Getting to know Xiamen

It has been two days since my last post so I have enough new stories to share! My last entry was last Friday when we had the official/unofficial kick-off of the CHECK-IT project (heard later that there will be another kick-off with more high officials blablabla ). After writing my last blog I managed to sleep for 13 hours, so I guess I managed to keep one of my old habits over here :P. Therefore Saturday started a bit late for me because I woke up at 15:00pm. Luckily almost every Dutch student was that lazy on Saturday so there was no shame for me. We decided to use the time that was left to explorer a bit more of the local area here at the software park, so we headed out into what we would describe as a ”sloppenwijk”. I was pretty shocked when we walked around there, so far we had only seen a bit of the center were most people are pretty fortunate. Walking around in the local area made us realize how lucky we actually we are. Young kids playing at the dirty street while the cars rush by, dumping grounds laying next to the homes, a constant horrible smell of waste laying around and buildings that looks like they can collapse when you breathe too hard. Though the people don’t seem to bother about the shape of their surroundings. Of course they are used to it, but you would think that if your house is held together by a few wooden poles, your face wouldn’t be smiling all the time. Well, not here. I guess they take the sentence “altijd blijven lachen” pretty serious around here.

After walking around a bit and buying a few things in the local shops ( Calvin Klein boxers for 1 euro :D, fake as hell and it turned out to be “nut crackers” instead of boxers :( )we went back to the apartment and decided to have dinner in the local restaurant downstairs. There was another hard job there for us, we had to choose dinner. Try that with no pictures and only Chinese letters on the menu (pretty damn hard to decide!) We managed to simply do it by pointing at food that lay in the pre-made cabins and got three different kinds of food with rice. Of course we expected it to be a bit more expensive than buying food in the supermarket, but what a big surprise there! We only paid 7 Yuan for the meal and 1 Yuan for the cola. So calculating that to euro means that we spend 80cent for the total meal. We mutually decide that cooking for our self was not an option anymore... don’t judge us! We are hard workers so we may threat ourselves now and then! We had planned to go to a local pub or club in the evening but to make that happen we needed some help from the Chinese part. So after a few MSN talks with the Chinese students we heard that it was almost impossible for them to join us or show us were to go because they never go out. The entrée fee for a club here is 200Yuan which means you will have to pay 20 euro just to get in a club. That is even expensive for me! So that plan disappeared while the evening was still young so after chatting a bit with each other we decided to keep it simple and just drink beer and watch a movie with each other. That night I couldn't sleep, I managed to make a few calls to the Netherlands and was really happy to hear known voices but due the time difference I had to make the phone calls late at night. Afterwards I couldn't get to sleep because the Chinese workers next to our apartment work night and day! So a finally managed to sleep at 09:00 am and got up (again) at three! After that we went to a shopping mall where I got a new Chinese phone number. So if you want to reach me please send me an email and I can give you the new number for texting :D.

At the evening Carol (Chinese student leader) took us to the movies. We went there together with Carol, Steven and Tjeerch?? (no clue how to spell his name.). They actually play English movies here without the synchronizing of Chinese voices so perhaps I can still keep my hunger for movies fed here! We enjoyed the movie G.I. Joe and we went to a really small pub/drinking café where they actually ran towards the supermarket to get us beer. ( Talk about service!) So after we had bought 10 beers for 6 euro we went back and got some sleep because the following morning would be our first working day!

Our first working day was slow, we went to the office not knowing what to expect. Turned out the company direction had the same idea. So the first hours was just sitting around and trying to get to know the Chinese students and their studies. Rob and I managed to set an appointment with the Dutch coaches for a meeting about their wishes for the promotion DVD. This will be held tomorrow so Rob and I used the spare time to work on our point of view for the DVD. We already heard that they would like to have a small promotion video for the CIFIT fair next week so there is a big change that we will have to work hard this week. At 11 o’clock there was a meeting for everybody where the groups were pointed out. I will be working on the company website with five others but four of them are currently in different projects. Therefore I will work with only Carol the first week, and I am kind of lucky with that because she is the best speaking Chinese student by far! We set down and spoke about the needs for the temporally website that will be build for the CIFIT fair and created a small plan on paper. When we were done the day was already over so it was time to go home! We went straight towards the restaurant and had diner again for the amazing price of one euro :P. Tomorrow will be our next working day. I hope we can make a quick start this time and be productive! I’ll keep you guys informed!

Huges and kisses,

Frenkie :D

(Written on Monday 31 of August 2009 at 23:16 )

Our first little steps in China

After half a year of preparation it was finally time to leave The Netherlands and leave for the (now I know) beautiful Xiamen. I left Deventer at half pas eleven last Wednesday with my parents and picked up my sister in Maastricht. From there we left for Dusseldorf were I we met Rob. After checking in and going trough custom (of course every freaking gate beeps when I go through :S) we set foot towards Xiamen. It all went pretty smooth and we didn't encounter any problems. The only bad thing about the trip was not getting any sleep at all. So when we arrived we were pretty messed up, and then we found out that there was no one waiting for us at the airport. We made a little mistake with the arrival time. The printed paper said that we would arrive at 16.45 so we added the eight hours of time difference and told the staff to pick us up around midnight. So they weren’t expecting us for eight hours!

We managed to find the address of our apartment but we were a bit afraid of the cost of taking the cab. We finally decided that it was the only way of getting there and took the cab. After a trip of 20 minutes we arrived at our apartment and the cab cost us (Dutch cab drivers pay attention) only 4,50 Euros! Talk about cheap! We quickly settled in our apartment and we met some of the other Dutch students who arrived a few days before us. We quickly hit it off and started to mingle under the pleasure of some beers. After we spoke for an hour or so we decided to go to McDonalds with the whole group. Unfortunately cab drivers always say that they know the place even if they don't... so everybody ended up somewhere else! After a few phone calls we managed to find each ocher and had diner. After that we went to the wallmarkt and bought a few things. It was there that I started to notice how special people find us. Everybody looks at us because we are almost the only western people around here. They don't even hide the fact that they stare at you and only a few dare to say hello. It is actually quite fun but it gets annoying after a while or while you're eating chicken... (you don't want people to stare at you when you eat chicken. You simply can't eat chickenwings in a charming way.). After the Wallmart we went home again and watched a movie with all the Dutch students. I decided at twelve o'clock to leave and get some rest.

This morning Rob and I got a free breakfast from the Dutch coaches to welcome us. It was a private dinner with only the Dutch coaches, Rob and myself. This was because the other students already had their introduction. After that diner we met in the lobby with the other students and had our first meeting. We spoke about the assignments and we were able to ask questions. At three o'clock we had the official CHECK-IT kick-off were we were supposed to be dressed nice. So we suited up! Sounds nice, but try wearing a suit on the hottest moment of the day (and it is hot here!!) and walk towards the CHECK-IT office. It was hot as hell and when we arrived at the office everybody was floating away in their own sweat. But hey! It was official so we had to look good, and who wants to look good must suffer right? So we met the coaches and Chinese students who were all wearing shorts and T-shirts... DAMN! So we were a bit overdressed and swimming in our own sweat :P. We could already notice the first difference in culture after the first few sentences. The Chinese students and professors value respect a lot. So it is a bit weird to see how they treat each other. In Holland students are used to argue with a teacher and prove their own point. The Chinese students are very neat and take the word of the professor as the truth. They won't argue or say what they think to a person that is "ranked" higher then themselves. It is all very formal and official, which has its charms but I prefer to talk with a teacher on a normal level instead.

Monday will be our first working day, we will have two weeks to create a plan for our assignment. This means we will have to write down what we will be doing and how we are going to realize it. I am assigned to the website of CHECK-IT and will be responsible for creating the promotion DVD together with Rob. I noticed that I am the only non-programmer student so there is a good change I will come back with a basic knowledge of programming! That could come in handy in the future :P!

Thanks for reading and I hope I will have more stories soon! Thanks for the last comments as well! It is always nice to hear from the home front!

Frenkie!

(Written on: Friday, 28/08/2009 on 20:15 )

Leaving for Xiamen

The 26th of August is getting closer and closer. There are currently only two more days left before I will leave to Xiamen! The last few days were busy days, not only did I have to finish up the last things for my departure like packing my bag or run to school to get the last paperwork done. I also had to say goodbye to friends and family. So I have been exploring the country lately with the great public transport and the good old bicycle. (God, I need a car!) I have finally found some time to write my first blog and most likely the only blog that I will write here in The Nederlands. I'm looking forward to my stay in China and the CHECK-IT (China Holland Educational Center of Knowledge on IT) project on which we will be working. Though I must admit that the nerves are finally starting to act up. But those will be gone on my arrival as soon as I am settled. (I hope :P)

I my first flight will leave from Dusseldorf International Airport on the 26th of August at 17:55. So I will leave Deventer around the clock of two. I will travel together with Rob Heijligers, Rob and I are placed at the same assignment for the CHECK-IT project. So I will spend the most of my time with him. Luckily Rob and I have met several times now and share several interest. So I am lucky to have found someone to hang out with in Xiamen (karaoke bars here we come :P)!. From Dusseldorf we will fly to Frankfurt were we will catch the next plain to Beijing. After that flight we will continue to fly from Beijing to Xiamen were we will be picked up by the Chinese students and one or two Dutch coaches.

The University of Xiamen has been so kind to arrange apartments for us. And they didn’t arrange a crappy ugly apartment. No they managed to get us a 46 of square meters apartment with airco and LCD TV and everything. I was quite surprised when I saw the pictures of the apartment. I have added the photo's I received to my flickr account so you can see it yourself. Of course I will shoot a few pictures myself after my arrival.

Rob and I won't have a lot of time to settle in Xiamen. I just read on the blog of one of the Dutch coaches that we will have to attend the official company kick-off the day after our arrival. Then the first of September will be our first working day. So we jump right into the action!

Well, thanks for reading and hopefully you will keep following my blog. I have decided to do my blog in English because there will also be Chinese readers and of course they won't understand Dutch. I’ll try to post messages every week with my latest "adventures"!

Frenkie!

(Written on: Monday, 24/08/2009 on 17:55 )

China test bericht

Hellow kijkbuiskindertjes,

This is my first post on blogspot. I am currently writing shit because I have to have a dummy text for my blog. You know, to see how it all looks and what I will have to change to make it look a bit better. So don't worry if you think I'm only writing down rubbish and you don't understand why.. Because I just explained that. Like you all know, or not, I will be leaving for China in 5 days from now. So it is kind of time for me to start the blog. I have been busy writing my own blog but due the limited time I currently have.. I decided to do it a bit simple and create a blogspot which ofcourse I can edit! So enjoy this dummy and lets hope I can make a good looking weblog for my stay in China!

Lets try to add a picture and see how that will turn up.