Day 29 April 1
This morning as usual, I woke up at 6.15am to do laundry, washed up and prepared for attending the morning lesson at 8am. Today’s morning lesson was the IS which conducted by the school lecturer there, Professor An. Then at about 7.30am plus, my group and I went down together and headed to the other canteen nearby, Canteen 2 for buying some snacks as our breakfast. After that, we were on our way to the classroom. By the time when we reached the classroom, our guest lecturer, Professor An started to give us a lecture on the topic of Chinese traditional and thoughts. The total slides of the power point consists about 175 pages. I was found to be shocked after I had gone through them before the lecture has started. Next, after 30-40 minutes since the lecture has begun, I was suddenly losing my concentration on listening to what the lecturer was teaching. However, I was kept trying to be awoke and pay more attention on it. After the lecturer taught us on some points, I began to understand on the history of China, the culture begins of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism and etc. Although I found that the lecture was a bit boring and easily to be doze off within few minutes later, but it was not. As the lecture moved on, I found the information that been taught was very interesting and inspired me for getting to know more. Until 11.30am plus, the half of the lecture was completed while the other half of it would be continued tomorrow morning. Then, my group and I went down together and headed to Canteen 1 for having our lunch there. After I had my lunch at the canteen, I was left from my group and walked back to the hostel to continue doing on my homework. When I reached in my hostel room, I was immediately to check for IS enrolment but there wasn’t any information to be displayed from the screen. So I was wondering that the students in OIP whether were needed to do this exercise enrolment. At about 1.30pm plus, my group and I got ourselves ready and went down to the classroom for afternoon lesson. By the time when we reached the classroom, there wasn’t any teacher there. So I was immediately switched on my laptop to start doing the summary of the lesson which conducted on this morning. At about 4.15pm, our lecturer, Mr Ma had finally came to the classroom and shown him my lab work for verifying. After that, it was 5pm plus and the class was ended. So I went to pack my stuffs and went back to my hostel. When I was on my way back, I saw my classmates were playing ping pong which known as table tennis. They were playing while Mr Chua sat aside and watched it. Then, after watching it, I went back to the hostel and did my homework. At about 6.45pm, I went down to the same place at outside of the school for having dinner on my own. Later, I bought some bread for my breakfast tomorrow while on the way back to hostel. As for today, it was nothing much to be observed. However, I had learnt some of the interesting factors from this morning lecture such as the origin of Emperor Qin and the history of each dynasty. From what I knew one of those dynasties was Qin Dynasty. During Qin Dynasty, the size of the land in China consists about twice as the size as among the others. This happened to be one of the largest as compared in other dynasties. Although the history of China was one of the longest history records in worldwide but I found that it was worth to learn and know more about it.
Day 30 April 2
Today as usual I woke up at 5.48am and did the same thing as my daily routine. At about 7.30am plus, my group member, Jeremy, Shaoming and I went to the same canteen, Canteen 3 for having our breakfast. By the time when we reached a nearby canteen, it was quite packed by the students and the staffs. Then I went to buy some morning snacks, and one of them I bought was the egg biscuit. When the moment I was eating, the taste of it was the original taste of the egg, not pretty salty and yet it was just nice. The cost of it was much cheaper than what I expected, it cost me around 70-80 cents of RMB. After we had our breakfast, we walked out of the canteen and headed to the classroom. When we reached the classroom, we were given 10-15 minutes to do on evaluation survey of OIP before attending the IS lecture with Professor An. Then, we were started to continue the lecture from where we left since yesterday. Today’s morning lesson was as usual, we were given the lecture on the origin of the cultures such as Taoist, Buddhism and etc. Although the lesson for today was not as bore as yesterday, I was able to pay full attention on it. As the lecture moved on, I had begun to understand on how the Taoism and the Buddhism were formed during the past. According to what our guest lecturer, Professor An taught us that the main difference between Taoism and Confucianism. From what I had learnt today that Taoism always follows the way of doing the right think but they might run away from the difficulties or certain situation while Confucianism takes away the burden to become a good person, a good citizen or etc. And the word “Tao” in the Taoism means the way that does things. At about 11.30am plus, the class was finally made to the end. Then, my group and I walked out of the school building and headed to Canteen 1 for our lunch. However while we were on our way, the weather seems to be very bad and it rained suddenly. Fortunately it was rained lightly otherwise we might get trouble on going back to hostel. Most of us didn’t bring our umbrella out as we didn’t expect that it would rain suddenly. Then, when we reached the canteen, the crowd was getting to be packed by the students as the time went by. So we decided to order our food and packed it to our hostel there to have it. The queue for our food was pretty long as we were waiting about 15-20 minutes. After buying, we walked back to our hostel to have our lunch and continued doing on our homework. Ay about 1.40pm, we walked down to the level 4 classroom in the School of Foreign Language for attending the afternoon IS lecture. The afternoon lecture was seemed to be interesting as it talked about Chinese wedding and Feng Sui. the lecturer for this afternoon was Christopher also as Mr Chen. As I was listening his lecture, one of the things I learnt that Feng Sui wasn’t kind of superstitions as it was treated as the law of environment. Feng Sui was water and wind combination as it had five elements to be involved. They were water, fire, metal, wood and earth. According to what he taught that every house must consist of those five elements to be balanced, otherwise it might cause misfortunate to the family. At about 4.45pm, the class was ended and we went back to our hostel to get ourselves changed before we had our dinner outside. At about 7pm, my group members, Shaoming and Siew bo and I walked down to the stall nearby to have our dinner. Then, Shaoming and Siew bo were suggested that whether we would like to eat fast food at the area nearby. So we walked to the shop that located along the street at outside of the school. Then, I noticed that the shop was seemed to be quite empty as there was no customer except the three of us. So Siew bo told us that most of the people here like to make delivery order and have it at home rather than just come down to have it. As we were waiting for our meals, the duration of waiting seems to be long, as the staff served us together with our 3 set of meals. After having our dinner there, we walked along the street to see whether there was anything to be bought back to Singapore. Then, we were passed by to this shop that sells some accessories such as usb lamps, usb heater and etc. When we were inside the shop and looked around, one of the staffs came suddenly and asked whether we were from the local. So we told her that we were from Singapore and she told us that the way we spoke was quite different than what the local normally spoke. As we were begun to chat along, we had our self-introduce and got to know that the staffs there were the students of School of Foreign Language. Then they told us that they were working and helping up their boss to take care of the shop. As we chatted along, we found that they were working in the night and studying in the day. Later, we made our move and given them our good bye waves before we made our way back to the hostel. As for today, it wasn’t much gone on. However the lessons that I learnt today was Feng Sui. Although most of the people believed that it was kind of supernatural and superstitions but actually it was not. By learning it, we could make our living smoothly in term of improving our financial, our vitality and our energy. Then, in the night, I also found that the people here were quite nice to talk with as we were seemed to be strange in the first place. However, the students that we chatted along were quite shy and nervous whenever they tried to talk to us in the school. Through this conversation that we had, I noticed that the people here were more initiatively than us in Singapore.
