As I said in my previous post, Essential 20 – Czech, I was taken with the notion, in a twist on the Pareto Principle, that when acquiring a new language or moving to / visiting a new country the greatest value comes from having 20 key survival phrases.

Here again is my list, this time with translations to Mandarin Chinese (characters and pinyin).

Hello.
你好。
Nǐ hǎo.

Good bye.
再见。
Zài jiàn.

Yes.
是。
Shì.
Consider 对 duì ‘correct’ for agreement.

No.
不是。
Bùshì.
Consider 不对 bùduì ‘not correct’ for disagreement.

I want this…
我要这个…
Wǒ yāo zhè ge…

One glass of (beer / tea / water) please.
请给我一杯 （啤酒 ／ 茶 ／ 水）。
Qǐng gěi wǒ yī bēi píjiǔ / chá / shuǐ.

The bill, please.
请买单。
Qǐng mǎidān.

How much?
多小钱？
Duōxiǎo qián?

Where is … ? (person / place)
… 在哪里？
… zài nǎ lǐ?

Where is the bathroom?
洗手间在哪里？
Xǐshǒujiān zài nǎ lǐ?

I don’t speak Mandarin.
我不会说普通话。
Wǒ bù huì shuō pǔtōnghuà.

Do you speak English?
你会说英语吗？
Nǐ huí shuō Yīngyǔ ma?

I don’t understand.
我不懂。
Wǒ bù dǒng.

Can you repeat that please?
再说一边。
Zài shuō yī biān.

Can you help me?
你能帮我吗？
Nǐ néng bāng wǒ ma?

I’m sorry.
对不起。
Duìbuqǐ.

No problem / It’s ok.
没关系。
Méiguānxi.
Used following an apology.

Please.
请。
Qǐng.
Place at the beginning of a request.

Thank you.
谢谢。
Xiè xie.

You’re welcome.
不用谢。
Bù yòng xiè.

Excuse me.
请问。
Qǐng wèn.
Used to intrude, lit. may I ask.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
一， 二，三， 四，五，六，七， 八， 九， 十。
Yī, èr, sān, sì, wǔ, liù, qī, bā, jiǔ, shí.

Moving on (up)

Well, my dear reader(s) this is one them posts you rarely get, that’s actually about my life. The sort of post I feel that I should be writing but never do.

So the headline, in case you’ve not heard, is that I’m leaving Hangzhou and moving to Prague. Why? Well, as you know I have one super amazingly good reason and a bunch of smaller ones. Overall it’s the right thing to do and the right time professional, personally and it terms of my development and my life’s journey.

In a way I feel like I’ve grown up here in Hangzhou. I guess you grow and learn a lot in any 6 (almost) year period of your life but changing countries makes it really easy to identify what you’ve learned and how you’ve grown in a particular place. I’ve been here for the last 6 (almost) years so looking at life from this moment in time they are the most important years. It also, as I’m 30, works out to be half my adult life, more than half my professional life (if somewhat artificially measured from graduation) and one fifth of my life as a whole. That’s significant.

Changing jobs* and countries at the same gives an unusually obvious sense of the end of one era and the begining of another. I’ve learned more generally, and specifically more about myself, in the last 12 months than in any period I can recall. I find myself excited by the many possibilities that are in front of me for all aspects of my life. Whatever happens from this point, this is going to be one of the best decisions I made because it is time to move on to new challenges and the next stage of the journey.

* I don’t have one, if you’re reading this and also happen to be in the process of recruiting an IT support / project manager in Prague, then we should talk.

I’ve been asked some interesting and some strange questions as I’ve talked to many people about ‘the plan’ so I thought I’d try answer some of these as a way to sign off on my time in Hangzhou.

Will I miss Hangzhou? Gosh yes. Hugely. What will I miss? First and foremost the people. I’ve been so lucky to meet the most amazing people here over the years. It’s a transitory place, people have come and gone over the years which has just made it all the more interesting, you have this fluid group of people that slowly changes over time. It’s an international group so I’ve been exposed to different langauges and cultures, not just Chinese, though that’s been a huge part of it, but also people from all around the world. More than anything the lifestyle makes it possible to connect with people that I just think is much easier than in home country and home culture. Most people you meet are actively looking for possibilities to grow their circle of contacts if not their circle of friends. I can’t stress enough that the most amazing thing about my time here is the people I’ve enjoyed it with both colleagues and friends. You are all amazing and you know who you are.

One final thing that is specific to Hangzhou and has been such a huge part of my time here is the brilliant contrast you have of large cosmopolitan city with a lovely lake (14km around) with landscaped gardens around it and bordered by the wonderful hills dotted with tea fields. I shall very much miss my Tuesday night runs by the lake and weekends of hiking and running in the mountains.

How have I changed? Like I said, you change in six years anyway but I think that my time in Hangzhou has certainly changed me in different ways compared to having spent the last 6 years in the UK. I’ve traveled way more than I think I would have ever done. I’ve been forced to challenge assumptions about the world, about the way to live one’s life and the way to relate to other people in a way that is a unique product of the things I’ve done and the people I’ve met. Oh and apparently I now have a funny accent and use funny words, so I’m told.

Has it been a waste? This question took me by surprise. Is time spent here a waste now I’ve decided to leave? Certainly not. I’ve got so much out of the experience, learned so much and had soo much fun that, absolutely not. I’ve also got a great group of friends. I speak serviceable Chinese and something tells me that’s going to be useful again at some point in the future. As Gandalf says, “Even the very wise cannot see all ends.” I am also applying the lessons I’ve learned in acquiring my second language to dramatically improve my effectiveness in acquiring my third. Czech study has begun in earnest. I’ve also got some great experience of working and living in a multi-cultural / multi lingual environment and it’s hard not to see those as skills that are directly relevant to my immediate future .

I’ve learned so much, made so many great friends, been inspired and challenged by so much that I’ve seen and done and heard.

And we’ve had lots of fun.

We’re all still getting daily new updates about the scale of the disaster (earthquake) in China’s Sichuan province but much less frequently about the disaster (cyclone) in Burma. Both are truly horrifying. There is a sense of collective hurting here in China which is finding its expression in a lot of motivation to help in what ever way possible.

For some first-hand accounts from Chengdu in English have a look at Lost Laowai’s series of posts from some expatriates who are in Chengdu assisting with the relief effort.

If you’ve not already done so you may want to consider making a donation to the relief projects in Burma and Sichuan. It is possible to make a donation to both projects on the British Red Cross website.

I’ve been using jajah.com for a few months now and am really impressed. If, like me, you need to (or would like to) make international calls on regular basis then this is worth a look. It’s particularly good if you want to call people when you’re not at a computer or call people who aren’t at computers.
The way it works is that instead of making a call over the internet from a computer or dedicated device you use the internet to set up a call from and to a regular phone. Setting up a call can be done at a computer (for a future time if necessary), using the web on your mobile phone or using an application you can download for your phone.
Basically you just tell jajah.com which of your numbers you are on and who you want to call. A few seconds later (or at whatever time you specify) you receive a call from Jajah, once you’ve answered it, it calls them. Calls are free between Jajah users and not expensive the rest of the time. If you’re in China or somewhere else where it’s common to pay to receive calls it’s probably worth getting on to a plan that allows you to receive calls for free. Calling a UK landline from China with Jajah is currently 1.7p per minute.
The really beauty of this for me is that it enables me to use little windows of time to call the UK that I otherwise couldn’t, that is to say call when I want to not when at a computer or when I can get the other party to a computer. The back of a taxi, waiting for friends to turn up, on a break at work, etc.

Check it out. And expect more calls.

So I discovered the other day that I’m a bit of a Bowie fan, which came as a surprise. A friend lent me the T.V. series Life on Mars which is ok as TV series go but one thing that did strike me was how good the title track is. The title track is, not surprisingly, Life on Mars by Bowie which I don’t think I’d heard before. The show featured some other tracks which were good, Jean Genie is the only one I remember as it was, for reasons that aren’t worth explaining, mentioned in the show. So on the basis of this and memories of liking the one about the space man and the one he did with Queen I decided that it was probably worth a bit of a look. Especially given the fact that I live in a new-music-inspiration-starved vacuum (wow, there are two u’s in vacuum, who knew?).

As a new-music-inspiration-starved-vacuum (we’re going to run out of u’s at this rate) aside, more people using last.fm and adding me as a friend would help, go do it now. I did buy a Ladytron album on the basis of a song cropping up on neighbour radio, the album has lasted longer on the iPod than I expected at first listen. As a further aside I did think until the other night that me and my last.fm neighbour might be the only people who’d heard of Ladytron until a song cropped on the internet radio station that is played in a bar I frequent (being a bit vague here as I’m not sure if this is legit) the other night.

Any hu. So I decided I was going to lay my hands on a Bowie ‘best of’ which brings up the next music and China problem, the selection of legit CD’s (and for that matter non-legit ones) on sale is limited to Chinese music and the few foreign bands that somehow inexplicably seem to get some kind of following here, an odd collection including Backstreet boys, Avril Lavigne, Linkin Park. I actually found Fort Minor: The Rising Tied, the solo project of Linkin Park front man Mike Shinoda in my local super market of all places.

And so to the point of the post, I bought the best of album off iTunes and am not 100% comfortable with that. I like owning CDs, I like looking at them, browsing them for inspiration. I’m also fairly convinced that paying the same price for music electronically as I used to pay for a CD and getting less functionality is kinda wrong but I seem to be slipping into it through a lack of alternatives.

Thoroughly enjoying the Bowie album by the way.

Last Saturday a group of us walked from Laoheshan in the north west of Hangzhou pretty much all the way around Hangzhou to get to Wushan Square in the South. The route is a hilly course, to say the least. The ‘8 hour’ route we were following is described here (In Chinese, 线路九). I’ve mapped the route (fairly approximately) on MapMyRun here, you’ll need to switch it to satellite view for it to make any sense.

It was a totally amazing day, we set off slightly later than planned at 09:00 and made good progress over the first few peaks to North Peak in about 1.5 hours and stopped for a snack there. From North Peak we went over the next couple of hills heading south making ok but not great time on what was always going to be the toughest part of the course in terms of terrain. At this point we had to do our first frustrating drop all the way down to road level and then all the way back up to the ridge that boarders Longjing to the west. We arrived at Longjing about 4 hours in and took our time over a lunch of sandwiches, TimTams and strawberries sheltering in a tea field from the wind. We were engaged by a couple passers by during lunch the most memorable of which was a gentleman who seemed positively irked by the fact we were having a lunch of sandwiches at the top of a hill. He told us in no uncertain terms that this was just wrong and we should be eating in a restaurant. Excuse me but sandwiches at the top of the hill are the best thing about hiking.

From Longjing we headed south all the way down the ridge to Nine Creeks. We arrived at Nine Creeks about six hours in and stopped for a rest and most of the remainder of the food before heading up to Huapo Houshan. Here we were accosted by a local who, seeing us looking at the map was eager to lend a hand. “Where are you trying to get to?” she asked, “Wushan, how do we get there?” we replied. “By car” she said, slightly missing the point.

By the time we came down into Hupao itself it we were starting to lose the light. Unperturbed we headed off up Yuhuang Shan only to get completely turned about on this Escher painting of a hill. We came down the other side finally in complete darkness, or as complete as darkness gets this close to such a large city.

One last slog over a few more fairly low peaks and we were down on to Wansongling Lu. From here it was a quick hop, or would have been for fresher legs, over Wushan into the square. We arrived finally in the square at 20:00, eleven hours after setting off and piled straight into taxis to Maya Bar.

Hungry, thirsty and weary like I’ve not been in a long time we ate peanuts, nachos, chips and burritos in Maya before the days exertions and few beers finally took their toll and we staggered off home to bed exhausted but victorious.

Most of the day was a bit fuggy for photos but what I did get are on Flickr here.

Cult of Mac has a piece today quoting In-stat claiming that apparently there are 400,000 rogue iPhones on the China Mobile network (iPhones are not currently legitimately available in China). I find this very easy to believe, I personally know 3 people on China Mobile with iPhones and the demand clearly runs far, far greater than that. During spring festival in ‘hometown’ D’s cousin ‘little brother’ was beside himself to learn that you can get iPhones in Hangzhou and has been in touch several times since for more info.

As the Cult of Mac piece points out, what exactly is Apple gaining from this strategy of going with one network in each market, which is presumably what’s slowing their entry? I for one would have probably bought one if they’d been available in China a few months ago. Instead I bought a Nokia N95 which is easily replacing my old Nokia 6230 as best phone I’ve ever owned. The iPhone is very cool, I’ve played with one, a rogue one at that, but aside from oozing cool there wasn’t anything that made me want to switch from my N95 now.

To-date Hangzhou’s delivery food options have been limited to PizzaHut online, a couple of restaurants where if you were lucky and were prepared to pay their return taxi costs or the local Chinese place if you could bludgeon your way through the language barrier.

Not now though, the much hyped Sherpas is now here. We’ve just had our first experiment with it and it worked a treat. Called the hotline, all in English, ordered Curry Bistro ‘by the numbers’, they quoted an hour and fifteen minutes and it came in just under an hour, piping hot.

The restaurant list is limited for now but I, for one, am excited.

So we woke up this morning once again to snow, only a light dusting though, for now (it’s still snowing). Miss Leaf tells me that it’s not a problem because it’s not big snow. Whatever that means.

For those of you that missed it, no sooner had I posted about how the sky had finally stopped falling than things got dramatically worse. A huge snow storm hit which closed airports, highways and delayed trains across southern China. I reckon here in Hangzhou we had about 20 centimetres in a 24 hour period Fri-Sat.
It was interesting over the weekend with taxis and buses more or less unavailable. I should say the roads were open in the city it was just that there weren’t any taxis to be found and the buses came when they could. So with public transport more or less not an option I walked most places. I had a couple of assisted journeys where a bus got me part of the way there or I found a taxi at the half way point. It was like a weird post-apocalypse-movie-thing where technology didn’t work any more.

There are some photos I snapped over the last week or so in the flickr photostream.

I’m a little bit more interested in the weather today as I’m going to have to step outside my little walkable world of home-office-pub as, of course, we’re off to the outlaws for spring festival assuming big brother (in the non ominous sense of the word) can get here to pick us up. Fortunately I absolved myself of any involvement in the planning of this trip so am happily just a passenger for once. I hope.

On a more serious note, outside of causing me to have to walk to and from the pub the worst weather in decades is causing huge problems across central and southern China. You can apparently make donations at http://www.chineseredcross.org.cn/english/ though I’ve just tried it and the site is down or appears to be.

The sky is not falling. While I’ve not been keeping detailed records I believe it has rained or snowed every day since I returned to Hangzhou three weeks ago. This is unusual, most years it doesn’t snow here at all and I’m sure I don’t remember it ever raining so much. D keeps making jokes about British weather and how I brought it with me. It certainly feels that way. It snowed again overnight, I’ve lost count of how many days of snow we’ve had now.

But…

Today it has neither rained nor snowed. It’s partly cloudy and the bits that weren’t clouds were actually blue-ish. The affect on me, despite being sat in an office with all the blinds down all day (grr) is significant.

The snowfall in the last couple of days has caused transportation chaos. That’s not really true. The snowfall in the last couple of days has exasperated transportation chaos. Next Thursday is Chinese New Year. At Chinese New Year, to varying degrees, the whole country stops for 2 weeks. Everybody goes home and for the vast majority of city dwellers home is somewhere other than where they live. Only a little over a million of the 7 million people who currently live in greater Hangzhou are actually from here. The transport system was already in its usual thrice annual holiday melt-down, the snow has just exasperated the problem and like everything in China on an epic scale. As an indicator I read today that the number of people stranded in train stations in the city of Guangzhou has dropped from half a million to around two hundred thousand. That’s a lot of people.

Fortunately I don’t have to go anywhere for another week (we’re off to the outlaws for New Year of course) and here in Hangzhou the office is walkable from home and the pub is walkable from the office.