Banana
I went to English Corner last Friday (two evenings ago) - it's a place where students come together in a classroom to speak English. One of Loic's students organised it to help students in the French department not completely lose their English. I was the only white person there and so to thank me for my support they gave me a bunch of bananas.
Yesterday I ate my first banana since I arrived in China.
Friday afternoon I had wushu with Jun and I wrote down all the steps he had shown me so far so that I wouldn't forget. There's a slight problem: I don't have time to practice!!!
He also gave me a box of green tea which we tried together. Apparently I'll have now tasted two of the three most famous Chinese teas, not counting *the* most famous Chinese tea which is super rare and costs hundreds of dollars per 100 grams.
On Saturday, Katia, Loic and I had a late lunch and we wasted half our afternoon trying to find the movie theatre on campus - only to find out that it was playing mostly horrible horror movies (The Skeleton Key among others).
Last night we rediscovered Gaetan, who has not been with us for the past two weeks (did you notice this?) because his girlfriend came to visit and for some reason he didn't mesh the two groups - we never did anything together while she was here. He had rented an apartment off campus in order to be with her (she wouldn't have been allowed to stay in his room in the student dorm) and he still had one more night in his apartment even though his girlfriend had left so we (the French crew) were all invited to his place. It's a typical Chinese apartment - pretty derelict but comfortable enough. It's in a gated residential community about a block away from our campus. I'll show you a pic of the bathroom one of these days - it was quite something.
Anyway, we - Guillaume, Loic, Katia and I - left Gaetan's place around 1 AM and we're trying to get out of this gated residential community. It's mid-November in Beijing and it's pretty COLD. Unfortunately the main gate that leads towards the street on which our university is found is locked and there are no guards around.
Katia and I try to squeeze through an opening but we can't. Loic tries to jump over the fence, but it's hard and Katia doesn't want to even try... We can't believe we're stuck inside this place!!! What is up with China and not letting people in and out of their houses freely???
A guy in a car comes to drop off his girlfriend and we signal him down after his girlfriend leaves. He opens the door so Guillaume can talk to him and when he understands that we come from Erwai he invites all 4 of us into his car and he takes us to the entrance of our university - he doesn't want to drop us off any earlier!
Never in a million years would we do this either in France or Canada. I mean, somebody sees four young people trying to climb a fence and signal you down...you lock your doors and drive quickly away, the faster you get out of there the better! Plus, who would offer a ride out of the blue like that, which would then so easily be accepted? There is usually so much mistrust on both sides...
One evening (it was dark and raining) when we were in the city at the foot of Taishan mountain (we were on holiday and we had just climbed the 6000 steps to the peak) we had waved down a mini-van, thinking it was a taxi that would take the five of us in. It ended up being a young couple who were willing to go completely out of their way (they did a u-turn) to take us into the city centre so we could go kareeokee. Chinese people can really be quite warm and generous.
Today I'm finally going to see my cousin and we're going to visit Beida. Should be a nice day. Hope you all enjoy yourselves.
Yesterday I ate my first banana since I arrived in China.
Friday afternoon I had wushu with Jun and I wrote down all the steps he had shown me so far so that I wouldn't forget. There's a slight problem: I don't have time to practice!!!
He also gave me a box of green tea which we tried together. Apparently I'll have now tasted two of the three most famous Chinese teas, not counting *the* most famous Chinese tea which is super rare and costs hundreds of dollars per 100 grams.
On Saturday, Katia, Loic and I had a late lunch and we wasted half our afternoon trying to find the movie theatre on campus - only to find out that it was playing mostly horrible horror movies (The Skeleton Key among others).
Last night we rediscovered Gaetan, who has not been with us for the past two weeks (did you notice this?) because his girlfriend came to visit and for some reason he didn't mesh the two groups - we never did anything together while she was here. He had rented an apartment off campus in order to be with her (she wouldn't have been allowed to stay in his room in the student dorm) and he still had one more night in his apartment even though his girlfriend had left so we (the French crew) were all invited to his place. It's a typical Chinese apartment - pretty derelict but comfortable enough. It's in a gated residential community about a block away from our campus. I'll show you a pic of the bathroom one of these days - it was quite something.
Anyway, we - Guillaume, Loic, Katia and I - left Gaetan's place around 1 AM and we're trying to get out of this gated residential community. It's mid-November in Beijing and it's pretty COLD. Unfortunately the main gate that leads towards the street on which our university is found is locked and there are no guards around.
Katia and I try to squeeze through an opening but we can't. Loic tries to jump over the fence, but it's hard and Katia doesn't want to even try... We can't believe we're stuck inside this place!!! What is up with China and not letting people in and out of their houses freely???
A guy in a car comes to drop off his girlfriend and we signal him down after his girlfriend leaves. He opens the door so Guillaume can talk to him and when he understands that we come from Erwai he invites all 4 of us into his car and he takes us to the entrance of our university - he doesn't want to drop us off any earlier!
Never in a million years would we do this either in France or Canada. I mean, somebody sees four young people trying to climb a fence and signal you down...you lock your doors and drive quickly away, the faster you get out of there the better! Plus, who would offer a ride out of the blue like that, which would then so easily be accepted? There is usually so much mistrust on both sides...
One evening (it was dark and raining) when we were in the city at the foot of Taishan mountain (we were on holiday and we had just climbed the 6000 steps to the peak) we had waved down a mini-van, thinking it was a taxi that would take the five of us in. It ended up being a young couple who were willing to go completely out of their way (they did a u-turn) to take us into the city centre so we could go kareeokee. Chinese people can really be quite warm and generous.
Today I'm finally going to see my cousin and we're going to visit Beida. Should be a nice day. Hope you all enjoy yourselves.
posted by Caro at 8:23 AM
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