Coming back to Study?

After spending three months here in Xiamen, I really feel at home here. All possible phases have passed and I think I am fully adapted here to the Chinese culture. Although there are still things that even I think is weird. For some reason, I am already starting to feel sad when I think about the fact that I have to go home in only eight weeks and that this phase of my life will pass. Although I get pretty happy at the thought of seeing my friends again, I made quite a few here in Xiamen which means I have to wave them goodbye.

Like I wrote in my last post, we received a new job here in a bar called the “Chocolate Pub”. This is a bar that specializes in R&B and the decoration is supposed to represent Thailand. Our task is pretty simple, just be there and talk to customers when they talk to you. Not a hard job, but most of us are quite tired of the job already. It sounds so perfect, just party and drink of free. But in reality, the first few nights are great. But partying three nights in a row with (a lot) of free drinks and every night the same music and the same performers becomes very boring. As we work on Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 21:30 till 02:00, we simply have not time to go to different clubs. Therefore most of us decided to quit after 10 days and Rob has stopped already (He is old, 26 grandpa!). But I am currently trying to arrange something else which includes free drinks but no pay and come and go whenever we want in a new bar, that is better for our health I think! Working in a bar has its privileges, being in a bar that much gives you the possibility to see the same people quit often. This resulted in two new friends that I find very fun to hang out with so far, at this stage I am not sure how it will develop itself as one of the girls might be a bit too old for me..(28) but there is no harm in getting to know each other and see where is goes. Yesterday we went on a date and I learned here to skate on ice, it was really funny to see as it is quite unusual for a Thai girl to skate on ice since Thailand doesn’t really contain frozen water. In fact it wasn’t really skating but more “standing and not trying to fall”, afterwards we visit the local shopping district and sat down to have drink. Quite a nice evening, unfortunately she works six nights a week as the singer of the Chocolate club. So It will be hard to meet more often as she works at night, and I work during the day…

The CHECK-IT projects are developing pretty nice, my job for the website team is actually coming to an end as most design work has been done. The coders are currently working very hard on realizing the project and I get time to focus a bit more on the DVD project and a new project for the knowledgebase team. So there is still a lot of work and limited time, there are only eight more weeks left! Not to mention my family is visiting pretty soon which means 10 vacation days for me (I don’t complain!) We will traveling during the holidays to Beijing, Chengdu, Xi’an and Yangshuo so I do get to see more from China as so far I have only visited Wuyi, Xi’an and Xiamen.

As I mentioned before, I am really enjoying my stay here in Xiamen. The fact that I feel so at home here got me thinking about the possibilities to come back here in the future. I spoke with one of the Chinese professors about Chinese major studies on multimedia design and they have several, the only problem is that they are not in English. The University is currently looking for a way to provide me with English support if I decide to come back and do a major study at the Xiamen University. Something I am considering quite seriously! After all China will be one of the biggest IT countries in the world and studying there will give me a big change on a bright future. But unfortunately I still have a year and a half to go in the Netherlands. So quite enough time to think about it, but I am sure that this internship won’t be my last visited to Xiamen.

The Chinese students and the Dutch are working together very well, at the beginning we had some troubles communication but I get the feeling that those troubles are hardly there anymore. We learned to collaborate pretty well, or at least my group has. I can’t speak for the other teams, but it seem like everything is going very well. Also, my English is really starting to feel like a second language. I have more trouble remembering Dutch words then English words. But that is a common problem when you spend a lot of time abroad, unfortunately my Chinese isn’t getting a lot better. I am definitely starting to learn new words, but the pronunciation is just so different from what we are used to. But it is always good to see how much the Chinese appreciate it when you try to make an effort on communicating in Chinese, it even gets you discounts in the cab! That’s what we found out when Maarten was drunk it tried to talk to the cab driver, perhaps being a bit drunk helped him finding the right tones as he was actually having a small conversation with the guy.

For me it is time to get to work again, I am currently waiting for one of our SCRUM meetings as we finished the SCRUM sprint last Friday. We pick new products to develop from the product backlog today and then we have three solid weeks for producing again. We made the last sprint successfully, so we can be proud again. So far we haven’t missed a sprint although we had to work in the weekends a few time to deliver everything we promised…

Hugs and kisses,

Frenkie

(Written on: Monday 30 November 2009 at 12:57)

Having a dreamjob in China?

Another week has passed as time flies here in Xiamen. The days are currently going by really quick which kind of got me a bit shocked as I still have so much work to do here in Xiamen. The assignments keep on stacking up as the projects keep developing and changing a bit. I currently have to work on three major projects which kind of got me of focused as I can’t spend time on them at the same time. But apart from work, there are also new developments like having a real paid job here in Xiamen! We have to make money as CHECK-IT isn’t a payed internship). But more about that later!

Last Saturday Liselotte had invited me to a boat trip with some of her friends. I met Liselotte at a local beach party here a few weeks ago and since then we have been hanging out every now and then. I didn’t really know what to expect from the trip as I had little to no information about it! As I arrived at the main gate of the Xiamen University campus (she studies Chinese there) I saw a big group of European people. Well, that was a nice surprise. I don’t get to see so many European people that often. I joined the group of about 15 till 20 people and we left for the boat, the trip was organized by a Dutch guy named Diederick and I immediately hit it off with them. It was really nice to mingle with people from your own culture after being in a foreign country for so long. I really understand why expats in the Netherlands (allochtonen for those that don’t know expats) mingle with each other. It gives you a small feeling of home and I simply can’t blame them for doing so. Perhaps G.Wilders should visit China as well?

It was a old fishing boat of which the deck was completely emptied. So there was enough space to hold so many people and most important there was a BBQ and BEER! So I was drinking my first beer with spareribs at 10:30 am. Quite a heavy breakfast but I definitely enjoyed it! It was a day of meeting new friends and being away with a different crowd felt quite nice. Although I was very happy to party with my own friends again at night. The same day my intern supervisor was going to fly back to the Netherlands after guiding us for three months. He really didn’t mind to go back as he was the one who had the worst phase two. (Hating every bloody thing that is Chinese) It was quite funny to see him being annoyed though :P. We escorted him to the airport and afterwards got some food at a restaurant. Quit a simple goodbye!

At the boat trip someone informed me about a club who was looking for new foreign employees to attend parties to attract customers. As I had joined Liselotte to her “job” several times (drinking for free and get paid) I was quite interested in this job. So at night me and some other Dutch CHECK-IT members went to the bar and ask the manager if he was still hiring… well guess what. WE GOT THE JOB! So from now on, I have to work on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Which is quite hard, you know.. I have to be there at 10 o’clock and drink for free and dance around the bar. I get paid 12 euro’s a night and have to work for at least 4 hours. So basically I have to drink for free and get paid for it afterwards.. It is a hard job but someone should do it right? Joking a sight, it is of course next to my internship so we do have to be a bit careful that it doesn’t influence our main task here in Xiamen which is developing software.

As our original supervisor left for the Netherlands, we received a new one which is Cees Bekker. The group had a week time to get to know Cees a bit and the other way around. And so far he has left a good impression. Let’s hope this is a mutual feeling ;). A new supervisor wasn’t the only change here in Xiamen. The Chinese government has managed to do another thing that disappoints me, they actually managed to kill the sunny weather with a rocket to make it rain. Yeah, in Xiamen they create bad weather by hand, and not with a funny rain dance but by shooting chemicals (I think) in to the air. So with the rainy weather I actually start to think about home again. And kind of getting a little homesick, but only a little luckily. To feel a bit more like home, myself and several others decided to show the Chinese how good we were at ice skating at the local mall. Rented a pair of ice skates which weren’t really sharp but I managed to do some skating. Although I doubt the Chinese were impressed as I regularly saw a Chinese flying by at maximum speed while I tried not to fall.

This Thursday is our first working day at the Chocolate pub. I am really looking forward to another night of free drinks and having fun while getting payed. Let’s hope the job is really as good as it sounds, but the whole free night last Saturday as a first working day certainly left a good impression!

Hugs and kisses,

Frenkie

(Written on: Tuesday 17 November 2009 at 23:14)

Flying to Xi'an

After a few days of vomiting and having a fever I finally have the power to write again. I kind of forgot how shitty you can feel while you’re sick, fortunately I haven’t been really sick in Arnhem before so I haven’t experienced sickness without someone there to make you a bowl of soup and make you some fruit juice! Well, as you can guess… now I know. Last Sunday I had been working on the DVD project for at least 14 hours in a row which kind of screw up my sleeping rhythm. So when I woke up the following morning I instantly started to vomit. Not real nice start of the day, so I called in sick and I tried to catch up my sleep (34 hours of sleep, I woke up a few times of course!). I won’t bore you with the details of my exciting 34 hours of sleep stories.. since I got soooo much work done during those two days. :/ But instead I give you some interesting stories about Xi’an!

Before I start my story about Xi’an I’ll give you the heads up on my biggest problem the last few weeks… my pc was broken. But I finally got it back! ASUS repaired it for free since I still had 1 month of warranty left! That means I already have this pc for two full years now. Perhaps it is time to look for a new model.. as the “ mobile i7 quad cores” are about to hit the market in two weeks. But let’s first try to survive China financially since the trip wasn’t exactly cheap… and missing a flight doesn’t really help to reduce the costs.

As most of you guys now know Moniek visited me here in Xiamen. Xiamen is a great city if you want to flee your everyday work schedule and go on a vacation, but if you really want to see the real Chinese life… Xiamen just isn’t the place to be. It is more like a vacation resort you can escape to for two nice weeks (guess that’s the reason that this internship still feels like a nice flee from The Netherlands). Moniek came to China to have a nice vacation but also to see the real Eastern culture, therefore we decided to escape Xiamen and head out for Xi’an (and that was an affordable trip). Xi’an was also a good choice because it is very special for the Chinese, as a good Chinese friend of mine told me. It contains a lot of the Chinese history and therefore all Chinese are supposed to visit Xi’an once in their life. So Moniek and I took the cab towards the airport at 9 am and booked two round-trip ticket to Xi’an for 220 euro’s pp. Our plane would leave in the evening around 9 o’clock so we had 12 hours to prepare. I had to go to work to make sure the Chinese guys and girls of the design team had something to do for a week and Moniek offered to structure the bag packing ( as I mentioned before, she is a natural after all).

After a three hours flight we arrived at Xi’an in the night which wasn’t a big pleasure to be honest. We arrived and got in to a cab, after calling the hostel who explained the location we headed out to city center. We thought it would be a short drive as we didn’t expected Xi’an airport to be far from Xi’an itself. The cab driver offered us the trip for 100 Yuan in advantages or he could turn on the meter as usual he said. Well, since all my cab rides here in Xiamen haven’t been above the 50 Yuan… we told him to turn on the meter. After a ride of 45 minutes in a strange city with a crappy cab ride which cost us 170 Yuan.. we arrived in a city that looked dark and empty and definitely not like a amazing city Xi’an we expected. But we were in the right place as the cab driver showed us our hostel, after checking in we found our room which was basic and cold. But since we were both really tired, we simply didn’t complain and went straight to bed. (one good thing, the bed was a little bit softer then my bed in Xiamen. Which feels like plain wood!) The following day we walked around the city just to explore as we had slept most of the day. Of course Moniek saw a few stores which sold the most perfect boots she just had to have.. so we could add a new pair shoes to the list. Although I bought a few things as well in Xi’an so it wasn’t just Moniek who brought in the extra luggage at the airport when we headed back to Xiamen. The day after we booked a trip to a panda rescue reservoir. We were taken there by a tour

bus with several other tourist including two from Belgium, so we got to speak a little Dutch in Xi’an. The panda beers were really cute and quite funny to see. The first panda’s we saw were quit… well boring and lazy. They didn’t do much except laying on their back and pouring bamboo down their throat. But later on we were taken towards an area where they were playing around with a child panda and his mother. They were really active and simply running and stumbling around, looked really funny and cute! I will add some pictures so you can see the two panda’s yourself.

At night we visited some dancing show which showed a lot of people playing drum. As Xi’an is famous for its drums.. we had seen quite a few during our “first exploring Xi’an day”. So seeing another show with drums was quite boring to me, but the good wine and the Chinese girls dancing quit made up for the drums. The following day we headed out to a place that is supposed to be one of the world miracles called the Terracota Warrios. If something is called a world miracle, you automatically expect a lot. Which kind of happened to me, and of course high expectations can only result in disappointment. I didn’t found the warriors that impressive, of course it is quite unique to see so many statues of warriors being buried under the ground… but it all felt quite fake a made up to me. I expected it to be something mysterious were we had to go in to a cave to see thousands of warriors stacked up against the wall. But what we got were thousand of warriors all put in order in rows in some sort of gigantic ice skating hall. The ice skating hall kind of screwed my mystic expectations.

The days after the terracotta warriors we enjoyed some clubbing, we visited the drum towers, went to the local Muslim area. (which was really uncomfortable as they will grasp you arms to sell you stuff), climbed the mountains and drove over the Xi’an city wall bye bike and of course we did some more shopping. Xi’an was definitely a gorgeous City although I was happy to go back to Xiamen after a week. In my opinion the people in Xi’an were ruder then the people in Xiamen. People in Xiamen (almost) always smile at you and are nice and don’t try to screw you with everything just to make some extra profit. You feel kind of accepted, when you are in Xi’an which is more touristic, people will always try to make profit of you.

The cabs were more expensive, the food was more expensive and if every single store you had to try to get the price lower. Kind of annoying if you ask me! But if I have to believe Moniek… it was simply because they idealize Western people less. According to her it had something to do with me ego (I kindly disagreed with her of course, luckily she was getting pissed at some Xi’an people as well. That was my prove it wasn’t just me!) We had booked a flight which was scheduled to leave at 8:40 in the morning, so we went to bed early and planned to woke up around half pas 5. Well, something went wrong with my alarm on my phone (got to love windows mobile right? I am starting to hate the shity piece of software!) so we woke up around 7 o’clock! So we ran down and ordered a cab and of course we got the only female cab driver which really followed the traffic rules. So she wasn’t driving as a fast maniac and we ended up 7 minutes to late for the check-in! We had to wait at the airport for an extra 12 hours with a single way ticket which was just as expensive as our initial round-way trip ticket. I even put up my nicest smile to the lady behind the counter but unfortunately I couldn’t get a discount! As you may understand.. I am currently counting the days until the “stufie” arrives again.

It is time for me to go back to work as our new CEO has arrived two days ago. Since I have been sick for two days I haven’t been able to meet him yet. And being sick for two days isn’t the best introduction as you can imagine. So ill head-out for work and will write a new blog in a few days. By the way, thanks for the responses! Really enjoy every single one of them. Feedback is always welcome!

Hugs and kisses,

Frenkie

(Written on Wednesday 11 of November 2009, at 03:35 am)

Having a guest in China!

Okay, the long period of silence will be finally broken! Yeah, I have been quit for a while but that is because there has happened a lot the last few weeks. Being busy makes it hard to write stories right? My last post was on the third of October. That is actually almost a month ago… well the most important events are Moniek visiting China en traveling around with her trough China and Xi’an. There is so much to tell that I think I will split the posts. Let’s start at the beginning!

Moniek arrived here in Xiamen on the 13 of October around 11 o’clock. I picked her up with a small headache from the night before as we had visited bar123 and club KK to visit some new mates we made. The other Frank had to visit club KK as he was developing a relationship with a Chinese accountant. Yeah, he actually managed to get in to a relationship with quit a adult woman. Haha no it’s not that bad she is 24 but still… quit a achievement right? They now are together for about 5 weeks I guess and it looks like a real cute relationship.

It wasn’t really hard to spot Moniek at the airport although she is pretty short… a white girl kind of stands out of the crowd on the Xiamen airport. Although she had trouble finding me.. (I thought I would stand out as well.. but I guess I am developing some sort of Chinese look?) Of course she was pretty tired so we didn’t do much during the next few hours. I decided to make sure she got a proper welcome and we went to the massage salon together. Afterwards we got a bottle of wine in club YoYo and enjoyed some performances over there. We could notice that the people weren’t used to Western girls since the songs of the rapper immediately got dedicated to Moniek as we were sitting at our table minding our own business. We spend a few hours with the rapper doing some small talk and when we left Moniek received another song dedicated to her. Quite a nice introduction to China if you ask me!

The following day we wanted to visit the Shuzhuang Garden which i s located on a Island of which I can’t remember the name at the moment. Once we were on the Island we noticed that it was quite hard to get there without visiting all the other places on the Island. So we ended up not visiting the gardens but spending time on the local mountain, visiting the bird park and a private drive over the coastline. Quite a nice view to be honest, and we even found a small restaurant that served Western food. (Just to delay the bad stomach issues for Moniek ;P ) If I recall correctly we came back from the Island when we saw Sam driving around on a electric scooter. After test driving Sam scooter I got so excited that I decided to buy one myself for 70 euro! So I am currently the proud owner of a blue electric scooter with teddy bears stickers on it. You got to love the kiddy stuff around her! But it is the fastest scooter so far! In total there have been bought 4 scooters… although mine already has a flat tire. But I will make sure that gets fixed very soon for just a few euro.

To please Moniek we also spend a lot of time shopping for cheap clothes. It was so stupid of me to think that Moniek would be able to use two pair of shoes during the two and a half weeks. Girls just have to buy shoes, and keep on buying them.. she came with two pair and left with seven. It will stay a mystery for me that she actually managed to wear them all during her vacation. Not to mention all the clothes she bought… have to be at least nine new pieces. She really amazed me when she was packing her bag when she left for Holland. It actually all fitted although she had four kilo’s overweight on the luggage. While all the guys here are almost unable to buy new clothes because they are simply to big for the clothes.. Moniek actually fitted everything the moment she tried it on. It is heaven around here for the small girls.

Apart from the shopping spree we also tried to see some animals in the Xiamen zoo. As Moniek and I both hoped to see panda beers in the Zoo we left with good spirit to the other side of town. After quit a long drive from about 40 minutes (6 euro for the taxi!) we arrived at a long and wide road. The cab driver dropped us off and pointed to some sort of building. So we guessed that was where we had to go! Well, that wasn’t the case. We were dropped at a water cleaning company.. the only animals there were flushed fish. But after using our best sign languages to the locals we were pointed out to the right direction and found the Zoo. It looked real good from the outside but once we were inside… we both were quite shocked. The animals were in real small cages and they looked real bad. There was a show given with tigers riding horses and bears riding bicycles. Sound real cute but in reality the animals looked real sad and every time they heard the sound of a stick they would crumble. The bears were pulled inside the arena by a chain that was attached to their nose which is forbidden since quite a while I believe. When the animals didn’t obey they would be slapped in the face and Moniek and I left with quite a bad feeling. After that we decided to look around a bit and we found a horse riding attraction. We decided to do it but after a 3 minute walk we were charged 700RMB! (70 euro) So we got in some trouble and finally were allowed to leave after paying 500RMB (they claimed it was so expensive because of the pictures taken) So Moniek and I felt quite screwed.

The following days we visited temples and even visited the beach. Of course on her demand.. I am not really a beach boy. I rather spend my time doing something useful. But of course a nice tan is important as well, although that is a lost cause for me. Since I become red or stay white.. Moniek managed to become more tanned in two days then I did in two months! For some reason the Chinese dislike the beach. Most of them can’t even swim so we actually had the whole beach for ourselves. Don’t think that happens a lot at Busloo beach in Deventer. Before we left for Xi’an we did the usual clubbing were Moniek joint us to our favorite bar098. We had a great time and I actually met a nice girl that would transform the following weeks into a stalker. Which is now actually visiting the software park occasionally to find me.. quite creepy if you think about it. The days after that we flew to Xi'an!

I will write about the beautiful city Xi’an in my following post. We visited a lot over there including one of the world miracles named Terracotta Warriors. So stay tuned for more information on that! Now I am going to make sure that I get a nice hot shower and a good nice sleep. Since I am getting sick again.. we spend three nights in a row at the clubs this weekend and I think that broke me up at bit. Well, we got to enjoy life while we are young so a good night rest will make me fit again for next weekend!

Hugs and kisses,

Frenkie

(Written on Tuesday 03 November 2009 at 21:47)