According to Intermediate Chinese (our book from last year) the phrase long time no see is a direct translation from the Chinese phrase.

Anywho, it's been a while since I've blogged, let's review what's happened since:

Since Saturday (with the exception of Sunday) we have had a downpour of rain. It's been really crazy; because of the rain, I had to buy an umbrella. Next to one of the agricultural banks (yeah, shenmetf?) there was a woman selling umbrellas. Large ones for 58 RMB. You yi dianr gui. One of my first experiences with real haggling. I said tai gui le, and she asked me for my price. (I HATE it when they do that, it's when the heart comes out). I said 30. She went back to 38. I accepted.

Irony? Today's lesson was on haggling. Third class was explicitly on how to haggle. My one on one, Gao laoshi told me what else I should do...and that I got ripped off for my umbrella. Oh well, it was around 6 dollars for a large and comfy umbrella, not to mention how useful it was the past few days/this morning.

MY POST just got deleted (it's a little bit later). Irony?

Well... had calligraphy class, ate food did stuff. Too put off by this event to try to fix this post. Maybe later if I remember...

I will try harder, better, faster, stronger with my posts. Thanks Kanye!

written by  waywardwahoo on June 11, 2008 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: Shanghai, China
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Okay, maybe it's not that bad, but I don't like being wet. And as of now, I don't have an umbrella. (But wait, James, you said that you had bought an umbrella earlier in the week, and that not only did you not bargain well, due to the fact that you didn't learn to 降价 [jiang4 jia4] until Wednesday's class, but also that your 单班课 [dan1 ban1 ke4] 老师 [lao3 shi1], Gao laoshi, said that you got ripped off for 38 RMB for a large umbrella?)

It all started with Thursday, which is where our story left off (although you, reader, have a blurred vision of my week due to problems with the ECNU liuxuesheng dorms.) Had our review class, which ended early; we finished all the concepts to review way before time. What to do with the extra time? An activity (aka 3rd hour's class). I was a taxi driver, a GOSSIPY taxi driver, and my partner, LuoLan was a depressed woman. What was ironic about this situation was the fact that the night before, LuoLan and I had agreed to do our oral test together, in the form of a presentation + pantomime.

As we found out later that day via email, this was totally not allowed. Well there went my oral score....again. After class, we heard RuiAn's undergraduate thesis about skin-lightening in Shanghai, which touched upon many interesting topics, but not in depth enough (I mean an hour is not enough) + it lacked unity between the subjects, the linkages.

Later that day was painting class, which is being taught by a professional impressionist painter here in Shanghai. Here's a link to his work:
http://blog.sina.com.cn/Mrliuhuiming
I don't think I really like his style/I want to be working on traditional Chinese paintings, which is what I signed up for, but after three hours of painting (in a one hour class), and haggling via the one student he liked (a borderline inappropriate story, perhaps something will develop worth my writing time in a later blog), we should be working on bamboo next class, and I hope to eventually get to cherry blossoms.

At ECNU, there are lots of 留学生[liu2 xue2 sheng1] like myself and the UVA group, and yesterday I met a group from all over France, from the EmLyon Young Entrepreneurs program. Their classroom is in the same building, they just get to have classes really late. I practiced my French, ad hope to get to know them more eventually.

Went out to eat, shouldn't have, fell asleep, and woke up Friday morning with not enough time to do my essays. Worked quickly, was late to class, sweating like a madman. The test was a lot worse than I expected, and a lot harder than I had hoped. I know that I'm not going to be happy with this week's score, so I hope to do better next week (which believe it or not, is going to lead up to the last units for this semester [CHIN201]. We will have covered 13 lessons in three weeks, which is crazy if you think about it, especially because during a normal school semester, we cover fewer than 10 (although there are two dialogues per chapter, the current chapters tend to be longer). We're also two weeks through, so about 1/4 done. Time flies by when... you're "having fun"? How about "in China".

Wait, that sounds like I'm coming off negative Nancy. I had a lot of fun today. After the test and lunch today, which was two liangs (50g) of jiaozi, RuZhen and I went to the 麻将 [ma2 jiang4] party, which was really fun. Learned how to play, and I seriously played for at least three hours, although there were occasional holdups, cough LinKaln

After the Mahjong party, came home, only to nap and wake up to people getting ready to leave to a sushi and meat buffet for 150RMB. Tai gui le, especially if you're not hungry. Instead I rounded up a group to go to a Hookah bar on West Nanjing Rd, Barbarossa.

Originally only four or five, the group of nine filled two taxis and headed off to Barbarossa. It took us a while to get a taxi (which seems to be a common theme nowadays, perhaps due to the rainy season / weekendness?) A common thing to do here is to measure trips not by time, but by taxi ride price. That might be common in the states as well, I don't ride enough taxis to know. Also, if a taxi driver ever asks you if you've been there before, say yes, or else he'll drive you around an extra ten minutes (as the other group paid much less than we did and was sitting there waiting for us...)

Everyone at Barbarossa was chicly dressed... but us. (Alrighty, I'm a little bit po'd again, just found out that due to the crappy internet here my post was half deleted, and that includes the part that was insightful.)

Basically we were really out of place as Barbarossa is called one of the nicest (if not nicest) bars in Shanghai. We were sent to the third floor at a table where our minimum was 1,000RMB, and after much debate we decided to go with it. Two hookahs (peach and melon), ten or so cocktails, and multiple orders of parmesean fries and hummus dips later, we hit the 998, enough in my book for us to leave. Apparently, the fuwuyuan on our floor didn't know/care about the 1,000 minimum, but oh well. We had a good time.

What was your drink, you ask? I had the absinthe kiss: kahlua, some other liquor, and a "hint" of absinthe, as it was described. Really licorice-y apparently due to the absinthe, which apparently is now legal in the states. So that took some of the fun out of my drink...

Took us forever to find a cab back, in the pouring rain. Oh wait, we never found a cab. We took a sketchy bus, packed all of us in and paid 80RMB total, which ... kind of worked out, I guess. Bargaining with private drivers is scary, and not recommended.

At the houmen, we feasted on laduzi sticks and noodles, got some beers, chilled out and that's where we are now.

Reader don't touch that dial... an exciting adventure this weekend will be blogged about afterwards.

Oh and my umbrella? Kindly enough I lent it to Kat, who gave it to LinKaln in the back of her taxi. Linkaln left it there for another person to find and enjoy. That's why I'm only happy when it rains, because people actually pour their misery down on me.

written by  waywardwahoo on June 13, 2008 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: Shanghai, China
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