Friends | Dominik Mayer – Products, Asia, Productivity

Indonesians do not generally use the Western naming practice of a given first name and a family last name. The majority of Indonesians do not have family names as westerners would understand them, but such names as are given are geographically and culturally specific.

A friend of mine is named after Axl Rose and Metallica.

I was at work, here at italki, when a very good Chinese friend called me. She was the one who has been looking for an apartment for me before I even arrived in China, she helped me to find the room that should become my home for the next year and she guided my first steps in this foreign country.

She said she knows italki. Of course. That’s where we first met. I remeber. Back at the computer, I checked my friends and there she was. And on Saturday, we’ll meet in person.

Less then one week until the first of my last exams here at Tongji University. So many things I’ve learned in the past year.

Back to work. Let’s study more words that a China-born friend, who has been living here for eight years, doesn’t know… ;-)

A recent discussion among friends. They think the Chinese government is on a good way. It’s working in the best interest of the country. We have to understand that.

Today, the Golden Shield also blocks Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail, Live, and Bing.

One of the friends is now “disappointed by the government.”

I feel confirmed. And helped her to set up tor.

I invited two friends to facebook. They joined. And added my whole friend list. Now everyone’s asking me who they are. Annoying.

What I don’t understand: Why are so many people are accepting the request?

The Mother of Shanghai has left. The city thanked her for her dedication with a beautiful last day and a starry starry night.

A German friend raves about her hand creme, two Chinese friends explain it consists of snake oil. There were times where this would have surprised me more.

It was quite hard for a good friend to adapt to the “new me”. She didn’t know where to look and what to say. As if we had never met before. Strange…

Taking off the glasses helped to ease the situation.

A friend’s wall says:

Unlike the link title suggests, there is no way to find out which kind of “special hug” she sent. Instead, you end up on a page where they want you to hug others yourself. And, of course, the “Skip” button doesn’t work.

I hate these applications.

An afternoon at the glasses market. It’s nothing new that I can’t decide which ones to take. This time I just got two of them. No problem for 150 Yuan (about 15 Euro) each.

Wikipedia knows:

The Ba rong ba chi (Eight Honors and Eight Shames) (Simplified Chinese: 八荣八耻 Traditional Chinese: 八榮八恥 Pinyin: bā róng bā chĭ), officially the Core Value System or the Eight Honors and Disgraces, is a set of moral concepts developed by current President Hu Jintao for the citizens in modern-day China.

Namely (emphasis added):

• Love the country; do it no harm.

• Serve the people; never betray them.
• Follow science; discard superstition.
• Be diligent; not indolent.
• Be united, help each other; make no gains at other’s expense.
• Be honest and trustworthy; do not sacrifice ethics for profit.
• Be disciplined and law-abiding; not chaotic and lawless.
• Live plainly, work hard; do not wallow in luxuries and pleasures.

So what does that mean? Obviously not that you should tell the truth. Faked fireworks, a faked singing girl and now 55 faked children. They were said to represent the different ethnic groups inside the country but in fact were all Han.

A Chinese friend suggests that the organizers might not have found beautiful children in the ethnic groups. Let’s check Wikipedia again (emphasis added):

Besides the majority Han Chinese, China recognizes 55 other “nationalities” or ethnic groups, numbering approximately 105 million persons, mostly concentrated in the northwest, north, northeast, south, and southwest but with some in central interior areas.

So no beautiful children in 105 million persons? I admit that it might not be the easiest task to find the 3000 Lhoba, the “smallest officially recognized ethnic group in China”. But then be honest and don’t call it:

Fifty-six children from 56 Chinese ethnic groups cluster around the Chinese national flag, representing the 56 ethnic groups.

As if Chinese wasn’t enough, Ouwen and I decided to learn Korean. Last week a Korean friend has been at home and bought us the book “Korean made easy for beginners”. Looks very good.

The midterms are over and learning for them has improved my Chinese quite a bit. Inspired by a student of Sinology I had decided not to study any tones as memorizing doesn’t work, I can’t speak them anyway and most Chinese also understand me if I don’t use them. That doesn’t mean that I won’t try to learn them by speaking.

In the midterms we solved some exercises in teamwork and I would have never thought that one day a Chinese would copy from me in a Chinese exam. ;-)

“It is a good chair, it was made in Japan and was used in German in 1997.”