Being kind to strangers
This man, Cesar is his name, turned out to be a former photo journalist, currently working at a regular photo studio in Wuhan. Furthermore, it turned out that he needed an assistant. As I told him that I wish to study journalism later on, he said: We should talk about this.
We met for lunch one day, and a couple of hours later I had a job. I told him that I have absolutely no photo experience, he said: You'll learn. I said I'm not fluent enough in Chinese to be a sufficient translator in every situation, he said: You will be. I asked how long period of time he will need me, he said: As long as you want.
I left with the feeling that he gave me this opportunity out of kindness, rather than that he really really needed an assistant. But none the less, I work about 20-30 hours a week. It's a Chinese company, so I get paied according to Chinese standards, and since I'm only working half-time, I only get paid half a Chinese slave wage. But I enjoy shooting with him, running around and fixing the light, and when we don't have any customers, he's teaching me how to shoot.
Cesar's a very nice person, and we work well together. This is a good experience for me, photographing is something I need to know when I work as a journalist. And hopefully it's a good thing to put on my CV when I start applying for journalist schools this coming winter. Perhaps the most important thing is that I finally feel like I've gotten started with it. I need more experience still, more jobs, more internships, things maybe more closely related to journalism. But I have started somewhere. I've felt so stuck and lost, having no clue where to begin looking for whatever it is I'm looking for. And then this job just found me. This is what I needed to understand how to go about this whole business.
Treat others as you want others to treat you. I guess it goes the other way around too, when someone have been good to you, you pass that on to the next person. I'll remember Cesar the day when someone completely unexperienced shows up and needs a showe in the right direction.
Alex
New yeaaaaaarrrgh!
IT'S NEW YEAR, TAKE COVER!
/Alex
Beijing bing!
I've now been back in Beijing for about a week and a half. I changed location, gave up the good ol' Shijia hutong, and are now residing at Lotus hostel in Xicheng district. I decided that, even though I truly do love my old hoods in Dongcheng district, I want to give my friends and family a better impression of Beijing than what the staff at my old hostel Saga can offer.
Now we (that is: me, my mum, kid brother, Mads and Johan) are living in a typical old hutong courtyard (siheyuan). This is by far the coolest lodging I've ever had. The atmosphere at Lotus is relaxed and comfortable, and the staff is as friendly as you can wish for. Creds to Ben, the manager (and also former manager at Saga).
So, me and my tiny confused Swedish tourist group are roaming about, making the streets in the northern capital unsteady. Mads don't like the Chinese food. Johan thinks that everything from cigarett packages to tea bags are so well-designed. Mum have to go to the toilet all the time. My brother just want to know how much things he can buy before he goes home again.
It's a quite heavy job, I must admit, to get four people around in a city where no one speaks English. Most difficult of all is that I have to change my bad habits, can't sleep too long in the mornings, can't sit and roll my thumbs and examine my belly-button whenever I wish, can't sit in front of the computer all night long. I have to eat food that I usually wouldn't care about. I have to go into Tourist-mode and re-visit places I've already been, or visit places I didn't get around to visit before. I have to remember to not speak Swedish in front of other foreigners and not speak Chinese in front of my Swedes. It's been a while since I really had to compromise my life-style for this long, I'm used to kind of just go with the flow, take things as they come. Planning is bad for the skin, but it seems like my lazy days are over.
It's also a quite grateful job, showing them around. Showing them this strange wonder-land in which I live. Taking them to places they never expected to see, and have the pleassure of sharing their first-time experiences and sursprises. I feel proud sometimes, when I can show off the oddities and curiosities in Chinas bigger cities. And being used to all of this as I am, it feels good to hear someone else telling me what's amazing and different with this country. I have forgotten what it was that used to surprise me. Most of all, of curse, it feel so good to see my family again.
The pursuit for coffee continues! Away, Silver!
/Alex
When I grow up...
I am a university rat. One of them who don't know how real life works, because I have spend 3/4 of my life studying. Sure, I had an extra job, working weekends and part-time during summer, but that hardly makes me qualified for any other kind of jobs except those including cash registers and cranky customers.
The question "What do you want to be when you grow up?", have been a re-appearing thing since kindergarden. When I was a little kid, I wanted to be come an artist, a rugby-player or a pilot. Then I wanted to be a tattooist, a marine geologist or a university teacher. Then I started studying Chinese, because that was what I wanted to do, but I had no idea what to do with it.
And now I do know what I want to be when I grow up. Something that gives me use of my Chinese, something that feels important, and additionally something that includes writing, which is my main passion in life. Journalism.
So in order to put my plan in action, I have realized that I need a job, something press-related. Having no experience, no qualifications and no contacts, made me decide to find a job, one that will probalby not be very interesting, but at least something to put on a resume. So that I later can apply for a journalism program (and actually be accepted) or find another job getting me closer to the real thing. In other words, I'm looking for a job that can give me some qualification.
And except for that, I want to do it in Hong Kong. There have been two places that I have been to, where I felt that this, this is where I want to be. One is Beijing, but at the moment I would prefer to not stay in mainland China after this summer, and the other one is Hong Kong. It was love at first sight, it was... If I can't live here for a while my life will not be as it should be. Hong Kong is the next step. Hong Kong is neccessary.
But, as I said, I'm a school rat, and I don't know how real life works. I don't know how to start looking for a real job, how to apply for a job, how to be so convincing that I can get a job that will be valuable for me, even though I have no experience. All I have is a pretty-good-but-not-even-close-to-fluent English, and a crappy Chinese. But it must work, because it is neccessary.
Of course, the idea of a long-term internship has crossed my mind, but I can't survive in a city like Hong Kong without an income, and to find the right internship that would include a salary is too much to hope for. The idea is not abandonned though, it is just not my main scheme.
What I'm doing now is to collect tips from my friends. Everything from Mads telling me: "I heard the (small Swedish) magazine Gringo is looking for writers, you should contact them", to California telling me: "Download articles from the net and study their style", or suggestions of different companies that might be able to give me the kind of job I need, everything gets written down in a book, more closely examinated, considered and duely followed. (Moreover, I sometimes write down some sentences that one or another person has told me to encourage me in my pursuit. It's like a kind of emergency pep-talk collection, something I can take a look at when everything feels too difficult and hopeless.)
So. I want a press-related job in Hong Kong, starting this summer/fall, so that I can start doing what I want to do when I grow up. Give me a tip.
/Alex
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Shanghai
Me and my two friends, Mads and Johan, get more and more tired every day, no matter how much we sleep. Every day is a long, desperate search for coffee, none of us function properly without caffeine. Life is hard and difficult and cold until I have my first cup of coffe for the day in my hand. Then I keep allert for some hours, and either fall asleep early or need another coffee later in the evening.
The three of us is a sad bunch. Mads suffer from constant migraines, Johan suffer from numerous allergies, and me, I just need my coffee. There are a lot of needs to satisfy and a lot of circumstances to avoid. If we don't manage to satisfy all these needs, someone or all of us get tired, cranky, silent, get a head ache, get hungry, get cold, feel sick, feel anxious, feel miserable, wanna go home and hide under a blanket and sleep until the next day. However, none of us want to be the one complaining, so usually we just have to guess when it's time for lunch or coffee or a rest. Sounds more complicated than it is, honestly. And at least we're being sensitive together. Other than that it's nice to move around again, even if it sometimes feels like it's just for the sake of not standing still.
I must admit that I'm hard to impress nowadays. Shanghai, persumably a city of great interest, an endless choice of activities and a sparkling night-life, in my eyes becomes just really big and really glittery, nothing more and nothing less.
It seems like most citys in central and east China are pretty much the same. I did the tour last summer, even though I've now been in cities I've never visited before, I haven't had many surprises. I think that next time I'll just have to go west. Or further north. Or further south. This is a big country after all.
There are certain benefits with travelling during winter. Not so many bloody tourists for one. God how I hate tourists. If it weren't for the obvious problems, I would only travel to places that didn't allow any tourists. Backpackers however, who are a special kind of tourists, can be fun. Travelling with two friends as I do now result in that I don't really feel the backpacker spirit flowing through my veins. I more feel like a combined observer and tour guide. We haven't even met that many backpackers. Maybe it's also because of the winter, people just don't want to travel during winter. I kinda miss the tourists.
/Alex
Xian - Chongqing
We soon got tired of Xian. It's a city with persumably a lot of interesting historical sites, such as the teracotta warriors. If one is willing to spend some days doing long treks to these historical sites around Xian, it would probably be quite interesting. We however, decided not to, and the city Xian in itself is dead boring.
So we spend two nights at a nice hostel there, and then went to Chongqing. This is a city with a worse reputation than it deserves. There is not one songle straight street, and trying to find the way to anywhere is quite impossible. (This couldn't possibly have anything to do with that I'm bad at reading maps!)
The city is scattered over some hills and valleys, and it gives the architecture an interesting apearance. Even though it is quite polluted, like all Chinese cities, it has a certain character that I haven't found anywhere else in China.
However, restless as we are, we'll leave already tomorrow. We'll take a ferry down rivers on the Jiangzi, it will take us two days and three nights. On the way we will pass the three gorges, an area along the Jiangzi persumably very beautiful, and that will be flooded as they finish building their great dam project in 2009. Better do it while there is still time.
Trying to find some inspiration to write something interesting, but right now there is no inspiration to be found, so I'll settle with this general info and hope that maybe somewhere I'll manage to sqeeze in something good. And now, time to split.
/Alex
Hong Kong
Me and my two companions, that is: Boyscout Chris and Professional traveller Polly, felt somewhat like a bunch of framers when we walked around in the streets yesterday, just staring amazed at everything. (It even got to the point when I, without the slightest trace of sarcasm, exlaimed: "It's so... fashionable!" What do you think of that huh?) This is so different form Wuhan as it could possibly get. It's so different from China as it could possibly get. The shock to come here was greater than when I had just arrived to Beijing from Stockholm.
Everything is so clean, there is even toilet paper in the public toilets! People are better looking and better dressed, and somehow the selfesteem of the Cantonese seems bigger than that of the Chinese. There are sometimes more foreigners than Cantonese in the streets, and everywhere there are signs and information written in English. Even the old ladies working in small restaurants talk English here!
And the food! Oh my good the food! We find everything here! Food from every corner of the worl, there is even decent coffee! And there are Starbucks and 7elevens in every corner, but after four months in the undedeveloped city/overgrown village that is Wuhan, I'm actually glad to see it! I'm completely confused by all of it. And, friends, family, I love it.
I will write a more thorough report over my adventures later, but for now it's time to quit.
I hope you all had a great New Year!
/Alex
A Christmas miracle
Alex, Juliane, Chin By, Lucas
Alex
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Shengdan jie
This is the first Christmas I celebrate without my family, it's a rather strange thing. Instead I will celebrate the event with my three flatmates and some friends of ours. In China, the land where kids don't believe in Santa Claus, young people get together with their friends at Christmas Eve and party, the direct opposite to the western way in other words. We, however will stick to the traditional western style, and have dinner and exchange presents (there might also be some wine, women and song, but it will be under relatively calm conditions).
Tomorrow is not only Christmas Eve, I also turn Five Months in China. Five months, it feels like no time at all, and in the same time, it feels like I've always been somewhere else than... home. It's such a short time, but still, a lot of things have changed. Sometimes I sit wondering if, when the day for my Return Home will come, my friends will still know me at all. I guess that the important things, the heart that beats in my chest, will be the same, as it has always been the same. Perhaps I will have another way of speaking and another way of reasoning, but after all, it was the change that I desired when I left. Change and challenge. (And after all, how difficult is it to get to know eachother again? It could be like.... having a really good friend that you don't know.)
So I celebrate Five Months and Christmas tomorrow, without family but not alone. I send away all my Christmas cards to Sweden with the snail mail way, way to late, and now I wonder if they will arrive before February. I send a package to France with the private air mail (a friend who went back to France over Christmas brought it with her). The packages I'm expecting haven't arrived yet, at least I'm not the only one who is late. ;)
Tomorrow I will wake up with stars in my eyes, just like I have woken up every Christmas morning as long as I remember. And just like when I was a little kid, I will spend the whole day in impatient anticipation, waiting for the evening when I will give and get gifts. I wish we had a Christmas tree.
Shengdan jie kuai le! (Merry Christmas!)
Love,
Alex
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The haunted blog
Yes yes, I know, I've almost abandoned my cyberspace ego-baby. But I do have reasons. One of them is that I am lazy. Very lazy. But mostly it's because my computer has crashed, and I'm going on-line on the two other lap tops that can be found in the headquarter of the Secret Underground Mahjong Club (we still haven't learned how to play mahjong). I am not completely comfortable with trying to occupy my flat-mates' computers for the time it takes me to write a blog post, especially not during the evenings, when they usually want to use them for themselves. Evenings are also the time during which I feel most inspired to write something. And, added to that, I found it insanely hard to concentrate lately, and the times I've tried to write something, everything that has come out has been nothing but word puke.
This isn't really anything but word puke either, I'm aware of that. But let's consider it as a warming-up, a soft-start, now when I haven't written in a while. I'm planning to shape-up and give you some real news, but for now, take this silly picture as an excuse for the delay, and as an apetizer for next time, when I'll write something that is actually something. Now I have to hand over the computer to the pretty blonde Germess (female German) to the right on the picture, before she drools toothpaste foam on me to make me go away.
Polly, Chin By, Alex and Juliane.
Love from the scatter-brained waiguo liuxuesheng in Wuhan.
/Alex
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Five weeks with Juliane
I always believed that I was the kind of person who needed my own room to feel good, needed that private space to hide away in if I wanted to. Now I think it's nice, really nice, the peak of luxury, but certainly not necessary. And sharing room with Juliane was great. Five weeks and we never got tired of the other one's precense, never got annoyed, never felt like we wanted to get out of there. The only thing that didn't work for us was that Juliane most oftenly go to bed much much earlier than I do, but even that turned out to not be too difficult to deal with.
Now I share an appartment with three other persons, and even though I have my own room I don't have to feel lonely, someone is always up and about in the appartment. I think I might have turned a bit overly social since I got to China. Overly social to the degree when I actually feel happy when Juliane bursts into my room in the morning, point a finger at me and yell: YOU! TIME TO GET UP! (She's not cruel by nature, I've actually asked her to come in and kick me when I sleep too long in the mornings.)
It's nice though, when I sit in my room studying in the evening, and the belly starts rumbling, and I feel too tired and uninspired to cook, and then Chin By knocks on the door and says: "Dinners ready!". We're a happy little family.
Alex
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Only in China
So. I met this Australian guy on a classmates house warming party last week, and he told me a story. A story about how wrong things can go sometimes, when you don't really have a firm grasp of the cultural differences in a new country.
A friends of his, and the friends girlfriend, had come to China and was planning to stay here for quite a while, hence they decided to get a dog. So they went down to the market, where they had all these cute dogs in cages. They were standing there for a couple of minutes, trying to decide which one they wanted, and finally picked the absolutely cutest one they could find. "This one!", they said and pointed at it. "We want this one!"
So the owner picked up the dog and took it away. The two foreigners figured that, hey, maybe he'll just put a collar on it or something. And then, the owner came back and handed them a bag of meat. (And the audience goes "Noooo!" and "Awwww!" and we all feel a bit bad about it.)
Only in China baby.
However, I met this Chinese guy when I went down to my old hostel in Wuhan a couple of days ago. We were talking a bit, his English was much much better than my Chinese, so conversation went pretty smooth. And I told him this story, about how they went to the market to buy a pet, and picked the cutest little doggie they found, and then was handed this bag of meat.
He went quiet, and then looked at me, and, completely confused asked me: "But.... why did they pick the cutest one? That doesn't matter for the taste."
What do you reply to that?
Alex
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18 Swedes
On top of that, I was out and about all day yesterday, and there are westerners everywhere in Beijing! Why are there so many? And what are they all doing here? Hard to get used to the sight. I'm afraid that I have been staring a bit at them, just because I'm so shocked to see them.
The greates shock however started at the breakfast table yesterday. I sat down, and realized that the four girls at the table next to me was Swedish. When they left, another company of four Swedes sat down. And then, out in the yard, another two, and then, up on the roof, another three, and then.... oh, they were everywhere. Late last night I was sure I must have met all of them, and then I sat down at a table out in the yard, and asked the two guys sitting there, suspiciously: "Are you Sewdes?" "Yes! How did you know?" Before the night had ended, I had met 18 Swedes. 18! That's more than I have met all together during my previous ten weeks in China. I don't get it, and I'm not quite sure that I like it. Maybe I should just practice my accent and pretend to be from Australia...
Alex
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No, I never got over that crush
October break already, it feels riddiculous, since the fall semester only has been going on for two weeks. All of China is celebrating the National day, and the Autumn festival (originally presented to me as ''Moon cookie day'', since it's the day when you eat moon cookies and talk to your relatives via the moon, a connection presumably working world-wide and through time) in one week. So no lessons for me! Allow me to give up a cheerfull: YAY!
And what do I do, the first chance I get? Well, I go back to Beijing of course. It comes as naturally and instinctively to me as taking a walk when ever it starts raining. And it's considered just as incomprehensible by several of my aquaintances.
There seem to be two kind of people, those who love this city, and those who don't. Those who don't most oftenly hate it intensively. I've hear people say that it is by far the nasties, ugliest, unfriendliest city in all of China and all of Asia. I've heard people compare it with ''a long and boring conversation'', because of the endless concrete vastelands that this city consist of. I've seen people wrinkle their nose at the mere mention of Beijing. I've seen them stare at me, as if I'm some kind of freak from outer space, when I say that I love the sound of the Beijing accent. (Imagine the sheer joy I felt when I got into a cab at the train station this morning, and every syllable that came out of the cab drivers mouth was reeking of Beijing hua.)
The words: ''I love Beijing'', is replied with either: ''Oh, I love Beijing too!'', and no further explanation is needed.Or the reaction will be: ''But... why?'' (And then comes that suspicious look that suggests that I might be some kind of pervert, and should be handled with care.)
Why? Well I don't know (bu tai qingchu, as I often repeat during my classes). It's like when you fall in love, it's more a matter of chemistry, rather than of perfection in the personality of one's object of affection. (After all, who have ever had a perfect lover? I haven't, and I'll never be one either.)
There is two aspects of Beijing. One aspect is Beijing as the city in itself, and even though it's ever-changing, it's still the same good ol' Beijing I keep returning to. And I can return to the same Beijing over and over again, for as many times as I want.
The other aspect of Beijing is the people I meet, not too surprisingly mostly foreigners, people who are here for a shorter period of time. I've gotten to know some very dear friends here, and it's always difficult for me to leave, since I can never go back to a Beijing that is as it was when I left it, because these persons who matters so much for me won't be here next time I come back. When I say good bye to friends who live on the other side of the planet (even when I'm not on the other side of everything, as I am now), and I know that I can never come back to find them here, it's impossible to know if I'll ever see them again. (Thanks to Steven and Amanda who showed me that there is hope after all.)
Oh my, let's not get too sentimental and gloomy. I'm back in Beijing for a couple of days, and now it's time to go and scoope out some new people who I can leave behind as I go back to Wuhan and miss like crazy ever after.
Alex
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The Secret Underground Mahjong Club
Her first words: "Where were you all night?"
This is Juliane Niedermeyer. From the German Bielefeldt, even though she's lived in Leipzig the last couple of years. She has studied Chinese part-time for two years, and this is her fist time in China. We went together to find the supermarket that first day, it took us an hour before we realized that we hadn't even introduced ourselves to eachother.
A few days later, we went together to the office to get information about the medical examination all the foreign students have to do. Teacher Li, who I most often wish to fall off a steep cliff somewhere, for once did something good. He asked the Chinese-looking girl, also fluent in Chinese, if the three of us could go together to the hospital, since neither me or Juliande could get by with our lousy Chinese in a situation like that.
This is Chin By Ang. From Paris ?and I believe that there are no questions about where Paris is located). She's born and raised in France but her parents were both Chinese Kambodians. She has studied Chinese for four years, and study B.A. courses in classical Chinese with Chinese students here at Huashi ?even though she's on M.A. level back in France). We would not have survived the hospital without her.
A few days later, passing the courtyard in the company of Chin By and her room mate, Radina, I caught sight of a young man sitting at the garden table (the same table that is now referred to as "our table"), I recognized him, and, as by then being used to the idea that I know everyone that I have ever seen before, gave up a friendly shout, sounding something like this:
"Hey! You're the German dude! I saw you speaking with the German chick I share room with at the office!"
This is Lucas Göepfert. (And this is the kind of moments that make me think that I should really work harder on my English vocabulary.) He's grown up in Erfurt, a city in the former DDR, living, just as Juliane, in Leipzig since a couple of years. They've been classmates, but the never spoke to eachother until they bumped into eachother here. And, this is his first time in China as well.
It just took a couple of days at Huashi before I had already found these friends, and we've stuck to eachother. We are nothing like eachother, and that's the beauty of it.
The rules and regulations at Huashi forced us at one point to sign a paper where we promised, among other things, to not keep pets in the dorm, not keep friends/ girlfriends/ boyfriends in the dorm, not use any electrical devise, such as riceboilers or refridgerators in the dorm (which is very interesting, since there is already a refridgerator in every room), and, most important of all: to not play mahjong or gamble in the dorm. This became the unevitable birth of the Secret Underground Mahjong Club. (Of course, we don't play mahjong. We reason that we are like the great kung fu masters, who never fight, because they are just so good that they never have to. Actually, none of us knows the rules of mahjong, but we would learn it just to spite the riddiculous rules.)
Juliane, Chin By, Lucas and me, we are family now. 1:st of October we will move to a 144 m2 big appartment, with one kitchen, one living room, two toilets, three bedrooms and a cupboard where Lucas will sleep. It will be the most beautiful German-French-Swedish joint venture ever. We are lucky to have found eachother.
It's late and I'm tired, and additionaly, I haven't put up many posts lately, so I will just post this as it is, without caring much about the spelling. It will drive me crazy next time I read it, but if you can cope with it, then so can I.
I'm even too tired to think of a good way to end this text. Maybe I can just do like this:
THE END
Alex
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