About my blog

Well, well, well…

I’ve never thought that i will have my own blog… And here I am, thinking what I should start with.

So my blog is about China…about this incredible country…country of contradictions.

I’ve been living in China for several years now. And I wanna let everyone know, what it feels like – “being a foreigner in China”. What wakes you up every morning, what you see when you leave your place, what you smell when passing by some small chinese restaurants… You don’t know? Well, I will tell you!

And most importantly, why do I still live here?

Also I will post some articles i find interesting and worth attention. Not only about China. About the whole world…

Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

 

Loreley

Ich weiß nicht was soll es bedeuten,
Dass ich so traurig bin;
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.

Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
Im Abendsonnenschein.

Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar;
Ihr goldnes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.

Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme
Und singt ein Lied dabei;
Das hat eine wundersame,
Gewaltige Melodei.

Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,
Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh.

Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn;
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen

Die Lore-Ley getan

.

Михаил Юрьевич Лермонтов (1814-1841)

СМЕРТЬ ПОЭТА

Погиб поэт! — невольник чести — Пал, оклеветанный молвой, С свинцом в груди и жаждой мести, Поникнув гордой головой!.. Не вынесла душа поэта Позора мелочных обид, Восстал он против мнений света Один, как прежде… и убит! Убит!.. к чему теперь рыданья, Пустых похвал ненужный хор И жалкий лепет оправданья? Судьбы свершился приговор! Не вы ль сперва так злобно гнали Его свободный, смелый дар И для потехи раздували Чуть затаившийся пожар? Что ж? веселитесь… — он мучений Последних вынести не мог: Угас, как светоч, дивный гений, Увял торжественный венок. Его убийца хладнокровно Навел удар… спасенья нет: Пустое сердце бьется ровно. В руке не дрогнул пистолет, И что за диво?.. издалека, Подобный сотням беглецов, На ловлю счастья и чинов Заброшен к нам по воле рока; Смеясь, он дерзко презирал Земли чужой язык и нравы; Не мог щадить он нашей славы; Не мог понять в сей миг кровавый, На что́ он руку поднимал!.. И он убит — и взят могилой, Как тот певец, неведомый, но милый, Добыча ревности глухой, Воспетый им с такою чудной силой, Сраженный, как и он, безжалостной рукой. Зачем от мирных нег и дружбы простодушной Вступил он в этот свет, завистливый и душный Для сердца вольного и пламенных страстей? Зачем он руку дал клеветникам ничтожным, Зачем поверил он словам и ласкам ложным, Он, с юных лет постигнувший людей?.. И прежний сняв венок, — они венец терновый, Увитый лаврами, надели на него: Но иглы тайные сурово Язвили славное чело; Отравлены его последние мгновенья Коварным шепотом насмешливых невежд, И умер он — с напрасной жаждой мщенья, С досадой тайною обманутых надежд. Замолкли звуки чудных песен, Не раздаваться им опять: Приют певца угрюм и тесен, И на устах его печать. А вы, надменные потомки Известной подлостью прославленных отцов, Пятою рабскою поправшие обломки Игрою счастия обиженных родов! Вы, жадною толпой стоящие у трона, Свободы, Гения и Славы палачи! Таитесь вы под сению закона, Пред вами суд и правда — всё молчи!.. Но есть и божий суд, наперсники разврата! Есть грозный суд: он ждет; Он не доступен звону злата, И мысли и дела он знает наперед. Тогда напрасно вы прибегнете к злословью: Оно вам не поможет вновь, И вы не смоете всей вашей черной кровью Поэта праведную кровь!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Universities

Studies in China…

When it comes to China, there is always a good part and a bad part. Education is not an exception.

There are a lot of universities, where you can learn Chinese. All of them have teachers (native speakers by the way!! ),  textbooks, etc.  But different Unis have different policies.

Best Universities in China are very strict. Perfect attendance and perfect results in exams – the only way you can study there. Unlike other chinese unis they don’t really care that you are a foreigner – they will still have you kicked out if they decide that you can not study at that Uni any more.

In some Unis attendance is the most important thing. If you are not skipping any classes at all, you can study there as long as you want, even if you are a complete zero in Chinese.

My favorite type of Unis is the “no one cares”-Unis. There is a loooot of such places in China. I don’t even know how they can call themselves a “University”. They don’t care about your attendance. They don’t care about your results. They don’t care whether you are alive or not. As long as you are paying for your studies, they will provide you your timetable and visa. If you pay extra you will also get a room in a dormitory and maybe even textbooks. Bad part about such Unis is that you will never learn Chinese language like that. When young people are coming to China, and they know, that they don’t even have to study, and they can do whatever they want, they don’t go to classes. Good part is that you can party, work, travel, and no one will tell you what to do. And if you really want to learn Chinese, you have a great chance to develop your self-discipline. Cause no one in such Uni will make you go to class.

“Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from the expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear – and doubt. Self-discipline allows a pitcher to feel his individuality, his inner strength, his talent. He is master of, rather than a slave to, his thoughts and emotions.”

– H.A. Dorfman

The Mental ABCs of Pitching

Chinese drivers… LMFAO

The guy was trying to park. =)

Are you laughing?

You can see such things everywhere in the world.

For example, in Russia – bad road, bad car, drunk driver, booom!

In Europe – good road, good car,  drunk Russian driver, boooom!

In US – good road, good car, sober driver, but still booooom!

In China – good road, good car, chinese driver, booooom!

NZ, I was crying too…

Very touching article by Steve McMorran.

Everyone knows, that earth quake is a disaster. 240 people died – it’s a tragedy. But we are far away, so it’s hard for us to imagine, what those people in NZ feel. Well, after I read this article, i was feeling very sad…

NZ mourns quake dead with 2 minutes of silence

Associated Press

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand – The jackhammers fell silent, church bells pealed and a Maori lament filled the air as New Zealand came to a standstill to mourn the estimated 240 people killed in an earthquake one week ago Tuesday.

Flags were lowered to half-staff and people gathered in groups in cities and towns to bow their heads for two minutes of silence at 12:51 p.m., the moment when the quake struck Christchurch.

The hundreds of rescue and recovery workers in the shattered city of 350,000, who have been clambering over and through the wreckage nonstop since the quake struck, took a moment to pause and turn dusty faces to the sky or the ground. Friends and neighbors hugged each other. Traffic halted in the streets.

“I was born here, I’ve lived here all my life and I’ll die here. It’s my home and it hurts so much to see it in this way,” said Mike Cochrane, fighting back tears.

Cochrane had climbed out of his car at one of the city’s busiest intersections to sit under a tree on a traffic island to observe the commemoration, climbing back in and driving off when a second peal of bells signaled the moment of silence was over.

Nearby, Rosie MacLean had left her realtor’s office to stand in the street, a spontaneous act matched by thousands of others who also preferred to be outside.

“I suppose this is about hope, really, to realize we’ve got a future somewhere, but that’s just hard to find at the moment,” she said. “I guess this means we’ve reached a point where we can all acknowledge it together, which is a beautiful thing.”

Prime Minister John Key had asked the nation’s 4.5 million people to join in a show of unity for people “enduring tragedy beyond what most of us can imagine.” And they did.

In the capital, Wellington, a traditional Maori lament rang out over the Parliament building.

Police said Tuesday they have pulled 155 bodies from the wreckage, and said the number of others missing and feared dead indicated a final death toll higher than previously thought.

“The figure … of around 240 is solidifying,” Superintendent Dave Cliff told reporters.

The magnitude 6.3 quake struck within a few miles (kilometers) of downtown Christchurch, when the southern city was bustling with workers, shoppers and tourists going about their activities. It brought down or badly damaged office towers, churches and thousands of homes across the city.

Key said a commission of inquiry would investigate the circumstances of the quake, including a detailed look at why the two worst-hit offices, where more than 100 people died — the Canterbury Television and Pyne Gould Guinness buildings — collapsed.

“We need to get answers about why those buildings failed, if there was something unique about them,” Key told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television.

He noted that both were built before substantial changes were made to New Zealand’s building code in 1976.

The owners of the CTV building — where an unknown number of language school students from Japan, China and other countries are among the suspected 120 bodies entombed — said in a statement issued by their lawyers they would cooperate fully with the inquiry.

Lawyer Ken Jones said the owners had commissioned a detailed structural engineers report after an earlier quake on Sept. 4, and that the report found superficial damage to the building from that temblor but raised no structural issues.

More than 900 international urban disaster specialists and hundreds more local officials have been picking through the wreckage. No one has been pulled out alive since the day after the quake, and officials say it is almost certain no one else will be.

Yemeni President talks!

So obvious, that Yemeni President is trying to save his ass by giving anti-american speeches. But whatever his motives are, sounds cool.

Yemen president challenges Obama on Arab unrest

01 Mar 2011 12:08

Source: Reuters

By Mohamed Sudam

SANAA, March 1 (Reuters) - Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh chastised Washington on Tuesday for its criticism of Arab leaders’ responses to regional unrest, asking U.S. President Barack Obama if he was “president of the world”.

Saleh, a key U.S. ally against al Qaeda in Yemen, chided the White House for its demands that leaders show restraint in tackling unrest as protests rage in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Oman, galvanised by successful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

“Every day we hear a statement from Obama saying ‘Egypt you can’t do this, Tunisia don’t do that’,” Saleh said in a speech at Sanaa University — a rallying point in the capital for protests that have now swept across the Arabian Peninsula state.

“What do you have to do with Egypt? Or with Oman? … Are you president of the United States, or president of the world?”

The 68-year-old leader, who has ruled Yemen for 32 years, has met with tribal and regional military leaders to rally support, but with oil and water resources drying up, he is less able to pay off allies to keep the peace.

Saleh offered to form a unity government on Monday. But the opposition swiftly rejected his offer and said it would stand with tens of thousands of protesters demanding he step down.

As thousands of protesters rallied outside the university where he was speaking, Saleh told the students in the audience that they should talk to their classmates in the streets.

“I will satisfy all of their demands, so far as it is within the power and capability of the state to do so,” he said.

Protesters are angry at widespread corruption and high unemployment in Yemen, where 40 percent of the population on $2 a day or less and a third face chronic hunger.

Saleh said media coverage of the protests was part of a foreign plot to protect Israeli security and stability, calling it a “service to international Zionism”.

“There is an operation room working for the media … in Tel Aviv to shake up the Arab nation,” he said. “It is all run by the White House.”

Chinese: is it worth learning?!

Let’s talk about Chinese language.

Is it difficult? I’m sure everyone thinks, that it is the most difficult language in the world. Let me tell you something. Chinese language is not that difficult at all! People who can speak Chinese are usually saying, that it is a very difficult language just to look and sound smart. Trust me, when it comes to learning Chinese, it’s just a language.

In the beginning you are sooo happy, that you’ve chosen that language. Everything seems so new and interesting. You are trying to “draw” your first chinese characters (of course there is no way your first characters actually look like characters).

Then you have to write each character 100 times until you remember it. You start getting bored.

Then you have to learn around 200 new characters per week. You have to learn how to read (the tricky part about Chinese is it’s 4 tones).

And then we are coming to the worst part – grammar! Grammar is the most difficult part about 99% of languages. And you start thinking: ‘Why have I chosen this f***in language with f***ed up characters, tones and now grammar???!!!’ But be patient, my friend. You will learn several grammar rules…maybe a lot of rules (depends on how screwed up your teacher is). And you still won’t be able to use them without making mistakes.

What happens next? Most of the people want to just drop it. As for me, after 3 years of learning Chinese in my country, i told to myself: ”Enough is enough! I’ve wasted three years of my life! And on what? Chinese people still don’t understand me! I still don’t know, how to pronounce all those tones! My characters look ugly! And my grammar is close to zero! Enough! I’m transferring to the Portugese language immediately!”

This is one of the times, when you actually need parents. My parents offered me to go to China for one semester just to see how it is, to travel, to practice Chinese. And if after that one semester i still wanna drop my studies, I’m free to make my own decisions.

And so I came to China. After 3 years of learning Chinese, I could only speak English in China! I was just scared to speak Chinese, I was afraid of being misunderstood. But then..after one-two months I started speaking (well, obviously, cause it’s China, not many people can speak English, so I didn’t really have a choice). Guess what! Tones are important of course, but Chinese people can still understand your accent, or just guess what you mean. Grammar…what’s with grammar…ooooh…there is no grammar!!!! There are several rules, how to make up sentence, for example. And you can forget everything what you’ve been taught before. Even pronunciation! Chinese is the language of dialects. So remember the “PuTongHua” you’ve learned at school, and try to pick up the dialect as fast as possible. Sometimes dialects sound nothing like Chinese language itself.

So. After some time you can speak. You can buy stuff, go to restaurants, take taxis, talk to your Chinese friends about weather and football. You can start working in China (as an interpreter, for example).  You can start your own business. You can marry a Chinese person. You won’t be annoyed anymore. You’ll love China, it’s culture, it’s food, it’s nature, and most importantly, it’s language!

Of course, it is different for everyone. Some might find it too hard to learn Chinese, for some it will be a bit easier. But I’m sure, the result is gonna be the same – you’ll love China.

So is learning Chinese worth it?