about me
Charlotte: That was the worst lunch.
Bob: So bad. What kind of restaurant makes you cook your own food?
quotes from lost in translation, excellent korean barbecue by a restaurant called soba, dongxin road. the whole thing for 4 1/2 people, 124rmb (12 euros). :)
i take all the pictures of food in the blog on the restaurants we go to for dinner, so today i thought i’d show something different: a typical lunch in the company. here it is:
it’s basically a set of random chinese dishes with meat, fish, vegetables, tofu, etc that everybody shares. the ayi orders it from a small restaurant, and an hour later, the delivery boy brings it around and she screams “chi fan le!” :)
sometimes the dishes are good, sometimes they’re not, but since there’s some variety you can always choose the ones you like best. stuff in heavy sauce doesn’t make it to my dish, but in contrast, the beef strips and the curry chicken are a favorite.
we’re usually 8 people eating, and the bill is a grand total of 80rmb, or 10rmb per person (8 euros total, 1 euro/person). amazing, hein?
every now and then, we get an email from a teacher thanking us postcrossing, and telling us about their own projects that use the site. it makes me super-super happy to know that somewhere out there, some kids are excited to be receiving postcards and learning about new cultures through them.
maybe some day the world will be a better place because these kids understand a bit about other cultures, can point the countries on a map and remember one or two things about them.
more about this happy class, here.
a couple of months ago i thought that since i was leaving china soon and had been studying chinese for 1 year and a half, i might as well have some sort of certification. so, at my teachers advice, i registered for the hsk (the standard chinese test for non-native speakers, also called the chinese toefl), but on the basic level, because i hadn’t done any specific preparation for this test. to take the test on the basic level you have to know around 800 characters/1033 words.
so last month, i did the test along with a lot of other hopeful students. it’s a multiple choice test from beginning to end, and it has 3 parts: listening, grammar and reading comprehension. the first 2 parts are ok, but the texts they put on the reading comprehension part are really hard, some of them i was completely clueless… i honestly can’t understand the difficulty gap between the three parts. why would they make a reasonably easy test and then make the last part 100 times harder? :|
anyway, a month later, ladies and gentlemen, i am very proud to announce that i’ve passed the HSK exam! :D i was given a level 2 grade, which translates in
“The candidate has acquired the basic (middle) Chinese competence that can meet the demand of basic daily life, a certain range of social communication and study to some degree. “
yay! i’m really happy about this, and it’s a big motivation for me to keep learning chinese elsewhere. perhaps in a couple of years i’ll be ready for the intermediate exam. :)
not that different from the black and white version. i like the fact that, despite it being a color film, the colors turned out so subdued… spring can be like that too. and i haven’t got tired of looking up to the tree tops yet… :)