欢迎光临

Welcome to China, foreign friend, your honorable presence is really cherished.

You wish, ah.

Things started pretty badly as I was waiting half a day (literally) in Rome airport, trying to find something or someone to enjoy my long wait there. My wish never come true, so I ended up waiting three hours in the most boring hall ever, trying to speak to lame strangers. I could never wish this pain even to my worst enemy, ever. Till finally the time came, and I rushed to China Airlines to check in and... wait another half an hour, tasting a bit of China as I was the only Westerner in a long queue of Asians. Welcome back to Asia babe! Oh no wait, you're still in Italy.

As the departure time approached, none of my fellow travellers had appeared. Surprise surprise, their flight from Heathrow was half an hour late, and I was going to fly by myself. Laaavley.

Eventually, Z. did turn up 30 mins before the take off, and I expressed all my relief screaming a loud "OH MY FUCKING GOD", so loud that everyone turned around; some laughing, some visibly shocked. What a poor choice of words, but nothing described better my feelings. What happened to the other eight brave comrades? Well, they lost their flight, had to stay one night over in Rome, take a flight to Tokyo the morning after, fly to Shanghai from there and discover that Alitalia had lost all their luggage, which was delivered to the hotel four days later. Alitalia has indeed new loving costumers.

Plane full of crying children, annoying mothers who would constantly try to squeeze me into a smaller space; you know, loving mothers often have the brilliant idea that their condition would allow the to do whatever, even completely lay down to relax and sleep. Careless of the poor passenger behind her seat, forced to live twelve hours of his life in barely twenty square centimeters. At some point I lost all my patience, and started to kick back the seat everytime she tried to squeeze me, ending up in a endless flight that prevented both of us from sleeping. Worth it.
I admit, I was starting to think again "why the hell did I decided to go back to China". Long ago I forgot all China's vices to embrace a pleasant memory. And BUM! Here it is, China is back with its tons of totally uncivil behaviours. Don't get me wrong: I don't care if they spit all over the street, eat as if someone is going to steal their meal, be annoying and loud and stalky since 7 am in the morning. I really don't care. But I genuinely hate cultures that overestimate themselves, do no efforts in welcoming "aliens", let free people without the least respect for others (read: motherfucking lazy mothers on planes. Make your baby shut the fuck up, and make him stop kicking me!) I didn't remember a China so similar to America; what's the use in pretending that every foreigner speaks perfect Chinese, and ignoring the poor guy if he or her has no means to make himself understood? I did remember street vendors and little shops trying to rip you off, in Shanghai is only ten times bigger.

Still, the sense of relief that I had imagined actually came when once again I saw my first dawn in Asia; and was worth all the efforts and troubles I'm going through now. I should stick on that thought for harder times, when really that awesome and perfect feeling will be the only thing stopping me from close myself up in a shell and make the same mistakes I've already committed three years ago. Keep up with the Asians, be strong, be smart, be awesome! At least as awesome as this place is (even when I get lost and need nearly two hours each time to get back. Shanghai ain't the place for me, I get lost too easily).

With Chinese love,

a constantly lost but happy misfit.

BRACE YOURSELF

Brace yourself, you're leaving your teens today. Does it means I'm supposed to be a grown-up now? I'm mourning. Don't really know what makes me so sad; it could be the fact that now everyone expects me to change greatly, and still I feel exactly like yesterday - when I was 19. 

Similar to: 31st of August's SUMMER, enjoyable, sun, hothothot, nice beach and beach volley, whereas 1st of Sept is often pictured as rainy, cloudy, a taste of Autumn. Does this make sense? I'ts just a day, less than 24 hours, weather can't change so greatly. 1st day of September's still summer, and you'll have a wonderful day at the beach enjoying the sea colours. 

Doesn't matter if, as my mother witnessed, every 1st of September since I was born has been a rainy day. Not a normal rainy day, but a pouring day, where cats and dogs where falling from the sky. 

It's still a sunny and warm day inside of me, but the world has apparently already decided that my adulthood has begun, and with it all its rain.

PSY, what would I do without you making me laugh all day long!

DETAILS OF A LANGUAGE

Some details of a language - you don't get them till you are either deeply rooted in this new idiom, or until you're able to compare it to another language that share the same idiomatic and cultural origin. 

Recently I started studying Korean. I know, I should study Chinese, I'm going to China, my degree is in Chinese bla bla bla. But I'm so fascinated by Korean. Plus, it's reverse side than Chinese: Chinese starts easy, as sounds and grammar are not so different from European languages; but man, how hard it gets after, when thousands of characters get in the way?

Korean, reverse: totally nonsense grammar (for us) and weird sound differences (for us). At least they have their own alphabet - which makes kind of sense, and after a while you listen and listen and listen and - guess what? listen, then this weirdo starts to make sense. They both need, anyway, some serious hard study, with at least 2 years of efforts to get to a fluent level of speaking. 

So, thanks to the fact that I'm ages away from such a accomplishment, my head started to make some fun connections and reasoning...which ain't probably right, and a more proficient or a native speaker would just kill me for such shameful comparisons. Still, HA. They're fun. Let's start with the only note my limited Korean vocabulary allowed me:

사람  -  사랑 

Yeah, basically the same thing. Just a tiny geometric difference, the first chose a square, the second was more likely in a circle mood. The former means people (saram) and the latter, ladies and gentlemen, love (sarang). I got sooo excited when I saw this, not-so-quietly hoping that the difference could reflect my philosophy: people are there to be loved, and to love themselves. A person was born to do this, and love has a indissoluble bond with the true nature of mankind. It can be deep deep inside but, unless you're Voldemort, always there is. It's such an hippie concept, I'm pleased with myself for having noticed it (pat-pat).

Also, thanks to Lee Jae-ha (Lee Seung-gi) for sowing the idea lol.

Chinese? Well, I could name a dozen examples. But let's just start with the funnier one...

机

Ji, literally meaning machine. The fun about this word (which nowadays acts more as a suffix) is that transforms every other word into a modern term. Example: poor Chinese farmers, once upon a time used to wash their clothes by hand at the Yangtze river shores: they used to xiyi (洗衣), wash clothes. Adding the infamous ji, you get a washing machine (洗衣机). Birds fly; luckily an airplane ain't a mechanical bird (鸟机) like they're called in most of Cast-away-style movies, but it's simply a flying machine (飞机). Even funnier, if you add chang (field) to the flying machine, what could you get? The only place where these huge things like to rest and meet: the airport (飞机场). Receiving+Sounds+Machine (收音机) makes a radio, as well as Record+Sound+Machine (录音机)... yeah, a tape-recorder.  

So, everything+机 becomes the definition for modern stuff. The ones that still make me laugh my ass off are the Hand-Machine (手机) and the Ear-machine (耳机)... or else called, mobile phone and headphones. I'm seriously in love with Mandarin.

THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL

 Right, if some murderous thingy had happened yesterday night, I bet half of the World could be excused thanks to the same event - who was not watching the Olympics opening ceremony? 

Right, Mr.Bean won cheating. WTF?

Honestly, I was waiting indeed for Danny Boyle's show. At first, I saw a happy green place, with hard-working but smily farmers - and I was like WUT? But then Boyle's style came out, and I was glad he portrayed a rich humanity, reflecting his Trainspotting view more than the latest Slumdog's style. A colourful reality that is a result of beastly impulses, neurosis and controversies rather than an outcome of sympathy and loooove. My mother kept saying how beautiful and encouraging was his view, a positive insight of mankind's best - sorry, where did you see that? For at least the first half I saw destruction, a progress that claimed a really harsh payment in both environment and social relationships. Few men looking up their future, pretending it'd be bright for everyone else, that instead came out to be our own destruction: a tough analysis, a criticism of today's world. The inferno-like kilns embedded the metaphor, and I was both delighted by the insight and scared that the whole ceremony would have kept this path, not really in line with the Olympics' morale.
The message, to me, was crystal clear: if we really want to forge a brighter future, we can't forget our past mistake, neither we should hide them. The future is built on our past, regardless of how bad were our actions. A reflection on what hopefully is going to be our past, and as our ancestors worked hard for a dream we should as well forge our hopes into reality, create peace from war, and mould new principles, from a muddy now to a bright tomorrow. Like the Olympic circles lifting up from kilns. 

One ring to rule them, One ring to find them, One ring the bring them all...

away from Mordor-like kilns?

A ceremony embedding both seriousness (who else would tribute NHS? That was awesome) and a lot of fun. I have never laughed because of a ceremony - I felt amazed, concerned, renewed, informed, but never amused. Starting from a 40 feet tall Voldemort, passing through super-heroines with Mary Poppins's shape, till the kiss that pretty much shut the whole room down.

I laughed my ass off watching that. GO MARY!!

Compared to the we-have-to-be-seriously-awesome-goddamn engaged by Beijing few years before, this was much more relaxed. Take it easy, man. It quite sounded like a message to Asian-feeling driven nations: okay, you gotta be perfect and disciplined, but a laugh sometimes? 

For someone constantly divided between her western inheritance and a deep love for Asia (aka, me) this was too much of a comparison. Two different thoughts crashing together, a serious clash of civilisation brought on within four years time and in a neutral stadium. Which one will be victorious, taking up the lead of the world? Discipline and greatness China-style or Enjoy-it-and-it'll-be-better UK way?

NONSENSE.

 It's not wrong, it's not right, it's just different. A concept that perfectly applies in this context, and it's confirmed by athletes' behaviors I've seen so far. Cultural differences pushed far away for a fair competitions. The greatest thing I've seen was a Chinese swimmer hugging a USA competitor; a warm hugh to genuinely congratulate for her triumph. SOWHAT? That's the awesome Olympic feeling. 

I'm just sorry for the Korean fencer kicked out twice by Italians...lol

OH MYYY? EXOs.

At first, I saw this. And my first reaction was "Oooh myyy, hey gorgeous!"

The second feeling was, needless to say, relief. Just look at these guys. Try to guess who's Korean, and who's Chinese. I might as well write one post about my methods to recognize whether an Asian is Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai or Ect: but I'm positive I'd sound quite racist. Even if it really works. Anyway, the second though was "God, when Chinese guys are beautiful, Koreans can't stand comparison." I mean, look at those guys at the bottom, they're particular, beautiful, hot, and definitely out of the pedophilia/androgynous zone so widely spread in Asian Pop culture. YAY!

Then, this. The VIDEO. 

I can image the producer ticking his checklist. English Epic Intro, done. Cute and hot singers, done. Quotes from Sailor Moon's Exoplanets, done. Sailor Star Fighter Chinese and Korean version, done. Tree of life legend, done. Super-bad villain yet-to-be-uncovered, done. Innovative one market two countries two (or one?) boy band strategy, done. (Which was a stroke of pure genius). 

I wasn't too shocked or surprised. There was the same basic lack of originality, good dancing skills, good-looking boys, and then what's more? It was just a fusion between ShinEE and TVXQ. Don't get me wrong, I love pop-art, pop-life, pop-flashing and saturated colours. Pop-levity. I simply can't stand Pop music. Until 4:19, when the story changed, and a wild Chinese-Canadian appeared:

I can't find or ctrl+stamp the skeleton make-up, he or his producers must regret performing that. But, still. What's that, Aladdin Sane Asian version? I am amazed and horrified at the same time. Horrified because... well, there's not really a because. I can't - to put it simply - accept crossovers and mixture of music genres, especially when you have a pop song and producers decide to randomly insert some rock-rap-alternative-soul-emo details. And wushu. And Flying kicks. Which was awesome, btw.

But. On the other hand, it is true that originality comes from audacity. The big problem is that not always results are as stunning as we imagined it. Anyway, I have never seen something like that in Asia. Something that goes beyond the pretty boy imagery, and introduces the artist in the shiny and glittery pop world. We're far from a true achievement, but this, for Asian markets, it's a breath of fresh air. It's new, it's breaking the brick wall between art and Confucian regime/tradition. And the damn Chinese boy band leader is half Canadian. Are we seriously seeing a true opening of the Asian Great Wall? After Kim Jong-un dancing with Daisy and Mickey Mouse, everything is possible. A unpleasant feeling of fear ignited after half an hour of reflection: they're on the way of perfection. They dance, sing, look (naturally?) beautiful. Producers, through idols, are starting to let go their conception of art, and they are starting creating a new wave, a mixture of old tradition and new ideas combined to form the perfect performance. It's amazing, and once more, I'm glad I'm trying to keep up with the Asians. I'm truly starting to believe that soon they'll take over the world, with a Sino-Korean-Chinese alliance, and in couple of decades we're gonna see the first Hunger Games, contestants: round-eyes. 

The tiny little inner-me feels like Jun-pyo. Imma upset. 

  

LAME

Shit just got real. 

AFS Korea does exist!

Which completely destroyed my dreams of becoming AFS Korea founder. I'm kinda joking about the issue, but deep deep inside I was sad indeed. I still am. Slowly this stupid idea was starting to overcome every realistic future prospective, and creating an AFS office from zero was truly becoming a dream I would have done everything to accomplish.

So, now, I find myself again being at the mercy of the waves, with no goal, no ultimate purpose to pursue, no vaguely precise plan ahead. I'd say I am screwed.

YAY!

Luckily there's still DPRK that needs an AFS office. 

加油！Fighting！ 

God, I'm seriously getting Drama addiction.

YOLO

As this nonsense sentence quickly gains the cool status among teenagers' vocabulary, I'm stuck here back in my hometown, witnessing the cutest mixture of extensive farming and huge polluting factories, which btw inhabitants genuinely define it "home sweet home". BAZINGA!

Uhm, lame. 

Mother keeps pointing out how much money she spends on my education, that I should lose some weight before I go back to China; my car does not follow my orders and instead tries to run over innocent pedestrians; an unknown dialect is spoken pretty much everywhere, and now I'm unable to understand a word. God, that used to be my dialect, I could at least grab a dozen words out of a sentence, enough to make my granny think I could speak bresciano.
Oh, yeah, pressures on "you should stop volunteering and start looking for a job", candidly ignoring the fact that I chose to spend these few weeks in my family's company instead of serving margaritas to enriched tourists on white beaches nearby crystal seas. I would have ended up with money, suntan, maybe sexual fulfillment. Instead, I'm dying trying NOT to incite slaughterous instincts in my mother. 

Life is good, but with this scenario thank God we only live once. So I'm trying to genuinely find anything that can keep my mind busy - not as easy as it may seem, when the only distraction is...my laptop. I spend half of my day studying Korean (when I should study Chinese) and the other half trying to drive a car properly. I even considered the idea of reconciling with other peers in town, but the idea of being treated as a freak that never stays home and just grabs the first occasion to leave is everything but tempting. And I'm positive I'll spend the whole summer trying to teach a few chinese or korean words to people who have the least intention to learn and the greatest need to confirm that these languages are way to complicated to be learned. Which, btw, is true. I'm the stupid one.
A week spent in Pisa with those amazing volunteers and pax for the summer program raised a bit my morale, but now I'm in the desperate need of a talk in Brit English, or - jeez, at least in English. Which, as mentioned before, is kinda impossible, considering that even our official language is an uncommon and mysterious tool...

God, where am I?

Feels like the third world.

Oh, wait. Berlusconi's still trying to gain power and rule Italy.

We still are a third world country. 

STRAWBERRIES ON A PERFECT CAKE

Use your imagination. So far I can say that the best cake I've ever tasted it's an english carrot cake, with fresh carrot-ish flavor mixed with the perfect honey-like savor given by brown sugar, that literally melts in your mouth. Inside the dough is so soft and bubbly, doesn't stay long in your stomach, and after a perfectly satisfying piece you feel as light as a cloud.

Now, figure out what's your favorite cake. Imagine the first bite after a long stressing day - it feels like heaven. And when the perfect topping meets the perfect cake... well, your day is complete.

That's pretty much how an university student feel when finally gets is first (pardon the pun) First in your academic career. That's a goddamn good feeling. Especially after your first essays have gone so badly that you were seriously questioning your mental capacity.

Yes, it feels like strawberries on a perfect cake. 

Fondant au chocolaté...

and Carrot Cake. Now you know how to make me happy.

SPRING ALL OVER

This, is why I love this place so much. It's full of life, art, experiences. Leeds and its students always know how to properly surprise you and make your day. May it be that spring is really around us? I have never seen a sky so blue and beautiful, and grass so soft and full of colours. It's just magic.

This, on the other hand, is why I regret to be in England. Something that really, really, reaaaaally makes me feel sorry for these poor english girl, with not enough money to dress properly. Shame.

C'EST LA VIE. OR MAYBE NOT?

L. was the first person who has told me that, once abroad, the most stupid thing that an expat could ever do is to hang out just with internationals. Or - worse, with people that shares your same nationality. 

It's true. We all know it: if you hang out with locals, your language and pronunciation gets better, you get into local customs way faster and you're probably on the right path to get some good friends despite the differences.

We used to spend much of our time with true Englishmen, just to end up too drunk to even remember any interesting conversation we might have had. That's also English culture, and that's fine. Although you can never get to a level where you can genuinely share opinions, especially in this cold latitude where build up a friendship not-alcohol-based seems to be tabu. Or at least not so easy to build up for latinos :)

So we came to the conclusion (or maybe we're trying to convince ourselves that we're not making a mistake) that perhaps, sometimes, we can also hang out with the hundreds of international students that Leeds luckily has. And for once, I can write about a nice conversation we ended up with about what's good and what's not so good about English educational system.

English schools, especially universities, are widely known as having one of the best way to teach students in order to better introduce them to the work world. Seeing it from an undergraduate perspective, i cannot support neither of the two thesis, but thank to P., a MA student, we saw some clamorous fails.

It's true universities try their best to open up work possibilities. But they also rely way too much on the student himself, giving hints but never complete knowledge. I.e., isn't it weird that for a language student not even a module of Linguistic is compulsory? Linguistic is the basic to study any language, it teaches you how they have formed and it's surely a big help for those who are trying to learn a completely new lingo. Instead, is seen as an elective: in other words, you can do that or you can spend two hours of your week learning about nanotechnology. Which is cool, but how relevant is for your degree?

Also, not much importance is given to history. Which, even from my fresher's point of view, was crystal clear. I mean, I guess in Italy no lecturer would ever ask a vast audience "how many of you have ever heard of the word harem? Who knows what comintern is? Lenin, never heard of him?"

That's because at a GCSE level history is taught just from a UK vision. And later on, if a student can choose whatever he would like to learn, why should he bother? So again, a student is expected to fulfil these huuuuge gaps involuntarily left by schools. It's okay to ask for some personal interests, but isn't it too much? Why a seventeen years old kid should bother reading Anna Karenina if is not vaguely related to what he's studying?

Moreover, this again creates huge gaps between people and social classes. Is not new to Sociology that who is born in a low income family has fewer way to get to knowledge and probably, in it's life time, he will get less and less interested in something that he cannot literally learn and enjoy at school. 

I kind of see this big freedom given to students as a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it raises up an individual able to organise himself, think by himself in any situation and deal with problems a normal Italian student could never deal with. On the other hand, those who do not have the possibilities, will or just enough support to stick to one decision are lost forever.

A way of thinking highly highlighted by the new welfare and educational agenda undertaken by the government: raise by 300% university fees it's a way to discourage people who are not really willing to study from starting a degree, but also a way to stop both those who do not have the money or qualifications to enter any scholarship program.

If Einstein was born in nowadays England, the world would have never known the great physicist who changed so badly twentieth century's history.

C'est la vie. Or maybe not?

TO INSPIRE AT LEAST ONE PERSON

Once upon a time, a 12-year-old girl started to dream to become a journalist after that her mother showed her the books and reports of one of the greatest writers that Italy has ever had: miss Fallaci. She was more than a journalist, she fought every single battle she believed was worth fighting for. She put herself into what she wrote, and she devoted her whole life to show others what wasn't so easy to see. To teach us to think with our own mind instead of following the mainstream, and to deeply analyse human behaviour in both its horrible and magnificent sides. 

The girl that was so badly in love with her it's still there, somewhere. I sincerely been through many more experiences and trouble and journey and people that I would have ever imagined at that age. And the little girl learnt that what her heroin was saying was true, and was everywhere in this world. It's the magic that makes you cry just looking at a picture of a mother holding tight her child, it's what makes you turn your head disgusted every time an injustice is happening, and what makes you step forward in order to stop it. It's protection, love, fear, wisdom, courage. It's everywhere, hidden even where you wouldn't look at.

I almost forgot why I started to write, why I went abroad the first time and why I chose to pursue this kind of life - which, any expat can say, is not always as pleasant as it's pictured to be in Italy. I chose it because I reckoned it was the only way to spread the same message of peace and knowledge that she sent through her books. And as she inspired me, I want to inspire someone else. 

So I'm deeply sorry if I hadn't write in a while. I admit I was quite depressed since few people are following the blog but hey! I won't give up. If there's just one person that reading this pages or the one I wrote when I was sixteen, it will be always worth it. 

With Love,

Saya.