A Lion in China....he goes rawr

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 !

It's the end of it all, only 11 days left before I come back, omg, the time passed so fast, and seems so long now, with all the exams and stuff. Many things happened lately, but I got a bit sick and lacked of the energy to post a proper LJ post, now I have too much to say and don't know where to begin, but let's try...

First, Marie invited me to spend Christmas with her. I had no proper project, so I thought it might still be better than having no christmas at all. She had invited 8 other chinese friends along, they don't have christmas in china, but some of her friends were very curious to see how Europeans spent it. For Chinese people, Christmas is all about a Coca-Cola colored old guy bringing presents, it's very commercial. Marie gave a lecture about Christmas in her class and asked if any of the students knew who was Jesus' mother's name. Nobody could answer. Another teacher interrupted her and asked "I asked you to do a lecture about Christmas, I don't see how that is relevant". So she had to explain them the whole story, they never even considered there could be a religious meaning to the 25th of December.

I arrived a few hours before the expected arrival time, I decided to give Marie a little help with the food since she had to cook for about 10 persons. She cooked and I had to wash the dishes (I got tricked, I'm telling you...). Another of her friend arrived earlier and helped us cooking, he had to cut some of the food in pieces, but he was amazingly skilled. We gave him a few of the things we wanted for appetizers and he just made awesome things with it in a matter of seconds. What we hear about Chinese skill is true, I saw it with my own eyes, and let me show you the result :

(please notice the little christmas tree on the table :D)

It was really impressive. Then, Xiying arrived, she's been learning french for 4 years now and speak it really well. And I must insist when I say "really well" because French is by far one of the hardest language I know (even french speakers such as myself aren't able to speak it perfectly, just properly enough), but she understood everything we said and managed to answer in a very understandable manner, so it made communication with french and chinese way easier. Marie asked us to go to the supermarket and buy a few things we needed for the food. So Xiying and me ran there and came back with what we could find. Some of the ingredients weren't exactely what marie asked, but well, we didn't find everything since Chinese supermarket are....well, Chinese :P

Marie's friends arrived. It's normally very impolite to have them arrived while the food isn't ready, you're supposed to host them the best way you can, but we were rather surprised when some of them actually offered us to give some help. They said that that way they could also see how European dishes were cooked. And of course, for the big Finish, they wanted, no matter what, to be allowed to attend the Making of Pancakes. It was very funny to have 5-6 people running everywhere in the kitchen to make sure the food was well-made. She even made a Ratatouille. We started eating

And of course, one misunderstanding had to happen. We asked them if they needed cuttlery (pronunced "daocha"), but Marie, by asking, actually had her tones wrong, if you pronunce "daocha" in a certain way, it means "to serve some tea". We asked them if they wanted cuttlery and had for answer "no, it's okay, we already have drinks". Of course, we looked at them like ô.o

But then bad stuff got noticed. The ingredients we found aren't exactely the same as those in Belgium, and therefore the cooking should've been different. Ratatouille was a bit too sour, pastas tasted way too much like the onion sauce we had added, etc... Actually, the only dish that was really good was the meat, which at our grand disappointment, was the only thing that Marie hadn't prepared herself. And the Pancakes turned into an epic fail. We tried to make them, but they just wouldn't be made. Put the pasta on the pan, and it just wouldn't solidify, or it would just turn burned-black. I felt really sad for Marie, especially since I've seen how much effort she had put into that. But for what it's worth, I told her that I had a great moment and enjoyed way more running around in the kitchen trying to help her and meeting her friends than spending my Christmas all alone in my hotel room
i also received one of these little cat statues that wave paw :D

2 days after I was told that my Chinese teacher, the one that gives us classes in Belgium, is actually in Shanghai. She's Shanghainese and is there to spend christmas with her family. She arranged a little meeting with us. I was the only guy attending, and also the only one from my school (we actually have 2 schools attending the same classes with that teacher in belgium, we have the chinese classes together, but at that moment, i was the only one from mine). We chatted for a good hour and a half before she had to leave. It was cool to see another familiar face there. I was told for the third time by a different teacher that my name sounded Korean. This time the teacher explained me that the "Zhe" character in my chinese name is often found in Male Korean's names, so she found it "funny" to quote her.

And today I had my oral examination. Once again, I did well, but the teacher hadn't warned us that right after, she would ask us a few more questions about other lessons that we weren't meant to study for that day. None of us saw it coming. The dialog I made with my partner was really great, the teacher loved it, but for the questions that followed, I think I just did quite okay, but I really wasn't prepared for it D:

That about it for the "journal" and the news, now about some random stuff i found while i was there, there are some quite worthy things.
The first one is a clothes shop. At first we thought it was a Carnival or disguises shop, but no, the shop was actually saying "chinese traditional clothes, custom make". I honestly doubt it was serious, but i decided to take a picture, it was....bleeeargh

One of my favorites is the following. When you see chinese all the time and everywhere around you, you don't even pay attention to other languages anymore. For example, when you have a chinese pronunciations written with letters, you only read it the "chinese way", you don't notice it when it might sound funny in english for example, and that's where one of my Texan friends just got so shocked that i hadn't noticed that, I decided to take a picture to share it with you :P

*coughs* Well yeah :D

And well, one last one i found by walking around :P

And that's it for now. I wish you all happy hollidays, a merry christmas, happy new year, and all the stuff we don't have here :P (we've been granted one day off for christmas since we're in a foreigner's school and that's all the time off we'll have till i come back home :p)

I'll be back in Belgium on the 10th of January, hope to see many of you soon ! Have to get used to the jetlag once back, gotta see my family and friends, put order in a lot of things, and might even get my fursuit soon after, mwahahahah, ahem

I'll bring you some food but can't promise i won't eat it in the plane :D I got some chinese cooking books though, in case some of you would be interested :p

-Reeve Signing Off

PS : I'm a Chocolate Covered Belgian Delight

We went further into our lessons . We often go into debates in Chinese in our class. Some are very interesting but I don't really feel like sharing Chineses opinions on politics, so I didn't post them here, though one of my friends today asked me why were there so many orphans in China, it made me think about a debate we had, so I thought I'd share it with you. We saw a text about the elderly and retiring. The teacher started explaining us that in China, it's actually your children that have to take care of you after you've retired. The State actually doesn't give a damn, it's all the offspring's work. So after hearing that, I asked her "then why are there so many orphans in China? Wouldn't it be a good idea to adopt children? There would be less homeless children, they'd have a family, and people who can't have children still would be taken care of after retirement" the teacher looked at me like if she had just noticed I was an Alien from another solar system and explained me that it was obvious that I was talking nonsense, why would your child take care of you if he's not of your own blood? He wouldn't owe anything to his foster father and would probabely let him find a way to survive after his retirement without caring a single bit That seemed a bit weird to me, so I asked her "what about girls then, don't they have to leave the family after marriage?" and yes, she told me that once the daughter is married, she leaves the house to go and live with her husband. That's why in small villages, farmers try to have a son instead of a daughter, and if they have a daughter, they try again and again until they finally have a son. Some people end up with very big families that way, but that's the only way they have to not be left for dead (no videogame jokes plz, kthxbye) after retirement. There was one question I wanted to ask then. "So, that's why there are so many more men than women in China? I heard that with the politic of the Only Child (the fact that chinese people are too many, so the government only allows one children per couple), people used to "kill" their daughters after they were born, to make sure nobody knew they had had a child, so they could try again until they had a boy. Many people did that, and now there are way many more guys than girls in China". Of course, I didn't ask, but I really wanted to. The teacher already seemed quite pissed. I think that political debates aren't really something you do often in China, especially when it is about saying that what they do is wrong... It was one of the very first political debates we had in the class though. We had a few more since then but I tried not to ask too many questions, they seem veeeeeeeery picky about it.

Yeah, marks Got a little burn on my tummy 2 weeks ago, the scar kinda left place to a 2cm x 2cm light brown mark just at the lower side of the sternum, i think it's a permanent scar now >_> Ah well, at least it's just in the middle, it's symetrical :P And now comes the sad part it's christmas it's new year After spending my summer holliday to work and to miss all my friends, after spending the German Convention at school doing exams, it's time to spend christmas and new year at school, studying for my exams, while everyone is off, enjoying time with friends and family. Seriously, one day, I'm gonna screw it all. I feel a bit down now and I think I'll feel down until I come back in belgium. From now on, everyone is off, everyone is gonna spend christmas with family and new year with friends, here it's cold but it doesn't snow, we have school, and my trip in china is over soon (about 23 days left before I have to come back). I didn't post much in the journal lately. For many reasons actually. I always forget to take pics, I'm too lazy to write, or sometimes just too busy. But well, I'll be glad to talk to you about everything that happened here. Well, I'm not even sure I'd be able to talk about it all, there's just so much to say. Well, you can stil find me on MSN meanwhile ^^

Long time I didn't update that shit, so well, let's go for it

FIRST OF ALL
to all of you who'd like a Christmas card directly sent from China, I'd need your adress. I'm gonna send my cards this week (because it takes time to travel all the way through Europe or the US) so I'd need your adresses ASAP. If any of you feel like sending me some Christmas cards...Well, I'm in China, so maybe you could send them to my belgian adress instead :

99 Rue de Flandres
1000 Bruxelles
Belgium

For the rest. Well, I've had my very first guitar lesson yesterday. I must admit I've never really been into the whole music thing before, but I feel like I could have the patience to try this. Even if I wasn't able to do my first exercices right on first try, I had that urge you have when you do something you like, you know "oh shit, i did it wrong, let me try again. Damn, wrong again. No no, just let me try again, I'll have it. Damn, wrong again, but I nearly have it, let's try again". I'll think about it once back in Belgium. I can't really buy a guitar now, how the hell will I bring it back to Belgium? D:
Question though, is it possible to learn that by oneself? I don't really feel like really going for classes, can I learn just by practicing alone and/or with friends without proper classes? :3

Also had my test results, 76%
So far my results are
IPL : 75% For first test, 76% on second test
Writing and reading : 89%
Speaking and listening : 86%

Who said Chinese was difficult? :B

Things today...Ugh

After my little cardio session, I decided to go to the pharmacy, I had to buy something for my little wound. They sold me "Tiger's balm". Well, that shit is effective :D. And I like the medicine's names they have, it's way better than reflex spray or whatever else

But especially, I had to go to Carrefour to buy a few stuff, including some shampoo. Today, I was pissed. Why? I don't really know, I guess we all have our days. But I was a bit irritable. And today was saturday

The Carrefour was full. Overcrowded. People staying in the way, blocking the way, pushing you, it was not really helping, I got in a super über bad mood and wanted to kill people :D (killing people, yay \o/)

So I reached the place in the carrefour where they have all the lotions, soaps, shampoos and all that stuff. I start looking a bit. As soon as I arrive, the usual "Looking for something sir?" "No thank you, I'm just looking" happens. They have a lot of people who work in carrefour, all the time, they're like 200 people just paid to stay there and help you finding what you're looking for. Really helpful, but I was in a super bad mood, and I HATE THEIR GUTS. Nothing that pisses me off like hundreds of people circling you and trying to put stuff in your hands for you to buy. Can't blame them, they're paid for that, but today was a really bad day. As soon as they arrived, I told them "no, I'm just looking", I had to do it at least 5 times

I got pissed and decided to walk 10 meters further to make them understand I was not interested. They still had shampoos there so I started looking again. Once again, one comes to me "looking for something sir?" So this time, I just answer her in English "I'm sorry, I don't understand, I can't speak chinese". That's my way to tell them "fuck off" politely

But this girl....asks me in english "Hello sir ! Can I help you"
Had to bite my lower lip. Crack all I had left of willpower and said "No thank you, I'm just looking"
And there, the last straw. She grabs a bag (the most expensive box they had among all the soaps) and forces it into my hands ! "Just looking? Then look at this one ! it's the best we have !"

And then....something happened. Something bad...I think. I don't remember what look I had in my eyes, but it was probabely rather scare. I saw the look she had in hers, she was scared. I do remember the tone in my voice though, when I handed the box back at her and add in a very pissed off tone "I'm - Just - Looking !". I actually didn't know I'd be able to sound so pissed or scary while not shouting :P

I'll remember her eyes for a while. She looked like she had realized I was a lion and that her life was at stake. I wonder what I looked like on that moment :p. But she didn't come back though :D

Scary lion is scary \o/
(I guess my new "Dark Style" kinda helped. I should post pics of that :D)

EDIT : done:

Test results

IPL : 75%
Listening comprehension and oral expression : 85%
Reading comprehension and written expression : 89%
I'm your daddy now

Also, iPhone status :
Jailbreak done
SIMlock unlocked
Cydia running
all the needed applications installed :B

Current mood : Accomplished

Daddy and stepmommy lion went back to Belgium today. What a wonderful week though. Very busy and exhausting, I'm taking this weekend to do absolutely NOTHING. I need some rest

They chose the worst week. I had 3 exams to pass, and with them around it was difficult to juggle with study and leisure.

So, as I said, my parents arrived on monday. The day after, my dad wanted to go shopping in the big touristical center of the city. Useless to say, I'm used to eat here for about 0.5€ a dish, so when I saw him buying clothes and stuff for a bill reaching 200€, I thought I was gonna faint. "But that's cheap" he said "I'd have had for 800€ in Belgium", but he would have had for 50€ if he wasn't looking in the most expensive place of the city *sighs*
Food was good though. I brought them to the best restaurants I knew, and since my dad was paying, I took all the best food I knew. For the whole week, we had all my favourite dishes, tried new amazing restaurants, and exploded our bellies at the pizza hut and haegen dasz (I needed a good ice cream after 2 months of chinese crap :P).

My dad always insist to get me new clothes since I don't get new ones really often (I hate shopping) but after so much cardio, I had to admit my pants started to get a bit loose, and those I use don't have the little things to pass a belt through. I was screwed. So we went for "MORE" shopping, but I found quite nice stuff. Not the style I'm used to, totally different kind of clothes. I look quite smart now, who'd have guessed that'd happen? xD
Also got my iPhone, that shit is crazy. When i'm back in belgium i'm so spending my time on MSN during classes xD. And also got an electronic chinese dictionnary. How the hell could I live in this country without that stuff? Once you get it, you stick to it as if you life depended on it.

We went to several parks too, everyone was amazed. These places are really awesome, and going there with the parents was even better because we were the stereotypical tourist family, so everyone was greeting us. Also, in China, being "fat" is well seen. Since people here are poor and starving, seeing someone fat is a sign of that someone eating as he wishes to, meaning he's living a happy life. Well, my sister has a little weight problem, so everyone kept on looking at her. I could hear people whispering "Oh look, she's so cute ! How adorable !" etc... thinking we wouldn't understand.

We also went back to my favourite tea house. My parents got me the red fruits tea, so now they wanted to buy more for themselves. Once inside, I noticed a little cow plushy.

I thought Orthank would like it because it was very cute, cute in a funny way, it had a really adorable face, so we buy the tea and then I ask the lady how I could find one like that. She points at the cow, asking me "that one?" and I say "yeah, a bit smaller if possible, do you know where I could get one?". She leaves and come back 5 seconds after with a smaller plushy, the exact same "It's the year of the Ox, that's why we have so many of those". That's perfect. I ask her where I can get one and/or if they sell it. They kindly say "it's for you, it's a gift" and they gave it to my little sister. Everyone in china really loved her and kept on making her a lot of compliments. As soon as we're out of the tea house, she knows I wanted the plushy and kindly handles it to me "Here, it's for you". That's my lil'sis :D.

I think that this week I had at least 6 or 7 taxi drivers that kept on talking to me for a good 15 minutes. I still did understand about everything they said with a few exceptions, which makes me proud of my level

We had more exams at school but I think I did everything right. The dialog we had to prepare for oral expression wasn't prepared....because my partner (an italian) kept on telling me "we'll see that tomorrow" for a week. After a few days, I showed him the whole dialog, I even made his own to make sure we'd have something to talk about, but even there "we'll see that tomorrow". So, one day before the exam, he came to me and said "we'll practice this afternoon", so I said "sorry, my parents are in shanghai right now, I don't have time to practice". "But the exam is tomorrow !!" he said. "Well...we'll see that tomorrow" I answered. God it felt good
The day after, he comes to me "So, what do I have to say?". I wanted to punch him. I had made HIS dialog even, and he came to me the day of the exam asking me that question ! I was totally pissed off. So I told him what he had to say. He said he had the idea about the theme, so for the exact sentences he would improvise during the exam.
Well, so he did. He kept on stuttering during the whole exam because that's a chines exam, and not an easy one, we're starting to see some fucked up vocabulary. Of course, since I had studied, taken exact sentences from the book and re-read them out loud for about a thousand of times, I sounded a bit like a minister, talking really fast, sounding sure of myself, etc.... which added to the pressure. In the end, the teacher told me that at least, she could see that I had prepared my text....which she said in a way to make my partner understand he was a bit screwed. I was really pissed, but I had passed at least.

We went for some ice cream to calm down. That felt good. We went to visit more parks and souvenir shops. We even went through a commercial avenue made by chinese and for chinese. It was way more interesting than the usual stuff. They had fruits I had never seen in my life, and even BULL TESTICLES ON A STICK. Dudes, seriously, what the fuck !?
I might go back there someday though because they had these nice 3D Puzzles (y'now, a helicopter, a dragon, etc....you assemble the pieces and got a huge wood model, they were only 1€ each, 25x less expensive than in Belgium)

So now, I'm exhausted, I'm just going to rest, I NEED it, see ya later guys ! :3

Wow, now that's the way I imagined my lifestyle in China should be, it's been one of the busiest days I've had since I arrived here.... Today I had my first big listening comprehension text. As in, the biggest test we've had in chinese so far...And therefore the hardest exam I've ever had technically. Listening comprehension has always been my weakness. I speak really well but I have troubles understanding what people say...so since we were going to listen to several of the 45 texts we've studied at school till now...I decided to study the 45 texts. Been studying all the vocabulary that was in the book, re-read and re-listened to every text we had, several times, learned them by heart, I thought my head was gonna explode, I got really pissed and at some point got disgusted from chinese.

I arrived in the classroom totally exhausted, scared,....I really had a sinking feeling The examination start, we get our sheet of paper, write our name on it. First question worth 60% of the exam is questions where you have to pick the right answer among 4 possible answers ....O.O
The teacher didn't have the time to put play, I was already answering. When I said I had learned my texts, I wasn't kidding, I could answer before I even listened to the texts since I already knew most of them Second question, listen and fill the blanks. Did quite okay for that. 3rd question, true or false. Again, I'm sure of myself. Last question : Answer the questions based on the text. Again, did well I'm expecting AT LEAST a good 80-85% for this exam. I had a bad feeling but I went out of the class with a huge smile on my face. The hardest part was done, and successfully, hurray for me, yay

I went to the restaurant with Marie, glad that I had passed this terrible exam. Once in the restaurant, I got a phonecall from my dad "We've arrived in Shanghai, we're about to go and eat, wanna join us?". Damn, he told me he'd be sleeping the whole day, so I was already eating. I decided not to finish my dish and to join them. "We're at the Bund" he said. Right, that's about 5Km of different possible places to be. I got lost, went the wrong way, and of course he couldn't speak chinese and didn't know anything of the city so I had to try and find him myself. It took me a whole hour but I finally met him. My dad, stepmother and little sister were there, waiting for me, yay.
They were hungry so we decided to try a random restaurant where they'd have their first chinese dish ever. We took the first one we saw, and it was reaaaaaally good. The most tender beef I've ever eaten. My stepmother gave me the tea and chocolate they had brought for me. The proteinic stuff (to start working out instead of always doing cardio only) and my jugglery stick were at the hotel so they'd bring it another day. I got my iPhone though, and I must say it's quite something, I was trying to understand how it worked before typing this text :D

After that, we went to get some dessert at Haagen Dasz (or whatever you spell it). It's quite something in china, way different than in Belgium, everyone was happy. Chinese people saw us and of course came to talk to us, trying to practice their english. There, the whole family noticed that, indeed, chinese people were friendly, it wasn't just a way to speak.

Of course, I brought them to my favourite tea house. I had no red fruits tea left, so I made them try it. My stepmother was in awe. I KNEW she would like it, was sure, and she did indeed. They bought a whole box for me, they'd come again later this week to get a box for themselves. Of course, I had to translate everything the lady was telling us at the tea house. Again, a chinese girl noticed us, foreigners, and decided to try and practice her english with us. When she noticed that I was learning chinese, instead of translating in english, she explained to me with other words what the first lady was saying, and I translated it in french for my family, it was a good exercice :D

Out of the teahouse, my dad wanted to buy some clothes for everyone since the weather was rather cold and he had only brought light stuff. We went to a very touristic place and so there were only famous, expensive brands. I got used to have my food for 0.50€ a dish, and try to spare as much money as I could, it's amazing to see how easily you get used to that ,so when my dad noticed jackets at "only" 80€ (800 chinese yuans), I thought I was gonna faint We spent 2 good hours in that huge building, visiting shop after shop. It's not every day that you can say you're shopping in Shanghai after all They wanted to go back to their hotel before trying the restaurant I was planning to invite them to, so we took the taxi. We started talking and the taximen asked me if I was talking in English, I said no, it was french. "So, you're French? I heard Paris is really great !" "No, I'm belgian" "Oh, so why are you not speaking Belgian?" "Well, because my country's official languages are dutch and french, it's a very small country, about the size of shanghai", then he started telling me how small belgium was and how good it would be to me to come live in shanghai and find a chinese girlfriend there...Riiiiight. I'm actually impressed, we discussed for a good 15 minutes and I understood every single thing he told me, I didn't even have to ask him to repeat slower. I know my chinese level was improving, but I actually impressed myself At the hotel, my parents told me how impressed they were themselves to see how good I was doing in chinese. I had been translating everything for us during the whole day and managed to do quite well actually. How come everything looks so simple when they're around? :P

Then, we took another taxi. The taximen was silent this time, yay (the first one was boring with all that dialog I would have gladly ignored) and went to a SiChuanese restaurant, one of my favourite I was glad to notice that everyone loved every single dish we had (and we took 6 different plates). My stepmother tends to be really picky with the food....Of course, she's a cook, and a really good one with that, so it's only natural. But she was delighted with what we were having. So once the food was eaten, they went back to their hotel and we planned to meet again at my school tomorrow as soon as my classes end. If the weather gets better, we'll try a picknick at the park :3

I knoooooooow, I should post more often. I'm such a lazy bastard, I'm sooowwwyyyyyyy
But right now it's just the daily routine, a lot of stuff has become recurrent, still a few things to talk about though

28 days later, yeah, it's been offically 28 days since I started hitting the gym for 5x a week. So far, no workout (no proteins income, only noodles rice and steamed vegetables x.x) But my dad comes in Shanghai next monday and will bring some protenic supplements (which will just be as a food complement to me, lol). So far so good. Started at 61.2 Kg with 90cm around the belly. Now it's 58.2 and 85.8 cm around the belly, results are faster than I thought >:3
Still at the gym though. I was doing some cardio, listening to the music they were playing, then all of a sudden I heard a song starting like this "what can I do for you? What can I do for you? I can hear you..." I was like...."hey, I know this song...." and after a few seconds...I remembered. WTF !! This is Koda Kumi, that's the intro of Final Fantasy X-2. They were playing that at the gym xD

For chinese now. Well, I had 75% at my test. Honestly, I'm disappointed. I had studied to get more than that and it got me a bit down, I must do better next time....which is next monday already. Which means I won't be able to pick up my dad at the airport...and since he speaks neither English nor Chinese and that people there only speak chinese with a little bit of bad English....He's screwed. I think I'll email him a few pre-made sentences in chinese. He'll have to print it and show it to the taxi driver. We'll figure something out.

Looking for the conservatory of music here. A friend asked me to get informations about the prices of certain chinese instruments and I admit I'm kinda interested to discover that too. Even "considered" getting guitar lessons. Don't get me wrong though, I don't want to learn how to play guitar, but I'd be curious to have one lesson, just one, to see how it goes :3

Also bought a little glass ball for 1,5€. It was lovely, it had my chinese Zodiacal sign on it and they wrote my chinese name inside....yeah, inside. You see, these little things have a hole and the Chinese use a curved brush to paint it from the inside !!! it was amazing. The lady at the shop did it right before my eyes and she added my chinese name on it. Crazy people they are.

Oh, and the funny thing of yesterday. I was walking around with my t-shirt who has my chinese name on it, and I saw a chinese with a t-shirt with my french name on it :3

But you probabely still wonder about the title, "of phoenixes and legends". Well, we saw a new lesson last week which was really interesting. It's the tale of the Phoenix in the Chinese culture. I really liked the story and thought I'd share it with you, so here we go...(i'll cut things short :p)

A long time ago, on a far away mountain, lived a bird, the phoenix. It was a very ugly bird, his feathers were dull and nobody really ever noticed him. Why? Because on the same mountain lived the most important and most beautiful birds of all. But the Phoenix didn't pay attention to them. It was a hard-working bird. Always getting fruits and storing them in a cave, even when he was not hungry or when he didn't need it.
One year though, the weather was dry, very dry...arid, and food became scarce. The birds were dying, they couldn't find anything to eat. So the phoenix went to his cave and brought all the fruits he had. It was enough, shared equally, to feed all of his friends. Because of him, they could all survive. To thank him, they made him the king of birds, and all took their most beautiful feathers. Put together, they made a jacket out of them and gave it to the Phoenix who became the most beautiful and colourful bird of them all.
Since then, the phoenix is regarded as a symbol of power and dignity. He brings luck and you often find him at ceremonies like weddings because he's a sign of good omen.

That's all for now, I'll try to update more soon ^^