got told that i have 2 speaking tests next thursday and friday and then comprehensive test on the tuesday - i thought it was the end of the month. next week is going to be horrid!! even thought i learnt the new words for the next speaking chapter we still remained on the one from the previous week on marriage! there was no need, there are not even grammar points! I don't know what her obsession is with marriage, especially when she is married!!!! I finally hid all the posts from my comprehensive teacher, although a good teacher, she posts either religious status' (shes a christian) orrr....ones where she is trying to sell stuff! so annoying! we are onto the new book with her, thats 11 chapters completed, whearas with my speaking teacher we have done only 7. the majority being about love or marriage!!! its annoying. i've wrote my own wedding invite (hugh jackman, bali, on the beach in july, you are welcome to come!) i've did "speed dating" where i try to sell myself to a man (im not allowed to work so im not wanted, they have this in china, in shanghai near peoples square there is a marriage market where usually male details are put on umbrellas by their parents trying to set them up, ive renamed them male markets haha) ive made good luck wedding papers, watched a pretend wedding and got wedding candy Xitang....etc etc so pointless and stupid!
in work being doing some really cute head pieces for children's bridal, to the point i'd actually wear them. and my triangle bag has been made into a prototype for children's, a yellow 'cheese slice' so cute, and i'd actually also use myself"!!! bad thunderstorm all day friday, bashed my knee in the morning and my interview was cancelled. then kat and i missed our train by minutes for wuhan, not sure if we went to the wrong line or what but we couldnt get another train so got the tickets refunded. didnt get home until 2 hours later. so annoyed!!! to top it off, while standing in the queue a woman stood on me (i was wearing flip flops) IN HER HEELS!! and she didnt even apologise. later went to relax at Space bar for shisha. dsiaster! ended up just going to work on the sunday, found out my pregnant co-worker isnt married, but she does have a bf of course. she's so soft and cute, she will be an adorable mother! was meant to do a photoshoot on the sunday but it got cancelled last min as im not tall enough! im not 170cm ffs! would have been a nice 600rmb for 3 hours too! went to mass in xujiahui on the sunday with kat, was soo nice seeing all the different nationalities and especially all the kids as they got together and gave in flowers! but of a muggy day without the sun so spent it revising. not fun! got my interview rescheduled for the tuesday and my chinese friend is back form America so meeting ehr for lunch tomorrow and now going to wuhan next weekend, rosie rescheduled Ktv for then, guess everything happens for a reason - im clearly meant to revise.
Monday 18th May - Friday 22nd
took the monday off work to revise, was very very tired too. didnt really help, although I thought i knew my grammar points, I really didnt and ended up with a low pass much to my dismay. the teacher gave us homework too the day we did they test, learn new words. however we all banded together and told her we wouldnt be doing any homeworks this week since we have 2 speaking tests. I got soooo nervous for them. and really messed up the reading and questions exercise, however I got the "party" picture for the descriptions and did quite well ending up with a decent speaking score though I reckoned my speaking level and in particular listening level was not the best. made a tasty coconut curry with Kat and met up with Linda who is back from America having studied there for a few months (my chinese friend from Donghua) she brought me a wee present, sooo cute!
FINALLY got one of my parcels, however, not the one with the protein powder which I really need. chinese post is so slow and they check all of it, still havent got my parcel from spain, even though it says on track it was delivered....well I havent got it! in work did another cute hair piece and went to some fabric markets for samples, definitely getting better at shopping in the fabric and accessory markets in chinese, but then again, i go ALOT. turns out that Fanny is pregnant (the seamstress for work, shes about 30 shes very cute and adores and treats the office dog like a princess) andddd she's not even married! scandal (well not so much now but still...) tried frozen durian, its actually quite nice, though a bit too cold if you eat it straight from the freezer, its quite cooling and not as smelly. tasty indeed!! randomly saw a man on his scooter with a pole, and hanging from the pole was a huge, living tortoise, WTF! you really see everything in china, including full suitcases attached to the back of a bicycle!
went out briefly on friday night to clare's (the french girl's) apartment. its soo nice, we got the bus down, it was quite close (and the stops were not only written in chinese but also english!) they place is huge, so many apartments in a small area, all high rising and identical, this site really made me start to consider just HOW big shanghai is (im terrified of thinking about the whole of china tbh!) its over 24million in total, with only 1/3 actually shanghaiese, crazy! the other percentage being mandarin chinese and also foreigner (or as they call us, waiguoren外国人) here appartment was on the top floor and had an upstairs with more bedrooms and a balcony, not to mention and nice open plan living room with tv. the balcony was big and relaxing was so fun to relax, chat and have a drink at someone's hme not just a bar or crappy dorm or outisde the dorm building. big kitchen and bathroom, it was personalised and they had double beds. i begrudgingly went back to my small menial shared dorm room.
Saturday 22nd May - Tuesday 2nd June WUHAN visit and shanghai life
got the train to Wuhan arriving around 2 and meeting Darius and Rosie before going to Wuhan University for the international fair where my other Surinamese friends had a stall with food and drink they had made. the chinese kept taking pictures of me and trying to get my contacts details. so annoying. but also so did some of the foreigners! two commented on my eyes, Rosie thinks it's because everyone else has brown eyes and mine are green/blue. there was dancing on stage and in amoungst the viewers. darius had brought some vodka so we had some with the surinamese homemade ginger beer which was really nice. there were a good few countries I had never heard of, and I was surprised to see the union jack on the fiji flag. we were dismayed that the italians were charging 10rmb for whiskey and coke (approx £1) as we're so used to getting free drinks here in china(just need the wechat of a promoter for one of the big clubs free in free drinks) I realised how bad i had become, at home, I would have leapt at this and bought 5 with such a bargain! looks like I shall be tee-total back home haha! there as a British stall and we got chatting to some of the British students which was nice, they all seeemed to be from London... we helped pack up around 5 (having listened to another rendition of the Pakistan national anthem which just seems to repeat "Pakistan" a lot) and carried it to the surinamese girls room at the university - she's called Mook. we chilled outside in the grass, drinking and eating some of the left over surinamese food and drink. she's only been here for just over one semester and her chinese is fantastic, her course is very intense, 8.30-4.30 everyday and she could have sat hsk4 in january! she aims for hsk5 by the end of the semester before she starts her degree. we got talking about laws and politics and social differences in our home countires as ireland was voting Yes or No on gay marriage that weekend and the Surinamese elections were also happening. (ireland voted yes in the end and a couple weeks later so did northern Ireland as it was the only part of the UK and Ireland that had it as stil illegal!) because suriname speaks so many languages she is fluent in english, dutch, surinamese and her family's orginal locality (its not Indonesian but its like tiki or something strange) and now she seems to be becoming fluent in chinese, impressive, i hope my children can become like this, i'd be happy to be fluent or at least excel in another. unfortunate us native english speakers tend to be quite lazy when it comes to there languages but perhaps that because theres no main 2nd language theres 3 - french, german or spanish to choose from and its not pushed so much. it was so strange to hear that her grandmother had married around 14 and that now that she has grown the family are not so touchy feeley, and Face is also very important. its so interesting to know about the similarities and differences between other countries!
we headed back after this, we werent able to go to the dance competition as we didnt have tickets (my surinamese friends Afsol and Rosies roomate Sarida were in it) we chilled when we were back before meeting the others and heading to KTV at 11. we had it until 6am and not getting the wine (thanks to fei and the huge price they offered to begin with as they only had large rooms left) we got a 13-20 person room with snacks and 2 drums of beer on tab for 250RMB in total! we even had a stand up mike (and free chicken feet and spicy duck tounge...) the beer was so much that one couldnt even be finished! we stayed until 5, i'd started to fall asleep (darius got a sneaky selfie with me!!) had an amazing time as always dancing and singing my heart out just like everyone else. always worth it!
the next day we went to the university beside Dda (hust) got delicious spaghetti in a very fancy restaurant were we had a small stream around us having climbed over the bridge to the tables, and could watch the fish swim around. rosie and I went exploring at the small mountain beside the university and she showed me what we suspect in communist hideout caves built into a side part of the hill/mountain. old and abandoned it was so odd and the rooms seemed to be inside a room with a gap the size of a person that went all around the room. I think it wold have been hidden if the walls havent started collapsing. sooo odd!!back at the campus we had a nap both exhausted and watched some clips of eurovision having went to a nice muslim resturant for dinner. everyone was chilling in her room eating and drinking more surinamese leftovers. was so good to just hang out, chill and laugh with everyone!
up early the next day had to change my ticket as my friends flight to shanghai got cancelled. we got a bit lost and so just seemed to walk around a lot but was good just chatting and we found some semi decent looking chinese muslims before i headed back home.
on friday a chinese guy had come up to me outside the dorm and asked for my wechat, I gave him it because i want to practise my chinese. big mistake. his friend recently got married to a white foreigner, he also wants a foreigner girlfriend as its 'bad to be alone in the big city, its good for the heart to have someone" his messaging has continued to grow in weirdness though i barely reply, he often tells me he wants me and then it escalated to, he thinks we should get married and i can give him a son and daughter...i just wanted to practise my chinese!!
chilled a bit back home before Malik finally arrived in shanghai. we both were in the British council TET programme in 2013 (teach english in thailand) we'd met up a couple times there and he was the only other person in the same province as me - ~Nakhn Sawan. we'd stayed in contact and he'd been bored of Birmingham and applied to teach in china getting accepted and working in Guangzhou. he has to change his visa hence the trip to shanghai. was SO good to see him. he hadn't changed much! was chilled and fun, we joked around got some food and had a beer. i didnt get to meet him till 11 so left round 1 but was worth it! hopefully be able to see him again soon (his next stop is suzhou 30 mins away via train for his visa)
back to class and back to work. making more designs for peony rice. have decided its time to start standing on my own tow feet so going to make my own label and sell some hair accessories when im back home, first step but its still a step, i wouldnt have down this before, china, especially shanghai moves so fast, you need to start moving fast with it to keep up, you seem to plan bigger things, take more risks and mature/grow faster (well some do,I hope i'm one of them) looking forward to getting them made thats for sure!
went out on the saturday with Kat to Hollywood, they played great music and had vodka! unfortunately it was the last night, apparently its getting taken over, was hilarious, there was 1 girl in full Japanese Kimono, who does that! the threw confetti from the ceiling, was an amazing experience looking up as it fell, dancing and listening to great music and realising that life has become good, i work hard and i study but i enjoy what i do, and the possibilities i have here.
was also pretty hilarious that the posh group of "model girls" looked grumpy and werent dancing or having fun and werent getting any attention whereas Kat and I were dancing, sweating, singing and loving life and kept trying to avoid men. it was funny, we befriended some hong kongese girls who were also in the same situation and any time a creepy guy came near us we did the swap places with your friend/bring them close approach. so funny! different people, different cultures but similar men aviodance technique haha.
tried to go to xujiahui cathedral on sunday with kat, it took a while to find as its on the side road not the road with the beautiful french catholic school which was established in 1850. it said on the sign that it was free in for christains and we were like, how the hell do you prove that? we got our tickets all the same however they wouldnt let me in as As my shoulders were bare - i covered them! abut also as my feet we exposed - my sexy feet eh ha!? they wouldnt let me in the grounds wearing flip flops wtf! so instead we went t the really nice park and chatted and relaxed before getting some of the tasty cheap noodles near the school.
had an interview in pudong for teaching drama its a VERY rich area fancy and designer cars - should get some decent pay, they are to contact me about a trial and il do fri-sun 4 hours (hoping 3-400) Gar and Pauline had both be complimenting my skills with material swatch finding and matching - getting a bit better i hope as i do it so often and everyone seems to be loving the hair accessories. got utterly drenched in a thunderstorm to the point were i had to strip off when i got it everything was sodden, however i didnt mind too much, the chinese laughed with me at my misfortune but i loved being on my bike in the warm rain listening to music, it was such a great natural feeling and reminded me of thailand. i'd risk it again but maybe with flip flops - drenched trainers and socks = trench foot.
tomorrow doing a group project for speaking were we teach the class part for the lesson - dang laoshi.当老师
Wednesday 3rd - Friday 12th June
our laoshi really liked the game joseph created, using the words from the vocab list, each student makes a sentence with a word creating an overall story! comprehensive test next friday - the grammar is confusing and difficult! then the week after a PPT on cooking a meal for speaking, again i believe some more pointless classes where we dont really learn. we all chipped in for the japanese guys birthday cake - it was delicious - cold cream. lots and lots or creamy goodness, asians do amazing cakes and sweets!. went for a run on the wednesday night and it was so cute, a little girl asked to run with me when i was doing my cool down - she was maybe only 4, so i joked with her and spoke a bit in chinese to her, she was so happy and her mother was all smiles behind us following - love doing simple things to brighten another's day! was a hot 31* on the thursday, met a chinese teacher who has a major in japanese who led me to the japanese flat in the japanese area for my first teaching lesson. VERY nice rich place. so jealous. wish i lived here! i thought i would be teaching a 4 year old, instead i had 5 japanese kids - 4 aged 3 and one aged 4. they were babies basically their mothers were with them and the girl sometimes translated. i did some numbers with them and a clapping game but they soon lost attention. practiced lots of chinese with the other teacher which was good. however - the students liked me (novelty of a foreigner i guess) and so i will be teaching them once a week - for a hour - will be hard work trying to keep them paying attention for the whole time - at 3 i wasnt even learning my own language!
however i did learn 3 new japanese words -
saranara (goodbye) konitchiwa (hello) aragato (thank you)
some of the kids are super cute. had lunch with rebeka, erica and the mexican girl, Jermina in their room. avocado smoothie seems to be the super popular health food at the moment
the comprehensvie test was quite hard - i probably did badly again but we shall see. today was an even hotter 34*! and very sunny. got bad news from rosie - she didnt get her scholarship, however she should be on the waiting list - i'm definitely not getting in then (shit) however she may now come and study with me for a semester which would be something.
turns out the chinese guy who messages me and tells me he wants to marry me and have ids with me, calls me baby/honey/darling and that he wants/misses me - he actually thinks we are dating because when he said it before and i blanked him, along with ignoring everything romantically inclined and being flat in my response - yeah he believes we are a couple though i have never met him bar those 5 minutes outside my dorm when he first added me - crazy! does that mean i need to break up with him? if so - that means i have to acknowledge we were together! its retarded, like any other person would realise im not interested that way by not being romantic etc back - hes 25 and all we have done is talk on wechat and i have always made an excuse not to meet him! he wanted me to met his dad that is visiting- oh china and my white girl problems....crazy!
took my first lessson with the chiese guy Kobo doing some basics, he got me a notebook, pen and some flavoured water the dote! usuing chinese and english and breaking down hard words into phonics he did seem to start to understand and say things better, i think this will be quite rewarding! i hope anyway.
Saturday 13th - Friday 19th June
got the weekend off work which is nice. chilled a bt and studied in the park, also gathered information and cards from shanghai Mart and contacted them about creating a label. need a name, design/logo, patone colours, size, type of label, unfortunately can only get them made in bulk! but would last me a life time so needs to be perfect. went to "james bar" with kat, they had really good shisha and hold random push up competitions on saturday nights. on sunday went to the old french xujuhui church, they are so strict, i took off my jacket as it was way to warm and i was feeling queasy and got made to put it on again. it was more formal, and long, it directly said on it that if you were not a catholic you couldnt take mass, bit strict! and the chinese priest rabbited on so much in a really dull strange accent that i found myself not really paying much attention. wouldnt go again but would like to go around the area.
applied to more teaching places and spent the week going to several different interviews to line myself up with work for next semester. got my results back for chinese. over 80%, we all got "presents" a fan. and did the food presentation getting to try a whole range of foods from sudan, german & lithuanian desserts, africa, french crepes and korean styled veg. although she said mine ws very quick and i dont think i did so wel, she gave me 90 and we all got little presents - i choose a superman notebook.
on friday in class we watched a movie called "mimi" secret 秘密. all in chinese. i went on to explain it to my mum and told her to watch it before realising she couldnt as it was all in chinese, feeling impressed with myself. the story is about a new male student who starts high school in an art school, a huge piano fan, he starts to fall for a girl, however she has a secret, we think she is ill, perhaps dying, its odd that we never are allowed to see her personal life or her family. theres a slight love triangle, 2 odd best mates and a sly but amusing teacher. a great plot twist and of course some bits that make you say, seriously?! we were all just happy that it wasnt a korean style movie, not incest haha! i later wrote up a summary for homework.
Saturday 20th June - Friday 3rd July
The dragon boatrace holiday weekend (long chuan bisai jiemu) 龙船比赛节目
apparently its in remembrance of a poet who drowned himself because the emperor didnt trust him, the people loved him and didnt want the "dragon water creatures" to eat his body so they made zongzi, 粽子(slightly sweetened sticky rice triangle wrapped in leaves) and threw hundreds in the river to fed the dragon so he wouldnt eat the body (some of these stories are so odd!) there was a poor dragon festival at the school. but did get a free bracelet and decoration, long with some chinese foods to try including zongzi (not really amazing to be honest)
off for the weekend so started my studies, the joys. but if i want to do well i should prepare. was a bit sunny so took bike out and discovered a mausoleum place, some gravestones etc in a park like area for some famous local chinese and the "lin" 林 family. there was a huge dove coup and only a few people, i sat and chilled on the grass and did some sewing which was very relaxing, there was lots of tree shaded areas and it was nice as it sort of reminded me of something you might see at home (the trees that it not the graveyard park, thats not a european thing) been watching Dexter while i study and sew, im hooked at was so at edge for the last few episodes of season 2 I actually had to look up what was going to happen!! i've never dome that! crazy haha! that night Kat and I met up with Parham and went to Mint for a very messy one! waking up the next day at 2 pm and doing nothing except going out for a huge 12" pizza that night haha
was able to sort out my visa this week and send it off via the police station, only going to cost 400rmb to extend (had to pay for my school fees but could get a refund if i get the scholarship) and able to pick it up after 10 days, no fannying about in HK or in a rush at home, no need to chnge the visa type and no need for a health check - 2 birds 1 stone! my back pack arrived, 66rmb and f'in huge. loving it! though my legs dont bend in a certain way or i would in fact fit in it haha!
pauline my boss at Peony rice, has just signed a contract with american company alfred angelo and offered me to apply - i have a 3 part project to do, trends forecasting, chinese bridal market research and 3 designs and embellishments each for AW15 and SS16 to send to her on the 11. EXCITING. i think i would have an actual job as she made a post about it that day too! eeekk! lets hope i can pull it off.
finished my last week of school with some final classes, though speaking as pointless and hardly anyone was coming to class. our class got best in year for results etc!! so we got a cert for the class some photos and a fan each, how cute!
last day in MRKT i was sitting in on a product development meeting which was interesting all in chinese but was understanding a decent bit i think, also helped that i could obviously see the products and were discussing were to go with them. got to keep my pandora bag and cheese bag and was also given 700rmb for the store to use by the end of july. niiice!
our last day of class was a trip to the natural history museum, recently done up. huge! we waited int he queue int eh sun for 2 hours, with over 1200+ entering before us, student was 12 rmb. some of it was interesting, the moving dinosaurs when i first saw it made my leap! however birds feathers were in poor nick and the lion looked like it had down syndrome or was retarded with the eyes super fake - having spent so much to do it up would u not have fixed the eyes?!?! was near sick after one exhibition as it was animals cut in 2 to show the muscles and insides wtc, I SAW BRIAN!!! I NEAR VOMITED EVERYWHERE wtf give some warnings!! CANNOT BE UNSEEN! by the time that we got to the 2nd basement floor for the african exhibition which was the only decent stuffed animals i was all animal viewing out, we were all done by an hour having entered, and we werent waiting around to meet the teachers etc for another 2 hours, tired from all the standing, kat, mirijam and I headed home and had a well deserved sit! least we practiced chinese in the car with the teacher (myself, mirijam and her are all in love with chris pratt the guy from guardians fo the galaxy and jurassic world yum!) and some of the chinese in the line, as instead of lining p u can by some tickets of sellers - however we kept saying shit like queuing is our hobby blabla - when we had finished and we were offered again i laughed and said, really? for that? u should give me money haha!
Saturday 4th JULY - Thurday 9th July
pauline was back in work for my last day on Saturday having arrived with uk goodies like crisps and tea!! We went to their friends new restaurant opening taster day, called Gracie's near shaanxi South road and ice cream Italian restart a all hand made. They do fab coffee., salad, pasta and ofc icecream I got a huge banana split and finished slowly within the hour along with trying a bit of salad. Omg pie! But delicious in everyway. Would only like to have the option for other flavours since I'm not a huge chocolate icecream fan, they all do fabulous looking pancakes. And the place itself made me feel like I was back home in the UK, was perfect and got chatting to loads of their designer friends etc, but of networking is always good! Gave them a thank you card, did some more replicas of the hair pieces i designed and made that pauline took to the UK. We didn't have a proper goodbye as I will be back and if I am lucky maybe get that position for Alfred angelo, pauline offered me extra time but with reb coming and the travelling it needs to be compete this weekend. Lovely final day.
Spent the rest of my time studying. Speaking test went well got the topic of travel and the listening part was different, listen to a recording and answer question! Again on travel so ended up scoring 91 an overall 90 for the semester. I sort of gave up with the comprehensive, should have study it more before but what can I do, was hard as per usual, the written part was life in china. Got an overall 77 for the semester. Not too shabby, better than last time I guess.
Went and picked up my visa, cycling a good bit via yan'an road right down to east Nanjing road. Say a huge really odd bug just walking along, gross!!! Went out to a vegetarian restaurant for Kay's 19th was sooo nice, we had some fake meat dishes like sweet and sour ribs, without bone obviously but super nice! Oddly when the others got dessert, brownie, it was a bit salty and came with a tomato on top and 2 small pieces of pepper at the side, so odd! Portions were small, had some Thai curry, fruit salad ( though it was meant to be avocado...) sweet and sour ribs, spicy pork, mushrooms and chinese cabbage and rice. But was nice to try all the different dishes, the alcohol was non alcoholic, a healthy living restaurant called "happy cow" on Gubei road, we had our own private room area and after a group of chinese men left we had the place to ourselves. The other went to perry's I went home to sketch, which i continued to do most of Wednesday before meeting rosie after 6, checking her in and heading to Perry's, rebeka, Mike and jermina.
tHe Russian guy from my class who has never spoke to me came over and started chatting to me?! He invited us to his table of friends and then later to KTV which we all took his offer on. Me, jermina, rosie and rebeka rode on her scooter to KTV like idiots - chinese family style haha! We went with one of the guys to get drink crossing over through a bush but the impolite bastard didn't even give us a hand! When did the edge of chivalry die eh? Well more vodka was consumed, I danced thinking I was shakera, talked none sense and thought I was eminem. I'm an embarrassment. The Russian from my class got super creepy and touchy and followed me to the bathroom and waited outside my door, the ayi ?? yelled at him to get the frig out. Weirddddd!!! We left around 6 failing to sneak rosie in haha. We randomly bumped into our friend Afsol's (who also studies in Rosie's uni in wuhan) near my uni, so random! Turns out its a small world after all. Died a slow death and didn't do much for hours. Rosie came round, pied out, napped and then went to K11 chilling on some bean bags and checking out the Vivienne Westwood store before getting a huge travel bag with my MRKT vouchers (700¥) only paying ¥19.
