173 dtg (intense life)

第两部分：激烈的生活
Part 2: Intense Life

你怎么会跟一位中国人交朋友？按照很多中国人的习惯，你和其他人的关系非有互相利益不可。 我在青岛认识很多人，但我很难区别谁是我认真的朋友，谁是“从我收到利益的人”。

How do you make friends with a Chinese person? According to the habits of lots of Chinese people, your relationships with other people must have some sort of mutual benefit. In Qingdao, I have met lots of people, but how do I distinguish between those who are real friends, and those who are "from me receive benefit" people?

关 于我在中国的生活，这件事是我最难习惯于的方面。 我刚刚来这儿的时候，我跟一个大学生在一起吃了晚饭。那时候，我们说英语。他告诉我，她需要经常练习她的英语，但大部分他认识的外国人不要跟他在一起花了 很 多时间说英语。我对他建议了可能那是因为他们来中国特别为了学汉语，但谁肯定知道？我付钱为晚饭以后，他说：“谢谢你跟我在一起吃了饭，虽然我恐怕你受到 了没有利益”。 肯定她是个老实人！这只是一个例子，但我想对你们表示，在中国这件事情很重要，而且弄我在熟悉人的时候想一想，“为什么他们想跟我在一起花时间？” 如果想不起来好的原因，跟他们一起花时间不太舒服。 相反的， 我不应该只用别人为了练习我的普通话，既然他们也需要送了利益。 怎么办呢？最简单的方法是这样：在认识别人，总是说汉语，但请他们跟我在一起吃饭 （按照中国习惯，意思是我付钱）。 你肯定听过：入乡随俗。

With regards to life in China, this has been the most difficult thing to get used to. A short time after I arrived here, I went out to dinner with a local university student. At the time , we were speaking English. She told me that she needed to practice her English often, but most of the foreigners she knew didn't want to spend lots of time talking to her in English. I suggested that it might be because they had come to China to learn Chinese, but then again who could really know? After I paid for dinner, she said: "Thank you for having dinner with me, although I am sorry that you received no benefit." She certainly was an honest person! This is just one example, but I just want to demonstrate that in China this is a really important thing. It also means that as I get to know people I think, "why does this person want to spend time with me?". If I can't easily think of a benefit for them, spending time with them can be uncomfortable. Conversely, I shouldn't just use the people I meet to practice my Chinese on, since they also need to receive some sort of benefit. What to do then？The simplest solution is this: Upon meeting a Chinese person, always speak Chinese, but invite them to eat a meal with me. (According to habit in China, if you invite someone to eat dinner with you, then you pay the bill). You know what they say: When in Rome, do like the Romans.

吃饭以后，怎么区别谁是朋友呢？在中国有一个俗话：“路遥知马力，日久见人心“。 意思是，得经过很长时间了解，考验才能知道是认真的朋友或者是“从你受到利益的人”。 多亏，　吃饭在一家中国的饭管挺便宜！

And after dinner, how to tell who is a friend? In China they have a saying: A long road knows the horse's power, a long time knows the person's heart. The meaning is, you have to spend a long time with someone to work out whether or not they are a true friend. Luckily, eating at a restaurant in China is quite cheap!

男 女朋友的关系呢？ 对我的经验来说，根本一样。 我来青岛的时候决定了，如果我和一位中国女还有交往，互相教语言不应该和女朋友的关系的基础。 互相学习语言肯定是个流益,但不如合适的性格。只有一个问题，我是个西方人，所以别人常常告诉我，“啊，你想找到一个女朋友没问题，我认识很多女孩儿想学 英语，给你介绍吧？“可见，我还是一个人吃包了，就一家 人不饿。但别担心，这件事情不是都差，就是说，我只需要小心，慢慢交朋友。四个月份以后，我肯定能说：波波 ， 李鹏和媛媛， 谢谢你们的认真的友谊。

Boyfriend / girlfriend relationships then? From my experience, basically the same. When I came to Qingdao I felt that mutual language study shouldn't be the basis of a boy / girl friend relationship. Mutual language study is definitely a benefit, but not as important as mutually suitable characters. There is just one problem: I am a westerner, so other people often tell me: "Ah ... you would like to find a girlfriend, no problem. I know a girl who wants to study English, let me give you an introduction!" Obviously, I am still single. But don't worry, this thing isn't all bad, by which I mean, I just have to be careful, and slowly make friends. After four months, I can say for sure: Bo-bo, Li-peng, Shonny and Yuan-yuan, thankyou for your sincere friendship.

183 dtg (Intense Study)

Disclaimer: This blog is a an English translation of my first attempt to diarize the experience of living in Qingdao in Chinese. For those people that can read simplified Chinese characters, you can find pictures of the original hand written versions here (page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4).

Note: For people used to reading English (i.e. all of you), this may appear quite boring, as I don't write very well in Chinese. It's just a time thing though, I still have 183 days to go after all.

***

Sorry for not writing for so long to let you know how the experience in Qingdao has been going. In one word though: Intense. Intense study, intense life, intense feelings.

Part One: Intense Study
For the past four months, I have spent on average 12 hours a day studying. In the mornings attending class from 8am to 12pm at Ocean University of China, then going straight home to continue studying in the afternoon. Originally, I used to go for lunch with my fellow students after class, but there were a few problems with this. The first is that the restaurants near my school use lots of MSG when preparing their food. Although this makes it taste better, I find that after eating I feel extremely tired. Obviously, going home and falling asleep for a couple of hours means that you can't study。

The second problem then? Not enough time. At the start of the university semester I joined the Ocean Univeristy of China B-Level Chinese class. Not only was the Chinese proficiency of all my fellow students much higher than mine, the content of the textbooks I for the most part couldn't understand. Just reading the most basic passages of text would take about an hour.

The last problem was my listening ability (or lack thereof). At the time I arrived in Qingdao, I had never spent time listening to normal Mandarin Chinese conversation before, with the exception of the few days at the business conferences I used to help organise for work, so my ability to listen and understand spoken Chinese was really bad. Let me give you an example. On my first trip to Qingdao, and old Chinese man asked me "Where are you from?" ("Ni shi nar de ren?"). That question I could answer no problem "I am from Australia" ("Wo shi Ao-da-li-ya ren"). But his next question "How old are you?" ("Ni shi duo da?") I didn't understand. "Duo Da" literally means how big, so I thought for a moment ... duo da ... ah, Australia is a very big country, so he must be trying to tell me that he knows Australia is one of the biggest countries in the world. "Yes! Big! Big! Very Big! Australia is very big!" (Dui! Da! Hen Da! Ao-da-li-ya hen da!) I excitedly replied "Australia is very big!". I swear this is a true story - at the time of coming here my listening ability really was that bad. Now, this was a big problem, because in my classes the teachers only speak Chinese, and I couldn't understand a single word of what they were saying. What to do then?

Chinese children's stories. Since my Chinese ability was like that of a child, I figured I should use the methods used to teach kids. I asked my private tutor, Cynthia, if she could read childrens stories to me, she said that would be no problem.

For the first couple of weeks this was really tiring, as I couldn't understand most of what Cynthia was saying. Luckily, she is very more patient than words can describe. Every time I asked her "please say it one more time, please say it one more time". Gradually, I learnt how to listen to spoken chinese.

This made me very happy, but there was still one problem. So long as it was my teachers speaking I could understand, but others people's voices I still had trouble with. I had to become accustomed to other people's accents and pronounciation. With this in mind, I contacted another Chinese friend of mine and told her my idea, she agreed to help me. After that, we met every day to spend an hour studying Chinese stories. I discovered that my favourite stories are called "cheng yu gu shi": these are simple stories that have a deep meaning. Normally, that meaning is expressed by way of four character phrases, for example "Shou Zhu Dai Tu" (don't be lazy and just rely on luck), "Zi Xiang Mao Dun" (to describe people who's actions contradict their words), "Ye Gong Hao Long" (a professed love of something you actually fear) etc. I was really enjoyed these stories, not only because they were very interesting, but also because they helped me to learn about Chinese culture.

So, my April routine became like this: In the morning attend class, and then go straight to meet my friend and study these stories together for an hour. After that, return home and study, either on my own or with Cynthia. Apart from an 30 minute afternoon nap, I was studying continuously until 6pm. Obviously, I couldn't be going for lunch together with my fellow students!

Except for running on Tuesday and Thursday nights, my routine was to eat dinner and then continue studying until midnight, and then go to bed. This routine continued until the middle of May. Around that time, I found the content of my classes at Ocean University was getting easier over time - I needed a new challenge. With this in mind, I signed up for the HSK - Han-yu Shui-ping Kao-shi (Chinese proficiency exam).

The HSK is the standard in China for testing foreign students knowledge of Chinese. They say if you want to use your Chinese ability when applying for a job they might ask you "What is your HSK score?", so it's very important. Also, the content of the exam is more difficult than the content of our classes at Ocean University, with lots of new words. At the time of registering, I figured that no matter what my score, the process of preparing would have a lot of benefit. Not only for the new words, but also teaching me how to understand more difficult passages of text.

On the 15th of May I began attending special HSK preparation classes at another Language School. From then until now, my routine has been the same as before, just that I now attend the HSK classes in the evening.

At the time of writing, I have just finished my exams at Ocean University of China, and only have tomorrow's Chinese Proficiency Exam to go. After the exam is finished I'll write the second and third parts - intense life and intense feelings.