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Published: April 15th 2012
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Dongguan Jie, Yangzhou
A cafe with live Chinese music Photos on:
http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg311/draftwrite/ …..in China, in big cities at least, train stations don't have a ticket office or even ticket offices but ticket halls. You can see from the blurry snap of Alex waiting in the queue in Nanjing station that, on a normal Saturday afternoon there are still quite a few people travelling. We are in the queue for number 8 or 9. The first numbered kiosk you can see is number 13 so you can probably work out how many there are in total, all with a queue of 20 or 25 people. Constantly replaced by new travellers. You should see it during the Chinese New Year holidays.....
…...why were we in Nanjing? For the HSK exam, the Han yu shui ping kao shi, an examination provided by the Chinese to see how we foreigners are coping with their language, unremittingly logical & with an elegant grammar that shows English by comparison for the undisciplined rag-bag of borrowed words & broken rules that it is. For all that it still seems an impenetrable wall of similar sounds that mean a million different things depending on context. Alex, Patrick & I all feel that level 3 might
Nanjing Station
The ticket hall on a Saturday afternoon be a bit risky but we feel pretty confident about level 2. We've been working on the list of 300 Chinese characters required for basic, everyday exchanges. With luck we might pass.....
…..Note: next time book the accommodation a week in advance. There are not many hotels with available rooms it seems. Via the E-Long online booking agency I always use the first hotel cancels when they realise we are foreigners. Some are not allowed to accept non-Chinese, some I think, just don't want the hassle of people who are difficult to communicate with. The second accepts the booking but then cancels because they realise they don't actually have the rooms free. The young woman from E-Long calls again, about 11pm & finally finds a room for about ¥500, more than double what we'd normally pay. However not only can two of us share but they can add a third bed for ¥128. That makes it around the same price as one shared room for Alex & me plus another for Patrick.....
…..the executive room turns out to be less than the title suggests & the third bed is just a camp bed. Still, it's clean & everything
Dinner in Yangzhou
Stefan, his wife, Tina, Sunny, Jenna and Grace works. Also it's a beautiful, sunny day. The exam is held at the TV & broadcasting building at a section of Nanjing University. After being told to bring pencils & erasers it's all done on computer; a lot of multiple choices but listening & choosing appropriate matches of sentences from lists of alternatives. After the exam we all feel pretty confident that, although we all made mistakes we're fairly confident that....no, let's wait for the results.....
…..we feel confident enough to have a celebration lunch, involving a few beers, some tacos & burritos near the university then back to Yangzhou on the train. The amount of skyscapers under construction in Nanjing, former capital of China & currently home to around 9 million people, make our little city look like just a country town by comparison. However, back in Yangzhou, a large stage & colossal screen has been erected on the cleared land opposite the school, near the hundreds of recently planted trees. It wasn't there when we left, (yesterday!). It's apparently something to do with the opening of an International Trade & Tourist festival.....
…..I have plenty of time to get ready for my first gig at Lounge
Eric
My new four year old student 5, a restaurant in the Jing Hua Cheng, or, as we foreigners call it, the Living Mall, on the west side of Yangzhou. There are not many people here tonight but it's a good start, apart from the fashion parade showing really leggy girls in some pretty fetching costumes being projected behind my head. I know I'm not very pretty but there's no need to rub it in. Grace & Jenna, back from a tour round Wuxi, plus Stefan, our new German friend, turn up. The manager seems happy enough & here I get paid in real money, not coffee vouchers.....
…..my student Jeffson wants his Monday lunchtime private lesson to incorporate flying his new kite. No problem. He also likes using my camera so there are a couple of photos of me reeling in 200m of line on what is a good day for flying the new “Angry Birds” kite.....
…..my sister in the UK mentions she has just been to a small village called Clent, in the UK. It occurs to me the name could introduce a new profanity to the English language, (as though we don't have enough). “You stupid clent”. “What a clent”. She
Kite flying
JJ with his new kite thinks there must be a lot of Chinese place names in the same boat. However Chinese, despite reams of calligraphic poetry, is a devastatingly prosaic language, utilitarian to the extreme.
Shanghai: Above Sea
Beijing: North capital
Nanjing: South capital
Xi'an: West peace
Guangzhou: Wide state
Chengdu: Completed (or refined) city
I may have mentioned in a previous email the derivation of the name Wuxi. Previously the site of a tin mine, it was called Youxi, (“Have tin”). When the mine ran out of the metal they changed the name to Wuxi, or “Without tin”. I told you Chinese was logical.....
.....my good friend Dr. Wei sends a text message asking if I'll help to find a good English name for her daughter. She's not due for about 6 months but she's had an ultrasound.....
…..If I don't take my personal days off I'll lose them so I'm off for three days, tomorrow, (Monday), until Wednesday. I'll go to Shanghai & maybe to Zhouzhuang, the old canal town that Duncan & I were aiming to visit when he was here last year but we arrived at the bus terminal too late. If you're reading this Duncan take
Angry Birds
Popular computer game takes off a look next week, maybe you'll be able to see what we missed......
previous issues of the YYW are on:
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Laotou/
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duecechan
Bobby
You are so funny!The Laowai(foreighners,I think you know)who took part in HSK is really more well-read than those who only could say"Nihao,Xiexie".But,Dawei,what is the derivation of the name Yangzhou,your city?you could google it.I am Bobby,living in Nanjing.next time when you visit Nanjing,maybe I could be your guide of the city