Cultural Notes, part 2

好久不见！It's been a long time since I last updated, as I have let myself become accustomed to my new life here. As of yet I do not have anything profound to say, but after encouragement from certain family members I will "UPDATE THE BLOG!!!". As I don't have any particular points to make, I will carry on from my post in Hong Kong, just pointing out some of the 'strange' things that I have seen here, that perhaps are different from back home, which may or may not be of interest!

Here is a short video of my walk from the bus stop to my house that I literally recorded on my way home, for this post, I will refer back to this to quickly show examples of some of the stuff you can see on just an average day in Hangzhou (or any other major Chinese city, I would imagine.) Apologies for the shaky camera, I should go into directing Hollywood thrillers, clearly. Also, my captions don't fit correctly with the embedded video. If you are curious about my thrilling commentary, go to the actual video :)

1. Crossing the road

Crossing the road here is not at all the same as it is in the UK, or like it was in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong everyone has to stick strictly to the rules, drivers and pedestrians alike. I learned this after getting told off multiple times for starting to cross the road before the green man, even though there were no cars in sight; apparently policeman can jump out of nowhere and give you heavy fines. In the UK, drivers tend to stick by the traffic laws pretty well, other than some chatting on mobiles and occasional speeding, and pedestrians wait for a green man to cross, or just until there are no cars around. So what about China? Well here it seems like there is an annoying cycle of rudeness. Drivers are always in a hurry to get places, and very often ignore lights completely, which means that pedestrians have to just take action and walk straight onto the road and signal cars to stop for them, otherwise you cant cross the road, often! And of course, this annoys the drivers and makes them even less happy to let you cross in front of them. As maybe you can see in the video, there is a green man when I'm crossing, but cars and bikes are still going, one car also tries to turn onto the road into me. Fun stuff. You just have to keep walking confidently and hope that theres so much traffic about that no one is able to drive quickly anyway!

2. Street Cleaners

Those neon orange fairies, they do a good job! Suffice to say, the Chinese public isn't very good at putting rubbish in bins, so the old recycling men and street cleaners are really needed to keep everything looking decent. Seriously, I've never seen so many street cleaners in my life... clearing up leaves from the roads and pavements, picking up rubbish, emptying bins.. they do a good job. And, although there are no recycling bins in Hangzhou, from what I've seen, you get a lot of old men and woman who seem to make some money by collecting plastic bottles or cardboard scraps, presumably to sell it on to someone who can recycle it, which seems like an OK solution, at least some people can make money out of others mess.

3. People on bikes wearing their jacket backwards

Ok so this is one thing I haven’t quite figured out. Often when I see someone who is riding a bike or scooter in the city, they will wear there jacket backwards, ie. with their right arm in the left sleeve and vice versa, so it looks like a straight jacket. I still don’t have a reason for why this is so popular... perhaps it keeps the jackets less stretched, if they would usually hunch over when driving, or maybe it stops the front of their shirt from getting dirty from kicked up dust? The answer is still out there...

4. Health and Safety is a waste of time

Another thing that may strike you as unusual is the apparent lack of health and safety! One thing that really freaks me out is guys doing welding on the street corners for small shops, about half a metre from all the sparks, no googles or anything, just bare eyeballs and probably no shirt as well. Chinese people are tough! This was just a quick photo I took a while back of some guys up on scaffolding, about 4 floors up mind you, with no hats or anything. Well I say, we wouldn't have that back in the UK! Or maybe I'm just a wimp!

5. Food is cheap

I mean really cheap, in my opinion. It is perfectly reasonable for me to survive on less than 50元 a day (~£5/US$8) and often I do on much less. In the video I pass one of my most frequently visited restaurants, a Lanzhou style pulled noodle place where you can eat a massive plate of noodles, veg and meat for between 9 and 15 rmb. That is just crazy to me! One thing that really illustrates the price difference is simply the price of Coca Cola, here 3.5元 (~35p) and in the UK it can be more than £1 for the same sized bottle. I have a couple of friends from european countries who do not see such a drastic difference, so maybe more than anything this just tells you how much food in the UK costs!

6. 你是哪里人？

As someone who doesn't look Chinese, one thing that may take you by surprise is how many people will just randomly talk to you. Of course, most of these people only know 2 english phrases, hello and bye bye, but they will use these whenever they see a westerner, apparently! At least once a day, usually more, I will have random people calling out hello to me (especially bored people in shops who want to sell something), and usually they seem happy to have me reply hello back! As most people's english isn't up to any conversation, they will usually ask a tester question in Chinese, usually "Where are you from?". If you can, in fact, reply to this then they seem very pleased. Your average man on the street will expect very little from your Chinese, and you will often get a lot of praise for speaking just a little, but they are also not very used to dealing with foreigners, so sometimes won't know how to slow down or use simpler words if you don't understand too well! My favourite moments, however, are when you can hear two people, often a mother and child, discussing where they think you are from, (if you are white this will inevitably be the USA). I often join in their conversation too, telling them that I'm actually from the UK, which gives them a surprise!

7. Drying Clothes Everywhere!

I see this especially around where people live, such as my street or around the dorms at campus. Chinese people seem to love to dry their clothes in the sun, so they will hang their washing wherever there is space, on their balconies, or on railings or washing lines on the street in front of their house. May be from the lack of gardens, I don't know, just struck me as something thats very common here, which I dont see at home at all.

8. Trees take up the whole pavement
One of the things I actually really like about Hangzhou is that most streets are lined with trees! One draw back, however, as you can probably see in the video, is that often they will take up half of the pavement, which makes it a little tricky when there are lots of people around! But I'm going to take all these trees as a positive thing, hey, at least they provide jobs for the leaf cleaners too! :P

To be continued...

Birthday Update!!

Hello again! My blog posting is a bit sporadic, as I'm not one of those people that can think of something to post every day! But since it has been over 2 months since I left now (how!?), and my holiday is finally coming to a close, I thought I would give anyone that's interested an update in what I have been up to.

RILAKKUMAAAAA

So first of all, its my and ken's birthday on Saturday, and I just got his present in the mail!! I can not tell you how much I love this... I fall in love with so much stuff in shops here simply because, apparently putting a smiley face on random objects makes Amy's brain go crazy haha Seriously; sponges, cakes, shoes, everything.. It requires incredible will power not to splurge all my money on inexplicably happy inanimate objects!! Darn you China and your marvellous marketing!!

岳王路 Yue Wang Road

青春路 Qing Chun Road

Also of possible interest, I am finally settled down in my new home, and yes it does feel like a home away from home now! I made the choice not to stay at the university dorms as, although they are a great price, great for making friends with classmates, and also literally next door to the classrooms, I felt like I was willing to spend the extra money on a more private space of my own, with a wee kitchen and a much more "Chinese" environment around me. I've had to sacrifice the convenience with dorms with a 40 minute commute in the morning, but I feel that, so far, this has paid off for me. The vast majority of people in this area that I run into regularly (shop keepers, staff in the building, etc.) simply cannot speak English so I have been forced to use my Chinese in order to get anything done! Even in just this first month I have felt a vast improvement in my Chinese, not necessarily that I can say a lot more, just that I feel a lot more confident, have learned clearer ways to express myself and communicate, which feels wonderful!

So what have I actually been doing since I have been left alone? Well, one could say a whole lot of nothing, but I like to say relaxing, studying a little and exploring my area, trying to find all the best haunts; letting myself get used to the idea of this place as home!

My growing cuddly toy family :P 

I've also, of course had a little business to take care of, such as paying rent and university fees, registering at the police station and this week enrolling properly at my new University! Yesterday, in fact, we had out entrance tests, which are simply to decide which class to go into. The university offers 8 levels, each split into two halves, one for each semester. level 1 is for complete beginners and level 8 is the hardest. I don't even know what sort of level you would have to be to get into 8! I was aiming for level 2.5 or 3. The tests consisted of an "oral exam" which was really just going through a chinese form with one of the teachers and reading stuff from a textbook. From my speaking she said that I would be in either 3 or 3.5, depending on how I did in the written exam which I then took, which I found very difficult in parts.. but then again, it was the same test for all students, regardless of level. So I imagine I wasn't "supposed" to know how to do some of it yet! We shall see, I should be finding out the results tomorrow!
So classes will start next week on monday. I would talk about the other things I've done and seen, for example this city itself, or the teaching job I have just started, but it is getting late and they can wait for another time!

How to Bargain in China!

So, one month later and I finally get around to making a new post! Life has been awfully busy, but now that I am (relatively) settled in Hangzhou, I feel like it's time for some more sharing of my knowledge (so far!). This post is about how to bargain in China, or at least which methods I have learned have helped me get a cheaper price! All you need is some basic Chinese, some confidence and a sense of humor.

1. Learn your numbers!  a street market will be unlikely to charge you anything over 100rmb, so you don't need too many!

1 - Yi (ee)

2 - Er (arrrr)

3 - San

4 - Si (ssss)

5 - Wu (woo)

6 - Liu (lee-oh)

7 - Qi (chee)

8 - Ba

9 - Jiu (jee-oh)

10 - Shi (Shh)

100 - Bai (bah-ee)

Chinese numbers are set out similar to roman numerals, for example, to say 15 you would say (Yi) Shi Wu (ie. 10 + 5), 37 would be San Shi Qi (3+10+7) etc.

Although this is not entirely necessary, as the language of fingers is probably enough, but these sellers will be unlikely to know much english and a "westerner" attempting to speak any Chinese is usually looked upon very well; it can only help your cause! ;D

2. Never take the asking price. The first step is to ask what price they are offering (多少钱?). They will tell you the highest price they think they can get away with (bear in mind they will try to charge westerners more, as they hope you are naive tourists!), let's say it's a t-shirt and they want you to pay 50rmb (approx. £5). At this you should make sounds of surprise, and say such things as 太贵了！(Tai gui le! So expensive!) and offer a much lower price, in this case maybe 20rmb, usually somewhere around 40% is a good bet. They will not take your lowest offer, so aim bellow what you are prepared to spend. They will probably also feign surprise, and not want to budge, but you have to be quite firm if you want it cheaper!

3. If they will not give in, walk away. If you do this, they may call you back offering you a slightly better price, success! Although when you have a particularly tough seller, you may need to walk away a couple of times before they give in to a price that you are happy with.

4. Buy one get one free! Another good tactic to take, especially with clothes is to ask for a discount for more than one item. They're offering 50rmb per T-shirt? Ask if they can make it cheaper for 2 (两个七十块， 可以？Liang ge qi shi kuai, ke yi? Can you do 2 for 70rmb?）If you buy many items, it's possible to drive the price down quite a lot.

5. Inspect the quality. Check if there are any flaws, for example loose threads, lopsidedness, chips in pottery, etc. No doubt when you point these out, the seller will assure you their price is still right, but it can help you "build your case" for a cheaper price!

6. Shop around. If you see something you like, bear in mind that many of these stalls will sell similar if not identical items, perhaps for a better price or better condition. Usually fans, i-phone cases, clothes, jewellery and makeup are all easy to find again in the same market, so don't get too attached, as you will kick yourself when you see the same t-shirt 5 minutes later for half the price!

7. Have a sense of humor. These shop owners have probably done this for a long while, many nights a week, so they can play it like a game. If you're friendly, attempt some Chinese and play along, you can no doubt get a cheaper price, as well as have a good time~

8. Don't try to bargain everywhere! Be careful you don't go overboard. There is an appropriate time for bargaining, and the department store or restaurant isn't it! Also, I wouldn't bargain with street food, the price is already very good, and you may offend the store owner, if the price isn't right, just walk on.

Happy bargaining!!

China Cultural Tips PART 1 (Hong Kong)

So as I havent been updating enough, here is another post! I've done a lot since I last posted; going to disneyland, sorting out my visa (which I may write about later on), seeing ballet and a chinese orchestra, eating many delicious foods, spending all my money in arcades, beach, etc etc. What I think I want to write about just now, however, are some of the many cultural lessons I'm starting to learn over here! Some are very small and specific, and some are broad differences between British (or western people) and the Chinese, or simply thing I've noticed about myself. There will surely be more to come as I move to the mainland and start to live through life here without my Chinese family to cushion the 'culture shock'. These ones are mainly to do with eating out.

Random picture of lemon tea

1. MIX YOUR LEMON TEA!! Although this is really a Hong Kong thing (I'm told it's not so popular in mainland China, we shall see), this was a very important lesson for me! The first couple of times I drank this I found it to be super syrupy and not pleasant at all to drink. I didn't really enjoy the stuff and would gulp my way through it just to get some liquid in me while eating. When I mentioned that I didn't like it to my boyfriend, I soon discovered why, and felt like a complete idiot. You see in that picture there is a straw? Well beside that straw there is nearly always a spoon. And funnily enough thats not there for decoration. You're meant to crush the lemon yourself a bit and stir it. That's literally it. When they make it I guess the tea flavour just settles at the bottom of the glass, so if you drink it straight away its just pure tea-y-ness. Now I realise I love the stuff. I suppose it also taught me a lesson about food here in general too, give stuff a chance and discover how you're "meant" to eat stuff and it will probably pay off and taste pretty good after all.

2. Washing your dishes before eating. One thing you see a lot here which would probably be considered really rude in the UK is washing dishes before you eat in restaurants. Often when you sit down at a table here, especially in small restaurants, there will already be chopsticks in a container on the table and they'll give everyone a bowl and cups of tea (and often a teapot too). It's perfectly fine to get your chopsticks and stick them in a cup of hot tea to clean them a bit before you eat and pour tea on the bowls. I suppose this is to make sure their dishes are clean, in case the restaurants aren't thorough enough behind the scenes (the service is super quick here, and the number of customers is crazy, so I don't blame them :P). Also, it seems like people in general are really clean when it comes to spreading germs and stuff and this is one place where you see this. So if you go to a restaurant in China and you get a cup of tea, stick your chopsticks in it to impress your waitress with your inside knowledge!.. or y'know, to save yourself from potential germs and stuff.

The ouch-free way to hold a teacup
Also makes you look super classy.

3. How to drink tea. Drinking tea is a big thing in China, and there is a whole culture around making, serving and drinking tea. Eventually I will probably learn enough to write a whole post about this, but there are a few things I have learned so far which may help another 'tea-novice' like me fit in a bit more. First thing to note is that wherever you go to eat, they will probably give you tea to drink, and its going to be very hot and it's served in small teacups, so it's important to hold it by the top rim and bottom ring so you don't hurt your fingers! If you try to hold it round the sides and it will just hurt. It's also important to get used to the feeling of hot hot tea with hot hot food. For some reason, in the words of my boyfriend, the Chinese love to torture themselves with hot stuff, so don't think you can just wait for it to cool down before drinking because any polite Chinese person at your table will refill your cup as soon as it starts to get a bit empty, so you'll only have to wait again. This leads on to the awkward "thank you" every time someone fills up your cup, especially if you or someone else is mid sentence. This actually isn't really necessary, and the common way to thank someone is to casually tap the table lightly three times. Apparently
this comes from an old story about an undercover emperor and his

Asking for a refill

servent that were trying to blend in with normal people (I guess the emperor enjoyed going to see the life of 'normal' citizens, or something). But since the emperor would be refilling his servent's cup as well as his own while they were eating, the servent needed a way to show his thanks which wasn't a super obvious "THANK YOU MY GLORIOUS LORD!". So he settled on this 'code'. So this is the best way to acknowledge someone refilling your cup without having to stop the flow of conversation or anything. Another useful tip is knowing how to ask for more tea in your teapot. You might start seeing waiters filling up everyone's teapot but yours without being asked to and wonder why yours has been left empty. Wonder no longer! When your teapot is empty you just put the lid on top like in the picture above and that signals to the waiter to fill it up when they have a chance. Easy as that!

If you struggle with chopsticks, I'd invest
in one of these. They're often aimed at
school kids though and you might need
to look about a bit for a non-cutesy one.

4. What to do if you can't use chopsticks. Of course it's a great help if you can, but fear not if you haven't quite got it yet! Chinese people don't expect non-asians to know how to use them, so can give you a chinese style spoon or possibly western cutlery (if possible) if you ask. It's also really easy to find a cheap portable set of cutlery to take around with you (although it might have Hello Kitty all over it). Also, when eating rice out of a small bowl, there is not point trying to scoop up every grain. Just pick up the bowl, hold it close to your face and, for want of a better verb, shovel it in with chopsticks, or your cutlery of choice. Much quicker, plus you don't drop food all over the place. It's going to feel awkward at first if you've never eaten like this before, but it's totally normal here, so don't feel embarrassed.

5. Expect some burping and slurping. If you're sensitive to noisy eaters, it's probably best to get over it before coming to China. It's not that it's more or less polite to eat noisily, but it seems like for Chinese people, depending on what you're eating, for example soup noodles, it might be bit slurpy-sounding, so there's not much point trying to be delicate about it. Just get stuck in to your food and try to not get it all over your face. Also some people, especially older guys, will let out a burp occasionally. Chinese people eat very quickly, so there's bound to be a lot of extra air getting in there! You don't have to force yourself to burp if it's just not something you do, but at the same time it's definitely not as much of a taboo thing as back in the UK.

6.Don't be afraid to try everything! To be honest, I'm a bit of a picky eater; I've never really liked eating fish and seafood among other stuff, so I've had to adapt. There are a lot of adventurous people out there, so this one is mostly for people like me, that don't actually realise how picky they are until they leave their comfort zone! Chinese food uses such a range of ingredients that it really is a shame to come here and just eat the same food you're used to! One of the best things about Chinese food in my opinion is that its often shared in a group, so you dont have to worry about ordering the wrong thing, theres a few dishes to choose from so there will always be something. If you're not sure what you'll like, ask what the restaurant recommends, order a few and try a bit of all them. There is also the stereotype of Chinese people liking to eat "weird" food, and to be honest there's a lot of things here you just can't get back home, but it's mostly down to the fact that people are less wasteful here. To be honest, chicken feet just taste like chicken, and pig intestines just taste like pork, so give them a try. I have also found that the best thing to do, especially if you're out with Chinese friends, is not to ask "What is this?", "Can I eat this?" etc. and just take some and see if you like it. The worst case scenario is that it tastes bad, so then just spit it out.Of course sometimes it backfires, like when I started munching on a chunk of ginger, thinking it was pineapple. But it's a lot quicker than asking what everything is and judging whether it will taste good or not, you'll miss out on a lot.

Understand, Appreciate, Absorb. This is the best advice I've got so far, and I think it applies to anyone travelling to somewhere with a different culture. Understand why people are doing what they're doing. For example, eating feet, heads, intestines might seem weird to you, but some people can't afford to eat expensive cuts of meat all the time, so they learn to how to make tasty dishes with everything and it can become a delicacy. Appreciate these things, different cultures can find different solutions to problems which are sometimes very smart, for example chopsticks are much more effective than a fork for eating noodles and picking up pieces meat from a shared dish, whereas a knife and fork are better for cutting up a big steak. And finally, let yourself absorb these things. Not to pretentiously show off how authentically you can hold your chopsticks or pronounce the food off a french menu, but just so you can learn to live with a slightly new mindset and with an understanding of how to fit in more effectively with the people around you.


And, to finish, some of my favourite food so far with the chinese names, for easy menu access ;D... nom nom nom. (Yes I have very simple tastes, and Hong Kong bias, as I haven't made it to the mainland yet :P)

Vitasoy!!

烧卖 Sui mai (Prawn Dumplings)

流沙包 Liu Sha Bao (Custard Bun)

小笼包 Xiao Long Bao (Pork Dumplings)

牛腩河 Niu Nan He (Beef Noodle Soup)

菠萝包 Bo Lou Bao ("Pineapple" Bun)

Typhoon, Restaurant Drama and Arcade Otaku

So it's nearing the end of my first week in Hong Kong, seems like so much has happened already, and yet it's no time at all since I left Edinburgh. I feel like I'm settling in really well with Ken's family, they have been incredibly welcoming, and despite the language barrier, we seem to have become close really quickly, which is great!

The morning after

I have seen many interesting things so far in my trip, one of them being finding myself in the middle of my first typhoon. Having been told that people were being sent home from work and school, I thought it would have been a lot more scary than it actually turned out to be. Having gone to a dinner in a different area of the city, we had to go and get the bus in the middle of the storm, which was mostly just consisted of being soaked by hot rain and being blown around a little. I suppose the building must have shielded us from the worst of the storm as it didn't get at all as bad as I had expected it to... not that I'm complaining :P Still, I have now weathered my first typhoon (ho ho ho).

Another interesting story ties into the afore-mentioned dinner; perhaps the most dramatic public argument I have ever seen. As we sat at our table at the restaurant watching a 20 something year old woman shouting and throwing a bowl at the man opposite her at the table, I was creating my own subtitles and wondering if we had found ourselves in a soap opera. It was very bizarre, but also very entertaining. I think everyone in the restaurant was enjoying the free drama, just hoping that they wouldn't look our way and start throwing stuff at us as well.

So after the excitement of a tropical storm and an emotional storm in the restaurant (ha ha?), we decided to take it easy for a day or too, just playing in the many shopping malls. After a school reunion at Ken's high school we went to one mall that had a large arcade on the top floor, where I finally realised how rubbish ours are in Scotland. This place was noisy, like deafening. The kind of noisy when you can hear the person beside you better if you stick your fingers in your ears. After trying all sorts of games, mostly the weird japanese ones that don't really make much sense, we discovered the guy in the video below. He was so into this game that it was just a bit creepy. There were a lot of guys in the arcade that obviously had invested a bit too much time in their game of choice, but none had gone to the same level as this guy. I'm not sure if the ribbons were part of the game or if he had made them himself, but he obviously wields them with PASSION. Can't help but have some respect for how shamelessly this guy dances away to cutesy kpop infront of the crowd that rapidly gathered around him.

Until next time~ Hopefully this man will inspire you to dance about with a burning passion too~

x

Day 1!!

So here I am at the end of my first day in Hong Kong! It's the farthest I have been before, but I am loving it!

The journey here was over 24 hours, by far the longest I've ever taken, but made bearable by the yummy food and awesome Emirates entertainment system *_____* Tonnes of Disney classics plus probably hundreds of other movies, albums and TV shows... Fills up the time quite well I suppose and helps take the edge of the hours walking in circles in international airport no man's land. Seriously, airports should cut down on the duty free and put in some arcades or something, theres only so many perfumes/alcohol and expensive watches that you can look at before you start to go a bit crazy.

But anyway, we finally got here, met Ken's parents and got a quick dinner before heading back to the apartment for a nice long sleep.

This morning was my first realisation that I was actually in Hong Kong with a big breakfast in a nearby restaurant. It's going to take a while to adjust to eating prawns, congee and hot tea and the like in the morning, but custard buns are amazingly tasty >v< 

The feeling of finally actually being here is kind of hard to take in right now, considering I've only really been in western Europe and once in North America. The fact that I've only seen about 4 other white people since being here is quite amazing to me. Although it's not much help to my Mandarin, I can already feel able to put a few Cantonese words together, and it's fun to learn another language from direct exposure like this.

So my day has been mostly relaxing, making sure that my jetlag is gone. We have just eaten, had a look at Ken's High School and gone for a look round the shopping mall under the apartment. Seriously, Hong Kong people know how to shop, I'm realising now how tiny our shopping centres are, and I haven't even visited central yet, which I'm assured has some stuff to really make me go wow :DD

But now it is late, and it will be another long day tomorrow, so goodnight for now.

Ps. I don't know how to get rid of that strange white highlighting over the text... bear with me as I learn to use the website :P

T Minus 24 Hours

So in less than 24 hours I will be starting my journey to China... how exciting!

For those who don't know, I am an Edinburgh University student studying Chinese and Linguistics, and this trip is an essential part of my degree. I must go to China to immerse myself in their culture and continue improving my language skills in a Chinese classroom and among "real" Chinese people, as well as do a Linguistics project which I have chosen to do on various aspects of native Chinese speakers' English.

My trip will start by flying to Hong Kong with my wonderful boyfriend to meet his family and friends, and towards the end of the summer, once I have my visa and acceptance letter, I will go to Zhejiang Daxue, in Hangzhou to begin my course. And there I will be until summer 2013!

But first I must make it through the 26 hour journey through London and Dubai, and the long goodbyes with my friends and family here... But my bags are packed and I think I'm ready to go. Tonight has been left for cuddling my mum, dad, big sister and cat and for eating what will probably my last bowl of Macaroni cheese for a year.

Goodbye Edinburgh, I'm going to miss you. See you again next year.