So 1 train, 3 tubes, 1 metro and 2 planes later, my 6 weeks finally begin. After the loooong plane journey, we arrived in Beijing at around 2.00am and took a coach to the university that we are staying in. Upon arrival, 40 very tired and jet-lagged fellows flooded into the McDonalds next to our hotel, pointing at the picture boards and stressing 'NO ICE!!!' haha.
After registering and exchanging pounds to yuan, we had some time to kill so some of us decided to take a walk around, explore and get something to eat. Although I was advised the next day to avoid street food as a precaution, we found a VERY CLEAN vendor selling spicy noodles and just had to try some. The noodles and a bottled drink came to 7 yuan = 70p and believe me it was good value for money!
Returning to the university, we had orientation which gave us the opportunity to meet our language teachers, guides and student volunteers. We then split into small groups and were given a tour of the campus, which is really big! Afterwards several of the fellows and I went out for dinner in what we thought was a traditional chinese restaurant however we discovered that although there was a selection of chinese food, there was also chips and pizza and we were given forks to eat with (not that i'm complaining).
Thanks to Vivek's wonderful planning, after the meal we went to the nicest kareoke bar in Beijing. When you walk into the lobby that has velvet, throne-like chairs and a member of staff that pushes the elevator doors for you, then you know you're in for a good time. It was a great night and to be honest, the microphones we not even needed most of the time because everyone joined in danced until midnight! Needless to say we ended up leaving the hotel in quite a sweaty state as the air conditioning in our private room had broken. Bad times.
Thursday morning's itinerary entailed an opening ceremony with most fellows sporting our new Beijing Normal University t-shirts, our first Mandarin class, and lunch at a nice restaurant as part of the opening ceremony. The afternoon was taken up by a lecture on Chinese Econonomy. I will admit that I don't know much about economics, however I took some notes and followed along as best I could!
Formal wear was in order for the evening as we were fortunate enough to attend a Welcome meeting at the British Embassy at which most of the fellows got to meet representatives of the host companies we visit in Shanghai. Unfortunatley IMI were not there however we were able to meet other company representatives and language teachers.
I have to admit that I had thought that more people would be able to speak english in Beijing due to the high influx of tourists for the Olympics in 2008, however we have been able to get by with what little Mandarin we know and we have more language classes to come so we can only improve! It is so strange to see familiar objects that are also quite different at the same time, for example in our little shop, we have galaxy bars which have a similar packaging but are called Dove and recognising cans of sprite or coca-cola by their colour only because the names are written in Chinese characters.
I was also struck by how much meaning there is behind Chinese names. Parents will often name their children after good characterics or objects. We were all given our chinese names today by our language teacher. My name is spoken as 'so-fay' not much difference there. The meaning behind the two characters that make up my name are 'thinker' and 'flower' however when I tried to look up the meaning of my own name in my dictionary I came up with 'Lonely, depressed, noose (large rope)' and 'Concubine of a Prince'. I think I need to work on my translation skills a bit more.
Looking forward to our visit to the great wall and the national stadium tomorrow. There is a saying in China 'He who has never visited the great wall can never be a true man' so we're all looking forward to becoming true men tomorrow!!!
Here is the view from my window taken at 8.00am:
