2.01 A normal day

Today was quite a normal day like those days in school attending lessons, going break, talking cock and going back to dorms.

However, PM lessons was good. Personally, I felt that by learning how to construct a Gantt chart and a Network diagram, I'll be able to plan for my long term activities appropriately. I'm also be able to have a better overview of the entire tasks going on and up-to-come ones.

As today is the opening of a new semester for the students, to avoid the morning crowd, we went to canteen 3 for breakfast & dinner, near our classes (Foreign Language School).

side entrance of c3/inside of c3, so far I think it's the best canteen (ah, a blurred shot)

scenic views of the track & field at the perimeter of the school near lake

a very run-down building (students studying inside)/job vacancy

Interestingly, we managed to see a job flyer around in the campus! To my surprise, it's allowance is very low. However it's kinda fun if one able to work in canteen keeping the bottles if I'm not wrong.

by the pavilion - me,guoyuan,chengteck,zhengwei,shengkiat,bingrong/the campus we're at (school bus' door)


In the evening, I had a meeting with some other ME s.leaders and the s.leaders from Foreign Language School (FLS). The reason is due that tomorrow we're having a big event! About evening time, 7pm tomorrow, we've planned to have an exchange programme with the local students and us! I'm looking forward for tomorrow's programme as tomorrow is a short day but I supposed it's going to be very fun. Estimated students tomorrow would be about 68! Earlier on, we went into the school of information engineering for discussion. I didn't know we could just walked in just like that!

school of Information engineering/amy,ellen(i think so),amanda (local student leaders)


They are very friendly and welcoming! And their English was seriously good, just that they are abit slow to catch and speak. However their pronuciation is very sharp and nice. We discussed with them about near up to 2 hours and finally had our plan drafted out! *Chinese & english communication*

caught this before going up to our dorm. (aren't they cute? eating cucumbers)


Our building has alot of kids like their age playing around. If I'm not wrong, I also saw like a family or sort of, staying @ the level one. Thus, I was still wondering what are they doing here in this university? I thought was it supposed just for students only? Anyway, I'll clear my doubt soon!

About their culture, I didn't noticed much today but I noticed something about the local students as today is their starting semester! They like to go light in their items. Majority of them only carried a book to classes and usually, they travel in big groups. About their dressings, most of them wore shoes with jeans.

Heard from the top that somebody suffered from some insect bite and got a serious bum, and someone got food poisoning, but now he's under control, in his room resting. Thanks God that everything went out well for the first week. These incidents reminded me to be more hygiene concious when picking food! And one more thing, today's dinner, I noticed that there's a strand of silver metalic strip of the brush in my fried rice! Luckily I noticed early and removed it.

Ok, I'm signing off now. I hope and pray that everybody will have their goals for their holidays fulfilled! And have a very fun holidays with whacky peoples and run wild! Most of all, do take good care people.


jac

(1) Summarized Reflections of Week One

Day 1: Link to Day 1's Journal
Chinese culture in Singapore & China is very different. I noticed alot of difference one touching down in Wuhan.Firstly, the way they speak in chinese is very different from Singaporean's chinese. Secondly, when coming together to dine, they only uses a pair of chopsticks and nothing else. To that, I feel very ackward as I'm used to use a spoon to eat small amount of rice left in a bowl. Thus, by learning how the cultural differences is surfaced, I'll have no choice by learn to adapt myself with it.

Day 2: Link to Day 2's Journal
I learn about negotiating skills is very important in China. Especially in terms of getting the product/service you want, one have to be very clear in one's speech and statements. An experience I had, in the conversation between our WUST lecturer, Lisa, and the mobile shopkeeper, I can feel that they are very direct in their negotiating speech. They state clear and precise information of what they want. However in the end, there's an conflict evoked as the shopkeeper isn't really paying her fullest attention to Lisa. Lisa described numeral times clearly that she wanted a prepaid card that enable us to call overseas. To that, the shopkeeper kept saying yes, yes, it is possible. In the end, it turned out to be no, we couldn't make calls back to Singapore. Bought nearly about 100 of that partial-useless prepaid card. She's really into it! Bottomline, in this unique experience I've learnt that when one dealing things/business in Wuhan, we've to be very sure of the things and details we want and make sure that the other party is fully attentive! Furthermore, if one's buying a bulk, sample one first instead.

Day 3: Link to Day 3's Journal
Today Mr. Tan explained to us the reason behind all the laidbacks that we've experience in our dorms. compared to what it's stated before we came. The laidbacks were the missing washing machine & the inconvenient internet connection provided. The main reason is because that Mr. Tan doesn't meet-up face-to-face with the person-in-charge of WUST, discussing the plans in detailed. However he did it through a middleman and thus, information translated to and fro wasn't that clear and specific in details. Yes, we do have internet connection & a washing machine. Internet connection is locate at a shared classroom and the washing machine facility is located at one of the shops outside WUST. And we thought that it's all in our dorms. before we came! However, this has no one to be blamed for but personally, I think it is a good experience for me whereby in coming in discussing of short/medium/long termed duration activities, it is better for one to go down personally first to discuss face-to-face with the person-in-charge. Furthermore, I've to learn to handwash my own clothes too! I think it's fairly a good experience though. What's good is that Mr. Tan & team actually got us an internet connection in our dorms.! It's a good day when we went shopping and came back with internet connection fixed, and I want to thank Mr. Tan & team for the backup plans.

Day 4: Link to Day 4's Journal
In shopping centre, the receipt is very important. It is the departure pass for the customer to leave the supermart. Furthermore, not all shops own a POS system, whereby after picking the item from the shop, the shopkeeper will take note and prepare a handwritten receipt for customers to pass to a counter to process payment. Thus it is very different where Sinapore has all-in-one in a shop whereas in China, after processing payment, customers will have to make another way back to the shop to get their retained item to end transaction.

Day 5: Link to Day 5's Journal
Today, canteen 2 was very crowded during lunch period, especially in the vegetable rice stall. Thus, we decided to go and find out how may we start to buy food as the crowd is everywhere around the stall! Upon standing there for awhile, I can feel at my back that people started to push abit by bit, making me to raise my plate above my head. Hearing from my friend "Bringrong", he said that they experienced the locals cutting his queue. Thus I felt that one have to persistent when in China, but not overdoing it as Chinese still promotes harmony among each other.

I believe by now after going through nearly a week in Wuhan, experiencing from 2 situations in negotiating and in canteen ordering food, I've studied and learnt that in my opinion, chinese people in China are very persistent. They will not give up easily whenever they face any situation. Taking today's situation for example, we all are hungry and because of the unorganized queuing, there is not standard way of ordering food. Thus, some of them will try every means to get the food as soon as possible by squeezing through the crowds.

Shout backs

>hwa: hey hwa jie! hahaha! now you know it's me! ya I'll bring back dog meat back for u ah! haha. have a super hols. anyway, hope you'll get good results that you wished soon! ^^

>KIAHUI: hey! yup. wah, it's been long since we last chat. Anyway how's your hols? enjoying? haha. I'm studying in China.. :

>charles: yeah, in fact everyday I'm enjoying myself with the activities my trip leaders had planned out and the tours also. How about you? How's sat. church svc? I guess you had a great time yeah?

1.07 Week End

Today is a Sunday and we went shopping at Han Kou, Commercial District in Wuhan. It is one of the 3 district of Wuhan. From our campus to there, it took us about 45-60mins as during weekends, it is functioning at a peak period around 8am.

On the way in bus, again our powerful tour guide "Wang Jie" share with us more about Wuhan!
i) How do people greet each other in Wuhan?
- Same rank (e.g. Teacher with Teacher) They call each other "Huo Jie"
- Calling someone bigger than you *Boy (e.g. Calling big brother) "Guai Zhi"
- Married woman (e.g. Your friend's mother) "Xiao Shao Zhi" The reason they used these greetings because it depicts the closeness between them and they respect "Yi Qi" alot.

ii) This is interesting. Personality of Women in the various districts.
- Wuchang (Gentle and normal woman): Speech and tone of voice is gentle and smooth.
- Hankou (Rough, fierce and persistent): Speech and tone of voice is rowdy and serious.
- Hanyang (Half rough, half gentle)

Hypothesis made by Wang Jie: Wuchang women looked down on Hankou women because of their outburst behavior. Vice versa, Hankou looked down on Wuchang women because of their weak and easily-bullied personality; soft & fragile.

Apart from the personality, another area could depict the culture of the various districts:
- Wuchang: Area of schools, educational buildings, nature and environment, and landscape sceneries. (Thus, their people are towards the soft behavior)
- Hankou: As you know it is a commercial district. Thus there are alot of business dealings done over in Hankou. (Thus, their people are more serious and rowdy in their speech and behavior)
- Hanyang: Industrial area with factories and other working buildings. Hence I assumed that people from Hankou & Wuchang came to find job in Hanyang and mixed around. (Thus, the people over in Hanyang is towards the balanced side of the other 2 districts)

Some History: In the past, Hankou is flooded with water. It is only after then, it converted from a fishing district to a commercial one. iii) Delicacies in Yichang - Hong Shu (Sweet Potato) While travelling on the bus, listening to Wang Jie & taking pictures of the streets in Hankou. Take a look!

bus going through the 长江大桥 (Chang Jiang Da Qiao) to Hankou


past: agriculture building/apartment at far right, 7-8k RMB per m²

police car



Highlights of the day:
a) 汉口江滩 along the Yangtze River
b) 沿江大道 (like the orchard road in SG)

ouch! I thought it got sync. but anyway here's the map!


Ok, here we go along the Hankou JiangTan for a nature walk. The day was very humid! However we walked inside under the shades of the trees, instead of the perimeter of the Yangtze River. To our suprises, we noticed alot of unusual activities going on. It is an eye-opening and interesting time to enjoy the time there.

inner area/perimeter

don't slip!/desc on/rubbish bin *look carefully

pavilion/uncles playing chinese chess

*more inner, a band!/er hu & other instrument like the flute

cheerful er hu player

Moving out of the pavilion, we're more unto even exciting attractions! I believe there's some story/meaning behind these statues or sort of, however we just take a pic with it!

appMates: carlos jiu kong/ronaldo Jin Cheng Wu/sleepyhead(chengteck)/shiva the d.a/guoyuan the n.w

I like these shots (my placement, heh) grass1/grass2/credit to bingrong's, taking me!

under the bush/bush with ME girl (Elaine)

i looked kinda zombifying!

尾巴/gy with 尾巴和家人

Own chopped it's tail away and called it 尾巴。*interesting*

Walking out, we saw a group of 4 playing poker cards. By looking and studying the way they played, I've taken back some learning points as I noticed that they don't distribute cards. However, individual take each card by oneself instead. Sheng Kiat & me assumed that they are afraid that people might cheat by distributing better hands for the distributor.

kelong-liked/uncle's packing up, no fishy/by the kelong

shaky pathway


after then, we took our last pics and off we go to the next highlight of the tour!


Now this is the the favourite part of mine where we're out for shopping spree. In the end, I didn't buy anything! But I hoped to come back again to get the shoe I wanted! A short description about the shopping places. It is very well categorized of line of products by street. Overall: It was good and it brought me back to Orchard Road in SG!

Learning points in this shopping trip: I've learnt that I need to be more oriented in my mindmap of directions. Especially in these places of unfamilar, I have yet to learn how to remember places better. The streets are busy and I've learnt that there are all sorts of people hanging out in there. There are 2 incident where we experience strangers approached us. Once it was when one stranger showed me N95 and "tsk tsk" me, but I walked away.

I assumed that he's going to sell me that phone to earn some cash money. Another incident is whereby while we're walking to find a food stall, there are a couple of people holding a Nike's brochure and invited us into somewhere "wulu" and told us there's loads of stuff over there. In the end, we didn't moved on with them.

We assumed that once we go in, we'll get out without our bags. Thus, from these situations, I've learnt to be more vigilant of our belongings and be alert to the people around there. Here are some pictures:

one of the entrance at 沿江大道 (yan jiang da dao)

cinema

that bottom level sells alot of nice food/expensive branding

inside the s.center (taka?)/Pepsi's branding *cool



manga/yogurt drink

a shop outside arcade/spiciest wings ever! I nearly gave up

special DDR in arcade/fun car game

prata+ham+hotplate *shiok!

enjoyment of the taiwan snack (this is how we do it):




After the shopping, we went for dinner @ one of the shopping center near WUST.

super spicy mee + tang bao(xiaolongbao)/wanton-liked/fried rice(pkt form)



jac