Sooo sleepy, but I should write this now anyway because my day was packed and I don’t want to forget anything.
I got up at 8.30 in the morning for a 9.30 start. First up was a tour of the campus by an English-language student, who divided us up into groups of 50 (with great difficulty). There were more waiguoren here, which makes sense, and she showed us the front gate, where the canteen and the book shop was, and where our classes would be. After this we- all 200 of us- had to gather for a group photo on some tiered steps, while the photographer tried to arrange it so everybody’s face was clear. While he was doing this (“You! Handsome man! Swap with pretty lady.”), I stood next to Blond Robert, who I had met before in Chinese speaking class, and two girls I had met at an information session, Bookworm Bethany and Mod Sarah. The photo was taken, and we filed into a lecture hall for the “opening ceremony”.
As we walked, I noticed the guy next to me’s t-shirt had a picture of the experiment where all these spiders were put on drugs and they took pictures of the webs they made, which had been published in the New Scientist. I blurted out, “Ohmygod I love your shirt”, and we got talking about the New Scientist and interesting facts about spiders (like the oil produced by human skin can make spiders go bald).
The Ceremony was pretty boring, with no flashing lights or acrobatics as the title suggests, but with a speech by the Dean, the Deputy, and by some teachers. One of the Shanghai teachers got up and told us about how great the program was, how it was the biggest in the world, and how Monash is awesome, which was frankly a little redundant.
“Chinese is so important to study, even when you live in Melbourne. You speak it to your friends, your family, your teacher, the people who work in 7-11.”
Our teacher from Monash got up, and received the biggest applause. She warned us to stay safe, to study hard and not drink too much, which was obviously met with boos. We were told to never be late for class, or else, and we broke for lunch.
Me and the guy I was talking to (also called Robert, but I shall call him Spider Robert to be clear) decided to check out the campus canteen. We had to stand in line and buy meal tickets before lining up again to choose what we wanted- I got rice, chicken and veggies all for about 5 yuan, which is ridiculously cheap. Spider Robert, who is vegetarian, lamented that the tofu in his noodle soup was actually chicken, but apart from that it was perfect.
Our level is divided into two classes, and I was pleased to find out that Jessie, Hair Elise, Bookworm Bethany, Mod Sarah and Blond Robert as well as Old Tony (who really isn’t that old, only 50-something, but compared to the rest of us he sticks out. I mean, he fully has a beard) were all in my class. Our teacher turned out to be an adorable 22-year-old with excellent dress sense. She also turned out to be a really good teacher, despite having some difficulty with pronunciation.
“When you say something nice, I am saying, “nali, nali” and being modest. This is the way of the Chinese, but I am flattened.”
What was really useful, however, was her habit of using cultural references to explain complex grammatical points.
“When some other bad boys want to beat up Forrest Gump and Kate say, “gankuai pao!”- That is the usage.”
At 5 we got sorted into groups of two to meet our tutors. Mine was a very tall, toothy girl not much older than me, who introduced herself y writing her name in characters on the board. The other student was a shy Korean girl whose name I did not catch, who had done the first two levels of this program last year, and had not studied Chinese since then. This was not very good for her, though she made me look quite good. I hope she won’t end up resenting this. The tutor did not have much English, but we did ok trying to make ourselves understood.
Class finally finished at 6, and we were all starving. Bookworm Bethany, Mod Sarah and I set off in search of dinner, and ended up settling on a place called “The Canteen” in English, which you can tell the owners had thought would have slightly fancier connotations, if the swish interior was any indication. Nonetheless, it was cheap, and we ordered pork noodle soup, yangzhou friend rice and these chicken buns that wew friend on the bottom the sesame seeds which you dipped in vinegar. It was all so good I started to feel that this travel blog was would be slowly evolving into a Chinese Eat Pray Love.
When I got back to the hotel I jumped on the internet and was ecstatic to see all the comments. If you want me to reply though, email me at ehmcc1@student.monash.edu.au – I’d love to actually converse with everyone, I miss you all heaps. Or better still, get Skype so I can hear your voices! Ok. I’m going to sleep before I collapse. Goodnight! Ellen xox
I got up at 8.30 in the morning for a 9.30 start. First up was a tour of the campus by an English-language student, who divided us up into groups of 50 (with great difficulty). There were more waiguoren here, which makes sense, and she showed us the front gate, where the canteen and the book shop was, and where our classes would be. After this we- all 200 of us- had to gather for a group photo on some tiered steps, while the photographer tried to arrange it so everybody’s face was clear. While he was doing this (“You! Handsome man! Swap with pretty lady.”), I stood next to Blond Robert, who I had met before in Chinese speaking class, and two girls I had met at an information session, Bookworm Bethany and Mod Sarah. The photo was taken, and we filed into a lecture hall for the “opening ceremony”.
As we walked, I noticed the guy next to me’s t-shirt had a picture of the experiment where all these spiders were put on drugs and they took pictures of the webs they made, which had been published in the New Scientist. I blurted out, “Ohmygod I love your shirt”, and we got talking about the New Scientist and interesting facts about spiders (like the oil produced by human skin can make spiders go bald).
The Ceremony was pretty boring, with no flashing lights or acrobatics as the title suggests, but with a speech by the Dean, the Deputy, and by some teachers. One of the Shanghai teachers got up and told us about how great the program was, how it was the biggest in the world, and how Monash is awesome, which was frankly a little redundant.
“Chinese is so important to study, even when you live in Melbourne. You speak it to your friends, your family, your teacher, the people who work in 7-11.”
Our teacher from Monash got up, and received the biggest applause. She warned us to stay safe, to study hard and not drink too much, which was obviously met with boos. We were told to never be late for class, or else, and we broke for lunch.
Me and the guy I was talking to (also called Robert, but I shall call him Spider Robert to be clear) decided to check out the campus canteen. We had to stand in line and buy meal tickets before lining up again to choose what we wanted- I got rice, chicken and veggies all for about 5 yuan, which is ridiculously cheap. Spider Robert, who is vegetarian, lamented that the tofu in his noodle soup was actually chicken, but apart from that it was perfect.
Our level is divided into two classes, and I was pleased to find out that Jessie, Hair Elise, Bookworm Bethany, Mod Sarah and Blond Robert as well as Old Tony (who really isn’t that old, only 50-something, but compared to the rest of us he sticks out. I mean, he fully has a beard) were all in my class. Our teacher turned out to be an adorable 22-year-old with excellent dress sense. She also turned out to be a really good teacher, despite having some difficulty with pronunciation.
“When you say something nice, I am saying, “nali, nali” and being modest. This is the way of the Chinese, but I am flattened.”
What was really useful, however, was her habit of using cultural references to explain complex grammatical points.
“When some other bad boys want to beat up Forrest Gump and Kate say, “gankuai pao!”- That is the usage.”
At 5 we got sorted into groups of two to meet our tutors. Mine was a very tall, toothy girl not much older than me, who introduced herself y writing her name in characters on the board. The other student was a shy Korean girl whose name I did not catch, who had done the first two levels of this program last year, and had not studied Chinese since then. This was not very good for her, though she made me look quite good. I hope she won’t end up resenting this. The tutor did not have much English, but we did ok trying to make ourselves understood.
Class finally finished at 6, and we were all starving. Bookworm Bethany, Mod Sarah and I set off in search of dinner, and ended up settling on a place called “The Canteen” in English, which you can tell the owners had thought would have slightly fancier connotations, if the swish interior was any indication. Nonetheless, it was cheap, and we ordered pork noodle soup, yangzhou friend rice and these chicken buns that wew friend on the bottom the sesame seeds which you dipped in vinegar. It was all so good I started to feel that this travel blog was would be slowly evolving into a Chinese Eat Pray Love.
When I got back to the hotel I jumped on the internet and was ecstatic to see all the comments. If you want me to reply though, email me at ehmcc1@student.monash.edu.au – I’d love to actually converse with everyone, I miss you all heaps. Or better still, get Skype so I can hear your voices! Ok. I’m going to sleep before I collapse. Goodnight! Ellen xox
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