Thursday, November 19, 2009

Bananas and winter

Posted by 雯雯 at 12:48 PM 3 comments
Long time no... write..
It feels like my Chinese is inching on at a slow pace, so I'd better work harder!
Speaking of Chinese, I have a hard time in my Mandarin classes (aka Putonghua classes). The only thing I really only understand is when the teacher calls out my name ("Wu Chia Wen!"), despite passing my tests and such with a good margin (the passing grade here is 50%).
The classroom today....
Teacher: Wu Chia Wen!
Me: Yes?
Teacher: *Chinese*
Me: .... say what?
Teacher: .... do you talk on MSN with your classmates?
Me: *taken aback*
Hong Kong girls who were just talking to me: *giggle*

It's all good though, I suppose it'll be better.. hopefully.. As a side note, that MSN question probably sprung up because during my oral assessment (which was supposed to be about myself), I ended up writing down my MSN, mail, facebook and phone numbers, by request, in addition to teaching them all macarena. Extracts from that assessment also matches the pattern of the one above, only change the teacher out with classmate no. 1 and change the Chinese to "Can you dance for us???"

A school day in Hong Kong also follows the same pattern, this place is just full of patterns.
Today, this is how it went down.
6.14: Alarm clock rings. I drag myself out of bed and get into my school uniform.
6.21: I eat breakfast, a pineapple bun and a glass of milk.
6.35: I go out and head for the MTR. I'm a bit cold, and I shake my fist at the wind for blowing up my skirt.
6.40: The train arrives and I get on. Yay, it's so early that I get a seat! I almost fall asleep and start leaning on the lady next to me. She inches slowly away.
7.04: Arrival at Causeway Bay. I go to the school.
7.15: Early morning Tai Chi practice. Change this out for some other extra-curricular activity at will.
7.45: Tai Chi practice is done. I meet up with my classmates who're looking extremely cold. They fix up my uniform, apparently I was wearing it totally wrong. Funnily though, I bumped into the principal, and she said nothing about it.
Classmate: Ah what are you doing, you can't wear the uniform like that!
Me: .... wut? Really? omg...
Classmate: Tuck in your shirt!
*tucks in shirt*
Classmate: The school badge goes over the other one.... no place it higher! AND THAT'S NOT A SCHOOL SWEATER!
Me: I can't believe I wore it all wrong... and nobody told me before now D; *lists teachers she met while wearing the uniform inappropriately*
Classmate: Exchange student ><
(I'm very glad I have such awesome classmates who take care of me haha)
8.00: Assembly. We get in line, do morning prayers and all that stuff, listen to messages from various clubs and societies.
8-something: Finally, time for lessons. err... First one is English! Our teacher has to scold us for not doing our homework. We correct our tests.
8.50: My classmates have French/Chinese. I have two free lessons, and I chose to spend them in the library reading a gem of a history book I discovered the other day, about early Japanese history.
10.20: Recess! I tag along with my classmates to a meeting about a song lyric competition school is having. This school does so much stuff.... I'm almost jealous!
10.40: English Litterature lessons! We go through a poem, have some fun.
12.00: Lunch break. A bunch of people (including me) trek to McDonalds for food. I ate abnormally much. Weird.
13.00: Bell rings, we have form period. We spend it doing a test nobody will correct.
1.30: Quick math lesson. I don't understand shit.
2.10: Two Chinese lessons. We learn about talking about our families, and we also got our tests back. We received a writing task, to write about our hao pengyou (good friend).
3.30: School is over and we're free... for now. Two tests tomorrow. I go home and do some slacking.

So yeah, that's a regular school day. Always very eventful, and all our teachers are very great, in their own way.(Note that we don't eat McDonalds every day, I usually stick with beef rice -w-)
*scratches head*
Yeah... I think I should probably do more useful stuff -o-

edit: I notice that my posts are seldom related to the titles. Fuck that, I'll start writing titles last the next time o; I'll let the current one stay though, to remind me of not doing it again. For info, the temperature here (winter temperature) is about 12 degrees celsius, and a Banana is a Chinese person who's "westernized" (yellow on the outside, white on the inside). This expression possibly works with other Asians too.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

A little piece of Norway in Hong Kong

Posted by 雯雯 at 1:41 PM 0 comments
So today I decided to make a Norwegian dinner for my host family, and it actually turned out a great success! The dinner in question was meat cakes in brown sauce with potatoes (which isn't strictly a Norwegian dinner, but who cares). Even though the potatoes were monster sized (seriously, monster. I've never seen such a big potato in my entire life), they all ate. I even got some comments that it was good, so I'm happy -w-

Ah, here's a little gem I found on the internet. This is not Chinese though, but it's a good laugh anyway!


HMM

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Living the slow life in Hong Kong

Posted by 雯雯 at 1:08 PM 0 comments
For the first time since I came here, life is slow, and I'm loving it. The previous week has been pretty void of homework (of course, there has been some, but not as much as the weeks before that), and the same can be said for this weekend. I only have to finish my RS assessment and I'm free.

It's as quiet as Hong Kong can ever be, I can smell what seems to be smoke from a fire (I know it to be fire from a grill though), I'm relaxed. I'm 100% relaxed.
All though in Norway I would've considered doing homework on a Saturday evening pretty lame, I wouldn't live without it here. The question is; what do I do with my extra time?

I have a feeling that I should be doing something Hong Kong-cultureish or that I should be practicing Cantonese. Do I practice enough Cantonese? No, I don't, but at least I can understand a little. A little. I can catch the numbers and some simple adjectives, I know it when people are talking about a handsome guy, I can recognize it when somebody speaks of foreigners... I NEED TO LEARN MORE! Ah! I know! I'll take out my Mandarin book.. and then have my host sister or someone teach me the Cantonese equivalent of this! I have a feeling that my Mandarin is more structured than my Cantonese anyway. Yes yes, I'll do that.

And about Hong Kong culture... I live and breathe it every day, because the culture of a busy student such as my peers does revolve around school and homework, and being busy with extracurricular activities. Hopefully it will be enough, and hopefully I will learn much much more!

Aaaaaah I'm so relaxed. Ah, here's a picture of my relaxing view of Hong Kong. <3 falling asleep while watching this!


Well, I guess I won't be able to live slow now, even though I have the opportunity. But I'm only gonna be here for a little while, so I should take advantage of this chance!

Tankefulle HMM

Thursday, November 5, 2009

The MTR!

Posted by 雯雯 at 1:54 PM 1 comments
Okay!
I've been here for over two months now, but it's still as hectic as ever. I would, however, like to take a break from playing with my Tai Chi-fan and preparing for my oral assessment in Mandarin and write a little about my experiences with the MTR.

The MTR (Mass transit railway) is the subway/train thingie that goes across Hong Kong. I get on this baby every morning around 7 am to get to school, and first, I'd like to talk about the MTR personas that I as a foreigner have perceived.
Firstly, you have the hand bag lady. This is the woman who does whatever possible to get a seat. She's usually a middle-aged woman wearing her bag on her belly for quicker seating. If you want a seat on one of the crowded lines, your best chance to get one is to stand in the middle of the seating area between the rows of seats, and the hand bag lady will most definitely push her way here as soon as she gets on. She'll spend her time greedily eyeing the people sitting, searching for signs that they're getting off soon. If someone gets up, you can usually spot a couple of hand bag ladies heading towards the free seat. The fastest person will sit down, while the others will stop and stare at the person sitting. Beware of these!
Secondly, there's the delivery people. Hong Kong is a busy, vibrant place, and a great deal of delivery people travel on the MTR every day to get to their locations. All though they don't usually make a fuss out of themselves, they're still very visible due to their delivery bags/boxes/things.
Thirdly, we have the school kids (aka me). These are pretty much different in their behaviour and such, but are still one big fuzzy group because they're all wearing uniforms. Some of them chat with their friends, some are busy studying for a test or quiz, some students have managed to snag a seat and are sleeping (I'm this kind of student), while others are standing quietly somewhere.

Getting on the MTR has various degrees of difficulty. If your timing is good, you'll be able to get in without much problems. If you're travelling during rush hours, you'll be pushed in. Usually, the hand bag ladies will cut in front of you while you're left thinking "WHAT THE HELL, BITCH, I'M IN A HURRY TOO!". This also happens on queues for the escalators.

Moving onto escalators, they're awesome here in Hong Kong. In less touristy places (which is almost everywhere I go), you will see that everybody will be standing on the right side of the elevator. The left side is for busy people who want to walk. There are posters all over the MTR discouraging walking in escalators, but heck, people never look at those posters anyway. I mean, who spends 30 seconds washing their hands just because the random poster in the bathroom said so?

That's all for now, better continue studying Chinese...
HMM

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Random pictures?

Posted by 雯雯 at 5:15 AM 1 comments
The hour is nearing 13, and I'm nearing the end of my homework so I thought I'd take a little time to share some pictures and random thoughts.

This pic is from our trip to Lamma Island. It's pretty much Hong Kong in a nutshell.

It's a monkey. No, really.

Purty view of Causeway Bay from our school.

Need to finish it here, homework awaits! All of these pictures can be found on Picasa by the way, mentioned earlier, together with more.

HMM
 

~ sponge ~ Copyright © 2010 Design by Ipietoon Blogger Template Graphic from Enakei