Reminiscing: "I'm Sorry, I can't Speak Chinese"

I was glad that there is a western union service here in China. At first I didn't know the location of the outlet so I had to use bank to bank transfer. The process was a bit complicated for me since there were so many forms that I had to fill in and I had no idea what the information on those forms were since they were all written in Chinese. There was only one teller who could speak English very well and she was busy with other customers and was not too willing to help either. I was a little disappointed since there was no way I could process it on my own. I decided to postponed the transaction and the next day so I went back and asked one of my students to go with me. The charge was about 15USD. But before I could transfer the money to my local bank in the Philippines I had to buy a US currency. I had to fall in line again for more than an hour. That was really a busy day for the bank since there were many people doing business. I then got my money in USD, and now I needed to go to another teller to process the transfer which took almost forever. I was able to successfully transfer the money within 4 hours. The next time I sent money home, I decided to look for a western union outlet since it's faster and a bit cheaper. After class at 11:30 am I took the bus going to the city center in Suzhou. It took about an hour to reach the city. When I got there I went directly to Bank of China to inquire about the service. They told me that they don't have this service in their office and told me to go to Everbright bank. I didn't know where the bank is so I asked the lady to write the address for me. I took a taxi going to Everbright bank, I gave the address to the taxi driver. While driving, he asked something, perhaps verifying the location. I didn't understand so I just said, "I'm sorry I can't speak Chinese." He wrote something, and I said, "I'm sorry I can't read Chinese." He stared at me with disbelief and apparently he was irritated. He stopped driving, handed the paper back to me and motioned for me to open the door. Oh I got that, he didn't want to drive me to the bank because he couldn't understand me or I couldn't understand him. When I was out on the corner of the street, for a few minutes I didn't know what to do. I felt like crying not because, I can't speak Chinese or not because the driver can't speak English. I started walking and looking for some English names of the shops around. I just continued on walking and think of other things that I could do if ever I would not find the bank. I saw a Chinese restaurant so I decided to stop and had my lunch. The waiters say something in Chinese, perhaps it's a greeting. One ushered me to the table and handed the menu. I was still shocked with my previous experience with the taxi driver and didn't think that there would be another one at the restaurant. When I flipped the menu, I immediately searched for some pictures, but unfortunately there was no dish with pictures on the list. I left the table and just looked at their display. I saw some chicken with rice so I ordered that dish without saying anything, but just pointing. It turned out that the dished I ordered was 27RMB and I couldn't even finish half of it. It just didn't appeal to me. Then, a waiter approach and said something, so again I had to say, "I'm sorry I can't speak Chinese." After I said that she went to the other waiters and told them what I said, the group now all stared at me and even the cashier and the chef since there were only few customers in that restaurant. They were staring at me for endless moment and I felt so uncomfortable that I had to leave. I felt lost in the big city with too many people but it seems that no one could understand me. It was already late in the afternoon when I found everbright bank. I arrived there at 4PM. I saw the western union sign inside the bank so I was so happy. I inquired and they really do have the service. I was given a priority number so I waited until they would call it. I remember the number started with 8... because I heard the speaker called (ba...) When it was my turn, the teller asked in Chinese, so as usualy I had to say, "I'm sorry I can't speak Chinese." I told her my needs and she was able to speak English and told me that I need to have a US currency.,I couldn't send the money since they don't have foreign exchange service for foreigners in that bank (I wonder why). I went back to Bank of China to exchange my RMB to USD, good thing they have this service there. It was done quickly. Then I went back to everbright bank, it was already 4:45PM. I took a priority number and waited. The teller looked annoyed and wrote something on a small piece of paper. She called the security and gave the paper to him. I was wondering what was written on that paper. The security approached me and handed the paper. I was totally disappointed with what I saw. Her message says, "Sorry, we can't help you today, time to lock the bank. Come back another day." Oh my! I spent half a day just trying to process this damn whole thing and what I get is just simple I'm sorry! I wouldn't mind if she looked apologetic, but the looked on her face says... "I hope you would never come back and I don't want to assist you." I would never forget that look.

One, Two, Three (一, 二, 三)

I went to the market and bought some vegetables today. I was glad a friend went with me since I felt bored walking alone. I bought some carrots, sprouted beans and cabbage. I could understand simple buying terms specially when it comes to counting. I just have to say yi, ar san (1,2,3)...as easy as abc..hehe but when they asked something that doesn't sound like 123 then I just smiled and handed my money.
I'm still in the process of acquiring the language and I realized that it's not as easy as abc but I enjoy it. I should have done this before, but I was too lazy to learn on my own. Learning Chinese is fun specially when you're able to try using it and someone would understand.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Before watching the movie I thought that Penelope Cruz would be the main character with Vicky Cristina as her name. But my guess was entirely wrong. It turned out that there are two lead actresses whose names are Vicky and Cristina and Penelope is not one of them. These two are best friends who share many views about life except the concept of love. Vicky is a conservative and romantic girl while Cristiana seems the exact opposite and doesn't know about what she wants in life. One summer they decided to spend a vacation in Barcelona, Spain. So this movie is a story of two American girls on their summer vacation in Barcelona. Almost all the time a narrator's voice would tell what is happening and they are thinking. Honestly I did NOT like this movie, though this movie receives many awards from different award-winning organizations, the theme is just too bold for me to accept. Well, I do admire Penelope's acting here, it's really great and she deserves all the awards she received as the BEST supporting actress. The movie also shows beautiful places in Barcelona and even places that many artists would really appreciate. I think that many people were captivated with its sense of art and openness to the idea of "polyamory". I thought that the theme of this film is the fantasy of the script writer or whoever had this idea. I just couldn't imagine that a man could be so egoistic, that he would directly ask two strangers to go and sleep with him. Fortunately, Cristina agreed with his proposal and even moved with him. Later on the man's ex-wife(Penelope) came back and share a house with them. Cristina felt that the ex-couple still love each other so she gave her consent and the two had an intimate time together. She was okay with the idea that her lover was making love with his ex-wife in the same house where she lives. Of course some women don't mind this idea since in some parts of the world men can still have several wives. The part that made me think that this is mediocare movie is when the two ladies started to have intimate time together, share the same man and who knows what else the three of them did together. I think being plogamous is better than being polyamorous. It's just unacceptable for me, so I think that some movie critics failed to really look into the real theme of the movie. All I can say is that, "Appearances are really deceiving." We sometimes think that the movie is good because the actors are beautiful people and they posses a great talent in acting but sometimes we don't see the real theme in the movie, which I think is "deception and polyamory."

I'm 10, 592.0238 Days Old!

Today is my first birthday in China! I just turned 10, 592.0268 days using the conversion of 365.24 days/year conversion. By Chinese standard I'm already 30 years old. I like to count it by days since each day is a new day and I consider it a blessing. I experience something new each day and most of all I'm glad that each day is always a great day. I do not wish to live as long as 1oo years but I wish that all the good people on earth and the people I love would live longer than me so I don't have to see them go. I'm happy to celebrate my birthday with some of my friends and students who are so sweet. I didn't inform them in advance so they would not buy something because what matters most is their presence. But those guys were wiser than me. They were able to prepare a gift within a short period of them. I was confident that they would have time to find something, but I though wrong. They showed up with this lovely stuff toys and other stuff. When I first arrived here in China, I met Malaysian professor, who told me Chinese students are very sweet. Now, I could really say that he was right. Though I am still struggling when it comes to language, I can still say that I'm glad to be here. If given the chance, I would love to be here again next year. Life is great in China!

When can I see Youtube again?

I missed surfing youtube here in China and of course uploading some of my videos. I hope that it will be back soon. I'm sure more people are wishing that they could surf the website again. I just hope that people should not abuse this democratic online tool. They shouldn't upload videos that would violate their government's policies. I just feel bad about this. Google please do something!
For proof about this issue you can click on the following links saying that the site is currently blocked in China.
http://www.zeenews.com/sci-tech/net-news/2009-03-26/518069news.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7962718.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/25/china-blocks-youtube
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=531776

A Paradise Near Our Campus

I had a great walk just near our campus today. I have never thought that this hill has a magnificent beauty. I only visited the other hills for quire a number of times but never on this hill which is just located few meters from our school.
I was amazed with its beauty and I decided to visit this place again this weekend.
I picked some roses from the bush and some flowers that look like a peach.

Here are some photos of this great place.

These are some flowers that would produce oil, just in front of our college.

a closer look at these "cai zi you" flowers.

Me and the Japanese teacher on our way to the hill.

Some plants in the hill.

These are my co-teachers, English and Japanese teachers.

The hill with a small crystal clear lake.

The flowers I picked from the bush near the hill.

This is what happened to my desk after the walk. The dragon is a gift from my student. Inside this small jar is my pet, a fish..

And The Winner Is...

Today we had an opening ceremony for Foreign Languages month celebration, that is for English and Japanese languages in our college. Tonight was the English preliminary Speech competition for Network Engineering Department and some of my students were part of the activity.
I didn't know that I would be one of the judges for the competition. I just went there to see the performance of my students. But when the judges came, they gave me a sheet for the contestant performance and said that I should join them.
I had the sheet and I was informed that I needed to write the contestants' names beside number. The chairman of the judges instructed all the contestants to write their names on the board to make it easier for us. But it was not an easy job for me. For the first time I was writing Chinese characters. I had to give so much focus on writing that I felt I was doing an abstract drawing. I always feel that Chinese character is an art. Some contestants were really prepared and I could see that they really tried their best. Others were just the opposite, they went in front and just read their speech just like in an ordinary class where a student would read some dialogues from the book.
I wish that I could make all the best contestants win. There were about five of them who really did well. So when we combined the results I found out that my scores were too high, but we have the same orders. Just like for the winner, I gave him 95% and they gave him about 87 or 88% but he was still the first on their list.
Here are some photos about this English competition including posters about the event.