Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Tonight I am having dinner with Jessie and our mutual friend, of all people, my roommate. She told every Indonesian student on campus including the Indonesians at the Language Centre that I was racist because I said she looked more Chinese than Indonesian after she told me she was Chinese, not Indonesian... culminating in the Director of the language centre telling me to avoid stereotypes. But she also happens to be the friendliest of my roommates.
Today I napped for three hours and woke up to realise I had left my wallet on the basin in the bathroom, before the cleaning team came in at lunchtime. Wow, I never realised how many things were in that wallet. eg my residence visa, my scooter registration ;-), student ID, bank cards, and all the rest. One of the cleaning chicks is bringing it to me after she finishes class. Why didn't she just hand it in to the downstairs ladies? Maybe she needed something for show and tell. "This wallet belongs to a Foreigner. Here we have a visa with her photo on it, her ATM cards, and her student card, all of which are no doubt quite important to her. In fact, I bet she's looking for it as we speak. Foreigners tend to come from foreign and barbaric lands that are not a part of our world. This particular foreigner appears to be from Australia, a land lacking in culture and refinement. The are kangaroos in Australia. As you can see here in the photo, she has dirty skin which may indicate mixed blood" (Qili's new friend said last night that I looked like I had "mixed blood", but I don't go running off telling the world she's racist, do I? She was a nice girl, most people are, and if you don't think something is politically incorrect, then its not politically incorrect, is it?) (I can't imagine what would happen if I complained to the teachers every time I heard a racist comment. Racism is part of this culture, it would be like complaining about how the English drink tea in the morning. This is the land of unbridled racism where the passion for learning English does not neccessarily indicate a passionate appreciation of Western culture.) I think I'm going through a second wave of culture shock/seeing things the way they are.
My marks are getting progressively worse although I 'm still learning the same amount of work. Yesterday we had a test which I had forgotten about coz I was cruisin' round Taichung on my new scooter ;-) and reluctantly turned up anyway for my daily dose of all the usual people who have class the same time as I do. So I ended up remembering more than I thought I would but I still got 74%. Man that's a slide of ten percent from last time. I'm the opposite of impressed. Li Laoshi marks hard anyway and she knows I'm a bum now. I didn't do the homework, I was too lazy. We had to go to a bank, walk up to the counter, pass them a paper bag, and force them to fill it up with in 45 seconds at gunpoint. Oh wait, that wasn't it. We had to go to a bank, walk up to the counter, and have a superficial conversation with the teller about account options using all our new words like huo qi chu xu cun kuan hu. That is the word for savings account. ¶ 18:04
Today I napped for three hours and woke up to realise I had left my wallet on the basin in the bathroom, before the cleaning team came in at lunchtime. Wow, I never realised how many things were in that wallet. eg my residence visa, my scooter registration ;-), student ID, bank cards, and all the rest. One of the cleaning chicks is bringing it to me after she finishes class. Why didn't she just hand it in to the downstairs ladies? Maybe she needed something for show and tell. "This wallet belongs to a Foreigner. Here we have a visa with her photo on it, her ATM cards, and her student card, all of which are no doubt quite important to her. In fact, I bet she's looking for it as we speak. Foreigners tend to come from foreign and barbaric lands that are not a part of our world. This particular foreigner appears to be from Australia, a land lacking in culture and refinement. The are kangaroos in Australia. As you can see here in the photo, she has dirty skin which may indicate mixed blood" (Qili's new friend said last night that I looked like I had "mixed blood", but I don't go running off telling the world she's racist, do I? She was a nice girl, most people are, and if you don't think something is politically incorrect, then its not politically incorrect, is it?) (I can't imagine what would happen if I complained to the teachers every time I heard a racist comment. Racism is part of this culture, it would be like complaining about how the English drink tea in the morning. This is the land of unbridled racism where the passion for learning English does not neccessarily indicate a passionate appreciation of Western culture.) I think I'm going through a second wave of culture shock/seeing things the way they are.
My marks are getting progressively worse although I 'm still learning the same amount of work. Yesterday we had a test which I had forgotten about coz I was cruisin' round Taichung on my new scooter ;-) and reluctantly turned up anyway for my daily dose of all the usual people who have class the same time as I do. So I ended up remembering more than I thought I would but I still got 74%. Man that's a slide of ten percent from last time. I'm the opposite of impressed. Li Laoshi marks hard anyway and she knows I'm a bum now. I didn't do the homework, I was too lazy. We had to go to a bank, walk up to the counter, pass them a paper bag, and force them to fill it up with in 45 seconds at gunpoint. Oh wait, that wasn't it. We had to go to a bank, walk up to the counter, and have a superficial conversation with the teller about account options using all our new words like huo qi chu xu cun kuan hu. That is the word for savings account. ¶ 18:04
