derizehn-13

20/3/2011

I am a very underground person. Only I will have such an idea in my head.

To go to the shopping district at 9 am in the morning. i thought all the shops would be closed. Boy, I was wrong. In fact, most of them already were open, catching the Sunday morning crowd. I was kinda expecting a 9am orchard road scene, not so many cars; many shops still have their shutters down, less people on the streets. 

But no. people are already starting their day in china, even on a weekend. I think I’ll be eating breakfast at 9 am on a Sunday morning. It certainly shows the difference in the types of lives we lead. The Chinese take each day to be their last and live it to the fullest, while we sometimes happily whirl away few hours. Maybe if I applied their attitude into my life, everything will change.

So after doing something underground like going to the shopping district at 9 am in the morning to pick up a coat, the next underground thing was to go to school to have lessons. On a Sunday afternoon, and isn’t the school deserted on a Sunday? My impression of Sunday afternoon was to sit in my grandparent’s house to watch cable until my head hurts (literally). Spending Sunday afternoon in school was certainly different from all my Sunday afternoons (visiting, sleeping, tuition, work, homework, etc.)

My buddy was in school too. There are people in school on a Sunday, just that classrooms are not open, so everybody’s sitting outside doing homework/catching up with friends/playing basketball/snapping photos. 

Students staying in the school dormitories are mainly from other provinces or other countries. My buddy pointed out that there are foreign students on campus, but a small number stay in the school dormitories, and many prefer to rent their own outside the school for slightly higher price. Many of them are actually taking the arts degree program than the languages one. 

Pity I can’t find other Singaporean students other than us. The school community seems used to the presence of foreign students (people don’t stare at us for being different, they stare at us for being loud) but I think being able to meet one would greatly help in this. It’s hard to talk to strangers without anything in common. 

I wanted to find a tailor for mend my coat for its buttons, and she brought me to the one in the dormitories. He couldn’t mend the coat for me (as he was busy with 3 others), but he lent us some thread and a needle. And we ended up stitching buttons after dinner in the school canteen（锅盖饭 again）, when we returned it he didn’t charge us for using the thread, but I left my other coat (brown) with him anyway so I felt less guilty about using his thread and needle (it needed a wash and iron anyway.), and I’m looking forward to a clean coat during the trip to Beijing (this one has deep pockets, although it’s thin. Wearing more layers = bringing less). Hopefully it’ll be done soon.