It has been a quiet couple of days. As some of you might know, it is Chinese New Year and I have to admit that they have a much bigger party than the Westerners. It is to such an extend that you need to stock your house with food as you won't find any shops open. I mainly spent my New Years lazying at home, preparing for my studies for this term, watched Chinese television and drank beer. I am thinking of changing my diet from a coffee one to beer diet as this is much cheaper. Before i drink a cooldrink in this country I always go for a beer first. It is amazing to see the difference in price!! Just to give you an idea... one decent coffee goes for the price of 6-7 beers.
I don't really have too much to talk about as I was locked in my room for most of the time apart from getting lunch. To my surprise I found a couple of street vendors that were selling food. Most foreigners would not necessarily buy food from street vendors as this might not be seen as the cleanest. But like I said, I am no longer a foreigner in this country. So I went for it!! Up until now I haven't had any food poisoning or anything yet, "touch wood". And, I am planning to keep it like this for as long as possible.
Yesterday one of the shops which is a muslim food shop opened its doors for service again. I got my Mandarin together and decided to go eat something there. To my surprise they understood everything that I said. First I asked if they had a certain dish, and the chef confirmed that they had it. Then I said to him that I would like 1 dish. He then looked at me and said in Mandarin that there are two, one goes for 3Yuan and the other for 5Yuan. How I knew that he said this I don't know, but I ordered the 5Yuan bowl. I have been spending many hours listening to a Mandarin podcast and I am also spending quite a couple of hours in front of the television listening if I can hear what people are saying in Mandarin. There is one tv series that I am watching and sort of getting into. Catching a word every now and again I build the rest of the story with my own ideas and words.
I will probably be spending the rest of the month planning my studies, learning Mandarin and visiting shops practising my non-existing Mandarin.
(Linyi City, Shandong Province, China)
Showing posts with label New Year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Year. Show all posts
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Bar Room NY finale
After KTV (karaoke place) we started heading toward our apartments. The actual plan was to go to the pool club and celebrate our New Years there. The main reason we were heading towards our apartments was because of some needy toilet visits. This can only mean the person will not be standing. Walking down the street we passed this place that me and Jess have been meaning to go and visit for quite a while. It is called "Bar Room" and this is a club/bar under a kind of car park. Just there and then our options for venues expanded and we decided to start our New Year in that club. With that in mind we took a brisk walk to the apartments for the toilet run.
Jess had a couple of bomb crackers (fireworks that sound as loud as a gun shot) and he had this great idea of taking it along. Walking back towards the club, now around 22:45 the streets leading towards the club empty, apart from a couple of street vendors selling food on every corner. Fireworks in hand we decided to start spreading the good news of New Years. Don't really know if fireworks are allowed in the streets, but hey... it's only New Year once a year. The first firework ignited and was thrown right in the middle of the street. It went off with a bang... windows reverberating and car alarms going off around us!! "What a beautiful sound this time of night" i was thinking to myself. After a couple more of those and one ending up right in front of a police car we decided to leave them in a little bush where we could retrieve them from again later.
Entering the bar/club it sounded pretty quiet. Through the whole night there was only about 20-30 people... not too many for an occasion like the New Year. On entering the club i could hear with my little Chinese and the broken English of the DJ that they are welcoming these two white faces assisted with the Chinese girl. Partly cause everyone looked at us when we walked in and a "Hallo" by die DJ and locals. We were taken to a nice couple of red couches right next to the dance floor with complimentary seeds. Yip, in China it is not peanuts but seeds. We ordered about five beers and started making ourselves comfortable. I felt in a dancing mood so needless to say it didn't take long for me to enter the dance floor. The dance floor was more like a small little stair, just high enough that you should realise it is not part of the walk area. We started dancing and i saw this Chinese move by a couple of girls that i needed to get the hang off. A couple of minutes later... there was I, Jess and Amy doing this dance with the locals having a ball. What can i say we had to teach them a dance as well. The only dance that came to mind that me and Jess would know i thought, must be the "Macarena". It turned out that i was correct. Here we were, teaching the "Macarena" to Chinese people with Chinese songs. We were the heroes.
Jess had a couple of bomb crackers (fireworks that sound as loud as a gun shot) and he had this great idea of taking it along. Walking back towards the club, now around 22:45 the streets leading towards the club empty, apart from a couple of street vendors selling food on every corner. Fireworks in hand we decided to start spreading the good news of New Years. Don't really know if fireworks are allowed in the streets, but hey... it's only New Year once a year. The first firework ignited and was thrown right in the middle of the street. It went off with a bang... windows reverberating and car alarms going off around us!! "What a beautiful sound this time of night" i was thinking to myself. After a couple more of those and one ending up right in front of a police car we decided to leave them in a little bush where we could retrieve them from again later.
Entering the bar/club it sounded pretty quiet. Through the whole night there was only about 20-30 people... not too many for an occasion like the New Year. On entering the club i could hear with my little Chinese and the broken English of the DJ that they are welcoming these two white faces assisted with the Chinese girl. Partly cause everyone looked at us when we walked in and a "Hallo" by die DJ and locals. We were taken to a nice couple of red couches right next to the dance floor with complimentary seeds. Yip, in China it is not peanuts but seeds. We ordered about five beers and started making ourselves comfortable. I felt in a dancing mood so needless to say it didn't take long for me to enter the dance floor. The dance floor was more like a small little stair, just high enough that you should realise it is not part of the walk area. We started dancing and i saw this Chinese move by a couple of girls that i needed to get the hang off. A couple of minutes later... there was I, Jess and Amy doing this dance with the locals having a ball. What can i say we had to teach them a dance as well. The only dance that came to mind that me and Jess would know i thought, must be the "Macarena". It turned out that i was correct. Here we were, teaching the "Macarena" to Chinese people with Chinese songs. We were the heroes.
Learning the Chinese dance before heating it up with the Macarena!!
After a couple of dances i started making my way down the dance floor, a young man appearing out of nowhere shoved a beer in my hand and said "gumpay" meaning down with me. No worries... got that one down... then this girl enters with another beer and repeats the same word "gumpay", wanting me to down with her. Jess walking towards the dance floor wanting to take a photo of me downing gets a beer shoved in his hand "gumpay". He drank the beer as quick as he can and made his way back to the couches in no time. Man, Chinese people love downing. It is a symbol of respect to drink and down with someone i think... who knows... just down it.
So midnight arrived and with some more "gumpaying" we enter the New Year. Let me not forget about the drunk man that had his arm around my shoulder, not really in a way to be a good friend, more in a way of keeping himself on his feet. Yip, he also just walked up to our table, using Amy's drink to "gumpay" with me and Jess. The waiters got him away quickly!!
As if we hadn't been treated like VIP's yet, the owner of the club came up to us and sponsored us another 3 beers after he "gumpayed" with us. Now we were Rock stars!!
Well, it ended up being a great start to the New Year!!!
You might think that i was totally wasted hey?? Well, i have successfully worked out that if i was in London i would have had two pints, and if in South Africa i would have had three dumpies (bottles of beer). The beer in China is only 3%alc. How can you not have a couple more than your average Londoner have per day?
(Linfen, Shanxi Province, China)
Friday, January 02, 2009
Chinese Karaoke New Year
A couple of days ago we started with a whole New Year. Yes, it is officially the year 2009. Shees, just the thought of me turning 29 this year makes me think that life runs past too quickly. It is because of this reason that I decided last year I needed to do all I can in this life while I can. Experience different cultures and do things I said I will never do, go to places I never thought I would go. And here I am, in China. It was never really an option of mine to come to China. I had in mind the lusher Spain and South America. There were many places I would have loved to go, but it just so happened that all the doors opened towards China.
So, why not end the year with something different and start the New Year with something even more different and daring? You can imagine this was going to be a night of fun and games, doing things you never see yourself doing again!! Or maybe you will.
Here I was in Linfen, trying to gather some people to do something really fun. We ended up going to this place called Dico’s for a meal. It is like the Chinese Mcdonald’s. It was me Jess and his girlfriend Amy. Joel didn’t make these festivities as this time it was his girlfriend Joy that was feeling ill. Got the burgers down and successfully converted Jess and Amy to my kind of thinking. Jess was fully up for it in any case, it was just Amy that needed some convincing. I already had the next stop in mind!! KTV… the best Chinese karaoke place ever, that's what i got told in any case!! With not too much convincing everybody was sold to this idea. Amy with pure brilliance suggested that we enter a shop to buy some snacks. Now you have to understand… in my mind this karaoke place is like a bar you walk into and loads of drunken people taking their turns on the microphone. I was all up for it. But there was a useful piece of information that I didn’t know. Karaoke places in China were nothing like the picture I had in mind. I entered the shops in search of a cigar… I mean, it was the start of a New Year!! Did not find any cigars, no. But I decided to settle on a small bottle of some strong Chinese “bagio” this is like “mampoer” in South Africa (never check my Chinese spelling; I write it as it sounds). Made from the purest corn! Amy grabbing a couple of snacks and drinks we are ready to hit the karaoke place. We must have been lost in translation a bit because when I asked Amy if we could take these things inside the karaoke place she said it is fine. It ended up not being so fine because on the way to the karaoke place we had to hide all the snacks at the most uncomfortable places.” Mmm… seems like we are not really allowed to take these in” I thought by myself. Sometimes the language barrier can be a bit of a problem.
Got to the doors of KTV, snacks squeezing etc. Here we are, paying 68Yuan for an hour of listening to other people’s false excuse for singing. What a rip off “can’t believe we actually going to pay this” was all on my mind. After a quick tour through their snack corner to avoid any suspicion and a packet of popcorn later we are ready and lining up in front of the lift. Gentlemen start your engines!!
We go up to the sixth level. Mmm… exiting the elevator this place reminded me of the dodgy places you see on movies in Bangkok. You know, like a hostel with some small rooms. Ok, a brothel!! This could just have been a much classier brothel. But alas, our own little private room!!! This is awesome!!! Our assistant exiting the room we all empty our pockets of all the stash. Let the games begin. This place is fitted out with big speakers, streamers, big screen, microphones, a long black couch and even some tambourines. Probably because you can’t sound false on those. I mean, they make anyone sound musical. You should have been there!! Jess singing Avril Lavigne (Skater Boy) not even looking at the screen, no wonder he got the best score for the night. The Titanic sinking again with the back-up voices of Mike and Jess. Eat my shorts Celine!!! We ended up paying for another hour!! It is ten a clock… what now??? Two hours to kill before the New Year, what now?
Me and Jess... think it was either a sad or high pitch song, we both have tears in our eyes.
Well, hang around for the next update.
Check out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpzJXmf5jvk&eurl=http://jesstival.com/cake/
for some live entertainment.
(Linfen, Shanxi Province, China)
So, why not end the year with something different and start the New Year with something even more different and daring? You can imagine this was going to be a night of fun and games, doing things you never see yourself doing again!! Or maybe you will.
Here I was in Linfen, trying to gather some people to do something really fun. We ended up going to this place called Dico’s for a meal. It is like the Chinese Mcdonald’s. It was me Jess and his girlfriend Amy. Joel didn’t make these festivities as this time it was his girlfriend Joy that was feeling ill. Got the burgers down and successfully converted Jess and Amy to my kind of thinking. Jess was fully up for it in any case, it was just Amy that needed some convincing. I already had the next stop in mind!! KTV… the best Chinese karaoke place ever, that's what i got told in any case!! With not too much convincing everybody was sold to this idea. Amy with pure brilliance suggested that we enter a shop to buy some snacks. Now you have to understand… in my mind this karaoke place is like a bar you walk into and loads of drunken people taking their turns on the microphone. I was all up for it. But there was a useful piece of information that I didn’t know. Karaoke places in China were nothing like the picture I had in mind. I entered the shops in search of a cigar… I mean, it was the start of a New Year!! Did not find any cigars, no. But I decided to settle on a small bottle of some strong Chinese “bagio” this is like “mampoer” in South Africa (never check my Chinese spelling; I write it as it sounds). Made from the purest corn! Amy grabbing a couple of snacks and drinks we are ready to hit the karaoke place. We must have been lost in translation a bit because when I asked Amy if we could take these things inside the karaoke place she said it is fine. It ended up not being so fine because on the way to the karaoke place we had to hide all the snacks at the most uncomfortable places.” Mmm… seems like we are not really allowed to take these in” I thought by myself. Sometimes the language barrier can be a bit of a problem.
Got to the doors of KTV, snacks squeezing etc. Here we are, paying 68Yuan for an hour of listening to other people’s false excuse for singing. What a rip off “can’t believe we actually going to pay this” was all on my mind. After a quick tour through their snack corner to avoid any suspicion and a packet of popcorn later we are ready and lining up in front of the lift. Gentlemen start your engines!!
We go up to the sixth level. Mmm… exiting the elevator this place reminded me of the dodgy places you see on movies in Bangkok. You know, like a hostel with some small rooms. Ok, a brothel!! This could just have been a much classier brothel. But alas, our own little private room!!! This is awesome!!! Our assistant exiting the room we all empty our pockets of all the stash. Let the games begin. This place is fitted out with big speakers, streamers, big screen, microphones, a long black couch and even some tambourines. Probably because you can’t sound false on those. I mean, they make anyone sound musical. You should have been there!! Jess singing Avril Lavigne (Skater Boy) not even looking at the screen, no wonder he got the best score for the night. The Titanic sinking again with the back-up voices of Mike and Jess. Eat my shorts Celine!!! We ended up paying for another hour!! It is ten a clock… what now??? Two hours to kill before the New Year, what now?
Me and Jess... think it was either a sad or high pitch song, we both have tears in our eyes.Well, hang around for the next update.
Check out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpzJXmf5jvk&eurl=http://jesstival.com/cake/
for some live entertainment.
(Linfen, Shanxi Province, China)
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