The Alisaurus Blog

This past week, I’ve been doing something resembling registering for university. I filled out a form the other day, stuck some photos of me on pieces of paper, and got people to sign things. Today, after a couple of sessions of grammar cramming, I took the placement test to decide which class I’d go into. I knew what class I wanted to go into, but I could only move up one class without taking the test. Since getting back from Linfen, I’ve noticed just how much my Chinese has improved. A few days ago, I went shopping and realised I understood things people said that I never used to understand, and replied a lot better. In one shop, the assistant asked me to translate for an English girl who was trying to get them to write down the word for “candle” for her, and kept praising my understanding. Registration is the same process I went through at the start of last semester and I’ve noticed how much more of what people are telling me I’m understanding. And when I took the placement test, I feel I did a lot better.

What I need to do now is to improve my speaking. I’m half way to a conversation! Understanding spoken Chinese was a bit problem for me when I arrived.

Today I also went to the market up the road for the first time. It was fun. I bought vegetables. Then I made some vegetable soup in my rice cooker, and put egg in it. It turned out pretty good, just lacking salt, which I’ve not been able to find, for some strange reason. I also realised once I’d made about a week’s worth that I have no fridge to store it in, so had to eat it all in one evening.

Yesterday I went to the bakery next to the uni gate, and was served by the sweetest man ever. Anyone’s preferable to moody teenagers, but he really was lovely. If I didn’t already go there every day, I would start.

Ooooh yeah, yesterday morning I heard a crack of thunder, opened my curtains and saw it was raining. When I went out in the afternoon it was dry again, just quite cold. In the evening, I heard another crack of thunder, opened my curtains and saw it was snowing! I think I must have taken the snow back with me. This is supposed to be the City of Eternal Spring. People were going a bit mental outside. Possibly because of the snow, possibly because of the thunder and lightning. Today, the sun came out in the afternoon and melted the snow that was left. I got soaked because the snow on the trees and rooftops was melting and falling off in large chunks.

Right now is a special time for Bahá’ís. The Bahá’í calendar, known as the Badí calendar, consists of 19 months of 19 days, with 4 intercalary days (5 in a leap year) from February 26th to March 1st, known as Ayyám-I-Há. These days are for preparing for the fast, rejoicing, charity and gift-giving. This year we get 5, WOOH! I’m certainly enjoying my Ayyám-I-Há. :)

“It behoveth the people of Bahá, throughout these days, to provide good cheer for themselves, their kindred and, beyond them, the poor and needy, and with joy and exultation to hail and glorify their Lord, to sing His praise and magnify His Name; and when they end –these days of giving that precede the season of restraint– let them enter upon the Fast.” - Bahá’u'lláh

Following Ayyám-I-Há is the month of ‘Alá’, or “loftiness”, which is the month of fasting. From March 2nd to 20th, those between 15 and 70 years old (with exemptions for people who are ill, travelling, nursing, doing manual labour etc.) do not eat or drink between sunrise and sunset.

“…this material fast is an outer token of the spiritual fast; it is a symbol of self-restraint, the withholding of oneself from all appetites of the self, taking on the characteristics of the spirit, being carried away by the breathings of heaven and catching fire from the love of God.” - `Abdu’l-Bahá

I fasted last year, before I became a Bahá’í, but I now have a much greater understanding of its significance, so I’m hoping to get a great deal more out of it this year. My first *real* fast.

“Thou hast endowed every hour of these days with a special virtue, inscrutable to all except Thee, Whose knowledge embraceth all created things. Thou hast, also, assigned unto every soul a portion of this virtue in accordance with the Tablet of Thy decree and the Scriptures of Thine irrevocable judgment. Every leaf of these Books and Scriptures Thou hast, moreover, allotted to each one of the peoples and kindreds of the earth.

For Thine ardent lovers Thou hast, according to Thy decree, reserved, at each daybreak, the cup of Thy remembrance, O Thou Who art the Ruler of rulers! These are they who have been so inebriated with the wine of Thy manifold wisdom that they forsake their couches in their longing to celebrate Thy praise and extol Thy virtues, and flee from sleep in their eagerness to approach Thy presence and partake of Thy bounty. Their eyes have, at all times, been bent upon the Day-Spring of Thy loving-kindness, and their faces set towards the Fountain-Head of Thine inspiration. Rain down, then, upon us and upon them from the clouds of Thy mercy what beseemeth the heaven of Thy bounteousness and grace.” - Bahá’u'lláh

And after the fast is Naw-Rúz, on March 21st, which is both the Bahá’í and Persian new year. It’s a time for celebration.

While I was in Linfen, my friend gave me Discovering the Sun by Jacqueline Mehrabi, to read. It’s about a 15-year-old girl from Orkney experiencing her first fast, as well as coping with life away from home on her island, staying in the hostel as she attends Kirkwall Grammar School on the Orkney mainland. It’s meant for younger people than myself, but I enjoyed it and came away with a greater understanding of the significance of Ayyám-I-Há and the fast. It’s also set where I grew up, at the same school, in fact, so it really hit home. The title comes from the following quote:

“Verily, the religion of God is like unto heaven; fasting is its sun, and obligatory prayer is its moon.” - Bahá’u'lláh

Thanks to Rory for the first quote. (I swear I was looking for it before I saw he used it!! :p) He’s also written an excellent blog entry about Ayyám-i-Há.

I’m thinking of uploading photos to my site, but until I get that all sorted out, I’ll share my facebook albums of my time in China.

• 3rd Year: part 1 (Orkney -> Edinburgh -> Kunming -> Macau)
• 3rd Year: part 2 (random pictures in Kunming)
• Hiking with Nick and Nora’s junior youth group)
• Hiking part 2
• 3rd Year: part 3 (random pictures in Kunming)
• 3rd Year: part 4 (random pictures in Kunming)
• Spring Festival holiday (Kunming and Hong Kong)
• Spring Festival holiday part 2 (Hong Kong)
• Spring Festival holiday part 3 (Macau and Kunming)
• Spring Festival holiday part 4 (Kunming)

I got the ferry from Hong Kong to Macau at 11am on the 1st of February and then spent a few hours in an internet cafe and a shopping centre. I had been planning on getting back to Kunming by train from Guangzhou, but I heard that because of bad weather in China, train ticket sales had been suspended until after New Year, so I bought a plane ticket from Zhuhai instead. Thank God for buying e-tickets online :D

Family reunion is a Bahá’í gathering in Macau, and held in Dom Bosco youth village in Coloane, where I was in August. The taxi driver who took me there was very impressed with my handwritten address in Chinese, and we chatted about China and Scotland on the way. His Mandarin and English were both really good. The reunion was a billion different kinds of awesome!. I met people I’d met in August and not seen since, like Serene and Mike, Andy and Lindsay, Shirin, and Julie, as well as meeting some wonderful new people like Elissa and Jon, Shamim, Fariba, Sabrina and Zarrin, who I’d spoken to on facebook, but never met until then. We were sharing a room and it was a surprise to see her. Anyhoo, I was surrounded by wonderful people. Some of the sessions were a bit long and difficult to keep my attention on, but less went over my head than did in August. I particularly enjoyed Adam Varjavandi’s talk on Chinese characters (and it was also nice to meet someone else from Scotland). There were so many talended musicians there who sang for devotionals, which was beautiful. I also enjoyed Jon making animal balloons, though they distracted me from the whole of the following session. Oops! At Andy’s suggestion, Darragh and I went for a walk round this reservoir, which was amazing. It was so beautiful, and peaceful. It was pretty much the first time I’ve been somewhere calm and silent since coming to China. I could have stayed there all day. We had a nice chat too, and I straightened out some things in my head, which was good. Throughout the reunion, lunch and dinner had been divided into 2 shifts, of which I was on the second one, and by the last dinner I was tired of cold chicken bits and thinly disguised baked beans, so Elissa, Jon, Andy, Lindsay and I went to Lord Stow’s instead and ate lasagne. On the way, we had fun at an adult playground and saw some awesome views, only slightly spoiled by the mega-polluted water. We hadn’t really thought through how we’d get home, and no one knew the address in Chinese. We waited for a taxi with no luck, then discussed a little village that had more taxis. A lady walking past said the bus that was passing was going there, so we ran and caught it. We didn’t find a taxi in that village, so we started walking, and met a taxi on the way. The walk was pretty nice, especially as the weather wasn’t too cold. On the 5th, I had to leave in a hurry because it took longer to get to Zhuhai airport than I’d anticipated, so I didn’t get to say goodbye to many people, but I’ve since found most of them on facebook, which is great. Where would I be without facebook? I got a taxi to the Macau-China border with 3 other people, David and a couple who’s names I’ve forgotten. :( They were all really nice. I had a long chat with David in the customs queue and got even more things straightened out in my head. It’s great to share experiences and get imput from people. I left them after we crossed the border and got a taxi to the airport getting there just after check-in started. Fantastic timing. I got back to my place in Kunming at about 10pm.

I feel so inspired and uplifted and motivated after those few days. It’s wonderful.

24th January

I met Darragh and his parents, who’d come from Lijiang, in Kunming airport and we flew to Shenzhen. I ran into a guy from Morocco who was intending to go to Hong Kong, so we all got a bus to the China-Hong Kong border, and on the way he recommended places to see in Hong Kong. After a bit of searching, we got to the border at almost midnight, which is when it closes - EEEEK! So we had a pretty mad dash for the China border, then the Hong Kong border, then the last train, stopping at a cash machine and picking up an Australian girl on the way. I felt like we were on The Crystal Maze. So the 6 of us made it into Hong Kong and onto the last train and I’m pretty chuffed that my China exit stamp says the 24th and my Hong Kong entry stamp says the 25th. We were hoping to get the bus after the train, but it looked like the last bus had gone. I went to speak to a guard-type man and it took me a surprisingly long time to realise he was answering my Mandarin questions in Cantonese. I think he was telling me the last bus had already gone. So we got a taxi and a rather… eccentric driver. The place we were staying at was in the New Territories, in the middle of the countryside. Darragh had stayed there a few years ago, but in the dark and the rain it took a while to find, but we got there in the end.

My first impression of Hong Kong, from the train, was that it’s a lot cleaner and more civilised than China. I don’t mean to be derogatory about the mainland, I think part of the reason for it is that there are fines of several thousand HK$ for spitting, eating etc. It just generally felt a lot more British, which shouldn’t be a surprise, but it was a surprising feeling. It has elements of China and Britain, but is in itself something quite different. People there speak amazingly good English, and as there are a lot more foreigners there, I didn’t get stared at, which was nice. It was easier to communicate with people in English than Mandarin, and it took a while to get used to not instunctively saying things in Mandarin. From what I’ve heard, it seems that a lot of people’s lives revolve around work, and although everyone I spoke to seemed really friendly, I don’t know if I’d like that sort of pace of life. But I liked everything else about it. When I left Kunming, it was fairly warm, and really dry as always, but Hong Kong was humid and rained a lot, which was a bit of a shock to the system. I hadn’t realised it would be humid all year round.

25th January

Hong Kong has this clever system where you can check your luggage onto your flight from the center of the city (not where the airport is) long before you usually can at airports, so we checked Edwin and Mahvash’s luggage in in the morning then had a thorough exploration of the city before they flew back to the UK at night. I’m not sure exactly where we were all the time, but it was fun anyhow. We took the MTR, and a ferry (twice?) looked around lots of shops, went to a market where people chopping meat were surprisingly eager to let Darragh pose for photos looking menacing with a meat cleaver. I’m glad I wasn’t buying any of it! We saw dog meat, or to be precise, halved dead dogs hanging on hooks. It shouldn’t make me feel any different from seeing cows or sheep like that, but it was a strange sight for me. Outside the market was Gaylord Indian Restaurant which amused me no end. We were in an electronics shop and I ran into my friend Other Alice, who’s a classmate of mine in the UK and currently studying in a different part of China. That was such a surprise, I had no idea she was going to be in Hong Kong. So we hung out for a while. One bad thing was that I lost one of my favourite earrings, but hopefully my mum will be able to find me a replacement. In the evening we went up to the Peak, where we peered through the fog at Hong Kong all lit up. We tried to get a discount because of the weather, but had no luck. We got a tram back down, which was terrifying! We were at about a 45 degree angle. We had dinner in a place that did really good local food as well as Western Food. Darragh spent a good 10 minutes mixing mayonaisse and tomato ketchup together before spilling it all down himself. Not great when you have a limited amount of clothing with you, but I found it pretty funny. I’m a horrible person. The tables had drawers in them with cuttlery, which was pretty cool, and the owner (I assume) spoke to us for quite a while.

27th January

Homa, who we were staying with knows some young hong Hong Kongers who come to her house to practice English, so that day we met Victor, Popo, Yuki and Daniel and had a nice time chatting to them and playing with kittens. Well, it was nice until we figured out Yuki was allergic to the kittens, poor girl. I was really surprised, they’re all about 18 and in high school, but they seemed a lot more mature. Quite different to people the same age in China. I think the education system and the environment plays a big part. It was also World Religion Day and the Hong Kong Bahá’í community was hosting an event, so we went to it with Victor and Popo. Before it started, we went for a wander round outside, where there was a music carnival thing happening. There was a “drum circle” and a out-door rock concert. My favourite person in the world is now the man who stood right at the front and played air guitar throughout the whole thing. I also got the obligatory photo of me standing in front of the harbour. There’s a Hong Kong popstar called Khalil Fong who’s also a Bahá’í, and he was at the World Religion Day event, much to Popo’s delight. We chatted to him and he seemed really cool, down to earth, and in touch with Bahá’í stuff. He also makes great music. The event was really good, with speakers from various religious communities in Hong Kong, including the Zoroastrian community. I wonder how big that is? The main speech was in Cantonese so I understood pretty much none of it, apart from a few bits I could read in Chinese on the powerpoint presentation, but I was glad it was Cantonese, not English, because the event wasn’t for the foreigners, but for the local people. Afterwards I ate too many chocolate brownies. Being a Bahá’í is awesome if you like free food, but as with all things in the faith, moderation is the key.

After Darragh left, a family came to stay where I was staying, so I spent time with them over the next few days and got to know them. Lovely people. Martin and Farzaneh and their children Habib and Nura. I think Nura is destined to be a fashion designer when she grows up. She’s already my new fashion icon. hehe.

It was sooooo cold in Hong Kong (as well as wet) and I heard to was going to get even colder in Macau, so on my last day there, I went to a market and bought sweatshirts, a waterproof jacket, some slippers and a hot water bottle.

February 7th is Chinese New Year, the start of the year of the rat. A bit googling tells me it’s the year 4706. Wow! This is the 2nd of 3 new years I’ll celebrate in China, the first being the Western one, and the third being the Bahá’í Naw-Rúz. Kunming was pretty much deserted today. Walking around the streets was like being in a zombie film. The students are all off home and most of the shops and restaurants are closed. I managed to find enough shops open to get some food to see me over the next few days. I’d bought some decorations in Hong Kong - Sanrio ones, because there’s nothing more Chinese than Japanese cartoon characters - so I hung them up on my ceiling. This afternoon, there was a knock on my door and when I opened it, 2 of the dorm staff shouted “春节快乐!” (happy spring festival) and gave me a bag of oranges and bananas, and a note. That was extremely sweet and made me very happy. For the generosity and also because I’d wanted to buy bananas, but not found any. For most of the evening I’ve been watching fireworks out of my window. They are being set off from several places a few streets away from me, but I have an amazing view out of my window. No one does fireworks quite like the Chinese! Did they invent them? Probably. As it approached midnight, it sounded like a war zone with fireworks and firecrackers being set off in all directions. I heard some lound bangs from the other side of my building, so I went outside and found the campus guards setting off fireworks. Coming from Britain, I’ve had it drilled into me that you must light fireworks then stand a safe distance away from them when they go off, so it surprised me to see them lighting the fireworks and holding the ends. A guy standing in front of my lit one, and I ran away as fast as I could, wading through a sea of burned out firecrackers, in my sandals.