Campus photos are up!

Dear friends,

we have been uploading some more photos of our campus and our neighbourhood. There should be a big mention for the big Chinese pants photograph of one of our neighbours' balcony.

Lee beat Johanna unconscious and cut her hair to almost ZERO. Actually, it was to get rid of the last of the henna colour. Lee calls Johanna "action man" now... decide for yourself.

Soon got a week off and will travel to Xi'an (Terracotta Soldiers) and will bore you with many detailed photos... promise!

Email reliability in China

Dear friends,

We have learned that not all our emails have been delivered (although they didn't bounce back). Thus, we have decided to ask for read receipts (despite disliking being asked for them ourselves!). This should help us see how well email works here (or not...).

If you have not heard from us in a long time, it might a. be on purpose or b. our emails got lost in cyberspace (Catherine, Hilde, Liz, Ivano, Jason, did you get our longish emails?). We will try to resend messages soon.

Also, we are going to get ADSL and hopefully we'll be sorted then.

Skype does generally work and we had our first videoskype with B and K. It is really nice to see familiar faces, oddly enough with round eyes! How do you guys do it?

We're back!

Long time, no news…

But we are still alive and (most of the time even) kicking. WHAT kept us so long? Let’s get the common speculations out of the way:

1. No, Lee did not cut his hair – despite getting bullied by the boss of the International Cooperation Office(“Oh, you still got long hair!”)
2. No, Johanna is not pregnant (despite diarrhea)
3. No, we did not get brain-washed and only speak Chinese anymore… although it might not be the worst option, since learning this language is a real pain in – you know where.

WHY is it then?

1. We started teaching, which takes quite a lot of our time.
2. We have finally started to be less solitary and mixed with people here – albeit other Westerners.
3. The weather has been lovely – not too hot – and we started running around the campus. Check out flickr for photos – not of us running (we don’t want to put you off our site!), but of the campus.

Next week we’ll have a week off and travel… so stay tuned for more news on our China experience.

Thanks for being interested,

Johanna and Lee

Address of a good travel agent for trips from Europe to China

Dear all,

We were told about this travel agent by our Chinese friend Shikun, who frequently travels between Europe and China. The prices offered there are at least 1/3 lower than one may find on the web.

PHOENIX Travel
Wei Hong
Rue de Poissoniers 14
1000 Bruxelles
Tel: 0032-2-513.06.00,
GSM: 0032-478-209484
Fax: 0032-2-503.40.14
email: phoenixtravel@gmail.com

Pictures are up! Die Fotos sind da!

Dear friends,

Please follow the link to flickr and enjoy the photos!

Also, Lee has changed settings so that you can now comment on our blogs without registering. Thank you for your feedback!

L&J

The first 10 days in China - living (hi)story

Dear friends,

Thanks for looking us up on our blog.

Thanks for all your emails. You can’t imagine how nice it is to receive messages from nice familiar people if you live in a culturally alien part of the world. So keep them coming!

After nearly two weeks here we feel almost at home and have made our apartment our little “safe haven”, where we watch western DVD’s (all “originals” for 50 cents), read, laugh at the little people and their ways (the same way they probably laugh at us… at least we’d like to believe that to make us feel less guilty ). Everybody treats us very well; we almost get spoiled by the attention and help! Our apartment is very big by local standards (air-con everywhere) and it even got a new lick of paint! Not to forget the DVD player, our best friend… after the pill, of course!

After returning from a short trip, the green and pleasant field that we originally overlooked has turned into a massive building site. Now we are going to take pictures every day and publish them on flickr in the end, so you can go and see for yourself. When China decides to build, it doesn’t waste any time… day or night!

Lee gets a lot of attention, not only by kids, but also by adults, who just won’t stop staring at him. We don’t think they have the concept of “secretly staring” like we do in Europe. Guess who doesn’t get as much attention as she would like to? Exactly, it’s Johanna! Oh well, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, little German girl!

After having mainly lived on noodles and rice to start off with, we have now discovered a nice little market where we can find fresh veggies and fruit plus tofu. Yippee!

Being vegetarian around here keeps you entertained! Since the Chinese almost never say “no” the following situation occurred to us: “Is that tofu?” “Yes!” “Great, and how about this?” “Yes!”… so in the end everything was tofu. Yes, you are right in remarking that we should have become suspicious by then, but we were simply pleased that for once we actually had a choice! The end of the story is that Johanna ate liver and Lee had some lovely bits of beef. By the end of our year in China, we will have probably “sampled” most animals!

It is still very warm and humid here, so most of the time we take a little nap around noon, since it is too hot to do anything else.

At the moment we are spending 24/7 with each other, but that will change from next week onwards when we start taking Chinese classes. Actual teaching will in fact only start on Sep 18th, which was a nice surprise. Still, we are looking forward to teaching as much as we are looking forward to learning Chinese. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

We will publish our first pictures during the weekend, so please check out flickr from Monday, 4th September onwards. We’d be glad to have you take a look at them.

Til the next bog!
Lee and Johanna

Die ersten 10 Tage - erlebte Geschichte(n)

Liebe Freunde,

Danke, dass ihr auf unsere Blogseite gekommen seid.

An dieser Stelle moechte ich mich auf fuer die vielen emails von Euch bedanken. Ihr glaubt gar nicht, wie gut es tut, emails von daheim zu empfangen, wenn man in einer (kulturell) anderen Welt ist. Dankeschoen!!

Vor gut 10 Tagen sind wir hier in Guilin “eingeflogen” und fuehlen uns mittlerweile fast heimisch. Wir werden hier sehr gut behandelt, fast verwoehnt! Unsere Wohnung ist gross, mit Aussicht ins Gruene von allen Fenstern aus! Tja, zumindest bis vorgestern war das so, denn nun wird gebaut, und das geht rasend schnell hier. Wir waren nur drei Tage weg, und schon ist aus einem Maisfeld ein grosses Loch geworden, in dem sich ein Bagger gut verstecken kann. Unglaublich! Wir fotografieren den “Tatort” nun jeden Tag und veroeffentlichen die Fotos dann bei flickr.

Die Leute hier sind uns gegenueber sehr freundlich und vor allem die Kids kriegen den Mund vor Staunen manchmal nicht mehr zu, wenn sie Lee zu Gesicht bekommen! Aber auch die Erwachsenen starren ihn gerne ausdauernd an!! Tja, und ich bekomme mal wieder kaum Aufmerksamkeit, oh meno!

Nachdem wir uns anfaenglich nur von Nudeln und Reis ernaehrten, haben wir mittlerweile einen guten Markt in der Naehe entdeckt, wo man super Obst, Gemuese und Tofu einkaufen kann. Einmal haben wir Tofu mit Leber verwechselt, aber das soll ja gut sein fuer die Mannes- und Fraueskraft (?)… schaun wir mal:)! Vegetarier sein ist echt spannend hier, denn die Chinesen sagen (fast) nie “nein”. Somit entstand folgende Situation: “Ist das Tofu?” “Ja!” “Gut, und das auch?” “Ja”… am Schluss war alles Tofu! Tja, und deshalb habe ich ein halbes Kilo (Hunds)-Leber gekauft…

Wettermaessig ist es noch sehr warm, aber angenehm.

Lee und ich verbringen 24 Stunden pro Tag miteinander und das 7 Tage pro Woche… und haben uns trotzdem noch lieb – bis jetzt noch:)!

Ab Montag, 4. September, beginnt unser Chinesisch- Unterricht und ab dem 18. September unterrichten wir dann. Wir freuen uns schon drauf (hoffentlich bleibt das auch so:)).

Am Wochenende werden wir Photos hochladen, die ihr dann ab dem 4. Oktober anschauen koennt. Wuerd mich freuen!

Also dann, bis bald!

Herzlich,
Johanna

Guangxi - Yangzhou / Yangshou

Dear friends and travellers,

This is the first of several little “homage- blogs” to the beauty of the Guangxi Province of China, so please stop reading when it gets too patriotic (after having lived here for 10 days it starts feeling like home after all!).

Let’s start with Yangzhou: once upon a time there was a sleepy little village situated and sheltered by beautiful mountains and a river. But there was one mountain called the “Moon Hill Mountain”, which was ambitious and selfish, and wanted to be seen by everyone. So it called up the tourist information of all major Chinese cities and told them to send their people over, which they did! There are loads of trendy Chinese people travelling long ways to visit this beautiful place, which has so much to offer: a beautiful countryside which can be explored by (rental) push bikes, beautiful nature caves and obviously the climbing of Moon Hill (breath-taking view!). On top of that you can take boat/ rafting tours on the beautiful Li River.

We can particularly recommend using a local guide to show you to the real country side. Our guide was a lovely, slightly crazy woman called Mo, who speaks English fairly well, and makes sure you learn about everything there is to learn. On top of that she might cook a lovely meal for you if you get lucky! Her email address is moshefeng@yahoo.com.cn and phone number: +86-13788437378. She will charge you 100 Yuan per day, and she is worth every single one of them! Although we had haggled her down to 90 Yuan, we ended up tipping her so much she actually made more profit than expected.

Be aware of local fragile old ladies selling drinks when you climb mountains and in general. After you have said that you DON’T want to buy a drink from them, they will ask “Maybe later?” and you will probably say “Yes” just to get rid of them. Unfortunately, you will achieve the very opposite! They will follow you up the mountain until you have bought a drink! So please do say NO or use the Chinese “BU YAO” (literally don’t want) and good luck in getting rid of them!

Accommodation is quite cheap in Yangzhou and you are in a good haggling position, since there are sooo many hotels and hostels. Most hotels are situated on West Street, which you can’t miss since the place really is a “one-street-place”. Most of the action takes place on this very street.

For those of you interested in a buzzing night-life, this is definitely THE place to be! Both Chinese and people from all over the world party here together – especially on weekends – most of the night long!

Food-wise one can find a lot of yummy European and Chinese dishes. So if you miss bread and jam, make sure you have breakfast at one of the Café’s on West Street (less costly than normal restaurants). Very good fresh coffee can be found for bean-worshippers!

If you are looking for very cheap accommodation and/ or the quickest internet connection in town, go to Lisa’s situated at the end of West Street on your right (coming from the bus station). Enjoy!

Tips about Tabus in China- auf deutsch!

Einen Eintrag fuers “Vaterland”… in meiner Muttersprache!

China - was fuer eine Erfahrung.

Zunaechst einige Tipps, was Tabus betrifft:

• sag niemals direkt “nein”, wenn es sich irgendwie vermeiden laesst!
  
• Widersprich niemandem direkt (auch wenn du genau weisst, dass du Recht hast!), denn die Chinesen werten das als persoenlichen Affront. Warum? Sie trennen nicht – wie wir in Europa – zwischen Person und Sache. Sprich, Kritik an einer ihrer Aussagen = persoenliche Kritik! Hier ein Beispiel zur Illustration: Es war einmal ein Mittwoch, und wir gingen zur Uni, um mit dem hiesigen Netzwerk- Manager zu sprechen, einem sehr freundlichen Mann Mitte 30. Wir fragten, wann sein Vorgesetzter wieder im Hause sei, da wir ihm ein Geschenk ueberreichen wollten. Seine Antwort lautete:”Mein Chef ist immer freitags hier, also morgen.” Darauf entgegnete ich: “Aber morgen ist doch Donnerstag.” GROSSER Fehler! Die naechsten fuenf Minuten wurde mir bewiesen, dass morgen sicher Freitag sei. Gluecklicherweise hat mir meine Intuition (sowie die entsprechende Passage in einem China-Guide, die mir – wenn auch etwas zu spaet - einfiel) geholfen und ich habe ihm letztendlich zugestimmt. Tja, aber so richtig freundlich ist der Netzwerk- Manager nicht mehr wirklich seitdem! Also: VORSICHT!
  
• Smalltalk ist hier extrem wichtig. Was ist dabei zu beachten?
  
  • Positives zuerst erwaehnen, um eine Vertrauensbasis aufzubauen
    
  • Geduld haben, denn die Chinesen erklaeren gern alles bis ins Detail. In Europa sind wir dagegen daran gewoehnt, vieles schnell auf den Punkt zu bringen. Also: Uebt euch in Geduld, dann kann es sogar interessant sein, viele Kleinigkeiten zu erfahren
    
  • Den Gegenueber verbal “spiegeln”. Was bedeutet das? Die Worte des Gespraechspartners aufgreifen, z.B. : “Ich bin in Nanning aufgewachsen.” “Ach wirklich, wie haben Sie denn Ihre Kindheit in Nanning erlebt? Was gibt es in Nanning zu sehen?” etc.
    
  • Gute Themen sind: das Wetter (wenigstens etwas haben wir also gemeinsam!), die Familie (SEHR wichtig), die Bildung (fast noch wichtiger!) “Wo/ Was haben Sie studiert?” “Oh, das ist eine sehr gute Schule/ Universitaet! Toll!”, das Essen, Politik (ueberraschenderweise!) und Musik
    
    

Ja, wie ihr vielleicht schon gemerkt habt, habe ich Lehramt studiert und musste hier nun auch mal “die Lehrerin raushaengen” lassen. Ich hoffe, es hilft einigen von euch!