Finally, done…

I do push myself to write this series of blog posts. I am myself a little surprised to find I finally have gathered all these thoughts and experiences. That’s beyond my expectation when I first started it.

I intentionally put titles of each post with similar phrases. It will be difficult to continue doing so if this blog lasts longer than 3 months. But it works for this blog since I will not keep on this theme (or this blog) when I am no longer in Germany.

I basically only read blogs through RSS by Google reader, and I think that’s the most efficient way to keep up with information online. To some extent, how blog looks like makes more sense to the writer of the blog coz s/he may be the person who looks at the blog most times, at least for our blogs. I want to keep my blog as neat and tidy as possible. Somehow I still put quite some add-ons in the side bar like Visitor Map, Music Player, Hand Drawn Icons, which may not really that necessary, but to some extent make this blog not boring to death. Besides, I fancy those little technical tricks a lot.

I enjoy writing what’s on my mind and share it with others. I also enjoy reading blogs written by my classmates. It definitely a good chance to learn more about my fellow peers for I don’t really have  many chances to talk with them on those topics.

Blog can be powerful and influential. It is widespread in China and there are indeed a group of people became famous because of their blogs. It’s very interesting to find there’s a kind of social circle and communication network of the most influential blogs in China. They lead online public opinions.There are a lot to explore about blog. Anyway, I am glad this one is finally done. I hope I am not the only person who is satisfied with it.

Exams before and now ..plus some hindsights on current exam

School exams fail the office test. I read this article in the morning during the break of final presentation for business application. Those presentations and this article magically inspired me to think a lot.

It reminds me of my 15-year history of typical Chinese examinations. I am so glad I don’t need to fill any answer sheet by whatever stuffed into my mind within the tick-tock-tick-tock 2 or 3 hours this time in this course. To be honest, that’s what we did in China every single time. Chinese education, as what I’ve known, is famous for its highly test-oriented system. Everyone suffers, no exceptional. The article mentioned in the very beginning struck a responsive chord in my heart. I am also a little bit surprised to find such consensus in an article written by a British columnist.

More than one person once told me that what you’ve leant in school basically have little to do in your future working world. Or, in a better sounds expression, they are somewhat vastly different. Isn’t it frustrating that what you’ve taken so much effort to learn will not apply in your future career? It made me doubted a lot while I was studying more than 10 hours each day on reviewing what I would soon forgot afterwards. Yes, it’s always like the saying, no pay no gain. But things could be you pay what you reluctant to pay and gain what you absolutely don’t appreciate. High score is worthy appreciation, so is knowledge have been learnt. Somehow these two could be a bloody and devil combination, like poison from unsuccessful chemical reaction.

There’s a fundamental motivation for learning. It should relate to my life, to my plan, to my personal interest, to my concern, to my life goal, and so on. Throwing all the text books and exercises books away right after the exam is the last thing I want to happen in my studenthood. However, it did happen to me. One spectacular one was after National Higher Education Entrance Examination. It felt pretty high at that moment, but in the following years, whenever I thought of that, it’s anything but feeling good. It seems like those books were actually enemies of mine and final examination was the only reason to make us the alliance. After what we should do, we simply say good bye to those knowledge and books. It’s not “see you”, it’s “not see you anymore”. The truth is I have forgotten a large amount of what I studied my head off for, never used anymore.

I was taking notes during the presentation from other groups. It was a learning and introspecting process watching others doing presentation because I have also been doing my own group project. I have to say they were impressive. I’ve got quite some thoughts and I think this is one of the valuable parts I get from this course. I don’t know where I can put them, so I just write down them here.

Berlin is black and white

@ chocoravi, jannapi, ekaterina18, jxfxcruqxea , reva7:
I am so glad you guys like the previous post. Thanks for those interesting experience on tattoo you shared in the comments. Those really made me laugh. Hahah. Ok, I add one more, just one more. One of the classmates in my German languages course showed her tattoo on her foot. Actually she didn’t mean to tattoo a Chinese character. It just can be exactly interpreted in Chinese. She enthusiastically asked what it was in Chinese. Then we told her, what was tattooed on her foot, was “hand”.

Btw, I saw those nice comments and really want to make a return visit, but sadly none of you who left commets here link your so fabulous and exceptional and inviting blog to your user name. I did that, whenever I leave a comment somewhere in one of your blog, you can click my name and it will lead to my territory. I think it’s not only a good way to gain some traffic, more important, it’s a network for better communication. And it’s not complicated. (My Dashboards->Users->Your Profile-> Contact Info-> Website. )

I saw this super nice picture from a fashion blog I’ve been following for a while. When I looked at this photo, I thought, oh, so Berlin.

Why?

That’s a not too long story.

In winter time in Berlin, my Chinese friends and I want to buy coat and we surprisingly found that almost all the coats were in dark color. I mean, really dark. Then we went to another store, the same. After such astonishment, when we were walking on the street, it became so obvious that the dark style was not only on plastic models, it was for every real person!

Once we were taking macroeconomics and four of us were sitting together. We put our coat on the back of the chair as everyone did. When we back from lunch, as we stepped into the classroom, my friend laughed, “It’s so distinctive where we sit.” Then we looked up, among all the black, there was a row of jumping color: pink, light blue, Pink, light yellow. To be honest, those baby colors, for the first time, looked amusing. And yes, of course, this amusement was originally from China.

“Oh, no one wears pink in winter!” Someone heard the complaint for not able to buy colorful winter coat and said so. Apparently, he was surprising for such question. We were the same surprising, for such answer. In Chinese mind, cloth should be brighter in winter in order to supplement the colorless season. And black, to some extent, is the color belonging to more mature age. Oh, no, even my grandma would choose some color despite of black.

I don’t get it. I’ve been to some cities  in France, Spain, Italy, etc. It seems that Berlin is the least colorful one on wearing among all of them. I’d rather not compare China and Germany this time. I am afraid they are just not in the same color system. Berlin in winter is somehow black and white. (yeah, with the help of snow.)

That’s why I thought it’s so Berlin when I saw the photo.

And thank goodness, black & white forever can be as stylish as so.

fine

OK. it’s again on due date that I should post something, anything, but I ‘ve got nothing on my mind right now. Now, in the middle of night.

The post will come soon. Just let me take a sleep. I may gain some inspiration from it.

nite nite.

German language is diffucult, so is Chinese

(source: The Atlantic))

In my German language class, my teacher usually has to answer a lot of “why” and usually after explanation, on the contrary of being happy for knowing the answer, everyone is about to faint, and then our lovely teacher will comfort us by saying, “I know, I know, German is difficult. Even I think so. I am glad I don’t need to learn it,” with her I-am-sorry smile.

You know what, it is really really surprising to find that so many Germans claim how difficult German is. I’ve always thought language should not be an issue for native speaker. My German friend told me it’s fallibly when you use German language. Then there’s a next one told me German is hard, then the next one said so, and the next one.

It makes me to think, is Chinese really difficult? Because in my impression, I’ve never heard any Chinese complain about the difficulty of Chinese, not even when we are taking the bloody Language & Literature examination, not even when we get a really low score in the bloody Language & Literature examination.

Hollywood? No, Bollywood!

In my first month in Germany, one day my exchange buddy and I were talking about movies. She told me she was a huge fan of ?llywood movies. I thought it must be Hollywood, then I said, “Me too, I like Hollywood moves too. I watched quite a lot of them.”

“You do? You also like Bollywood?” My buddy was surprised and happy.

“Bollywood?”

“Bollywood. Have you ever watched any of it?”

“No…actually never.”

“Oh, no! I love them~~! I love S?????? K??? !!!”

Who’s that? I thought to myself. Never heard!

The other day, a German friend who live in the same dormitory building told me she “LOVE LOVE LOVE” S?????? K????. “Who?” I thought it must be the one I’ve heard. “Shahrukh Khan! OMG, you don’t know him?” OK, I was idiot again. Not wanting to be a fool third time, I went to google him. Here is the result.

…and, Shah Rukh Khan as popular as Pope: German media

Fine…I’ve got know idea how he’s so popular as Pope.  No offense. I just don’t see that. Maybe I should just watch one of his movies before saying all that. Will I become the next fan of him?

Anyway, it was stunning to find the Bollywood movies are widespread in Germany. (I don’t know how it likes in other European countries.) My neighbor is a fan of Bollywood movies. She tells those movies usually last for 3 hours. “There’s always a lot of dancing and singing, you know.” “Oh, yeah, I can imagine that. I just cannot imagine how it would be 3-hour dancing and singing.” “Ahahah, It’s relaxing to watch others dancing and singing.” My neighbor said.

I am sorry. I just have never watched any of the Bollywood movies. I knew “Bollywood”, B-o-l-l-y-w-o-o-d, that’s all. I thought I was, to some extent, a great fan of movies. Maybe I am not. I love movies like Lola rennt, Das Leben der Anderen, Der Himmel über Berlin, Good Bye Lenin! I also watched French movies, Italian movies, American movies, Japanese movies, Korean movies, Chinese movies, Singapore movies, etc. I thought nowadays, movies are made by people all around the world and shared by people all around the world. Thanks to the high-tech, any kind of moves are readily available in many countries and regions. Maybe it’s not. At least, Bollywood movies are not shared in China but meanwhile they are admired by so many people in Germany. I couldn’t help but wondering, HOW COME?

live to eat or eat to live?

My mom ask me,  homesick yet? No…I think, Berlin is SUPER! Somehow, yes, yes…I am, very, I do miss Spicy deep-fried chicken, mapo tofu, bon bon chicken, dan-dan noodles, hotpot…the list is endless. Berlin has everything except those food. There are dozens of Chinese restaurants in Berlin, and I bet some of the people love it. As for me, well, the best of them are just around the pass level.
Yes, I have always loved to talk about food, especially when I am hungry. Or, I am always hungry whenever I am talking about food. Basically, I consider myself a live-to-eat person. As a person who for most of the time has appetite for yummy food, eating in life is either in hell or in heaven. Luckily, I was born in one of the food paradise, if there is more than one, China.

all images are from: 相对美女私房菜 (this is a fabulous cooking blog, in Chineses…)

on internet? do this or do that

I am not sure if Germany is the same as US in internet activities. There may be some similarities I guess.

It was surprising for me to find that a lot of peers has no blog. In China, it’s VERY popular.

This graphic tell something, which I think is interesting.

To Be or Not To Be

Last Sunday, at this moment, I had been stuck in Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof for more than 2 hours and didn’t know if I could go back to Berlin or not.

I visited my friend in Saarbrücken and took a trip around. I needed to change train in Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof go back to Berlin. When I was waiting on the platform, suddenly everyone rushed away. I don’t know German well and it was too noisy to catch the English announcement so I just went with the flow. The flow went to the S-Bahn in the underground of the Hauptbahnhof. I felt totally lost at that moment for I didn’t know where I was heading to. I asked a man with a DB logo on his shirt and he told me I have to go back to the original platform. “What? There’s no train at all.” I became more confused. A girl approached to me and asked what my problem was. We were about to take the same train. She’s German and she didn’t know where to go either. Actually we should take the S-Bahn to another railway station in Frankfurt according to the announcement, but oddly, that S-Bahn changed the usual route and wouldn’t go to that direction. We went to the service desk immediately and found a long list of people queuing there. Then we went to the ticket office and were told they cannot solve this ticked problem for there’s no suitable solution so far. Then I went back to the unbelievably long queue in front of the service desk, exhausted and helpless.

photo by me

An old lady standing in front of me nicely talked with me. “Do you know why?” “Strike?” “No, no, not strike. It’s DEMONSTRATION. They blocked the whole railway. They are very nice people, I just don’t know what they want to express!” She, I, and all of the other thousands and hundreds of passengers like us were stuck in Hauptbahnhof, helplessly looking at the board. All of the trains are either delay for more than 1 hour or cancelled. After 2 hours of waiting, I was told that I could take ICE to Berlin. I was happy, and unhappily found that this train, unfortunately, is delayed too. Didn’t know from when, there was a hubbub of voices in the hall of the railway station. A group of people holding loudspeakers and flags and gongs and drums occupied Hauptbahnhof. They are Tamilen and showed quite some photos of the scene of war. A lot of children were also in the demonstration group. Of course they seemed don’t really know the meaning of this action and nervously holding the protesting plate looking at all the camera lens towards them. Protesters were sitting in the railway station from platform to the middle of the hall. At last, my train was changed to another platform and I successfully left that chaos and ended my more than 3 hours nightmare inFrankfurt Hauptbahnhof.

This was not the first time in Germany or Europe that public movements deeply affect my life. In the first 3 months in Berlin, we needed to have a new visa for longer stay. But large parts of the Berlin civil service are on strike, and it had already lasted for half a year. They didn’t make appointment for students. Then a group of us, without any choices, went to Alien Registration Authority at 4 o’clock in the middle of the night at the end of November, in order to get the limited chances to be dealt for people without appointments. I waited for 8 hours that day, and finally got my visa in the noon. It Sucks.

Another time, I took a trip from France to Italy, and there’s strike in French railway. We had to take another train the border in order to catch the train we needed to catch. And due to the strike, the train was late and we missed the following train we needed to catch…poor us.

Ok, I’ve got no intention to talk about human rights or politics or sort of things. I am glad that when all the strike or demonstration happened, most of the time, things were solved quickly. It may not be that efficiency in China. So gladly it’s almost impossible to be in such situation there.

German vs Chinese

As I always compare something from what I saw, felt, thought here in Germany and back in China, here is something interesting to complement my theme.

The following  groups of pictures, with a good sense of humour, are from  artist Yang Liu, who was born in 1976, since 1990 in Germany. In 2004 she established Yang Liu Design in Berlin.

It arouse my interest a lot. In fact, I agree with most of the pictures, at least on the Chinese side. However, things also change  nowadays, especially in the younger generation. To some extent, they are away from the old-fasioned typical Chinese custom and instead more westernized. But take the country on the whole, I think what those pictures are talking about is true.

There are a lot to discuss about each picture. Some of them remind me some interest contes once happened in my life.  I am also wondering, hey, Germans and anyone from western country, do you agree with it? any kind of opinion is welcome.

Opinion

Way of Life

Punctuality

Contacts

Anger

Queue when Waiting

Me

Sundays on the Road

Party

In the restaurant

Stomach Ache

Travelling

Handling of Problems

Three meals a day

Transportation

Elderly in day to day life

Shower timing

Moods and Weather

The Boss

What’s Trendy

The child

Things that are new

Perception of each other

[Resource:  mountainrunner.us/2008/01/differences_between_eastern_an.html]