My Incurable Case of Wanderlust

There's an optional cultural class every Wednesday or so. It's a good way to meet people from other levels since we always stay with the same group for our Chinese lessons. So far, the university has offered papercutting, bracelet making, cloth dyeing and calligraphy. I've only been to bracelet class which was three weeks ago. The technique is simple, but it still took me ages to finish a single bracelet. While we had a great time, I haven't seen anybody wearing the bracelet after class was over.

Photos were taken by a teacher.

BUCT (Beijing University of Chemical Technology) organized a trip to the Great Wall for the foreign students. There was no one except our group at the Gubeikou section so it was really not a touristy spot. In 2010, I went to another section where people were selling snacks and bottles of water on the Wall and from where I came down on a toboggan.

One of our teacher took something like 800 photos. Here are some of them.

The two women in front + the two women with red hair are our teachers.

J'ai passé une entrevue il y a quelques semaines pour enseigner à temps partiel dans un établissement privé. La femme qui m'a accueillie semblait enthousiaste par ma candidature jusqu'à ce qu'on discute du taux tarifaire. D'abord, il est hors de question que j'enseigne le français parce que je ne suis pas française. Ensuite, pour l'anglais, je ne peux pas être autant bien payée qu'une personne à la peau blanche à cause de mes traits asiatiques (chinois plus précisément). Sur le coup, j'étais offensée malgré que Maxime m'avait déjà prévenue. Il a lui-même travaillé comme professeur d'anglais en Chine pendant 8 mois, donc il connaît bien la situation. Dans mon cas, c'est clair que mon anglais est supérieur à celui de mon amie cubaine qui est déjà moins payée qu'une personne blanche. Cependant, elle a l'air tout de même d'une étrangère, ce qui justifie un salaire plus élevé que le mien.

Enfin, la dame de l'établissement m'a appelée 3 fois cette semaine et j'ai simplement décidé de l'ignorer, histoire de faire plaisir à mon ego. Au final, je préfère explorer Beijing et me concentrer sur l'apprentissage du chinois. Un peu d'argent de poche n'aurait pas fait de tort, mais mon temps en Chine est limité et donc précieux.

Canada, Australie, Angleterre, Iran, Chine et Corée du Sud - au KFC et en train de manger du congee

I'll be heading to Yingkou - 营口 and Qingdao - 青岛 (home to Tsingtao beer) for the next 8 days (National Week), so here's a quick update before I disappear again.

> I always thought I look younger in the Western world like any other Asian person, but it seems that people in China also think that I look much younger than 25.

> Whenever I go abroad for more than 2 weeks, I start missing Montreal's food diversity. Korean, Cantonese, Vietnamese (Pho dac biet. Now please), Greek, Scandinavian, Lebanese, French, Polish, Indian, American, Caribbean, etc. The dishes are probably not 100% authentic with all the right specific ingredients but our city's cultural mishmash does allow many opportunities to try new kinds of food.

> Growing up in North America, English seems to be the language that everybody on Earth should try to master. Even when I was travelling or backpacking through Europe and Southeast Asia, people coming from different countries would still know a little bit of English. Globalization, I thought. Maybe because I have chosen a smaller university in Beijing with only about 60 foreigners, but the common language here is Chinese. My fellow classmates are from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, Mongolia, Australia (1), Austria (1), Gabon, North and South Koreas, Equatorial Guinea, France (that's Briac) and Russia. So there aren't that many Westerners. As Briac has noticed, many of these countries are China's neighbors and commercial partners. Of course Chinese is more important than English to them in this part of the world! It makes total sense but somehow, I'm still amazed by my foolish assumption.

2nd line is "Hi, how's your health?" in Kazakh.
One of my Kazakh classmate is fluent in Kazakh and Russian.
He understands when I speak English, but mostly answers in Chinese.

Today, my roomie Hyemee and I met a guy from Saudi Arabia whose name I didn't quite catch (sorry). However, he was cooking some amazing chicken with onions in the dorms' common kitchen. It smelled really good. After exchanging some basic Chinese sentences, he asked us to join him and his friends for dinner in his room. We were unprepared for this invitation and had nothing to bring over except some Chinese candies. Turns out, the other guests were from Yemen and Sudan. Only one of them (the Sudan guy - Ah Ding) was fluent enough in Chinese to communicate with Hyemee. So the conversation went between Hyemee and Ah Ding. They then needed a timeout for Ah Ding to translate in Arabic to his friends and Hyemee in English to me since I could understand only 30% of their Chinese exchanges. Nonetheless, I felt very privileged to be sitting on their carpet and eating chicken rice, because I had never thought by coming to China, I would be sharing a meal with people from these countries. I have travelled a few miles in my short lifetime, but have never encountered Saudis, Yemenis and Sudaneses. We didn't especially bond (heck, they didn't even ask my name) and couldn't speak directly to each other, but it was still very nice of them to welcome us and share their food with two strangers.

Now, my biggest wish is for Hyemee (a South Korean citizen) to befriend those two North Korean guys in her class so we can all have a meal together. Haha, I doubt that will happen...

Chinese candy

I just realized I'll have class during the holidays, as in Christmas and New Year. I knew China doesn't celebrate these events, but still. It's a shock. I'll be having classes while the rest of the Canadians back home will be sipping hot chocolate, eating roast lamb or watching Home Alone in sweatpants.

On the other hand, I'll be experiencing the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Week (the most important holidays with Chinese New Year) right here in China. The Chinese girlfriends I made on the campus are really crazy and excited about it. They have invited my roomie and I to have dinner at their family homes. We'll also be travelling to their hometowns in Yingkou and Tsingdao for 7 days at the beginning of October. Can't wait!

Briac and I looked for a two-bedroom apartment for a few days until I gave up and went for a dorm at the university. It's great because it's cheap and really near the building where my classes are held. The downside is that I have to share my room with another person. But I was quite lucky and ended up with a Korean girl named Hyemee. We started off on shaky ground because Hyemee speaks Korean (duh!), just a tiny little bit of English (the equivalent of my Chinese) and intermediate Chinese. On the other hand, I can only manage with English, French and Cantonese. So our first conversations were really tiring. We often had to ask other people who were fluent in English and Chinese to act as our translators. But a whole week has past and we are both improving and gaining confidence in ourselves. Hyemee uses more English words and I try to plug in as many Chinese words that I can. There are also a lot of pointing, miming and Google translating. Hence, we don't need to knock on other people's doors anymore. YEAH!

Yesterday was a big test. Hyemee and I decided to go to Beihai Park on our own, just her and me. I know it may seem obvious since she's from Korea and I'm Canadian, but we discovered that we both love hiking and being outdoors! We have started a list of things we want to see or do in Beijing and it includes a lot of parks haha. We also have both a large face and can eat all day! YEAH!