Crazy weekend

Friday was a busy day as it is- and in the evening we went to the airport to pick Rob's dad. Then we went to his hotel with him- and then home. Saturday we woke up early and spent the whole day with him- walking distances I've never walked before in Shanghai. I think it was a total of 8km that we walked in town that day. I was beat in the end of the day- wishing for a day of rest after it- that will never come- coz on Sunday morning we woke up early again- and went to the airport to pick Rob's mom and younger sis and bro. Then again- crazy day- walking everywhere- doing everything... In the evening- when we said goodbye- till tomorrow- I realized that tomorrow starts a new school week... Getting no rest on the weekend was really exhausting...
I had an exam today- and coz this time we still had the Pinyin (the way to write Chinese in English letters) as well as the Chinese characters- I think I did really well- but then in the middle of the exam- the teacher said that the next one will have no Pinyin- and we'll have to do it all in characters... At that point I knew that the next exam wont be so great...
Tonight we're meeting Rob's family for dinner- they're traveling in Suzhou today- a small town an hour away- that ppl say is beautiful. Funny thing is- I've never been there. Well- maybe it's more sad than funny...
So I'm about to have a busy week- now I'm resting a bit- reading online after 2 days I haven't, trying to relax...

(The answer to the last post's question is: Yes. It is.)

Well- If you have read my last post- you know that I can't see my blog. Fortunately, Knock on wood (I'm still Jewish- can't stop the habit) I can still write new posts. If that ever changes- I promise I'll do my best to write new posts and publish them somehow here.
After being personally affected by the policy of this country- negatively may I say- I must admit that even though I'm happy with my life here as it is- being a student, having blue skies a few days a week (that's gonna end in about a week or two...) living with Rob and so on, even though I'm happy here- I can't not think about all the ppl here that don't know what they're missing. I'm not sure that they should know what they're missing- coz I seriously believe that here- it will just bring to chaos. After living here for a short time, adding the 6 months I spent here 2 years ago- I must admit- that for the Chinese ppl- this may be the ideal solution. But how far should this go??? I obviously dislike being affected by it- especially coz I AM NOT CHINESE. And I do know what's behind that big wall, and I do know other things- And: I do have my own ideas, my own thoughts and judgments. Therefore- I really don't appreciate being censored like this. I don't care if the Chinese ppl can't read this blog. It's not for them specifically. Its for me, and for whoever is interested in my life. I really respect the government here- otherwise I really couldn't have lived here for a while. Maybe not even travel. But they have to decide- either they close all their doors to the outside world- or they open them in this way that ppl like me - from the outside world- don't feel entrapped in their decisions. I'm usually not the type of person who sees it all in black or white, but the gray area here- is really hard to see through.
I hope this blocking of my blog's website will be over soon, as I understood- it had been blocked until a year ago- then they unblocked it. I seriously thought they are making good changes- but maybe I was too naive, or maybe (and most probably) I just still haven't figured them out.

Is it really censorship???

For the last few hours I've been trying to log on to my blog, and another blog of a friend of mine (in Blogspot as well) and it just doesn't let me log on... What is weirder (but maybe good) is that I can still log on to the page where I add posts... Rob has tried to log on at work- and couldn't as well, but Dorian (the one I was trying to read her blog) who's in Germany - told me she can log on no problem... I'm worried that the stupid Chinese might have blocked the pages ending with .blogspot.com - their censorship is just outrages. I really cross my fingers they haven't done such a stupid thing. Just 2 weeks ago or so- I found out that they unblocked Wikipedia- which was a really great thing- and I thought: "oh! they're actually advancing!!!" I hope these thoughts wont be proven false...
So let's hope together- that I didn't just move to the dark ages!!! (well at least lets hope it's not gonna be so dark...)

Just.... Life...

There's no school today and tomorrow- coz it's "sports day". The whole uni is having sports contests in the other campus (that is actually not so far from where I live). The teacher has been trying to convince a few of us to go to the opening ceremony- that starts before 08:00 AM... So she said that whoever joins must be in uni at 06:00 AM to get on the bus going to the other campus. Obviously at that point no one wanted to go... But then she said- whoever is coming will get 2 meals (lunch and dinner) and a sports suit!!! ha ha ha!!! Well as you can imagine that still didn't do the trick- no one wants to be at uni at 6:00 AM. Even when she brought a sample of the suit- to show us how nice it is- and tell us "look! It's good quality!!! Nike!!!" still no one wanted to go. The ppl who are going in the end are the ones that live on campus- it's easier for them to be at school at 06:00 AM. I used the excuse of- I live far enough- just imagine the time I'd have to get up that day... So the teacher said- but you live closer to the other campus- so maybe they can pick you up on the way! She asked some ppl about it- and (luckily) they don't drive through anywhere that is around my house... Plus... There's an exam on Monday (how terrible) and since Rob's parents are coming the next week- and his dad is gonna be here this weekend already- I told the teacher that I really need to study in these 2 days off...
So today I thought I'd sleep in- but when Rob left to work (06:20 AM) I couldn't sleep anymore- so I got up and decided to catch up on my knitting! I haven't touched this scarf since I came back from Austria in August... How sad... Then obviously I fell back to sleep- and now- as much as I'm trying to avoid it: I HAVE TO SIT ON MY ASS AND STUDY. You all know how much I hate that... But I promise to do my best- it's not the grade I'm after- it's knowing Chinese...
Last night I went with Rob to watch him play Ping Pong (or as he calls it- coz he was professional in it in high school: Table Tennis) with this Korean guy that lives here with his wife (who came there too) and 2 kids. So I spent the hour talking to his nice wife- using Chinglish (Chinese + English) to understand each other better... Rob obviously won the game ha ha ha... So unfair- he actually played for years!!!
That's it for my Shanghai life for now - see ya soon!

No privacy

Literally: NO PRIVACY. There's no such word as "privacy" in Chinese. REALLY. They have no word for it.
The girlfriend of Rob's best friend is Chinese. When she went to Germany last year- the first thing she told her boyfriend was: "where are all the people in the streets?". When she showed her father the pictures from Germany the first thing he said was: "Meiyou ren!" this means in Chinese- "no people!".
When you walk in the streets of Shanghai, there's so many people around you- no matter the time of the day. Well, in the middle of the night or really early in the morning there are less, but still- there's a lot of ppl, compared to any other country I've ever been to (well... Maybe in Thailand its almost as crowded in the big cities). This is very overwhelming and energy draining. There's lots of noise and you get touched all the time- by ppl you don't know, and lots of times- by ppl you don't wanna touch... The subway is so full you hardly get a seat, and most of the time you stand between dozens of ppl in each car.
We thought about going to Suzhou today- a small city- which has lots of canals and water around- suppose to be beautiful. In the end we obviously slept in a bit, and until we actually left the house- it was 11:30. We got to the train station after 45 minutes, and found out that the next sitting tickets are at 14:00 and there are no tickets to go back from there tonight. So we decided to stay in Shanghai, and go to the Shanghai Museum. As students it cost us 5 RMB (0.50 Euro) and there are a few different galleries inside- spread out on 4 floors. It all has something to do with Chinese art and culture. The problem with Chinese museums is that they don't have a lot of information about the displays. Rob really doesn't like that- Me? I don't really care. I just like looking at the nice stuff!!! LOL!!!
after the museum we met this 14 year old Chinesee girl outside- she approached us and asked us if she can practice her English with us. We said sure- and we talked to her for 45 minutes... Apparently as a Chinese school student she studies Mondays to Fridays 7:20-16:50, then goes with her mom to her grandma- then goes home does her homework and only then she has a very short time to herself- and then to bed.On Saturdays she wakes up at 7:30 (AM!!!) cleans, has breakfast (this girl was very informative) plays on the computer for about an hour, then goes to a math class for about 2 hours (her school decided she has to take it every Saturday coz of her grades or whatever) then she goes to English class (which she actually enjoys- its in her teachers house- with anotherr 6 kids). On Sundays she would wake up at 8:00-8:30 (I already said- she's VERY informative...) go to The English Corner (apparentlyy there is one) in People's square in Shanghai (some Chinesee ppl meeting up to practice their English) and then have some Chinesee snacks for lunch and then her mom would come and encourage her to approach foreigners like us to practice her English with. She said that when her mom told her to maybe approach us she told her mom: "but they look so much in love... I don't wanna interrupt them..." LOL. Anyway- if there are any young ppl not from china reading this- how do you imagine a life like this??? This is not an exception!!!They all live like this: work work work, study study study!

I would have moved to a different country a long long time ago if I had been born in china...

10 signs of becoming Chinese

1. Getting up at 6AM 5 days a week. (and getting woken up on the weekends by the noise- see number 8 below).
2. Stuffing yourself to 3 different crowded subway trains every morning to uni (and back), and owning a subway card you charge every time you've used all the money in it.
3. Being on the trains for more than one hour each way (eating your breakfast on the train and studying too).
4. Having lunch (usually Chinese food for less than 1 US$) at NOON (12:00).
5. Sometimes even buying one of these Chinese food boxes in the small places that sell really really greasy food, and obviously carrying that box all the way home. Or:
6. Eating in the university's cafeteria. Buying coupons in the entrance for about 1.5 US$- than using the notes to buy some dumplings or whatever Chinese food they have. Then obviously getting change back from something like 10 cents- in the shape of small coupons that look like the note I just wrote to my classmate in class.
7. Having Dinner around 6PM. Sometimes at the nice lady's booth in the corner. She sells fried noodles for less than 0.50 US$. Or: cooking in your own Wok.
8. Becoming deaf- from all the noise around you all the time (big roads, honking horns, building and destruction of houses and buildings - 6AM to 6PM, 7 days a week, renovation in the apartment above when you're trying to rest from your day etc. etc.) Then starting to yell on your cell phone- coz you can't hear a damn thing.
9. Buying lots of DVD's in the store downstairs. Watching Veronica Mars episodes in a raw- until you've seen them all and there's nothing next to the DVD player to tempt you.
10. Going to sleep before midnight. At the only hours there's actually some quiet- meaning- the only hours you could have used to study/read/have a decent conversation with someone.

Exhausted...

What a week! Woke up at 6:00AM everyday - it's so hard to get used to that... Took the metro for an hour every day to school (I change the lines twice every morning coz this way I usually have a seat on it- the line leaving from here is already full when I get on it- even though its only the 3rd stop!) Chinese ppl i tell ya... They love being crowded... They will just stand waiting for the train wherever they got to the platform from the stairs. They never walk on the platform towards the beginning of the train- and this way the first cars are usually a bit emptier. How stupid of them. School itself is actually really nice, I've made friends with a Spanish girl already, and the rest of the ppl in class are really nice. We're actually from all over the world: France, Switzerland, Indonesia, Russia, Spain, Colombia, Burundi, Canada, Sweden (originally from Iran and Hong Kong), Saudi Arabia... Really all over the world... I understand most of what they say in Chinese in class- maybe even more than the rest of the students - vocabulary wise, but the characters... I hate them!!! Why do I have to learn how to write the stupid things????? Wouldn't mind recognizing some but... Hate writing them. Really.

was a really busy week. There wasn't even one day that I came straight home from school. On Monday I decided to be the good housewife and cook a nice dinner for the both of us- celebrating the first day of school and first day at work. On Tuesday went to take Rob's passport from the visa place and then went to the market to buy some clothes. It was amazing: as soon as I stepped in the building I immediately remembered all the words I need to know in Chinese in order to buy in the market. All the colors names in Chinese came back to me, and all the other words that are very helpful when shopping... The market was crowded as usual, lots of ppl, lots of really ugly clothes- I really had to dig in to find something nice, the smells, the noise... But its still a nice experience...
on Thursday I went to the visa place again- this time for me- to get me the students visa (got all the papers from uni for that) and then went to a deli in a really fancy hotel with Lia the Spanish girl, to buy some nice (and very expensive) cheese...

yesterday was Rob's birthday. So on Wednesday I got him an i-pod as a present, and yesterday I prepared a little celebration for him when he got home from work: I made a pile of blueberry pancakes (don't have an oven- couldn't bake) and I decorated them with gummies and ice cream. I hung balloons in the house, lit up two candles (couldn't find birthday candles here) and put the present on the bed. It was really nice... We went for a foot massage in the evening and then went to a hot pot restaurant (its a restaurant where you sit next to a table that has a hole in it- to put a big pot in the middle - on fire. There's soup in the pot and you order all kinds of raw food like meet and vegetables to put in the soup and fish it out- so you can eat the soup or just the cooked food).

I'm really enjoying my first real weekend in a long time. I haven't been working in a while- so this week it was hard to get used to waking up everyday and having something to do. Its fun being a student again though. Kinda weird after more than 2 years that I wasn't a student.

today we're planning on going to eat dumplings in a restaurant I got a recommendation to. And tonight I'd really love to go out... Haven't gone out in Shanghai since I got here- and I really miss going out here... This city actually has a lot to offer...

The Chinese way of starting

First day of school was today. Took me an hour to get there in the morning- was way too early- got there by 7:30 already... Class is suppose to start at 8:00AM. My classroom was empty and dark at that time. Went upstairs to ask what's the deal- the nice lady looks at my class note- takes me to this time table on the wall- obviously written in Chinese- tells me: "you see here?" I nod and say... hmmm... I see- but I can't read this.... So she says: "you see, here it says- that your class starts at 9:50 every Monday... YAY! Great!!! Nice of them to give my class a longer weekend- but why didn't anyone tell me??? Plus I found out that there was school yesterday on Sunday- a one time thing- coz of the week holiday they had before... Crap... Well nevermind. I wondered around, had an errand to do- did it and met this Spanish girl that I have already met last time I was there (she just joined too- and we convinced the lady in charge to put her in my class...) anyway - she's really nice, plus whet's funny is that my Chinese name is Ya Li and her Chinese name is Li Ya... ha ha ha... All the Chinese ppl had a good laugh about that... So class started at 9:50 - more than 2 hours after I got to uni, and the first teacher is called Prof. Qian (it sounds like: chien- in English) - he's a real nutty professor... He's funny, nice and expects a lot (but not too much- they really don't treat us in a tough manner- I guess they realized we're not Chinese students after all) and his class was actually fun. The next teacher was miss Wang- she's our main teacher- or you can call it home room teacher. She's a lot more "teachery" and uses a lot more English in her lessons. She's very nice too.
So after all the first day was a good day, now I have some things to review (can't believe that I have "homework" to do... ha ha ha - who would have thought about ME doing homewark and reviewing at home...)...
Till next time!!!

Chinese holidays...

This week is a week "off" in China coz of October 1st- which is their sort of independence day. I said "off" coz obviously a lot of them still work. They have a system - each worker gets his days off at another time- and this way places and work are not totally shut down for a whole week. There's not even one day in the year, not even one- where all the businesses are closed. Not even one day that all the people are off work. Not even one day where its totally quiet... And even so- on the holiday weeks- all the flights are booked, all the hotels are booked, all the trains are full, all the places are full of people. Two days ago we decided that we should do something - see a bit of Shanghai. So we went to the other side of the river, to the new area, to see the TV tower and maybe a museum. As soon as we got out of the subway- we realized that its pouring down cats and dogs... The rain just didn't stop. It wasn't really cold- just so so so wet. There were huge puddles everywhere, and we got wet to our bones. So I offered that we do get in the tower- just not all the way up- only to the Shanghai History Museum (which I really liked last time I was there) - it's on the bottom floor of the tower. We bought tickets and ran in to the building. We were soaked. Then we realized that we couldn't have made a better decision- the line to the tower was looooooooooooooooooong and there was no line to the museum!!! We passed all the people going to the tower, felt like VIP's not having to stand in line... We were there for about 2 hours, got dry while walking in the museum, and then left. It didn't rain anymore... The amount of people, especially Chinese tourists everywhere was amazing. They were everywhere. And it was really easy to spot who's from a city and who's from the smaller towns: first according to their clothes, second according to the taking pictures everywhere (even on the subway, and in a restaurant) and of course according to their loudness, to their saying hello to and having a conversation with the manikins in the museum (yes- even adults did that) and to the fact that they were generally astonished by the miracle called "the subway system". For example- when I went to uni a few days ago I saw one old woman standing in front of the machines that sell tickets to the subway. She was standing there for about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to work the thing. It has instructions both in Chinese and English by the way- it really couldn't be easier to use. When she finally decided what kind of a ticket she wants and clicked the right buttons on the screen (with the help of a kind man) - she took her coins and tried to put them in the bills entrance. she's probably never seen one of these things in her life I guess... Ha ha ha... Thats it for today, more stories about the aliens called "the Chinese people" next time.