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The time has come for my first report here from China...I guess I’d better get writing before too much stuff happens and I just lose the inspiration to write it all down.
I have now been here for four days…I left my home on Sunday at midnight and arrived here in Beijing Tuesday morning around 10 o’clock. I had a bit of a scare before leaving because as always I was a bit late on applying for my Chinese visa and I didn’t get my passport back until Saturday morning…and when I was leaving Monday morning that might be cutting it a bit close I realize…but all is well that ends well so I did catch my plane and I did arrive in Beijing as planned.
I had read on the international student web page that I could get a free pick up at the airport from the University which at the time sounded like a really great idea…had I at the time known that that also meant standing around for two hours waiting for a group of Koreans I would probably just have taken a taxi to the university. But at least in the time I was waiting I got to meet two other western foreign students…another Dane named Tom from Århus University, apparently he and another 5 or 6 girls are also doing an exchange program here at BNU…but they have studied 3 Semesters of Chinese already so I hardly think that we will be in the same classroom…and I also met Katherine, who’s from England and has now become my neighbor at the dorm…the other Danish students didn’t have the opportunity to choose their own dorms so they have to live in double rooms with an unknown person…and from what I have heard it’s not the best experience for all of them…so I’m now even more thankful for my grant from Den Danske Bank which allowed me to pay my own way and have the luxury of my own room…which is actually quite a great room. It’s not that big, but big enough, it’s on the 10th floor and has a view of the street and some houses…but also of the sunrise in the morning and the moon in the afternoon…so I’m quite happy…it also includes cleaning, they come and make my bed and wash my sheets and spray for pests and what not twice a month…I have a desk, a bed, a tv , a fridge and my own bathroom…so I think that I’ll be quite comfortable here for the next 4-5 months.
And then there is China…things have changed in the last two years…but many things remain the same. It was still a huge mess of paper work to register at the university including a lot of waiting…but that is quite typical here…they gave me a hard time about my insurance ending on the 23rd of June...and having a ticket home for the same day…because according to their computer the semester ends on June 30th but they have already told us that we have to leave our rooms on June the 10th and that the closing ceremony is on the 12th so I couldn’t see the big problem but then again I’m not Chinese...also as they only informed me on the date of the closing ceremony, how was I to know that the semester wasn’t going to end until two weeks later…because it really makes no sense…
After registering I was informed that I had to take a test the following day to see in which class to be placed…as I haven’t practiced my Chinese for more than two years and haven’t studied for thee I knew that I probably wouldn’t do that well on the test…but I had never expected that the test would consist of 100 questions written only in characters…the first 25 were read aloud and the rest you would have to read…I remember some characters but very few and recognized a lot but didn’t remember the meaning…but none of which helped me to understand a full sentence…had there been something written in pin yin (which is our letters) I might have had a fighting chance to answer at least some instead of guessing until informing the guards that I actually can’t read Chinese yet because that is what I’m here to learn…so they send me to the oral test…but when they saw that I hadn’t completed the test they just said 1st class…without even wanting to speak to me…I actually still can understand quite a bit of Chinese and can answer some as well and don’t really feel like having to start all over again learning the alphabet…but well there’s not that much that I can do now I just have to see what happens and take it as it comes…I was the first to give in and leave the room but afterwards Katherine told me that there were quite a lot that had had no idea what to do with the questions in Chinese and that even though she has studied intensively for five months before coming here she also guessed her way through most of it so that made me feel a bit better and stopped me from thinking that I would be alone in the basic class…
In the end it is does seem kind of ridiculous with that test because they could say that if you have no prior knowledge of Chinese or a very limited knowledge you automatically start in the 1st class…and not making you suffer a stupid test like that that just leaves you kind of petrified of what’s to come. But because of all the Korean and Japanese etc students who have studied Chinese as we have English in Denmark they give them preference in what I have seen until now…then in every aspect of what is this university…but it’s ok…all is an experience… What I have seen of the Korean and Japanese students until now is that they move around in packs…they do everything together and at the same time you never see one of them alone…always in groups…it’s quite funny actually…there is always one that handles all and the rest just kind of stand around waiting like a tour group with a guide…but that might chance once classes start…
Yesterday was quite rainy and polluted so I decided to not really go anywhere far from where I live because I just don’t think it’s that healthy to be out in that dirty air especially when it’s raining…so today Katherine and I had decided that we were going to get up early and go and visit the Mao memorial…his mausoleum… also we wanted to see how far the Metro station is from where we live and to my great delight it’s within walking distance which means it’s easy to go almost everywhere in the city!!
So we go into town, and find a place to check in out bags, because you are not allowed to bring anything into the mausoleum…it all was kind of fast because you just walk in a line passing the glass cage where Mao is lying looking more like a wax doll than an embalmed dead guy…but in the end I must admit that I found the whole idea of having gone to look at a dead man quite disgusting…but at the same time it’s one of the must see things in Beijing because you don’t really believe it until you see him…
Security going into the Tian’men square has gotten quite a bit tighter since the last time I was here…now you have to pass all your belongings through an x-ray machine as if you were to board a plane or something. It seems a bit silly but well I can only say that it’s China and I no longer can get surprised by stuff like that…what amazes me though is that since I was last here two years ago they have managed to make three new metro lines and changed a street that before was filled with horribly looking houses into a shopping street built in an old fashioned manor and with a tram that goes to who knows where…I’ll try that one some other day…because we got hungry and I took Katherine to this great little restaurant that I know from the last couple of times that I have been here…and it was luckily still here…the food is cheap and very, very good…our waiter Michael knew some English and was very talkative, and we got to know that he likes Coldplay, McFly and Linkin Park…and that he has Danish money which was given to him by three old Danish women…
I guess this is more or less what I have experienced here until now…tomorrow is the opening ceremony at 7.50 and then we will be told the rules and regulations of Chinese Law so we don’t break any…and after that there’s a party…at 10.30 in the morning…but the will be a delicious treat so we are recommended to come and eat that and meet the other foreign students…I’m looking forward to seeing what it all is because it just sounded so funny on the invitation…but I’ll tell you all about it later on…
Until the next time…!!
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