Train!!!! chu chu!!

19-3-2011

Hey guys its Saturday!!! We gathered at the lobby at 9am and met with our language partners and mine came yay!!!together took a bus 643 and then a train to tang gu. Apparently train tickets in china are shaped something like casino chips.Also when u enter the platform u tap thechip like u do on a ezlink card weird eh? And when u alight  u drop the coin into the machine weird haha.

After breakfast we headed to the yang huo shi chang to explore . the place mainly sells weapons such as tasers, electrical baton, pocket knifes , butterfly knives and swords. There’s also many shop that sells fishing equipment and astronomy equipments such as telescope and binoculars I even saw night vision goggles hahah!!  But of course we wont be buying such items as it's not what we are looking for a half the items sold there is not allowed to be brought back to Singapore. Oh and the atmosphere around the place gives you the creeps as we are told the most road side stores are with the triads which are usually the people committing the crime. Which means when you pay for something and if the owner noticed u have money you may be a target of being targeted by the triad and to be robbed.

We came back to by train again at around 3pm and something that  I thought that will never happen in my life actually happened . Just as I was  about to board bus 643 I saw a hand on my peripheral vision was about to reach into my pocket I immediately smacked the hand away and board the bus immediately .yea guys I almost got picked pocketed and if im not wrong the lady was a gold haired lady and from what my friend says she might even be local as it is a Caucasian lady. Now I understand why Mr.chua and Mr.Tan always emphasis a lot on being alert of pickpockets.But my friend wasn't that fortunate as his wallet actually got picked and he lost his IC  but not that much money .

Well enough of the  unfortunate incident we actually went to KTV  at night  from 7-9pm with our language partners oh I can tell you it was so much FUN! We sang im guessing at least 40 songs haha!!! But one thing about the place is that its like a maze as its like a saware  insaide a square with many other square we almost got lost haha.

Reflection

Okay so today I learnt that we Singaporeans are actually too “pampered” by the government in Singapore as  the security is so good that we doubt we will ever be pick pocketed so when in other countries we are also laxed and did not really bother about security and after to days incident I  probably changed my mindset and  will be alert when im in a foreign country because  being alert for me today actually help me to not be pick pocketed. Also today I learnt that there are many type of people in the world and I kind off saw the dark side of many people  as we observed around us at the yang huo shi chang.

tea = 茶 :D

18 – 3 –2011

Today is Friday!!! And as I said yesterday today there’s something  cool going on. After this morning’s APPG lesson which is on chapter 5 we met  our language partners at 1.45pm and took a public bus to a place called a tea club where people go there to drink tea. At that place we was actually introduced to the tradition of tea making which is a very interesting knowledge as you guys know how good china is at making tea. We actually had the chance to try out tea brewing by ourselves which was very fun but of course some of us burned our had as the tea was too hot ahaha but its okay because everyone had fun :D  we also learnt that the clay tea pots  actually has the ability to absorb impurities from the tea that is why traditional tea pots are made of clay interesting fact eh? And also when the tea pot absorb impurities they actually change the texture of the cup and color which makes it smoother and even nicer. One important aspect of tea brewing is patience because to make a good cup of tea you have to 1^st clear the 1^st round of tea as it is used to wash the tea leafs and on the second turn then the tea is drinkable.

After the lesson on tea culture we actually  went to bin jiang lu again to shop since its free time, on our way there we actually met students from Singapore Poly which also came over for OIP program.Ahhhh what a small world haha we stopped and actually taked about china and how its living here and also interesting fact is that their teacher leading is also Mr. Chua.  We actually went to the food street to have dinner and we bought many sort of food and we actually came across a kebab store the waiter was a Indian national  his Chinese was perfect which surprised me as his not a local Indian  but from India. We had a few chats with him and we found out that his actually only 600 RMB per month but apparently when the amount is change to India money its like $25000 over at  India which is a lot. We actually asked why did he prefer to work here than Singapore  he said that it’s because  Singapore is more strict and pressurizing but in china its easy and slack.

Reflection

Today I actually learnt that although everytime we see on TV people brewing  Tea seemed so easy it's not as it requires a certain skill to pour and brew a good cup of tea and the art of tea  culture  the main key point is actually patience as u have to do everything in order.Also im sold by the fact that the Indian waiter could actually speak perfect Chinese although his not born in China which really surprised me as his grasp on Chinese is impeccable.One thing I observed today is that China are actually quite social among strangers as they can just be sitting next to each other and they can start a conversation and become almost instantaneously this sort of thing never happens to Singapore  because in Singapore even if your sitting beside a stranger you still would not talk to the person  but in china if u have a common topic  they  always talk to each other and get to know each other.

Time Flies OMG!!!!

17-3-2011

Today is Thursday and its already 11 day’s here and there one very important thing to say  the food here comes in BIG portions and we eat a lot! Gonna wonder how are we gonna survive when we get back to Singapore haha!!

So! Today we had another full day of APPG, Yea well I know u must be asking why is it everyday APPG well guys its kind of like the test is next week so yea it's kind of a rush HAHA. We today covered chapter 4  in class .

During dinner we had it with mr.Chua we ordered like 7 Dishes which in the end cost us around 120yuan  which is like Uh…. ?:D During dinner we actually talk with mr.chua about his life how he came to teach at ngee ann He actually gave us lots of insight into our course and what  choices we can actually choose when we graduate.

Reflection

Although today is another normal day packed  full of APPG tmrw  we are going for some intresting programs which I will be posting  well of course tomorrow!!! Today I pretty much cleared my doubts about  chapter 4 APPG and I gained valuable insight about the world of engineering.

Half-Day!!!

17 – 3 - 2011

Yay !! its Wednesday  and Best of all it's a half-day!!!...well apparently  its half-day for the whole university. This morning we had APPG same as normal where we learn about Chapter 3 and Mr.Chua lectured about not reading our tutorial question’s  and doing it blindly …Oops … I guess haha!! Okay we will improve on that definitely . Okay so as I said we ended at  12pm soo… Guess where we went haha of course! We went Shopping a Bin Jiang Dao again!!! Haha, Well apparently we can bargain there so that’s the reason we went  :P I got myself a Blazer which the store ownder tried to rip me off by selling it at 260yuan but lucky for me I got it at 150yuan in the end ahahah!!!!! I feel so aunty now  ;P by the way China’s Starbuck makes good coffee well personally I think it maybe better than Singapore’s although I think it’s because it so cold that whenever I drink the hot coffee and felt it going down my throat it felt so good. Bing Jiang Dao is actually a road something like orchard road just its longer and more shops to shop and since it's that long there actually trams that brings you from one end to the other which cost around 3 yuan but yes of course you can stop half way during the ride but on the same price. You should have seen the tram ride it was extremely dangerous in my opinion because we are actually driving in a sea of people as there’s no road in Bing Jian Dao street so the tram is always horning and dodging people which scares me as it is putting people around in danger but somehow no one was hurt im guessing probably the people are all used to it haha.

Oh! And when we were coming back from Bing Jiang Dao we took a cabs in groups  god! Getting a cab during  peak hours is near impossible as there’s so many queue cutters and so little available cab’s ,But  of course in the end we got one.

After Dinner we had rolecheck which just past like 1hour ago where everyone shared their thoughts and what they learn today.One hot topic that everyone today was talking about was how the people in china are trying to rip u off and how they bargain to get a better price.

Reflection….

Today I learnt to read my questions thoroughly because im one of the few students that do not  :F also I gained experience on  the skill of bargaining if that’s counted as one haha.Oh oh and tmrw is APPG quiz so wish me Luck!!!!AHAHAHA

Word of day is Chinese!!!

14-3-2011

Today is so cold again! Supposedly it’s because of  strong winds. Today we were supposed  to be in class by 8.30am and I woke up at 8.00am which I was nearly late but luckily the hotel was located near the school so I made it on time.

Morning was APPG where Mr.Chua  went through with us on lab 2b . Personally I feel  that the way he teach is very unique because he has the ability to captivate his student’s with his knowledge and not make the lesson boring.

After lunch, we have a Chinese lecture about Chinese language and were they are derive from. The lecturer started with saying  that in China they call Chinese 汉语 rather  than in Singapore we call Chinese 华文. He also told us that the oldest Chinese language is actually derived from pictures some even resemble simple pictures. For example the Chinese word 木 is actually derived from a picture of a tree. It is said that Chinese language has been around for  more than 5000years and the oldest record of Chinese language is actually found on turtle shells and cow shoulder bones.An interesting note in china they call dog as 犬 but in Singapore we call it  狗. The lecturer  also told us  how Tianjin city got its name Tianjin , In the olden times the king’s surname is Tian and when he want to travel on a boat he have to go to Tianjin from his capital Beijing that is why the city Tianjin is named after him. The lecturer also shared with us the difference between Chinese and English he says that English words are formed using alphabets so if you do not know the word you can pronounce it but you may not know the meaning but for Chinese u may not know how to  say the word but from the way it is written u are maybe able to guess the words meaning.

After a 10 minutes break , we had a Tianjin economist/ investment promoter  called Mr Tian Hui for a talk about Tianjin’s economy. He started on how china started the economy growth in the southern part of china and slowly expand up to the northern part. The reason why Tianjin’s growth is faster is because it is situated near shanghai . He said that Tianjin’s annual export is about 58.67 Billion, Fixed asset investments :335.27 billion and it is said that Tianjin is the most top that grosses the most in china. We are told that Tianjin has 4 main industries Aerospace , Hi-tech , Advance machinery and the Seaport. After he explained  about how this 4 main industries contribute, he shared with us  about the eco-city being built by Singapore .It’s design based on culture, innovation, energy saving and environmental protection. Also one of the three areas are National cartoon industrial Base , scientific park and digital media industrial park  The whole area is planned at around 30 sq km. He also shared with us that Tianjin Beijing Shanghai and Chongqing is directly under the central government while the other 30 provinces is governed by a governor under the central government.

Reflecting….(take mirror)….

Today I feel that I have learnt lots of things  that is very intresting that I have never known like how long have the Chinese language have been around. How do you actually derive the Chinese words meaning although u don’t know what’s the word. i feel that this knowledge is very meaningful and useful because Chinese is what our ancestors used to say and we Chinese is losing the ability to grasp Chinese like our ancestors used to. Also  from the lecture with the economist today made me realize that China is a very strong country and there’s many opportunity out there especially for us engineering students as  theres a very huge industry for people like us.okay this is it for today Thanks for reading!! XD

Exploration!!!

12 – 3 – 2011

Yay , it’s the 1^st weekend  we are spending in china . Today something interesting happened in the morning , someone in our group prank called us as a morning wakeup call …well its kinda hilarious because the person said “这里是幸福贵台，你有人在外面等你 “ . We were suppose to meet at the main lobby at  about 10.30am and when we all gathered the person that prank us was revealed and the most funny thing is that the person prank called Mr.Tan too by accident and the person when he/she heard Mr.Tan voice immediately ended the call. Haha the person that prank call got  pranked instead. Well enough of jokes as we know today is a Saturday which we are going to use the time to explore Tianjin as much as we can. Our 1^st stop is Tianjin’s foodstreet well judging from the street’s name of course we are going to eat there  :D We went to the bus stop near our hotel and found the bus that brings us the Tianjin food street , in the end we took bus 50 which brought us to the foodstreet. The 1^st dishes that we tried was beef noodle’s ,Cold Chinese noodle with vinegar and Cucumber like vegetables , Cold Chinese Horfun with vinegar and Cucumber like vegetables . We also tried beef buns which tastes great but it’s kinda salty. We visited a shop that sells different tea leafs , the lady owner was kind enough to share with us some art of drinking Chinese tea for example she said that the taste of your tea actually depends on the tea of your water when you first added into the tea as the taste varies at different temperature. Also one thing I observed is that the 1^st few cups of freshly brewed tea is always poured away, when asked why does she do that she explained that it is because the few cups of tea being poured away is not fully saturated with the taste of the tea leafs and it will not taste good. While walking around in the food street we  also found a uncle that uses melted sugar to make pictures with it , if im not wrong  the term for it is sugar art.The uncles drawing is perfectly precise which im surprised as his drawed the picture by pouring the sugar from a large spoon. We also bought and tried a kind  of Chinese candy called 龙嘘 I don't  know if I typed it correctly but in English it’s called dragon’s beard . it's a very intresting candy as different  flavors are wrapped in the dragon’s beard.

After eating and shopping  at the foodstreet for like about 3 hours we headed to one of Tianjin’s 古文化街 this is actually a place that sells  antiques items. We  choose to explore this area because it’s a place that  can contain many  things that are being used in ancient times and it can help us to understand more of china’s heritage. One of the 1^st places we went was a sort of mini museum/ store which sells jade , old Chinese wooden furniture. It’s really interesting  because the wooden furniture is hand crafted and  it is crafted in a very detailed way. Which  can tell us the crafter probably dedicated himself in creating such unique  art pieces. On the same building we also came pass a shop that sells antique clocks and radios that you probably cant possibly find them in Singapore anymore. Well of course we did some shopping there and while we were shopping and admiring some of the antique items ( though we cant afford it.) we came across a sketch artiest  drawing a portrait of anyone for the amount of 10 yuan which is roughly 2SGD . A few of us actually had our picture drawn and im one of the few that had our face drawn and on a scale of 1-10 I probably give that guy a 8 . We explored around古文化街 till around 4pm and went to have our dinner.

After a very filling dinner at Pizza Hut which we were so grateful there one in china because we are starting to missed the food in Singapore and this is probably one  the funniest thing I have heard in my life is that when we ordered 6 Pizza’s and when we wanted to order more the waiter actually told us that they have ran out of flour which is a very  funny thing because  if they were to run out flour what’s there to sell.

After dinner its already 7pm and we took a bus across the road came back to our hotel and surprisingly we came back in time for rolecheck and during the rolecheck  Mr.Tand and Chua told us that they went to Beijing today to explore around and they briefed us about safety as it is very important because apparently they  witnessed a theft where someone on their bus had his laptop stolen.

Reflecting…

I feel that today although we were asked to  go around exploring we ended up playing and eating but I felt that today was a very good start because although we played and eat a lot we  actually did learn thing’s through it for example we learnt  what sort of food Tianjin people eat their breakfast ,what are their traditional food and how to make a good cup of tea .while during the古文化街 exploration I realized that china  have many talented people  for example the  sketch artist and the candy art uncle that we met at the foodstreet. This actually taught me why china is improving at such a fast pace in my opinion it's because their country has lots of talents to bring the country forward. Also today’s trip at the古文化街 taught me that china actually valued their countries antique at a very high value  because it tells them how rich their history is to the world .

Chinese learning through movies !!

11-3-2011
Today we started the day with APPG pop QUIZ !!! i gotta admit i didnt really study for it .... sorry Mr.Chua!!! During lunch a group of us went to gary's room and we ordered macdonalds for lunch delivery is only 15mins only fast eh for a country that big . (this is where the fun starts for today) After lunch we had a lesson with a chinese lecturer he actually used a movie to teach us about chinese language and how some people in china are dedicated to their work. The movie shown is called  杜拉拉升取记 . The movie is about a girl whose looking for a work and got a job at a place called DB she started of as a  lowest ranking secetary  earning about 3000 rmb per month from what my lecturer tell us that it's low and u probably cant survive with that ammount  of earning in beijing . Eventhough her pay is low she did things even though it isint part of her work. We watched the show about half hour through it then the lecturer paused and discussed  with us about the  girl's attidude during work as a topic of our language lesson i can say truthfully this is the 1st time in my life  i have never slept in a chinese lesson becaused it is a very intresting lesson. After a 10min break we had another teacher his a master at Chinese paper cutting art he even brought 2 students learning underhim and one of them is hearing disabled. The student drew Mr Tan and Chua 's chinese name using name art which is drawing thier name using fish and birds.He also taught us how to cut paper art using simple methods that he developed which we have never thought of and im appalled that a person is able to cuz such beautiful art without the use of machinery just a pair of scissors and paper.
Today in my opinion is a very knowledgeable because during  the Chinese language lesson the teacher totally changed my mindset about how chinese is taught because the way he teach is very unique and hereally gets the students attention and gets what his trying to teach through to us to me i feel that it is no a very easy thing to do.I think i can adopt the teachers method of teaching to improve my chinese when im back in singapore for example i could watch a chinese show and brainstorm about it.Another thing i learnt from today is that how a hearing impaired china student is able to draw so well even though he has trouble communicating. Also the  Chinese paper cutting  teacher has taught me a very usefull skill which i can bring back to singapore as a skill i have learnt while in china because it is actually a  way to represent chinese culture in the form of art and this type of skill of paper cutting is very well design so that anyone can pick it up.This is also a very good way in keeping the chinese culture because by keeping the culture lively and entertaining they are able to keep the younger generation to be intrested in keeping the culture eventhough influenced by other cultures brought in by other countries.