筷子

View over North-West
of Nanjing

It is amazing how easily people can get used to different customs – without even really noticing. About a week ago we went to eat in an indian restuarant and to my utter amusement I had to notice that I felt weird using knife and fork instead of chopsticks. Even though I must admit that I still have the occasional flying chicken wings when trying to eat with chopsticks. Hearing a rooster crow in the morning or small chicken right on the biggest street even though it's a million people city and people wearing pyjamas in public also almost lost its surprising moment. But there are also a couple of mysteries I still haven't quite solved: like some weird insects(?) that I got to see here quite often that look like a crossing between a bat and a butterfly. Some other riddles I finally got explanations for: e.g. the quite frequent outbursts of liting fireworks are probably part of weddings and therefore especially frequent on certain dates: Since „9“ (九jiǔ) is pronounced like the word for „long time“ (久jiǔ) it is considered a good number for a wedding date. Also the combination „5 2 0“ (wǔ ér líng) is supposed to sound like „I love you“ (我爱你wǒ ài nǐ). In general (e.g. phone numbers) „4“ (四sì) is really unpopular because it sounds like „to die“ (死sǐ), and „8“ (八bā) is probably the best number since it is (was/ still in some dialects) similar to „wealth“ (发fā). There's also a lot more to find in the Internet about this.





The mentioned high-rise

Right now there's a couple of holidays. We just had three days off for the „moon/mid-autumn festival“ (中秋节 zhóngqiújié) and now there's going to be a whole week off for the national holidays (to celebrate Mao's proclamation of the People's Republic). On the other hand in China this doesn't mean you really get these days off because instead you have to go to school on weekends, which meant that I spent the last weekend at the university. The upcoming week I'm probably going to be in Hongkong and the surrounding area (Shenzhen, Macau,…).

traditional chinese instruments
at the 中秋节 party

In Nanjing nothing very exciting happened so far. There was a small „party“ at the university for the foreigners right before the moon festival where everybody got some „moon cake“ (too sweet for my taste) and listen to classical Chinese instruments and Karaoke. We also went up the highest tower in the city (which is the 6^th highest tower in the world) and since we were completely underdressed for the cafe up there, the next time I'll remember and try not to embarass the waiters. Still, for European pries you can usually already enjoy some kind of lower luxury. Since wages are really low here, shops and restaurants can afford having more assistants and waiters than guests or clients. Classes are as normal, I wish I'd progress a little quicker but I guess you just need to give it time.

Oh, and just booked the tickets. So I'm going to come back to Germany over Christmas and New Years.