Since I started my semester at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, I got to know a lot of people in my dorm, which is building no. 8. Since it is common to mix Chinese into all the other languages, like English, here, we always say “ba hao lou”. I never heard someone say “building no. 8″ or something like this. The same for example applies to “lao shi” (teacher), “kao shi” (examination) or other words.
Since I left Shanghai about one week ago, I want to post some pictures for reviewing the nice time I had there and give you some impression of it. So first, let me show you some pictures of one Saturday night, where we sat outside to chat, drink German beer and smoke Shisha (water-pipe) 
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I know, it’s a very long time ago that I announced to post a video of my Southern Girl cover here and I promised to not forget it. I indeed trained playing it regularly in the last months, but the reason I did not post a video was that it’s just damn hard to play. In addition, I found just playing it on guitar too boring, so I also started singing along. What you see here is the result of about two hours of trying to get a decent recording, which I did not even try for several months. So I hope you enjoy it (despite small mistakes here and there 
). Read the rest of this entry » »
Heya,
it’s time to fulfill what I see as my duty and introduce some brand new musical material of my favorite singer and songwriter Clueso (speak something like 可绿诉 ke lü su ).
Since I can not decide between the entry song “Barfuss”, which has the most beautiful guitar intro, my current favourite “Gewinner” and the already (as single) released “Keinen Zentimeter”, I just link two of them here. If you watch them to the end, there should be links to further listen other songs from the album (you should also try “Augen zu” and “Abspann” in this case 
).
So here you go… Read the rest of this entry » »
I can not believe that this semester will already be finished in about 4 weeks. Especially in between all those language students and foreign students who do their complete studies in China after learning the Chinese language for one year, my one semester seems like a short study trip to another country. Time is running fast here and I feel, the coming three months will be over sooner than I can imagine.
By the way, now it is official: I will stay about two months longer in China than originally planned, because of an internship at Bosch in Wuxi (starting on the 14th of July), that I append to my stay in Shanghai. I will try to rebook my flight back to Germany to the 4th of September 2008, which is the last day before my visa will expire. Unfortunately, the Autumn semester in Mannheim will begin on the 1st of September, which is why I will have approximately… well… 0 days holiday this summer. I really hope that the internship will be cool
In recent times I finally started with preparing for all of my courses. Two of my four courses are taught in Chinese, so I have no major benefit from visiting the lectures (although I do visit one of them because my friends Luo Qi and Jamy are attending it, too ). Of course, I can write the exams in English and since the plan is to learn the content from (English) books in self-study, the first months I was more occupied with travelling, visiting places, having guests and learning Chinese than with learning for exams three or four months ahead. Read the rest of this entry » »
Since I want to join in a photo competition from the German Foreign Academic Department (”Akademisches Auslandsamt”), which asks students now in abroad to post their best picture taken in their country. The winner photo(s) are published and also win prizes (like a travel coupon).
My four favorites are these, but if you remember a perticularly good photo from my blog, just tell me.
I can only post one photo. The deadline is May, the 29th. Please help me by giving your opinions!
Before I came to China, I had a party at home, my birthday party, and celebrated together with (nearly) all of my near friends. I got many great presents, especially many in regard to my upcoming stay in China. Among were books, lots of food (German as well as Chinese), and one T-shirt, three of my best friends made for me. They drew the TV-Tower of Shanghai and even wrote some Chinese characters on it, that I could not yet read at this time 
During the party, all my guests wrote their signatures on it. Read the rest of this entry » »
Today I met 赵铮 (Zhào Zheng) to have my first lesson in Chinese calligraphy. She is one of two students I helped to learn German before, in order to study in Germany. We started with practicing the single kinds of strokes before taking the challenge of painting the first Chinese character, 永 (yŏng; meaning “forever”), which contains all of them. Zhao Zheng even gave me a small Calligraphy set (文房四宝 wén fáng sì băo), consisting of two brushes (笔 bǐ) the ink stone (Tuschestein; 墨 mò), rice paper (宣纸 xuān zhǐ) and 砚 (yàn, which is the basin, the ink is prepared in).
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Fulfilling a special request of a very good friend, here finally is something to see and listen to from the Incubus concert in Shanghai on 13. March 2008 
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Today we took a tour to the harbour of Shanghai at the east-coast. We took the bus over a very long bridge (one of the longest in the world) and landed on a (almost) lonely island, being surrounded by fog and rain, only having ourselves. Although the weather was really bad, I especially enjoyed the melancholic, lonely atmosphere. So I suggest you just relax and imagine being at this place when looking at the pictures (that’s why most have numbers instead of titles).
Since some questions about Tae-Kwon-Do (chinese name 跆拳道) came up, I would like to give a short overview about this sport while also educating myself about it.
A good source of information I found today is www.barrel.net
“Taekwondo (also written as “tae kwon do”, “taekwon-do” or “t’aegwondo”) is a modern martial art from Korea that is characterised by its fast, high and spinning kicks.”
