'Tis the Season! 节气

It snowed today! And I'm so amaze by the accuracy of the seasonal markers (节气). You must be wondering.. "What's that?!"

I guess the 2 seasonal markers that we Singaporean Chinese know quite well are 清明(usually in Mar, when we go sweep the ancesteral grave扫墓) and 冬至 (Dec 22, when we eat dumplings 汤圆). These are just 2 of the 24 seasonal markers. Seasonal markers came from the Chinese Agriculture Calendar 农历, which guides the farmers on the activities for planting the fields. For more details on seasonal markers, read http://www.nongli.com/item2/nlzs07.htm though it's all in Chinese. For exact dates of the seasonal markers, refer to http://www.mxnw.com.cn/fw/jq.htm

Nov 22 marks "minor snow" 小雪and the weather turns cold overnight. According to the newsletter from the China Cultural Club, "It is the time that soil and water will be frozen at night, and the rain turns to wet snow in the north in northern China; while in southern China (regions south of Yangtze), the weather is characterized by damp cold. Although the temperature in southern China is not as low as in northern China and it doesn' t fall as wet snow, winter really comes and people feel more difficult because of lack of central heating." Yesterday marks the "major snow" and it snowed today! How accurate can it get?

I'm grateful for the central heating, though it is still cold in the office as the corridor is not heated. Lots of people have to wear their down jackets to the toilet as it is so cold to walk down the corridor. Lucky for us, the toilet is just next door. Heating is required by Chinese Law in areas north of the yellow river from "arrival of winter" 立冬 (mid Nov) to 春分 (mid Mar). In the south, it is really freezing as anything south of the Yellow River, there's no provision for heating!

I also remember when I was in Qingdao prior to the Olympic Games, the breeze were hot and humid. When the Games started, the winds turned cool and drier. And I was told that the day the Olympic Games opened was the "arrival of autumn" 立秋! I'm really amazed!

On the western end, it's the jolly season! Christmas is round the corner! Though there's not elaborate decoration, like Orchard Road Christmas lightup, most large shopping malls and office buildings do simple lightups and decor. Even our very chinese (or cheena, you will call it) office building, there's lights on the lamppost; decorations on the plants along the corridor and frosty sprayed windows! :)

On the home side, managed to persuade the boyfriend on getting a Christmas Tree for home and now we have a pretty tree, providing some Christmas cheer. Here's a picture for you!

Here's wishing you a Merry Merry Christmas in advance! :)

习惯就好! Getting Acquainted to the Great Hassle!

I'm getting used to the great hassles that exist in this country! I think I'm starting to laugh about it and loving it! :D

What hassle you may ask. There's hassle everywhere! Hassle shopping; hassle in running business; and hassle in extending visa... everything! You name it, you have it!

When I first got to Beijing, I was rather intimidated by it. I was introduced to Silk Street Market （秀水街）, Yashow Market （雅秀）, and the wet market （三源里） and you have to bargain for everything! One have to engage in what I thought was ridiculous negotiations and conversations, which to us efficient Singaporeans, seemed a waste of time. However, I have learnt to love it! Now, I get excited about going to the markets to bargain, and made some "friends" along the way. Sometimes, I teach the sales ladies some English. Other times, we joked and laugh, and had a good time. I have learn to make the best of the most irritating situation and enjoy it.

I explored starting up a business in Beijing. I looked at the process of registering a company, I gave up! There's so much time and money involved. Check this out for yourself! ( http://www.chinasolutionco.com/stepdetail.asp?id=61 ) And this is the cheapest type of organisation to register! I recently spoke to an entrepreneur and she told me that it took her 8 months to get all the papers sorted out to register her company!! (My dear fellow Singaporeans, for those of you who complain about the pain registering with ACRA, think again! Haha! Now ACRA is so improved, can register online! I remembered vividly the pain that I received years ago from ploughing through and encyclopedia-thick directory for the most suitable code number for the company I was registering! Oh man! But that's nothing compared to this one!)

Recently, I had a great encounter with the local immigration. I went to extend my visa for another 30days. My beloved "Insider's Guide to Beijing" which is always very reliable, said I need only my passport and 2 photos. So, happily off I went! To my dismay, I needed my resident certificate and a proof that I have enough money to pay for my stay in China - US$100 per day!

Ok, I thought that's not too bad. I only found out later that in order to get my resident certificate, I need to go to the police station with the tenancy agreement of the apartment where I'm staying! (This communist country is control freak, and they require all visitors to register where they are staying with the police station. If you are staying in hotel, your registration with the hotel gets sent to the police!) See, the boyfriend's company rented the apartment and he does not have a copy of the tenancy agreement! So, he had to write a request to HR and get a copy a day later.

And I also found out that you cant just go to any police station, but the specific one that governs your area (i.e. your neighbourhood police post). Going to this specific police station is like taking part in Amazing Race. It is hidden behind the walls of a very busy market that sells construction materials. We had to stop 3 times to ask people where the station is. In the police station, there's 4 police officers but only 1 working. Because 1 of them does dog registration only (how many dogs get registered a day?!) and the other 2 does some other dubious things! How amazing!

With my resident permit and the electronic bank statement of my Singapore bank account, I went back to the Immigration Dept, only to be rejected again! Why?! Oh.. the proof of ability to pay for travel expenses needs to be a certified statement from a local bank! (What?! I have to open a bank account for that?!) But the English brochure they gave me says proof included credit card. I whipped out my credit card, and the lady shaked her head. I tried to get her to honour it, showing her the brochure. She is so typical, and said, that's a mistake the communications dept made, my dept cannot accept this arrangement! *FAINTS!*

Ok... so, off I went, to the bank, to open a bank account. Stole the boyfriend from the office to lent me some money. Then I asked for the bank statement and I was told that I need to pay 20yuan (abt S$4) for the certified statement and they need to freeze my money for a period of time for them to issue that statement! (How am I suppose to pay for my travel expenses when the money get frozen in the bank?! Duh!) All these took an hour and filling in alot of forms in Chinese that I have little clue what all the banking terms meant! Phew...

I got my visa extended eventually (after 3 trips to the immigration and running around for 2 whole days and a week's wait for them to paste a sticker in my passport), and have new revelation - One needs alot of patience in China. Always call to ask and be as specific and detailed as you can. And yet, always expect things to be not what you had been advised earlier! On hind sight, I can laugh about it, and feel that I'm loving it, even though it nearly drove me crazy then! But now, I think it's so charming and I'm loving it!

天冷了！Getting Ready for Winter!

Since I havent brought many clothes with me (as I have to pack my whole life in a couple luggages), I have been buying clothes and shoes (only brought my sandals, hiking shoes and track shoes - which gave up on me after the Olympics).

When I finally think I have something for every occasion, i.e., casual to formal, the weather had suddenly turned cold. I looked into my wardrobe for warm clothes, and I only have a sporty long sleeve t-shirt.. full stop! Dear me... so.. I went shopping for more clothes... now for autumn winter clothes.

I found a wonderful place for cheap and nice clothes! It's called the Zoo! Well, it's a fashion wholesale centre opposite the Beijing Zoo, and hence it is commonly known as the Zoo, or the Zoo Wholesale Centre. Short sleeve t-shirts are 10-15RMB. My jeans were 65RMB. Long sleeve t-shirts/ wollies ranges from 28 - 50RMB. Fleece jackets are aroung 100RMB. Despite the low prices, you can find quality buys there. The only thing is they do not allow trying on, before buying. But you can buy, go to the toilet to try and bring back to change for sizes if you need to.

Here's some of my good buys:

Here are some other stuff I got from elsewhere, cos I cant find them at the Zoo..



After a few rounds of shopping, I think I'm about ready to receive the arrival of autumn/ winter.
Weather is getting quite cold!

The Great China Currents!

Up to the recent past, there was no annual leave system in this country. The people of China has 4 fixed weeks off every year. They are two weeks over Chinese New Year; a week over Labour Day in May; and a week over National Day in Oct. Due to the recent economic developments in various primary and secondary cities, these total shutdowns were deemed as undesirable, and hence adjustments had been made, particularly in major cities.

In the recent years, Chinese New Year holidays has been reduced to a week and the Labour Day and National Day holidays have been reduced to 3 days. In compensation for the reduced period of these traditional holidays, there has been new public holidays being introduced, for e.g. Mid-Autumn (中秋节), 清明节，端午节。

Clever Accounting
Chinese people are so creative! So.. National Day holidays (“十一”黄金周）is supposed to be 1-3 Oct, so technically, it should start on wed through to fri, plus the weekend, it's 5 days long hols. However, in order to still have 1 week off, most companies worked on Sat and Sun before (i.e., 27-28 Sep were working days) and then take the mon and tue (29-30 Sep) off, to make 1 week! Clever right?! I think Singapore should copy this one! Yey!

Change of the Great Currents!
So.. today is the start of the long hols and yesterday was the last day of work prior to the long hols. Typical local activities during such long holidays were to return home (since alot of people work in a different city to where their home is) or to go travelling - domestic or international.

It's what I would call the change of the Great Currents yesterday! Millions of non-Beijingers were getting out of the city and the original Beijingers were getting back into the city! The traffic was a standstill. Took us 30min to move 1 km! From the back of the building to the front of the same building took 30min! Then it was getting very late for Pete to get to golf lessons, so Jason, the driver drop me off somewhere to get a cab to 南锣鼓巷to meet my friend from Hong Kong, who's in Beijing.

My God! There were millions of people around.. and I thought that's because that wholesale market that we were at had just closed for the day. I walked on... against the traffic... thinking that I might get lucky to get a cab. After 20 min, I realised it's not going to happen... cos there were lots of people with big luggage everywhere, trying to grab a cab.

I decided I will walk to the subway station which is about 2-3 km away. I got to the subway.. there were like 2 million people trying to get out. (Dear Singaporeans, think the worst situation at City Hall MRT, when there's NDP at Padang or Chingay or F1 and times 10... hee.. not exaggerating... in fact, maybe a little under) Took 2 stations of train and got out and realised traffic was as bad at 鼓楼area.. and decided that I will walk there.. another 2-3 km! Took me 1hour 45 min to get to my destination... usually it would be 15min car ride. And guess what? Pete was half hour late for golf lesson! It took him 1.5 hours to get home! Usually, it would only take half hour to get home in peak hour traffic situation!

I realise I need to understand what a country with 1.3 billion people mean and that 3 million (I was told) of non-local residents moving with luggages at the same hour cannot be underestimated!

Oh... welcome to China! :)

Monster's Eyes 怪兽眼

My boyfriend made me some interesting breakfast that got the little kid in me very excited and got out of bed immediately. (Does it remind you of some cereal advertisement? :p)

This is what the breakfast look like...

It's called - Monster's Eyes! ;p

Apparently, this is one of the Australian camping breakfast. 'Cos apparently they only have BBQ pit for cooking. So when cooking, the sunny-side-ups will run away on the BBQ. What they would do is to cut holes in the bread, break the eggs in the holes and cook it.. so that the eggs stay on the BBQ. Nice eh?! For mummies out there, this is a sure way to get your kid out of the bed with little effort!

While writing this blog, I asked the boyfriend many questions, and he did some research online and said that there are other names for this breakfast, though none is called Monster's Eyes. But I dont care, I like Monster Eyes and it shall be called Monster's Eyes.

Here's a weblink for other variations:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sunshine-Toast/Photo-Gallery.aspx

Have fun! Remember to eat healthily for breakfast!

咖啡香 Frangrance of the Grounded Coffee

It's quite a challenge to find proper coffee in Beijing. I'm not the fussy person when it comes to coffee, as long as it is not like drain water. I'm happy with my Owl-brand coffee bag. I miss Mummy's homemade coffee at breakfast!

In Beijing, there's only all the instant coffee, mostly 3-in-1 types, and they all tasted horrible. (For your info, Milo here taste funny too! Maggie - I wonder how you survive China for 6 years with this Milo!)

I went to the wet market today and saw some Lavazza grounded coffee for the coffee machine. I cant resist it, I bought it. Chen Yi, who went to the market with me (her first trip to wet market in Beijing) brought me to the flower market to buy coffee plunger! Got some flowers too! :)

I came home and quickly brewed a cup of coffee... hmmm.... the fragrance of the coffee... so nice! I savoured every drop of it... nice... hmm....