Tomik’s blog

Back home

A couple of days ago I have returned from China back home. The journey was quite managable since I left Wuhan in the evening for Beijing then I stayed overninght in Beijing and took an airplane in the morning from there back to Helsinki and then to Prague. It took me some time to accustom on life at Czech republic ( jet lag, different food, very little people everywhere, stop speaking English and start using my mother langueage , understanding people on the street, etc. there is a lot of it ) but now it just seems to me that my trip to China is a distant issue. Anyway I have spent some time collecting, organising and fixing photos from my stay in China and the result is my new webalbum. Not all of the pictures I have brought from China are there, but I think it is a good collection for giving an idea how we lived and travelled. I plan to use this webalbum also in the future and maybe update it with some pictures from the old one, so stay tuned ( it’s in the blogroll now as well )

This weekend I am leaving for a Czech Go camp after which I spent few more days and home and will move to Prague afterwards to continue ( and hopefully this year finish ) my studies. I also noticed that around these days it is 1 year since I started this blog ( originally for my Erasmus stay in Amsterdam ) … If I am going to continue it ( not sure yet ), than it’s nature is probably going to change. What I mean is it would probably shift from the “experiences on the trips” level to “thoughts, everyday issues, etc.” level as I am planning to stay at Prague for at least a year now…

Around China (3)

Last destination I have visited before my departure from China was WuDang mountain. This time Camille stayed in Wuhan to continue her WeiQi studies so I travelled alone. After 6 hours bus tour from Wuhan I arrived to WuDangShan city which is average small Chinese city - ugly, a bit dirty and with nothing interesting to see ( this is what I reckoned after 3 hours spending there - so it is just a first impression ). In the afternoon I took a bus to the WuDang mountain areal. The bus goes approximately 25km uphill to a small village of NanYan where I arrived at around 6 p.m. Village consists exclusively of small hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops and suprisingly also almost solely of Chinese tourist ( I met like 3 non-Asian tourist during the whole time of my stay ).

I found relatively cheap accomodation in one of small “family run” hotels and after simple but delicious dinner went out to examine the surrounding area. There are a few very nice temples in the vicinity of the village and also some opportunities for a small walk. The main attraction of WuDang mountain is climbing it’s peak and visiting the Golden Hall Temple which is on the very top. During wandering around the village and enjoying nice mountain scenery I have met two Chinese girls of approximately my age. We have spent some time talking and and in the end went for the dinner ( 2nd for me ) together. They were also from Wuhan and planning to go uphill tomorrow so I have decided to join them. The only slight issue was that they wanted to see the sunrise on the top of the mountain which meant setting off at 3 a.m. from the village to be on the top of the mountain at around 5:30 a.m. in time to enjoy the sunrise. Well why not ?

After like 4.5 hours of sleep I woke up at 2:50 a.m. and we set off on our way together with another small group of the young Chinese people. Way up consisted basically of climbing a lot of stairs which is not much of a fun during the day and even less in the night … But we arrived on time and enjoyed a beautiful view from the top - no sunrise though too cloudy. For such an early hour there was suprisingly a lot of people - around 50 which kind of contradicted my so-far-experiences with Chinese way of tourism ( most of them were young people though ). After surveying the temple and satisfying our minds enough with amazing scenery we took a cable car to go down and then made like 4 hours walk through beautiful valley along the mountain brook. In the end of this walk we met a small group of “golden monkeys” - they live freely in WuDang mountain reservation. They were begging for some food so we fed them a bit with bisquits . Oddly enough one of the monkeys probably not being satisfied with food we threw him stayed in our way and moreover prevented me from going any further by standing on his legs and leaning his arms and body against my legs. I didn’t want to make him angry since I was afraid he could bit me so I just calmly threw him a couple of more bisquits out of the way. Clever buddy he was indeed … Seeing me reaching for more bisquits to the bisquit’s package he jumped a bit and grabbed the whole bisquit’s package from me and immediately skillfully escaping to the forest The bisquits sucked anyway …

I stayed one more night in NanYan to visit the NanYan temple and the following day in the afternoon I took a train back to Wuhan enjoy couple of last days before my departure from China.

Around China (2)

After spending couple of days back in Wuhan, recharging energy and refilling our wallets We took a train on the 24th of July  to the city of Guilin in southern China. This area is praised a lot for it’s natural beauty caused mainly by presence of karst landscape. After suffering 15 hours of sitting in very uncomfortable train ( it was too late to get better tickets ) we could have admire the beauty of the Chinese south ourselves. The city of Guilin really amazed me already in the way in taxi from the station to our hostel - normal Chinese houses, typical streets and then suddenly out of nowhere there rises a beautiful karst peak right next to the road. In the hostel we took so longed for sleep ( the train was really terrible ) and afterwards surveyed Guilin’s most famous sites - The sun and moon pagodas - they are set in the small lake and actually the taller of them ( The sun pagoda ) was added artifficially to the scenery less than 10 years ago ( uff something like pyramides in Louvre … )

Following our tourist guide the next morning we took a Li river cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo. The cruise itself is as spectacular as described in the guide - massive karst peaks rising on both sides, small villages with fishermen resting, etc. What the tourist guide doesn’t mention is that this cruise was basically turned into a criwds-handling business ( as it happens to most of the sites mentioned in the tourist guides ). There is a huge number of boats cruising the river ( more than 100 bigger ones for like 90 people and loads of small ones for less than 10 people ), the river is quite dirty ( no wonder ), there is a ridiculuous amount of souvenir shops in the final port, etc. This kind of fits into the mosaic of touristic spots in China and concept of travelling for Chinese people as we could have experienced it in past couple of weeks: Basically loads of people in tourist groups following tourist guide’s every word, crazy about taking pictures ( especially of themselves in different poses in front of something “special” - e.g. mountain, temple, etc. ) and quite often inadequately equipped for the tour ( e.g. having high heels in the mountains or carrying food in plastic bags all the day ). Summoned up Chinese way of tourism is: see and take pictures with minimal effort. A little example from the Li river trip: when at one moment tourist guide in the boat mentioned some interesting peak all the passengers of the boat raced to the viewing deck to take the pictures and then immediately got back to wait for their lunch - so we naturally took advantage of this and “acted other way around” than the crowds ( this way we enjoyed nice scenery almost alone on the viewing deck, when most of the Chinese tourists were busy eating their lunch or resting afterwards and stayed in the seating places when the viewing deck was filled with people taking pictures ).

We stayed two nights in the city of Yangshuo which itself is probably one of the worst examples of the above mentioned Chinese way of mass tourism I have seen - half of the city consists solely of streets filled with souvenir shops and stalls, hotels, restaurants and bars and crowds of people ( also a lot of foreigners included ). But the surrounding countryside is definitely worth the trip. We rented the mountain bikes and took two half-day long trips around the city. Since the most of the people prefer to take the bus or tourist group minibus or a sightseeing ship as a major mean of transport, we have enjoyed a lovely trip in ( almost ) traditional Chinese countryside including getting lost many times ( no tourist marking whatsover - just a crappy map ), escaping from women trying to persuade us to take a photo with their children or their water buffaloo - hoping to charge us a few yuan, being scared of ambush when lead by one of the local farmers after we got lost, climbing the Moon hill and enjoying amazing scenery from the top, etc.

Before saying goodbye to Yangshuo we have participated in a terrible “Cormoran fishing show” - the Li river region is famous for this special way of fishing, when trained cormorans with tightened throats ( to prevent them from eating the fish ) are navigated by the fishermen who later summons caught fish from their throats. The idea itself is interesting and it was actually quite nice to watch those cute little fellows swimming by the ship and diving to catch the fish, but the possibble good impression from the trip was spoiled by extremely noisy small overcrowded ship we have been sailing in.

On our way back to Wuhan we stopped in Guilin again and went to visit the Longsheng rice terraces in the mountains. The trip was again in the “Chinese style” but with a few positive highlights - the tourist guide spoke relatively good English, we had a very tasty traditional “bamboo style”-prepared rice and chicken ( a piece of bamboo is stuffed with rice or chicken and then grilled in open fire ) and in the end we managed to part from the tourist group and crowds and enjoy like 2 hours walk around the terraces almost alone.

Anyway during our travellings around China we have managed to make quite some nice photos, which I hope to post soon on the internet but probably not before returning home …

Around China

On 8th of July in the evening after spending 4 months behind the go board our “holidays” finally began. We ( me and Camille ) have travelled for 12 days and visited Beijing, Shanghai ( also Suzhou and Hangzhou ) and Yellow Mountains and seen some main Chinese sightseeing places. Yesterday in the morning we have returned to Wuhan with a plan to relax a bit, see sights in Wuhan that have escaped us so far ( Hubei museum and further parts of Eastern lake ) and wait for the others who should return on the 24th to decide the future plans - if possibble I still want to visit the vicinity of Guilin city and particular places in Yunnan province before leaving.

Major observations: Crowds of people everywhere - most of them Chinese, but in the famous sites such as The Forbidden city or The Summer Palace also loads of NAs ( not asians ). Generally very hot and humid weather which can turn into strong storms in the evening. Chinese people love to travel in night ( beds in trains, seats in train and even beds in buses ). China is full of contrasts - modern buildings sometimes positioned straight next to the poor houses, fancy cars sharing traffic with poor looking bicycles, businessman everywhere as well as village people sitting on the pavements and selling stuff ( usually fruits ). Public transportation ( subways, buses and especially trains ) is amazingly well-organized in order to serve huge amount of people. Whenever buying any tourist souvenirs ( or sometimes even food in the street ) it is necessary to bargain, bargain, bargain - and afterwards ask for half of the decided sum to get a reasonable deal :) . When there is a lack of taxis/buses at some place, there is always a lot of Chinese people in their own cars ready to take you wherever you want ( while pleasing their wallet ). Chinese people love taking photos with foreigners - we felt like celebrities and it’s not fun. When speaking with Chinese people it is essential to make sure that they understand what you are telling to them ( either in English or in Chinese ) - they have a bad habit of nodding and agreeing even when they have no idea what is going on - and this can cause some serious issues later :D.

 We have met many people, seen beautiful places and experienced tons of things - here comes a small tasting of what we have done ( more or less in sucessive order ):

Beijing - transmitting messages by whispering along the circular “Echo wall” in Temple of Heaven, witnessing fight between The Monkey and 18 “weird” warriors in the Beijing Opera performance, making a pedal-boat trip in the BeiHai park, sitting on the ground in the Forbidden city in front of Palace of Supreme Harmony while imagining Chinese emperors giving orders to his armies, visiting souvenir handcraft factories ( Jade, some special Chinese vases, … ) and pretending to be Americans in order to get a discount on the lunch, walking around circular part of The Great Wall ( the site was reconstructed and adapted to the tourists ), experiencing a foot massage in the Tibet traditional hospital medicine together with Tibetian doctor taking our pulse and guessing what diseases we suffer from,  having a famous Beijing duck in a fancy restaurant together with American neurologist, bargaining in The Silk Market, watching the calligraphy masters during their  work, attending the kungfu show which ended up being rather a ballet and visual effects performance, standing for over 15 minutes in front of the Tower of Buddhist Incense in The Summer Palace and enjoying a great view

Shangai - walking around The Bund for more than 4 hours and waiting for the night to see The Pudong in the dark, weaving my way among people pursuing foreigners to sell them stuff in Nanjing road, regretting the forgotten battery in camera in splendid Humble Administrator’s Garden in Suzhou, desperetaly looking for toilet in rain in Tiger’s Hill park in Suzhou as well, meeting people in great hostel bar and enjoying spaghetti after a looong time, getting stuck in traffic after seeing LingYin Temple in Hangzhou and struggling to see the (damn) West Lake before sitting the train back to Shanghai, being navigated to the hospital ( YiYuan ) instead of the gardens place ( YuYuan ) because of misunderstaning in asking the way, speaking Czech and pretending not to understand English in YuYuan gardens to get rid of agile girls advertising some goods

Yellow Mountains - swearing a lot at the city and hotel we stayed in and the whole Yellow Mountains trip , seeing splendid beauty of The Yellow Mountains itself while listening to the mp3 to override noise made by crowds of Chinese people with tourist guides, admiring strength of good-carriers walking up the hill with often around 90kg on their back, having a crappy food in Chinese imitation of fast food restaurant and even crappier in quite fancy restaurant ( misunderstanding while ordering the food ) but improving the overall impression by a great massage just before leaving, travelling “the true Chinese way”  in packed night bus back to Wuhan

Coming to Wuhan was a little bit like returning home - seeing familiar places, looking forward to going to my favourite coffee house or sleeping in my damn hard bed

Holiday plans

Yesterday was our last day at school. Today the kids and the teacher are having a break and tomorrow they are going to the annual Chinese professional qualification tournament in HangZhou. As we found out there is going to be over 400 kids from all over China in the tournament of which 20 strongest kids will be awarded 1p in the end. We don’t know many details about this action and also when we asked whether it is possible to come and watch the games we were told that unfortunately it is not possible - it is more like an exam in the school the teacher said. Nevertheless we are going to hold the fingers crossed for all kids from the school participating ( around 10 ). My personal guess is that one of them is going to become a pro this year ( I think that like 2-3 have some chance so one will make it ). The teacher said that it is difficult to estimate what their chances are and stressed that kids in Wuhan weiqi academy doesn’t spend that much time with studying as for instance kids in Beijing, etc. However he also pointed out that he believes that Xi Er Hao ( 8 year old kid one of the strongest in the school ) and Zhang Pei Pei ( 12 year old very clever girl ) are going to have a good chances in like 1-2 year time. The age limit to become a pro is set to 15 years of age in China which is very tough and puts a big pressure on the kids.

We spent 6 days in the row in school from the morning to the late afternoon at school last week as a part of intensive preparation for the tournament for the kids. During this time I played a “jubango” - 10 games in the row ( no handi ) with one of the kids who’s level is supposed to be 3-4 dan ( I don’t know whether he is going to the pro qualification tournament, but he would have no chance there for sure). I call him “yawning kid” in my go games repository, because he often makes faces during the game and most often it looks as if he is just yawning … He knows much more joseki than I and he also managed to win some games by beating me in reading skills, but he also often plays hasty move or overplay. Taking advantage of this I managed to grasp overall victory 6-4 ( turning from the unpleasant 3-4 after 7 games ) :). I consider this as a pleasant finish of my go studies here - I was losing to him a lot like a month ago - and even though back then I felt I can beat him, he was still rather dominating in our games.

Because of the tournament we are also having a break from playing Go now. So today me and Camille are leaving for a +- 2 week sightseeing tour together. Our raw plan is as following. First we go to the Beijing where we spent 4-5 days including visits outside the Beijing such as The DaTong Hanging Temple or The Great Wall, afterwards we move to Shangai for another couple of days our destination should include also some nearby towns such as Suzhou or maybe HangZhou - both regarded as places with tranquil parks, lakes, etc. Next on the list is the Yellow Mountain which is supposed to be one of the most beautifull sites in China - most of the Chinese paintings portrayting the mountain in the mists is believed to be inspired by this area. Later on we are supposedly heading to the south of China and city of GuiLin, river Li and it’s neigborhood. This area is typical for it’s “poetic and picturesque environment in which one cannot but feel relaxed and refreshed” as our  tourist guide says. Anyway this plan is quite rusty and “flexible” so let’s get surprised how it actually turns out. After 2 weeks ( when the pro qualification tournament is over ) Camille intends to return to school while I will keep on travelling ( not sure where right now - good candidate so far is the Yunnan province ) for like 10 more days and then return to Wuhan to catch my plane home on 9th of August.

Gotta go to pack my backpack :)  …

Summing up

Another free day - another good opportunity to share some experiences from my Chinese trip Today we decided to pay a visit to the Chinese cinema and go to see a brand new animated movie Kung-fu panda. We went to Hankou in the afternoon did a bit of shopping ( I bought some books to study Chinese ), had a cup of coffee in the bar with really cool seats ( they were actually arranged as a see-saw and it was great fun ) and afterwards we went to a local “multi-cinema” for an English speaking ( with Chinese subtitles ) version of the mentioned movie. The cinema looked pretty much as any modern cinema in Europe and thus we enjoyed absolutely awesome movie ( in beautiful English, really funny, nice “fighting scenes”, … ) along with free portion of pop-corn and cola.

Anyway there is the last week of my go studies awaiting … so it’s basically the time to do a little summing up. My trip to China had three major aims related to go :

1) become better in my favourite  game - I hope I did a bit, even though not as much as I imagined I could … I think I have managed to identify what my biggest weakness is ( aside from lacking the fundamentals like reading ahead and knowing joseki and set patterns ) : quite often I play a “hasty move” ( without thinking, just instinct ) or a move which I haven’t properly read out ( for instance in the local fight, the move that seems to me is the proper one and works in some sequences I have read out then at one moment I just play it without reading out the rest- I somehow become “impatient” ) - so my future aim is to work deliberately on fixing this issue - calming down a bit before every important move and make sure I have read out important local moves and I really believe this move is the correct one. So this whole thing could be probably summed us as being more concentrated …

2) learn how a life of studying go feels like - it is tough, tough, tough It might seem that we are on holidays here, but in the beginning I was spending over 7 hours a day on go in first two months, now it is around 5 hours a day ( I devote myself more to studying Chinese than before). Of course, when you actually manage to play a good game ( or just play a cool tesuji ) it feels really good ( especially when the teacher appreciates the move ). Well seriously - I think that the kids who are studying go to actually become pros have a very tough childhood - they are under constant pressure from very early age - for instance some kids at the school get scolded by their parents when having the bad results - moreover it is a matter of fact, that most of the kids will actually never become professional players ( lately age limit for becoming a pro was set up to 15 years in China ! ) . The annual pro qualifying tournament  is going to take place in a week so we are going to hold fingers crossed for all the kids from the school participating ( 20 1p will be given to the best of over 400 kids from all over the China ).

3) find out whether I can study go for a relatively long time without going crazy - well here I am, after relatively long time hopefully not more crazier than before and still in love with the game. I am really looking forward to coming back home and on some sunny day taking a go board and going to Vysehrad ( very nice site at Prague ) to play go with friends outside in the shade of the trees till it gets dark ( and finishing the evening in one of the nearby pubs over a glass or two of a good beer )

All right - end of dreaming. This week is going to be somehow special - we are going to be at school all day long 6 days in the row. I guess it is some kind of “intensive” preparation for the kids going to the pro qualification tournament and a “nice goodbye” for me with the school - as I have already mentioned afterwards I am going to spent my last month here by traveling a bit around China ( we have more or less a prepared route for the first two weeks already - so stay tuned for occasional reports from interesting sights of the “middle kingdom” ).

Football

There is a European football championship going on these days as probably has not escaped your notice. We have made some effort to watch a few games here in China as well. Actually there are live transmissions on one of the local channels so we have quite a good opportunity to watch some games ( except for the commence which are naturally in Chinese and which I can understand only a few phrases like “corner kick” or “a good opportunity” - this one I know from go ) . The time difference is a slight problem since the game which are played at the most convinient time in Europe ( starting around 8:30 ) we can watch starting at 2:30 in the morning here. 

Yesterday we have decided that a semifinal game Italy-Spain on Sunday night ( or rather Monday morning here ) is a brilliant opportunity to watch a good football. Moreover since Monday is our free day we woudln’t have issues with waking up in the morning. Anyway we went to the caffee Brussels at around 11 p.m. ( having like 1 hour of preliminary sleep after the dinner ). Together with other Wuhan expats ( foreigners living in Wuhan for some reason ) we have waited for a game while having a couple of drinks ( here I would like to point to the observation that yesterday I had a slightly unusual combination of what you can get for a drink in a pub - I started with a big glass of squeezed oranges mixed with strawberry juice, continued with glass of palm beer, on top of this I added a glass of milk right before having a shot of Jaggermeister and several following shots of tequilla - there was a crazy guy in the bar called O.B. who was unable to fight an immense need to buy everyone a drink, several times - and all of this was accompanied by several glasses of water with ice and lemon. )  Since not much was happening before the game started ( except for very excited bartender proclaiming very loudly Italia’s football superiority to Spain ) I laid a hand on Chinese tourist guide and was looking for a good places to visit during my free month ( which is starting already in like 2 weeks ) ( God I like brackets ). Anyway we managed to get throught to the game which in the end was quite boring . Not many chances and very carefull football concentrated mostly on defence. Anyway after struggling through extra time and penalty shootout the good news was that the Spain managed to go through - it’s not like I kind of cheer for Spain, but seeing the Italian style of football ( defence, defence, defence, accidental score in last minute ) I think I would cheer for any kind of opponent. We got out of the bar right after the game at around 5:30 experiencing the rising of a new day in Wuhan ( has not happened to me before since my usual waking time is not before 9 ). It was actually quite nice ( I mean the way to home ) - fresh air, ocasionally people practicing taiqi in the streets, few cars, etc. Today I woke up at 12, did a few tsume go, studied chinese a bit, went for a cup of coffee and then to French guys appartment for a great pancakes. Well that’s how we spent our free days here …

As long as the finals is not Turkey - Russia I think we might go and repeat our small Sunday-football expedition :D.

Hubei museum trip

Yesterday was one of our days off. Lately the teacher takes his time to rest, so we are free to do whatever we want. Usually this just consists of sleeping a lot, hanging around the appartment, going shopping, going to relax to the park, etc. Yesterday we have made a trip to the Hubei museum which is near the East lake. There were four of us : me, Camille, Eric and Barbara ( Eric’s Chinese teacher ). The Hubei ( provincial ) museum resides in a fancy “pagoda like” complex of buildings and the webpage was quite promisive considering the museum’s collections. Well … it was closed . As we found out Monday is generally the day off for museums, galleries, etc. in China.

Such a trivial issue couldn’t have spoiled a nice day, therefore we decided to walk a bit around the East lake area and see what we can do. After a nice walk around the lake we headed towards the “birds zoo” ( what’s the proper word ? ). Basically it is an areal under a huge net having a lot of different kinds of birds most of them being able to move freely around. While walking around what seems like a small park you can meet bunch of ducks, gooses ( or at least their Chinese variations ), pelicans, peacocks, pigeons, parrots ( these were the only ones to be “chained” ), etc. ( there were much more but I am lacking the vocabulary to name the species even in Czech … ). Especially peacocks were really beautiful some of them proudly showing ( and vibrating to intimidate the others ) their marvellous feathers arches ( on the spot with vocab again … ). We liked it a lot and have spent there like an hour ( the park wasn’t very big ). Eric made some very nice photos you can check out.

Afterwards we took a cab to Hankou ( one of the three districts of Wuhan known for a modern shopping zones and lively nightlife ) and visited a local Haagen-dasz. I have as well never been to any before. This one in Hankou is quite nice, they had a fancy menu, good service and absolutely brilliant ice-cream. Later in the evening we stopped in the caffee Brussels where we met with Simon and had a nice evening - couple of beers, very good Flemming beer beef stew for a dinner, listening to a good music, etc.

Anyway the weather forecast for all this week is rain, rain, rain. It has been true all day long today, so we are still not “fully enjoying” hot Wuhan summer :).

Oh and one more thing - recently there has been a large number of spam comments on the blog - I have removed them in a “mass way” but unfortunately I could have deleted some non-spam comments as well. Well they are gone, so there is nothing to be done about it but I am sorry for all comments I accidentaly deleted ( so far I know about one ).

it’s not just fun

So far it might have appeared like we are living here in a small paradise - great food, a lot of go, no work or serious troubles, time to time a small trip, a lot of new experiences and of course beautiful chinese girls Well sometimes it’s not just as bright as it seems …

Now I have been here for almost 3 months so I got more of an insight on how such a life style looks life. For myself I can say that I really like it so far - even though there were a few moments when I was rather unhappy from several reasons - missing a home a lot, playing go really badly, not having many local friends - almost nobody speaks english here and we don’t speak chinese that well - but it is getting better lately as I started to come to one of local coffee shops and trying to speak to the owner/guests sometimes … ( Yes I realize that my sense for sentence construction is very crooked ( or you might even say “sick”)  but If you are reading this you have probably made it through more of my posts and got somehow accustomed already - I am not going to change it ) - end of sentence - well not yet : I just wanted to add that when I feel a bit down I just take my mp3 and go for a small walk to the park or along the streets - it really helps end of sentence NOW .  

So the thing is that like everyone of us was through some kind of depression while we have been here. There were times when Camille was feeling very badly and would more or less stay in her room for a few days. Eric had some argument with Camille and haven’t been speaking to her for some time. Charles had moments when he was a bit depressed by his go ( he is very strong by the way ) and resigned some games very quickly. Simon sometimes suffers from our ignorance to his neccessity of social life and wanders to his famous bar alone returning late at night.:D  And unfortunately Lucas decided to shorten his stay here ( probably because of home sickness and also a bit of general disappointment ) and is flying home this sunday. Well I hope that the others won’t get mad on me by revealing some of their personal information, but my point is that we are not having some kind of illusion-like lifes here ( as some people might think ) and even though we really like it, this lifestyle can be pretty hard sometimes - confrontation and disappointment from one’s repeating mistakes in go, homesicknesses, non-native environment, …

So this would be for a more “realistic” view on my stay here, the following posts will be boringly optimistic If you suddenly feel pity for us and want to send us ( me ) some “cheering” e-mails - please don’t do it ;) 1) It’s really not that bad 2) I am laging a lot in my email conversations as it stands …   There is a dragon boat festival quickly approaching and we hope to be part of it ! So during the weekend or monday we will hopefully be eating this “zhang zi” thingy ( something of rice wrapped in some sea weet ) and watching musculus men rowing the boats supported by the beautifull cheerleaders

By the way I have updated a little bit my blogroll ( still sucks though ). So you can find there links to three photo galerries and also a link to camille’s blog ( which will be usefull to you if you can read in french ). Oh and I almost forgot - lately I have been doing quite well against one of the teachers ( 5 dan ) so the next time we are going to lower the handicap from 2 to 1 stone

zhong guo jia you 中国加油

Last two days in Wuhan were in the influence of the phrase in the title. Oh what does it mean ? Basically it’s say “go for it China” or “do your best China” ( “ganbatte” n Japanese ). Funny think is that “jia you” actually means “add oil”. Well anyway - why am I making such a fuss about it …

Today there was an Olympic torch relay going on in the streets of Wuhan. This is a BIG day for almost all the Chinese people in the city. I have noticed that the Chinese people are quite nationalistic - but today I have seen how MUCH So the torch relay thingy means that there are few people running around in the streets carrying a single torch with Oympic fire and smiling and waving, while being supervised by a lot of policemen and military, etc. As I said local Chinese people made a big show out of that.

Yesterday and the day before streets were filled with people selling T-shirts with olympic motives ( or statements like ” I “heart” China “… ) , small flags, big flags, red head bangs, stickers witch chinese flag, etc. Already Yesterday in the evening it looked in the streets as if China won half the gold medals. Cars were carrying the flags. People were wearing the mentioned T-shirts, having the head bangs, etc. - some people were singing and there was generally more people than usual in the streets.

We have decided that we want to see the Olympic torch a long time ago and after seeing this I was even more curious. I bought a T-shirts for myself, Lucas and Simon ( mine has one of the Olympics mascots on, Simons has the logo of olympics and Lucases says “zhong guo jia you” ) actually to find these T-shirts in proper sizes ( which is XXL ) was not easy since Chinese people are generally smaller.

Anyway in the morning we got up early ( at around 8 ) to see the show. And indeed it was as we expected. Crowds of people with Chinese flags, in the white-red T-shirts, etc. in the streets. We couldn’t see the main street ( we were like in the 8th row ) where the torch was supposed to be carried, however we managed to spot it while it was going uphill on the bridge for a little while. After the torch runner came a few buses with police and staff and … that was it. All this MADNESS for 2 minutes.

Simon made some very nice photos which I am going to post later ( actually I am in an internet caffe right now since the computer at home is more or less broken ) and provide a link.

I wonder how it’s gonna look like here when China actually wins half the golden medals … :D.