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A real Beijinger

Beijing, 21st of November

Last week my third bike (zi4 xing2 che1) was stolen (bei4 tou1 le). As I was warned, bike theft is rampant in the university area. My first bike was nicked in broad daylight while I was eating at a restaurant and my second and third bikes were stolen at night outside my house! I've bought three bikes in less than three months now. The good thing is that second-hand (er4 shou3 de) bikes are very cheap here and I bought my first bike, a Mountain bike for 85Y (£6). If I do buy another bike, it's going to be the oldest looking piece of scrap metal I can find. Though I fear that would eventually get stolen too. There is a saying that you are not a real Beijinger unless you've had your bike stolen. I guess that makes me as real a Beijinger as you can find. I'm even learning some of the finer points of Eastern philosophy like not getting too attached to material possessions - especially to bikes.

Fair play football

Football (zu2 qiu2) is really popular here and a couple of months ago Manchester United came to Beijing to play a pre-season friendly against the local Beijing team. I was lucky enough to get given a ticket (yi1 zhang1 piao4) by my boss from the college I worked at last year. On the night of the game the atmosphere was electric, the Chinese supporters waved both Chinese and Manchester United flags and blew fog horns and whistles to cheer the teams. Beijing were outplayed on the night but their fans applauded all of the Manchester United's goals. I was impressed by such magnanimous behaviour from the crowd. Unfortunately the game itself wasn't played in the same spirit and there were plenty of late tackles and indeed elbows flying around!

15 new characters a day

I've started a new four month autumn (qiu1 tian1) Chinese programme at the university which means that I have been studying Chinese for seven months in total. I've certainly improved (ti2 gao1 le) from when I first started in March but there are still times when it's really frustrating not being able to express myself properly in Mandarin. One of my biggest problems (zui4 da4 de wen4 ti2) is studying Chinese characters (Han4 zi). I have found myself on several occasions in 'no man's land' where I'm able to easily answer the teacher's oral questions but when it comes to a dictation exercise (ting1 xie3), I'm left weeping into my dictionary (ci2 dian3)! On average we are supposed to learn about 15 new characters a day, but I must admit I am finding this really difficult!

Real life Chinese lessons

My best lessons in spoken Chinese (kou3 yu3) have been learnt outside the classroom and 'textbook' Mandarin is very different to the heavily accented Mandarin spoken on the streets, for example the word for 'gate' or 'door' is men2, but in Beijing its pronounced 'merrr' (menr2). The difference between standard Mandarin and Beijing hua4 is as big as the difference between Cockney and Geordie accents in the UK. I often take cabs (chu1 zu1 qi4 che1) here, and the driver's usually speak with thick Beijing accents. Understanding these guys is a real challenge and some can be quite irritable if you can't understand what they're saying!

Active in autumn

Many Beijingers say that autumn is the best season of the year because after the stifling summer the temperature is neither too hot (tai4 re4) nor too cold (tai4 leng3). For me it reminds me a bit of early spring in London, where the mornings and evenings are cold but the daytime is pretty warm (nuan3). It's certainly appears to be a season where people are at their most active. I see more people travelling to parks (gong1 yuan3) and playing sports at weekends now than I did at any earlier time of the year.

Sent by: Chris

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