broad minded » impressions of China

This post is going to be a summary of what I would have written and posted, if I had more time.

Currently I have my professional courses and additionally take language courses. This means, that every Monday and Friday I get up at 6:00 to get the bus to the Xuhui campus in downtown for my Chinese courses. On Tuesday, maybe Wednesday (depends on my other courses) and Friday I also have Chinese courses in the afternoon which makes about 15-18 hours Chinese each week. In addition I meet friends (Bian Qian Wei a.k.a. David, Luo Qi, recently also Wang Yu Cheng who I met in the bus to Xuhui) to talk Chinese with them, ask them for help about my homework or professional vocabulary (I use for the Chinese lecture “Commercial Bank Management”).

Since two weeks I also help two Chinese students preparing for their DAF test, which is a test about German language skills, hopefully allowing them to study in Germany (TU Berlin). We just talk in German, correct their homework together or listen to music of Clueso (I showed them the song “Chicago” last time)

After having tried Wushu (in this case the Kung Fu style Bruce Lee defined), Karate, Taek-Won-Do and (yesterday) Tai Chi Chuan, I decided to do Taek-Won-Do (at leat once a week, if I have time I could do up to three times per week) and maybe Tai Chi Chuan (once a week, Friday afternoon).

On Friday night one week ago (March, 13.) I saw the first concert of Incubus in Shanghai, which was amazing, although the bass player was not with them, since he was in hospital because of his stomach (mabye too much Chinese food on the first day).

This Wednesday evening I met a lady called Xiao Fang in front of my dorm, who asked me for help with something I could not understand, because I could only understand few party of her speaking Chinese and she could only speak some words English. After having called David to help me, he translated to me, that the lady tried to find a student helping a company advertising their products to foreign people on a exhibition in April. And since I saw no reason to deny her request, I will now be working for them for two days on this exhibition in downtown, telling people about this company and their products, which is mainly some professional magazines about printing machines and clothes manifacturing, addressed to companies (not private consumers). She also invited David and me to dinner yesterday, where we could chat about this and that and eventually about my job

On Thursday I was invisted to Achim’s birthday party, where we had some good old western BBQ with grilled meat and fresh salads

Today I was invited by Georg and a Chinese friend of him to join them for a guided tour to the Shanghai harbour. Unfortunately it was sold out since 7 days already, when we wanted to buy the tickets today (although they said on telephone, that no booking in advance would be needed). So we decided to go to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum instead, which also was a good choice.

After the museum, I met my new Korean friend Bon, who I know from my language course, and a Chinese friend of him. We walked around in his university (”Shanghai University”) and eventually settled in a kind of Restaurant, where we played Mahjongg together (Marc, Bon’s Chinese friend taught us this game).

Sorry for this superficial report of my recent days, but I have not more time this weekend, due to a German test that I have to correct (because I am teaching assistant for a German class). These are about 100 test papers (each 12 tasks) and I also wanted to train Taek-Won-Do tomorrow and teach the two students German (their language test is in 2 weeks). Now I leave to visit Georg, play guitar (he recently started with this instrument), watch a movie, maybe ripping all Cheeseburgers of the local McDonald’s and when I will be home at 12 (because the dorm-doors are closed after 12) I will drop myself into bed and sleep instantly. I had to get up at 5:20 today for the guided harbour tour

One thing I certainly won’t forget is the guitar video I will publish here as soon as I have a good recording of me playing (and singing) “Southern Girl” by Incubus. So stay tuned (doesn’t have to be every day anymore )

Greetings from Shanghai to all who read this!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 at 2:06 pm and is filed under English (英文), Shànghăi (上海). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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