World's Longest Blog Post 2018

Well, aside from some mild PTSD, flashbacks, and regularly waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night due to some horrific, train-related nightmare, I'm glad to say that I survived the train journey more or less intact!

In reality though, the train journey wasn't actually too terrible, although it's certainly not something I'd seek to experience again. Like, ever.

Believe it or not, the first few hours were probably the roughest part of the whole journey. My original plan was to binge Netflix for most of the journey, but that quickly went out the window when I realised that I hadn't slept in about 16 hours and still had a whole 17 hours of train journey to enjoy. Instead, I found myself half asleep, leaning against the side of a chair, desperately hoping for the sweet release of death.

Luckily for me however, that only lasted for around 2 and a half hours, after which someone kindly offered me a stool that they weren't using, and I was actually able to get some sleep; albeit in the middle of the aisle, with people regularly trying to squeeze past. It only got better from then on as well - at one point I was actually able to sit in a seat for about 4 hours straight without being asked to move!

In addition, considering how long I spent on the train, I naturally ended up talking to some of my fellow passengers - a good opportunity to practice my Chinese, and even learned that one of the people I was chatting to studies English at another university in Tianjin! We've been chatting on Wechat pretty much constantly since then, she's able to practice her English, and I my Chinese, and we're planning on meeting up sometime soon for a proper chat in person.

There's a great piece of advice for you right there; if you're looking to make some new friends, don't underestimate the power of booking yourself onto a 17 hour train with a standing ticket. Trust me, I'm somewhat of an authority on the subject.

Anyway, enough about the train. I've still got a whole week of holidaying to talk about, and the rest of the month after that! I've also gotten some questions from pupils in the classes at the school I’m linked with, who get the pleasure of being shown my blog every month (you're welcome), so I'll try to answer as many of those as I can towards the end.

The first stop on our holiday was Shanghai. We were only there for a total of about 2 days (we arrived on Monday evening and left on Wednesday afternoon), but even in such a short space of time I feel like we were able to experience so much.

After getting off the train and then spectacularly failing to find the bus we were supposed to catch to get to our hostel, we decided to just walk the 40 or so minute journey ourselves. I know it doesn't sound particularly appealing, considering that at that point I'd probably had about 3 hours of sleep out of the last 30, but it was a pretty good way to experience some of the less touristy parts of Shanghai. Despite this, there was no time to rest even after making it to the hostel, as we'd planned to meet one of Arran's Chinese friends for dinner. We just about had time to have a quick freshen up and dump our things in our rooms and then we were off again.

Dinner with Arran's friend was definitely worth it though, as he was able to give some local insight on places that we were planning on visiting, and he made us feel very welcome in Shanghai.

After that, we returned to our hostel and finally got some much needed sleep, in preparation for the adventures to come. Well, everyone apart from Arran. After our trip, I've decided Arran must actually be a dolphin disguised as a human, as he would regularly go to bed well after the rest of us were asleep, and yet still wake up at the same time as everyone, fresh as a daisy. That's not a bad thing though, jealous as I may be. Quite the contrary, actually, as that night he ended up meeting an American called Eric, who ended up joining us for the rest of our travels in Shanghai.

Speaking of the rest of our travels, once we got up in the morning we were straight off to the City God Temple and Yu Garden, with a few detours on the way. We decided not to take the subway and instead walk, and I'm glad we did, because the sightseeing we did rivalled seeing The Bund at night-time, for me at least. We ended up walking through this little traditional Shanghai neighbourhood, and it was amazing to see the contrast present in Chinese cities (you'll hopefully see what I mean from my photos) and then emerged onto this massive road, right across from this even more massive cultural street. That was really cool. We had a quick lunch break, I opted for some fried crab from a street food stall, and then continued in search of the temple. It turned out to be not much further up the road, so we bought some tickets and went exploring.

The temple lead into the Yu Garden, and we spent even more time there, soaking up the atmosphere. I also spent a lot of time chatting to Eric, and I really enjoyed getting to chat to him about America and hearing his view on the world, and also educating him on the rich Scottish culture of haggis, deep fried mars bars and complaining about everything. He definitely added so much to the trip, in a way that I totally wouldn't have expected, considering that we were in the middle of China.

In the evening, once it got dark, we visited The Bund, and we got to experience hypermodern China in its full glory. I could go on and on about all of the lights and buildings, but I really think the pictures speak for themselves. Again though, what I found most interesting, and couldn’t stop thinking about, was the massive contrast present within China and Shanghai itself. We'd spent the day in a really traditional street, a Buddhist temple, and a peaceful garden, and then suddenly we went to be surrounded by lights, massive skyscrapers, and immense herds of people. It was very surreal.

The next day, although we had to catch our train to Hangzhou early in the afternoon, we still found time to explore the Jade Buddha Temple and People's Square. I thought the temple was amazing, it was so completely unlike any religious building I'd been in before, and the level of peace and quiet within its walls was unbelievable, considering it was right in the middle of Shanghai.

But of course, eventually we had to bid a teary farewell to our good pal Eric, and get on the train to Hangzhou. I know what you're thinking – not another train! But don't you worry, this time the journey was only two hours, and we had seats! My feet appreciate your concern regardless. No, what you really need to worry about is the bus. As I said, we didn't have much luck with the bus in Shanghai, but we had even worse luck in Hangzhou. It took us over half an hour to find the bus we were supposed to get on, a search which included a trek from one side of the massive train station to the other, and even then it turned out that the bus didn't actually go where we wanted it to, which we only discovered once it reached its last stop. Luckily for us however, we all had access to the Mobike app, and as such we were able to grab some bikes from the street and cycle to our hostel. And what a lovely hostel it was! It was in such a nice, peaceful area, and there was even a resident hostel dog! Although, I couldn't quite decide if it was me that the dog liked, or my breakfasts.

In fact, Hangzhou as a whole was absolutely lovely. As awesomely interesting as Shanghai was, the time we spent in Hangzhou was by far my favourite part of the holiday. On our first full day there, we went for a wander around the West Lake, and then we took a cruise across the actual lake, before cycling back around the lake and hiking up to a very scenic village in the mountains. It was nothing fancy, but I was honestly awestruck by the village, as I'd never been to a village like it before. We took a break in the village for some tea, and passed the time by playing cards. Afterwards, we finished the day off by climbing to the highest point in the village that we could find, before finding some dinner and returning to our hostel.

We started the next day off with some more hiking, this time making our way to the famous Longjing Tea Village. Once there, we of course took another tea break (in an even more scenic place than the previous evening), and then we climbed one of the nearby mountains. It was quite a hot day, so the climb was pretty difficult, but it was so interesting to see the tea farms lining the side of the mountain and to see people working on such terrain, and the view from the top was definitely worth it. After admiring the scenery for a while, we made our way back down, and once we'd all caught our breath we decided to spend the rest of the day at a nearby botanical garden.

I know, I know. Who cares about plants and stuff, right? Well I'll tell you what, after visiting the botanical garden in Hangzhou, this guy right here does. As soon as we entered, it was almost as if we'd stepped into another dimension. The silence hit us like a wave, and it was the best thing ever. I don't think that up until that point I'd experienced a single moment of absolute quiet in China, but in the botanical garden we were able to lounge on the grass until our heart's content, with only the sound of the breeze and the chirping of birds breaking the silence. That's the sort of thing you'd probably take for granted in Scotland, I know I certainly would, and that's why I enjoyed Hangzhou so much. It was so serene and we were able to just take our time and relax, and that was something I didn't realise I'd needed until I was there.

Eventually, we were able to drag ourselves out of the gardens, and we finished off our day with a trip to Hangzhou's famous food street. After eating our fill, we returned to the hostel in order to get a good night's rest, so we could be up early to catch our train.

The train ride back was definitely the best of the lot, despite it being the longest. We'd booked ourselves into sleeper carriages this time, and what a difference the beds made. I was put in a separate carriage from everyone else, but that didn't bother me too much as it meant I didn't need to feel so bad about putting my earphones in and pretending nobody else existed. I was also landed with the top bunk, which is supposedly the least desirable, but I would quite happily take it again. Sure, I couldn’t sit up straight, but I was able to just lean over onto the overhead storage and sit my boots and whatnot on them, and I have to say that I quite enjoyed the feeling of looking down on everyone else. What can I say? I don't really get to do it very often.

We actually arrived back in Tianjin around the same time as the scholars that had gone to Xi'an, and it was great catching up with everyone and hearing about their holiday. After that however, I had just about enough time to inhale some cereal and then it was time for class, and back to business as usual.

I'm going to skip forward a few weeks now, as for the most part October hasn't been particularly eventful. It's just been a lot of studying, trying desperately to sear the image of new characters into my brain, and occasionally finding somewhere new and interesting to eat.

However, the weekend of October 20th was definitely an interesting one. A few of us took part in an organised trip to Hongyagu in Hebei province in order to visit the longest glass bridge in the world. I actually had a different glass bridge in mind before the trip, but apparently China is building long glass bridges at such an astounding rate (the one that we visited only opened on December 24th last year) that the one I was thinking of isn't even the longest in the world anymore. Regardless, we all had a great time at the bridge! The climb up to it was a bit nuts, but it was definitely worth it for the experience. The scenic area itself was also beautiful, although I suppose that's why it's called a scenic area, and I enjoyed myself just as much just wandering around the little village. It was good to get away from the hustle of Tianjin for a couple of days.

Keeping within Tianjin though, just this Sunday past, all of the scholars went in little groups to spend the day with some Chinese families. I went with Alistair and Peter, and we had the nicest host family ever!

The father and son met us at the subway station, and then we all walked back to their little apartment. Once there, we met the kid's mother and grandmother, and just sat and chatted with them for a while. They also showed us how to play this Chinese game, I don't quite remember the name, but it was essentially Connect 4 on steroids.

Afterwards we also played some Monopoly, and then we helped make some dumplings for dinner. It was really interesting spending time with, and chatting to, the family. It was a great to practice our Chinese, and I enjoyed hearing about their lives in Tianjin. I think we all would have stayed there for so much longer if we could have, but unfortunately we had to get back to the university and our studies. We were, however, invited back to visit again, and I think we definitely will! Alistair and Peter were talking about maybe teaching their son some English and French, and I suppose if any of the family wanted I could show them how to dance a little salsa, but I think they might be a bit more interested in English tutoring. Their loss, I'd say.

Now then, onto the questions from my wonderful readers! I'll list each question individually, and then I’ll write my answer underneath.

How hard is it to learn Chinese? / Is Chinese harder to learn than Spanish and French? - Alexander and Niamh

Alexander and Niamh, I’ve decided to group your questions together because they’re pretty similar, hope you don't mind. Good questions by the way!

Anyway, Chinese is definitely harder than Spanish and French, and I've got a theory as to why that is. You see, regardless of the fact that it's a tonal language, meaning that the tone in which you say a word affects the meaning of the word, there's just a whole lot more to learn with Chinese than there is in Spanish or French. With either of those languages, you basically just learn the alphabet and then you can pronounce pretty much every word that you see, so all you have to do is remember the meanings of the words and also understand the language's grammar.

In Chinese however, when you see a new character for the first time, you're probably not going to understand how to pronounce it. Sure, there might some clue in the character's structure (for example the character 几 is pronounced “jǐ” and the character 机 is pronounced “jī”, and as you can see both feature the 几 structure) but for the vast majority of characters there's no way of guessing how to say it. So, you need to find out how to pronounce the character, and then you also have to remember what tone you have to use when you say it, and then you also have to try and remember how to write the character as well.

I also personally struggle with associating a word with a character instead of the Pinyin (the system used to show you how to pronounce a word) as Pinyin features a Latin alphabet, like English, and when you see them side by side it's very difficult not to just look at the Pinyin, because that's what you're used to reading.

On the other hand however, I don’t think Chinese is as difficult as most people think it is. There are far fewer sounds in Mandarin than English, and although some of them may be a bit tricky for an English speaker at first, it's quite simple once you get the hang of them. In addition, Chinese grammar is generally very simple and follows pretty strict rules, so that part of Chinese is probably easier than French or Spanish. No ridiculous verb conjugations or anything like that. I could say more, but I'm sure you get the point, and I'm sure most of you probably fell asleep before you made it all the way through this answer. Sorry about that!

Anyway, next question.

How much pollution is there in the area where you live? – Rosie

Hey Rosie, thanks for the question. To be honest, it just depends on the day. Sometimes it’s very polluted and you can't see very far at all for all the smog, but sometimes it's almost comparable to Broxburn. If you want to get technical about it, as a general indicator I use the American AQI (air quality index) to measure the pollution, and today was 196, which is “unhealthy”. However, sometimes it can be as low as like 40 or so, which is “healthy”. I've seen it go above 200 which is “very unhealthy” although it's never reached “hazardous” (above 300) yet.

One day I decided to check out India on the map just for a laugh, and some parts of the country were above 600. No. Thank. You.

I've bought some pollution masks however, so I just wear those whenever it seems particularly bad outside.

What is the time difference in China? - Harry and Kaitlyn M

Right now I'm 8 hours ahead of Scotland, although obviously before your clocks went back it was 7. I'm not actually sure if the clocks ever change in China.

What is funny though, is that despite China's size, there's officially only 1 timezone. Luckily that timezone is based on Beijing, and as I live quite near Beijing the hours aren't very weird for me, but I definitely wouldn't want to be living out West.

Do you think Chinese should be introduced in to schools in West Lothian? – Iona

You know Iona, it technically already is. James Young is the Chinese hub for West Lothian and they offer it up to National 5. There are even some schools in Scotland, which offer it to Advanced Higher (although, I think that's a bit unfair on everyone else). You should be able to travel to James Young, to take it yourself in 5th year, although they would only offer it to me at National 3 when I wanted to.

However, I definitely do think it should be made more widely available, both within Scotland and West Lothian itself, as it is a very useful and interesting language, and Chinese culture is also very interesting. I'd hope that in the future it will be introduced to more schools in Scotland, but of course they'd need people to teach it, so we'll just have to wait and see I suppose.

Was you family happy about your decision to move to China for a year? - Tiegan

You know Tiegan, that's a difficult question to answer. On the one hand, of course they were. I'm sure any parent would be over the moon that their child has been given this amazing opportunity to visit another country and study their language for a whole year. But on the other hand, it has to be difficult for my parents, or most parents really, to handle their child moving such a distance away. Like, I'm not exactly 5 minutes down the road.

I'm able to call them often enough however, and that makes them really happy, so hopefully that's enough. I'm sure if you were to ask my dad though, he'd say that getting to sleep in the most comfortable bed in the house all by himself for a year is reason enough to ship his only child halfway around the world!

Apart from Chinese hot-pot, what is another good food you’ve had? / Is the food in China really good? What is your favourite dish? - Anonymous

Oh yeah, the food in China is pretty fantastic. Of course, like anywhere I'm sure, there are places where the food isn't quite as good, and obviously there are some dishes that I don't like as well. However, for the most part, the food is great.

You can pretty much walk up to any little window restaurant on the street and it's more than likely that the food will be good. In terms of my favourite food, I love dumplings. I can't get enough of them. It doesn't help that there's a place that sells them about 10 minutes up the road from where I stay that enables my addiction. Some good dumplings with vinegar and chilli oil just can't be beaten.

At the same time though, there are plenty of foods from Scotland that I'm missing as well. There's no chance that I'm getting a fry up or a chippy for the next 8 months, even if there are plenty of fast food places in China. They just aren't the same.

Anyway, that about does it for this month I think! I know there were a bunch more questions, but unfortunately I think my blog's a bit long as it is. My only plans for November at the moment however are to sit my midterm exams and study, maybe meet up with some Chinese friends and explore Tianjin for a bit.

As such, the blog probably won't be as jammed full of words as this month, so I'll answer more of your questions then.

Speaking of midterm exams though, I'm sitting those next week. Wish me luck! I'll need it.

Caleb