Ticket check in Dutch train

Ticket check by a cool conductor in a Dutch train, Den Haag to Amsterdam

Leiden Centraal

The North Sea

Some impression from the North Sea at the Beach of Scheveningen, The Hague

Bei den PHlern in Reeuwijk

Was macht man auf einer richtig guten Klassenfahrt, wenn es Abends draussen kalt ist und drinnen etwas waermer? Wenn der Mond, obwohl in vollstem Rund, hinter Wolken verborgen ist und die einzige Lichtquelle weit und breit die Halogenroehre im Aufenthaltsraum ist? Richtig! Spieleabend:

Und das geht besonders gut, wenn man 3o angehenden Grund- und Hauptschullehrerinnen und zwei angehenden maennlichen Kollegen ist, denn die wissen wie man spielt! Gehoert ja schliesslich auch zum spaeteren Berufsbild immer fuer Anregungen und gute Laune zu sorgen.
Es war uebrigens auch so, dass sich die PHler ein Bild vom niederlaendischen Schulsystem, der Kaesemacherei, Windmuehlen und anderen kulturellen Highlights der landschaftlich gesehen flachen Nachbarn informiert haben.

"Rischtisch scheeee..."

Impression from the "on-bike-perspective" heading towards the city center coming from Leiden Central Station.

Another video clip shot from my bike. Jana is obviously enjoying herself in Leiden; note on the back the other 11 girls with who I went to the beach yesterday.

Beach-feeling....

BBQ in my new castle!

Today was one of those typical Dutch end-of-summer-begin-of-autumn days: After a cloudy morning, the afternoon all of a sudden was just as beautiful as you can only find them on postcards: Only a few nice and happy white clouds and in the background a fabulous blue sky with a nice temperature of around 23 degrees.
This made me think of barbecuing and so I invited some friends and we gathered behind the apartment building where I live now and had a nice barbecue.

Mark op visite

Het is al weer een tijdje geleden, dat onze liefe Mark in het Koningrijk der Nederlanden en in Leiden was. De afgelopen dagen was het dan gelukkig weer zo veer: Voordat het terug naar Taiwan voor hem gaat, ging hij in Leiden een visite doen. En zijn oordeel? "De mensen hebben het dit jaar bestwel druk", maar we hebben nog steeds tijd vrijgemaakt om met jou iets te doen, dus zo erg is het allemaal niet.

Ja, dat vindt onze voetbal supporter niet zo leuk...

Nachschlag: Jana's Geburtstag (Deutsch)

Mittlerweile ist es schon lang, lang her und ich weiss schon gar nicht mehr wann genau es war...Aber eines schoenen Tages dieses Sommers hatte unsere liebe Jana Geburtstag; Anlass genug fuer die treuen Fans unseres Sopran-Stars sich auf den Weg in die Fabrik zu Ebertsheim zu machen.
Da neben gutem Gesang, auch noch vorzuegliches Essen und herzliche Geselligkeit zu erwarten waren, liess es sich tatsaechlich kaum jemand nehmen das Geburtstagskind zu ehren.
Resultat des Abends sind wie weiter unten zu bestaunen eine Menge netter Fotos entstanden, auch gesungen wurde aus voller Brust:

Jens ist schon seit Jahren bekannt fuer seine liebevoll getexteten Geburtstagslieder. 100% nicht kopiert und immer einen Schmunzler wert, ein echter Mattern eben.

Ein kleiner Eindruck der gemuetlichen Atmosphaere

Ein weiterer Hit aus der Jukebox, "Gequelldie Bludwurscht"

Time to go on! (English)

It has been a while! But now the time has come to continue with this blog. I will try to start posting on a more regular basis again. And present some highlights from The Netherlands, where I am located right now.
Some things might improve, other might chance, just as you see a new banner and some new and fresh colour in the background...other things might come, but I cannot promise anything.

My start back in Leiden was not the smoothest, finding accommodation here is quite a hassle, but things worked out and I live in a nice room with a Chinese and a Taiwanese flatmate. So my daily language environment still is Chinese here, haha. At least sometimes. Besides my flatmates, I got to know some more Chinese students, who just arrived in Leiden to study Dutch. So I am already surrounded by a lot of nice Chinese people.
And of course my nice class mates from University.
Below you can see some pictures taken during the opening drink organized by the SVS Sinology Student Association, in the Oude Harmonie in Leiden. All drinks and beverages were for free, so there was of course a nice atmosphere. And also a great chance to meet old friends and get to know new people as well.

Zhuhai (English)

This city or is it a village? Well, whatever. It is nice here. Not so big, not so busy. But you have all you need. Zhuhai is another 2 hours by bus away of Guangzhou in the direction South. It is a harbour city with connections to Macao and Hong Kong.

I will fly to Shanghai from the local airport here tomorrow and will spend the night here.

I walked around downtown for a while today and made some interesting discoveries. First off all, they do have a pedestrian area here. You know what that is, right? No cars allowd on the road, and little cafes or shops in the middle of the street. But yet different from a nightmarket in Taiwan, as the roads are broader and there are trees. A really unique discovery for me in China until now. The pedestrian area actually reminds me a lot of German cities, yet a lot more lively and noisy.

Zhuhai is also a paradies for people from Hong Kong and Macao, as there are good connections to the two cities and prices are a lot cheaper then there. Prices for what? Well, I got a massage, they washed my head, haircut and beard cut for 25 yuan, that is about 2,5 Euro. One hour massage? How about 30 yuan. A meal for one person, don't think you would need to pay more then 20 yuan.

And there is another attraction, interesting for mostly the male visitors with certain desires. I cannot talk about prices, as I did not more then getting name cards from attractive young women, but as I have been told....a forget it.

Guangzhou (English)

The past 3 days and 2 nights were spent in Guangzhou. The city is located about 2 hours North East of Shenzhen by bus. The bus system in China is really good, buses are frequently available, clean, with airco and VERY fast. The last element must not certainly be an argument pro bus here. The bus drivers are the FASTEST in the whole country. Buses are taking over the role of sports and luxus cars in other countries and race on the highway or downtown. The breaks are only used when no other solution is open anymore. Really a scary experience.

But that simply also describes how China is, and how a lot of people think here: The bigger, the better and the more rights you have. Especially compared to weaker ones!

Guangzhou left a decent impression on me. It is yet another huge city though, with a lot of buildings. Guangzhou is the capital of the "business province" Guangdong. This is the province that makes everyone think and talk about money and profits, maybe more then in any other place on this earth.

We visited another few companies there and I got some nice impressions on how business in China works. (I won't publish it here, please wait for my book...).

After having a cold for a week now, I decided to get some advice from a docter and some medication. This has to be done in one of the plenty hospitals. The doctor subscribed me some Chinese medicine, which had to be infused. It took about 2 hours, to wait for the whole liquid to enter and revitalise my body. But it was worthwhile the time, I feel a lot better now.

Shenzhen the workbench

Today I went to visit a factory for water resistant LCD TV's. A small company in a clean factory environment. When we arrived the energy was halted already (a regulation by the government to control the massive energy consumption).
The manager of the company showed us around and gave us the chance to try and test their products.
The trip to the company was a nice experience by bus. We had to switch a total of 3 times, both ways, and drove through an uncompleted and extremely growing city. It is amazing how fast things change here. After a road has been finished it might not take long and construction starts again to expand it, to be able to deal with the huge traffic. I think they don't have a rush-hour here, simply because there is no opposite to that term existing. Whatever time of the day, roads are busy and crowded.

Hong Kong, Shenzhen and China (English)

I am back to the mainland, the motherland almost it seems. After a brief stop of about 8 hours in Hong Kong to obtain my visa to enter the People's Republic I arrived in the flourishing business city Shenzhen.
It is not as humid here as it is in Taipei, but there are not as many air-conditioners as on the island, so it still is pretty hot. One great rule (I really mean great) is that air-co's may only cool down to about 28 degrees. Sounds hot, but it is cool and a great measurement to reduce energy waste. The air-co's in Taiwan are so cold that it is almost nicer to stay outside in the humidity.

I am here to visit a friend and I can stay with a family. This is great as it is the opportunity to see more of the real China. Actually Shenzhen is a special place compared to other cities. It really is a melting point of all the different cultures within the great Chinese empire. People from all over the country come here to make a better living as business men or working in factories. All of them bring along their own customs, dialects and traditions. The real people of Shenzhen are barely existing, as the real Shenzhen is nothing but a small fishing village, located north of the great Hong Kong. That is one reason why the term 外地人 (people from a different region) is not used here, there simply are too few 本地人 (people from here) to use it.
The sphere might be somewhat close to New York or other immigrant cities during the time of maybe the late 19th century, when the US where the place to be for those hoping for a better live and making a fortune by working hard or even being smart. Of course the same downsides can be found here and there, today as well as back then. Quite some crime and a huge gap between poor and rich. But I was told that the actual presence of police officerers every 200m helped to reduce crime in boom-town Shenzhen.

An end to the quietness...(English)

It has been quiet recently on this blog, about a week of no new posts. Did nothing happen? No great news to share with the rest of the 3 billion webusers?
Well, it happened so much that I could barely keep track of it in real live.
The most important news is that I left Taiwan today. It was a quiete heart-aching good-bye and I feel now already how much I enjoyed the time there and how much I am going to miss it.
Currently I am at the Airport of Hong Kong, waiting for my visa to Mainland China, it is just 6 hours of waiting time, so no wories please. Luckily enough is there free wire-less LAN available and I have the right adaptor in my baggage to use Hong Kong enery - that way I can expand my wireless LAN pleasure!

So, 15.7: Mit dem Motorroller durch das Zentralgebirge (Deutsch)

So, 15.7: Mit dem Motorroller durch das Zentralgebirge

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Fabian auf Achse: mit dem Motorroller durch das Zentralgebirge
am Sonntag, den 14. Juli 2007 in "Taiwan Heute"

Fabian auf der Pagode Sommerzeit ist Ferienzeit. Fabian Roday und Florian Göbel haben sich deshalb wieder auf ihre Motorroller gesetzt und sind in Richtung Süden aufgebrochen. Mehrere landschaftliche Höhepunkte standen auf dem Programm. Fabian und Florian berichten heute vom ersten Teil der Reise: Wie sie von Taipei aufbrechen und dann ohne Benzin in den Bergen des Zentralgebirges liegen bleiben. Am Sonntag, den 14.7.2007 im Sonntagsmagazin in "Fabian auf Achse"
Bergpanorama	Fabian und Florian
Trotz Regen guter Dinge: Fabian und Florian
Erster Nachmittag

Fabian auf Achse: Auf dem Nachtmarkt zur "kleinen Nachtmahlzeit" (Deutsch)

Fabian auf Achse: Auf dem Nachtmarkt zur "kleinen Nachtmahlzeit"

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am Sonntag, den 1. Juli 2007
mit Fabian Roday und Florian Göbel

Foto Tourismusbüro Taiwan: auf den Nachtmärkten ist die Auswahl groß, um den "kleinen Hunger" spät abends zu stillen

Heute ist Fabian wieder einmal "auf Achse", diesmal geht es allerdings weniger um eine abenteuerliche Reise zu den landschaftlichen Schönheiten Taiwans. Fabian stellt zusammen mit Florian eine Spezialität in Taiwan vor, die sogenannte "kleine Nachtmahlzeit". Dazu haben sich die beiden Feinschmecker auf einen der vielen Nachtmärkte in Taipei begeben und sind den Essgewohnheiten der Taiwaner zu später Stunde nachgegangen. Diesen Beitrag senden wir am Sonntag, den 1. Juli 2007 in "Taiwan Heute".

Gaelic Football (English)

It is never to try new things! Today was the day I took part in my first Gaylic ... ehm sorry
Gaelic Football training across the full pitch.
Gaelic Football is a mixture of soccer (or football) and rugby. You are allowed to kick the ball, but also to pick it up. When you have the ball in your hands you must pass it by fisting. You get points for scoring above the goal post. The is no kick off point as there is in soccer and players stick to their position on the field and the man they are covering a lot more then in that sport.
Actually everyone is covering a player, whether offence or defence. It is rougher then soccer, but not as rough as rugby looks (I never played it myself, so I don't really know).
It was a lot of fun to play with these, definitely to some extent crazy Irish people and their fellows from other English speaking countries.We were also very lucky with the weather here in Taipei, no rain, no sun and about 24 degrees. Perfect to run around on the pitch.

PS: The team I played with are the famous Taiwan Gaelic Footballers, who recently won the Asian Cup in Singapore. Congratulations!

A short clip from the match! Thanks to 如秀 for the great camera work:

《施氏食獅史》 (中文)

《施氏食獅史》

石室詩士施氏, 嗜獅, 誓食十獅。
氏時時適市視獅。
十時, 適十獅適市。
是時, 適施氏適市。
氏視是十獅, 恃矢勢, 使是十獅逝世。
氏拾是十獅屍, 適石室。
石室濕, 氏使侍拭石室。
石室拭, 氏始試食是十獅。
食時, 始識是十獅, 實十石獅屍。
試釋是事。

Wikipedia:

施氏食獅史
维基百科，自由的百科全书
跳转到： 导航, 搜索

《施氏食獅史》是一篇由趙元任所寫的設限文章。全文共九十一字（連標題九十六字），每字的普通話發音都是shi。這篇文言作品在書面閱讀時並沒有問題，但當用普通話朗讀或者將作品拉丁轉寫的時候，問題便出現了，這是近代漢語同音字多的緣故。

很多人認為趙元任是希望通過本篇，引證中文拉丁化所帶來的荒謬。但是支持拉丁化的人卻指出趙元任乃是國語羅馬字的主要設計者，他只是舉例說明拉丁化只適合於白話文，不適合於文言文。

Bijbaantje (Nederlands)

Ja, zonder de IB groep achter je naar het buitenland gaan. Soms wordt het dan gewoon een beetje krap met het geld. Ook de leuke beurs vanuit Taiwan is al lang opgebruikt, het is ook al reeds de 12de van de maand. Dus wat valt er te doen, als je niet alleen maar in de bieb wilt zitten om te studeren?
Klopt! Je hebt een bijbaantje nodig! Harm ging dus vandaag even stage lopen als flyer-verdeler. Het was wel een gezicht voor de mensen in het Ximending (西門町) winkel gebied.
Hoewel Harm voor dit keer 10 flyer verdelen nog geen centje kreeg deed hij dat al zeer goed en met groet succes. Binnen de tijd van de video onderaan waren alle flyer verdeelt!
Dus er bestaan beste kansen voor Harm!

Waiting (English)

Waiting means, that what you want to do cannot be done right now.
We do have to wait a lot of times during our lives.
Waiting can put a lot of stress on us. Waiting can be very relaxing too.
We can wait for good things, that we think it is worthwhile waiting for;
we can wait for things that we don't actually want to wait for.

When I was still studying in good old Europe one of my teachers told me that we should be busy with Chinese language all the time, for example while waiting or doing the laundry. He recommened us to listen to CD's or maybe mp3's during those waiting periods, or periods when our brain is not fully used up. The reason for that is that our brain needs to get stimulated by the language we want to learn repetition.

Another thing that need a lot of training and repetition is dancing! A young man showed us today in the MRT in Taipei that waiting for the MRT does indeed not need to be a waste of time....