Sunday, July 24, 2005

Advert: my London mandarin teacher

A plug for my language teacher in London. I found her through my company.
I don't think there are a great deal of good mandarin teachers in London
yet. I was a pretty difficult pupil - no time to practice, tired, studying
on weekends, and very demanding. I had lessons with a couple of other
corporate language trainers, before settling finally on Katy.

Nice lady, very good teacher, good teaching materials. Able to be creative
and go with the flow. Good mix of vocab, storytelling and conversational
chit chat. Confident and relaxed, good english. Lives in Kent I think, or
somewhere a little far away, but travels in to teach.

She's taiwanese in origin if I recall correctly, and studied TCFL at the
renowned Beijing Language and Culture University BLCU or whatever it's
called. I paid something like 50 pounds an hour through her language
company, but I'd imagine you can get her direct for less - depending on how
many clients she has on of course.

Her name is Katy, her email address is fuyuhui@yahoo.com

I fear you not, mozzies

Having been away for two weeks, and the weather perhaps cooler now in Shanghai, somehow I feel less scared of the mosquitos in my apartment.  They're certainly still there... and they're still biting me (one on each limb today).  But I seem to have grown accustomed to the bites - they don't inflame anywhere near as much now.  Now I'm armed with a nasty smelling Raid spray, which stinks to high heaven and can't be good for me to breathe, but it has a somewhat terminal effect on the buggers if they go anywhere near a cloud of it.
 
A cause for celebration?  Or words spoken too soon perhaps....
 
I was a little surprised when looking at a potential flat on the 26th floor of a block last week, to find mosquitos in the lift lobby.  I understood they probably flew up floor by floor.  Slightly disconcerting.  I hope it was because the apartment was next to a river, therefore there being many more mosquitos than there would be normally, and thus some that aren't at all afraid of heights...?!
 
Kai Wing Shiu
萧启荣

Living in China - an unexpected lesson in appreciation

Distance makes the heart grow fonder.  Or put another way, a close family need not be together.  Back in London, I never did live with my sister, despite her being in the same city (our personalities don't suit each other well for extended periods of time).  When we told people that we lived separately, I think they would think it odd, and think that it meant we weren't close as a family.  Actually I'm very close to my sister.  And to my mother.  And to my brother too, though I speak to him less often.
 
Being so far away as China, I have a sense of family closeness that I didn't really notice before.  Because I'm lonely, so far away from home and with only new friends here, I'm that much more appreciative of my ties around the world, be they direct family, cousins, aunts, uncles, or close friends.  They keep an interest in my life, I keep an interest in theirs, and therefore I don't feel so alone out here.
 
It's perhaps one of the many things I took for granted back in the UK, along with clean roads, meat in restaurants, being able to speak and read and the value of money.  Being able to visit my grandfather when in Birmingham is a luxury that I appreciate all the more now.  That he came to our family house for a meal when I was visiting Birmingham last week made me very happy.
 
Being in a place where so many things are different to those that I have grown accustomed to, I am learning again to appreciate the value of such simple things in life. 
 
To give you another example, I used to have the attitude that the 70 odd pence of change I would bring home each day was a right pain in the behind.  My attitude was that earning in the hundreds and thousands of pounds, what did 70 pence matter.  Now I appreciate that most people out here spend as much on lunch.  Numerous people carry out labour intensive and demeaning jobs through the night, such as foraging through rubbish bins for recyclable materials - in hope of earning small amounts of money to provide for their families.  Others such as girls wind up debasing themselves themselves as skimpily clad barmaids, hostesses or ladies of the night.
 
You'd think that such an experience would turn me into a tight fisted scrooge of sorts, terrified to ever spend money.  However, my earning out here is sufficient to afford a high level of lifestyle here though, which I do appreciate.  Much of my additional spending relates to time, convenience, style, environment, experience, company, quality, health and safety.  Funnily enough, as well as being mindful of the small change, I am also learning to enjoy and appreciate the times that I spend more money.  It took me a few months to get used to since arriving, but now I am comfortable to save money on some days, and spend larger sums of money on other days.
 
If I'm going to go to a bar and spend money, it costs me a relative fortune, and so when I do so, it's special.  Similarly if someone treats me to a meal, or even a coffee, I'm that much more appreciative of the gesture.  Actually, even KFC and Pizza Hut here cost a fortune.  Who'd have thought one could learn to truly appreciate pizza, or Macdonalds eh?

I have lost weight

Yup I've lost weight.  It's visible in two ways.  Firstly, looking at my photos, I'm most certainly not as podgy as I was before.  I never really regarded myself as podgy, but looking at photos... it's easy to tell!  I'm not even that slim now as it is...
 
Secondly, I seem to have lost muscle off my forearms.  Partly this could be because I'm not playing badminton regularly, which i used to do.  But mostly I think it's because my diet doesn't contain a lot of meat.  I've been eating in a good local restaurant most of the time recently.  Despite having 20 odd pages of food in the menu, there isn't really anything that contains a substantial amount of meat.  If there is pork or beef it's all been chopped into shreds or slices and there really ain't a whole lot of it there!  Similarly the chicken dishes seem to be mostly bits of bone with small pieces of meat attached.
 
My friend winfun tells me it is because people eat too much meat at home, so they eat more healthily in the restaurants.  I guess this means I shouldn't rely just on the restaurants.  I can certainly get tofu, vegetables, fish and soup in the restaurants, but it seems I should try to eat more meat at home.

Friday, July 08, 2005

Can't get through to the UK

Bombs went off in London today. I sent a text message to my sister to see if she was ok, but I haven't had a reply. I did get an email from her though, so clearly she's ok.

I tried calling a few people in the UK, but my calling card wouldn't put me through. It's very frustrating when that happens - it's my only means of calling. The same happened yesterday, and on other occasions when I've tried to call my mother, or former colleagues in the UK.

I need to find some alternative means of making international phone calls. Ways that are more reliable than ultra cheap chinese calling cards. One option would be the company recommended American Express calling card, serviced by AT&T. Costly, but probably more reliable. Another method I'm going to give a try is www.skype.com, internet telephony. I use it for online voice chatting and conferencing. But they have extended it to enable you to make and receive actual telephone calls via your computer.

If I put money into the skype thing, I can dial international phone numbers from my computer, and talk through my computer, and pay a reduced fee for the calls. Also, they can provide me with a UK phone number which if people call, will ring through to my laptop.

Pretty cool I suppose if it works. I'll stick some money into my skype account, set up a number, and buy a boom mike headset for my laptop I think. In truth in my new flat I probably won't hear the laptop ring if I'm in another room, but the facility does also have voicemail, so it'd probably still be an improvement in communications.

Goodbye foreign students

This week, I'm saying a goodbyes to Fudan language students who have been studying Mandarin here. They've finished their exams, and are now beginning to disappear off back home.

They're generally young uns, in their early twenties. Some are staying on in Shanghai, but most only planned to spend a single term out here learning Chinese. Some say they may be back in the future for internships or to find jobs - aussie Emily, german Joyce, french Carole, canadian Kellog... I hope they do. :)

In the last six months I have befriended a number of the foreign students, through occasional meals and parties. [aside - excellent, just fried a mosquito with my electric tennis racquet thing - hope it was the one that was bothering me all night] I haven't socialised with them as much as to join their 'gangs', but I've happily tagged along from time to time.

My focus of course has been on the Mandarin side of things. My MBA has also detracted from the socialising time I have, in particular needing to be at class on Friday evenings, and to wake up [darn it another one just flew past my nose] for 9am clases on Saturdays. I think the focus is one of the reasons why I've been able to make some good progress with my Chinese.

It is of course a balance that all are entitled to choose. For example, by choosing to live outside the foreign student dormitory, I've missed out on a whole lot of fun socialising with young fun (and some quite beautiful) people... but that fun would indeed have been at the cost of progress in mandarin.

Generally I'm comfortable with my decision to focus. My intention was to progress my mandarin as quickly as possible, in line with convincing my company to take me on. Enjoying life as a foreign student wasn't really high on my priorities. I have one pang of regret though - as a consultant, it isn't so easy for me to find or settle down with a partner. A number of the foreign students have hooked up with boyfriends/girlfriends over these months. To think that I possibly have missed out on a romance makes me feel a little regretful that I couldn't take longer out of my schedule. Only a little regretful though... because ask me if I'd have done it any differently in retrospect, and I think the answer is still no.... I am impatient to get on with my China mission.

One very nice thing is if I can keep in touch with some of these folks as they live their lives on in other countries. I'm hoping MSN or ideally www.Friendster.com will help out here. An international alumni network of friends from something like this is something to treasure for quite some time - it's so easy to reminisce over 4 kuai la mian, the state of the teaching buildings, or other aspects of our Fudan life.

This reminds me of the experience I had with the Weizmann Institute Summer Science Camp in Israel, back in 1995 I believe. 80 students from around the globe, doing some science work and touring Israel. A fantastic, fantastic experience. My contact with friends there has waned significantly, possibly because we were quite young at the time, and will have changed a lot. Also, email addresses and such like have changed, as we entered university, got jobs, changed jobs etc. Anyway, when i have time I hope to track down some of my friends from the programme, in particular US Joey, US Connie, Alex (Rau?) from Ithaca, Chinese Yi, and Mexican Yiti.

Who to trust?

An interesting example of trust and face.

I rented my first apartment here for a period of four months. At the end of this, I hadn't finalised who to share a flat with, so I extended my stay by a further month. I did this verbally with my landlady.

I would say I have a good relationship with my landlady. She helps me out, I am polite to her, she's cooked me dinner, I've given her a few gifts of UK shortbread and Cadbury's chocolate, and I've befriended her daughter Helen who studies a different MBA at Fudan University.

For me therefore, verbally agreeing a month's extension to my tenure here, seemed a reasonable thing to do. My landlady didn't ask for the month's rent up front - she just suggested she would deduct it from the deposit - fair enough. Furthermore, to request the formality of paperwork, could be construed as not trusting her word.

Because I was actively looking for apartments, and desperate to escape the onslaught of mosquitos that relates to my current abode, I mentioned to my landlady that I might be moving out sooner. She told me this was fine, she could be flexible about dates. She later told me that flexibility meant a system of penalties, where I wouldn't pay the full month if I left early, but she'd still pocket a little more than what I'd actually occupied pro-rata. Fair enough.

What made me a little angry however, was when I told her that I was likely to want to stay for the whole of July after all. It was then that she told me that she had already agreed to another tenant moving into the apartment on the 27th July. It seems she was banking on my finding an apartment and moving out slightly early as suggested. It seems she was hoping on the double whammy - penalising me for moving out early, and having a tenant lined up to move in directly anyhow.

I now realise that a written contract to clearly define her obligation to provide my housing for the whole of July would help me here, even including the penalities [darn it there comes and goes a mozzie] for leaving early. Without such a contract, my only recourse is to insist that she sticks to her word, and thereby draw question to her upstandingness. This is uncomfortable to do, and she's not putting me into a position where I can do this - it steps a little out of friendly and into firm challenge from either side.

She hasn't backed down yet, but suggests that we talk about it in person rather than on the phone. I think that was a face-saving diversion myself. It's a tricky situation - neither party will want to back down - it inconveniences her to honour the month because of her double booking, and otherwise it leaves me with the thought of paying rent for all 3 bedrooms of my apartment on my own, in advance of my flatmates moving in with me.

Lovely as she is, this behaviour has surprised me. As I understand it, relationship building is important here, and we've developed a fair deal of relationship - courtesy, chatting, treating to lunch that kind of thing. But there's definitely something I'm not so familiar with going on here - a public image and another behaviour.

I can give you another example. My ayi had some family business to deal with this week. My landlady arranged for her ayi to attend in place. She came on Tuesday with the ayi, which I paid for. I didn't realise my landlady was coming for the duration, but when she did, I welcomed her in, chatted to her extensively, and treated her to lunch also.

My landlady called me on Wednesday and asked if I wanted the ayi to come again on Thursday, as I usually have my ayi come twice a week. I explained that because I hadn't been in the house on Wednesday, the house was probably still very clean, and so there wasn't really much to be doing. My landlady said that she wanted the ayi to clean the curtains and inside some of the cupboards though, and that she would pay for the ayi. Fair enough I thought, why not.

She came by, and I didn't make any special requests on the ayi. Indeed, she was doing some spring cleaning, at the behest of my landlady. When it came to paying however, my landlady made a point to say "I'll pay". I have noticed this type of communication before. It's actually an invitation to be courteous and offer to refuse to let her pay. I rose to the occasion, and suggested that because it was my home it was improper to allow her to pay. She countered, strongly insisting that it was at her request and that she should pay. I countered again, saying nononono, that wouldn't be right. To which she rather directly replied, ok, you pay.

This was a little too direct for my liking. Orchestrated if you ask me. I don't want to slur the lady, but it is my feeling that whilst she shows great caring and courtesy to me, she also takes minor financial advantage of me when she can.

Is it because I'm so obviously a wealthy foreigner, and she's such a poverty stricken local? Well, not really if you look at her home, whilst she might say so, she's not really doing badly. Is it because she's trying to maximise the profit of her rental, well maybe. But there are some lines involved with such matters I would say, and I think she does step quite definitely over some lines from time to time.

A disconcerting business, but an interesting experience nonetheless. It's not to say that such behaviours couldn't happen in the West. But it's fair to say that my being out here is exposing me to different situations and uncertainties that I simply wouldn't have been exposed to back in London. The food for thought is good growth for me. Wizening up to the world I think - we Brits have always knowingly been overly naieve and trusting.

The sleep dilemma - I am not alone

I have been less bothered by my friends the mosquitos since my use of an electric mosquito light. It's a fluorescent tube light, surrounded by an electrified coil. A simple thing, it's zapped dozens of the buggers over the last few nights. It needs a clean out I think...

I came into my room last night just before going to bed, and saw a big mozzie on the wall. I tried to splat it using my tissue box, but managed to miss it. Foolishly, I couldn't find it and went to bed.

It's 3.30 am now. I got woken up by repeated buzzing around my head. I'm also now nursing bites on the eyebrow, neck, left and right knuckle, and one on the ball of my foot. Nursing in this context means rubbing in Mopiko cream from HK, a soothing ointment. I understand there's some sort of local equivalent to be had here.

Under normal circumstances, I sleep soundly through the night. These mosquitos though, especially tonight's multiple-attack-ignore-the-electric-light mosquito, seem to occasionally prevent me from sleeping well. Fortunately I have no grand plans for tomorrow, but if I was working full time, I couldn't hack this.

Last weekend I was bitten on the lip by a mosquito... my lip swelled up to I think about 3 times its normal size. I looked ridiculous. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it might, but it did scare the living daylights out of me. I was furious.

Further anti-mozzie measures I can take are... a mozzie net over my bed, and a smelly canister spray which is said to be effective for fumigating, but not pleasant to use. A kindly 4th generation ABC reader in the States has also offered to send me some DEET anti-moz soap - after tonight I think I would like to take her up on the offer! Lastly I think I will plump for last resort option - run run run as fast as the wind! I'm close to signing an apartment lease, and so hopefully I will move into a more urban area not on the ground floor and better insulated against mosquitos. Fingers crossed!

Thursday, July 07, 2005

KW the serious Blogger

hehe I've had a couple of comments from readers to say that they think I should chill a little - they say my posts are so heavy going!

a little insider information for you about the psyche of this blogger. when I'm out having fun, I'm out having fun, and I forget to blog. when I think about something interesting, or I learn something important, then I try my best to blog it. A lot of this is hardship or learning.

Naturally then... this is a record of a lot of the grief, hardship and serious pondering that I go through. Yes, I'm a person who thinks seriously about a number of things. But, please rest assured, I don't think depressingly about things every day of the week. On days that aren't reported on my blog, I also have bargain lunches, special dinners, drinks, watch films, but I'm not so inclined to journalise such events unless there's something in particular that I want to put on record.

It's only really events that 'strike' me that draw me to Blog. It's time consuming after all, and whilst random readings and comments from the public is one motivation, a major personal motivation is for me to be able to look back on my journey in future years.

So... thank you for your concerns ladies and gents, ... worry not I am not a basket case, and could possibly be leading a balanced life, even with the heavy pondered blogging :)