Random Happenings

I was walking back to the Conference Center and this Chinese man on his bicycle spoke to me in Chinese…

Pointing at the restaurant at the Conference Center, “Excuse me, is that a restaurant?”
“Yes, it is.”
“What kind of food do they sell there?”
“Chinese food”
“Is the food there better than the one at the dining hall?”
“Yes and it’s also a little bit more expensive.”
“Ok…thanks.”

So, as I started to walk away, he spoke to me again…
“Are you Korean?”
“No, I’m a Malaysian Chinese.”
“Do you study here?”
“Yes. I’m learning Chinese here.”
“How long have you been here?”
“2 weeks.”
“Where do you live?”
“I live there…” Pointing at the conference center.
“I thought that’s where the teachers live?”
“Oh, really? I don’t know.”
“A lot of foreigners live near the south gate.” Pointing towards the south gate.
“Oh.”
“Do you have a number?”
“I don’t have a China number :).”
“Oh ok, bye :).”
“Bye :).”

P/S: Somehow, a lot of people here asked me if I'm a Korean.

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As a bunch of us walked to Propaganda last night, we lost the Spanish ladies, Montsa and Christina. Got a phone call from Montsa while we wait for them.

Montsa: Where are you?
Me: We're standing in front of Green Tree (it's a shop name). Can you see it?
Christina: I see a lot of green trees *chuckles*

LOL!

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A bunch of us were hanging out at Propaganda last night. This mat salleh came and talked to some of us.

Mat Salleh: So, you’re from Indonesia, you’re from Malaysia and you’re from Spain. How do you guys know each other?
Me: We’re the United Nations.
Christina: (Started laughing) No, we’re the United Colors of Benetton.

LOL! Christina is really funny.

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Today, as I was walking back to the Conference Center, I saw all these aunties shaking the Gingko trees in my university campus. I was wondering why did they do that. Turns out that, they were trying to take the Gingko because I saw some aunties picking them up from the ground. Amazing!

First day of class

今天上课很高兴。 我们班有十八个学生。 我们有马来西亚人，日本人，泰国人，法国人，阿根廷人，加拿大人，新西兰人，韩国人，意大利人，德国人, 印尼人。我很高兴认识我的新朋友。

今天我学习:
我叫陈丝薇。 我来自马来西亚。 我是名大学生。 我学习汉语。 今天我学习用汉语介绍自己。

Pinyin translation of the above:
jin1tian1 shang4ke4 hen3 gao1xing4. wo3men2 ban1 you3 shi2ba1 ge5 xue2sheng5. wo3men5 you3 ma3lai2xi1ya4ren2, ri4ben3ren2, tai4guo2ren2, fa3guo2ren2, a1gen1ting2ren2, Jia1na2da4ren2, xin1xi1lan2ren2, han2guo2ren2, yi4da4li4ren2, de2guo2ren2, yin4ni2ren2. wo3 hen3 gao1xing4 ren4shi5 wo3 de5 xin1 peng2you5.

jin1tian1 wo3 xue2xi2:
wo3 jiao4 Chen2 Si1Wei1. wo3 lai2zi4 ma3lai2xi1ya4. wo3 shi4 ming2 da4 xue2sheng5. wo3 xue2xi2 han4yu3. jin1tian1 wo3 xue2xi2 yong4 han4yu3 jie4shao4 zi4ji3.

In English:
I’m happy with today’s class. We have 18 students in the class. We have Malaysians, Japanese, Thai, French, Argentinian, Canadians, New Zealander, Korean, Italians, German and Indonesian in the class. I am happy to meet new friends today.

Today, I learn:
My name is Tan Hsi May. I come from Malaysia. I am a college student. I am learning Chinese. Today, I learn how to introduce myself in Chinese.


My classroom


My timetable

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First day of class and we were given homework to do. Just some writing exercise. It's good for me because I have a problem with recognizing and memorizing the Chinese characters. It's really hard. I've learned the importance of the dictionary. But that's cheating. Haha! Had some problem with dictation today. The teacher called out some words and we were supposed to write it down. I know the word but I don't know how to write it. Well, teacher is very nice to me and understanding too. I must really buck up now.

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I usually sleep throughout the night and wake up the next morning but I realised that I don't sleep like that anymore. I've been waking up from my sleep a lot every night and I can't explain why. Could be the dreams, noises and the bed especially. It's not the most comfortable. One day, I woke up with my ass aching for no reason. Maybe because of the way I slept? Lol!

Placement Test and Cheap Food

我的老师说，我知道讲普通话. 她问我要不要学读写. 我说我要. 她告诉我, “Maybe I will put you in class A, maybe not”.

Pinyin translation of the above:
wo3 de5 lao3shi1 shuo1, wo3 zhi1dao4 jiang3 pu3tong1hua4. ta1 wen4 wo3 yao4 bu4 yao4 xue2 du2xie3. wo3 shuo1 wo3 yao4. ta1 gao4su5 wo3, “Maybe I will put you in class A, maybe not”.

Well, from her expression it seems that my spoken Mandarin is good enough to go to class B. But I want to learn how to read and write too. So, she might place me in class A. There is a total of 6 levels whereas A is the beginner and F is the highest level.

Placement test results will be out on Monday and class will start on Tuesday. At the meantime, I'll just have to enjoy the free time I have now.

Montsa (a lady from Barcelona who's also taking the 12 weeks course) and I just meet up with Li Zhuang (a Chinese national who's studying at the Geoscience University opposite BLCU) for dinner. He took us to this dining hall in BLCU which is really good. Good in terms of the price and the variety of food. Now I know where to go get good and cheap food in BLCU.

Arrival, registration, touring

Alright, first of all, I'm really pissed off with the Great Firewall of China! The government have to ban all the websites that I usually visit such as Facebook, Blogger, YouTube, Twitter and the list goes on. But thanks to Kok Eng, I found this really cool browser that lets you surf the web from a proxy. Otherwise, I won't be able to blog this. Oh by the way, the government is also smart enough to ban some of the proxies website too. I'm not going to tell you which proxy that I'm using now just in case they ban it too. Haha!

I arrived Beijing Airport at 6:25am on Sept 14. As I got out of the arrival hall, I looked for the taxi stand by following the "Taxi" sign in the airport. The taxi stand is outside the airport. I told the taxi driver where I wanted to go by showing him the BLCU campus map.

I arrived at BLCU Conference Center (that's where I live) at 8am. It's a good thing I called earlier to reserve a room. Otherwise, I won't be getting a room at all. So I checked in, called mom and waited for her to come see me.

Mother came with Emily and we proceeded to Building 3 for registration. Took us almost 3 hours to get everything done from registering to paying and then to collect the student card. We had KFC for lunch at the nearest shopping mall called Hua Lian. Then we took the subway back to mom’s hotel. We went exploring the city by foot. We hung around Wangfujing (it’s like Bukit Bintang in KL). It's pretty cool.

The next day (Sept 15), we went to Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City and the Bar Street at Qianhai. I went back to BLCU that night.

My attempt to blog in Chinese:
九月十四号 六点二十五分钟，我倒 北京. 我关注这个 “TAXI” 标. 我跟[Help! I don’t know how to spell the “da”]讲我yao[I actually know how to spell this but by the time proofread this, I’ve already close the NJStar and it takes a long time to load] 去北京语言大学.

Alright I give up! To write the above, I actually took almost 2 hours. I’m getting tired. It’s just too much! Haha! But I did learn a lot. At least I know a few words now. I just need to remember them. Hopefully I still know what I wrote above when I read it again in future. I just fell in love with this dictionary: http://us.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php. Let me know if you know a better one.


My room


That's just me at Forbidden City