Ni hao nimen. Wo hui lai gen yi ge 'update'

Ni hao all. Here is another collection of events/activities that i have engaged in since my last post.

Since then i have had, among other things, a try in learning to play chinese chess. It actually is quite different from our chess. And as the pieces all have the same shape and are only distinguishable by the chinese characters written on them, it took me a while to figure it out. While playing the game i asked a chinese guy (boafeng) if he plays the game a lot? reply: no, only people that have a lot of time play it. A silence drops and he adds: government officials for example, they have loads of time. It probably exemplifies the chinese society :d So if i ever wanne get a job in china i know where to look now :D

So what about the progress in my chinese speaking, reading and writing ability i hear you thinking. Good question. I have to admit it stays very very difficult and somewhat frustrating as the pace is verh high. To give you an idea: by now we have roughly studied 500 pages of Chinese (adding the reading, writing, and speaking lessons together). Seems maybe not that much but i can tell you; It is! Or maybe my brain processing capability is not high enough. Guess i need to extent my RAM memory.
Koreans in class believe my chinese has well improved. And given the fact they are definitly the best students i feel a bit proud by that.
To achieve this result i had to come up with inventive approaches to tackle this awkward language and win the battle of memorisation. So idea no. 1: build flash cards. By now i have made over 600 cards with the chinese character on one side, the pinyin (way to write the pronunciation) on the other side and the english signification on the inside. Yes the inside. My flashcards are indeed very advanced :d
Idea no. 2: Post-its are everywhere in my room. Am not quite sure though if this has had any exponential influence on my learning curve cause i have gotten quite good in ignoring them!

I also attended my first Chinese birthday party. After singing the 'Zhu ni shengri kuaile' (happy birthday to you) on, surprisingly, the same melody as the happy birtday to you song we sing in Europe, the party could start. There was lots of cake, many dumplings, and a lot of beer. Quite nice. Here i also met a cool chinese guy called Jeff who now always joins me and sven on our swimming 'expeditions'.

Some weekends ago me and Ryan engaged on a weekend trip to Beijing. To find out the true spirit of the chinese traveller we decided to travel with the cheapest train tickets available. These so called hard seaters are in fact not too bad. Its only a bit hard for your back. And you just dont get that much sleep on the 12h night train trip.
In Beijing we went to some of the big cheap markets where we practised our chinese bargaining skills. And i think by now we both can say that of all chinese things we can say bargaining is our speciality. Very nice. At some place i even tried to buy some wooden shoes (clogs) :d It took a while before she realised we were just kidding.
The best thing about beijing was definitely the relaxed atmosphere. We rented some bicycles and toured all around beijing. Cruising on our beijing bikes! We saw the new olympic stadium that is build in the shape of a birds nest. Impressive.
One nite we went out 'french' style meaning we bought 3 bottles of cheap wine and walked around the party district checking out the vibe. good times.
The last nite we met up with a girl i know from Singapore (Leslie from France) and did some beers.

A funny thing in china is how they try to translate certain texsts into or say something in english. The other day we had a wine which stated the following: Claret is the liquor for boys, port for men, but he who aspires to be a hero must drink wine. :d Just that you know!
Another wine: Wine is a friend. Wine is a joy. Like sunshine, wine is birthright of all.
Or: Continuously drinking this wine is good for your health
From a marketing perspective they are actually not too bad at all :D

As a foreigner, after a while you become quite good in ignoring people here. Its for your own best. Otherwise you keep on practising chinese people's english, get sold lots of shit you dont even need or you just pay too much.
Just by selectively ignoring chinese people and their rules you can get a way with it; walk inside a park without paying only results in some chinese screaming from the gate but no counterattack in any physical way. So another 1Yuan saved :d

By now another dutch person has arrived. I say another but he could as well be only the second dutch person ever in this remote part of china. This doubles the dutch supporting crew for next weekends World Cup speedskating. We are planning to make a big flag/banner-kind-of-thing so you might be able to spot us on television!

Some random stuff in china:
- You cannot enter supermarkets with a backpack
- someone has to stamp your receit after you have payed in a supermarket. Guess just a way of employing another chinese person
- donkeys that pull wagons walk in the middle of 4 lane traffic roads.
- French toilets next to one another without any covers between them. Imagine this: you are peeing and next to you a chinese guy is shitting in the oh so comfortable squatting position. All in the name of cosiness i guess :D
- People pee in the pool's public showers

Thats it for now my fellow world inhabitants. I hope it pleased you a bit and made you all a better and wiser person :D
Zaijian, Wo xihuan nimen dou danshi xie ge ren bijiao hao! (that could even be correct)
Ma-ke.