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Weather of today:
- Day: 28 degrees and raining
- Night 23 degrees
Sentence of today:
I tell you how to get there. (I don't know the exact address here in Dalian, and neither would the drivers, only the big road leading near the apartment, so tells the driver how to get there.)
我告诉你怎么走。
Today's - Good to know:
Speakers of Mandarin are spread far and wide from Manchuria in northeast China to Yunnan in southwest China. It should come as no surprise therefore that there are many different dialects of Mandarin. These dialects differ from each other in vocabulary, grammar (subtly) and - most obviously to the foreign ear - pronunciation.
Modern Standard Chinese is based upon the Beijing dialect. One feature of standard Mandarin that's a reflection of a peculiarly Beijing pronunciation is the addition of an 'r' sound at the end of many words. You wont normally here this 'r' in other parts of China. Also be aware that outside the capital the sibilant (hissing) sounds 's' and 'z' may not match the patterns of the Beijing standard. Generally speaking, the greater the distance from the capital the more you should expect to hear different pronunciations.
Today's tip:
Remember to be vaccinated before going in China and don't do it in the last minute. Some requires more the one booster.
Especially diphtheria and tetanus, Hepatitis A and B are important. I would also recommend Japanese B encephalitis.
Dish of today:
Sushi, Baozi, Egg with chives, tofu, lotus plant.
Today's Historical fact:
Who's in the middle?
China's middle class (zhōng chǎn) is a controversial subject: for starters, no one agrees in how it should be defined. China's State information Centre takes a numbers approach, identifying the middle class as those whose annual income is between US$7300 and US$73,000 (Y50,000 and Y500,000). International banks and market research groups tend to raise the bar slightly higher, identifying the minimum cut-off at US$10,000 (Y68,382) and looking at factors such as whether or not households own a car, apartment, eat out regularly and so on.
Other economist, however, are less enthusiastic. Dragonomics, which publishes the China Economic Quarterly, believes that middle class is a misleading term: many Chinese described as such are in fact considerable poorer than their counterparts in developed countries. Their study argues that the country consist of 'consuming China' - 110 million people living in the Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou metropolitan areas - and 'surviving China' - everyone else. But however you define it, everyone does agree that the middle class - or the consumers- are on rise. According to the state, over half of China's urban population will have an annual income of over $7300 by 2025.
My day:
Today I agreed to hang out with Li He (DaSheng's cousin, or big brother as he call him)
We agreed to meet around 11, but didn't have more money on my Chinese phone, a bit frustration. And I didn't know exactly where to put more money on, first I went to a gas station, they could help, but told me to go to the little supermarket across the street, they didn't have it either, and then I went into the China mobile store next door, and he said it wasn't the right company, so I was a bit lost. And one thing that annoyed me a bit was that no one of them really tried to help me, to find out where to go. But that you just have to expect in China, service is almost non-existing except if you pay for it. I then went to the big supermarket 5 min way, I knew there was some other small shops inside the building, so I had an idea, this was the right place to go, and it was, the first shop inside selling used mobiles, I showed him the message saying there was no more money on my card, he open a browser, clicked in the number in the message, asked me how much I would put on, then click click click, it was done. I only had to pay 1 Yuan for the service.
I texted Li He, and asked if he was up for meeting me in front of this exhibition centre, where I wanted to go. Half an hour later, we met. He is a really relaxed guy, easy to talk with, and his English is more than fine. The exhibition centre, was a place where you could buy a lot of different kind of things, mostly Qing style furniture's, but also antics, paintings, jades, jewels, vases, tea, a lot of things. There were really many beautiful things in there, and very interesting to go around. I bought two brushes for calligraphy and some special paper to practise with.
Li He told me, if I wanted to go shopping, there was a big place underground downtown, to shop. So said, yes, why not. Can you take me there. So we went out´, it started to rain really heavenly, but luckily I remembered to bring my umbrella, after some time, we got into a cab. We drove around 10 min, till we arrive. The shopping area in Dalian is huge, you could easily get lost, and it's mostly underground. I bought a pair of shoes here to my boyfriend, hope he likes them and they fit. I wasn't completely sure about his size, if it was 42 or 43, but I bought them in the right size, luckily, asked him later about it.
When I had to pay for the shoes, I realised I didn't have enough money, so bored 100 Yuan for Li He. I was a bit surprise actually, because it means I already spent 5000 Yuan. So don't expect Chine to be cheap, because on many points, its not.
DaSheng's dad called Li He and invited both of us for dinner around 6pm; we still had some hours to kill, so we went to place where we could play pool. I was extremely bad at it, but somehow I won all three games anyway. There was this stupid fat bulldog stealing one of our balls, I was like, I'm not gonna play with that ball after the dog slavering all over it, but the guy running the place, nicely gave us another. Hehe.
We went home for dinner around 6, Wang Qi served a mix of Chinese and Japanese food, including delicious sushi.
DaSheng's dad told us, that 10 people already died drowning in Beijing because of rain. And I was like wooow, it most have been some really seriously rain since it could overflow the city. Just happy that I'm not there at the moment.
After the dinner we all went to Momi café, I spend some time checking emails and writing about my day. Vince got a new Iphone 4, which meant we could Facetime! Was so incredible nice to see him. <3
Home I watched some Big Bang Theory before going to bed.
Goodnight!
Ps: I miss you Vince!
- comments
Sveta amazing :) we miss ya.