good riddance to bad news

goodbye fudan university adminstration and dorms, hello Canada

2010-04-04T13:40:00.001-07:00

I still check in here intermittently and I'm astonished at how many hits the posts I wrote about studying Mandarin Chinese at Fudan University and staying in their foreign student's residence/dorms receive.

As you can tell by the dearth of new posts, I've turned my attention away from the Shanghai experience now that I am back in Canada hitting the books and learning the new language of law. I studied at Fudan for one semester before finding a job and moving downtown. Overall, I spent about 1.5 years in Shanghai, with spots of travel throughout Asia, as well as a few-month stint in Beijing studying Chinese at the Beijing Language and Culture University. (I would recommend their Chinese lessons, not least because they have a damn fine Xinjiang food restaurant on campus. So tasty).

If you want to catch up on what happened during the rest of my stay in China, you can check out the tumblr I continued with until just before I returned to Canada in August 2008.

To the best of my understanding, Fudan is still giving Mandarin Chinese lessons, and likely still offering a relatively confusing administrative structure. I reckon some of the info in the initial posts is a little bit outdated, so please only refer to it as a guide. If you want to prepare some smatterings of Chinese before you head to China, Chinesepod.com offers engaging and practical lessons.

If you have any questions about what it is like to move to China, fall down, get back up, and basically fumble about, feel free to leave some questions and I will try to help you out the best that I can.

I've moved! Moving is good

2007-11-13T22:10:00.001-08:00

I'm still rocking the little two bedroom behind Jing An temple, but my digital self has moved to sunnier shores:

GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD NEWS (at tumblr)

Blogspot was good to me (as was wordpress at woggles), but being behind the Great Firewall of China< stretches the limits of my technology-addled brain. Setting up shop at the paint-by-numbers of blogging lets me access ye olde blog from home and also spares me the pain of learning even the slightest bit of html. The future is terrifying.

2007-11-13T22:10:00.000-08:00

snaps of new bruce album

2007-10-09T01:50:00.001-07:00

dazzle! this is mostly just for me to listen to while I am work. But what is a blog if not a new platform on which to be selfish?

Admission

2007-09-29T00:38:00.001-07:00

Things you are not willing to admit, and other fictional truths:

+ You pay more in rent than you ought. But you stay home more than you should.

+ You do not know exactly where the French Concession- that nebulous maple lined fat profit margined real estate region- begins and ends. If so, its borders are likely names of streets you cannot read or pronounce.

+ You know the city only as pinpricks of cafes, bars, and clothing shops. You orbit around lousy bar planets, satellite-pinned to an unsuitable lifestyle.

+ You left a nation of public healthcare only to land in a country where you wake up with worry about your outsides, your insides, your pelvis/throat/cervix/ovaries/ unhappy swollen lymph nodes.

and eating and eating and eating and eating

2007-09-25T00:13:00.000-07:00

Shanghai is heavy with party mythology. It bears the weight of expectations of wine drenched nights, scantily clad femmes and cheap booze that nightlife hungry expats expect and then reinforce. Certainly, it's rich (or poor, in some opinions) with those attributes, but not every night is a lazy boat ride down streams of debauchery.

When my uncle came to visit last winter, he introduced me to some distant relatives of mine, who in turn introduced me to more and more branches of the family tree. And though I'm a bit of a lone shaky leaf on a gnarled foreign twig, they have embraced me and call me regularly to invite me over or out.

Sunday night, I was invited to eat dinner with 2 couples of distantly related 'Aunts and Uncles'. In a culture where it's suitable to call pretty much everybody 'Aunt/Uncle', including assorted family friends, business associates of parents, garbagemen, I am apparently in some way affiliated with them by blood. And blood is thicker than water. And blood is also thicker than my courage to decline their invitation, and so I found myself hauling imported bottles of Canadian Ice Wine into a cab and chugging slowly towards their apartment.

Even though I usually hem and haw and grumble my way towards these family obligations (avoidance of family obligations being one of the main reasons I left home in the first place), I always end up having a good time making the family rounds.

That doesn't mean it's not stressful. Then again, stress and family gatherings have historically been known to go hand in hand. I'm sure our prehistoric forefathers shuffled around nervously on the front steps of host caves and fidgeted with their loincloths and wondered whether their gourd of grog was an appropriate gift.

Given my current middling level of Chinese and their heavily Shanghainese accented Mandarin (which often slips completely into Shanghainese), I have learned to grin foolishly through conversations that I do not understand and comment often and enthusiastically about how great the food is, regardless of what they ask me (often incomprehensible to me), which generally makes conversation very erratic and non-sequitar driven.

SCENE ONE:
Well Meaning Relative: "What... mumble mumble...October Holiday.... your job... home".

Me: [giant smile, teeth as large as picket fences] "This beef is delicious" [enthusiastically shovels food into mouth. tumbleweed lists by]

END SCENE

I have also learned how to eat fast enough to show my appreciation for the food, but slow enough not to clear my plate. The minute my plate is clean, a relative usually piles it high again before I have a chance to say I'm full. Chinese family eating is a Sisyphean challenge that usually leaves me groaning and half sick with overeating.

Sunday night ended in a strangely comforting way. A dinner of assorted cold Shanghainese dishes and hairy crab, choking down vile cough syrup-like beverage, watching slideshows of their assorted trips abroad, making awkward conversation and avoiding answering their invasive (yet culturally appropriate) questions ("How much money to do you make? How much do you pay in rent?"), capped off with an hour on the couch eating grapes and watching the Chinese version of Figure Skating with the Stars (which, irony-free, was AWESOME).

Nothing says 'spending time with family' quite like going through with something you never thought would be fun and then strangely having a great time. This theory also explains why nausea-riddled insomniac road trips to obscure U.S monuments become vague footholds of childhood that you become nostalgic for. Family is the nexus of the universe, the underside of logic, the big fat crazy I long for.

(Even though following my enthused homecoming at Pearson Airport in Toronto, my pop and I were already bickering before we reached the airport parking garage. But I love them. I aspire to be as intelligent and lovely and infuriating as my parents when I grow up.)

In other news, I am stockpiling passport sized photo pics of myself taken in streetside photo booths since the government is really into accompanying all forms with photographic evidence of my existence. Monday, glistening with a hot morning's worth of face sweat and mind-boggled following a particularly tough Chinese class, I stumbled into a booth and hurridly took three test photos. Given the choice of the three miserable photos I took, I chose Option Number Two, in which I am basically a shiny sphere of a face with an enthused and blank look in my eyes perched atop a giant open smile. Benign. Wide-eyed. I am sure the government will process my work permit application in a jiffy. How could they not love the eager mugshot of a small asian girl who looks like Steve Carrell on the poster for 40 year old Virgin?

proposed chinesepod topic

2007-09-25T00:02:00.000-07:00

"Hey, how do you say 'hipster' in Chinese?"

Carowen, at the fabric market, staring at rows upon rows of 60's inspired jackets and houndstooth.

And then, a coffee infused lunch with a hint of sunlight.

take a ride on the whaaa-mbulance

2007-09-18T02:44:00.000-07:00

Aside from news of an impending typhoon and my own personal catastrophic typhoon of an immune system, which has apparently taken a mini-vacay since I returned to this lovely germ-filled city, there's not much to report from the rainy shores of Shanghai.

After spending the entire weekend lying on the couch watching DVD's with a ziplocked chunk of frozen chicken clasped to my forehead, I am finally gathering up the nerve (and RMB) to see a doctor. There's a part in Douglas Coupland's 'Life after God' where a peripheral character mentions he refuses to see fortune tellers, but proceeds to go see one after the fortune teller puts up a sign saying 'will not tell you you're gonna die'. Wish there was some kind of assurance when seeing physicians. No fuss, I will glumly hand over 100CAD for either piece of mind or rather expensive confirmation of worst fears.

oh what you can hear through a crack in the wall

2007-09-12T00:19:00.000-07:00

I'm leading with the excuse that blogspot is blocked in China (making it an odious task to update this beast) to explain why this blog is so sparse and sporadically updated. Fountain of information? Sputtering broken tap, more like it.

I just returned from a two week vacation back to where the legend began. Oh Toronto! The ease of familiarity paired with the added tinge of a years worth of newness buffed the sides of the city and made it really gleam.

Yays & Nays:
Yays!
- family, boyfriend, pals
- Vietnamese food at least 2 times a week
- Value Village finds (wee green kid's sweater, necklace with a horse pendant, white clutch and more!)
- Sitting on b.p nichol lane behind Coach House Press playing Categories in the dark while the party raged on without us. Well, as much as a party for a small press can rage.
- Double dating at the CNE. Almost finishing an entire funnel cake and being party to the eating of at least 3 hot dogs. Not puking.
- Trading in books for more books at the oh-so-treasured BMV.
- Canoeing on Lake Huron with boyfriend, trying to build a fire in the rain, attempting to work my way through 3 pounds of fudge.

Nays:
- Best pal not being in town; the friends I missed out on.
- Being poked and prodded at various medical appointments. Possibly enduring a lingering infection
- Missing out on seeing the Golden Dogs play at the CNE

Bruce Springsteen has finally created a profile; a brand new float in the myspace parade. Tegan and Sara currently rank as friend number 2 (second only to Tom, staple of Friends Lists everywhere), with The Hold Steady as 3. Being far too much of a luddite to figure out whether they are in fact ranked by interest rather than chronological order, I can only wonder whether those choices were made by himself, a PR lackey or by almight technology.

a jigsaw puzzle of the clear blue sky

2007-08-14T00:12:00.000-07:00

You know things are ramping up in your life when you're obsessed with talking about the weather. Oh never mind.

A cool breeze and a sunny day is something to get excited about in Shanghai. After months of loafing about mumbling "holy fuck. It's hot as balls out here. fuck" and dripping sweat like an old mop hanging out to dry, it's finally become manageable to walk about in this lousy city.

Sporadic torrential rain also means the smog has lifted, if only briefly. Sometimes this city looks like a half-finished set design. All sky-rises, no sky. For the past few days someone has taken the time to blot in some puffy clouds, spackle in some birds (wait, scratch that, no birds) and circle a giant sun.

I caught some brief patches of sunlight the other day when I was walking home from work. They showed up in the oddest of places. If you fit them together, like a jigsaw piece, you can fashion together a half-decent day.

Every day I walk past the Jing An temple fountain. It plays loud classical music that seems to come from nowhere (GOD?). More proof that the cartoon life improves on reality. The poor man's Fantasia.

on a clear night you can see everything

2007-08-08T01:50:00.000-07:00

Things have been all topsy turvy lately, and though there may be a rumble in the emotional jungle, it DON'T MEAN I'm not ready to kick down the doors of glumness and peer out into the horizon.

AWASH IN SUPER TIMES:

+ going home in two weeks for a visit! family! pals! boyfriend! vintage clothes! vendor dogs! ketchup chips! driving! picnics in the park! harbourfront! (more on this later as giddiness kicks into high gear closer to the date).

+ new internet project in the works, but right now its all hush hush hee hee.

+ sister coming back to town soon! Hopefully with a backpack of southeast asian souvenirs.

+ Shanghai has been less hot lately. A cool breeze is skittering off the tops of Pudong skyscrapers and winnowing away superficial problems (both physical and emotional)

+ The other day I saw a man walking his dog on Julu lu who actually PICKED UP dog poop. It's nice to know that even in a city whose streets often resemble the bottom of a dumpster bin, there is one thoughtful individual who sees the potential of a dog poop-less sidewalk, and is making a small yet valiant sacrifice to achieve it.

+ Sitting on a roof last night hidden in the smog of the city I saw a minimum of five stars. five stars! things are looking up, world!

+ Books. Always a good pal and an excellent bedtime companion. I fell asleep last night with my lamp on and glasses squished to my face, my right finger still holding my spot in the latest (and last) Harry Potter tome.

can you pay my bills? can you pay my automobills?

2007-08-02T01:57:00.001-07:00

In other water related news: I forgot to pay my last water bill on time. Perhaps the water disaster was karmic retribution for my thoughtlessness. If the universe is using these tactics to urge me to pay my utilities bills, I should probably keep my eye out for errant streams of water or wayward currents cause I still haven't paid that bill.

Because it's overdue, I can no longer just go to the nearest Alldays convenience store to pay it. Apparently, because of my tardiness, I now have to call the water company and go to the offices to pay the bill, a minor irritation made major when language difficulties are incorporated. That's the correct way. What people normally do is to just wait around like nothing has happened. Eventually, the water company sends someone to bang on your door and demand you pay the cash. Passivity rules! I'm going with option #2.

Oh hello, giant tidal wave at my front door.

good at sinking

2007-08-02T00:51:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night saw Temporary Houseguest and I ankle deep in water and sloshing about my bathroom trying to battle a broken pipe.

I was sitting at my computer when I heard the sound of gushing water. Thinking it was just TH taking a super late shower or doing some nocturnal dish washing, I didn't consider that the bathroom had turned into a small scale recreation of a biblical flood. I pattered out of my room a few minutes later to investigate the weird noise, and by the time I reached the kitchen, I realized my socks were completely soaked.

Water was spraying, fire hose styles, out of a pipe in the bathroom wall. After a few seconds of trying to cut off the gushing flow of water (bucket! no, bottle! no, towel! foot! foot! foot will do! FOOT DOES NOT DO) and getting sprayed in the face, I admitted temporary defeat and frantically sloshed my way to the door of slumbering Temporary Houseguest, soaked pyjama hem flapping around my ankles.

"Holy Crap! Wake up! The bathroom exploded!"

"wha?"

Cue loopy circus music. The next minute involved the two of us dashing about trying to save items on the floor and lodge a makeshift dam out of towels to stop the spread of water. I finally gathered my wits together and zipped out the front door, followed by an oozing pool of water. I grabbed the front desk security guard and convinced him of the severity of the condition with staccato bursts of crappy chinese ("Water! Bathroom! Lots of water!") and my ridiculous frog run, which saw me lurching around in a permanent half-curtsy, holding up the legs of my soaking wet sweatpants like a misplaced 19th Century debutante.

We returned to find T.H valiantly bailing out floor water into the shower. Front Desk fellow turned off the water to our apartment and left us with chilled ankles, staring miserably at an ebbing pool of water. Repairmen came bright and early the next morning and fixed everything. The only reminder of our waterworld ordeal is our sparkling clean floors.

ORDEAL BREAKDOWN
Costs:
Money- 50RMB (about 7CAD) for repair and parts

Portions of Dignity- forced to pee in shower when water was out. Meh, we figured no big deal- it's just kind of like camping.

Sense of Security- What a hassle! Now I have to worry that the cap on a pipe will break off at ANY moment. Every time I return to my apartment, I have to keep a keen eye out for water pooled around my front door. Maybe I'll even have to test the doorknob (like they teach you to do in Backdraft, uh, except for fire) to see if it's cold- indications that the other side is immersed in water

Cynicism- As much as I like to believe that sometimes the world is against me, world REALLY pulled through the other night. Optimism about life abounds. Had we not caught the problem in time, I really do not know what we would have done. In just a few minutes water was spreading through half of the apartment. We would have woken up and found ourselves gently floating towards Jing An Temple or cantankerous and pruny as a Golden Girl.

Sleep- I am not a fast mopper.

I spy with my little eye

2007-07-31T01:52:00.000-07:00

souvenirs: a sunburned back, surfing experience, sand in my toes, salt soaked lips, ocean breeze tangled hair, this picture (slide bought from second-hand bookstore in Beijing's 798 district)

bruce is the word!

2007-07-25T23:13:00.000-07:00

Recent mail from home spilling good cheer all over the place and covering up the naked bits on my stark white walls.

Yesterday after work I was trudging to the bus stop when I noticed an abandoned old medicine cabinet leaning against a tree. I loitered about and circled it tentatively while I debated whether or not to take it home with me. Is someone coming back for this? Is that smell coming from the cabinet or from the nearby garbage receptacle?

Dumpster diving comes with a host of insecurities and misunderstandings. I've learned it's a lot more complicated in China, where people consistently leave items of reasonable value (to the discerning and thrifty vintage/old crap/stuff hunter) out in the open for storage. Some old man barked at me when he saw me eyeing what seemed to be an abandoned little old chair (/bedside table, in my mind) upended in a little alley under what seemed to be garbage (/important newspapers to be read, possibly while on chair.)

The medicine cabinet dilemma solved itself when I nudged it with my foot and discovered that is was a) really heavy; and b) filled with garbage. A little garbage doesn't dissuade me, but wet food garbage is pretty unbearable.

Le sigh. Fingers crossed I will stumble upon an interesting found nugget soon. Random scraps of junk/love make the world go 'round.

A List of Vintage Finds That Were, or Became, Losses

+ Vintage Diane Von Furstenberg Lingerie lace-up top at the Old Clothing Show in Toronto that I passed up because I figured I would never have the balls to wear something so revealing. Sometimes I still think about it. I wouldn't wear it now but that's not to say a wave of exhibitionism isn't going to crash over me in the near future. And THEN what would I do.

+ A wee comfortable ringer t-shirt that said 'My Pop's a Cop' in giant felt letters. One morning I woke up to find that I left a pen open on top of it that had leaked a surprisingly huge puddle of ink. It basically peed on my favourite shirt. This whole shoddy incident would have been mildly redeemable had the ink taken the form of, say, mother theresa or david hasselhoff, but no dice. Just loss.

+ Ivory coloured little boys tuxedo jacket with brown velvety lapels. I got it dry-cleaned and then dropped it in a puddle outside the Dance Cave the following night. I got tons of use out of it so it wasn't a total wash-out, but it still had some parties left in it and now I am haunted by all that unfulfilled potential. It's still wearable but it is now a pale (smudgy) imitation of what it once was, and wearing it in its current incarnation would actually be an insult to its former glory.

+ Passport sized photo of a little boy immersed in a silty puddle around People's Square. This was my second day in Shanghai and I was walking around with people I didn't know very well. Seized with a mild fit of insecurity, I decided not to dig it out of the puddle because I didn't want to reveal my hobo tendencies quite yet. Who am I kidding, I am a bit more hobo than the average bear. I shouldn't hide my dim light under a bushel.

+ Elegant corner shelf at Buy the Pound that I didn't snatch up quickly enough. The person who DID nab it better treat it well. I won't want to see it one day stacked with Precious Moments figurines or empty cigarette boxes. Shelf on you crazy corner shelf.

REGRET/JE NE REGRETTE RIEN

life is not all ha ha hee hee

2007-07-19T22:12:00.000-07:00

comic courtesy of colin at woggles.net

Am flying to sunny Hainan Dao in Southern China this afternoon to eat coconut jam, read books on the beach and surf. While my sister has surfed in California and Australia, I am pretty green at the sport. Apparently studying hunky Keanu in Point Break doesn't count as previous experience. No matter, I will paddle out as far as my chopstick arms will take me and hoist myself onto magnificent waves and surf back to shore and into the record books.

what are you talking aboot

2007-07-18T23:44:00.001-07:00

Hooray for mid-summer work slump!

Yesterday I learned from a French colleague that the French spell "Wow" as "Waugh". I guess phonetically they're kind of the same but I imagine the second to be more like the sound you would make while plummeting into a deep canyon.

In 'Six to Eight Black Men', David Sedaris disclosed that whenever he enters a new country, he always asks cab drivers the sound their local roosters make. Cock a doodle doo? Piccaw? Do French Roosters follow the same rhythmic drawl as their human counterparts?

Learning little linguistic and cultural differences is one of the best things about being in a city like Shanghai, which draws adventurers from far flung places like Malaysia and Germany and... uh, Canada and a disproportionate amount of folks from California, or "The Bay Area" (a nebulous geographic area I just learned about 10 months ago and have then heard chiming from the mouths of an endless stream of tanned pals).

This diverse platter of foreign fruit gives me the chance to prod impressionable 18-year old British former classmates to satiate my tonal curiousity. "Say 'garage' again. No seriously, oh geez, that's awesome. Again! garage! again!"

And then, like a suburban yokel conducting a horribly politically incorrect symphony of accents, I could point to my Australian classmate, "now you say 'right'... wow!"

I have learned that while a California Girl accent does exist outside the realm of fluffy 80's movies, there is also a 'Berkeley' accent, which is a watered down version of the former but still has the inevitable uptick at the end, turning all affirmative statements into questions.

There is a difference between "ya'lls" from Texas and "ya'lls" from Atlanta. Near fistfights can break out over the spelling of "ya'll" (or is it "y'all"?).

British are shit at doing American accents. When they attempt it, they adopt the most hillbilly southern drawl possible. North Americans are shit at British accents. When we attempt it, we sound like like a pinch-nosed Michael Caine with a rod up his ass.

Apparently, Canadians have accents. I wouldn't know since I'm so mired in my own culture I don't have the perspective to deconstruct this notion. I also wouldn't consider myself a pitch-perfect linguistic ambassador of the language of my home country as I have a tendency to talk like my mouth is full of marbles and spit, like a camel, when I get excited. My supposed accent is not strong enough to immediately peg me as a friendly Maple Flag waving Northerner but it's distinguishable under the microscope of my "point finger and laugh" pals. No fuss, it's comforting to know I can join the orchestra of contextually funny foreign accents with my own unique rendition of "ou" vowel pairings.

Part One: What to Expect When You're Expecting

2007-07-18T01:54:00.000-07:00

Pregnant with excitement? Ankles swollen with anticipation? Heading to Shanghai's Fudan University on exchange or for its Mandarin Chinese Language Program is certainly something to be pumped about but its stone-age administration practices and deafening silence when it comes to information gathering can deflate the many month-long gestation of your overseas enthusiasm.

I studied at Fudan's Mandarin Language Program for 6 months when I first arrived in Shanghai. The following information is based on the knowledge I acquired during that time (Fall semester, 2006). I could very well be wrong in a lot of these accounts and many things have probably changed. Considering the pace of construction in Shanghai today, they could have razed the University and built an entirely new one in the time since I last saw it. But nonetheless, I have served up a platter of boring, straightforward information so you can gorge yourself on tidbits and tips. And I have split them into several posts as I do not know how to cut (or star fade) to a different page.

Comment with questions and I will do my best to put my coconut in gear to help you out.

Part Two: Fudan University Mandarin Classes

2007-07-18T01:53:00.001-07:00

Mandarin Language Program:

- The Mandarin language program is split into levels that range from A-H. They will give you a test during registration and slot you into a corresponding level.

- You advance one alphabet level during each semester. I started in B and finished C in the span of 6 months. Starting in B was tough- they conduct the entire lesson in Mandarin. While A starts off quite rudimentary by teaching the basics of Pin Yin, they advance quite quickly and actually start doing the B book within a few weeks. You will have an exam to advance to the next alphabet level, which translates to two exams per semester.

- At my level, classes were split into Speaking, Reading and Grammar as well as Vocabulary. There are additional targeted classes when you reach higher levels. Elective courses like 'Newspaper Reading' are also offered but may conflict with your established schedule.

- The quality of teaching at Fudan is not bad, especially when you factor in the cost and how many hours of classtime you are receiving. I only had 4 teachers during my time there so I can't really speak authoritatively about the quality of the program. Of my 4 teachers, one was excellent, two were reasonable, and one was pretty terrible. I've heard some people accuse Fudan of using students to teach. None of my teachers were current students at Fudan, three of them were surely over the age of 30 and they did seem quite educated and knowledgeable about their subjects.

- You will be with your class the entire semester. They are split into streams like A3 or F1, and you take every single class with them. This arrangement is not useful for people whose skills vary. For example, ABC's who can speak Chinese but can't read a single character present an awkward candidate for this type of structure. I think you can arrange to take higher level courses in certain areas but it doesn't look like it's easy to accomplish and I don't know anyone who actually took the time to arrange this.

- The classes are spread out throughout the day, sort of like University. This means you can have one class at 9:45 in the morning and then another at 3:00. While this is not the most efficient arrangement, it does allow for a lot of mid-day tomfoolery and hanging out.

-The lower levels take classes in the newest buildings on campus, anecdotally (and somewhat inappropriately) named 'The Twin Towers'. The upper levels are in a much shabbier building a little further south of that structure.

- Everyone has the same lunch period, which is great if you want to gather in the parking lot to play stick and ball or get high in your Datsun. Mostly everyone goes to the restaurants by the East Gate or grab street food from the vendors at the Pedestrian Walking street off Han Dan Lu near the south end of campus.

Fudan University Administration Rigamarole:

- Administration at Fudan both sucks and blows. Expect e-mails to go unanswered (unless they involve questions about how you can pay them- then they'll get back to you ASAP) and the office help to not be particularly helpful. The Foreign Students Office closes early and the ICES has a two hour lunch break.

- Ensure that you do everything properly. Fixing a small clerical error in China is a Herculean task of epic proportions. And I'm not exaggerating.

- Bring a ton of passport sized pictures of yourself (at least 12). Ordering up a stack of pictures of yourself may make you look like a vain debutante in the eyes of the passport picture photographer but they will come in useful... for your fans. Everything in China requires a picture of your pretty mug and they will also be helpful for travels (applying for Visa, etc.)

- During Registration Week, try to get to everything either extremely early or extremely late. Expect to stand in line for a very long time. China is basically one long line.

- If you are applying for a Residence Permit (using a Student X Visa), don't bother doing your physical examination at home. Almost everyone I know who went through the hassle of doing their physical exams at home had to do them again when they got to China. They WILL find something wrong with whatever you bring... and then make you pay 600RMB to take a new physical exam. They told me I needed to have done my exam at a public hospital and not at a private doctor (um, I'm from Canada, all our doctors are public servants. If I had gone to the hospital they would have told me to see a doctor). They told another friend that he needed to have photocopied his picture onto all of his forms (not common sense... but I guess?) before he had them signed by a doctor.

It's actually pretty easy to do the test at the dorms. They roll up a giant medical bus and you clamber through the whole process in about 20 mins (after standing in line... oh China lines). Comparatively easier than if you did it all at home. If you DO decide to do your exam at home, make sure you bring every piece of documentation, including your x-rays.

Part Three: Fudan University Living Arrangements and Location

2007-07-18T01:51:00.000-07:00

Living Arrangements:

You can either live off campus or live in the dorms. While there is much cheaper housing off campus, you still need to factor in the hassle of getting a real estate agent, figuring out a lease, paying the requisite 35% first months rent fee to the agent, paying utilities and setting up internet and all that jazz. Dorms offer a strong social element but it can be a little drink-minded sometimes.

In the interest of... laziness, I chose to live on campus and in retrospect I definitely made the right decision for myself. That being said, Tong He Mansions off Wudong Lu (opposite the North gates of the University and to the east a wee bit) also offers a good balance of convenience and affordability. You can rent rooms in their (very respectable) apartments and don't have to deal with the hassle of the dorms. It has less rules than the dorm, is cheaper, and will help you sign up for internet etc.

Fudan University Foreign Students Dormitory

- The dorms are more like bachelor apartments than University dorms. People keep their doors closed and the rooms are very soundproof. I never even formally met my next door neighbor (even after she accidentally set her TV on fire one night and it started crackling and exploding)

- The beds are hard- basically a glorified piece of wood with a sheet wrapped around it. But after 6 months on the bed, you get used to it and your body adjusts. I even think I gained a half inch in height after it straightened out all the kinks in my back.

- You can buy internet cards downstairs that allots you a set amount of hours. There is tech help on call for when the internet conks out (which it will). Bring your own internet cables from home. They sell them at the dorm but they're of a pretty lousy quality.

- Incoming calls are free on the phone they provide you. But seriously, you're in China, you will be so heavily reliant on your cell phone you will forget what a landline looks like anyways. Eventually you will stop communicating orally and speak wholly through text messaging and hollow tongue clicks.

- The major drawback of the dorm is they have draconian rules about overnight stays. They check your card at the door and it is quite difficult to sneak anyone in. We had success one night but that involved an illegal guest climbing his way up a drainpipe and being pulled in through a second floor window. I don't know if this rule is to protect the building or the chastity of its residents, but it can present a challenge for practicing lotharios and make out bandits.

- The people who work at the desk do not speak english. Any english. And they are not particularly helpful. When I first arrived after a 13 hour flight and 1.5 hours in a cab and tried to sign in, I was told that the person who normally checks people in "is taking a shower". At 8 p.m. Fortunately, fellow students are generally helpful. During the first few days people hang off each other like life buoys.

Tips For Living in the Foreign Students Dorms:
- Pick at EVEN numbered room. These rooms face the campus and are much quieter than rooms that face the street. The view isn't as nice; but Shanghai is a city awash in honking and construction, you do not want to have to wake up to that every morning.
- If you enjoy the post shower air-dry, you may want to choose a room above the 8th floor. Even numbered rooms face a Master's student dorm which goes up to about the 8th floor.
- For the love of humanity, keep the blue Temporary Residence Form they give you when you register. This is an integral piece of paper that you will require if you want to get a Residence Permit or change your Visa (you will probably be doing either one of these). In fact, keep everything anyone ever gives you in China- there is a good chance you will need it later on. Someone at an administrative desk spits into an oily rag and hands it to you? You keep that in a safe place.

Location and Transportation:

- Fudan is relatively far from the city center; it takes about 45 mins door to door to get anywhere useful in Shanghai proper. That being said, being a current downtown resident, I would say it can take a really long time to get places in Shanghai even when you live near it. Fudan does offer an advantage since you can hop in a cab and take the highway, cutting across a lot of the downtown congestion.

- Fudan is located off Line Three Metro station at Jiangwan Town Station. You can switch to Line One at Shanghai Railway Station. Line One cuts through a good portion of the city.

- There are little blue rickshaws for hire outside the North gates of campus that can take you to the subway station in 5 mins (usually a 15-20 min walk). Don't pay more than 5RMB for the lift!

- A cab from the foreign students dorm to downtown costs anywhere from 30-45RMB, a little more at nighttime. Here are some approximate costs:

Peoples Square: 35
Bund: 30
French Concession & Xujiahui: 45

- The Foreign Student's dorm is located on the North-West side of campus and is a 5 minute walk away from a stop for the 537 bus. The 537 bus runs to People's Square very often and is only 3RMB. The ride takes about 30 mins but it's a hellish mess of elbows and B.O. Public transport is a rite of passage in Shanghai. You can speak like a grizzled vet once you've ridden that beast a few times. I wear my faded bruises like badges of pride.

NOTE: On most buses in Shanghai, you actually board the back doors and pay the ticket collector there.

Part 4: Final Notes and Jumping Off Points

2007-07-18T01:50:00.000-07:00

Additional Tips from Tipster McGee:

- Getting a cell phone in Shanghai is not nearly as complicated as it is back in N.America, where sneaky phone providers require you to sign away your first-born and shackle you to a three year contract.

Step One: Acquire phone. Either a triband unlocked GSM phone from home or a phone from one of the many electronic markets in China. Try to go to a legit store- counterfeits abound in this land. Spend max 1000RMB on the phone. Splashing out on a fancy phone will only hurt all the more when it gets stolen or, I don't know, you drop it into a sink full of water like a fudge-fingered idiot (alas, poor Motorola Slvr, I knew you well).

Step Two: Buy SIM card. My limited knowledge of SIM cards leads me to believe that China Mobile is the best. I've heard poor reviews about Unicom. China Mobile M-Zone SIM cards (I think they come in envelopes with a dude's face on it, or in orange and yellow envelopes) come pre-loaded with 50RMB and cost between 60-100RMB. While the cards offer the same deal, they range in price since "lucky" numbers like 8 cost more than unlucky ones such as 4. I have both numbers in my card and I reckon their luck/poor luck balances each other out. And so the battle between good and evil continues.

Eventually, you can even sign up for services that will subtract 16RMB a month from your SIM card in exchange for free incoming calls and cheaper outgoing calls.

Click here to read Shanghaiist do a much better job that I at breaking down the ins and outs of cell phone plans in Shanghai.

Step Three: Gab away. If you want to check your balance, send a text message 'yecx' to 10086. It will instantly text you back your remaining amount. To fill up your card, buy a China Mobile prepaid slip from any convenience store.

The following websites deserve beauty pageant sashes for being both awesome and informative:

Miss Shanghai: Shanghaiist brings snazzy original content and regurgitates important China news like a momma bird nourishing her lazy baby bird who can't be fussed to keep abreast of relevant issues. Integral site for Shanghai immersion, it accurately takes the pulse of the modern young(ish) expat and prescribes accordingly. They also throw parties.

Miss Vaseline Smile: Smart Shanghai has glitzy powerful tech muscle and a database brain and really brings the goods when it comes to useful info. They log the addresses of restaurants and useful venues and offers it in both English and Chinese. Before you step into a cab, be sure to print off their Taxi Cab directions so you don't end up lost and circling the outer rings of Shanghai hungry and crying. They also helpfully compile and organize listings of events so you can see the party climate of any particular day and are hand with skilled photographers to document glam (yet hazy) nights out. I only wish their editorial content was as strong as the rest of their features.

Miss Congeniality: Shanghai Expat easily wins the award for the most welcoming and interactive site of the bunch. Their forums are the place to go if you ever have a unique question or interest. Searching their forums before posting is also important as the site has been around for many years and most basics have been covered in the past. They also throw Wednesday Night Mixers and Tuesday Night Dinners to encourage interaction on the physical plain. For the thrifty at heart, they have coupons.

accidents all along

2007-07-15T02:22:00.001-07:00

winter/spring crafternoon session with christine....

we started out with charcoals and paint and lofty ideas but were waylaid on our path to greatness and ended up making cards painted with cartoon girlfriends to give to our hospitalized pal.

2007-07-13T02:18:00.000-07:00

Two and a half weeks of busytime have bought me a weeklong cruise down the breezy straits of worktime procrastination. huzzah! And so I am reviving this blog in an entirely new userfriendly home as wordpress has addled me with its future technology. For old news please see http://www.lianefong.com/

In honour of the maiden voyage of this blog, I will now break a glass of champagne against the side of this monitor.