(see last year for explanation 😉

Most of the fireworks is over, one more tough day to come, but during that I’m gone (see below). Fireworks were even a bit better than last year out here in Pudong. Probably due to more people having moved here in the meantime. On the next day the most fascinating is, that all the red rubbish of the firework packages is already cleaned up by the time I finally made it out of bed. In Germany, on New Year’s day, we would still be able to collect firwork sticks like I did as a small boy.

Traditionally, also the residential areas have been decorated like the appartment compound I am living in.

The Chinese Year of the Pig has begun! Well…as funny as it sounds…I just tuned in WDR2 on the internet, a German public radio station, while starting with this document. And they brought a small report about the just started Chinese year: I knew that the pig is considered lucky, it stands for wealth. But this year it somehow is even considered ‘golden’, I missed as to why… A university professor said that if calculating exactly it would actually ‘only’ be the year of the 火猪 (huozhu, yea, I understood that ;-)), the year of the Fire Pig, not the year of the Golden Pig, but nobody cares…

Well…wealth here is still all about having a lot of money. Let them have their fun! My wealth this year will circle around having a lot of time! My dream starts to come true. Yet still some work to do, and the books and tools are right now spread all around me. But it is work I have chosen myself: Learning Chinese.

The Pig, peacefully united with Santa Claus

. The deal I made with my project here worked out—to my own surprise! But as of right after spring break, i.e. in one week, I will come to work only on two days per week, giving me three days per week to attend Chinese classes. This week I went to one of the more professional schools, iMandarin, and had my level checked. I never had much time for learning, I know that my skills are below basic, but I did not want to start with “Ni hao” and “Xie Xie” again! It did hardly work out…but it did: I can start with Beginner 2, after a bit of talk in Chinese with one of the teachers there. And while promising to catch up a bit on the content of Beginner 1. I bought all books and vocabulary cards of Beginner 1+2 right on the spot, applied for the language course, and on the way back to work worked through the vocabulary cards of Beginner 1. Well…I know quite a lot of them…but there’s still some work ahead. My vocabulary cards for Beginner 1. “Work hard” and “work overtime” move into the background.

请说慢一点 (please speak a bit more slowly) or 我不会说汉语 (I don’t speak Chinese) is what I need to work on soon 😉

BTW: The Chinese-looking characters on the English side of the cards are actually Japanese. The set of cards can be used by Japanese, too, to learn Chinese.

My project assignment will finally end end of March. I plan to continue with Chinese lessions, i.e. also finish Beginner 3. Then I hope I have enough practise to be able to basically survive in China. It won’t be great…but should be sufficient to get a bed, something to eat, and ask for the way.

It all got later than I wanted it to get: Ideally I had hoped to learn Chinese over winter and start travelling in spring. But it moved and moved…but it looks like I can finally start my travelling in late May. Exact itinerary yet to be decided. But spots like Lasa, Yunnan, generally a bit more of China’s west (hm…they actually speak more Cantonese there than Mandarin…), Hainan, maybe Qingdao (where the German-style beer comes from), maybe Inner Mongolia (just got a book about it)…there’s so much to see. And then I also wanna see Vietnam (nearly would have been on the way to Vietnam already, if only there would be direct flights), somehow got the crazy idea to make it to Bhutan, and at the very end I wanna end up in the planet’s most happy country: Vanuatu.

Yea…after so few updates in the past it might in the future more often happen that you’ll read some news here. Not yet sure if it will be worthwhile to report about my Chinese-learning progress, but we’ll see. But travelling reports will then start to show up early enough. The first one to come quite soon: Carol and I will (as Vietnam has not worked out) spend the Spring Break time in Guilin and Yangshuo…ah, one of the most famous landscapes in all China. Turn around a 20 RMB banknote (ie. turn down Mao 😉 and you see what I am talking about.

Yet….the weather forecast is so bad :-(((

Stay tuned!

Categories: Shanghai

Originally Created: 02/18/2007 07:08:43 AM
Last Edited: 02/26/2007