我的中文的周末. wǒ de zhōng wén de zhōu mò. My chinese weekend.

Saturday. March 18th.
I met with Xiao Ying, one of my language partners. We headed for the WuDaoKou market. I wanted to get a light spring jacket. I tried on at least ten different jackets, most of them XL or sometimes even XXL. None of them fitted. They were all to small. 太高. 太高. Tài gaō. Tài gaō. Too tall. Too tall. That was what we heard in all the shops. I ended up buying a Victorinox (!) jacket, which fitted the best. After some tough bargaining, the price came down to 130 Yuan. I am pretty sure the jacket is fake.
I was still coughing a bit. That made Xiao Ying worry. She decided to cook a traditional remedy for me. We went and got some pears and rock sugar. She boiled the pears in water and added the rock sugar. I then had to wait until it was cold, eat the pears and drink the liquid. She said her mother used to do this for her.

“Cooking” at my place.

Saturday Night.
I went out to Houhai with the Yang Xiao Chen, my other language partner and friends. Houhai is an area around the three Shicha lakes downtown. At the entrance, there were lots of Chinese people dancing a waltz in a little park. On the lakeshore, there are many bars and clubs. The prices are high, as many tourists go there. Around the lakes, you find Hutongs, the old residential districts with alleyways resembling a maze. It was a great evening. We talked about many beautiful places in China and dreamed about travelling.

It was a very good day, as I got to practise Chinese a lot. More and more I am getting sick of speaking English all day long. I know there is no other way right now, as my Chinese is a long way from being good enough to really have a conversation. I just feel that speaking English is really not what I’ve come for.

Sunday. March 19th.
I went to church (!) with a Taiwanese friend, who studies in Beijing. I have first met her back in Switzerland, while she was travelling. (Thanks Rosa). This was a really interesting experience. I actually had to show my passport when entering the church, as only foreign people are allowed to attend the service. There were very many people from various Christian denominations attending. The service was a bit too much on the fanatic side for my taste.
We then went to a eat at a Korean restaurant. Food over here is great. There is so many new things to try. The options seem endless. There are many vegetables, fruits, seafood and some kinds of meat, which I have never seen before. Almost every time I go out to eat, which is usually twice a day, I discover something new.
After lunch, we went to see the campus of Beijing University which is also called Harvard of China. It is the most important and probably largest university in China. The campus is beautiful; parks, lakes and ancient buildings.

By the way: I just read that there are more than 250′000 students studying in 59 universities in Beijing. Amazing, is it not?

Just walked back home.
Heavy wind gusts. The air is full of sand. Everything is yellow. Sandstorm? Your eyes burn. In the light of the street lamps it looks as if it rained. It is sand. Plastic bags, tissues, newspapers, cartboard flying around. The air is full of trash and sand. Nightmare.

The weekend before I fell ill.

Friday.
I spent 40 minutes in the bus from my residence to the WuDaoKou Subway station, which is probably around 4 kilometers away, to meet a German friend. Rush Hour traffic was once again insane. We then took a taxi to get to a Market downtown. Unfortunately, the driver did not quite catch the name of our destination. One tone must have been wrong. He dropped us of in the driveway of a very fancy hotel. That was fun. We took another taxi to the market. This time, it worked out. We were at the Xiu Shui market. It is a huge shopping mall with hundreds of little shops selling literally everything. There are many of those places in Beijing. You are supposed to bargain - get the price down. I needed to buy a pair of shoes. The seller started out at 350 RMB. I bargained the price down to 190 RMB and was really proud. I even thought I might have offended the seller by going to low. Ha. The next day I talked to my language partner and she told me I should not under any circumstances have paid more than 90 RMB. The atmosphere at these markets is very hectic. The sellers yell at you from every direction: “Cheap cheap price. Come in and look. Good quality. Hey! I am talking to you. Hey you! Come in!” If you show the slightest reaction, you might have a hard time shaking them off again. If, on the other hand, you ignore them, they sometimes get really pissed off and yell at you even louder or grab your arm and drag you into their shop. I do not like those places. The only way you can enjoy them is by going there with Chinese people. Watching them bargain is very entertaining and instructive, too. And - You do not get ripped off.

Friday Night.
I went to a housewarming party in the neighbourhood. Lots of students who attend BLCU get together and rent their own apartments. Loads of people came to the party and it was only a matter of time until the police arrived. Everything seemed to be ok, though, as they left soon after they had showed up.

Saturday.
I went out to have lunch with one of my language partners and a Japanese friend. We then went to a local market and bought a few things. That was quite different than the day before, because they knew the real prices and were very tough at bargaining. In the afternoon, we were joined by someone from ISC and we went out to buy bikes. I got a secondhand bike and two locks for 90 RMB. New bikes usually get stolen within days and if you do not lock up your bike at least two times, it might last one week. My bike is hm there really is no word to describe it. It is very old. All the different parts seem to have been taken off other bikes and then randomly put back together. At the beginning, the breaks did not work. I got them fixed, since they do come in handy at times. After one day, I had a flat tire, so I got the tube replaced. My bike has gears, but unfortunately nothing to change gears with. That is just too bad. Sometimes it does it on its own - like an automatic - but unfortunately, whenever it does that, the chain falls out. One morning, on the way to school, I had to put the chain back in 5 times. That made me really mad. When they spray-painted the mudguards anew, they did not bother to take the tires off, so my tires are half silver, which makes a nice contrast to the rusty color of the rest of the bike. Ha. It is a love affair. Nevertheless, the bike is the perfect way for me to get to school in the morning and to explore my surroundings.

Getting my bike. Some tough bargaining action.

My baby.

One of those close-ups.

Saturday Night.
We went out downtown. At first, we visited a well-known and very fancy club named Babyface. The club is styled in a very modern, fashionable way. Some of the walls consisted of huge screens. The lighting system was elaborate. The barkeeper entertained their guest by creating fashionable drinks and playing with fire. I have never seen such a place before. However, the music (electro) was very loud and the people seemed rather snobbish. There was no atmosphere, absolutely no character. We soon left and went to the Poachers Inn, the Club, we had been to before. It is a smaller and more ordinary place with trashy music, but lots of atmosphere and cheap drinks.

The next week, I spent most of my time in bed or at school trying to keep up with Chinese.

Friday Morning.
I woke up around 0530 and went to a park nearby to watch people do Tai Qi. Beijing is so different in the early morning. There is hardly any traffic, hardly any people on the walkways, hardly any bikes, no honking, no lights, no music, no shouting. Impressive. I had thought about doing Tai Qi for quite a while. Friday morning made me decide. I signed up for the BLCU Tai Qi course, which started Monday. It is a lot of fun. I have yet to get used to getting up at 0530 every morning (the course is from 0600 to 0700).

The rest of the weekend, I spent in bed, taking fever-lowering pills and drinkin tea. People tell me, it was raining mud Saturday night. How about that?

Yesterday.
I went to a market with some friends. It is electronics only. On five never-ending floors, you can pretty much buy anything that requires a battery or electricity. You can get everything to build your own computer, the newest laptops and cameras and a fake iPod. It was horrible. After that we went to see the Summer Palace, which is very close to where we live (about 20 minutes by car). It was built by Chinese emperors to escape the city during the hot summer days. The grounds are mostly made up of a huge lake. Around it, palaces and temples are arranged. With the Western Hills in the background, it is a beautiful, very scenic spot.

After the last post I felt more and more exhausted and eventually fell ill. That was a bit scary at the beginning, as I only had a high fever and nothing else. After a couple days the fever was joined by regular flu syptoms. That was ‘good’. Except for one day, I still went to school, because you can simply not afford to miss more than one day of classes. That did not help me getting better. After staying in bed for pretty much the whole weekend, I started to get better Monday. Still got the cough going, but other than that I am fine now.

During that time I did not update. Sorry. I will try to catch up now. (It turned out really long. HA)

我很累了. wǒ hěn lèi le. I am very tired.

Long time no read. Sorry. - I had a very busy weekend. Today, I spent hours studying. It is very hard and exhausting. I want to post an update soon.

可口可乐. kě kǒu kě lè. Coca Cola.

Classes are fine; a lot of fun and a bit exhausting at times. We do a lot of pronounciation training. You just keep repeating and repeating Chinese sounds and tones. Sometimes, after repeating it 50 times, you think you got the hang of it and then the teacher tells you that it is all wrong. The differences between the various sounds are minimal, but very important. I learnt 35 words (in writing) so far. One of them is Coca Cola. Very useful! I probably learnt another thirty in speaking only.

Tonight, we will celebrate the birthday of Lena, an Australian girl who lives at the same place. Cannot really think of anything else right now. - Thanks for your comments, messageboard entries, and messages! I’m lovin them. Feels good.