Remember how I complained about the expensive textbooks at UBC? I was set back by about S$400+ (even after returning most books after photocopying them) on material for 5 classes.

Here, books for 9 classes are 100RMB (S$20). Of course, most of the photocopying has already been done by the teachers, complete with book covers.

I haven’t bought my Sociology text, but it’s included in the total cost of textbooks I quoted above. There are two classes I find no point in getting texts, but they won’t add more than 50RMB to the total cost. And these aren’t pirated books (remember that pirated books here are as rampant as pirated DVDs).

Okay, so this is one of the pros.

My final residence permit application woot! No more running around getting coloured slips and “introduction letters” (been doing this almost every semester), no need to wait around for hours just to submit application, done with payment, and no more passport photos (needed 3 for physical examination, 1 for travel visa application, 1 for residence permit application)!

This residence permit will last me all the way till 31 July 2009.

I’m done with all the unnecessarily necessary unstated SOPs (Standard of Procedures) after returning to Fudan — reinstating my student status, registering (met local students who were equally frustrated at the silly cross-school run in order to get papers and signatures from people who practise taichi), transferral of credits (successful), and residence permit. lalalalala I just want to graduate now.

To all who knew my love for tasty quesadillas:

My mouth awaits the day it can sink into the soft, yet crispy, well-assimilated combo of chicken, salsa, and cheeeeeeeeeeezzzzzz once again.

For dinner, I ordered a mushroom quesadilla (the only choice for a quesadilla), for 14RMB, from a place called El Mexicano, which charged me an extra 7RMB to have it delivered along with a beef taco (although I realized it should be called a burrito after I ate it). In total I spent 41RMB, which is pretty pricey for a meal here, but it’s been my average expenditure on food these days due to my larger appetite.

Compare what I ate today (left) and what I could eat almost everyday in Canada (right):

Today, I ate a flat, mushy, cheeseless, piece of tortilla skin with mashed up mushrooms, green peppers and onions. Oh, how I hunger for a good quesadilla.

I also confess to having hamburger withdrawal symptoms, but the inferior burgers here are keeping me full at least.

Thankfully there’s still popcorn chicken, heh.

So as to make my sojourn here pleasant, I shall work on my picture-taking.

Selling Hainan bananas (they taste really good) outside the gates of Tongji University

Hot hot buns (and making them at the back)!

Condom machines. 1RMB for 1 condom.

Recycling bin?

Mopping the blackboards

Plucking weeds and quarrelling

Sunning clothes, shoes, bedsheets, etc.

I now live in a building which people think has “wings”

One of my favourite snacks/meals! 莫皮卷菜! Stir-fried chicken, veggies, and beansprouts wrapped with a skin akin to tortilla.

Grace and I with drinks that match our clothes haha. I’m a regular at this stall opposite my classrooms, ‘coz they sell good popcorn chicken. Heh.

———————————————————————————————————-

I hate the fact that all my pictures are so ordinary and uninteresting. They may appear interesting to those who find the subjects novel, but they are just…pictures. I want to create images. And this I will do, even with a point-and-shoot. 大家拭目以待吧！

It is indeed true that buying a second-hand bicycle from a dealer or the black market does potentially help bicycle thieves find a market for their stolen goods. However, it is a choice that citizens have to make considering the harsh reality that it’s difficult to guarantee their new bicycles will be safe from bicycle thieves.– China Daily

In my first semester, I bought a new bicycle that I really liked for its apt size and style. A year later, due to my negligence, I forgot to lock it one day(or I left the keys on the lock, I can’t remember), and my bicycle was unsurprisingly stolen. I then bought a second-hand bicycle from a friend, even though it was too big and old but I didn’t want to get a new bicycle for it increases the chances of getting stolen and feeling hate. I invested quite some money into it as I had to do repairs and change the wheel, and even though it was uncomfortably big for me, it helped improve my skills in evasion at cross junctions of road traffic. While I was away on exchange, my friend lent my bicycle to her supposed friend, and it got stolen (and this friend has been avoiding compensation).

So after walking to and from school for half an hour each time when I first came back here, I was informed by a security guard (who somehow remembers me since way back in freshman year) that he can get me a bicycle, that I shouldn’t buy one. I followed him behind a building where there were around ten bicycles that were abandoned and needing some love and care, I suppose. So he chose one for me and brought it to the repair man, so I just paid 55RMB (S$11) for the repairs (including a new basket, a new seat, and changing of brakes). It was an easy service job, including the hacking of the lock. He even spray-painted the handlebars black to hide the rust infection that plagued this old bicycle.

And so I present to you my new old bicycle:

“Never buy a new bicycle,” was the advice I gave when the topic of bicycles was touched upon in conversation. You can hardly find a single local resident who has never had a bicycle stolen. — China Daily

Did I inadvertently steal this bicycle?

The repair man also demonstrated how certain locks (most of us lock our bicycles with two locks) are easy to pry open, although all locks are hackable. Which is why no lock can prevent your bicycle from being stolen, but it is a hindrance for thieves who find it too troublesome when the one next to yours only has one lock. There’s a story that has been going around claiming that a student locked his bicycle with 10 locks, thinking that will prevent loss. However, he came back to find all his locks broken and a note saying that it’s not that the thief can’t steal his bicycle, instead he just chose not to.

Read about Bicycle Buying.

I’ve reviewed Pfingo and used Skype Pro when calling within Canada and the US. It’s time I shared how I call Singapore from Shanghai.

Cheapest:

Pfingo. Even though my free unlimited calls have expired, calls to Singapore are only S$0.01 per minute, while SMSes are S$0.05 for local SMS and 10 cents for overseas SMS.

(Using Skype sets me back for calls at more than S$0.03/min, and SMSes more than $0.15/SMS)

Thanks to Pfingo’s referral program, I have sufficient credits to last me for quite a while.

However, since it is a VOIP service you’ll need an internet connection.

Most Convenient:

IP Card + Mobile Phone. The cheapest IP card I’ve found here (17900, China Telecom) is one that charges 0.3yuan/min for calls to Singapore. However, cards valued at 100RMB are being sold for 35RMB. Therefore, combined with my current prepaid plan (16RMB/S$3.20 a month) on my mobile phone (calls charged at 0.13yuan/min), calling Singapore would cost me approximately 0.25yuan/min, which is S$0.05/min.

——————————————————————————————-

The best solution might still be getting the party in Singapore to call you, while you enjoy free incoming calls on your mobile phone (with prepaid plan at 16RMB/S$3.20 a month) or fixed line.

5 March 2008

Inside, I was to put on shoe covers, remove clothes till one layer, went to centre of bus, drew curtains, tested eyesight, tested colour vision, lay down, probed for heartbeat, got up and brought to another bed at the back of bus, lay down, drew curtains, had cold gel on ankles and chest, had clips on these areas, had cold gel on stomach, saw weird stuff on the ultrasound scan screen beside me, thrown a napkin to wipe away gel, had clips removed, told to go to front of bus, closed door, told to remove all clothing waist up while nurse stood there watching, passed me robe, placed me against x-ray machine and told to stand still, left alone in room until told it was alright to get dressed, opened door, removed shoe covers, thanked them, got down the bus.

This is how a physical examination takes place for foreign students in order to save them the trouble of going all the way to the International Travel & Sanitation Centre.

We need to pass this physical examination before a new student visa of 6 months or more can get approved.

Current students don’t need to go through this again, unless if like me, you left China for more than 3 months. (#@$! @&* !@#$)

Along with a blood test, it costs 386RMB (approx. S$77). (!@#$%&*&%$#@!)

I can view blogspot blogs by tweaking some script in my firefox (see here for getting around the GFW), but I end up with weird censorship such as this “see no evil” bear. This is a free advertisement for Samantha’s (aka Shuh Tien’s) blog, but look at how it should look like instead of what I constantly see here.

Is this the work of China’s internet police? Very amusing. Do the eyes of the innocent bear carry a secret code of f***n g**g? (asterisks inserted by me)

Graduating isn’t too big a problem, but graduating on time (July 2009) might be.

After returning to Fudan from my lovely time across the Pacific Ocean at UBC, I’m being welcomed back with the multitude of procedures that test my patience and perseverance. (I’ve also learnt such things are a test of knowing the right people and what to say.)

The ever necessary multi-step procedures make me sweat over the small stuff, and surpassing my anxiousness to get my visa done, I am fretting over how I am not in control of my graduation eligibility.

Let’s talk about my visa. I assumed that I’d be able to get my visa done within the 14-day visa-free period my red passport entitles me in mainland China, but now I am on a tight schedule where I can only hope that nothing goes wrong. Since I’ve been out of China for more than 3 months, I have to do a physical examination again (these examinations are necessary for freshmen or anyone planning to stay in China for more than 6 months, and its main components are the liver and HIV, along with other general health conditions). Seeing that I came back (very reluctantly) a week before school began to settle the procedures for reinstating my student status (which could not be done afterall since the teachers I needed signatures from weren’t here although I was informed they would be), my visa-free days end this Monday (3 Mar). So in order to go about waiting for my physical examination and its report to be done I have to apply for a travel visa (L visa) such that it lengthens my ability to stay here till 18 Mar. Right now my application for travel visa (L visa) is pending while I await my physical examination on 5 Mar, and everything must be settled before 18 Mar, which is the expiry date of my travel visa (pending). However, it is unknown how long they will take to process my physical examination. :S

Then there’s my transferral of credits. I have to finalize my classes my Friday, 7 Mar, but I was told that the processing of my credit transferral will take 1-2 weeks (from my submission on Friday, 29 Feb, or later because it depends on when my faculty’s admin staff will give it to the people-in-charge) or however long it will take to get it approved. I requested an expedition of my application, but my faculty admin staff informed me that there is only one person handling the entire school’s population of student’s credit stuff and simply said there’s no need to be anxious since I’m not graduating this semester. She said that despite knowing the fact that I would have to make some major adjustments to my choosing of classes if any of my credit transfer fails, and that classes’ timings might clash in my last 2 semesters which will lead to unwanted postponement of graduation.

CG pointed out that this is precisely why many people in my school cannot graduate on time, because admin staff only get the sense of urgency for students graduating in that particular semester, when they could have jolly well killed the problem at its root  if they had just been a bit more sensible slightly earlier.

Actually, I should have learnt not to worry over these small things by now, huh?

Possibly the only visible certainty…

In the garbage bag there is a pillow, pillow case, blanket, quilt, quilt cover.
Along with the flask, I wish it came in a friendlier way.