http://5.derektronic.com Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:57:14 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Every street vendor or store assistant in the whole of Beijing thinks I look Korean. Sellers, peddlers, waitresses, waiters, helpers and candy-man, they all ask the same thing (if they speak to me at all): ni shi na guo ren? Ni shi Aodaliya ren!? Wo juede ni shi Hanguo ren!! ... http://5.derektronic.com/?p=71 My tong xue and I have officially dubbed a particular group of characters The Bullshit Characters. The Bullshit Characters are characters that remain the same visually, but take on different sounds when put between/in front of/behind other words. Examples are the yue in yin yue (music), which flippantly becomes the le ... http://5.derektronic.com/?p=70 Tomorrow, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, there’s a China-wide, university-specific festival happening: Dan Shen Jie, which translates as Singles Festival. It’s held on that date because of all the ones (singles) in it - cute. HOWEVER, something about Dan Shen Jie appears to be deeply uncool. And that’s ... http://5.derektronic.com/?p=69 Hot on the heels of the very .. interesting experience I had at the Kanye West concert, my friends tell me that the latest Bond movie has been heavily censored in the cinemas. S-E-X - I didn't think it was a dirty word here anymore? Anyway, apparently many of the ... http://5.derektronic.com/?p=68 Nooo, first milk and milk-related products, now this.. apparently there's a possibility that not only are Chinese milk products tainted with unsafe levels of melamine (a protein-substitute that causes kidney stones and renal failure in children), but so are eggs and animal feed! First milk, now eggs!? But my 3 ... http://5.derektronic.com/?p=67 My first Halloween party tomorrow night! For some reason I always seem to end up in plaits when I dress up. There are no costume stores here, or at least none that the newbie foreign language students could find, so I had to laboriously browse the Korean and Wudaokou ... http://5.derektronic.com/?p=66 My homework today was to write a paragraph on what Australians like doing and why. "Australians like barbeques!" I said to my tutor. "I'm going to write we like kao rou ye can [roast meat done outside], dui ma? [Accurate?]" "Keyi, dui [can, accurate]." she replied. "Aodaliya ren xihuan kao rou ... http://5.derektronic.com/?p=65 At 7:55am this morning, I was mock-wailing down the phone: "This isn't supposed to happen to me! I don't GET bad luck!!" Yes, what is allegedly inevitable in Beijing had happened to me, despite my optimism totally ignoring the possibility: my bike got stolen. Last time I saw it - I ... http://5.derektronic.com/?p=63 The hot pot I have back home was like this: a home. A hot pot. A hot pot full of water sprinkled with a tiny bit of flavouring, but never more than a tad. A set table for four or so. Vegies, meats and seafoods in styrofoam packages set ... http://5.derektronic.com/?p=62 A regular week in the life of a foreign student (well, one of the nerdier ones) doing the intensive language course at Tsinghua: Mon-Wed 6:45am: Wake up 7:30pm: Bike to school; pick up two boiled eggs for 1.5RMB (about 20c) on the way for breakfast 8am: ??! Start class. Snack continuously - and I ... http://5.derektronic.com/?p=61