FASHION & TRAVEL: Week 4 fashion shoots and Hanzi

Monday 22nd – Thursday 25rd September
I think the Chinese may actually be a bit racist, you have to get your big bags scanned before entering the metro and lots of Chinese are allowed to not do it just by opening their bag, mines been open a few times and I still have to do it, does a small blonde white girl really look like a terrorist?
My alarm didn’t go off as my phone died during the night, missing first class, oops! Missing my first dictation class test; which I’d studied for. Oh well, having another one tomorrow, expected to learn 2 chapters worth of characters. It’s way too much, along with having to study and do homework’s for the other side of the class. It is very intense. I’m only just two weeks in and I’m expected to know 80-100 characters. Crazy!
Rebeka had heard of a western supermarket so we took the metro to Longxi road. And heading onto HongMei road we found the oriental pearl supermarket (not as good as the others perhaps but very quiet and peaceful) lots of reasonably priced massage places and a great bar/restaurant area with a huge old fashioned train beside it, looks great. The whole area had a lot more Westerners than usual and the supermarket had lots of western foods (thought often expensive) I did find a knock off version of Fanta grape “Miranda” for 30p. Excellent!
Spent the rest of the night studying and doing homework’s (it’s very intense and I’m sure I will know 100 characters in total by the end of the week!) The weather got pretty bad and we had a mild typhoon warning to last into tomorrow. Meaning that it was quite wet and windy.
I had my first dictation class the next morning, writing the pinyin for initials and finals before doing some Chinese characters (Hanzi) it’s very hard as a small error or part of a character written wrongly completely ruins it, even the way you write pinyin; No capitals, no joint handwriting, the letter you write, eg. (A) has to have a “tail” etc.
A wet day in work I did more hand sewing onto the back of the dress. My throat began to feel quite dry so I went to the huge supermarket nearby getting the Miranda grape for 27p along with some halls!
Although gloomy looking on Wednesday, it was dry. I spent all of last night learning characters from chapter 5, finding it easier to recall them by making up silly stories to go with them (and completely writing them the incorrect way as you have to write left to right, up to down, but as long as it reads okay, that’s all I’m concerned about, once I know them better I can focus on writing them correctly.
I continued with the dress back at Peony rice, it takes a long time to delicately hand sew and to try and only sew the pieces onto the lace and not the silk layer underneath. Later I helped take photos of the models auditioning for the upcoming shoot all very skinny small chested and not much of a bum, some were very tall and only a couple were attractive.
More character learning when I returned, up to 100 characters I’d say, If not more! Purchased some grapes from the local fruit shop beside the campus, they’re delicious and only 5rmb. According to my Laoshi, shanghai grapes are the best in china (shanghai putong) she could be right! Enjoyed a run, it was really nice last night as the light drizzle rain was quite refreshing.

My hard work has been paying off as I’m doing better in my dictation, we're doing a practise test on Monday and marking it after before doing my first unit test on Tuesday. It’s in Chinese characters…awesome. NOT! HANZI HEN NAN!
Work today was very different. I went to the materials market on Dongmen road, shiliu cloth market (the taxi driver took me to the wrong one to begin with, south bund,). It was fantastic. So many cheap and lovely materials: silks, laces, cashmeres, etc. I shall spend a lot of money in there! Even got the material Gar wanted for even less than she expected, originally 38/35 I got it for 30, I didn’t even need to haggle, Perfection! I was wondering around in a daze. And to reflect my good mood it was really sunny outside! Nor did I have character revision or tomorrow!

Friday 26th-Sunday 28th September
Our last class of the day was spent playing a guessing game of items from the day before we were each blindfolded and the other team picked and item and we had to guess then name and the owner in Chinese. I got the object but not the owner.
I was off work today so after lunch went to the Chinese fashion students fashion show (some of the international students had been asked to model) it was very weird, and the outfits were verging on completely ridiculous, but some had some interesting prints. Afterwards went to the local train ticket office which is really close to the school to book my train tickets


Headed to the South Bund area, looking at a skate shop and chilling at the skate park, passing a very raw cement art building along with the cool climbing wall area (for free and looks awesome!) the area was along the water side, it was sunny, and further on they had kept the old railway tracks, let the grass grow a bit wild round it, turning it into a very picturesque spot.

Later on that night was the fresher’s party, held on the 4th floor of canteen 2. It was woeful! I bothered to look nice and actually put makeup on, only to find myself at a party I would have went to when I was 10, with sweets and juice, karaoke and awful party games such as balance a cookie on your forehead and try to eat it. And it stunk of body odour! Rebeka and I found a pool room (there was also a ping pong room and some random Chinese sports equipment in the hallway) we rented the balls for 10RMB for an hour and played
I went back to revise after the game (girls won!!) and after a couple hours went out for a run to find everyone drinking outside; I would have loved to have joined in!! Was in such the mood too, bored with the constant revision and the need for a release? However I had work the next morning at least I didn’t have work until 10.30.
 I was sent round nearby to find a white jumper, which I wasn’t able to, but the shop they sent me to had lots of great quality one off pieces between 100-400RMB so really nice coats for example!
I then began on a belt piece before going for some lunch. I sat at the local park and was reading to be rudely harassed and sat next to by a strange Chinese man who kept talking to me in a combination of English and Chinese, he leant way to close at one point like he wanted to kiss me, felt super uncomfortable. I kept trying to read and ignore him before saying I had to go, he had the cheek to ask for my number! I then had another errand to run, meeting a woman at Century Avenue to pick up some jewelery. Back at the studio I finished the belt, it looks well and my stitches were quite miniscule! The only downfall is I have to help tomorrow at the photoshoot. I’ve to be at the studio for 7.45! Eek!
So needless to say I was very tired the next morning! But what a morning, very hot and sunny! The mode was western, skinny but quite pretty. We went to a nearby park of the French concession area. We had to try and get it down as quickly and as inconspicuously as possible as apparently it’s illegal to do shoots in public places (yet I always see bridal photos getting done there!) our model had to get dressed behind a muslin sheet, and of course we got lots of attention as 3 of us were westerners. It was really strange at one area, a drunk strange Chinese man came over and started talking to Dave a friend of Gar’s from America who was taking some video shots, he had a random turtle and flung it into the river,

 he then lay on a rock in the river and sang occasionally while he sunbathed. He then drove his hand into the water and pulled out a fish. Very very odd! I was terrified of the poor turtle to be honest, had images of hi getting smashed onto the rocks! He was lucky! Poor Gar slipped on the rocks trying to fix the models dress and fell in getting her feet soaked!
My job was pretty easy, guard the stuff and getting the outfits ready and re-bagged when finished. We were done around 10 and headed back to the studio where I steamed some of the dresses before leaving; we also got a fun group photo. Exhausted I napped for 40 minutes when I returned to campus before Rebeka and I headed to Century Park. It’s very big with a lake, and we had to pay a student rate of 5 rmb in but it wasn’t that great (with a really lame kid’s fun fair) we did however dip our feet into the water and lie in the sun for nearly 40 minutes, very relaxing; A chilled out sunny day. Plus we found out there’s to be firework display shows are it on the 9/10/11th for the national holiday! Pretty cool