HSK

HSK results came out yesterday, and I was actually quite interested to see how I'd go this time.

I got a 6 on listening, an 8 on grammar, an 8 on reading and a 7 on synthesis.

The overal score was a 7, which I'm pretty happy with. It means I can enroll for any course at a Chinese university (you know, with Chinese students and all). Too bad I didn't get that result last semester, because the current classes are dipping into new lows of boredom.

I found out why our conversation class sucks the most: the teacher the Communist Party Representative for our faculty. So thats why we never talk about current events critical of China! In fact we never talk about anything apart from the topics of the pathetic textbook.

I guess it also explains why she always seemed to laugh very uncomfortably at my jokes about the Dalai Lama, class struggle and class enemies.

Aftershock

Once a week we write an essay in class, and this weeks topic was the earthquake. I wrote about my experience of it, and then gave some of my thoughts on the Wanke scandal (the real estate group has been accused of not donating enough money). I might post it here later on.

In it I also noted that almost every single channel on television, and almost every frequency on radio, seems to be on 24 hour earthquake coverage. It's weird to flick through over 30 channels (even the cartoon channel) all broadcasting the same 3 or 4 different versions of coverage. There is, though, semi-regular programming on the children's channel 少儿.

There is a good account of a candlelight-vigil which John at Sinosplice attended, though it is getting criticised by some people.

Earthquake, and the Three Bigs of Chinese Speaking Foreigners.

My earthquake story is kind of bland; I was lying on my bed waking up from an afternoon nap and then started getting that feeling like the room was spinning. “Weird,” I thought, “haven’t had anything to drink for 2 days”. Then I realized that the room was not spinning, but my building was swaying. Then I went down to get some lunch and noticed everyone was standing outside in the courtyard, and I heard everyone speaking about an earthquake.

There is something else I’d like to mention though. I was in the elevator the other day, and just before the doors close I hear the pattering sound of someone in a hurry. I press the ‘open door’ button and a haggard woman approaches pushing a bicycle, which despite my efforts still gets crushed by the closing doors as she enters.

“Which floor?” I ask.

“Oh, thank you, 28^th, thank you”

“It’s nothing”. There was a short pause here and I thought for a moment we’d just ride the elevator up like normal folk.

“Your Chinese is really good-“

“No, no-“ Really, I’m thinking, I’ve said all of four words, and she’s complimenting me?

“-you could be like Dashan if you stay in China a while. This is your talent.”

“No no no”

At this point I arrived, and most curiously of all she called out in an odd, mystic tone,

“Goodbye, baby!”

***********************

It’s been said lots elsewhere, and it’s true. Regardless of whether you speak a little or a lot of Chinese, get ready for the Dashan comparison. I went to Tianjin on the weekend, and on the train one of my mates made a good point.

“Chinese is so competitive man. Every new foreigner you meet, you rate their Chinese. It wouldn’t happen with Spanish or something, why Chinese?”

I reckon he has a very good point. People seem to bestow a massive amount of awesomeness on non-Chinese (especially non-Asian) Chinese-speakers. Now, I admit, I also admire people who have put in the large effort required to get good. But I actually don’t really admire Dashan, Daniu, or Zhulian that much*. That is, 大山 (big mountain)， 大牛 (big cow) and 朱力安， who for the consistency of this blog could be called 大朱(big red) or even 大猪 (big pig- homonym, you see). I don’t really admire them that much because I don’t think being a professional crosstalk performer is a particularly cool thing (I have had to perform a joke once for a competition; it was very painful). Ah, you say, but they’re smart, look at their ability to make witty jokes.

Look, Dave Chappelle is funny. And in Chinese, I think Stephen Chow is funny, as is the Chinese dub of GTO that I watch (those crazy Japanese). But Dashan merely has a few clever jokes, Daniu is just up himself and has perfected his 'audience gaze' (hard to explain but it's infuriating), and Dazhu is not really that funny nor witty- he just speaks with a flawless accent.

On the other hand, I have lots of respect for some guys who write their blogs in Chinese. Such as: Brendan O’Kane, Alaric, John, and so on. I think there's just something cooler or more authentic about writing essays than performing stand-up.

Oh, and if we include Kevin Rudd in the Bigs, then he’d be 大陆- the motherland.

*In my eyes, the three most famous Laowai in Beijing, though the last two are more recent additions.

Anti-protest Protesters?

So I was just proxy-browsing the BBC Chinese news, and the headline there was "Thousands of Chinese Hold Peaceful Protests in Sydney".

Funnily enough I hadn't read anything about this in the actual Australian online news-sources, and then in the end of that BBC story that actually point out that this has been under-reported in Australia (getting only 10 seconds airtime on a local tv station apparently).

The article says there was about 5000 protestors, more than the 1000 which were expected when they organised the gig with the police. So it seems pretty newsworthy.

Weird. I trust the BBC to be accurate on this, as much as Chinese language reporting can be accurate (or media in any language, for that matter).

Oh, and as the title says, according to the BBC article they were protesting about what they perceive as unfair treatment that China has been getting over Tibet, and criticising the Tibetans for the violence in their protests.

The Magic School

After a sort of hard hitting night at D22, I figured I'd take it easy today. I was planning to just grab some dumplings and some Beijing style noodles for brunch but at the last minute I changed path for the subway and went to the American Cafe. Anyway, after that I figured I was on a bit of a roll, and after chuckling over some of the stories from the Evening News (one in three high level Russian military officers are overweight- the West have nothing to fear) I headed down to Xidan to look for Chain Lightning after reading Joel Martinsen's review of it.

They didn't have it, and they didn't have the comic series GTO either. I didn't want to feel like I'd wasted my trip so I picked up Kevin Rudd's biography (in the best selling area), which I'll check out. It should give me something to blab on about on cab rides at least, when they ask about Rudd.

I was feeling (amazingly) a little hungry after my brunch only an hour or two ago, so I strolled around looking for a cinema (not sure why I did this, there doesn't seem to be a causal connection). I ended up in the..um...place with the movie screen on the outside of it (大悦场 possibly...can't remember the name very well)

Not surprisingly there wasn't much on that interested me, so I headed downstairs to the food court on the 8F, to find...a magic school. I'm quite a sucker for magic- I've been watching the Chinese dub of The Prestige over and over lately in fact- and the guy wasn't bad. Seemed to be a pretty simple trick but the idea is that they teach them to you for a fee.

300 kuai gets you like 12 tricks I think. I didn't have that much on me (and I'm pretty poor in any event) but it seems like a pretty cool idea. I think I might head back there. After watching The Prestige so much, I at least have the vocabulary for it.

Rudd Speaks at Beijing University!

But I can't watch the Youtube video, because it's blocked.

Tried using a proxy to no avail.

Well, at least fast, reliable internet is something I can look forward to when I leave the P.R.C.

This is another thing I'd add to my reasoning for studying somewhere like Hong Kong, Taiwan or Singapore as opposed to Beijing (for the time being anyway).

The Tomb Sweeping Long Weekend

It was the Tomb Sweeping Festival on Friday, and we had a day off university.

There was a friend I hadn't caught up with in a while, and he has encyclopaedic knoweldge of Chinese history, so I thought it'd be an apt time to go an visit Matteo Ricci's tomb.

Got off at Fuchengmen and asked directions for a while, and finally turned up at a governmental office which looked more like a university campus. It was quiet, and you wouldn't know that there was a graveyard there, hidden behind the drab main building. But there is; Ricci died about 400 years ago so it's quite amazing that it's still standing.

There was a small group of Chinese Christians there when we arrived, standing by Ricci's tomb snapping photos while doing peace symbols. I thought that was a bit odd, but then again there's something a bit odd about Christianity in China anyway*.

Anyway, I took a photo as well, though more for the sake of reading the inscription later on.


There a lot of other graves there as well, all missionaries.

Anyway, I got a message from my parents saying they were driving around St Vincents Gulf in South Australia, and had just lunched at the Star of Greece.



I suspect the weather there would be slightly better than that in Beijing today (taken from my balcony):



All part of the deal I guess, though it certainly makes one consider finding a prettier city to study in! I just saw an ad for Dalian on t.v. Looks very nice there.