My Life in China

I hope all of you had a lovely Christmas day! Rebecka and I continue to enjoy what Guangzhou has to offer and you can see lovely photos on Rebecka's blog here: http://www.becka.nu/. Rebecka is a good photographer while I'm a lousy one, but in my defense I can mention that Rebecka has a SLR camera.



We're off to Macau tomorrow and on the 28th we continue on to Hong Kong where we will celebrate the New Year! It will be awesome!

Take care!

All is well, Rebecka arrived on the 21st of December, three days later than planned but the most important thing is that we are together now and get to spend celebrate Christmas and the New Year together. We both want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Rebecka was supposed to arrive here in Guangzhou the 19th of December, it is now the 21st and still no Rebecka has arrived, the situation is that she was not let onto the aircraft from Copenhagen to Amsterdam due to her connecting flight from Amsterdam to Guangzhou. The reason being that Amsterdam airport feared even more passengers becoming stranded in Amsterdam due to the bad weather in Europe. KLM which was the airline flying her from Copenhagen to Amsterdam then made a new reservation on the 21^st, three days later! Why on earth they did not make a reservation the 20 is beyond me. So I called China Southern Airlines to try to get Rebecka on a flight the 20^th but they wouldn’t, why? I can’t say for certain because they kept giving me different excuses, in the end it turned out that the ticket on the 21^st was only reserved but not confirmed.

 

Rebecka even went back to Copenhagen airport to see what could be done from there which was not much. More phone calls around the globe to KLM and our travel agent revealed that only China Southern Airlines could confirm the ticket, more phone calls and more waiting in endless phone queues only to be told to “hang on” and more protesting from China Southern Airlines in China that they couldn’t do anything when everyone else was pointing us towards them as they were the only ones who could confirm the ticket. At 8 PM I got a call back from China Southern Airlines in Amsterdam (not their support in China) and I was then told the ticket was finally confirmed!

 

Although, when Rebecka called our travel agent and KLM to double-check it turned out the ticket was still unconfirmed.. More phone calls to CSA in China as the office in Amsterdam was closed at this point and we were then told that only the counter at the airport could confirm our ticket! And that’s where we stand at this point.

 

Rebecka is going to go to Copenhagen airport and get on the flight to Amsterdam, hopefully everything will be sorted before that time. So, a short review of China Southern Airlines would be that they refuse to rebook your ticket and blame everyone else, they are happy to take your money but not to help you out if problems arise. If you have the opportunity to fly with a different airline, please do so.

 

 

I just saw this clip: http://www.china.org.cn/video/2010-12/16/content_21557639.htm about the metro in Beijing, it moves 6.5 million people every day, that's just an insane number! Luckily the metro in Guangzhou is not even close to that and is far from that crowded but it's rare to get a seat if you're travelling the downtown lines.


Since the Guangzhou metro is quite new it's in a neat condition and feels clean and modern as well. I think it's the best way to get around quickly and effeciently this huge city.

I have noticed it before in Japanese movies but now I see it on a daily basis, a lot of Asian girls cover their mouth when laughing or when they are embarrassed. This tends to be especially true of Japanese and Korean girls, the Chinese do it too but not to such an extent. So I became curious of the reason, at first I thought it had some relation to that they don't wish to show their teeth, as exposing teeth is considered rude and bad taste in some Asian countries. That might be true for laughing but why do it when they are embarrassed? So I asked some Korean and Japanese girls here at school, the answer it turns out is that covering your mouth is a sign of your shame. But why don't the boys do it then? According to some of my students it's gender specific, not covering your mouth when laughing or being embarrassed is less lady-like so they cover their mouths to be more lady-like.

Every year in the beginning of December Utahloy International School organizes a Festival, called the ‘Festival of Lights’, which I think is a wonderful poetic name. This year the festival was celebrated last Friday, the 3^rd of December. It’s a festival filled with music and performances and parents sell food from all the corners of the world. The school was closed for students on Friday but teachers were working on preparing the band stages, one for primary kids and one for secondary students, stalls and decorations were put up as well as various games. It’s a popular festival judging by the amount of people present, somewhere around 1200 was estimated. I was on the photo and video committee so I’ll be doing post work on some photos that our photographers took during the evening so that we can print a few selected photos in poster sizes and put up around the school. All in all I enjoyed the evening even though it’s hard for me to get into any Christmas feeling with the weather around 20 degrees during the evening – no matter how many Christmas carols are sung by the primary kids!

 

As I was filming with a hand camera later in the evening I forgot to take any photos when it was dark, but I'll try to find some and post them later on.

 

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