TAKE A LOOK AT THE ENGLISH VERSION !!!!
After all the problems I experienced with this blog,
I decided to change it.
Wish me luck and visit me in:
marinayang.blogspot.com
IT IS XMAS IN GUANGZHOU
As a good urban person, I have always noticed the changes of the seasons by the shop windows.
Here in Guangzhou I am a bit lost because, altough I know it is December I am only using a light jacket in the night and half of the times I don’t really need it! I can even tell you that I ate a paella in full month of December in the sun!!!!
But I still can be guided by the changes in the city: Now Guangzhou is getting ready for Christmas. They really do’nt know what it is about, but just in case, the buildings are full of everything related to Xmas.
You have some pictures here
I la cançó d’avui la trobareu si cliqueu la pista:
And todays’ song is in the next riddle:
higher than the sun
you shoot me from a gun
I need you to elevate me here
SOLIDARY BLOG PRIZE
What an honor!!!
Marta p://freebypass.net/index.php?q=uggc%3A%2F%2Fserrolcnff.arg%2Fvaqrk.cuc%3Fd%3Dhttp%253N%252S%252Sfreebypass.net%252Sindex.php%253Sq%253Quggc%25253A%25252F%25252Fserrolcnff.arg%25252Fvaqrk.cuc%25253Fd%25253Dhttp%2525253N%2525252S%2525252Sblocs.mesvilaweb.cat%2525252Sgerard”>Xino-xano: because you gather all the requirements of the Prize (and many more!): you always help me, lean and especially because you let me share with you this experience in China.
2.-Albert Puig: : to share your musical jewels and never get tired of saying: Do not pirate disks of catalan artists!
3.-Marta: to continue sharing that spirit that joined us in COU
4.-Mai9:to share with me your computer secrets.
5.-Dani: to share with me the problems of wordpress and the chinese censorship
6.-Enric: to continue sharing with me your wise words
7.- Cris i Pep: to share secrets on journey in your Loli Planet
FLOOR
While you are on hollidays, I have been in my office and as I took the elevator I remembered I didn’t explain a very important thing to you:
in Chinese the number 4 (sì) is pronounced in a very similar way to the word death (s)
and that’s why in many buildings like mine they avoid to have the 4th floor and they call it 3A.
Besides, in my building, they even found a way to avoid the (shí 14 (shí sì): they decided to go directly from 13th to 15th.
Today I can’t leave you neither with music nor with a photo because the censorship does not let for me access on my own blog and only to write this took me too much time.
THE END OF THE BANK STORY
Would you like to know how the story of the Bank ended?
Three days after, I received a call to check out the data. They had a confusion between the name and the address. I told you that the form was complicated! THey don’t even understand it!!!
A week after this, they tell me from Barcelona say that they haven’t received the money. I go to the Bank and have a conversation as follows:
-Where is the money?
-We already hears it.
-And Where is it now?
-It does not devise.
I am shocked and I leave the bank hallucinated.
In the afternoon I talk to Barcelona and they decide to call their Bank. It results that they have the money since three days ago and for bureaucratic problems they didn’t put it in their account. They receive the obvious complaint and I excuse telepathically with all the Chinese because I thought it was their fault.
In the end… the Banks are the same here and in China!!!
IKEA
I decided to hire a chinese company to help me with the furniture for my office
As ETI suggested, I was tempted of going to IKEA, but I didn’t want to choose the easy way… and it was completely nonsense: a Barcelona company, with swedish furniture placed in China.
Besides, IKEA does not offer an affordable price for the Chinese people, although it is a good choice for all those people who would die to have an occidental thingo ofereix un preu assequible per als xinesos, tot i que és una bona opció per tots aquells que es moren per tenir coses occidentals.
Despite everything, I must recognize that OKEA has its good points: it saved me from the despair of not finding coffee pots!!! However, I couldn’t find clamps to cook the meat (I ended up buying them in a small shop in Hong Kong. China is really a country of contrasts…
MORE BANKS:
Here you have another story based on true story:
I have to go to the Bank to transfer some Money to Barcelona. This was supposed to be a usual formality.
I spent all the morning preparing bank kit:
– bank notebook
-passport
-three photocopies of passport
-book to read while I wait
-mobile (to play if I get tired of reading)
-paper with all the necessary data
At 12 o’clock I go to the office. As it is a lunchtime I think that there will not be so many people, it turns the way around: There is not staff in the window of the fast queue: it is open from 9 to 12 and from 14 to 16:30. I go to the normal queue (there is only 10 people), I open the book and I start to read…
One hour and a half later it is my turn (there are two windows but one has been empty all this time). I give the woman the paper with all the data to make the transfer.
The girl asks me to fill in a form to transfer the money. It takes like ten minutes to fill it (it is very complicated!) and I give it back to her. She points out the boxes that I have left empty and She asks me to fill them in. I do not know what I have to put there, but I manage to decipher the one what I have to put in a couple of boxes more. I give it back to her. It results that I filled wrong one of the first boxes. I do not know what I did wrong but She gives me a new form for filling it in again. I tell her that no matter how many forms she gives me, I will never know how to fill them unless she helsps me. I give her back the form and remember her that I gave her a paper with all the data. After a while of more discussions, I go defeated without knowing what to do.
In the afternoon I have to make some things in the center, so I try it in another office. There are no queues and I go directly to the window. They tell me that the form is well filled in. They even help me to filling in the empty boxes!!! They tell me that they will charge me 30 Euros for the service. When I am about to embrace her, she tells me that, unfortunately it is already 16:30 and that the international transfers can not be done by now.
The following day, I try it in near my office. This bank works with numbers. My number is 2008 and they are in the number 2005. This jeans that my turn is 45 minutes later (the system has been spoiled and the bank has suspended the operations a while). I show her the form and she| tells me that they can not do this internacional transfer as they are a Branco and not an Office.
The third day I come back to the bank of the first day. Today I have calculated the schedules and I go there when when the fast queue works. There are only two people, so my turn is alter 15 minutes. I give him the form. He tells me that it is wrong and that I must fill it in again. I fill it in and I give it back to him. I need to put the IBAN. I put it. I have to sign another paper. I sign it. He does not understand what means “transferència” in the box of the concept. He says that it should be iin English. I write “Transfer”. I have to pay 24,06 Euros for the service. I pay them. He calls the supervisor. She authorizes the transferencia and… it is done!
I feel relaxed, but as I have been like 20 minutes, I excuse myself to those that are behind me queuing:
-“Dui bu txi! Sometimos Banks are so complicated…
and someone replies to me:
– it is you who make it complicated
And I can only apologize by saying:
-I just wanted to transfer money… sorry!?
Well… today I leave you with a song about Christmas and with a big piece of advice on the only thing that I have learned from all this: BREATHE INCENS!!!!
OFFICE
Eventhough here I only speak about the funny part of China, I have to say that I am working hard and a lot.Here you have the picture of the result of my sweat and efforts (together with the colleagues of the headquarters in Barcelona):
This is the wonderful building where we have placed the Guangzhou office.It is in the 15th floor (which isn’t too high just in case that the our customers had vertigo) and now I am in the middle of the works and the purchase of the furniture (a chaos, I can’t deny it!)So, I leave you with the interview in sole right that I have granted for the first issue of the BullPen of GAJ and All Flowers in Time Bend Towards The Sun by disappeared Jeff Buckley (with Elizabeth Fraser)GUANGZHOUHere you have some images of my town and the sorroundings of the University, where I liveBLOG I can’t remember when they closed Youtube.Today wordpress didn’t work for the whole day.Finally I have access to write these few words.When the government allows me, I will go on with my adventuresDuring my cibernautic absence, you can listen to 14years by Guns N Roses:I try and feel the sunshine You bring the rain BOOK For this bank holidays of 1 of November (that you will make and I won’t) I recommend you to read “Tot sota el cel”.I think that it explains quite a lot of useful things about China, that are anaware for us, the Westerners, which are worthwhile to know .I leave you with this pearl that I have found in this book:”Travelling has this magical power about the time and the reasonning,I thought, it forces you to break with the habits and the fears that,without noticing it, they have been become like big chains.”Antes que ver el solPLATEFinally, I ate turtle and frog (I didn’t eat dog, as far as I know!).
This was two Saturdays ago in a dinner in Foshan where we were invited by some Chinese of the town, after the boys play a football match against them.In both cases, the meat is good but very spicy.How it|he is logical, in the moment that my chopsticks (筷子) were approaching the dish, all the eyes of the table went towards me. I put a piece of the meat in the mouth… I started to flavour it and… then I felt the spicy and… ah!! I shouted:-辣! 啤酒 ! 啤酒 !Which means: “It is spicy! Beer! Beer!”and they all started to laugh, and when I was about to drink, a girl appeared with the glass full of beer (sent by one of the Chinese of the table) and She told me: gān bēi! (a kind of cheers you can not refuse, otherwise you lose all your reputation! And if you drink it that means you are brave and it is worthwhile to make businesses with you).So, I had no choice but participating. And while I drank quickly that glass (that didn’t help me to stop the itching of the spices), I thought, that they were very clever to send me a girl so they don’t get drunk…But then the boys made him drink. And like this we spent the night, inviting to gān bēi without stopping laughing and eating!here comes the sun, The Beates ARRIVAL I have heard that finally we won’t have the arrival of the TGV in December, but don’t panic!!!!On the 21 of December of 2007, you will have MY arrival!!!Until then, I leave you with a little bit of me and Hard Sun the song that the welcomed back Eddie Vedder has done for his good friend Sean Penn
PARK (II)One of the more practiced exercises (and that I qualify of national sport) it is to pass each other the ball to play badminton with the foot.Here you have a short but clear example:I leave you with the version of Muse of the House of the Rising SunPARK (I)I found out that leisure and exercise is very important in China.You can tast a little of chinese dance, tango and other things in this video.Listen to in da sun by SidonieBYKESFor those of you who are still looking for a reason to come here:Look how many bykes!!!
OLYMPIC GAMESAt the request of the ETI,today I will speak about the Olympic Games.In my city, little thing is seen. The Games will be taking place in Beijing and in six other cities (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Qindao, Tianjin, Qinhuangdao and Shenyang). China is so big… that we can’t hardly get to know what exactly will be happening in the capital during the next year…However, this does not mean that cantonese people are still. We have all the city upside down because here we are preparing ourselves for the Asian Games of the 2010.Guangzhou will be the host and lots of buildings will be new: The official figures say that they are renewing 78 venues of sport and that will make 12 new ones. And they are also taking profit and handing the underground (people in Barcelona already know, what is usefull of Olympic Games, don’t we?).I recommend you to read this article where you can find all about the magnificent buildings that they will make in the city:But now that I think of it, it is true that a request has arrived to us: for the autochthonous ones as well as for the expatriated ones, we received the calls to act as volunteers. Who wants to joint it?Sunshine from AerosmithHELMET
In Cambodia we have had some fantastic days…But as usual, I continued learning new utilities of the objectes.This week it has corresponded to the helmets.I had always believed that they were useful for avoiding injuries in the head and neck in the event of accident.But in Cambodia, it seems that they only use them against the dust.That’s ahy I dared to go without helmet and lots of images could be seen so familiars like this:
Brighter than SunshineHELMET
In Cambodia we have had some fantastic days…But as usual, I continued learning new utilities of the objectes.This week it has corresponded to the helmets.I had always believed that they were useful for avoiding injuries in the head and neck in the event of accident.But in Cambodia, it seems that they only use them against the dust.That’s why I dared to go without helmet and lots of images could be seen so familiars like this:
Brighter than SunshinePARTY IN SARRIÀOnce more, my international activity does not allow me to attend the Local Festivity of my neighborhood and now I even realized that they have already finished!!!Some Sunshine Reggae to cheer us up!CAMBODIACambodia is really spectacular and as predicted by AAS, I felt in love with itI leave you with this selection of images because I do not know how to describe it with words.
Today it is time to listen to Sunshine, by Keane…CLOSED FOR VACATIONAs you did during August, and the rest of holidays, I copy you and close my blog to go on holidays.Here in China the holidays work byweeks: one for the National Day (now in October), one for New Year (in February) and one for the Work Day (in May).So I do not want any kind of comment when I tell you that I disconnect during a week to go to cambodiaI leave you with this song so that the light of the sun is not switched off for us… FOR THOSE WHO ARE IN BARCELONA, PLEASE GO! (II)Lucky you!!!First our National Day and now Mercè!!!If I were you I would go to every event taking place at BAMThe song of today is Gran Sol of Marlango, at the request of the ETM.WHIPA TYPHOON
We are in the season of typhoons, and now there is one in Shanghai, but you shouldn’t worry because I live far away.
As the information received says, Shanghai and the provinces of Zheijang and Fujian are prepared to receive the typhoon and seems that It may affect the cities of Zheijang, Wenzhou, Taizhou and Jinhua. But on touching the and it seems that it began to loose strenght.Cuando brille the solUNIFORM
My house in Guangzhou is in one of the Universities.During the month of July and August everything has been calm.But in September, however, the classes have started and this means that the first lesson starts of the and the students: the discipline.I would like to continue getting up with the sound of the birds how I did until now, but now I wake up in the middle of the shouts of “ni jao”! and “one, two, three, four… one, two, three, four…”The good part is that like this every morning I revise the numbers as if I were in the class of Chinese.As an image is more worth than a thousand words, I leave you with this video.The song of today: She’s only happy in the Sun of my dear Ben Harper, at the request of the NWATAXI
This city is huge!!! And with a lot of traffic jams!!!are formed by anythingThat¡s ahy, bus is not a good means of transport because it is too full go and is always stopped in the middle of the jams. Moreover, I didn’t have the time to learn the itineraries. Only I know is that in general, 245 is the best for me. 66 also, but I believe that taking it would bring too many memories of my childhood…The underground is really nice but it does not arrive where I live (even though they have promised that they will hand it! And it must be truth because part of the itinerary is in works!).So, I basically take the taxi to go up and down.The truth is that going by taxi is exciting: the majority has TV! But they put it without volume while the driver keeps on listening I the Chinese radio… Normally I seat behind and observe the city, but now that I speak little Chinese, I seat in the front, on the side of the driver (who always reminds me to put the seatbelt) to talk for a while. We can not talk too many things, but while his asking me… I understand what means… I reply to him… he does not understand me… I repeat again… he understands me… he answerrs, etc, etc, we arrive at my destination.Black Hole SunJazz version of the great song of SoundgardenUMBRELLAS (III)More things about the uses of umbrellas…If you sum up the use of the umbrellas as a parasol with the obsession to be white, and all this you elevate to the maximu, you will end up in the situation in which I found myself two weeks ago:I shared a taxi with two cantonese and as it was the rush hour, logically we found a small jam. The car went slow and stopped every moment. As that day we had a little sun, the raylights entered for the window.That might be an image of any routine queue of any place in the world, but everything turned upside down in a moment:One of the collegues opened the umbrella inside the taxi and used it as a parasol, putting it between her and the window.I came off so much hallucinated that my face could not hide my surprise!I just received a fast and logical answer:-I do not like sun at all
Foto imitating the position of the umbrella-parasol inside the taxi.PD: I believe that because of that also there are courtains inside some taxis. At first I believed that it was to preserve the privacy of the customers, but every day I am more sure that they are curtains-parasol.The song for today is:El meu país és tant petit que quan el SOL se’n va a dormir…As it is our National Day, I became a bit nostalgic…FOR THOSE WHO ARE IN BARCELONA, PLEASE GO!!!
CHINESE LESSONS (I)For those who ask for my chinese, please first try this and then we talk:chinese lesson
LAKES
Guangzhou is supposed to be an industrial city full of buildings.To break this prejudice I send you the photos from two of the parks that there are in the city, with lakes and places to eat.Liuhua ParkLuhu ParkThis is the song for today’s pot:Rayando el sol
BANK ACCOUNT
One of the objects which I am more proud of having obtained is my notebook of the Chinese bank account, especially because it cost me a lot to have it!!!Because lots of things can happen in a Bank in China:Here you have three exemples:-you go there to open a current account, you make the queue, and when you arrive to the ticket office you can not open it because that day the notebooks have finished!!!-you go there to update the notebook, you do not find any queue, they do not ask you for any paper and they update it in two seconds. Then, you find some error in the annotations of the notebook, you ask for explanations and they require you the passport, photocopy of the passport and something more… and as you didn’t bring it that moment, you remain with the desires of knowing what happened in your bank account .-you go there to change euros into American dollars. You ask what to do at the security man, who asks to a girl of the bank, this one to another employee of the bank and among all four you manage to fill in a form and they put you in the VIP queue. That that day the VIP queue comes to a standstill, and the normal queue goes faster. So, after an hour of queuing, they tell you at the window boy that only Chinese can only make this operation in a bank (and you wonder what are three employees that “helped you before and how can it be that one week later they are still working there!!!)These three stories are based in real facts where neither the place nor the interfering persons have been altered to sustain the anonymity: I am the main character and this happened in Guangzhou in the year 2007.
CREAMS
Before coming here, I went to a fantastic wedding.The work had stopped me from going to the beach or being in a terrace sunbathing, so I had to put some tanning cream.I finally went to the wedding, with a nice dress, complements and hairdress (under the attentive and wise pieces of advice ofmy mother and my grandmother) and my new tanned skin. It went all perfect and everybody told me about my fantastic tan and how pretty I was that day.But that was some months ago…Now, the work in China and this sun that never appears made me lose my tan, and the humidity does not help to put more creams on my body.Anyway, I have already been visiting shops of cosmetics for seeing what they have here… The majority of products are the same but regarding the “creams to change the color of your skin”, there is only of one type: those to turn women white!!!! And I say women because it seems that this is a thing only for women and girls. In the advertisements on the Chinese TV, all girls and women appear really really white, but not men…Somehow it is funny, in the Mediterranean we are all obsessed by tanning-us and here to whiten.sol soletMY
FOOTBALL TEAMIt has already been a month that I am here.And I have started the socialized activities: Chinese classes (to communicate with the locals) and football training (to make some exercise and to socialize with expats).It is so curious that some girls play football that they turned up (I was not there yet!) in the magazines and web sites that talk about daily life in Guangzhou.femenin team</p
UMBRELLAS (II)
Last weekend I discovered a new function of the umbrellas: they maight be used as a weapon of massive destruction.It was a strange weekend because the threat of the typhoon Pabuk forced all the citizens of Hong Kong to close up at home. In the end, it wasn’t that much, and although it kept on raining along the weekend, everybody decided to going out to stroll… but everybody was well assorted of umbrellas.Hong Kong is already a madness itself, but it can reach high levels when everybody goes with umbrellas: They go at a incredible speed and without looking if there is anybody or not!!!!And the worst is that, the difference of heights makes that all the thorns of the umbrellas aim you at the eyes and that the only way to avoid them with movements like Neo in The Matrix!!!
BARÇA
For those of you who didn’t go to Honk Kong, you can watch the You tube video on the pther page to see Barça playing good football!!!And also some news in catalan about that Pabuk thyphon who attacked Hong Kong and delayed the match for one day.
UMBRELLAS
I had always thought that the umbrellas were used for the rain, and that “parasol” was used for the sun.My stay in China, made me notice that umbrellas can also beuesd for the sun. No matter if it is a shiny sun, or not. Here everybody, but especially women, go around with a n umbrella to be protected from the sun.Apparently things can be use for other uses.
FLASHLIGHT
Flashlights are used to illuminate dark places. But last Monday, I discovered that they can serve to malefactors from doing their bad things: During the concert that The Cure offered, a boy was standing up in a king of small terrace at a corner of the stairs (without bothering anybody). But one security man appeared and started to illuminate him with a small flashlight to make him go away.Can you imagine it? Do you believe that somebody can be halted simply with some flashlight? Of course not! And that’s what that one did: nothing.But suddenly, a couple touched by the moment of the concert, stood up (although we could only be seated) and they started to dance with the rhythm of the music. Logically, another boy of security appeared and started to blink them (with the consequent non response of the couple). But security boys continued and the other… dancing and not paying attention!But then it got under control: As if The Cure wanted to do a favor to their fans, they started to play Inbetween days series, Friday I’m in love and Just like heaven! People went mad! Everybody stood up!!! Jumping and dancing! What a great moment of the history of the music!!! And what a great moment of the flashlight!!!!Because this is the best part of it: they were still flashlighting everybody!!But everybody could dance!!!… and the boy of the stairs also!
TISSUES
Before leaving on a journey, we usually think about the objects that will be needed and immediately come to your mind things like passport, visa, vaccines, suitcase…And even though all this is necessary, the tissues are the first thing that becomes indispensable in China.In Barcelona, I only used them to blow the nose, and I only took them when I knew that I would cry in the cinema.Here either they are everywhere, or they aren’t anywheres, so you have to take themwith you everywhere. I explain myself:In the restaurants, they don’t give you napkins (neither of cloth, nor of paper). They tissues! You find them in all the colors, with logos of the places where you go, in a very practical format. Because they are so nice, you end up taking them to have them in the places where there aren’t.And which are these places? Basically: toilets!!! That’s why in the picture it looks like I collect them!So apart from the humidity, I feel surrounded of tissues or thinking about having them!Who would have told me!PS: About the toilets I will talk later on when I am physical and psychically prepared (and I it looks that you too!)
OPPENNING
JBB told me once that he had noticed how we all have grown up the day “sunshine” disapeared of my email. That simple thing had made us enter in another period:the one where we use emails with proper names and surnames, and therefore, the one where we use Internet for official and serious things.But for this blog I want to use again sunshine, as a symbol of the other period that I believe not to have left. But this time will be sunshine in Chinese: yáng guang. Because it will be from the China from where I will publish the major part of my posts and because I want that we all feel again that spirit when we first met Internet: a tool to play, which made us grow our creativity and use names like sunshine.
And as a final of this inauguration, I end with the classical exemple of a poet. It is a from the great idol of masses, my friend HSP, who dedicated me these couplets before coming here:
What the hell does Marina
who suddenly leaves to China?
She goes with Gerard
for a period that will be hard.
In the city of Guangzhou,
but in chinese only knows how to say mu.
She will open a lawyers office
and we will all be alucinated.
As very well it will go
we do not know if she will come back to say hello.
As chinese don’t know very much avout law
she will have a lot to work.
And we in the ICAB
will come off all disheveled,
On the less thought day we all go there
to celebrate a committee
With rice, dumplings and a good tea.
阳光 yáng guāng 
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