, why it was different than before. The building of the school was very close and warm and had great toilets so I liked it from first sight, but unfortunately we couldn’t stay there for they had too much students at the moment. Too much students, but still none on my level for my group lesson, hmm. Maybe that was when it started. They wanted us to have lessons at my place, but my place was very far from the subway station, the room to small for lessons and the living room as cold as a fridge so I really didn’t want to have lessons there. They proposed another location, but now I have to switch subway lines in between and like this I loose a lot of time.My new teacher is very different from my last one and I needed to adapt to the new teaching style. She mostly teached beginners before as she told me. But actually I was pretty happy about the slow tempo so I could review everything again that I learned and going really deep into prononciation and how to build the sentences. So I think this will help me to get on. But after my very friendly last teacher where we got so close it seemed sure to be another type of relation with much more distance, that was at least how it felt for me at the start for we kept addressing each other very formal and I was calling her teacher, which is actually normal for a teacher pupil relation. Its just different from before, thats why I was a bit sad at the beginning. The real misery started in the night to the third day, two o’clock in the morning. The day and especially the evening was actually really good. I was feeling so comfortable at my new place I put on my jogging shoes and went out for a run. It wasn’t even so cold on that day, about 13 degrees and I run pretty far, about 9 km in an hour. That was actually pretty good for I hadn’t been on a run for the last three months! It was also very close to my normal pace so I was very happy after that. I warmed up some noodles the landlady left for me in the fridge and took a shower. This time the shower is separate in the bathroom as I’m used to which is much better than in Shenzhen, but unfortunately it takes a lot time before there’s warm water and the water isn’t really very warm. So it’s more like taking a warm shower with not much water in a fridge!But I had got my own towel and some food so it seemed like I didn’t have to buy everything on my own this month. I skyped home and was in a real good mood and like this I went to bed pretty late about midnight. Two hours later I woke up with severe sickness, pain in the stomach and I’m pretty sure I had high fever for I was freezing so much inside my sleeping bag with three blankets on top that I put on a second trouser, a second sweater and even my winter coat! I stayed awake until the morning and wrote my teacher that I wouldn’t make it to the lesson for I was sick. After that I could finally sleep and slept the whole day. I was to weak to eat, drink or stay on my feet so I simply stayed in my bed and slept whereas it felt more like being in a coma. My teacher wrote me she would accompagny me to the hospital if necessary but I was afraid I was too weak to go anywhere. I was also to afraid of fanting in the icy living room, so I didn’t tell my landlady for I didn’t know when she was around. The second night I sweated some of the fever out but still felt not good at all so I stayed home another day and another day. My teacher was concerned about me and brought me some chinese medicine and breakfast on the second day. I was very happy about that for I really didn’t made it anywhere. I still couldn’t tell my landlady and had a little bad feeling about that she might wonder why my teacher brings me the pills. I’m sure she wondered a little, but after my teacher visited me, she cooked me some food. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to eat anything but the baozi my teacher brought me. I just ate noodles for the next days I cooked myself and some porridge the landlady cooked for me. The one time I tried to eat something else my stomach hurt again and I felt immediately sick again.On saturday, the fourth day of my illness, I went outside for a little walk and bought some basic things like shower gel. I felt like an old lady and walked even slower than the people from the south of china (they really walk very slowly!). And I was exhausted very fast. Right now its much better, I also went to school again, but I still don’t feel all right now. My stomach still hurts and today I suddenly felt sick again after eating a sandwich, so I don’t think I fully recovered. I also had some strange rash and got pretty paranoid if there are any bed bugs now. At least I didn’t see any bugs or cockroaches, but bed bugs are too small to see and for most bugs it’s just too cold right now, but in my room it’s actually pretty warm. This first week in Shanghai was really no good start! I didn’t see anything so far and I didn’t go anywhere on the weekend for I was still too weak and on Sunday it was rainy all day. But luckily I missed the very cold days. All the days I was ill it was very cold, about 4 to 6 degrees. Yesterday I went to school again and after school I visited Yuyuan garden, a very ancient place, very beautiful! Today it was again very cold with 6 degrees but it should finally get better now and on the next weekend it should have about 15 degrees. I’m looking very forward to that! So today I didn’t want to go far, so I went for a little shopping but wasn’t in the mood of buying anything. After that I visited the library and a street with very nice buildings were there are many bars so I might go there one night again. I wanted to visit a street with many book shops when I felt sick again and returned to my place.But my chinese friend arrived now and invites me for dinner tomorrow to a famous place for Shanghai food. I really hope I can eat some of it without getting sick again!My contact from school didn’t call me so far. First she told me that we could meet on sunday but I didn’t hear anything from her again, so I’m still exploring everything on my own and still feeling pretty lonely.I’m just hoping for warmer days and that my chinese friend has more than a little time for me so we can explore some nearby places together on the weekend.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs. Bugs are everywhere! First Homesickness.

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My contact took me to a very tall house, how else could it be, there are only tall houses here in Shenzhen as it seems. She phoned someone until we found the right house and could enter the door. In every house there’s a security guard in the entrance hall, which lets you in. I asked my teacher about it and she said it makes the people feel safer. But are they really safer? Does the secure guard know every one of the building?
We went up to the tenth floor and I entered a small apartment. I got two keys and a number code to my room and left a deposit for the keys. My host which actually lives in the place as well, wasn’t there and should come back on Monday. That wasn’t what I expected but more what I was afraid of. No host family but just a single room and a toilet to share. The toilet, by the way, very small and I didn’t see the shower at the first glance. But there is a shower head at the wall and it seems like you just have to take a shower next to the toilet on the bathroom floor. I’m so spoiled as a Swiss but I’m not used to something like that. How will I take a shower without flooding the whole place? Doesn’t seem like this is possible, but I’m gonna find out. 
Therefore I wasn’t very happy. There is a kitchen, but the kitchen isn’t often used as my contact told me. No meals with at a family table, no discussions and possibilities to speak Chinese and have a glimpse into a family culture as it seems, but I have to buy my own toilet paper and meals and eat alone as it seems. Fortunately in China most things are very cheap. 
My contact took me to a very small store around the corner to buy a towel and a cup and some toilet paper to start, because I didn’t know I would need any of these. She brought me back to my place and left me at the entrance. We arranged to meet again Monday morning at another subway station exit near the school where she will lead me to the iMandarin school in Shenzhen.
There I stood at the entrance of the hall and felt very lost. First I didn’t know how to get inside again and open the door next to the guard, second I rarely new which floor but when I got there I couldn’t remember the right door, because I didn’t pay attention and I didn’t knew the number of the apartment. So I had to check my keys on every door, embarrassing! The keys are not so easy, so I didn’t manage to find the door on my first round. Fortunately there aren’t that many doors on the floor. After a second try I found the right door but couldn’t manage to open the inner door, because I didn’t knew on which side to turn the keys and the door wouldn’t just open. Sometimes I can be really stupid in such simple things. After some minutes I managed to open and even to enter my room code and there I sat, all desperate and homesick.
What did I say about expectations and how to master to be disappointed? Never mind, I’m still working on it.
First of all I checked out what was working and what not. What worked out was:
WIFI, toilet, WhatsApp, Yahoo Mail, my bank account page. In that order.
What didn’t work out was: Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Google, my proxy set up on my webpage to reach them nevertheless, my open door app to reach them nevertheless.
And instagram doesn’t work either.
My room is very small but has a double bed in it with a same same blanket, but it is very cold, much colder than outside! Outside it has lovely twenty degrees, but inside it is very cold and I didn’t take that much warm clothes with me, because I saw how warm it will be. Although I must confirm that my chinese friend told me that there are no heaters in the houses in the south. And guy who sat next to me during the flight told me that the houses are very poor isolated and it can get around five degrees inside during the night or in the morning in winter. And I wanted to leave cold snowy Switzerland and didn’t want to freeze any longer. Major fail!
I didn’t stay long in the room and started shaking. So I went out to eat something. My contact pointed me in some direction for restaurants before and I wanted to look very well where I’m going so I can find my way back again and don’t get the same problem with finding the right apartment again. 
It took me some walk to find some restaurants and first I didn’t know which one to take. I went to Jayne’s Easy, which is very easy for foreigners. It’s just a buffet where you can point at the food you want on your plate. Very convenient if you don’t know the language well enough! I didn’t take much for I didn’t know how expensive it will be, but it only costs 10 yuan which is practically nothing. When food is that cheap I can understand why people don’t cook anymore! I’ve seen other restaurants which aren’t that cheap but still, it’s not much to pay for what you get! But I suppose, people don’t earn much either here.
Then I went to a supermarket. Not a huge one but a real one, not like the little store I went with my contact. I bought something to drink and looked for something for breakfast which wasn’t so easy. As the guy from the flight told me, there is not much bread in China. But there are some buns covered with pork which looks like wool and I saw them and bought them. But the Chinese seem to buy those instant noodle soups where you can just put hot water in. And hot water you can get on many public places. 
I also saw some strange snacks like welded chicken feets and I wasn’t sure if you can just eat them or have to cook them. There are right beside the gums and sweets. 
I didn’t understand the cashier but we managed to communicate with hands and I could read the total price from the cash.
When I got back to the apartment where it got even colder I made a disgusting discovery: a cockroach peering under the WIFI router and not a tiny one as far as I can tell. Ouch! That’s not something I wanted to see! Or know.
And there actually is a lady cleaning the place. I saw her when I first got there.
I left the cockroach but killed two tiny little bugs in my room later. I was very tired and freezing so I just played under the blanket and closed my eyes a little. At ten thirty I went to bed but couldn’t sleep just for two hours. I woke up because someone was using the shower at midnight. And I’m always annoyed when some of my neighbors move in the night! And yes I had earplugs in my ears. Next time I woke up at three o clock in the morning and couldn’t manage to sleep for some hours, damn jet lag!
But I got up in the morning for my very first Chinese lesson in China and eat the two buns, which where tasting sweet. Good for me, because I shouldn’t get lunch before four o clock in the afternoon!
But first another bug drama I have to tell you. So I put on my clothes and felt something moving inside the sleeve of my pullover. I put it out quickly and out came a large green bug which I trampled to death, sorry bug! No, I’m not sorry at all! Bugs don’t have to stay inside sleeves! I don’t think I will hang my clothes once more over the chair but put them into my bug instead. No more bugs please! I really don’t like bugs. Not the one I make in life or programming and not at all the living ones. They are disgusting, disgusting, disgusting!
And I surely didn’t want to start my Monday with a bug!
After this I went to the subway and met my contact of the school. She led me a mazy way to the school I’m not sure how to find again on my own! There I met my teacher and she really is a very very kind person! I liked here from the first sight! She liked my Chinese and told me that I have good pronunciation. My Swiss teacher always told me that and I didn’t believe here!
We moved on very quickly and did an entire lesson on this first morning. My school contact called the school in Shanghai for me for my home stay address next month. She told me that they didn’t find a homestay family for me thats why I had to stay in the apartment (BUGS!). My teacher told me that it’s hard to find a homestay family in China so I might not get one in Shanghai and Beijing either. She said that the Chinese aren’t just used to that, because they don’t have the possibility to travel around as we Western people can do it. So people from the West are very open and used to help or host other people. Chinese people just don’t know how difficult it can be to get around in a foreign country when you don’t speak the language and that foreigners might need more help or help at all. She told me that it can happen that you ask someone to help and he just moves on.
After my lesson she helped me buying a Chinese SIM card, which wasn’t so easy. We were in kind of Supermarket building in a kind of pawn shop corner where they sold some SIM cards as prepaid (which Chinese mobile doesn’t seem to, but I’m not sure, because my host didn’t really got what I meant with prepaid). You need a Chinese ID card to buy one, no passports allowed. But she gave here ID for me, which was very kind of here! Now I have a Chinese number and mobile internet, phew! She had some long discussions with the lady who sold it to us, but she didn’t seem to know all so well about phones, cards and so on.
Oh, by the way, Chinese are all watching their phones, like us. Everybody has his head down on that phone, talking to it, earplugs on, typing in it, nothing goes without a phone, that’s really the spirit of the 21 century as it seems.
After that she helped me buy a card for the subway which is also prepaid and can be recharged so I don’t have to pay each time when using the subway separately but can pay with the card. The subway is really easy to use and very much the same, wherever I used subways before like in Berlin or London. But it is really crowded! 
After that I went back to my place very late and went out to eat again and bought some more toilet paper. I got my schedule for the entire month and have even four days off because of spring holidays and chinese new year. But I don’t have a clue now what to do then or on the next weekend. I want to explore some more of the city and maybe go sightseeing someplace near by train ride. But I don’t know yet.
There is no other student in my class for there seems to be no other student right now I don’t know? So I don’t have other students to plan with or do something and it seems like I’m on my own for this first week. No family to talk to, no students, that makes me feel alone and a little sad. And my room is really very very cold at night! And full with bugs! Bugs, bugs, bugs! I’ve seen another cockroach in the bathroom a few minutes ago. But a tiny one, at least.
Just one month. It is just one month and then I can move on to the next buggy place. If it stays that buggy!
I’ve seen the center of the city today with the big supermarkets and I will hopefully explore more of it tomorrow on my own. When I can find some subway station I’m always safe, because my place is just next to the station and I can always get there by taking the subway. 
So this night I put my clothes back in my bag and hope that the bugs don’t come into my bed! I hope I learn fast so I can start talking to people and manage things on my own and maybe don’t feel that lost anymore.
Oh, and I’m sitting here in my down jacket while writing. I just loved to have a heater!

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Arrival in Hong Kong and journey to Shenzhen

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There I was, starting my travel to china in a swiss snowstorm, where I wasn’t sure if I would reach the airport in Zurich alive. Lucky me I did! The plane took off with one hour delay because of all the snow on the wings they had to put off first. But off we go and started with dinner at local swiss time one o clock in the morning, which made no sense at all, because it was neither dinner time in Switzerland nor in Hong Kong where we were flying towards. But I guess the Swiss Airline always serves dinner before they took out the light and the passengers can go to sleep, because this is what you do, before going to bed, eating something!
I didn’t think that I could sleep, because I never can, neither in airplanes nor in cars or trains. But I could, at least sleep some hours, waking up from time to time. The flight was a bit turbulent, we all got shaken nearly the whole night, which could explain why I felt so dizzy after landing all evening. After waking up in the plane the next food was breakfast, I mean, what else should you eat after sleeping? Therefore I got two perfectly meals all lactose free with some also celiac diet bred, which was so dry I couldn’t eat it and two cakes I set aside for later. The warm part of the meal was yummy, but altogether I didn’t eat much.
Next to me sat a young swiss man, who studies in Hong Kong and we talked a little. He gave me some hints how to get the train at the airport and said that it was all very easy at Hong Kong. And true he was! I get my baggage fast and the way to the airport express was just natural. I hadn’t got a plan how to get a ticket and the train just arrived, so I asked a man just waiting next to me, where to get one. He said that the queue is just too long and that I can still buy one when arriving and so I mounted the train. After arriving on Hong Kong island the last shuttle bus of my hotel has already left, therefore I took a cab. The cab looked very old, the trunk and seats very used. The driver didn’t speak at all with me, but read the address on my note and brought me to the hotel very fast and very cheap. 
The hotel was a recommendation of a friend and as good as she told me, a nice (for Hong Kong even big) room with enough space and at a good price: The Bishop Lei. I was on the top floor, 23th, because of the great view, but the elevator also takes longer.

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That’s the point where I started to feel really dizzy. I thought this was because I didn’t sleep and eat so much and completely forgot the all night shaking flight. So I went downstairs and even more down to the city Hong Kong to find a place to eat. Hong Kong made a real good impression to me, very modern, very international. Of course I could see more Chinese faces than in Switzerland, but I saw also many european faces as well and heard many people speak English and even at one corner swiss german! The restaurants also were very international, Pizza, Steak House and I wanted to eat Chinese food! I found a little and nice Chinese restaurant where the waiters were very kind. I didn’t feel all so hungry but more and more dizzy and decided to order just some vegetables and noodles. But I got a big plate of noodle side dish, which seemed to be for 2 or more people like the waiter told me later. I couldn’t manage to eat this all! But the friendly water just gave me a food bag with the rest of it for take away and I already had some breakfast. 
Sitting all alone in the restaurant (which I don’t like much, that’s why I don’t like to go out alone), I felt like sitting on a wave and suddenly remembered the troubles of the flight in the night. It’s like getting of a boat back to the ground and I got sort of sick.
I wasn’t far away from the hotel, for I could find it again (my sense of direction actually sucks!), just following the escalators and taking them back up again. After that little walk I returned to the hotel and tried to sleep, which wasn’t so easy with that dizzy feeling and my inner clock all turned upside down after the seven hour time shift. The room was very cold but I had a thick blanket and a cosy bed.
I slept longer than I thought after waking up several times during the night and watching my handy if there is any news from home. I eat my noodles, took a shower and packed my bags to get the shuttle bus of the hotel this time. A very nice service bus which took me safely back to the central station where I felt a bit lost the first time. But it wasn’t a problem at all, I found the metro and had my printed plan which line to take. I had no idea how to pay for the ticket again, but again it was very convenient, there was a ticket vending machine where you could just tap on the station you want to go and pay the price. I had to change lines several times, but it all was very easy and last I took the east rail line to the futian checkpoint where I should cross the border to China. I had to wait about an hour at the immigration queues. First you have to pass the queue to leave Hong Kong and then another one to enter China, where I had to fill out another form. The police people don’t really talk to you, just look at you and your passport and your data, that’s all, but my validation took a bit longer and I’m sure that I was the only european face in the whole queue. But lots of Chinese with diapers bought in Hong Kong were in front of me. I cannot imagine diapers being cheaper in Hong Kong, for the prices and the shops seemed very common for me. All the big names I’ve seen in Hong Kong, also a Porsche Design Store (and other very expensive labels). But maybe the diapers are better for the children? I have no idea!
But they let me in and there I was in China and yes it looked different from the very first sight than Hong Kong. Until now all seemed so easy to me! I was afraid how to find my way to the hotel after my landing and how to find my way to Shenzhen the next day, but it was really very easy, easier than I thought! 
Getting a ticket for the metro in Shenzhen was a bit harder, but nevertheless easy enough. I queued up but recognized watching the people in front of me, that my smallest banknote was 50 yuan which was far too big for the ticket which costs about 2 yuan. So I went to the ticket counter and got some change and a ticket afterwards. There were just one change of line and a few stops of the subway left. 
I should meet my contact person of the school at the Gangxia station exit B, but I was nearly one hour early, so I stood around and observed the people. The corner wasn’t very nice, a building lot and some begging people around the corner. My contact person, a very young woman arrived on time and lead me to my new home. 
Until now it was all so easy, really, but it couldn’t just continue that way, couldn’t it? No, of course not … I will tell you about my start in Shenzhen in the next post.
I hope you forgive me if my china posts are not well layouted. But I cannot preview them for my page is blocked. The wordpress app is not, phew! But I can’t access neither facebook, twitter or google from here now so please leave your comments on the blog for I can’t see it when you comment on twitter or facebook!

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