A Ball in Beijing and Exams in Tianjin

大家好! This month we celebrated St. Andrews day in a way that I’ll never forget. We were lucky enough to be invited to the St. Andrews Ball in Beijing. We left on Saturday morning to catch the train. The fast train from Tianjin to Beijing takes 30 mins and can get up to speeds of 350km/h. This makes the journey very fast and only costs £5. The trains were very sleek, clean and much less crowded than my train to 西安. After arriving in Beijing we treated ourselves to a KFC, a chicken wrap has never tasted so good. We then made our way to our hostel. Surprisingly this went very smoothly and everything went to plan. Usually most activities I do, something will most definitely go wrong, so much so my family has named it a “Jodie drama”. They were also very surprised everything went to plan. We had a few hours to kill before needing to get ready for the ball so we explored the area and bought some Chinese tea.

With 3 hours until the ball went back to our room to relax and get ready. It felt very funny walking out of the hostel in ball gowns, kilts and suits. I was very aware that my dress was very sparkly and had been scared it would be too extravagant for the evening but when we arrived, it seemed to be an understatement in comparison the venue and other people attending the ball. It was our first encounter with Christmas decorations, which made it more special.

After going the wrong way we managed to find the hall, which was very much glitz and glamour. After signing in and dropping off our jackets, we started to make our way around trying to introduce ourselves to people. The first person I managed to talk to was selling raffle tickets so I ended up 67 yuan down but I helped their charity and made a friend. After some time to get settled and socialise a bagpiper piped us into the hall where we would eat and dance. After finding our seats the dancing began, something I had been looking forward to for a while. Once we had completed a few Scottish dances, food was served and the five course meal began. Five courses sounds a lot but a lot of them were not much bigger than my thumb so we were able to get through them with ease. The food was very delicious and a big improvement from my usual meals.

With our food digested, they started the music again, inviting us to the dance floor. It started to feel like we were back in Scotland, which was very special. The evening ended at around 3am by which time I was exhausted and ready for my bed. The event was very special and something I will never to forget. Seeing everyone so happy was a very good feeling. The next morning we woke up just before our check out time so we packed quickly and went on a walk to find some food. We managed to find jianbing, which is usually only found in Tianjin so we bought one to compare. It was very different, in a good way but I have to say I’m partial to the ones in Tianjin.

We jumped on the subway to go and find Beihai park, a beautiful open park wrapped around a lake. Even though it was very busy it felt very peaceful and I had a very clear mind. We had a great couple of hours walking around but soon enough it was time to get back on the subway to get to the train station. One thing that’s very handy is that the subway station is in the train station, this is usually the case in most train stations so it’s very easy and cheap to get to them. On the other hand, it’s very annoying that the subway machines only take cash. This is the only place you need cash as everywhere else uses WeChat pay so it’s hard to find cash to get a ticket. Soon enough we were on the train home and got back to Tianjin before we knew it.

At the beginning of the month we had mid-term exams. These were quite intimidating as they’re worth twenty percent of our final grade. The Chinese idea of a sufficient grade is very different to ours. In one of my exams I got 75% and my teacher wanted me to resit the exam as it wasn't good enough. After our midterms one of our teachers, 于秒, who teaches us comprehensive Chinese, took all 22 scholars out for dinner to congratulate us on completing our first set of exams.

As much as it looks like most of what we do is have fun, studying takes up a lot of our day and its very exhausting. There is still nothing more I’d rather be doing as I'm really enjoying it. I’ve noticed recently that I'm able to recognise many more characters. It gives you a really good feeling when you read something without having to translate each individual character. This week my room mate woke up to me sleep talking which I do a lot but this time there was a difference, I was speaking Mandarin. I said “我也爸爸去年” which translates to “I also dad last year”, which makes very little sense. Nevertheless I'm proud of my mind trying it’s best, even when I'm sleeping.

As we begin December we also start studying for our HSK3. We need to learn another 300 characters in just over a month while keeping up with the characters we've just learned and the ones were learning in our other classes. It’s going to be a very busy month but I'm very excited to celebrate Christmas in China.