I was dropping by my local FamilyMart store for some cool drink in the upcoming Shanghai heat, queued up in front of the cash registers to wait for my turn, and was surely passed by some local Chinese with a small bottle and 3 Yuan in his hands, trying to short-cut me and being served first, holding his bottle to the shop assistant for scanning. Well…I am so used to it by now that I didn’t bother much. I was only thinking if I could collect enough Chinese words to give that guy some kind of address to think about on his way… I couldn’t come up with anything.
CDMA modem: Truely wireless with China Unicom
Today I finally bought a CDMA card. WLAN is great, but you require a WiFi hotspot, which can be cumbersome to chase if you are on travel. With CDMA, a mobile phone technology, you can dial into the internet whenever and wherever you want! China Unicom offers CDMA services in China for quite some while and is said to have the world’s largest CDMA network, including alliances with other country’s telecommunication providers. Not sure if that allows me to roam into other countries, probably not, and at the moment I am quite happy that it works for China. Continue reading CDMA modem: Truely wireless with China Unicom
Shanghai Farewell Pics
Let me play a bit with my new camera, test my laptop’s tools, and do some farewell pictures of Shanghai. The first ones carry the wrong time…camera was still set to Germany’s time zone. That’s why testing the equippment makes sense π Continue reading Shanghai Farewell Pics
Helping a Chinese in Shanghai
I’ve always been waiting for a chance to help a Chinese, just because so many Chinese had helped me here already with various matters, especially when it comes to reading and writing Chinese. But…I didn’t expect to get this chance in Shanghai and due to my English skills. Sitting outside at a Starbcks cafe, being approached by a Chinese usually means that they want to sell watches, handbags, or DVDs to you. So I am often very reserved talking to these guys. Continue reading Helping a Chinese in Shanghai
Haier W18: Sound and WLAN under Windows, Debian Etch, and Ubuntu Hardy Heron
I reported already that I had bought a Haier W18 notebook, a Chinese make, with which I am very happy. I have installed both Windows XP and Debian Linux Etch. Both installations presented the same two challenges: WLAN and Sound. All other hardware (this includes the wired LAN) has been identified correctly and did not require special treatment to work properly.
Continue reading Haier W18: Sound and WLAN under Windows, Debian Etch, and Ubuntu Hardy Heron
Germany Interlude
The fly-back started off so great…but continued quite disappointing. I had my last project fly-back, paid by my company, thus, Business Class, on 27-APR. The first time with China Eastern, which I in the beginning had some concerns with. But a word of a colleague proved true: They aren’t so long in the long haul business, their planes are brand-new. And so it was: Very comfortable and relaxing.
Arrived in Germany an hour late, but no issue, was still 6am. The sun started to raise into a cloud-less sky, the weather promised to become as great and hot as reported over weeks in the news. I made a very very good decision: I threw my suitcases into a corner of the room, briefly checked my racing bike, which I had not moved for 2.5 years, filled up some air into the tires, loaded 2 bottles with water, changed into some biking wear and off I went: At 7:30 I was cycling out of Frankfurt. Not much traffic yet, fairly chilly. But fresh clear air you never get in Shanghai. As soon as I left Frankfurt behind me I enjoyed nature pure, even saw rare birds (I believe one was a buzzard, another right beside the street was definitely a pheasant). I was pleased to note that my bike ran as smooth as ever and that I was still able to do 50km in a good 2 hours. π Continue reading Germany Interlude
Shanghai hen leng
Shanghai hΔn lΔng!
Today was my first day of Chinese lessons! Well…at least of my second attempt to learn Chinese in class. This time with a lot moe motivation, a lot more time (3 mornings per week, 2.5 hours each), a lot better teacher and a lot more costly… π But it’s definitely worth the money as I think I can already judge after the first day. Certainly, I can’t tell if all teachers are that good, but if you need a professional language school in Shanghai (or Guangzhou as I just figure it when linking the web site), give iMandarin a try…OK, enough advertisment for them π Continue reading Shanghai hen leng
Water the Flowers
Here’s finally a gag for my Chinese friends…or those who want to learn Chinese:
I had a nice bug in yesterday’s Chinese class…my poor teacher couldn’t stop laughing: She was questining me for vocabulary, at that time focusing on the usage of “η»” (gei) like η»δ½ ζη΅θ― (“gei ni da dianhua”, to give you a call).
The Sentence to be translated now: “Water the flowers / give the flowers water”.
Birger’s answer: “Gei hua shui jiao”.
Funny, isn’t it? π Continue reading Water the Flowers
Packing
The end draws closer and closer…I had to start packing these days. Over the past two and a half years more things had collected than would possibly fit into my available suitcases and bags. My company pays me a “D-sized container”, whatever that exactly is… Continue reading Packing
Guilty Conscious
I was skating again today. Do that quite frequently recently π And I ran over a red traffic light. So what? That’s China here… I skate around the Century Park as usual, clock-wise, so to my right-hand side there is always the park, no street coming from there. All traffic lights are due to streets coming from the left, no obstacle for me, nobody stops if there’s no street to your right. So what? There was a police car next to the traffic light. So what? Police cars are exactly those cars running over a red traffic light second-most frequently. (Most frequently do that these always blue huge construction or container trucks, no matter if police around or not.) The officers were watching the intersection. So what? They sometimes do that…also need to earn money. There were other bikes (cycles, e-cycles, motor bikes) on the bike lane where I use to skate. So what? There’s always traffic. They all had stopped. Continue reading Guilty Conscious