Better Late than Never Post: Back to School - Beijing

How many considerations you had or reviews you have to read before making a decision? Some of us might more careful than others, some would love to know a lot about the details before making a decision, especially a big one. For me, I'm a 'go with the flow' kind of person. I don't criticize a lot and I tend to take whatever that's on the table. That is also how I decide on which school I attend. :D What I'm talking about is how I decide to choose Beijing Open University 北京广播电视大学/北京开放大学 to study Mandarin at their Chinese Center for two semesters.

Actually I asked a few agencies and few persons before I choose which school I'm going to, and my friend who is also my roommate then in Beijing also searched for some information regarding some school in Beijing. I can say that my roommate likes to search and browse for information and I am the opposite (hohoho). When I went to an agency in Pluit, they suggest Beijing Open University, I didn't remember exactly what are the reasons why they suggest BJOU to me, but they also gave me list of some universities and the total expenses for one year study. I knew that I want to study at Beijing, and in a place where they don't have a lot of Indonesian people in hopes that it would improve my language skill faster and they say this school didn't have a lot of Indonesian people study there. When my roommate and I checked their website, they put an Indonesian contact person there. We decided to contact Ms. Huang directly instead of using agency. Surprisingly, Ms. Huang was giving us a prompt and informative reply regarding what we need to enroll to BJOU. We also applied for the full scholarship offered, and we got it! HA! Lucky us. It's a RMB 8,000 worth of scholarship per year.

Based on the list that the agency gave me, it is cheaper to study at BJOU compared to other universities in Beijing. The Chinese Center itself only had around 100-ish students per semester. It is a small school compared to others, but I like that in one class, they were only around 10 persons so the class was more private. It gives a lot of benefit for students improvement. They also provide a one on one class or group class based on request- but I took the regular class. If never learned Chinese before, don't worry, they will teach you from the very basic. 

For the school fee itself, during my period of study: Autumn 2012 and Spring 2013, each semester is RMB 8,000/semester/4 months. As for the dorm fee, it was RMB 5,600/4 months/shared room (special price for scholarship student). For living fee in Beijing, it depends on your lifestyle. During my stay there, the standard meal would cost around RMB15/ meal. You can find a lot of cheaper food than that, and you'll save more if you cook yourself! The public transportation is also very affordable and quite reliable (exclude the rush hour- you better stay at home). The bus' fare starts from RMB0.40 and for the subway, it only costs RMB2.00 to any station. - those price were only valid till the last day I was in Beijing, July 10th 2013, and the exchange rate was still RMB1= IDR 1,600.

I heard that the living cost and the school fee at a non-big city in China is more cheap, so I believe that you can save more by choosing other a smaller city. The one thing I know for sure is, after learning for two semesters in Beijing, it didn't only improve my language skill, but it also opened my eyes and my mind about the world. Being able to meet friends from all over the world, helpful teachers and experiencing a Chinese culture. It something that I wouldn't trade with anything in this world. In fact, writing all of the details above makes me missing them more :(

The Indonesian Girls in front of at BJOU, Ms. Huang is also in the picture :)

Anyway I might not being to detailed about what I write in here but feel free to contact me if you had any questions regarding my experience back then. If you ever had a dream about studying in China (like I did), you should take the chance!

Good luck!


Abeth

Beijing or Jakarta: 爱你没差- Love you, no matter what (PART 1)

The post title is based on a Jay Chou's song "爱你没差" ai ni mei cha which means "Love you, no matter what" in English. It's a song on Jay's latest album "Opus" and it is a conclusion of what I had in my mind and my heart (hahaha) regarding Jay Chou- especially his Opus World Tour 2013 concerts (yes, concerts with 's', plural).

First of all, I would like to declare that I like Jay Chou. As I may have mentioned about him in some post way back since the first time I started to blog, but I never consider myself as his #1 fan. I am far faraway from that. To be honest, I like him more when I first started to learn Mandarin (around 10 years ago) and listening to his music/ song lyrics helps me to improve my Mandarin (believe it or not). Around ten until three years ago, my sister -she's the one who usually buy stuff, I only use them for free-  still buy the original cassettes (please don't tell me you don't know what this stuff is) and the original CD's, also some of Jay's VCD concert. Then things changed, our priorities change, I'm not really up to date with Jay's latest works, about his movie career especially, but in music wise, I still know that he's having a new album coming up, and so on.

Part One: BEIJING

Then something magical (HAHA) happened during my stay around March 2013 in Beijing. I received an SMS about Jay Chou's concert in Beijing, and somehow my heart skipped a beat, one because I know it's about Jay Chou's concert in Beijing and second because I'm not really sure on the details about SMS because of my limited Mandarin skill (boo hoo!). There's only one thing I know for sure: I WANT TO GO TO THE CONCERT!!!! Hahaha.. excuse my excessive use of caps lock there, but if it was a movie, you can say that my heart was full with explosion and fireworks back then. I couldn't even had a good night sleep for few days because I haven't bought the concert ticket yet. When finally I had the ticket in my hand, it was a joyful moment and my sister can only jealously imagining that she'd able to watch to concert with me. I really believe back then that Jay will never be able to had a concert in Jakarta, that's why I didn't mind when I have to watch this concert alone, it's a price I am willing to pay (and the ticket price too). I bought the RMB 780 ticket price on the left wing stage, and I have to say that it is not a cheap price ticket (the cheapest was, but as we already know.. love needs sacrifice.

On Sunday, May 26th 2013, the long waited day finally arrived. One day before the show, I watched the Shanghai Opus World Tour uploaded on youku.com (China's Youtube) from fancam so I had a little bit of image on my mind on how's the concert gonna be like - since I believe that I need to catch up with a lot of Jay's newer song. I took 地铁/ subway to reach the stadium, and just when I exited the subway, it pedestrians were full with people who sold Jay-related accessories and souvenirs for the concerts dominated with pink color. My heart beats even faster when I reached the gate of 首都体育馆, but surprisingly, there are no signage or a poster to indicate that there will be a Jay Chou's concert in it. If I hadn't seen the merchants who sold the accessories earlier, I might have think that I've gotten into the wrong place.
Then when I finally enter the stadium, there was not many seats filled yet since it was one and half hour before the show. It was really hot when the show haven't started yet, but luckily later on the AC was working properly as soon as the crowd started to show up one by one. The person sitting next to me was also coming early and he was watching by himself too, so I didn't feel that lonely waiting for one and half hour. He even asked me to keep watch of his belongings while he went to the restroom. This boy definitely didn't remember his mama's advice to not to talk to any strangers, let alone to let a stranger to keeping eye on your belongings *tsk tsk*. How lucky he is to meet an honest Jay fans like me.

Anyway, after one and half hour waiting, the seats inside the stadium were slowly occupied. Fans were starting to light the pink light stick given at each of our seats. The lights were being dimmed off so you can see the sea of pink light stick and you can already feel the excitement and anticipation of the crowd. Then the long waited moment happened, precisely at 07.30 p.m. the white curtains that covers the stage finally dropped down. That moment, everyone went crazy (HAHA), the screams are everywhere and I had no hesitation to join the fun. And there he was, Jay Chou, at the stage, singing live in front of me (and thousands other people) with his six pack -this is very important detail. Luckyly that day, I borrowed my teacher's binocular (my LaoShi likes to watch Beijing Opera with it) and it is very very useful to be able to see Jay Chou (his six pack - now I sounded like a perverted lady hahaha)  clearly. I have to admit that my seat isn't the best seat to see the whole stage so I depended a lot on the screen and binocular.

View from my seat on the opening song. Didn't bring along a proper camera that time, only Blackberry

Although I've watched the concert on the internet a night before, the excitement and the feelings were totally different, especially when you were standing with a crowd who shared the same (and even more) excitement than what you had. The fans were continuously singing, cheering and screaming during the show. I have no idea on how can they have that much energy to do that for two consecutive hours, but it was a very fun night, everyone had fun, everyone responded positively to the concert and what Jay asked us to do. In short it was a fantastic moment for me personally, not only because I get to see my idol, but also because I was able to shared the excitement and I didn't feel like I was alone watching the concert, those other thousand strangers were my best friends for the night. My favorite song for the night gotta be: 哪里都是你- it stuck in my head for weeks after the concert。

The best video I had on my blackberry (please excuse the shaky hands haha)

In short, I'm a happy girl that night, probably the happiest girl for the weekend at my school because they said I looked super happy on Monday after watching Jay Chou's concert. Hahaha. Some might say that it's a bit exaggerated, but I did feel awesome for the whole week :p
I even thought that watching Jay Chou's concert was the highlight of my life in Beijing, going to the Great Wall or eating Beijing Roast Duck can't be compared to the feelings I had back then. *smiling ear to ear*

*this post will continue on Part 2: JAKARTA :)

Behind Those Aisles

Today I accompanied my mom and went to one of hypermarket in Kelapa Gading. The funny thing is, when I walked into the fruits and vegetables sections, my mind went instantly to the hypermarkets I used to go to when I was still studying in Beijing, Walmart (沃尔玛) and Carrefour (家乐福） . It reminds me of the joy and the luxury (ha?) of strolling around each section of the hypermarkets, trying to read the words (汉字）on the packaging, and guessing what ingredients contained on the items *dork alert*.

I may describe it a little way overboard haha. What I meant to say is, as a student (and unemployed at that time), going to the supermarket/ hypermarket is a form of entertainment for us (me). If I were in Jakarta, going to the mall and strolling around malls for hours is a form of entertainment because some of the items are still much affordable compare to the malls in Beijing. So, how do I substitute my longings to go the malls like I used to in Jakarta? Going to hypermarkets is the answer. HAHAHA... 

As a student, my class everyday starts from 8.30 am- 11.45 a.m., after that I didn't have any other activities. So you can say I had plenty of time to play around or get wasted (hahaha no no I use my time wisely :p). The nearest mall to my dorm/ school would take a bus ride or a subway ride, but to get to Walmart, it takes around five - ten minutes walk (depending on my mood) and around fifteen minutes to get to Carrefour. So whenever we get bored, we could just open the door, bring my wallet, (oops don't forget to bring the dorm key) and walk into the hypermarket. Most of the things I bought at the hypermarkets were snacks or bread for my breakfast - and to be honest, I prefer to buy licensed brand products because I believe that I don't need to questioned about the quality of products whatsoever. There are a lot of cheap price products at the markets that sometimes I get scared on how can they get profits with such low price items. Canned beer for example, I thinks it was only one kuai/ can, while the bottled mineral water was more expensive than that. 

Anyway.. it's amazing on how such a little thing like going to the hypermarkets can bring such a good memories. When I was still in Beijing, I never thought that Walmart and Carrefour can bring such a sentimental memories about the days careless and free days as a student. Hahaha.. Maybe next time I'm gonna write another ordinary thing that triggers my memory about some good old days. Yeah... those were really good times back then *gazing the window*

Love,

Abeth

A week after Beijing

Last night I had a dream about missing my first day at school. It was the new semester at the Chinese Center I’ve studied for the past last two semesters. So it struck me like a lightning bolt (aih ga gitu juga sih), I just got back from Beijing precisely one week, with no intention of going back there anytime soon. But then just when you thought you could move on from something, start a new journey, somehow somewhere some memories uninvitedly comes to your dream.  Geez, do I sound like a broken hearted girl? Hahaha… Trust me; I was a good experience in Beijing for the last two semesters. I just never thought that somewhere below my conscious level; I’ve missed Beijing, like, this early. Hellow… it’s only been a week.

Okay, a brief background story for you. Last year I quit my job and decided to study Mandarin in Beijing for two semesters, the Chinese Center I enrolled named Beijing Open University (BJOU). First semester started on September 2012 and ended on December 2012. During the winter holiday (Jan-Feb 2013) I went back to Jakarta because there wasn’t a lot of people stayed in the dorm (yep I stayed in the dorm) anyway and winter is not the best time for you to travel (my personal opinion).  Then the second semester started on March 2013 and ended in July 2013. So it’s not even a year yet I stayed in Beijing, but it opened my eyes and mind to see another world. Not only I learned about Mandarin, but mostly I learned about dealing with different kind of people I met in Beijing. I’ll miss the fellow students from around the world, I’ll miss our lovely teachers, I’ll miss “laoban” who sell stuffs for us. I wish I could “da bao” you all and bring you guys back to Jakarta.

A lot of stories can be told during my Beijing Experience. I’ll write it down for you guys when I’m not lazy, because as for time, I have all the time in the world; I’m still unemployed hahaha… In the mean time here's a peek of some lovely friends I met in school.

In front of lovely school/ dorm. Yep, it’s a door to school/dorm.  

Cheers everyone!

Abeth

【MV】我的歌声里 - 官方正式版 首播 - 曲婉婷

I first hear this song during my listening class last Autumn Semester. Since then, this song has been filling my days in Beijing.

For those of you who want to know what the meaning of this song, you can find it here :)

Being 25 (part 3): The Dinner

That night we went to a restaurant named 小六汤包 (Xiao Liu Tang Bao) near the 知春路地铁站 (Zhi Chun Lu station). This was our first time coming here and the place was really nice. Once we come, they greeted us by giving us a warm towel. Then we went to the second floor where the seats were. The service was nice; the waiter was very friendly to us.

My teacher told me that if you went to a restaurant on your birthday, usually they will give you长寿面(chang shou mian)- Birthday Longevity Noodle for free. That time we were asking about this chang shou mian to the waiter, whether they have it or not. The waiter asked whether anyone is having birthday today. Of course lady! It’s me! Then she asked to be excused for a while.

Then when she came back, we asked which one on the menu is chang shou mian. She said: “I cannot say anything, but I don’t think you should order any noodles”.

We were like, why? Why can’t we have a noodle? Was it because the noodle’s here is not tasty? Was is because it took too long to prepare for noodle dish? She said,”I cannot say anything”.

Then we suddenly thought: aaaah!!! She must have prepared a free noodle for us. YAY hahaha

And it is a free noodle (plus a fruit platter) given to us later. The waiters even gathered to sing a happy birthday song to me. Hmmm… interesting. Next time if one of us faking a birthday can we still get a free noodles hahahaha

 The free fruit platter

Tang bao or xiao long bao, you name it! Yummy :9

 The garnish leftover: two rabbits

The end of the dinner. Thanks guys :)

Photos are from Fey's camera. As usual I'm lazy taking pictures :p

Being 25 (part 2): The Mission

Just when I thought I could relax for the rest for the day by replying my birthday greetings on my blackberry, suddenly another thing came up during the class break.  The same team on the midnight ambush was giving me a mission. Well this one I didn’t expect. So I was quite panicked when I read on a paper they given me. I had to give candies to certain people within fifteen minutes class break. Oh ow… I couldn’t think straight at that time. This was all come so sudden: p

Smiling and then panicked! Haha

The Mission!

The Teachers (Mission Completed!)

The Students (Half Completed haha)

I didn’t manage to give all the candies based on the instruction given. The bell has ringed already. Hahaha. But anyway it’s a fun fifteen minutes to spend on my birthday :)

Being 25 (part 1): The Ambush

I have to admit that I spent my few hours of being 24 by being worried of what will happen when I turned 25. Hahaha. The idea of being a quarter century kinda scared me, but the more scary part was I believe that some of my friends were conspiring to do something on Nov 20^th, 2012 00:00 a.m.  I smell something fishy back then and I was right!

I believe the idea was started by my roommate (you know who you are!).  On the night before I went to bed around 10 p.m.-ish, which of course I couldn’t had a good sleep. I was worried sick about what will happen. Haha. Then suddenly I woke up around 5 minutes before it turned to 00:00 a.m. My body was feeling kinda shocked and stressed out – but nothing happened yet. Then I waited till its 00:00 a.m. feeling helpless on what will happen next and there they come. They woke me up and started to blindfold me and asked me to go out them.  Actually if I want to escape and kick them out of my room, it wouldn’t be a hard thing to do (haha) but where’s the fun if I do so anyway :P Might just go with their plan.

The midnight ambush

So they took me on the elevator ride to I don’t know where, and then there were some stairs involved.  After a few stroll and two elevator ride, finally they took me to the 6^th floor. I’ve never been there before. There was a small place for students who want to rent some space to keep their belongings. Here, finally they took of my blindfold and all of them were gathered together with a birthday cake. The candles were starting burnt out, and the candles started shaped like 28 instead of 25 (nooo… please not that fast!)

Officially 25 and receiving 25 ear pulls birthday tradition

After I blew the candles, made a wish (ehm), cut the cake, took pictures and had a little chat. The party’s over. Hahaha. It’s not even a party anyway. But I’m really thankful for everyone who was giving their time and attention for me that night. Thanks a lot guys, even though your face were all very sleepy but you keep your face cheerful the entire time in front of the camera :p

The boys (clockwise): M, Nick, Jose, Peter

The girls (gone wild LOL): Riana, Fey, Christine, Sellyna

谢谢你们！

The First Snowfall in BJ

What do you do on the weekend, knowing that rain is going to pour down and even there’s a possibility for snow falling? Easy, stay inside the house. That’s exactly what I did last weekend. We've seen the weather forecast, saying that there’s a possibility of snow falling on the weekend. So I got stuck in my dorm on Saturday, and boy, the forecast didn't lie, it was raining the whole evening. At night, there’s even sleet falling from the sky. I was too excited; I went outside for a while to check the sleet. :p

I went to bed peacefully on Saturday night, swayed by the sleet pouring outside the window. Then on the next morning, the voice of my roommate wakens me up. I didn’t remember exactly the word she said, but it made me jumped immediately, facing the window and all I can see is the ground was already covered with snow.  As if I was still dreaming, it was a magical feeling seeing the snow, seeing how things could be different in less than 12 hours. Still full with astonishment, I reached for my blackberry, took a picture of the view from my window, update status on my blackberry “it’s snowing” –hahahaha, then took my padding jacket because my friends were already set up to go outside and experiencing the first snow. I think I was only awake for five minutes when I stepped outside seeing the snow.

Nov 3^rd: it’s raining. Nov 4^th: it’s SNOWING!

It was quite a big snow, but it started to melt in the afternoon

A Kodak moment, by  Fey’s camera. Waken up for less than 15 minutes in this pic.

In the afternoon I went back to my dorm from my church, the snow started to fall again. It was my first time experiencing the snowflakes falling in my hands. Even though I was walking alone in a crowded street towards the train station, it feels kinda romantic actually. Hahaha. Poor me, being fooled by those drama movies. Anyway, they say this weekend the snow is going to fall again. Let see if the weather forecast was right. Snow or no, I’m ready for it J

Autumn Mid-Exam

I just finished my midterm exam this week. It’s funny since it’s around four years since my last written exam on my last semester of university. The nervous of having a test is still there.  Boy I was really stressed out those few days, but actually the test itself is not as hard as I imagined. The teacher were also really helped us to get good grades by giving the questions from what we learned and discussed on the class. But still, last week I was really in a serious and grouchy mood because of the tests. Hahaha.

Now that the test is over, I can feel a big relieve, and yet feeling very lost, because once the burden was taken from you, sometimes you just don’t know what drives you next. Silly me. Anyway, my grades weren’t that fantastic so I have nothing to brag on this post haha (but I’m quite satisfied with it anyway).

Below I’m about to post my essay on my comprehensive test. It’s already corrected by my teacher.  Actually I like writing an essay, because this way, you can see how far you writing skill. What I don’t like is finding a topic to write. Just like this one, my teacher asked me to write about “my dream …”. You can choose anything, dream job, dream house, dream family, dream vacation whatsoever. At first I want to write about dream family, but considering I don’t even have a boyfriend, maybe I should start from there. Hahaha. So here is what I write… 

我理想的男朋友

我今年是二十五岁，当然跟我青少年的时候不一样。当年，大部分女人的梦想是跟学校里最帅的男人谈恋爱。现在想法已经改变了，物理外观不是最重要的。不用像明星那么帅只要他不难看就行了。可是如果有一个帅的男朋友，这样也不错！

我爸爸以前说，一个好男朋友，一要定有责任。他是对自己负责，然后再对他未来的家庭负责感。这件事我同意我爸爸的说法。我理想的男朋友也应该是一个基督徒， 不爱抽烟，不爱喝酒。他还需要有一个良好的幽默感。我觉得生活已经很难了，你并不需要在所有的时间都很严肃的。

              

世界上找到这样的男朋友难不难？对我来说， “不难”。他可能你已经认识了的人，也可能是一个陌生的人。只要你相信有一天你能遇见你自己理想的男朋友，你就不用担心。

我第一次自食其力

This is my first essay on my comprehensive class. The teacher asked us to write about “Your First Time …”, it’s up to you whether you want to write about your first meet your boyfriend, first time dancing in front of the whole country or first time caught stealing things. Hahaha. Since I don’t have any of above experience I mentioned, I choose to write about my first experience living on my own. I asked a friend about the right title I should put on my essay, and she gave me this idiom: 自食其力zi4 shi2 qi2 li4. Literally means to eat off one’s own strength – to stand on one’s own feet.

When my teacher returns my essay she said: “You’re using very good words for the title.” Inside I was like: “haha, I didn’t know it by myself until my friend told me”. Anyway so this is the corrected version of my first essay in here.  Although writing a 200 words essay is quite frustrating for me, when I read it again, I felt like my writing wasn’t that bad anyway. Jia you myself! Hahaha

我第一次自食其力

我第一次自食其力是两年前。那时侯我去新加坡工作。这是我第一次离开父母。

以前我在印尼已经工作了一年，可是我觉得在老的公司没有前途，工资也不多。 所以遇到好机会在外国工作 我好好利用这个机会。在新加坡比以印尼的工赀高，我会省更多钱。可是有时候会觉得很寂寞听不到妈妈的唠叨。自己住的生活也让我学会很多事，要洗自己的衣服，做饭，整理房间， 等等。以前妈妈做的事， 现在我一定要自己做。

工作的时候也有自己的困难。第一次去上班，我听不懂同事的英文，因为新加坡人有自己的口音。 听他们说汉语我更不明白。可是慢慢我习惯了他们的口音。

依我看，这个经验让我学会很多事。我觉得在外国工作不只是为了挣钱，而是帮我了解成一个独立的人。

How Great is our God

This is my first time visiting Great Wall. I hope next time I can bring my family here 😊

- Abeth on BlogPress from her iPod

Lai Lai Beijing Ba!

After arriving in BeiJing on August 29^th, on the next day we finally got a chance to take ‘di tie’, or the MRT of BeiJing.  We went to HaiDianHuangZhuang area and had a dinner there.

Say ‘cheese’ in front of ‘di tie’ zhan (MRT station) and Xin Zhong Guan/ Gate Mall

This is what we ate for dinner: MaLaXiangGuo. You choose the meats and vegetables by yourself and later they will cook for you in the level of spiciness you decide. In this restaurant, they have four levels. This time we tried the level 2. 

Hot and Spicy Baby!

 Cute Eating Utensils. I couldn't rotate the pic :(

Pictures taken by Fey. I'm to lazy to take photos :p