May 10th 2010

Hi everybody, it is time for an update. So what’s new?
I think my Chinese lessons here start to pay off. Last time we practiced pronunciation. I had to read sentences and some of the colleagues tried to understand what I said. To be honest: when I was reading I didn’t understand anything. But my teacher helped me to translate it: It was the story of Archimedes setting the roman ships on fire with mirrors. Well, we just got to the part where the Greek king is very nervous about the enemy fleet. I have still a hard time to remember the names of Chinese people I get introduced to. But I was told that they have the same problem with foreign names. So everyone understands when I don’t remember.

My pupils in the English course have finished their talks about their home provinces. By the way: in the Jilin province (where I am) one can find a resting volcano and Siberian tigers! I did not know that. But I was calmed down. Obviously the population of tigers is so small, that it is very hard to find some. Today I started to give a talk about Germany. I showed slides of historical maps of the last 2000 years, famous sights, famous Germans, German products and inventions, typical German food (Kässpätzle, Leberkäs, Weißwürscht, Brot, Bier, Schweinshaxe – man I got hungry) and German cars. I also told them about the Car2Go project in Ulm. Well, I am really enthusiastic about that :-). After 90 minutes I stopped and postponed the remaining slides to next Thursday – Animals and Plants, People, Ustersbach/Augsburg/Ulm, Holiday, Religion, Music and Movies, The little differences to China and Chocolate. By the way: most of those topics were requests.

Thanks to our secretary did I become a member of a regular group of badminton players. At first I thought it was just her family and some friends of them. But as I found out, most members are professors of the institute or the neighboring university. They all appear to be eager to get to know me and talk to me. Most want to know what I think of China and what the differences are to Germany. Thankfully, most of them spent time abroad (USA, Italy, Germany, …) so that their English is quite good. However, one of the Professors spent time in Japan and when I was talking someone had to help him understand by translating. This is really strange regarding that the international language of science is (broken) English. Before I forget: they all are really good badminton players. The first time I participated I got
practically killed on the court. After about 20 minutes against on of the professors (about 40 years, but the 60 year old guy is also better than I), I was standing there panting, not able to move anymore. The second time when I participated was much better. Still, both times I had sore muscles for several days. Well, my fitness will surely improve :-).

What else?
– My apartments rent is 120 € a month.
– Last time after badminton we went to a Japanese style bath house. Very noble and worth a story of its own.
– The bus lines still confuse me and occasionally I find myself riding in the wrong direction.
– On holidays it appears that everybody is outside. Sometimes there are just too many people.