5 good things about China

My 5 good things about China are:

1. Being tall its so awesome I get to look over peoples heads and I am the tallest girl in the class by about 10mm yay! I also get to by large clothing and shoes now something I have never experienced before being short my whole life

2. Getting to know Lawrence, Raph, James and Nick better

4. All the students in our class and the lectures all have been very accommodating

3. Being a 5 minute walk from out school building instead of an hour and a half, I can even walk to shopping malls! Also the bell at night for bed time at 11pm

5. Being treated a bit like a celebrity, I stand out everywhere. The Chinese guys in our class always insist on carrying anything heavy for me to the point they take it out of my hands, and trying to communicate in broken English or the few words of mandarin I know.

Email to Family

I have been keeping a small diary only writing a few sentences from each day in it so I know what I have been up to Also lots of photos to what is different. It’s still very interesting here and have been getting out to see a lot more of the city, and off to the capital city of Guangdong called Guangzhou it was a lot bigger and had more tourists. There where the old gates to the city from the Ming dynasty. Around Foshan in the old bit of town the buildings are over 100 years old. The new bit has everything even a Wal-Mart though I haven’t been there for shopping as it’s a bit far from uni.

I also went out to sing some Karaoke or KTV as it’s called here. It’s huge we went during the day at 11am and the building was 5 stories high full of individual booths with a TV to show the words and film clip to the music, surround sound, 2 microphones and a huge couch to sit on. All the workers there where dressed up in ball gowns and there was a buffet lunch you could take back to your booth as they sing there for about 5 hours. The only songs in English where classics and mostly redone with Asians singing them to. There where also a lot of boy bands too.

I have also had the chance to get to know Lawrence, James, Nick and Raph more to so that’s been nice. We always seem to have a bit of a busy schedule, with class though managed to go and do a little shopping for myself I went with one of the girls in my class and one of her Friends who is majoring in English.

Tomorrow night we are having a Chinese Barbeque with the 3rd years in Industrial design, they are all keen to meet us. We some times feel like minor celebrities with people shouting out hello and lots of people stooping to look at us or when we sit on the bus to look our way. Today as a man was parking his car instead of looking forward just kept on staring at us.

Though Tuesday morning an old woman was demanding to know what we where doing here as we where buying breakfast on campus and was quite rude. Only Lawrence could translate for us. I also was asked why I was in Foshan as it’s a small university and is not really known to overseas.
The traffic here is crazy with people changing lanes all the time across double lines, riding on the footpath, if someone honks at you while driving its an I can see you so don’t move its normally to the scooters and motorbikes. You can never cross the road in one go it’s a one lane at a time process as it’s just to busy especially in peak our. There is a giant roundabout near uni to cross the road its under a freeway and is on a main road there are no pedestrian lights and you cross the road four times to get to the side we need in peak hour its so full you kind of step out wait for a few scooters to cross take another step and do the same as it’s a constant steam of traffic. Foshan has the greatest number of scooters and bikes in China.

The pollution was worse last few days and you never see stars at night, there is constant smog around the heat and humidity seems to keep it in more too. You can smell it at times too. I miss clear sky. I have gotten a bit more adjusted to the food though had Mac Donald’s here! Different burger flavour of course.

Glad that the rain is there, and every one is ok and that mum liked her play. Hope you have fun up at mount beauty say high to everyone for me including the Mc Nelly’s for me I will email when ever I can I have been very busy at the moment!

KTV

Today as James, Nick, Lawrence and I went to do some KTV (karaoke incase you are out of the Chinese loop hehe) Raph was too tired to come as he was shooting hoops and playing basketball with one of the guys who works in the coffee shop for over three hours. Yes that was one of James’ missions finding a good coffee shop.

So a guy from our class called Ching and a girl called Bou came with us. It was a huge massive building about 5 stories high, and as we where shown to our private booth we walked down a long corridor, with fancy paintings on the wall. The workers of the place wore dresses like ball gowns in satin material, the people that go to these places really take it seriously.

Walking past the rooms we noticed each one was full this is at 11.30am, music was blaring out from each of the rooms. Our room contained a long couch, two touch screens at either end of the room to choose a playlist of songs and a huge projection screen TV, two microphones and surround sound speakers.

It was the most serous thing, we where given Chinese tea, and told where the food is. It isn’t something you do for an hour or two we ended up there for just under 5 hours, two more girls from our class also joined us. But it was worth it to here Nick sing hehe, James didn’t in the end and Lawrence is a natural KTV lover. The Chinese music only really had two distinct styles for the pop music, and was pretty much the same as you love to play for us in class, with a few random English words thrown it spots like letters numbers and three letter words.

Living in China

Today I have had a break from to catch up on sleep and to do some washing. It seems that at our hotel they don’t really like to do things even though we are paying them a lot of money… (just over $5oo Australian Dollars a month) Its so annoying and then they seem to forget things like more toilet paper. I have been asking to get a light fixed as when I first got my room it was dead since the morning of day two and still haven’t got it done. Though he came up to look yesterday and said he will fix it Sunday.

Though the Chinese students who we are sharing a class with are very nice and helpful if we have a problem they are onto it. They also stay with us showing us around. Yesterday I brought some books on design (in Chinese) and they offered to carry them for me all the way home. They give up their seats for us to so I feel very welcomed. It is hard not being able to talk Chinese too and at times a little isolating but now they all seem to want to try things in English I don’t feel as out of place.