The Dalian Beer Festival – 大连啤酒节

Another thing that the Chinese love is Festivals and Dalian is no different playing host to the Dalian International Beer Festival. The scale of these events are quite phenomenal as they go for approximately 10 days and play host to around 50 – 70,000 drunk Chinese every one of those days. Being the patriotic Australian that I am =) I made it my duty to go no less than 4 of those 10 days to sample the various stalls, the different wares experience the very different Chinese entertainment styles and eat local goodies of lamb on sticks, duck necks, peanuts and a local taro delicacy.

中国人非常喜欢他们的活动。在八月期间我去过大连啤酒节。它十天开门还有五七万个在大连的人每天参加。很有意思。因为澳大利亚人非常喜欢喝啤酒所以我常常去。我跟我在大连的朋友去过四次看见中国表演还吃很多中国菜。比如我们都吃了很多羊肉串和花生和鸭颈。

Whilst I was not able to add to the Aussie export dollar, there were Budweiser, Corona, Asahi, Hooergarden and a number of Chinese brands including Tsingtao, Harbin, Snow (Dalian) and Pearl River. The biggest night was probably with friends from Uni who included a Thai, a Czech and 3 Polish girls where we knocked off approximately 36 bottles of beer (and I mean the 1 litre variety). Whoever thinks Australians can drink has obviously not drunk with Polish girls!!

虽然没有澳大利亚的啤酒，但是有很多别的牌子的啤酒。美国的日本的德国的还有很多中国牌子的啤酒。比如青岛，哈尔滨，大连和浙江也有。最高兴的次是我跟我的波兰和泰国同学一起去。我们喝完了三十六大瓶的啤酒！如果你觉得澳大利亚人可以喝很多啤酒肯定你没跟波兰女性一起喝酒。她更厉害啦！

The Names of Dalian – 大连的名字

The Chinese love providing glamorous titles for their cities and Dalian has a number of distinguished titles including the Hong Kong of the North, the Venice of the East amongst other things. This is mainly in relation to the numerous plazas, and squares that they have. Another of my painful learning points was when I was told off (in Chinese of course) for walking on the grass within the main square. It was only until this point that I realised at all the parks and squares within Dalian, despite the fact that there is the greenest plushest grass you will see anywhere in the world, no one is allowed on it and it is there for pure aesthetics! So much for bringing out the pitching wedge in front of government house =)

中国人爱给他们的城市叫新名字。比如有的人把大连叫北方的香港和东方的威尼斯。原因就是因为大连也有很多很多广场。但是大连的习惯很奇怪。有一天逛到中山广场还看到那里有很美丽的草坪。但是当我坐在上面的时候有个说大连话的老人把我骂了！虽然那里的草坪又绿又美但是你不可以碰也不可以打高尔夫球 =）

The other nickname that I have heard for Dalian is the Bangalore of China. Dalian is also the outsourcing hub of China and companies such as Dell, Oracle IBM and HP are all based here. There is an incredible mix of people within these companies most of whom are Chinese and most of whom are bilingual in Korean, Japanese, English or Russia (or all of them!). I was lucky enough through the great AIESEC network to be introduced to a great guy at HP who has helped a lot in my settling in. To make things even better he has a rock band and they played a gig at the Dalian HP 2 year anniversary celebrations which he was able to sneak me into (ah finally my Chinese looks pay off). Unfortunately I then had to sit for the rest of the afternoon pretending that I was really unsociable and hard to talk to for fear of striking up a conversation with a curious colleague haha.

大连也有很多很多国际电脑公司。IBM, 戴尔和惠普 都有。它们的雇员大多是会说日语英语或者韩语的双语人。因为以前我就是AIESEC 的人所以我的朋友把我介绍跟她惠普的同事。因为他也有一个摇滚乐团他可以给我机会参加大连惠普 的二年生日典礼。虽然我太幸运但是参加的时候我害怕跟他们的同事聊天儿因为我的汉语说得不好。

Dalian Peace Plaza – 大连和平广场

Whilst the mornings are spent bashing out tones, characters and playing with my newly purchased electronic dictionary (yes I am now one of those geeky Asians!) the afternoon is now spent working for Dalian Peace Plaza. One of only 19 regional shopping centres in the whole of China, the place was built by an extraordinarily rich Chinese man whose ability to secure probably the best land in Dalian is something to tread carefully around.

虽然上午的时候我去大学练习口语和汉字还玩儿我新的词典（是拉现在我也是这样）。但是下午的时候我在大连和平广场工作。中国现在只有十九个地区性的购物中心。和平广场就是一个。老板是这个非常非常富裕的人所以我真得很小心党工作不要完儿。

University Life – 大学生活

Well considering that this was the primary reason for upping and moving to China it makes sense to start here =) After a stint at the Dalian University of Foreign Languages which for me will forever hold the distinction of being the foreign language school that doesn’t have guidance in ANY foreign language, I have since changed to the DongBei University of Finance & Economics. Apparently rated as one of the better business training grounds in the country, it also has a smaller chinese language school of around 200 students. One of the drawcards for changing; having more Chinese students who were interested in business to talk to has been quickly quashed as my distinct lack of any western features has meant that I am more likely to draw confused looks of disdain rather than doting gazes of awe on my English linguistic ability.

将汉语学好就是我来到大连的特别重要的目的。我先去了大连外国语学院汉语学院（缩写是大外）再去东北财经大学 （缩写是东财）。我听说东财是大连最好的商业大学也只有两百个留学生所以这里比较小。因为东财有很多对商业感兴趣的学生我觉得我有练习汉语的机会。但是因为我长像得中国人所以当我跟他们一起聊天二的时候，他们的表情很奇怪。当他们发现我不会说汉语，他们不知道该怎么和我聊天儿。

After negotiating with the school to put me up a class, I am now in the precarious predicament of not being able to understand anything in class unless I actually prepare for the class. This is indeed a world away from the good ole University days of kindly asking conscientious female friends to photocopy their semesters worth of notes for me to study with rather than attend class. Cest la vie. And to make things worse, the Russians are no where near as hot at this Uni!

到东财的时候我请求那里老师把我这在一个提高汉语水平的班所以让我学的比较快。但是我现在必须每天预习我的课本否则我上课的时候听不懂也看不懂。我以前在澳大利亚去大学不一样。当时我可以让我很好的女性朋友帮我复制他们的书所以我不需要去上课。但是在东财如果我没努力学习肯定听不懂。去东财我很失望因为大外的俄罗斯女孩子比东财很好。

It seems that 15 years of maturity seem to have done nothing for my studying ability. My teacher today taught me a new word, 溜号which means to daydream ie I should stop it！My teachers at Sri Kuala Lumpur will be proud to now that they were not the first and they wont be the last!

看来过十五年我都还没变。上个星期我的口语老师教我一个生词“溜号”。她的说就是我！从小我的老师都这样说！到现在还没专心，常常溜号。

The Challenge Begins!!

On July the 15th 2006, I arrived in the Chinese city of Dalian after packing my bags to move onto my next worldly adventure. The challenge was to attempt to emulate my good mate Paulie Coffey in the quest to learn Mandarin in a year!

Finally decided to do the BLOG thing and so this will capture the many stories and thoughts to come. Hope it provides some insight to some and enables me to keep in touch with others most of whom know that its a great strength of mine =)

For now enjoy the funny tales of the first week and will post the consecutive updates in the weeks to come.

Having travelled so much over the last 2 years I thought that I would have been prepared for most of it. I have been very lucky on previous travels so I think all that bad luck that is due came at once. Here's a list of what has gone wrong in 5 days for your amusement.

- Got done at Beijing airport by 2 ladies pretending to be working to help tourists find the Air China terminal (You'd think after being taken for multiple rides in Amsterdam I would have learnt by now)!

- Was overweight luggage wise and got told to go to 3 separate counters with my 5 bags eventually getting checked in after having to pass out on the floor at Beijing airport waiting for lines

- Plane was an hour late into Dalian due to "engine trouble" so was a nervous flight

- Got dropped off at the apartment to find that the phone line was crossed so kept getting calls from ppl that I couldnt understand, the kitchen sprung a leak and flooded the kitchen and the bed that I got had a mattress sooo hard that I couldnt sleep..ahhhh

- This sounds really stupid I know but went to buy food, bedsheets and quilts and pillows only to find that NOTHING is in English writing (duh it is China) so couldnt work out what was what and was so overwhelmed by the size of the supermarket that I left just buying Maggi noodles.

- My apparently unbreakable Swiss watch decided to stop working

- The Commercial and Industrial Bank of China decided to capture my card on my first attempt to withdraw money. At this stage I was hungry, had no sleep, had cleaned my kitchen 3 times from water, thrown my phone across the room and now had no access to funds =)

- Went to try and register at the Foreign Language University which ironically doesnt have signs in any language except Chinese so spent an hour walking around trying to find the right building and then had to endure the humiliation of having an Irish girl translate my desire to enrol and fill out my forms all of which were in Chinese too =) all the while having everyone ask me "Aren't you CHinese?" I knew I should have finished those language tapes before I got here!!

- Work had decided for some reason not to pay me my latest pay check which I found out after paying all my enrolment fees which left me cardless and moneyless in good ole China.

- Spent an hour at Gome appliance store watching 4 store girls squat around this iron I wanted to buy trying to work out why no steam was coming out of it. That was amusing for me more than anything =)

Ahh regardless of all that I am still alive and still keeping my sense of humour and putting it down to a learning experience =) Phone, card, food, money, language school, watch, kitchen, bed, sheets, internet, iron have all worked themselves out now so things are starting to settle down a bit. Dalian is a beautiful city as far as China goes and I must say the scantily clad Russian girls in language school do keep my spirits up during the day haha.