4.06 & 4.07 武当山 [WuDangShan]

20th Sept. 2008 Saturday
Something about Wudang Mt. (武当山): ... ... located in Shiyan in north western Hubei, is both a famous scenic spot and the Taoist Holy Land in China. The ancient architectural complex on the mountain was listed by UNESCO in 1994 as a World Culture Heritage Site. That day we only explored 2 places of attraction in Mt. Wudang from The Crown Prince Slope (太子坡):

• Nanyan Temple 南岩宫


• Purple Cloud Temple 紫霄宫

lunch after half day of bus ride/chestnut's shop along street

entrance of Mt. Wudang

mansion outside Mt. Wudang

stores inside Mt. Wudang along the pathway

visitor center/the entire map of Mt. Wudang

a junction/interesting signboard

//the origin of chinese's surnames


interestingly the architecture of this support could withstand for years
osmanthus tree/flower of osmanthus (smells like peach)

tree full of wishes, casted by people

inside Nanyan Palace/interesting fire extin guisher

a little peak where people knelt and pray


street along Mt. Wudang/mist = cold


our hotel room



21st Sept. 2008 Sunday
The Start: We climbded the Mt. Wudang by feet up and...
The End: cable car down!
Destination: Golden Hall (金顶)

the start of treking/our tourguide "Jiang San" treking with us (she's fit!)


see no end-point, see no start-point



nearly reaching the peak 金顶/300metres away

//paddlelock locked by passer-by

//zhengwei & me at the peak



nice scenes from the peak

heading back down to where we first trek via cable car ($45RMB for this ride)


At night upon reaching dorm about 10pm, we relax and head out for supper around 11pm...

supper outside school/tangyuan 黑芝麻汤圆 in rice wine



Reflection:
This 1 minute of video (below) is a footage of how the lower class of citizen live in their agriculture fields and cultivate crops. Because of the speed of the bus and the lack of a good view, this is the best I can capture, so please hang on.

Anyway, the big large scale of landscape along the highway captivates me and kept me awake for a time being, as thoughts coming through my mind, thinking about the goodness they found with the nature.

It's not only 1 or 2 houses that is built with the green. But at some places, it's a long stretch of houses and at their designated area, they have their own farmland to take care. Apart from that, looking through into their houses, they have a street of shops they opened along the mini roads. It seems like a small village have been popped out.

The green pastures with the cow, cultivating crops and selling/trading it to neighbours, enjoying the carefree life. It's really something that it least be found in Singapore. Everything in Singapore is so competent, everybody wants to be the top in all things and strive to work hard to aim for a balance in life. So I guessed, there are a small amount of people who wished to have a life like this in China. I think for a moment, if China is going to advance and bloom in the future years, will all these nature living standard be wiped out? I hope not.

During this weekends, I noticed quite a number of things & defined some areas of personal understanding. Weeks ago, I thought that Chinese are very persistent in China and would get to the things they want. However, that was to an extent that they have high endurance in executing tasks that is at top priority. But not persistent in a way that they concentrate on the things they wanted so much. Looking back quite a few weeks back, I've noticed that they are relational-oriented Chinese where they don't evoke any conflict easily; to maintain tip-top harmony the best they can. To that, coming in deal with any of their business, regardless along the street or in commercial buildings, they always asked for our quotes but not they themselves. This shows that they respect our decision and won't make us feel bad. Like the experience I had at 大洋百货 where the lady is persistent in selling away their things and instead of she offer a price after I told her to reduce the price a little, she insisted that I name the price.

Apart from that, there's another situation which I thinks Chinese in China are very harmonious where I noticed that the caution signboard in China are very indirect but caring for the people. Unlike the ones in Singapore which are direct and "By Law". One of it I noticed, which is on the top of the police car behide the siren where it has an LED lighted message, displaying "祝你平安" (Peace be with you). It was at night and only then the first time I saw this message with the police car. One another example is in the bus (picture below) :

the caution sign in bus (refrain from smoking to promote healthy environment)

jac

4.05 Chill-out

lunch&shopping @ 大洋百货

some interesting signboards

asian lunch resturant

eating curry chicken/at starbucks

downtown night lights




Reflections:
In the later part of the day, some of us went out to 大洋百货 for shopping and chill out. We spent almost the entire day out in there eventhough it's a hot weather. However, it was a very fruitful day by shopping for best valued clothings and electronics, and looking around for some nice stuffs to reserved for the last week's shopping spree. Apart from shopping, we had a nice conversation with one of the shopkeepers at the electronics store. Most of the times, when my mates and myself head down to the electronics store to buy products, we always have a nice conversation with the shopkeeper. Especially when we are foreigners, they are very warm-hearted and one even offered to bring us to tour around and treat us dinner. One of the lady shopkeeper we converse with today, she is very honest when she share with us about the products she sold. She said about the products they sold are cheap is mainly due to the lower grade and non-QCed products, claimed from the host company. In other words, based on her 6 years experience working in Sony, she explained to us that the cheap products they are selling in their store are from the same company, just that it is in a lower grade and they sell it for charity. That is the reason why it is very cheap. Thereby, I felt that the shopkeepers in China focuses more on building relationship with the customer apart from selling their products.

Apart from hearing about the business facts and shopping, we had a in-depth sharing session
with one another in Starbucks before we end the day at 大洋百货. We talked about the first impression we had from each other, getting to know more about each other background and family and sharing some life issues. The main subject of the chill-out was about sharing the impressions we had from each other. We shared and talked about it, and that help us to better understand each other and oneself. However, it was quite too late when I felt and thought that this should be done in the 1st or 2nd week or the OIP. Thus, I felt that it is a very good exercise that every organisation or party should go through at the initial stage of "getting to know each other". By all means, it is still not late and I believe that by the end of the OIP, ICT roommates certainly will get to know more about each other, apart from the academic assessments that we have to accomplished.

Coming to China really challenged myself, and I believe for everyone as well, especially in the areas that we have to fulfilled as part of our achievements. Certain area such as, getting to know more about the foreign country, completing our modules, getting to know the local students and lastly but importantly, which is getting to know the roommates even better, even though some of us don't even know each other from the first place. Thus, I felt that it is a challenge for all of us to be willing to adapt to the changes/ambiguity of the environment around us and the people. Be daring to break "eggshells" and thus getting in-touch with each other.

4.04 Breakaway

For some reasons and a typical human mind I have, I felt that there's some broodwar going through my mind. Anyway, I had a normal day... Here goes:
scenery outside school

//attendence taking for staff I supposed


From the morning till afternoon, we finished 2 of our PM Activities! Now we're left with 3 more activities, a 30% test and that's it for PM! As I get to know my timetable from Cheng Teck, I was happy & sad. Happy that I got loads of free up lesson. Sad that maths lessons is not confirmed yet and it's very scary to be placed at my shortest day! Hopefully it's confirmed at a good day for us! *CT and I hoped for!!!

After a day in classroom, we had our time in the club house playing table tennis (TT)! I felt that TT is fun, especially today Br chu stunt with his nice suave move of curling ping-pong. That is a nice skill, but the speed is low and it is hard to master. Yes, it is something like the Koreans did in the Olympics. Nice and sweet.

Late evening, we had a party night with Liang, Ming and guys. It was fun although it's only 2 games, it lasted us for 2-3 hours with 5 cans of red bull & 500ml rice wine. All the skip and pass with mystery number, "pioy" and "jiak pioy", cow MOO and captain! haha! Boju is drunk-gonner tonight. Anyway, it was a fun night relaxing at their room since they have finished their CT! *which I heard it's a hardcore paper! all the BEST to all who taken it.

lucky guy/daming the pro guy who made his beside to drink

tian shun/desmond (2nd game host)

ah liang (1st game host)/boju the 5 star pig head/xiao hui the sa"bo-ju"

Reflections:

Today during PM Lesson, as the 2nd part of the day's scenario talks about people-oriented case, Hui Ru and Mr. Tan talked about China's culture in giving presentation & feedbacks. Hearing from what Hui Ru said about receiving feedbacks from the Chinese, I've learnt that in any case of a local speaking out of his/her mind in terms of presentation of idea sharing, one as a listener has to give his/her fullest attention and shouldn't interrupt until his/her is done with her presentation. Knowing that even there's some flaws in some areas of his/her idea, keeping harmonious relationship between partners as one of China's culture, the listener has to learn how to feedback to the presenter in a way that doesn't affect the relationship between. Otherwise, the listener could also feedback to the presenter after everything, so to in order to give face to the presenter. This is one of their behaviour I've learnt by listening to Mr. Tan & Hui Ru.

Another behaviour I've learnt about China is that if the leader said "one", the followers have no other choice but to obey it. There isn't any opportunity to voice out and change to decision made by the leader. Taking the example what Mr. Tan gave to us during the afternoon: If the lecturer gave his order to the class that tomorrow's class starts at 9am, everybody has no chance to bargain but only to comply to his instructions. However it is very different in Singapore, sometime it is rather flexible and changeable if appropriate, especially when Singaporeans like to complain about any inconveniency environment around.

turning in, everybody please take care and have a healthy sleeping time and eat healthy! Cow~ Mooo...

jac

Shout backs

>Br: bad guy? haha.. why eh? I don't do drugs, womanise or burn houses. I only go crazy.. hahaha! seriously, I think ct, zw, gy and YOURself have a very funny face.. always changing and damn relating to certain subjects at time. Hmm, can you make a fart face?

>joc: yes! the sound is very cute and funny!! especially when it is played through my camera.. hahaha! "piu piu piu". Anyway if you have any chance visting China, do play the fireworks.. it's very different from looking at it and lighting up one yourself! ?!?! Poem... is that a indirect reply that it's too long and wordy? : joking.. yeah, the night was very interesting.. I hope you're having a good time in Singapore as well yeah? with shopping and food sprees ya? ^^ and pa-tor with *ahem eh!? haha.. anyway hope you had good results!

>KoZinE: Heh, zoom out yeah, zoom in "....."! hahaha! Thank you for you compliments. But my SLR isn't the fight with your DSLR for sure! Maybe next year we could go shoot together with Az. ^^ Yeah, this few days is very hot.. feels like I'm in Sentosa... except that my upper clothes are on while walking.. haha! Anyway, how's Neth's big day? Any special treatments for him..... heh.. ya... looking forward in catching up with you real soon back in school for the second sem.! But one thing uncommon, our TIMETABLE! wooo... Yeah, if there's anything, do drop me an email. :) Take care pal!

>KIAHUI: haha! sounds like you got loads to DO after the new sem. starts! Hmm.. I think your grades got loads of maple's mushroom? hahaha... yeah, you can email me ya? Anyway, you should join a CCA soon.. maybe can consider dragon boat! =x have fun for now.. ^^