it's over (nine thousands?)
Yeah, had my very last exam today, listening comprehension, went well I think. So i've officially finished my stay in china. My last exam is done, no more classes, just waiting for the results. I knew today was the last day but it just didn't struck me
I was going out of the class, leaving the campus, when Marie told me "hey, we won't ever come back in this school, you realize that?" and that's where it hit me, pretty hard
I turned around and looked at the institute....and I felt really sad all of a sudden. I really wanted to come back in belgium. Family and friends, I miss them all, and China is great but I did all I had to do here, so I was looking forward to my return in Belgium, but at that exact moment I understood, I didn't want to come back. I just realized it was all gonna end in a few days, and I didn't want to lose it. China is a great country, it has a lot of troubles, may they be governmental or whatever else, but for what happened to me, it was all a great experience. Didn't have a single problem there, never had to argue with anyone, nobody ever got angry, and what they say about how nice Chinese people are is totally true.
We're supposed to get our results on sunday, the day i'm leaving. I won't be able to get them, so I asked my teacher on monday how I could do. She told me she couldn't give me the global results because she wouldn't have them, but she could give me the results for her class in advance. "Do you have MSN?" she asked, "There is my adress, i'll contact you tomorrow and give you your results". And yeah, every teacher I have is that way here. Simply by becoming friend with a Chinese, you can get as much from him than you would get by bribing him, and then some ! But they don't even ask you for anything in exchange. Of course, they expect it, it's a two-way relationship, but they won't ask you to pay them back. And so did my teacher get online the day after
I got 77%, Seventy-Seven Percent dammit. And guess what? That was the hardest of all the exams I had, so with the added results of the others, my global score is around 80% ! I got 80 % at my chinese cultural immersion experience for school, this is absolutely amazing ! But not as much as the teacher getting online.
using your keyboard to chat in chinese on MSN needs some time to get accustomed to, but the teacher was very patient, she started correcting my grammar while I was talking, she told me every single mistake i made in my exam, she was actually correcting it online just for me. And then she said "you normally had 70+ but since you've improved a lot during the year I added a few points to encourage you to go on !" and that's how I reached that mark ! I'm so going to miss them, even the teachers were absolutely awesome. Did you know that in china you call your teachers like you'd call members of the family? If the teacher has a wife or a husband, there are specific words for that, designing them as a "part of a big family", etc....
Marie asked me to go with her, we had quite a few stuff to do there, it was a very very busy day, probabely one of the busiest i've had lately
We started by getting back to my hotel to leave our stuff there and then grabbed a quick bite because the exam was over and we were starving. Then, we went back to around her place. There, we had a few shops to visit. A music shop with traditional instruments (rather impressive I must say though the shop itself was kinda....uuuh...not as impressive :p). We also found some good chocolate, actually the best chinese-made chocolate i've eaten so far. Not as good as the ones we have in belgium but that was still better than usual
Marie also showed me a nice bookstore. I found a book that told a lot of stories for kids, which all had an ending being a chinese proverb. The book was actually a way to teach children where these chinese proverbs came from, I think I'm gonna enjoy that reading.
I also found myself some gloves and a scarf (was big time) and I must say that it really changes my style. When I see pics of me before leaving, I just realised how much more serious I look like now. Feels really weird, I hope I'm not gonna shock too many of my family members once back haha !
And the best part of the day was when I arrived at the hairdresser. For the Oral Expression exam, i had to speak with a partner about getting a haircut, so I had learned a lot of vocabulary about it and Marie wanted me to come along to do the talking for her :P. That's where I noticed the difference. First time I went to the hairdresser in China, I couldn't even understand a word they were saying, even simple sentences whose vocabulary we had studied like "is the water too cold?". I knew the words but the sentence didn't make any sense to me. Though there....I managed to tell them everything I wanted, they asked more questions and I answered without any difficulties. They asked us if we were talking english between us, but we answered french. The discussion continued about the fact we were belgians, came from europe, used Euros € as money, and finally we started talking about changing rate and I spent about 15 minutes having a discussion about economy with my hairdresser ! That's some serious f****ng improvement ! and strangely it made me sad !
Sad yeah. Has any of you ever had drawing classes? Because I have, for a year. First drawing the teacher asks us to do is the same she asks us to do again at our very last class. Then she gives us our first drawing back and we can compare the progress. that's how it felt like in comparison to my first chinese haircut, serious improvement, and that's where I remembered (again) that it was over. I was gonna go back to belgium soon and the haircut was one of the last things i wanted to take care about before leaving
We also went to eat together, had some beijing's duck (very famous dish) but it was in shanghai so it doesn't really count, does it? :P. We also went to buy a few stuff marie wanted to get and we passed by a few streets so I took the opportunity to buy a few gifts for friends and family. Also got the MOST AWESOME CALENDAR EVER about "The Dream of The Red Chamber", one of the most famous chinese literature book ever, the chinese equivalent of Romeo & Juliet, but the calendar was....just....aaaha, i'll show you as soon as i'll have picture, it was art, a masterpiece all by itself !
sorted a few last stuff out, marie had some personnal troubles to take care about, and then I got back to my hotel room to rest a bit, it was an exhausting day but oh so productive
Also got a giftart from one of my friends, another just tricked me on a trade art and a last one I wanted to commission proposed to give me the pic for free (because he's chinese and I'm learning mandarin, told you they were people like that :P) so I'm getting 3 pictures for free without asking anything, what a great day :P
Tomorrow will be time to see Jeanne again, we'll eat our last LiuLian (stinky fruit) and go to Shanghai's history museum ! I'll also take my camera and ask my friends to take some pictures because everytime i take pics myself so I'm on none of them, it's time to change it, so I can at least say "look at the pic, i was there in Shanghai !" because so far, i've only appeared on one or two of the pics i've taken :P
I'll keep you up to date !
I was going out of the class, leaving the campus, when Marie told me "hey, we won't ever come back in this school, you realize that?" and that's where it hit me, pretty hard
I turned around and looked at the institute....and I felt really sad all of a sudden. I really wanted to come back in belgium. Family and friends, I miss them all, and China is great but I did all I had to do here, so I was looking forward to my return in Belgium, but at that exact moment I understood, I didn't want to come back. I just realized it was all gonna end in a few days, and I didn't want to lose it. China is a great country, it has a lot of troubles, may they be governmental or whatever else, but for what happened to me, it was all a great experience. Didn't have a single problem there, never had to argue with anyone, nobody ever got angry, and what they say about how nice Chinese people are is totally true.
We're supposed to get our results on sunday, the day i'm leaving. I won't be able to get them, so I asked my teacher on monday how I could do. She told me she couldn't give me the global results because she wouldn't have them, but she could give me the results for her class in advance. "Do you have MSN?" she asked, "There is my adress, i'll contact you tomorrow and give you your results". And yeah, every teacher I have is that way here. Simply by becoming friend with a Chinese, you can get as much from him than you would get by bribing him, and then some ! But they don't even ask you for anything in exchange. Of course, they expect it, it's a two-way relationship, but they won't ask you to pay them back. And so did my teacher get online the day after
I got 77%, Seventy-Seven Percent dammit. And guess what? That was the hardest of all the exams I had, so with the added results of the others, my global score is around 80% ! I got 80 % at my chinese cultural immersion experience for school, this is absolutely amazing ! But not as much as the teacher getting online.
using your keyboard to chat in chinese on MSN needs some time to get accustomed to, but the teacher was very patient, she started correcting my grammar while I was talking, she told me every single mistake i made in my exam, she was actually correcting it online just for me. And then she said "you normally had 70+ but since you've improved a lot during the year I added a few points to encourage you to go on !" and that's how I reached that mark ! I'm so going to miss them, even the teachers were absolutely awesome. Did you know that in china you call your teachers like you'd call members of the family? If the teacher has a wife or a husband, there are specific words for that, designing them as a "part of a big family", etc....
Marie asked me to go with her, we had quite a few stuff to do there, it was a very very busy day, probabely one of the busiest i've had lately
We started by getting back to my hotel to leave our stuff there and then grabbed a quick bite because the exam was over and we were starving. Then, we went back to around her place. There, we had a few shops to visit. A music shop with traditional instruments (rather impressive I must say though the shop itself was kinda....uuuh...not as impressive :p). We also found some good chocolate, actually the best chinese-made chocolate i've eaten so far. Not as good as the ones we have in belgium but that was still better than usual
Marie also showed me a nice bookstore. I found a book that told a lot of stories for kids, which all had an ending being a chinese proverb. The book was actually a way to teach children where these chinese proverbs came from, I think I'm gonna enjoy that reading.
I also found myself some gloves and a scarf (was big time) and I must say that it really changes my style. When I see pics of me before leaving, I just realised how much more serious I look like now. Feels really weird, I hope I'm not gonna shock too many of my family members once back haha !
And the best part of the day was when I arrived at the hairdresser. For the Oral Expression exam, i had to speak with a partner about getting a haircut, so I had learned a lot of vocabulary about it and Marie wanted me to come along to do the talking for her :P. That's where I noticed the difference. First time I went to the hairdresser in China, I couldn't even understand a word they were saying, even simple sentences whose vocabulary we had studied like "is the water too cold?". I knew the words but the sentence didn't make any sense to me. Though there....I managed to tell them everything I wanted, they asked more questions and I answered without any difficulties. They asked us if we were talking english between us, but we answered french. The discussion continued about the fact we were belgians, came from europe, used Euros € as money, and finally we started talking about changing rate and I spent about 15 minutes having a discussion about economy with my hairdresser ! That's some serious f****ng improvement ! and strangely it made me sad !
Sad yeah. Has any of you ever had drawing classes? Because I have, for a year. First drawing the teacher asks us to do is the same she asks us to do again at our very last class. Then she gives us our first drawing back and we can compare the progress. that's how it felt like in comparison to my first chinese haircut, serious improvement, and that's where I remembered (again) that it was over. I was gonna go back to belgium soon and the haircut was one of the last things i wanted to take care about before leaving
We also went to eat together, had some beijing's duck (very famous dish) but it was in shanghai so it doesn't really count, does it? :P. We also went to buy a few stuff marie wanted to get and we passed by a few streets so I took the opportunity to buy a few gifts for friends and family. Also got the MOST AWESOME CALENDAR EVER about "The Dream of The Red Chamber", one of the most famous chinese literature book ever, the chinese equivalent of Romeo & Juliet, but the calendar was....just....aaaha, i'll show you as soon as i'll have picture, it was art, a masterpiece all by itself !
sorted a few last stuff out, marie had some personnal troubles to take care about, and then I got back to my hotel room to rest a bit, it was an exhausting day but oh so productive
Also got a giftart from one of my friends, another just tricked me on a trade art and a last one I wanted to commission proposed to give me the pic for free (because he's chinese and I'm learning mandarin, told you they were people like that :P) so I'm getting 3 pictures for free without asking anything, what a great day :P
Tomorrow will be time to see Jeanne again, we'll eat our last LiuLian (stinky fruit) and go to Shanghai's history museum ! I'll also take my camera and ask my friends to take some pictures because everytime i take pics myself so I'm on none of them, it's time to change it, so I can at least say "look at the pic, i was there in Shanghai !" because so far, i've only appeared on one or two of the pics i've taken :P
I'll keep you up to date !