I've started to collect some signs...

These are quality examples. One is from under the toilet seat cover in my room (click on it so you can read it) and the other is in the laundry/kitchen room.

Some obligatory touristy shots. Guess where...

This last one shows a count down to the Olympic Games. To the second.

Something about a TMBG song...

Yes, time is marching on...

I have finished my course. I have done the speaking and writing tests. I just have one more lesson to go over the test and a leaving party/lunch thing tomorrow.

How have I progressed in the language. Well, I could take that answer from the tests: I thought I could have done better in the speaking test, but I got a pretty good mark; today's writing test was pretty easy (although not easy enough to get full marks - but I'll find out how I went tomorrow).

But I think it is better to judge my progress by how my Chinese is outside class. I've been noticing that when I'm hanging around friends in higher level classes that I can actually get the gist of some of the things they say. I can understand what a waiter asks me in a restaurant. I can understand what Chinese people say, if they say it slowly three times. I still struggle with pronunciation and often can't remember the tone even if I remember the right word. My vocabularly is still very small. Hopefully I'll be able to practise what I have learnt and learn some more in the next month.

[Edit] Actually thinking about that paragraph, I've made it sound like I've learnt alot. Well, compared to knowing nothing I have learnt alot but in terms of actually communicating with people I still know almost nothing - 3 weeks isn't really that long.

Chinese name 2

I noticed that my first teacher has used my Chinese name a few times this week... I am still generally called Tim by the second teacher, and she is the one that uses almost no English.

You'll also notice that, as Phil requested, I have added my Chinese name. Posts are now made by Tim 帝木.

Cultural learning

Even though Paranoid Android is a good song, it doesn't work at Karaoke.

Koreans eat raw beef (and so have I).

International schools have good facilities but it is still hard to run around for 3 hours when it is over 30 degrees and really humid (and you're not as fit as you should be).

Chinese name

Phil was complainging that I'm not using my Chinese name on my blog. He also commented that I should be using it because they always use Chinese names when studying in China. Some friends that I have here who have been here for a while also asked me what my Chinese name was. But in class the teachers call me Tim. They were very surprised since they also said that Chinese names are always used here.

And it's true - everyone in my class is called by thier Chinese name. I had been given a Chinese name when I registered but when we started the class I couldn't remember it. So I guess I slipped through the system...

btw the Chinese name they gave me is 帝木 (di mu) - Emperor Wood/Tree

Writing...

OK, now part of the purpose of this blog was to write. Yes, it is possible to have a photo blog but I was planning to use this blog to write down my thoughts and experiences... But that will have to wait for another day - I am just quickly using a friend's computer to check my email so am not going to spend hours composing fantastic blog entries. (This is the crazy Swede's computer. Look, I've got Swedish letters: åäö!)

Anyway, I am doing well. Have learnt more Chinese but have forgotten most of what I've learnt. Have met more people but am realising that time is running out. Well, I was realising this anyway but the fact that one month is so short is emphasised when you are making new friends after having been here for a bit more than 2 weeks and you realise that you will have to say goodbye in a bit less than 2 weeks.

I'm going to try to play Ultimate tommorrow.

A crazy Kiwi and a crazy Swede at the Summer palace

He's helping to protect the railings

Buildings at the Summer Palace

Interesting designs at the Summer Palace

We need more topless boys on this website...

Hand and Desk

I've fixed up my room (with a bit of help*)

* The Schendielorz Home Design service offers mate's rates :)

Sunday... again

I have started to realise how short one month is. Two weekends in 北京 （Beijing） have passed and I only have two more.

Yesterday felt quite cool - I asked a couple of people what temperature it was and they said 27 degrees. I was ok in a t-shirt but there were times when I thought I might need something more. It also rained for most of the day. We have had rain but mostly for only a short time - an hour or so - with thunder and lightning. It was kind of nice to have a day full of drizzle. It also meant that the air cleaned up a little allowing you to see several kilometres - I noticed for the first time that there is some sort of mountain down the road from the uni.

On an unrelated note. I knew that the little supermarket on campus sold beer but I only just noticed that it sold Coopers. Yes, Australian Coopers. For about $2 a bottle (375ml). Is that actually slightly cheaper than in Australia? And no Fosters to be seen :)

Cunning weather

I was lulled into a false sense of security when I arrived. Yes it was hot, and yes it was humid, but the air was pretty clear and it wasn't too humid. There was actually blue sky! As the temperature peaked in the middle of the day it became relatively drier and more comfortable. This was not too bad.

Since then the smog levels have slowly increased and visibility has slowly dropped. I first noticed a few days ago that I could look at the sun quite comfortably 2 or 3 hours before sunset. (The sun disappears well before it actually sets.) Buildings a few hundred metres away are half greyed out and I don't think that I can see anything more than a kilometre away. It seems to be getting slowly worse.

Some other photos...

1. They were still moving...
2. Some cute propaganda - I'm quite happy that they translated it into English.
3. I didn't see dumping of dirty water or raising of poultry but I did see the first two...
4. Token photo of me :)

My building and room

A hole in the Great Fire Wall of China?

For some reason, today I can actually see this blog. Strange... Thanks to the three of you who have added comments. Interestingly, my Mum just sent me copies of the comments to read but it turns out she didn't have to... Hmm... I don't remember the colours looking exactly like that. Sorry that some of it isn't very clear. I'll fix it... sometime after I come home...

Anyway, not that much to report - classes as usual. We've only had 4 lessons but the words, and characters, are starting to pile up already. If I can remember what we have been learning I will be able to say useful things pretty soon :)

你好

Hey, I just accidently managed to turn on the Chinese characters. And since it works by typing in the pinyin I can actually type things that I know.

你们好吗？

This says 'ni hao ma?' - how are you (plural)? The heading just says hello.

That will do for the moment...

Sunday

On Sunday I went to church. It was way across the other side of the city and took more than an hour to get there and we managed to find it OK. We passed the ID check with no problems as well (but I guessed we looked fairly foreign)*.

The guest speaker was Max Lucado. Anyone read his books? Is he a good speaker? Yes he is. He spoke on 'the Lord is my shepherd'. Yes, that's it. He said he was going to share a few thoughts on each of those words which sounded a bit cheesy. But it wasn't.

- the Lord = Yahweh: I am and always will be. We want to project our human feelings onto God　- we change and so must he. We get sick of people and so must he get sick of me. Or bored with me. Or find it hard to forgive me. But he doesn't change.
- is: pretty cool word in this context.
- my: it's between you and him.
- shepherd: he called us all dirty, dumb and defenceless. That about sums up humanity...

* Locals aren't allowed and so you have to prove that you aren't. It seems that the government is happy for foreigners to run the church the way they want as long as only foreigners see it.

Chinese TV

- Lots of drama set in classical periods (often Qing dynasty with Manchu style ponytail with shaved forhead)
- contemporary emotional soap operas
- strange game shows (one game show involved a competion of teams from China, Russia, France and Ukraine, with one of the events involving trying to get a suitcase across a pen in which there was a live bull. Yes, it charged them. No one was gored)
- strange variety/game shows - they like cheesy sound effects and lots of characters (ie words) to flash up on the screen
- at least two versions of 'Journey to the West' (you will all know the Monkey Magic version)
- CNN is very, very repeditive

Today I was talent scouted. My talen and good looks (normally thinly veiled from the general population) was spotted on the street in the campus and I was invited to try out for an acting role. Actually that was not what I was told...

I was walking along with Leo, a Kiwi friend I met here on my first day (can you believe it, he actually pays me out about my Australian accent?) after coming back from visiting the Great Wall. A girl comes up to us and asks if we want to help out in an educational video - they need native English speakers. We got the impression that it wouldn't take too long, just a quick interview. OK, sure. Is it on campus? No, but they will pay for the taxi ride there and back. OK, we're not doing anything this evening.

We meet at the gate to the university where there is a small group of other foreign devils and we get in taxis. The taxi takes us quite far across town, a bit further than we expected, but that's OK. On the way we find out (well, Leo and an American who is in our taxi) find out that they actually want us during the week. When we have class. We might not be able to help. Trouble. We arrive at a residential block. Hmmm... this is an odd place to do... what ever we are going to do. They take us upsairs and into an office. There they give us some scripts to practise: the guy wants to see a movie; the girl wants to hire a movie so they can stay at home; she wants to see a comedy since she had such a hard week; she wants to see an action movie because his job as an accountant was so boring he needed some imaginary action.

We practise in pairs and then go upstairs two at a time to perform for the director(?). I was told to act more. Then we sat around for a while. Some of the group were starting to wonder about the legitimacy of this set up. But I think it was actually legitimate. Apparently it is quite normal for foreigners, especially on BLCU campus, to be approached and asked to take part in educational video or audio, or for tutoring and teaching English, or other purposes where a native English speaker would come in handy. So, it seems to be quite easy to get work. So, this sort of thing would be more tempting if I was here for longer. But one month is pretty short and I have to spend some time learning some Mandarin.

However, if you would like to see me staring in a movie, that can be arranged. Just speak to my agent (um, lets see... I'll nominate Schendz for that job) or my producer (Simon).

Class has started

I had my first class today and now it's the weekend. On Thursday we were all tested to see what level we'd be put into. There are 5 levels, from A to E (with sublevels), and I was of course put in A class. There would be several A class classes.

Half my class seems to be Japanese, and they will have a big advantage in being able to read the characters. The rest seem to be from all around the world. The ones that I have spoken to are from Syria (although he has been living in Japan), Spain, France, USA.

Each day we will have classes from 8am to 12am made up of four 50 min periods. Today we covered some pronunciation and 'hello, how are you? I'm very well.' But that is plenty to try to remember with sounds, tones and characters.

I think the email room in the library is closed on the weekend so I will be forced to get out and have further adventures...

What I ate

I haven't been here long but I've already eaten frog and cow stomach (in Sechuan hot pot). I had the opportunity to try skewered scorpion, star fish and sea horse but declined.

A walk through a hutong

Well, quite a few hutong actually. It seems the area around the centre of the city, around Tianenmen Square is quite flat. There is plenty of high rise but it is spread out around this flat area. What there is instead are the hutong, old residential areas of narrow lanes with one story houses all crammed in next to each other.

It is hard to tell how well off the people living there are. In some places the walls were a bit shoddy, there was rubbish and dirt, there were cheap... things. But there was also a surprising number of cars (some quite nice too) and some of the buildings were well made and well maintained. But then I think back to all the public toilets there were - there are no toilets in the dwellings. So, it seems that these are mostly poorer areas but not necessarily always.

It was good to get off the campus and go for a bit of an explore. I took the subway (although on this line it was all above ground) the long way around to the other side of the inner city and walked West through the historical hutong area. I did a lot of walking. When I started there were no foreigners - there was only locals going about their daily lives. I'm actually quite impressed by how little I was stared at.

Then I came to the Bell Tower and Drum tower which are reasonably touristy places. I wasn't planning on doing touristy things but they were worth a look and had good views over the surrounding area, which is why I can tell you the centre of the city is flat and the high rise offices and appartments form a ring around it.

Further West from there there is an area obviously a bit more travelled by tourists. I was more regularly accosted by rickshaw drivers trying to convince me that I should take their hutong tour. Sorry, I just did one...

I have photos but can't work out how to access them. When I plugged in my cammera it was recognised by the computer and a dialog box came up asking me to go through a series of steps... all in Chinese. Does anyone know Windows 2000 well enough to tell me what to do, without being able to read the questions?

The adventure begins...

I have arrived in Beijing and things are going well. I haven't been here long enough or done enough to have any real adventures but I can summarise the trip so far:

- a slightly emotional farewell to Katrina
- a 12 hour flight with movies on demand (the ones where you can pause and fast forward and watch when you want). It was also interesting to note that this flight had the oldest and least beautiful flight attendants I've ever seen on a flight. Flight attendants are usually in (or close to) their 20s and 'beautiful' but theses were all old. I can cope with that but it was unusual...
- talk to girls selling Chinese SIM card at the airport and find that my phone is locked and I don't know the password (either I don't have it, or I should have it but have never used it) so can't use my phone here
- get taxi to the hotel. I splashed out a little bit here - well, I'm arriving in a strange country and am recovering from a cold, and taxis don't cost too much and I never get to stay in nice hotels. Look, I don't have to justify it...
- Watch half an episode of Lost. Now I want to know what happened when the key was turned... OK, I'll cope if I don't find out (I never watch it normally). Am wondering whethere I can increas readership of this blog if I structure it like lost: pretend that I'm going to give you some information but only raise more questions which I never really get around to answering (although you know I'm just about to)
- Bananas at breakfast - that was worth flying half way around the world for :)
- Get to the university, register for accommodation, pay tuition fees etc. That wasn't so bad.
- Meet my room mate Migel from Spain. I'm in a double room in the new building which I've been told is much nicer and roomier that the older rooms. Migel seems quite friendly.
- Find internet access
- Find I can't actually see my own blog... I can write it but I can't see what it looks like and can't see if there are any comments. I'll let you know if I find a way around it.

So, in short I'm doing well. But I haven't tried to go anywhere and I haven't started studying. So, there are plenty of adventures coming up. Stay tuned