taking a piss...

sorry, no offense, but this is kind of funny... not gonna display the video here, but click on the link below to witness imense harsh reality.. Not that this can´t be found elsewhere.

Americans aren´t that dumb!

Rainy season...

It is actually raining in Hong Kong.. Good thing is that it is hotter and more humid than ever!! Well, the hot part is nice, the humid part of it means breaking a sweat just by turning around when you wake up in the morning. Hehe, have been told by HK chinese that june and july and august is intolerable and they hate it due to humidity. I don´t care, I´ve lived so long in Bergen, I hardly notice it if my clothes and hair gets wet. =)

Stolten' jo!

Jøss, leste at statsministern var i dette landet gitt! Skal proklamere miljø og menneskerettigheter her borte. Blir nok lite coverage her om det..

Benytter anledningen til å si - hvor er alle kommentarene!?????!!!!

Camilla and talked about this and agreed that we won´t write anymore posts about the trip unless we start seing that someone are reading them!

Takk for meg og dagens syting..

chinese cooking

shaomai

I finally decided that it was about time to learn how to cook these fab chinese dishes we have been served the past two months. I actually bought some vermicelli in the store and shaomai which is very hard to buy due to the labelling in chinese. Hence, the time it took me to build up the guts to go and buy it. I ate some extremely good homecooked rice, corn and veggie shaomai in Shantou, but they only had shrimp, fish and chicken in the store, so I went with the latter one. I put vegetables and the shaomai, into the vermicellis and made a wonderful soup! Hooray for chinese cooking!! =) When I got to the eating part of it, I realised I was out of wooden chopsticks that we always take with us from the cantine. I don´t find it easy to eat noodles and shaomai with a fork, but searched for it in order to find out that it has been lost somewhere unknown. I knew I should have bought chopsticks for myself sooner. My conclusion today is that I have to invest in a pair of my own chopsticks. That is for sure.

pictures say it all..

teaching in Shantou - part 3

Next day we left early in the morning to go for a city tour before our bus returned home to HK. Hau came to see us off and Joy came with us as we sat in the minibus. They drove us through a hundred years old part of the city, which probably won´t be there in ten years due to the lack of money to rehabilitate them. They are deteriorating and a looong history will disappear. They apparently didn´t want to show us this part of the city so they took us to Walmart instead! We said we wanted to see more of the busy everyday streets of Shantou and they took us there after a while – though a little reluctant and not really understanding why we wanted to see that part of town. We saw what we came for though, chaos in the streets, a thriving street packed with bicycles, motorbikes and cars and buses all of were going around each other on whatever side was convenient. Along the streets there were merchants selling vegetables, salads, meat and everything else you can think of – fairly unaffected by the busy traffic passing them only half a meter in front of them. Joy was like a shepard, making sure that we wouldn´t get run over by traffic or got stuck with a salesperson somewhere along the street. She was sweet and took good care of us. As we were departing she took out a handful of jewelry she had bought for us and they were all especially chosen to each and everyone of us and none of them were the same. We were all so grateful and surprised that she had made such a gesture to us. Next time a class will come here we will send something for her with them. Filled with all of these impressions, we entered the bus – which turned out to be a business class bus with leather seats and tv – what a contrast to what we just experienced!

teaching in Shantou - part 2

We ate breakfast at 8am. I had a good nights sleep in the warm beds and enjoyed the big breakfast we had with porkbuns, egg, pai, porridge and salty and bitter vegetables to have in the porridge. The classes then started at 8.30am. We divided into two groups. Arnout, Bonnie and me functioned as one teacher group for the less well speaking students. They were between 16 and 18 years and were in total 30 people. Most of them seemed interested in what we had to say, but many acted like teenagers most and were too cool to pay attention to the teacher. Still, I think we managed to keep their attention through the whole three hours to a more or less high degree. We taught them about our countries, what Europe was, their hobbies, we played my ship contains, hang-man and strayed through many other topics when they started being impatient.

Afterwards though, they came up to us and wanted to be taken a picture of together with us! So we spent ten fifteen minutes being taken a picture of, which was sort of cute and we got the chance to talk a little bit with them. We had lunch for two hours and went to see the garden that was lying next to the school. Newly built Buddhist garden with trees and lakes and bushes and small houses and pagodas created a small oasis in the middle of the half dry grass and dirt roads that surrounded us.





Coming back to the classes at 2pm was allright, but tiring. We took over the class of the better speaking English class consisting of 10 girls. No surprise huh? Guess it works like in our own classes in Norway? Anyway, they were more interested in our countries (Holland, England and Norway respectively) and asked frequent questions about our nature, animals, people and such. It was a giving experience, but drained us from energy. We had to wait until six to have dinner, and I wanted to have a nap before that. The others decided to visit the local nearby market and were followed there by the same girl who took us to the garden - Joy. Only thing was that when the clock turned six, they had not returned yet. I was awaken by two Chinese speaking girls in their Pjs, telling me that my friends were late and told me to wait in the kitchen/restaurant. I went with them and sat down and waited for the rest of my group to return.

As time passed by and became 7pm I was more hungry than an hour ago and a little more annoyed at the others for not showing up in time. People around me were starting to be worried as if to whether I was hungry and talked to me in Putonghua without me understanding anything of course. Luckily a guy called Hau helped me communicating with the chef and his wife and their son and the rest of the people surrounding me. Before he came along I had been sitting there on my stool, drinking numerous cups of the traditional tea, just looking and smiling to these people who kept talking and laughing and looking at me. It felt strange and I made an effort to try to speak slowly in English with some of the students who were sitting next to me, but I don´t know if they were quiet because someone told them to keep me company. See, they all knew why my friends were being late and that is why they kept asking me about food. I though it would be rude to eat without them so I waited, but no one could explain to me that they were actually being interrogated by the marines in the base next to the school for taking a photo of a guarding soldier…

They came back at 10pm. By that time I had got to know Hau and his future plans and wishes, about China and my country, family and life. He even gave me a Chinese name. We talked a lot and played basketball, taught each other card games and watched the gatekeeper shooting birds in a tree for fun! Nothing is impossible for a willing heart. That was our shared motto. I learned a lot that evening and was grateful for my experience with the people at the school even though I couldn´t talk directly with them, they treated me as one of them.

Teaching in Shantou

Friday at 12.30pm was the time for Gaelle (Switzerland) and me to leave our Postgraduate hall in order to get to our final destination - Shantou in China. The rest of the group that we went with consisted of Andy (US/Taiwan), Maaike (Holland) and Arnout (Holland). Our chaperon for the weekend was Bonnie from the International office of CUHK and I was pretty happy about that since she is our age and a cool lady. We got on a bus that would drive through Shenzhen to cross the border and continue towards Shantou. The purpose of the trip was to go to a school and teach the children English by talking with them about our own countries and cultural differences and for us to learn about their lives.
All of us on the bus

My expectations of Shantou were not high. I assumed it to be a city that used to be a fishing village. I heard great things about the seafood there and that they spoke a language of their own in that region which was not anything like Putonghua (Mandarin) or Guang dong Hua (Cantonese). I had no expectations about the school or accommodation and thought it was going to be simple and rural. How wrong was I!?!?

The city of Shantou is huge!! It thrives from a blooming economy ranking it seventh best rate of commerce in all of China. It is one of the most important open-to-the-world harbours and is one of five special economic zones in China. The seafood cuisine is famous as I mentioned and so is also their special Gongfu tea, which is being served in a specific manner in tiny cups and drunk as a shot.Gongfu tea

We arrived around seven at the bus station in Shantou and were met by many people asking if we needed taxi. Everyone stared bluntly and was clearly not as used to seeing foreigners as people are in HK. We were picked up in a van by two of the schools teachers of whom one of them spoke a little English, but preferred to speak in Mandarin. Bonnie speaks Cantonese, but understands and can answer a little in Mandarin, Andy speaks quite well and Gaelle has studied Mandarin for two years, so I didn´t feel like I went with the worst group of people! I wish I knew a little as well and I now understand how important it is too know the language because barely anyone understands English. I took this opportunity to learn just a little bit when I had the chance.

We drove 13 km outside of the city centre to get to the school that was surrounded by.. nothing. It had a huge mountain in the background and other than that.. nothing. The school gate was old and guarded by the gatekeeper. We were told that there was a curfew after six o´clock. The airport was on the other side of the mountain and the extreme sound of the planes roaring above our heads appeared in intervals of ten minutes. We were lead to our rooms, the girls to one building and the boys to another. The four of us shared a small apartment with a bathroom and a kitchen – apparently a teacher apartment – the highest standard they could give us. The floor was made of concrete and the walls were of chalk and didn´t reach the ceiling, but it was clean and had four beds for us to sleep comfortably in. The toilet didn´t work so we couldn´t throw paper into it and to flush it we had to use a bucket of water, but it was an ordinary toilet and not a squatting toilet, so no one complained.
Our bathroom
The girls rooms
We were immediately escorted (yes, escorted everywhere, they were worried we would get lost) to the main kitchen on the premises were we would be served dinner. It was a shed where they had a small kitchen and some plastic tables and stools. The teachers had their own “restaurant” room inside the shed where we could sit together and discuss tomorrow’s events over an incredible meal! We got fresh fish, siu mai (sort of dumpling, but open at the top), pai, fish balls, meatballs, clams and lots of other stuff. It exceeded what I had heard about the region’s meals – it was goooood. Afterwards, we played some cards with my excellent 54-views-from-Norway cards for a while, but had to go early to bed because we were tired after the trip and we had to get up at 7.30am the next day.

in between locations

I just came back from a teaching in Shantou trip - I will try to write something about it during the day, but I am leaving for Malaysia tomorrow so i´ll see if I can make it between school projects, packing and such!

Tickets in my hand!

Peder, Camilla and I have finally managed to buy the tickets to our destination for next week (13th to 18th) - Langkawi in Malaysia! We have spent weeks on this, never been able to decide whether to go or not to go on a short notice or where to go for that matter. Now, we finally made it and I am looking at the tickets as they are lying on my desk, just waiting to be used. Needless to say - it is a goooood feeling.

just doing as the others did..

Seeing as both Britt and Camilla posted a map of visited countries in the world, I figured I could do the same. I included the countries Camilla and I are about to visit as well.. Hope noone considers me a cheater.. =)



create your own visited country map

AWESOME!!!!

I know that sounds way too american or australian or teenage or "whatever" - but the MUSE concert was absolutely fantastic!!!!!!
I´VE SAID IT BEFORE, BUT I WILL SAY IT ONCE AGAIN - I LOVE MUSE!! THEY KICKED ASS IN HONG KONG!!!!! Juan, Eefje and me stood AT THE FRONT, ENJOYING THIS GREAT DISPLAY OF SUPREMACY!!! The crowd was pretty young though, probably never heard all the albums, but still, it was soooo worth the 700HK dollars we paid!!!!! I am gonna quit before I sound too teenager-like.. But experiencing them in Hong Kong is something I do not regret.

THANK YOU MUSE, for making my first concert experience with you that %$ #$% awsome.

time is flying by...

1ST OF MARCH ALREADY!?!??!!