Nu er det efterhånden to uger siden jeg har skrevet. Jeg sidder nu foran skolekantinen og venter på at de åbner. Den er 6.30 om morgenen og jeg er mega træt eftersom min søvn i nat bestod af 3 dåser red bull. Jeg har netop e-mailet min marketingseksamen til CBS. Det er en ret sjov oplevelse at gå rundt på campus så tidligt. Det ene hjørne er der en flok kristne der beder og synger sange og her foran biblioteket er der en masse som laver Tai Chi.
Actually I ought to write in English. I've had a few good weeks. I started classes, I met a local family and I've made more friends. I got invited to Miranda's family's restaurant last week. Miranda is a taiwanese woman i got to know through my chinese studies on qq(chinese msn). She has a daughter who's in her 20s. She studies at UCLA in California. She also has an 18 year old daughter who is a freshman. I was supposed to meet them thursday last week at their hot pot restaurant. However, I decided to attend my first PE lesson 4 hours before. It ended up with a trip to the doctor to get x-rays. It's 8 days ago now and my ancle is still swollen and blue. Nothing is broken though so hopefully i'll be fine again soon.
Anyways, I was about 90 minutes late, but I met up with them and they took me to the hotpot restaurant. Taiwanese food is so good. The food was great and the company was even better. My family in Denmark has hosted several exchange students and I was an exchange student in Canada when I was 16. I even contacted some exchange organizations before I went to Taiwan because I wanted to get to know some local families. I am quite surprised to see how much they remind me of europeans. At least compared to chinese people. Not many big cultural differences.
I was 90 minutes late meeting them and I continued the week giving more bad first impressions. We had a BBQ with all the exchange students and some of the local students. A few girls who majored in litterature thought it was very interesting that I was from Denmark. A country with such great welfare. I told them about how disappointed I am about that fact and that I think it should be way more liberal. I thought that Taiwan was supposed to be a very capitalistic place but I've been quite surprised cause all the students always talk about human rights, ethics, social responsibility etc. I must admit that I am very surpirsed. They ended up saying that my religion is money so I actually took all my North Korea(savings for travel) money and send them to some poor farmers in Cambodia the next day just cause I felt bad about it. Might be a good thing though.After all, not the best place in the world to get stuck.
This is not just girls who major in litterature. I've had the same experiences with students who major in business. Everybody are so ethical and everybody seems to be "I wanna save the world" kinda people.
Anyways, I've been doing more things than giving bad first impressions. We went paragliding at Green Bay last week and we went to fulong beach all day sunday. No tan so far but a big burn on my shoulders....this is the 2nd time i'm peeling. I'm usually able to get a tan after 4-5 tries :) It was a lot of fun going paragliding although it isn't as exciting as bungee jumping nor scuba diving. I was lucky enough to get the good instructor though which turned out to be a good thing cause one of the students ended up in some trees and my german friend kinda crashed as well. I can't wait til I get my ancle back to normal. NTU has so many awesome clubs so I will have plenty of chances to go scuba diving and rock climbing the next couple of months.
We had some kinda ghost holiday last week. It was kinda funny cause my german friend didn't know about it. The locals give some kind of paper money to the ghosts to make sure that the ghosts are nice to them. The german guy thought that she was putting paper in the garbage can so he was about to throw his trash in top of the pile of the papermoney she was sacrificing to the ghosts. That would've been real bad, but luckily one of our taiwanese friends stopped him in time.
I also changed another course. I was taking this really good course about competition analysis. An awesome professor from MIT and some really smart classmates. Only problem was that we had to work 11 hours last saturday. It's gonna be like that every week so i decided to quit so i'll have more chances to explore this awesome island.
I general I am doing well although I've had some bad luck..my phone doesn't work, my visa card doesn't work, my calculator disappeared into the blue air and of course my ancle. The phone is the biggest problem cause it makes it kinda hard to meet friends.
I had my first chinese lesson this week. It was very good. We are only about 8 students and we are only allowed to speak chinese which is super difficult for me but the teacher speaks slowly and she explains her meaning quite detailed so I was able to understand everything she said...and the big surprise...she also understood me :) I'm making rapid progress, so who knows..maybe i'll be on CCTV for the chinese competition for foreigners next summer.
We learned how to say 44 stone lions :) Sì shí sì zhǐ shí shīzi http://translate.google.dk/#en|zh-CN|%E5%9B%9B%E5%8D%81%E5%9B%9B%E5%8F%AA%E7%9F%B3%E7%8B%AE%E5%AD%90 You can try to listen at google translate to see if you can get it right :)
Surfing and karaoke coming up this week. I am learning to sing a very famous song "you mei you ren ceng gaosu ni有没有人曾告诉你have i(or have i not) already told you?"...not sure if I will upload it though haha.
the canteen is open and i am starving。我在饿死。。也在累死啊
torsdag den 30. september 2010
torsdag den 16. september 2010
First few weeks in Taiwan
Unfortunately I didn't do well enough to be a part of the GLOBE program at CBS but I wanted to do a tricontinental program so I decided to apply for NTU in Taipei. The fact that I ended up in Taiwan is kind of random. I want to learn mandarin before I graduate but I also want to learn advanced finance. Beijing is great for mandarin but they don't have a whole lot of courses in English. It was too late to apply for HK and Singapore was too expensive so I ended up at NTU.
I arrived in Taipei about 10 days ago. My last few weeks in Denmark ended up being extremely hectic and stressful because of all the administrative stuff I had to do - and of course all the awesome people I had to see before I left.
It took about 20 hours to get to Taipei so I was really tired when I arrived and I couldn't wait to get to my dorm and see my room. Only problem was that there was nobody there to pick me up. Luckily it turned out that my volunteer just went to the wrong terminal so everything turned out fine. She has been EXTREMELY helpful. I haven't been the easiest guy to be volunteer for. She has helped with banktransfer, glasses, courses, campus tours, moving in and basic shopping. All the locals have been helpful in this way. People don't just tell me how to go places if I ask them. They actually give me rides on their bike or scooter if they have time. It's awesome.
I gotta admit that Taiwan has surprised me a lot. It is more developed than I thought although it is fairly similar to the first-tier cities of the mainland in terms of development. The people are very nice, friendly and westernized. Taipei is probably the cleanest city with 5+ million I have ever seen. Yes, they do have air pollution but they don't have any trash lying around. Nobody spits and nobody litters. It is amazing. People in Copenhagen could learn a thing or two.
Foreigners here get attention but it is not like in the mainland where people always wanna take pictures with foreigners and scam them for money. I mentioned this to my local friends. We went biking last weekend and stopped in front of a temple. Two Chinese girls wanted to have pictures with all of us(6 foreigners). And guess what, they were from the mainland...surprise surprise.
I had prepared lots of great chinese phrases such as 鬼才信你（lit。ghosts only believe you）and 你给我跳楼价（lit。you give me jump off building price。。meaning：you give me such a high price I wanna kill myself）and 你没长眼睛了吗？（haven‘t you grown eyes）when people don't know how to que. Too bad they aren't useful in Taiwan cause people actually do know how to que.
One of the best things about Taiwan is the fact that even though it is extremely densely populated it still has lots of beautiful places to go. I already signed up for the rock climbing club and the mountain bike club, so I will have plenty of possibilities to explore the island during my weekends. They even have coral reefs and nice beaches in the south and it only takes about 90 minutes to go there with the high speed train.
I haven't really started speaking mandarin yet. I just tell them about the things I know and the funny mandarin experiences I've had. It is kinda hard to get the habit of speaking chinese. People are too good at english and even old people speak english. Almost too developed.
I've learned a few funny chinese sentenses with double meanings. Another foreigner mentioned how he learned to order noodles here. 小姐，一碗多少钱？Xiǎojiě, yī wǎn, duōshǎo qián. xiaojie means young lady but it has two very different connotations. It means waitress in a restaurant but it can also mean prostitute. yi wan means one bowl(of noodles) but the exact same pronunciation can also mean one late(night). A taiwanese guy told him that he should ask like this when he ordered noodles. He was quite surprised by the waitress response. Taiwanese(mandarin) has tons of sentences like this so it is very easy for foreigners to get misunderstood which has also happened a few times for me. Also, words have a different connotation than in the mainland. They dislike China, so the word for comrade 同志 actually means gay here. I would say tong zhi men(comrades) to a group of friends in the mainland but I got a quite akward response when I said this to my friends in HK. It turns out it has the same meaning in HK and Taiwan. I guess they don't like communism, so comrade has a completely different connotation here.
I also have big problems with the tones. For example: Teacher, I want to ask you...and teacher, I want to kiss you. 稳 and 问。wen with two different tones.
I am actually quite excited about starting classes next week. I had very high expectations before going here but the first week has been extremely disappointing in terms of academic expectations. A lot of the good classes are taught in Chinese. There are some smart exchange students here but it seems like most of them are just here to travel and do as little as possible to get the easiest credits. There are quite a few exceptions though and there are a few great courses in English. But it's not like I have 20 great courses to choose from. I've found 3 courses that seem interesting. Advanced corporate finance(but different than what I had at LSE), advanced investment management and econometrics. I also considered asset management but it was same time as the investment course. All courses are taught at the graduate school so it should be interesting and challenging. The exchange students are not gonna be that ambitious this semester, but I have a good impression of the local students. There are a lot of very intelligent students with high ambitions so I hope to group up with some of them.
I will also take a calculus course by selfstudy and I might do game theory as well, but the teacher told me the course is already overbooked so I dunno what to do.
I will also have mandarin classes 6 hours per week so I think I have more than enough anyways.Tons of local students who want to do language exchange so I think I'll be quite good when I finish this semester. I have my placement test on sunday.
I hope to go paragliding and hiking this weekend. I haven't bought a camera yet but I plan to do it soon. I will upload some pictures next time I make a blog.
To sum up. I am doing well in Taiwan. People are nice, the weather is great and I have already gotten to know quite a few nice people.
I arrived in Taipei about 10 days ago. My last few weeks in Denmark ended up being extremely hectic and stressful because of all the administrative stuff I had to do - and of course all the awesome people I had to see before I left.
It took about 20 hours to get to Taipei so I was really tired when I arrived and I couldn't wait to get to my dorm and see my room. Only problem was that there was nobody there to pick me up. Luckily it turned out that my volunteer just went to the wrong terminal so everything turned out fine. She has been EXTREMELY helpful. I haven't been the easiest guy to be volunteer for. She has helped with banktransfer, glasses, courses, campus tours, moving in and basic shopping. All the locals have been helpful in this way. People don't just tell me how to go places if I ask them. They actually give me rides on their bike or scooter if they have time. It's awesome.
I gotta admit that Taiwan has surprised me a lot. It is more developed than I thought although it is fairly similar to the first-tier cities of the mainland in terms of development. The people are very nice, friendly and westernized. Taipei is probably the cleanest city with 5+ million I have ever seen. Yes, they do have air pollution but they don't have any trash lying around. Nobody spits and nobody litters. It is amazing. People in Copenhagen could learn a thing or two.
Foreigners here get attention but it is not like in the mainland where people always wanna take pictures with foreigners and scam them for money. I mentioned this to my local friends. We went biking last weekend and stopped in front of a temple. Two Chinese girls wanted to have pictures with all of us(6 foreigners). And guess what, they were from the mainland...surprise surprise.
I had prepared lots of great chinese phrases such as 鬼才信你（lit。ghosts only believe you）and 你给我跳楼价（lit。you give me jump off building price。。meaning：you give me such a high price I wanna kill myself）and 你没长眼睛了吗？（haven‘t you grown eyes）when people don't know how to que. Too bad they aren't useful in Taiwan cause people actually do know how to que.
One of the best things about Taiwan is the fact that even though it is extremely densely populated it still has lots of beautiful places to go. I already signed up for the rock climbing club and the mountain bike club, so I will have plenty of possibilities to explore the island during my weekends. They even have coral reefs and nice beaches in the south and it only takes about 90 minutes to go there with the high speed train.
I haven't really started speaking mandarin yet. I just tell them about the things I know and the funny mandarin experiences I've had. It is kinda hard to get the habit of speaking chinese. People are too good at english and even old people speak english. Almost too developed.
I've learned a few funny chinese sentenses with double meanings. Another foreigner mentioned how he learned to order noodles here. 小姐，一碗多少钱？Xiǎojiě, yī wǎn, duōshǎo qián. xiaojie means young lady but it has two very different connotations. It means waitress in a restaurant but it can also mean prostitute. yi wan means one bowl(of noodles) but the exact same pronunciation can also mean one late(night). A taiwanese guy told him that he should ask like this when he ordered noodles. He was quite surprised by the waitress response. Taiwanese(mandarin) has tons of sentences like this so it is very easy for foreigners to get misunderstood which has also happened a few times for me. Also, words have a different connotation than in the mainland. They dislike China, so the word for comrade 同志 actually means gay here. I would say tong zhi men(comrades) to a group of friends in the mainland but I got a quite akward response when I said this to my friends in HK. It turns out it has the same meaning in HK and Taiwan. I guess they don't like communism, so comrade has a completely different connotation here.
I also have big problems with the tones. For example: Teacher, I want to ask you...and teacher, I want to kiss you. 稳 and 问。wen with two different tones.
I am actually quite excited about starting classes next week. I had very high expectations before going here but the first week has been extremely disappointing in terms of academic expectations. A lot of the good classes are taught in Chinese. There are some smart exchange students here but it seems like most of them are just here to travel and do as little as possible to get the easiest credits. There are quite a few exceptions though and there are a few great courses in English. But it's not like I have 20 great courses to choose from. I've found 3 courses that seem interesting. Advanced corporate finance(but different than what I had at LSE), advanced investment management and econometrics. I also considered asset management but it was same time as the investment course. All courses are taught at the graduate school so it should be interesting and challenging. The exchange students are not gonna be that ambitious this semester, but I have a good impression of the local students. There are a lot of very intelligent students with high ambitions so I hope to group up with some of them.
I will also take a calculus course by selfstudy and I might do game theory as well, but the teacher told me the course is already overbooked so I dunno what to do.
I will also have mandarin classes 6 hours per week so I think I have more than enough anyways.Tons of local students who want to do language exchange so I think I'll be quite good when I finish this semester. I have my placement test on sunday.
I hope to go paragliding and hiking this weekend. I haven't bought a camera yet but I plan to do it soon. I will upload some pictures next time I make a blog.
To sum up. I am doing well in Taiwan. People are nice, the weather is great and I have already gotten to know quite a few nice people.
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