Student and Teacher

Hola everyone^^ Greek Man is back with another update from Beijing! I'm going to give you an update on what's been going on with my life here. The goods and the bads! So I recently started working as an English teacher. I teach 2 times a week here at the university. It involves mostly improving the English of the professors. It's fun really because the class is lighthearted and I get to perform more like a stand-up comedian rather than a teacher. Three times a week I conduct English training sessions at a five-star hotel in Chaoyang District, where things get a little more professional as you can clearly see in the above photo.

All of this and much more after the jump!

These days I get to experience both sides of the educational coin as I am both a student and a teacher. I'll have to say that it can be handfull at times teaching someone a foreign language and the amount of patience needed is great. I kinda understand now how my two Chinese teachers must be feeling everytime I get a tone wrong or I don't remember what a letter means. :-p It's a rewarding experience, though, and I'm getting a lot out of it. First and foremost, I'm finally taking care of myself in a more adult manner. I found these jobs on my own, bargained my salaries (not so much) and signed my contracts. I'm feeling quite proud of myself at this point and even if things do go wrong I still won't regret it. Teaching seems like an ideal way to kick start the "grow up" process in me as it is something I did extensively and to this day I consider it one of my greatest "feats" (survive 6 years with little rascals running around and you'll call it a feat as well).

Of course they are not all that as jobs. They both have their ups and downs. The university, for one, is giving me a low pay per hour with very few hours per week. But I think the classes here are more fun because the students actually chose to take them. They ask questions, they laugh, they respond and most importantly they understand me most of the time. This could be because they are teachers themselves too of course. On the other hand, the hotel job feels a little more stale. I have two kinds of classes, advanced and basic. In both cases I was told they know at least SOME English. They are not complete beginners and that holds true for the advanced students. The basic though are another story. In these classes I have a mixed fruits selection of students ranging from almost absolute beginners to "yeah I understand some England"-like ones. This is were I get a questionmark above my head, cause I'm not dealing with the cleaning crew but with phone operators and receptionists. How can one be in the hotel business without at least some knowledge of English? I do understand that the average Chinese person has no almost need at all for English but this is a five-star hotel in one of the best areas of Beijing. But that's not really where my frustration derives from. It is that this job is training, not teaching, which means these guys are having English shoved down their throats with little to no interest in it whatsoever. And I can tell you for sure it is a pain at times. Only two days ago I was helping a restaurant hostess with her pronounciation of the word "thousand" and I could just feel her anxiety. Almost felt like she wanted to punch me for not moving along to someone else. But ok, that's how life is. Pay is good so I'm not gonna moan any further.

So everyday is a busy day for me really. Aside from my classes and work take the bus and meet up with Kim. Also have to practice my Chinese writing which I need to do a lot really. Feels like I'm back in elementary school writing "A" 100 times to get it right. Only these "A's" have a lot more lines and curves. But it's fun. Didn't really think I would go so deep into the language. I'm loving it so far! Still trying to communicate for the bare necessities is still proving to be a difficult task at times but I'm getting there.

Next week is the national celebration of the Republic of China so we're going to have 8 days of rest and relaxation come October the 1st. Yay^^ Could use some extra sleep really. It's come to my attention that the university wants me to move on the above floor in the dormitory for some reason. Something about new students coming in. Won't get my hopes up about them being western though. :-P

That's it for now! Take care all of you!

Video Games Live in Beijing

Yo party people~! The long wait is over and yes I am finally posting about my experience at Video Games Live here in Beijing. I’d like to apologise to my readers for my disappearance and delay of this specific post. I recently started working as an English teacher along with my Mandarin studies so it’s been a little tough trying to get used to all of that. So without further ado I present the Greek Man in Beijing report on VGL!

Video Games Live is probably every game “nerd’s” dream concert! An event where beloved tunes from our favorite pass-time are performed by a live orchestra and take us back on that magical journey we experienced for hours upon hours each day. The idea was created and produced by video game composers Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall, with the latter being the orchestra’s maestro. Tommy acts as the host of the event and also participates in some pieces by playing his guitar. All I have to say is that they are both geniuses and the whole idea is just pure awesomeness! I did have a few gripes of course but we’ll get to that later.


As you all probably know, I’ve forgotten my camera back at home so I only have two pictures from the event here in Beijing, both taken from my less than stellar cell phone camera. So the venue is the Capital Indoor Stadium which is quite huge. I’m not sure which Olympic event took place here but it’s a very nice stadium. Kim had booked some really decent seats where we could see the whole thing. My first gripe came here and it was about the screen where all the game videos were shown. It was just too small really. It was a problem when trying to read the subtitles when a video game designer was talking in Japanese. Fortunately Hideo Kojima spoke in full English. Yay~! But besides that the rest of the videos could be seen just fine. Maybe next time they could add a bigger screen or multiple ones throughout the venue. So the lights go down and after a few introductory comedic videos the screen displays two familiar lines going up and down with a dot bouncing between them. At the same time the orchestra was simulating the sounds of Pong in sync with the video. Absolutely brilliant I have to tell you. And so begins a journey back to my past! For the next 2 hours I was between the ages 5 and 16. Hearing the orchestra playing the theme from the very first NES Super Mario Bros was one of my favorite moments. I could literarily imagine myself back when I was playing the game. The best part of all was when all the crowd started clapping along with the music.

The performance of the Metal Gear Solid music was one of the most epic moments. The whole effect of the live orchestra along with the acoustics of the huge venue just made it all feel so grand. Tied in along with scenes from all the MGS games on the screen it was from out of this world. I was also really moved when I heard one of my absolute favorite video game themes of all time: the intro to Chrono Cross. That song always felt like it came from an epic journey and made my mind travel. Hearing it live from a full orchestra was just priceless! Now here is where I’ll give my other gripe, or maybe just a semi-gripe really. There was a lot of Blizzard promotion going on. Not that I didn’t appreciate hearing music from games that are yet to be released (Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3) but ok having them split between sections of the concert felt more of an advertisement. Well I guess they do have to make some money as well right?

So after a trip down memory lane they decide to close with the music from Halo and that’s where I thought “Don’t you DARE close it like this!” No, I am not a big Halo fan and I don’t get the hype. It’s just a shooter, kay? :-p Of course they didn’t cause the entire crowd brought their hands together for an encore and what an encore it was! “One Winged Angel” from Final Fantasy VII! Enough said guys, really! If you play video games with the same passion as I do and don’t know this song then go play FF VII. One of the best RPGs ever made with some of the BEST game music ever performed.


So, yeah, I had an awesome time and I have Kim to thank for that! Best birthday present ever! :-D If you ever get a chance to see a VGL event and you like video games then I suggest you go see it. It’s an experience you will never forget!

Peace out all^^

"Ni hao" from tomorrow

Hey all^^ I'll have to apologise for neglecting my VGL report. Things have been moving quite fast lately...and I've just been lazy about it. Promise to get it up soon. Just a quick update. Tomorrow's my first Chinese class! Woot~! Can't wait! The Korean students arrived on Monday. There seems to be only two guys and the rest are girls. That's gonna please Kim a lot. hehe I got to meet some of them today while we were at the hospital getting our physical examinations done for the Resident's Permit. So far I know I'll have 3 classmates in the beginners level. That's pretty cool considering I had noticed some Koreans already spoke Chinese and I started to fear I was the only newbie.

So I guess from tomorrow it's "ni hao" for me! If you don't know what that means, just look at the kitty!

Peace out^^

Yannis

Culture Shock for Dummies pt. 2

Hey everyone^^ It's time for part 2 of the Greek Man in Beijing's "Culture Shock for Dummies". As we explored in the previous post, language is basically the one main barrier that can "shock" one into oblivion. Even with a few new found revelations I've had, such as using sign/body language and smiling, there are still many difficulties when communicating with people here. Ever since I moved into the university accomodation I've had a good few moments where I was just dumbfounded. Found out about them right after the jump!

The accomodation has an office and a reception desk for emplyees that are supposedly here to help us foreign students with any issues we may have. And I say "supposedly" because I am living in a building that is for FOREIGNERS, meaning people who are not from China therefore it is not a given that we speak Chinese. You can imagine what the puzzled look on my face was like when I found out that none of these emplyees speaks any English at all. That's right! Nada, zero, nothing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm amazed really. Anyway, I'm not gonna question this since it has become clear to me that English is possibly a not so great necessity for the Chinese. This matter is generally debatable too but we'll get to that some other time.

So I'm sitting in my new room minding my own business. One of my first nights alone too. While reading some headlines on the internet, the landline phone of the room starts ringing. Now I'm wondering who it might be at that hour. It was way past office hours for the university. So I'm feeling a little sketchy about it. I pick up and in order to avoid confusions I say "Hello" and not "Ni hao" (needed to establish my lack of Chinese proficiency). The woman on the other end not only starts going on and on about something in full Mandarin but it was at full speed too! Like, excuse me, did you not hear me? Foreigner here! I take a firm stand, interrupt her with an initial apology (didn't want her to waste her time or breath) and say clearly "I do not understand. Can you please say this in English?". There was a moment's pause and then her answer "oh! I'm sorry." and CLICK, hangs up. Beautiful. Picture it if you will. Now it could have been a wrong number of course but my money's on someone from the accomodation office. The reason is the next story which happened not even 2 hours after the phone incident. I get a knock on my door. In an attempt to buy me some time to get some pants on I yell "I am coming!". Instantly, yes instantly, another knock. "Yo! I'm coming!" in an even louder tone. Again knocking. Whether they liked it or not I had bought the time I wanted so take that! HA! Anyway, I open the door and there is one of the employees, binder and pen in one hand, a little gadget on the other. Chinese ensues again at full burst. By this time I'm seriously considering saying "Hey do I look like I understand, let alone be able to catch up with that speed?!" But I chose to be the perfect gentleman and just smile, wait for her to pause or stop and explain politely "I'm sorry I don't understand". She looks to her right, apparently towards the receptionist and starts saying something to her. After a brief answer she shoves the gadget in her hand on my forehead. After a short beep she looks at an indicator and writes something on her binder. By that time the receptionist had come to my door as well and that's when I started pointing towards her binder asking "What is that?" Simple question right? I mean, you did just measure something (obviously my temperature but boundaries well respected make for good relationships) without me even understanding what you are doing. Again they try to explain in Chinese. I give them a quick nod and say goodbye. I quickly grabbed my trusty "Chinese for Dummies" (and then you were thinking why I chose this title huh?) and attempt to construct a sentence asking "did you take my temperature previously?" After consulting my significant other as well I storm out of my room and made my way to the reception. I smile and give her my full question in the most broken of Chinese accents ever. I was fortunate enough that she understood me at once and replied yes. She tried to explain furthermore that this is a check up they have to do everyday which I had Kim translate for me later.

So you might be thinking that I'm ranting here when in fact I find all of these incidents quite amusing. It's funny how a university that wants to bring in people from the west, doesn't have at least one staff member that speaks English in the foreigner accomodation. How exactly now is all of this culture shock you may wonder. It's more or less a conclusion I've reached myself: they know some English, they just don't feel comfortable using it. I find it hard to believe, with all of the job ads seeking English teachers from the west that I see on the net on a daily basis, that anyone under 30 years old doesn't at least know a few simple words. Since the Chinese could feel embarassed quite easily, they prefer to avoid showing they know English all together. I could be wrong of course and by all means I'm not trying to sound pompus. To me it has become a well known fact that even in Greece there are a lot of people who don't know English that well...or maybe even at all. Even despite the fact that it's been in all school curriculums for the past decade at least.

Wanna hear some "good shocks" now? I'll have to admit that the Chinese are very active people. Especially as they get into their old age. Every single evening I've been out all parks are full of people engaging in various activities, such as playing cards and Mah Jong (spelling is doubtfull), exercising, dancing and practising Tai Chi. I've even seen them practising weapon forms. It's a really cool sight to behold! Granted, not all of them are really good at it, mostly doing it for health reasons, but it's still an awesome notion. These people literally thrive on good health. From the way they eat to the things they do on a daily basis. It's contageous too. I for one have never been a big fan of eating breakfast. I just had my usual Greek frappe coffee and that was it. Now, not only do I have my most important meal of the day but I have my in-between-meals fruit as well. I already feel like I'm losing weight too! :-D

So these were my first "shocking" incidents and observations. From here on out it's gonna be full reports on specifics. Next post is gonna be on Video Games Live which is tomorrow! Expect many photos (from cell phone camera).

Enjoy your weekend!

Yannis

Video Games Live on the Horizon

I probably have the best girlfriend in the world! No joke. She knows exactly what I like. The proof is what she got me for my birthday: Tickets to Video Games Live this Saturday! It's one of the biggest gaming events in the world and it's the first time its happening in Beijing. So I'm pretty stoked about it. The event is a live concert where an orchestra plays a huge variety of classic musical pieces taken from video games. There will also be lasers everywhere and monitors showcasing games. This year's event will also have music from Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 which are still not released.
Check out some videos from past VGLs after the jump.

Below is Metal Gear Solid music performed by the orchestra. Hideo Kojima, the creator of the series, appears on the monitor.



Some Final Fantasy VII epicness



Who can forget the unforgettable music from Sonic the Hedgehog?



...Or Super Mario Bros.?



It's gonna be an awesome day! Plus it's gonna be the first major video games' event I go to so I'm extremely excited! Stay tuned for an after event report!

Stay heavy y'all!

Yannis

Culture Shock for Dummies pt. 1

Holla everyone^^ The Greek Man in Beijing is back...finally! *crickets* Oh come on...sad panda. I must have been at least a wee bit right? :-p Sweet~!

So it's been well over 10 days since my last post from the Dubai airport. That was definitely the longest 6 hours of my life. Especially the last hour just wouldn't go by. As I waited for my gate to open I would successively doze off with my head dangling only to wake up instantly and then rinse and repeat. Fortunately, though, I had no problems sleeping during the flight so that went by pretty fast.

I landed in Beijing and went through a few lines for health inspection and immigration. Those went quite smoothly. Getting my luggage was a drag cause they were practically the last bags to come out. Just my luck really but it was worth the wait since I came out of the baggage claim to be greeted by a warm hug! :-)

Here I am now! In the land of sweet and sour sauce and kung fu masters. This is gonna be a big wall of text so strap in nicely and click below for more.

Quite a lot has happened since I got here and in all honesty up until now I've had mixed feelings. It's really quite different going to another country to visit than it is to stay for a good long time. The impact of being in a country where most people don't speak English is probably the hardest of them all. Of course this worried me quite a bit since I knew that at some point I wouldn't have Kimy holding my hand and walking me around. But, hey, I came here to learn another language so I guess I'll just suck it up and take this opportunity. It can be quite funny at times trying to communicate really. So far I've had tons of laughs in a variety of lost-in-translation moments. Kim and I went out with her friend Lu and her boyfriend (who's name I can't spell but the translation is "Prince"). Now I knew Prince had next to zero English skills but he has a passion I can relate to: football. He's a big Arsenal fan and he seems to know a lot about European teams. To my surprise he even knew Greek teams, Panathinaikos and Olympiakos. Heck, he even knew one of our scorers back in the 2004 Euro, Charisteas! So communication between us was pretty much along the lines of "Christiano Ronaldo?", "Good player! *thumbs up*". We even managed to comment on Arsenal's recent victory. It got even better when he asked me if I ever played Starcraft. That literally lit my face up! :-D On the flipside comes the interesting part of the evening: talking with Lu. Now Lu is better at English than Prince so there shouldn't be too many problems there right? Ha ha ha! Funny story. Kim went to the bathroom at some point and Lu asks me "How many people in your classroom?". I was flabergasted for a second cause I had no idea what classroom she meant. My Chinese class? The English class that I was gonna teach? But wait I haven't started with those yet. So I ask "You mean in my Greek school?" she nodded yes so I smiled thinking I know how to say numbers in her language so I answer "San shi wu (35)". A moment's silence and then laughter from both Prince and her ensued. I'm completely stumped at this point. Kim comes back and finds us in this linguistic mess. Lu explains to her what we disussed and she tells me "She asked you how many people will be staying in your room at the university". I just laughed my butt off there.

So lines of communication can get distorted. But if you get into the proper channels things can work out. It's all a matter of perspective really. So far whoever I've interacted with has been easy going and lighthearted. If words do not make sense, then smiling and laughing does. And this is exactly what they are like here. They are happy people. One just needs to get into the spirit of their culture. Admittedly for most it could be hard since there are a lot of restrictions that the Chinese impose on themselves. I prefer to see it more like a form of politeness. In the west (and especially Greece) we tend to over-try to act cool and confident which often leads to us making spectacles of ourselves or even worse, insulting others without even knowing we did.

Am I enjoying China so far, you may wonder. Despite the language barriers I'll have to admit it's been fun so far. I haven't been to any bars or clubs so far. Not really my scene but might happen if the mood strikes me. I've seen one movie at the cinema. GI Joe! lol yeah ok I know but it was the only English speaking movie we could handle. Surprisingly enough if you exclude its title it wasn't a bad action flick. The theatre was great with good audio and video systems. It was kinda weird watching the movie with Chinese subtitles but overall good fun. Was a pleasant change to not see an exaggerated anti-piracy ad going off in my face (watch a movie in the UK and you'll know what I mean).

Eating here is amazing really! There are tons of choices ranging from Chinese and Asian food to good old fashioned fast food places to street vendor-style finger-food. They got KFC, McDonald's, Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut, Haagen Dazs (I'm boycotting them). But the best is checking out their own cuisine. So far my absolute favorite is Peking Duck, the real stuff. Not the crispy duck bs we drool over in the west. Trust me, Beijing is worth visiting just for the duck. It's just...awesome! :-D Korean BBQ is pure win as well! You get to cook your meat on a stove in the middle of your table. Mix with sauces and vegetables, get some cold noodles too and your in for a grand treat! Don't get me started on Chinese Hot Pot too cause then I'll be talking forever.

Probably one of my favorite parts of the evenings here, though, is walking around the streets where every sidewalk is covered in street vendors. In their majority they sell copycat stuff like watches, glasses, CDs and DVDs, books and handbags but it's really quite fun just looking around. Reminds me of some streets in Athens the only difference is that they don't pack their stuff once police shows up. :-p

I'm gonna stop here since it seems the wall is growing. I'll be back with part 2 soon enough so stay tuned.

Peace out all^^

Yannis