Xin Nian Hao !

Hello! Happy New Year !

I'm back from the South where I celebrated the Chinese New Year.
Welcome into the year of the rabbit!

Since I arrived in China a few yeaks ago, people have been preparing for the Spring festival. Red banners are taped aroung doorways. Lanterns dangle from trees. Firecrackers are for sell on everyblock. Students and seasonal workers travel back to their families.

As we walked around towns, everyone was getting ready to celebrate.

Food was for sell all over.
Fat fluffy chickens were waiting ... ignorantly!

Families gathered as they played cards and prepared meals.

Firecrackers went off all over. Almost sounded like a war zone with bombs dropping! It was funny how only the foreigners would be surprised and would jump or scream... the local people didn't react to the loud "BOOMMMS", not even the little kids!

The Guangxi area is simply breathtaking! I don't think pictures or words can do it justice.
The views were mysterious and inspiring.
It felt like another world where time stood still.

First travel in China

I'm on my way to the Guangxi area in the south of China for a week!
Guilin, Yangshuo, Longsheng.... it's supposed to be one of the most beautiful areas in the country! Can't wait!
Luckily I finally found the camera I wanted so now I just hope the weather will be nice :)

XOXO

Wish Good Luck and Good Fortune

Next week China will be celebrating the New Year!
In the meantime, families are gathering and preparing for the feast. Supermarkets are packed with people and (what looks like) special holiday treats. Red lanterns are hanging all over. When I got home from school today, a cute little bunny picture was taped to our door! They're all over!
The color red is supposed to bring good luck and happiness!

The only problem in all this is that we're a french school (in China) so everyone is else is on vacation and we aren't (until friday.) And as we live in a University District, let's just say it feels like we're the only ones here! Stores and restaurants are closing. The streets are empty. The construction sites aren't as noisy.... it's kinda weird!

For lunch, a few friends and I went to one of the only places that is still open... I wouldn't really call the place a restaurant though. It's more like a small room with people cooking in the back where people walk in, shout out what they want and leave a few minutes later with a take away bag of food.
Well... needless to say shouting out in Chinese isn't something I'm good at. We pointed, made sounds, pointed again... waved to get attention... made some more sounds... eventually paid... waited... waited... waited... wondered... waited... oh and 40 minutes later, after about 15 chinese people had come and gone with their food, our order was ready. This is China. I think I had what I ordered. Then again, who know's what that was! All I know is that there was rice and other unidentified ingredients, no meat... and it was good! I've learned to just accept things how they are without understanding WHY or HOW they are. They just are and that's good enough!

... my fortune wish: to be able to order food without pointing!

Are you a Peach or a Coconut ?

Peach:
Juicy
Sweet
Soft skin
Easy to eat
Hard stone inside

or

Coconut:
Outside is rough
Hard to crack open
Challenging to eat
Dry flesh
Very versatile

(Women selling her art in a small shop in the Old Town of Suzhou.)

No I haven't gone crazy... at least I don't think so !

One of the reasons I'm in China is actually to study... Professors are flown in from Europe for a few weeks to teach their class here in Suzhou. One of the classes I have is Multicultural Management which is taught by a native German - raised in London -worked in the US - teaches in France - flown to China teacher. I like this class alot.

Somehow it puts words and labels on things I've always felt but have never really been able to decribe... such as "Cultural Differences" !

(Older Woman walking amongst the crowd in Shanghai.)

One of the aspects we studied was communication... And the question is, in terms of communicators are you a Peach or a Coconut ?

Peaches can start conversations quickly. They are easy to get through to and it seems like they are letting you "in"... Coconuts are hard to crack! Getting a conversation started takes a lot more time and energy!

A Peache's private sphere is inside, once you hit the center you realize you only know one or two aspects of the person and the rest is off limits... Whereas a Coconut, once you're "in", you're "in"! Passed the rough merky brown skin and the layers of flesh, out poors the milky center!

(People Walking in the Old District of Shanghai.)

Anyway.. this is all very general and beyond cultural backgrounds our Personality also makes a huge difference on where we stand as communicators. But knowing more or less where a culture stands on the line that goes from being a Peach to a Coconut helps to understand relationships and expectations in a professional or personal context.


(I'll post the chart that shows where different countries are situated when I get it from the our Professor.)

Colors of Pudong

Venice of the East

Due to its many canals and water roads, Suzhou is called "Venice of the East"... According to an old saying, "Paradise in Heaven, Suzhou and Hangzhou on earth." I can't wait for it to be Spring!

About 100 km away from the vibrant city of Shanghai, Suzhou is one of the oldest towns in the Yangze area. (I can't rewrite history... but you can read about it HERE.)

Today, was slightly warmer than the past two weeks...

A friend and I decided to go explore the Old Town of Suzhou.
After a 45 minute bus ride we finally arrived and to my surprise, even the old part of town is huge! I thought we could just walk around and see it all in a day... haha! Well we did walk A LOT but probably only saw a fifth! Not all of it is actually "old"..
We walked along what I now call the "wedding street" (a block with all you need to prepare for a wedding), the "place to go if you need a tool street", the shopping street... and "come here if you are craving KFC street" (seriously, it seemed like there was a KFC on every block).

This bridge was definitely the highlight of our day. Not far behind it is another bridge, called Wumen Bridge. That's the one we were originally headed to...
I guess there's a reason it's called the Panmen Scenic Area!



Along the canal, older men were doing Tai Chi (I think...)

I've been trying to take pictures of people, but I don't want to upset them and the whole language barriere makes it hard for me to ask if they're okay with it...


This driver was honking even when pushing his bike accross the bridge!
Notice the designed area for pushing bikes and motorcycles up and across?!?

One thing is true, there are bikes and motorcycles EVERYWHERE! oh and the motorcycles are electric (electric-cycles?) so you don't hear them.. which makes them quite dangerous... especially when the pull out of nowhere!!!
More about that another day.. :)

Hanyu - Lesson 1

"Hanyu" means Chinese Language.
I am a level 1 student which means I'll be using the pinyin spelling.
There are 10 levels. Being able to speak fluently starts at level 3.

In Pinyin there are 21 initials, 36 finals and 5 different tones! Oh the tones are what make it really fun! At first it seemed like I was taking a singing class.

Verbs are not conjugated and the adjectives don't change from femine to masculin. (Somewhat like in English... but it makes a huge difference compared to French, German, Spanish, Greek, Latin..)
And sentences are structured in the following way:
WHO - WHEN - WHERE - HOW - DO (action) - WHAT

I've learned how to say some practical things such as :
Wo bù chi roù (I don't eat meat)
Shifu Nihao. Wo xiang qù ... (Hello Taxi Driver, I want to go to...)

But of course, like always when learning a foreign language, I've learned things like:
Wo de baba shi hanyu laoshi (My dad is a Chinese teacher)
or
Ni xihuan baisè ma ? (Do you like the color white?)

I don't know why we learn such sentences... but I guess these make more sense than the one I learned when I took German..: I see a UFO in the sky! (Wow, as if that's the first thing I need to know how to say!)

Chinese classes have be fun so far! It's like we're little kids learning how to read. We were taught the difference between the sound "P" and "B". Apparently, us Western people, don't differentiate the two...



ps: i'm still not able to upload pictures.
Also, I know I don't know much about China and Chinese...
what I share here is just what I've learned so far or noticed..