The life and times of Leginag » China

A Nation Grieving.

Leginag — Mon, 19 May 2008 10:32:04 +0000

Today was the single most moving experience of my life.

At 14:28 today, China stopped in its tracks to remember and mourn its dead. This national 3-minute remembrance silence was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Akin to the Last Post played on Remembrance Day in Australia, a cacophony of sirens, whistles, car horns echoed across Beijing, as millions of people stood and reflected upon the national tragedy that has affected the lives and thoughts of billions around the world. Intermingled with this nation-wide remembrance, were the heart-wrenching sobs of those who have lost loved ones and the pervasive feeling of anguish. This is a nation grieving.

One week ago, at the exact same time, I thought a big truck was rumbling past, and thought nothing more of it. Some of the girls in my class asked if the rest of us had felt an earthquake, as they had felt the ground move. Unsure, we left class and found to our horror that a magnitude 7.9 earthquake had hit the China in the Sichuan Province. One week later, the official toll is over 32 000 dead, with thousands more still missing, hundreds of thousands injured, and millions affected by the earthquake, having lost friends, family, homes, livelihoods and their sense of security.

Being currently on exchange to Beijing, China, is an experience on its own, but being here while a natural disaster unfurls across the nation is something that cannot be expressed by mere words. The thoughts of a nation, and indeed of many across the world, are with those who have been affected by the earthquake, and with those who are bravely risking their lives and taking an active part to help rescue, assist and comfort those in sichuan.

Words cannot express the atmosphere that is here now. It is so full of emotion and feeling that …

As my friend Xueling said in her blog, and whose family was also affected by the earthquake:

“What can I say to relieve the pain of losing so many lives?”

Too close for comfort

Leginag — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 03:44:27 +0000

China has been simply awesome. I’m really enjoying myself, made some really great friends here. Classes aren’t easy, but I understand generally what they’re saying. hehe. The food is as oily as ever, which isn’t a surprise, so i’m not exactly eating healthily here. Ah well >.<
My Korean room mate is from London University, studying Chinese, which is interesting in itself. He’s a great guy, really nice, really Korean. haha. The oneee thing that reallly annoys me is that when we’re studying, he insists that the room light be off. So we have to study by the dingy lamp light. Which does suck. Really. Lots. Oh, and add the fact that the bathroom leaks, as whoever made the bathroom forgot that the floor needs to be inclined towards the drain, and not straight flat. Baka.

Add to the matter, reception has asked me TWICE if I want a single room. I turned them down the first time, but then they asked again, so I went to see the room, and it’s really nice. It’s small, but you get privacy, and can do whatever you want with the lights. So i’ll be moving into the single room later today. After class. What a hash. lol. Second time i’ve moved, but I think it’ll be worth it.

Anyway, it’s off to class I go.

Brain Power

Leginag — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 05:01:54 +0000

Arghhhhhzzzzzzzzz…school

has started. It’s five days a week, two classes a day. I guess I should be thankful. It could be a lot worse. At least this way I have half a day of classes, then the other half to sleep. I have seriously been coming back to my room and having a nap for a few hours. I have been sleeping so much, it’s not funny. Or maybe it is.

Class has been an overload of information to process, hope that I can keep up with it all. I’m going to go take a nap now..*snore*

Sliding Doors

Leginag — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 02:52:48 +0000

So I started out at BNU in “Xinsong Apartments”, which SOUNDS like it would be good, right? Well, it was the equivalent of dorm 12 at BLCU, which is to say, liveable, but not that great. I happeed to be meeting a friend in Dormitory 2, and asked them if they had a spare room, and to my utter amazement, they did! So I went straight up to see it, and was like…this dorm owns!! Went back downstairs and took it. Which means I now have a Korean roommate, in a much nicer dorm. Yay!!

After that life changing event, lol, I met up with Jimmy, who is one of the few Aussies on campus. I actually know him from Sydney, we worked together for all of like two weeks before I went to Europe last time. Anyways, we went to a Russian restaurant and had steak with a bunch of his Korean and Jap friends. I am quite disappointed that it was only a few days into the trip and I had already eaten western food in china. There wasn’t a craving build-up, a bit of a let-down I have to admit. But ah well, what can you do haha

School starts soon, so should be interesting

Death Note

Leginag — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 07:17:20 +0000

Day Two: I was handed my very own death note, parchment texture, yet dyed orange. Unfortunately it had my name written down along with the date and time of the unfortunate circumstances.1500: Chinese Placement Exam. I had been given 20 minutes more of life, when I had been told that the exam was on Friday, leaving me an evening to cram. But 1500 arrived, I was seated in a room akin to an oven and it was with dread that I watched the examiner’s walk in. What followed was something I had never before experienced…
It was a 100 question multiple choice exam. It was singularly the hardest exam I have ever done/attempted. It was all in characters. It might as well have been written in Latin, as I would probably have understood the same amount. The first few people to leave were all white, not just from shock, but westerners =p I then walked out of the examination, the first exam I have ever walked out of before time was up (I’m not actually sure how long we had allocated to do the placement exam) but 45 minutes of staring at that paper was just too intense for me. Leaving behind a room full of Koreans, a couple of Japanese and a scattering of westerners, I walked to part two of my death sentence. However, the oral exam wasn’t too hard, but only served to highlight just how much I had forgotten.

Banks here are insane. The queues are like…2-3 hours long. Like..in the heat and everything. Why don’t they put better air-conditioners in the bank. I mean, they’re a bank!! They have money!!! I came into the bank, got ticket number 468. They were serving customer 278. I was like jaw drop So I stand there, and stand there, and then the guard comes up to me and slips me a ticket for 349. And I’m like…OMG..you ROCK!! Except I didn’t say that, I wasn’t quite sure what was happening and if he would get in trouble. So I cashed my travellers cheques
I then went back today, Day 3, to get money out for my accommodation. My ticket was 350, and they were serving 199, damn you’d think eh? But noooo the guard came up to me again and gave me 244. Like…awesome!!! Except for the part where the bank was unable to put through a visa cash advance. For some unknown reason. So I go to their ATM which has a limit of 5000rmb/day, but it’s not on the maestro-cirrus network. Great. I go to another bank, their ATM rejects both of my cards saying it is too busy to service me. WTF? I go to a random ATM in the middle of the street, it only has 2000rmb limit. Which sucks cos I need 10k to pay for accomd. And now the banks are closed till Monday. Ok. Time to stop ranting.

Once the teething problems get sorted, and even now, I am enjoying myself. Went to the shitang(canteen) today and had a meal for 3.5RMB, which is like 50 cents. Comparable to the $8 chinese meals in the food courts in Sydney. Good eh? Lots of Indonesians here actually. There’s like a massive tour group of them. Settling in nicely, the ppl here are nice, smiling and saying hello =) There’s an American living across from me, and some Germans nearby, and of course the requisite multitude of Koreans (and some Japanese.)

I haven’t taken any photos yet either. I might have to end up using some photo site to upload the photos as the internet here is so restricted I can’t access anything more advanced than a normal website. So goodbye ftp’s and shell access and the backend to my websites. It’s like cutting off my virtual arm and leg. How will I survive? Find out in my next random rant, which I will endeavour to be less of a rant and more of an interesting monologue=p

Checkpoint

Leginag — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 12:48:07 +0000

For those of you wondering, I have arrived safe and sound in China.

The flight over from HK wasn’t too bad, and getting to the uni wasn’t hard. Kinda funny was the “taxi supervisor” who said that it would cost me 300kuai to get to the Uni. I was like..gooooooo awayyyyyyyy from me. Got into a normal cab, and it was only 90kuai. Yay for not getting ripped off. =)

I’ve got an Indonesian roommate, who’s rather nice. The room itself kinda reminds me of dorm12. Ah well. I’ll see whats around later =)

But I am sooo tired. It’s time for me to sleep methinks, even though it is only 9pm.

Portal Step

Leginag — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 00:02:46 +0000

The joys of free wireless are numerous, especially when you have three hours to kill at the airport. I will, in my defence, point out that it is currently 6am HK time. The hum of vaccuum cleaners and the buzz of the kid’s channel on tv provide a background symphony to my laptop musings. Also, for those glaring at me for being on the computer and not shopping, all the hundreds of shops in the international terminal are….CLOSED. So I cannot peruse the wonderful goods on display, which of COURSE I would normally.

The trip to the airport was amazing. It took about 35minutes from home to the airport, NO traffic, which is a record I think. We saw the camera crews doing their reports prior to Bush’s arrival. My flight was the last flight out of Sydney Airport, taking off at 10:07, a mere 12 minutes before Bush landed in his prestigious Air Force One. My seat, while not that bad, was in the cattle hold, and so it cannot be described as comfortable at all. I watched Monsters Inc., and it was as hilarious as ever. Boo is sooo adorable, and after seeing the Pixar Animnation exhibition in Melbourne, I picked up a few things that I didn’t notice before. I then attempted to sleep, an attempt which essentially miserably failed. No surprise there. I think anything would have trouble sleeping if they were crammed into a sardine can. Probably even sardines themselves. The ’supper’ they provided was nice, Chicken with carrots and potatoes, along with a prawn salad and some kind of cake. Yes, I shall work on my food criticing skills. =p The water was cold. hahaha

It’s currently 25 degrees at 6am in Hong Kong. I don’t want to know what temperature it will be at midday, but by then I should be in Beijing =) I shall go now and stare at the cloudy visage that is HK atm. Beijing, here I come!!!