lanterns for sale at Panjiayuan

Still sorting through Xi'an photos... but in the meanwhile, I've been tagged by Heather to list five of my guilty pleasures.

1. I agree with Heather's "food in general" remark, but specifically I have to say diner breakfasts. Mmmm, bring on the eggs, homefries, and pancakes.

2. Playing Bejeweled on my palm pilot in class instead of paying attention. Most addictive game since Snood.

3. Five words: Pink Is The New Blog

4. Buying pirated DVDs. I justify the purchase by telling myself they only cost the equivalent of US$1, but really, that same money could also cover lunch for two days at the school dining hall. (It's sad that the guilty part comes from the money spent and not from the DVDs being pirated!)

5. Facebook and Friendster stalking. You know you do it too.

I tag Chris and Jenn (assuming she reads this)!

Just returned from a weekend in Xi'an... and I'm exhausted. I couldn't get any sleep on the train because the guy in the neighbouring bunk was a sensory nightmare, ie. loud snoring and bad body odour throughout the 13 hour ride. I was not the only one to hold this opinion: Chris slept with a towel flung over his face while Craig used a t-shirt. We all felt sorry for the guy's wife (if he has one that is).

Anyway, the trip was loads of fun. I have masses of pictures and several stories to tell so keep an eye out for a full post in the next few days.

So while back home there's all sorts of legal riff-raff about the evils of downloading music off the internet, On the other side of the globe ie. China, there are artists who've risen to fame based entirely on the fact that masses of people downloaded their songs.

Or a single song. 老鼠爱大米 roughly translated as "I love you like a mouse loves rice" has been a sensation for the past six months, started as an immensely popular internet download before spilling over into mainstream radio. The song has taken off in popularity, not only in China, but in Taiwan, Hong Kong and in overseas chinese communities around the world.

Seriously, Google the song. Type "mouse loves rice". Many many hits emerge - even if you type in english. You can even download it in iTunes (again, search for "mouse loves rice").

The song is on heavy karaoke rotation and phone companies use it as their ring tone. Even Craig knows the lyrics (and will burst into song at random). Oh and did I mention my mother is obsessed with the song? I downloaded it for her when I was at home and she kept listening to it on loop for the rest of the night. The next day, she calls me from her office to excitedly inform me that she's found THREE additional covers of the song - one by a male singer 场巨刚, a duet version between 香香 and 场巨刚, and an English version sung again by 香香.

"Uh, mummy," I asked "Did you call home just to tell me you've searched for AND downloaded three more copies of 老鼠爱大米?"

"Yes!"

I can't blame my mum for her enthusiasm because the lyrics are really really cute. The English translation of the chorus is:

I love you, loving you, as a mouse loves rice (Note: This mouse is obviously a chinese mouse. I bet Mickey and Jerry go for cheese over rice any day)
Every day has a storm, I'm always by your side
I miss you, missing you
I don’t care how hard it is
I just want you to be happy
Everything, I do it for you

I love how the translation captures the gramatically-off nature of converting chinese to english.

Anyway now you can watch the song too thanks to the wonders of flash animation. And for your sing-a-long pleasure, here is the hanyu pinyin for the chorus:

wo ai ni ai zhe ni
jiu xiang lao shu ai da mi
bu guan you duo shao feng yu wo dou hui yiran pei zhe ni
wo xiang ni xiang zhe ni
buguan you duo me de ku
zhi yao neng rang ni kai xin wo shen me dou yuan yi
zhe yang ai ni

In other news, I am going to check out the terracotta warriors this coming weekend! Train tickets purchased and hostel booking made today. We leave Thursday night on an overnight sleeper to Xian. I can't wait.

The local newspaper I (attempt to) read

Due to excessive excitement about the apartment expressed in the last post, I failed to mention that classes started this week too. My courseload this semester involves:

中级汉语(上）Intermediate Chinese I
中级汉语听和说(上）Intermediate Listening and Speaking I
普通阅读(上）Standard Reading I
中国报刊语言基础(上）Foundations of Newspaper Reading I
新闻听力(下）News Listening II

Newspaper reading is a challenge - there is a lot of vocabulary (including names of countries, people, organizations transliterated into chinese) and newspapers use literary terms and forms that are different from spoken use.

Newspaper reading is hard but I can already tell news listening is going to kick my ass because I need to combine all challenges listed above with the fact that reporters speak very very fast. I can understand a little bit after a few listenings combined with the teacher's explaination, but the first listening constantly triggers instant panic of the "omigod I don't understand a THING" variety.

Anyway, practice makes perfect and I'm supplementing the textbook by buying and reading real newspapers. They are so cheap here, only 1 kuai or 12 US cents. I use the term "reading" loosely because it involves far too much furious dictionary searching for characters I don't recognize. And I'm already reading the more simply written Beijing Youth Daily. And even then, I'm not always sure I understood what I read. Needless to say, it is slow going to get through a single article.

Still, I'm picking up lots of interesting vocabulary like uranium 铀 and (UN) Security Council 联合国安理会. But my favourite discovery was finding that 博客 means blog!

view of the living room
Ok, I've been back for a little over one week and so much has happened that my head is still reeling. The biggest thing being...

Craig and I found an apartment!

After searching for a month last semester, it figures that we'd call our housing agent the morning after we land in Beijing, see two apartments, and end up putting a deposit for one all in a single day.

We're in a complex called Furunjiayuan 富润家园 which is a 5-10 minute walk away from school. We're living waaay up on the 23rd floor and have a great view of the courtyard below and of the surrounding area. That is, when it's not smoggy. The apartment is really nice, albeit decorated in what we've termed "asian granny style", and most importantly has a great kitchen. And I get my own room. So good riddance to kimchi-eating-endless-korean-soap-opera-watching roomate!

Here are pictures of my lovely home.

Our landlady is also the cutest thing ever - a tiny (she is shorter than me) and incredibly nice 40 something year old chinese lady. We went with her to the local police station this afternoon to get registered as Beijing residents so we're now official and not just illegally squatting.

Beijing apartment oddities: utilities. Instead of paying the gas/electricity/water company each month, you prepurchase units of each utility. Say for electricity, you get a little plastic smartcard which to take to a bank where you give it to the teller with the money for the amount of units you want to purchase. We just did this the other day and bought 100 kuai of electricity. Same thing with gas. It's very convenient but you do need to keep an eye on the meter because it would suck to suddenly have no gas when you want to cook or have no electricity for the aircon on a sweltering summer day.

We also have a water dispenser (like the ones you see in receptions and waiting rooms) which is a really common thing to have since you can't drink Beijing tap water. You can call a number and someone will deliver a bottle to your apartment - and you can specify a particular brand of water. We've long concluded that Nestle 雀巢 water tastes best.

After a couple of trips to Ikea and Carrefour to stock up on food and miscellaneous household items, the nest has been feathered and we've settled in quite nicely.