Alex

30:th of August. I had officially moved over to the dorm at Huashi (Huazhong shifan daxue) the day before, but I went back to my hostel that night to get the last things, the wole business took longer than I expected so I actually spend my first night after moving into my new temporary residence at the hostel, and not in the dorm. I returned back to my dorm room around noon the 30:th, opened the door, and found a blond girl intthe bed that had still been empty when I left the day before.

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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No words from me in two weeks, I know. I've found myself fascinatingly uninspired everytime I've sat down in front of the computer. Right now, however, I feel more inspired to write a text for my blog than I feel to do my homework ;)

Eight weeks in China now. My lessons started this Thursday. The level is way above my head, but I refuse to take an easier level. In this class I'll learn a lot, but probably get really bad results on my test, at least during the first semester. In a lower level I would get better results on my tests, but not learn as much. After two days of class, I was exhausted. The first real weekend (because until school start, every day was weekend) in several weeks was warmly welcomed. I think I might have a though week in front of me. But that is why I am here after all.

The stupidity of my university continues. They had us make a test a week ago, to see on what level our Chinese is. First of all, they didn't tell us about the test. A vague rumour reached my ears, and I went and asked a teacher about it. She said that they had put up a note about it. I kindly asked where this note was, and she told me that of course it was put up on the entrance door. Of course. No one have told us that they sometimes put up notes about important things that goes on at the university, such as tests, at the front door of this building. But of course we should have understood that. Of course. Well, I do not live in this building, and even though I pass it daily, I very seldom have any business in this place. I also don't have the habit of walking up to random front doors to read the notes put up, just in case it might concern me (well, nowadays I do). Anyways, reading the note, it said that the test would start at 8:30 A.M., but just in case, I asked he teacher. Just to make sure that the test acually would start at 8:30. She said that it definetely would start at 8:30. 8:30 is the magical word here. So me and my companions showed up to the classroom at the appointed hour, that is 8:30, just to find that the test had already been going on for half an hour. We were not surprised.

I could give you a zillion good examples of completely idiotic things the administration of this place do, but then I wold write page after page after page, and my fingrs would start to bleed, and there would be blood in the keyboard, and that would be really embarrassing, because I'm now using my room mates lap top. So I won't. I think you get the picture anyway.

I'm still living at the temporary guesthouse, sharing room with the wonderful German Juliane. The foreign students dormitory is still being under costruction, so they have us stay at this guesthouse. When I first arrived, they said that the real dormitory would be finished in four weeks. Then they said that it would be finished in November. Then they said it would be finished in December. I don't care much about that, because I don't intend to move into those dormitorys anyway. Me and three friends of mine are looking for our own appartment. It's usually quite easy to find an appartment, but it's a bit more difficult for us, since there is four of us. I don't think it will be long until we can move out of here though.

This dormitory is a bubble where the foreigners get stuck. I'm lucky, because I got to know some Chinese people when I was living at the hostel here in Wuhan. I broke the bubble before I even got to the university. Everytime I mention one of my Chinese aquaintances to some foreigner, she or he stare at me in amazed surprise and say: “You have Chinese friends?!“ Yes, it's a miracle! I'm in China and I know Chinese people! Amazing, truly amazing.

The university held som kind of opening ceremony for us last week. It was bound to be incredibly boring, and I tried desperately to talk my friends out of going at all, but instead they talked me into going, something I later regretted bitterly. There was some important persons at the university who held speaches. One man held a speach about how we have to make friends with the Chinese students, how we have to share our different cultures and learn from eachother. All I could think was: “You bastard!“. It was such a load of crap.

They don't want us to learn from eachother. Maybe they want the Chinese students to teach the foreigners about the Chinese culture and the Chinese way of thinking, but they don't want us to teach them anything. They don't want their Chinese youths to learn about the western way. They don't want their kids to know about anything else than what they decide that their kids should know about. I think that is why they are isolating us in our bubble, isolating the Chinese kids in a bigger bubble.

We are oil on water. We're in the middle of it, but we're floating on it. We can't sink in, mend, blend. To live in the university and study Chinese is the worst way of learning anything. Maybe our grammar will be better, but we won't understand anything as long as we stay in the bubble.

Alex

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