Mutianyu Great Wall (my 2nd time in the GW)

Hey...

This weekend I went to the Great wall for the second time in my lifetime!!!

The first time was 3 years ago with my University to Badaling ( i think the typical place hehe).

Now, this school organized the trip so I went with the korean classmates and my spanish chinese friends too hehe.

The journey to arrive to the spot took as usual 1 hr plus some traffic from Beijing city itself. There are very good highways so it's easy to drive to any of the turistic places in the conurbated, rural areas around Beijing city.

We arrived and the sun was not so hard, but there was a lot of humidity in the air, I guess around 80% easily!

Fangfang and I started buying and negotiating prices with the many shops in the main street leading to the entrance. We bought some Tshirts for around 17 yuan each! (this is a bit over 2 usd!). Then we rejoined the group who had already splitted.

Some took the walking side and some decided to go by cable car, this has an extra cost of 35 yuan (one way) or 50 (two way) and you save the effort of walking 1 km uphill.

I decided not climbing was not Great wall and walked hehe. Most of the way up is stairs, stairs hehe.. so by the half I was all damped in my own sweat haha.. but not so uncomfortable. Just drinking some water hehe, so by the returning time I had none left hehe.

Once up, the view was beautiful.... I liked this place, less people and more conservated sites, this one has some cannons and other fortress that I haven't seen before. The ticket is a miniCD too so when I came home I could see some bird-eye's views of the place and surroundings... So nice!

When I was going back I felt quite happy, and of course was much easier hehe.. my legs were starting to shake but I managed well hehe descending...

In the way down, I heard some people screaming! I got closer to the place of origin and... it was a slide!!! Look at the pic.. you can get down like taht.. sniff was too late to know it...

Maybe next time... =(

Take a look in my pics hehe... More you can find in flickr again hehe.

By the way if you have any suggestions of a better place to upload my pics pls speak up!!! =)

XOX

Magamonse

Freedom in China?

NOTE!
I tried to publish this post in Beijing and was impossible! I do it now... More than a week later!
===================================================
Some people ask me what about China? What problems have I found? What good things?

Many good things about the economy happen here.. you can see the development and the people spending everywhere. it has became the typical weekend hobby! "what do we do? Let's go shopping" it's the answer....

I know every country has its own problems and I know yes, the Chinese are developing real fast! You can see in front of you as the prices rise bit by bit and how the yuan is being pushed by the Economy to stop the same and start appreciating vs the USD, what means that the Chinese economy is strong but also that the exports could increase their price and then everything could desaccelerate or... collapse!!!

You can see the buildings, high, touching the skies, like the dreams of the people who are building them, living in them, planning them. Some of them are rapidly used and inhabited, but others stay empty for very long time...

Many things go right but some others don't, specially about freedom...

I would say that 2 freedoms in special are the more difficult around here.

1. Freedom of Movement and Association.
2. Freedom of Speech.

Yes you can buy whatever you want, but you cannot travel abroad without having the authorization of your superiors and their explicit recommendation, neither the money to pay for all the medical examinations, passport, visas and... other govnt requirements depending on the country.

You can fly or take trains, buses all over the country but don't think of staying for too long, if you don't own a Hukou (document, ID who establishes the most relevant data such as: birth place, graduation date, university, profession, children - if any-, spouse - if any-...) that is located in the same area, you won't have access to the basic services of health, education and many torubles about getting a job...

As you can see, even when the hukou has started to be less important nowadays, there are still a lot of problems for the migrant workers... who really suffer if not penalties for not having the hukou, some discrimination and less pay and things like that...

And if you want to know about the freedom of speech, just think of even a foreigner, who tried to post this blog to talk a little bit and cannot do it, because all my pc was closed, not once, but twice, when i tried to publish this entry!!!

But well, some other countries have some other problems, sometimes no freedom nor development... uff! Difficult to conclude....

Love,
Magamon...

PD if you want to hear more from a chinese shanghai resident himself! in English... click!:

http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20070729_strengthen_the_control_of_speech.htm?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email

Beijing Opera & Lama temple...

Hey...

How are you.. hehe?

Well, today I went to the Lama temple and the beijing opera.

I remembered so many things about 3 years ago!!! wow.. hehe

This time I didn't fall asleep in the opera hehe. I enjoyed it all and I was able to understand some parts!!! hahaha I feel happy about it hehe.

Nevertheless after seen it on TV so many times, I have to admit that I'm a bit used to it hehe. At least we didn't pay the whole ticket and everything went fine.. =)

There were many acrobatics in the show, I don't recall have seen so many action in the ones I watched previously, It could be because they were different operas or maybe because they want this one to be more atractive for foreigners hehe.. The place was packed with us hehe not locals at all haha.

By midday, me and company!!! haha Fangfang and my roomie, Giselle went to Gonghegong, lama temple... It is quite big! It used to be a palace but changed later to the tibetan lama culture place in Beijing.

There are many signs all in different languages: Manchurian, Tibetan, Han and...

They gave us discount!! haha good, student card 50% =)

And the entrance ticket is a nice souvenir, a small VCD that you can play in your computer, with awesome images for 4.5 minutes hehe and the monks from the temple saying something sorry I didnt understand this.. haha It was in Tibetan!!!

I enjoyed the place again.. Specially the 18 meters tall Buddha, made of a single piece of sandalwood!!! It's fabulous!!! Colosal!!! hehe.. and there are 8 more meters down to make it stable... I wonder when and how they made the buildinghehehe.. maybe they had to make the building afterwards but... wasn't it a palace before??? strange hehe.

If you want to see more pics, please visit my flickr hehe..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9714930@N08

Kisses... to all! hehe.

PS. Please leave your message that you have been here, c'mon hehe. I'd love to read from you =)

3 years later...

Just 3 years before.. I was so different...

We can say many things remain the same, but some others!!! wow.. hehe..

what do you say? what do you think at comparing these?

I was today in Tiantan (the temple of Heaven). I took a remembrance picture...

And so many memories came to mind...

It's amazing to see how the time goes... Where would I be in 3 years from now?

Last days..

Hey!

Sorry for haven't even dropped some lines these last 3 days!

I was a bit busy, you can check the new pics of these days hehe!
I met my good friend Anna!!! and i went out with almost all of my korean classmates hehe! We skated and then ate Mexican food!
Yes I went again to the Fogoncito haha.. And good news there were some leftovers so I keep eating them hahaha... Yummy! Please go the place is great...

www.fogoncito.com.cn the place is in Wanda Guangchang (Plaza mall), close to Guomao.

My pics site in Flickr (yes, since yahoo photos just expired, sniff!!!) :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9714930@N08/

If you learn Chinese....

Hey....

Me again! hehe.

I decided to tell you about the kind of problems (and of course, the advantages -remember to face both sides of the mirror hehe-) you may face when you are learning Chinese (this is specially true if your native language uses the "normal" alphabet system).

First of all, the Chinese language is based on precedent drawings, inspired at the nature itself or representations of this. Many (mainly the most basic and common meaning ones) are just like "pictures" of the object they are mentioning.

This system most of the time (75% or more) DOESN'T relate with the sound! Maybe some people will start saying ufff such a nightmare! But, being honest one of the most studied and popular languages in the world nowadays has this same condition and I'm using it right now!

People who speak languages like the Latin ones (I don't know if others, but you can tell me if you are familiar with those) may feel terrible about this, since Spanish for example, the way you write is the way you read and viceversa, that really makes things easier, even when we conjugate verbs and have female and male terminations, I know!!!! hehe. And not forget to mention the tones... depending of which one you use, out of 4, the words change dramatically in meaning. Just for example if you pronounce ma like asking it's a horse, but if you say it like chanting melodiously an keeping a high tone is mother. And angry, quickly is a bad word!

Passing these points I would say some of the good things about learning Chinese, it really opens you a world of new possibilites, like a new way of ordering the semantics in your head, usually you would put all the birds together, or all the I don't know colours, things to do, hobbies, etc in groups, but in chinese the radicals, (part of the "picture", character naming one meaning by itself but put together in the whole set) can give you another grouping way. This reorganizes your mind, helping you to avoid becoming stagnant and old in your mind ways hehe.

Another thing is this one... I love it!!!

When you are a child, what can you remember first? One picture of the sun that like a circle with rays or like a typical moon? Or can you read the word "sun, sol, soleil..." properly?

Well, I think with Chinese even a 1 year old baby could start reading very soon! Because it's very accesible. You look at the picture and you can figure it out (not always but maaany times!) the meaning is representing! Or how the combination of two or more in a new character makes another new meaning...

Now, this days, what problems I'm facing? The usual ones of any other learner hehe, plus the fact that I'm learning sometimes translations to English or to Spanish and that makes a whole mixture inside my brain hehehe.. Funny one indeed, hehe! Sometimes it helps me to speak different languages in advance, even French because there are similarities... yes!

Well, sometimes I can recognize the pronounciation but I can remember the writing or viceversa hehe! The worst haha it's when i can see it, i know the meaning but I can't say it or rewrite it by myself, without looking. This problem, dear learners don't you worry, many times, even the Chinese people face it hehe... So it's ok! Just part of the fun hehe.

Wish me luck, I have dictation and I feeling my head bit crazy since today I achieved the #200 character in my list haha..

If you want more information about this, I think there are several sites in the internet... Here, one... http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20070624_chinese_characters.htm

(A blog that by the way had inspired me, helped me and I strongly recommend hehe! Specially talking about Shanghai and surrounding areas).

Mexican Food：Fogoncito en Beijing 福客多 (And Peking man)

Hey, again!

I have already received a pair of comments, I will try to follow them, please don't hesitate to write me directly or leave a comment here hehe.

I really appreciate it!

Well, I was in Beijing in my first whole weekend! I had many ideas... I had already been in the typical places so I tried to go to a new one hehe.

I decided to visit the Peking Man site (promulgated a protected spot not long ago for the UNESCO) very early in Saturday morning. For those interested in antropology or history this site was very important because found another of our ancestors and with this discovered another prehominid different to the Java Man or the Typical Homo erectus and Homo habilis found in other locations.

Bad news, most of the exhibition pieces were casts, because the original ones were sent to USA during the WWII and nobody knows their destination! Nevertheless, I was in the caves and I enjoyed the casts hehe.

After that, we (my two half Chinese/half Spanish classmates and neighbours and their Chinese friend) decided to look for something to eat. I had already searched for "El fogoncito".

I was a bit afraid to ask them to go, since just last Thursday some of my classmates and my Chinese teacher had gone to another supposedly Mexican food place and it was not anymore selling Mexican food (if you read my thursday blog you know this already hehe).

But... I really wanted to have some Mexican food, so I spoke up!

They agreed but we weren't finding the right bus and all, we ended up taking a cab, who fortunately wasn't so rude (maybe because the Chinese girl managed him well hehe). So we arrived to the place and after asking one more time, because it's not so visible: BINGO!!!

El Fogoncito at sight! We entered, not many people. A table with 4 guys, spanish/mexican looking (the mexicans these days are in many colours, but the ones who are coming from mostly spanish - or french, etc- blood they tend to be like me, white skin and the facial features are not so sharp I think). Another table with two chinese girls.

They gave us the menu and it was in English/ Chinese / Mexican (not only spanish but mexican because the names were of food and using typical names we give to the food hehe).

My friends were surprised for the variety of dishes, so they just trusted in me and I ordered:

For starters...

• 1 order of "Tacos al pastor" (BBQ Style sliced Pork meat in soft corn tortillas) 3pcs /15 Y
  
• 1 order of "Gringas" (The same pork meat with cheese, pineapple and in this time in a Soft wheat flour tortilla) 1 pc / 18 yuan.
• 1 order of "Chicharron de queso" (melted cheese until its almost burnt and it curls itself (see the picture for more reference hehe!) 28 yuan

Seeing that this was not enough and we were needing more food.... I continue ordering... And this time, the Chinese girl contributed asking me if I the fajitas were good.

• A Mexican (indeed more of a Texmex) Classic: Beef fajitas (a quite decent portion of sliced beef, green peppers and onions, all friend and served in an Iron Hot plate) with tortillas to make more tacos. 58 yuan.


• "Enfrijoladas", these were not like Mexican do. Were more like quesadillas with frijoles. Two soft wheat flour tortillas with cheese and refried beans inside. 18 yuan.
• Another order of "tacos al pastor".
• Another order of "gringa"
• One "Cazuelita de queso fundido" (melted cheese in a clay pot) with enough soft wheat flour Tortillas. The big winner of the afternoon . Everyone loved it!!! 25 yuan.
• And the last dish... One frijoles with totopos order (Refried beans plate with deep-fried triangles of corn tortillas).

Everything tasted like typically tastes in Mexico, besides the service was good, you can see the attached pictures with the chinese guys doing the pastor and waitressing hehe.

The dishes were accompanied for three different kinds of spicy sauces: red chilli, green chilli and Guacamole (made with avocado).

I recommend this place, the only bad thing they played Luis Miguel (who is not even mexican, even when he sings many "mariachi" songs for the entire time we were at the place. I complained a bit pulling the manager legs hehe, who turned out to be one of the guys in the next table hehe.

Let's see what new adventures come up with this new 2nd week as a student in Beijing hehe.

Now I have to go, around 150 chinese characters are waiting for me before going to bed hehe.

From both sides of the mirror...

If you ask me about the lessons I have learnt in my year abroad, living and working and studying in China...

I have to be honest, most of them are not only about Chinese culture, places or language, not even people itself, but about relationships, about life and about myself.

One of the best lessons I will always have in my heart is this one: Remember to see always from both sides of the mirror...

Many times we say something, we have an idea, an opinion, very good one, we have thought it thru, it comes after some meditation or discussion... but! Have we really tried to see things from both sides of the mirror?

For example, living in China, as in many other cultures in Asia, is quite different from living in "the West", where we have to accept that the living standards have really became "standardized" hehe... We all can have the same things and we all share doing, having (almost, in general terms) the same activities, the same ways...

Sometimes, we may think: "this people... uff, why they don't know this? Why do they do like that?" We should be careful with such quick judgements... !!!!

Maybe we are right, but who told you that is really "good"??? Who determines what is "good" or not?

I think the society many times determines this and teaches us from very little to believe it, sometimes it could be truth and an advantage to follow such principles, but if they prevent you from being happy and limit your freedom, you better think twice...

Are they real good? Why do we do them? What happens if we don't? And if you find that you are not hurting anyone else and that will lead you to be a better person? Achieve greater things.. I feel you should go ahead...

If you are in the middle of a discussion, try to ask yourself... Why could he be keeping his point? how comes he or she is saying such a thing... ? May be this... Maybe.....

That doesn't mean that you change your ideas, but you will reinforce them and know why do you have them... Or if the doubt arises, maybe you have an opportunity to change your ways for some better ones...

Tough luck!

Hey!

Today is July 12th. I will remember this day I think..
So many things went wrong today... sniff! sniff!

By starters, even before waking up, before opening my eyes, I was moving in the bed ( I use to move a lot and sometimes yes, you won't know but also talk asleep hehe, lately even in English oops! haha) and...
I felt a terrible pain in my right leg, to be more specific in my calf. It was really a serious one, very sharp... I woke up in the moment almost in tears...
I changed the position and started to fade and I felt asleep again, but not very deeply this time... so bad..
When I listened to my alarm clock, about 1 hour and a bit more later, I woke up and the pain was less but still there... =( So bad! I tried to go to the bathroom but I have to jump on one foot! No way to even stand with both feet on the ground. Unbelievable!

I started massaging and slowly felt a bit better, prepared for my lesson but of course, I arrived late, no way to hurry up hehe. Today we had dictation （听写）, almost every single morning we are checking the new words ! About 20-30 a day, but those are only the one who we check in the book, besides I have many more I don't know and the book supposes I do or either the teachers or my classmates comment hehe.

Learning Chinese could have some difficulties but I think also could be very good and it's a new mind set, which allows you to understand a new way of thinking, a new perspective or amples the existing one.

Well, after my 4 period class I was able to move a little bit better I went to eat with my new friend from Spain, Fangfang and her younger sister. They are Huaqiao ( 华侨),Overseas Chinese, Spanish-born and Spanish speakers and all, but both their parents are Chinese who emigrated long time ago before they even existed hehe.
The lunch was ok but the food in the canteen was not so good, sometimes I don't know but even when the ingredients are fresh and the food is nice, the people just make it look bad by the way they present it. Like if you were in prision or something...
Stainless iron trays and green colour (well this is a bit happy hehe) plastic chopsticks. Also the way they serve could be like throwing not very gently... Well, China needs to take care of such little details, besides that the flavor was ok. Decent. The price cheap as usual, 4 yuan for a tray with rice and veggies and all, around 0.50 USD.

I rested and today we were going to go for Mexican food hehe, I found the place in the web and was not so far from here, like 5 stops by bus. Paying with my wonderful transports card is only 40 ctvs of yuan, (si mao / si jiao) Wow!!!

But my friends and our teacher joined so we went by taxi..
God save us! The man looked at the address and shouted at us a clear "bu renshi" (不认识, I don't know = I'm not familiar) But we pushed him, gave him some hints about the places nearby and finally he agreed to take us but not very nicely and all the time talking to himself in a rude tone. Really I don't recommend you to take taxis in Beijing. I have never done it before, but I knew about their bad reputation and today was just a confirmation of this!

Finally he left us close by saying he didn't know more and we were crazy to be able to find such a number in the street, blah blah! And God's sake we are talking about a big street, not a tiny little one, but whatever! We walked and found the place..

The name was changed! Some of the old labels and decoration mostly were there! But... Not anymore a Mexican restaurant. Now is not "niña" but a Spicy Hot pot!!! (辣火锅= La Huoguo) That's not what we were looking for..... Sniff sniff!!!

The other 4 also had their own problems with the driver but arrived drenched in sweat!
We decided we will get another kind of food, we went next door and one table was broken, the AC too and the weather was not cool. Beijing is hot in the summer!!!

Finally we ended up eating pizza, at least that was good! hehe 98 kuai for three people package including:
+Any 12" pizza
+French fries
+Chicken wings
+Salad and
+3 bowls of corn cream soup

Yummy! hahaha... Well, happy ending hehe... Now time to go to bed hehe. Ciao!

See ya tom!

A student again...

These days I'm a student again.

I didn't realize how much have I been missing to do this until I started again... he he!

It's really a good time, no need to worry about money (at least not only hehe). Up until a couple of weeks, I was teaching English in the branch of Delter in Nantong, Jiangsu.

But now I'm in Beihang University! Studying chinese during the summer...

Right now, no need to worry about preparing classes for teaching my kids (which I miss a lot). Of course I enjoyed, don't get me wrong but we have to deal with the fact that sometimes your creativity is not at his best and you feel worried about how to make your class interesting and enjoyable, hehe.

I will say that I have some Chinese lessons during this past 10 months in China (time really flies... ufff!) but they were not really formal ones, more of the kind of "Intercultural exchange". My friends in Nantong, one from the school itself and one from Nantong University who I met online and then face to face, used to meet me once or twice a week. We talked about our life, our culture, way of thinking, etc. Sometimes we translated some sentences, but mostly we were talking English, since they were quite good and me.. well quite poor to follow a discussion topic haha...

The good news is that I practiced a lot in the streets too, people in the market, in the supermarket or the bus, will never know so much English like my friends (well, yes sometimes, but not usually hehe), so those were the real chances where I could speak. When my colleagues, like Kevin and Brian and I used to eat out, we went to a café (oh... Mao's café times.... nostalgia starting so soon....) or to the fruit shop and we have to figure out how to get food and with a lot of work sometimes also be able to get the food we were fancing hehe...

Well, on Monday I had my level test! And I'm so happy hehe, it turns out that all that effort paid hehe... Now, my pronounciation is less bad haha... I start to be more understandable and I got a place on the C group, that is like high intermediate yes!!! haha..

Today is Wednesday. My head is all crazy, talking Chinese (Mandarin) all day and also trying to talk some Korean given that most of my classmates (85%) are from this country! hehe..

Everyday I'm learning about 25-30 words, could seem so few but believe me when you have already some in your head sometimes you start confusing them, and also is not only a memory exercise but a speaking one and listening one, because we have dictation every day about the last lesson vocab hehe.

Chinese is great! I love to be able to talk it little by little... I was sooo looking forward to this.

And Beihang University is quite big and nice. I'll promise to send pictures in my next blog hehe.

Enough for now, have to go. I'll meet a friend to go to an acrobatics show =)

Bye for now!

PD Please don't hesitate to ask me question or suggest if you have any topic you would like me to post about...

My Rayuela...

Hey!

Undoubtedly many should ask why Rayuela and Why Maga but I guess some of you know might already know a bit of what I am talking about it here, that's good he he.

For those who don't have a clue. Please let me introduce you to this, my Rayuela, my world...

Rayuela is my favorite book written by Julio Cortázar, an Argentinean, born Belgian who living in Paris finished writing one of the masterpieces of Latin American literature: Rayuela.

Rayuela is a game I reckon everyone in the world have played at least once, different names maybe (avioncito, tejo, hopscotch, marelles, etc...) but the same thing. As Cortazar may say, all is the same, opposites reunite, there are no indeed, we are the same animal, just different cages.
Another question I guess... Why Rayuela? What is the reason I call my blog like this and Rayuela is the name of such a book?

Well, Rayuela is a game where you are trying to reach the "Heaven", the "end", the number 10, you have to make some tricks, pass some obstacles, maybe sometimes will be hard and you have to try again before being able to succeed to the next stage... All of that, and also the fact that is like a kids' game too serious but at the same time not to be taken so seriously, it's the answer.

Like he proposed in his book, we have to try with language to fight it, we have to try with society fight society, try to reinvent the world, why to attach ourselves to rules that they don't bring us any good really? Why to follow something we are not sure of...?
Of course, as long as you don't hurt anyone in the way... he he! Don't think of me as a total anarchist he he.

Last thing before closing the first entry!
Maga... she is one of the main roles in Rayuela. Paraphrasing him thru the eyes of Horacio Oliveira, her lover... "She used to swim in the rivers I was just able to start understanding, to start seeing, to realize there were there, she was like the seagull who doesn't know she is flying but flies and enjoy, like the fish who doesn't know it is swimming but dances in the water graceful and joyfully".

Do you like Rayuela? Hope you do...

and if you haven't heard before, Welcome....