While I was staying at the university's dormitory, I ate mostly packaged chips or LEM. I think I went to LEM about four times. The second time I went there I thought I'd take a risk and order something other than the Student Meal, so I ordered a hamburger meal (big mac clone), with a student meal as a backup. The beef in the hamburger was hideous, but I ate it anyway because I was so hungry, and I knew I had the delicious taste of old deep-fried chicken to chase it down. The one thing that LEM does better than KFC and McDonalds is drinks - KFC and McDonalds use the standard soft drink syrup, which is mixed with soda in their big drink machines. The mixing of these drinks is almost never done correctly, resulting in drinks that are either far too sweet, or far too bitter. Also, I've found that the drinks from these places, in addition to the standard mixing flaws, have a slight taste of dirt. I think this is due to the Chinese water supply being ... less than pure. LEM circumnavigates this problem by pouring store-bought bottled soft drinks into their machines, ensuring consistency and flavour.

On Sunday of the second week, Yvonne had organised that her friends, her and myself would have lunch together, wander about, then play badminton. We went to a Japanese restaurant for lunch. The food was so-so, I'm not a big fan of raw meat/fish, and I wasn't that hungry to begin with. One of the "highlights" of the meal was (raw?) octopi marinated in some red stuff. Another was raw horse meat. I ate both which, as you'll find out later, turned out to be quite a bad idea.

After lunch we wandered about for some time. We walked through various malls, which I don't remember. Malls do not deserve my attention, unless they sell electronics. After the malls we went to play badminton. The gym in which we played was on the fourth floor of a nondescript building somewhere in Shanghai. We had to wait for about half an hour for other people to be told to get off the courts before we could start. One of Yvonne's friends and myself were the best, when it was he and I vs. whoever else, victory (for us) was swift. After a short time it was decided that we weren't allowed to play on the same side, because it was unfair. We had a lot of fun, and played for about two hours.

Some interesting notes about the gym: it was on the fourth floor - all gyms are on the ground floor in New Zealand. People smoked inside the gym! They'd play their game, then retire to the sidelines and light up.

We then returned to our respective homes.

Monday's class was OK, afterwards I returned to my room and played Battle for Wesnoth. It snowed quite heavily, and at about 9 PM I went for a short walk to take some photos. About an hour after I returned I began to feel very sick. My stomach felt like it was filled with acid (funny because it actually is filled with acid, permanently... can't think of a better way to describe it though), and I felt like vomiting. I tried to fix myself with oranges, but they only made me more uncomfortable. Shortly after the oranges, I threw up. I was sick for about three days. I didn't go to class on Tuesday, but I forced myself to go to all the others.

During my Thursday class, my irritation with my electronic dictionary reached critical mass. I decided it was time to find one that was actually helpful, instead of what I had at the time, which was a dictionary designed for Chinese people learning English. I thought it would be good, forcing me to learn more Chinese, but actually (some would say dur dur dur here) it was less than helpful. Those weren't the main reasons, however. When reading Chinese I often come across words I have not seen before, or words whose meanings escape me. In these cases I do not know the Pīnyīn, and therefore can't look up the words in my dictionary, which is limited to pīnyīn only lookups. This is frustrating, and meant that I would just skip over the offending word, instead of learning its meaning and pronunciation. I was feeling a little better (or so I thought), so after class I texted Yvonne to ask if she'd like to go for lunch then accompany me to Tech-Heaven so we could find a dictionary that allowed one to input the character directly (via a touch-screen interface). Some organisation later, we met at the subway, then went for lunch with one of her friends. I was given the honor of choosing what to eat, due to my uncomfortable stomach and slippery bowels. I chose pizza, because the thought of eating anything "soupy" made me think of toilets and waterfalls (brown waterfalls). So, we ate at "Papa John's" pizzaria, which was so-so. Domino's NZ is better, and about the same price if you're a student.

After lunch we said goodbye to Yvonne's friend, and headed towards Tech-Heaven. We stopped at the first store in from the entrance, and asked them about dictionaries into which one could write Chinese. They showed us some examples, and demonstrated the functionality. I was impressed, but wanted to look around, to make sure I knew what was on offer. I was hoping I'd be able to find a dictionary with some sort of scheduling functionality built-in, as this is all I really use my PDA for, and I'd rather carry around two devices (cellphone, PDA or cellphone, dictionary) than three. As we were turning to leave the stall I spied exactly what I wanted, the Besta TV-3000 aka The Dictionary of the Gods. It allows Chinese handwriting input (among many other input options), has some scheduling functionality - limited to class schedule, but that is all I really need, and various other bells and whistles. It was quite expensive (not telling), but worth it. Now, when I come across new words, I actually want to look them up, and remembering them is easier, as in order to look them up I have to write them at least once. Oh, it also has an option to test one's pronunciation, and will show (and allow opportunity to practice) the stroke order of any character. It also shoots lightning bolts, and cures cancer.

I couldn't find a photo of the dictionary - it was released only a few days before I bought it, and only one device was produced. I doubt the news of its production will hit the internet until I am old and grey, which I won't ever be, because the dictionary contains within it the secret to eternal life, and a cure for AIDS.

I also wanted to have a look for a cheap cellphone (was going to get a nice one, but the dictionary dramatically reduced the available budget), but my stomach alerted me to the fact that unless a toilet was reached soon, I'd be wishing I'd brought a spare pair of pants.

We rushed to the nearest toilet, and Yvonne stood around while I popped in and out. When I thought it was safe, I announced that we should take the subway back to my room. Half-way to the subway station, my stomach gave me another warning. I paid heed, and returned to the toilet. After I came out, we decided to buy some "stopped" pills, because without them I didn't think I'd be able to last the entire subway trip. I had taken some previously, to get through class, and to give my body enough time to absorb the liquids I had been drinking, but I had decided earlier in the day that I'd try to stay off them, as I don't think it is healthy to keep taking things like that. This was a dire situation though, so we bought more. I took the pills and we waited for about half an hour to be sure no more explosions would occur. The subway home was blessedly uneventful.



By the next day the worst of the sickness had passed. Having finished the Chinese course, I returned to Yvonne's parent's house.

 Subscribe in a reader

 Subscribe by Email

Tags: China | Shanghai | 上海 | 中国 | Gadget | Electronics

Haven't written for awhile, I've been away at a course. The course was at Shanghai University, and was helpful. It was a Chinese course, and ran for two weeks. Most of the material I had covered before, but as we used a different text book, each day was filled with about 15 new words for me to attempt to memorize. Of course there were some grammar points that I had not come across before, and I learned yet another way to say "but" - "不过". Now I know about 4 ways to say "but". This type of thing is one of the hardest aspects (I find) of learning a language. One learns enough to have a short conversation quickly - so long as the conversation partner uses only the variations that one has learned. Even for a hard-working student such as myself swiftly learns that language "in the field" is a different beast to language in the classroom. I know how to say a lot of things, but I can understand far, far less. Like English, Chinese has 2~5 different words that mean essentially the same thing. Technically they're different words, but for a novice the difference between "popular" "famous" "acclaimed" "infamous" "renowned" is not large. This means that I often have to get people (Yvonne's parents, they're the only people I try to have actual conversations with) to repeat themselves using variations of the same words, as I'll often know what they're talking about, I just won't know it because they're using words I am not familiar with.

Two days before classes had begun, Yvonne and I went to the dorm and paid my fees. They had neglected to mention that bond was required, luckily we'd learned from the last week of payment trials and had brought an amount of money far in excess of whatever extras we imagined they'd tack on. Bond was 800元, and we got it back afterwards. When payment was finally over, we went up to my room, where I was doomed to live for the duration of the course.

Contrary to my expectations, the room was quite nice. I'd give it a 2.5 star rating. It consisted of a bedroom/office with a desk, a bed, a TV, a chest of drawers a cupboard and a water heater thing and an ensuite. There was also an air conditioning unit, which was welcome. I immediately set the unit to its highest setting, 32°C, where it stayed until Yvonne found out and told me off. When I had unpacked my laptop, and thrown the rest of my baggage into a corner, I announced that I had settled in, and that we should find a supermarket. The closest was just across the road from the nearest university gate, and from it we bought various snacks and some water. The water in my room tasted like dirt and had a yellow-brown tint. I didn't drink the water in the room.

The area surrounding the supermarket was filled with small restaurants and other student orientated stores, none of which interested me. On our way back to the room we had dinner, at LEM. LEM is short for 乐而美 - lè'èrměi, and is a KFC clone. I ordered a student meal, I forget what Yvonne ordered. The food was OK, good enough for me to return a number of times throughout my stay at the university. After eating I accompanied Yvonne to the bus stop, then played Battle of Wesnoth alone in my room. Battle of Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game. It is free, and runs on Mac, Windows or Linux. Though it is free, the quality is still high, and is a very enjoyable game. After completing some of the campaigns, which teach you the basics of the game, I'd recommend moving on to multiplayer.

I didn't have the internet in my room however, so I just played single player. To use the internet on one's own computer, one is required to install some software, which is Windows XP or Vista only. There were three computers in a room on the first floor for communal use though, which meant I was able to check emails.

The next day I had to get up at 8 AM to pay my fees and collect my text book. This all went relatively smoothly. At one point, after successfully paying my fees, I was told to sit on the ground floor and wait for the rest of the foreign students, which I did. I had been sitting for about 30 minutes when a different person came into the room and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was waiting for the other students, and he gestured that I should follow him. We went to the room I was originally in, and I was told to sit in a different chair. After waiting there for about 20 minutes, we (some other students had arrived by then) were taken to a small room where our Chinese competence was assessed. I was put into the B class, which is better than the A+ class. After this we were given our class schedules, and told that we were finished for the day.

I went back to my room and played Battle of Wesnoth, then watched a movie.

The next day we had our first class. I made sure I arrive just on time, so I wouldn't have to sit with a bunch of people I don't know and exchange small talk. The demographics of the class were: 8 Germans (one male), 4 Japanese (two male) 1 Korean (male) and myself (New Zealand). Note: some of my classmates were not present for the photo.

The teacher spoke mostly Chinese, and we covered a chapter each lesson. There was little homework, so at night I either watched documentaries/movies or played Battle for Wesnoth.

The course was fun, and helpful.

Later I'll write about how I got food poisoning from Japanese food, my new dictionary, and an igloo.

 Subscribe in a reader

 Subscribe by Email

Tags: China | Shanghai | University | 大学 | 上海 | 中国