Visas and Americans

Well, this is where things stand right now: The purse issue has been sorted ^_^ Huzzah! I have a new card, have withdrawn the tuition fees and can start shoppi-- I mean studying normally... with money. hem.

This coming Saturday is the start of a national holiday for Chinese National Day *hip-hip-hooray* In short we have an entire week off to do with as we will ^^ A lot of the peeps from Edinburgh University went to study in Dalian 大连, on the peninsula to the north of Beijing - my friend from there, Ruth, is getting married next August and has decided she wants to get her dress from Suzhou 苏州, near Shanghai, which we now find is the wedding capital of Asia There's a street called Tiger Hill that is apparently dedicated entirely to wedding dresses, some of which you can buy good quality for the equivalent of £20 *dies* There are some crazy shops that do mad baroque-style dresses as well XD I might get one.

Because of that randomer stealing my purse I've only just been able to get the application for a residence permit through to processing stage... My tourist visa expires next week, so it's a bit of an urgent thing - I through enough tantrums, did everything everyone told me to, and eventually I got the application through in enough time to merit getting my passport back the day before we fly to Suzhou <---- But is it going to work like that? Hell no. Because I am one of those lucky people cursed with an apostrophe in my name, meaning the advanced Chinese foregin bureau cannot input me in to their database -____- long and the short is I probably won't have my passport for another 2 weeks. Why this is a problem: a) I need to catch a plane, if not I have to shell out another thousand kuai for train tickets (15 hours) to Hangzhou 杭州, b) hotels tend to want a form of ID to allow you to stay there, since my drivers' license was also stolen I have nothing. nada. bar some photocopies of my passport >_< The only option I forsee is harassing the nice english-speaking girl in the visa office and getting her to yell at someone else so they process me faster >_< I'm not holding out hope the bureau will have taken the initiative and just left out the bloody apostrophe.

Classes are going ok. There's a problem with comprehension purely because some of the teachers talk way too fast, one of them seems to be an aerobics instructor trapped in a teacher's body -_- I'm also stuck in the corner with an American who seems to believe he's a compelte authority on Chinese. As he has told me many times: My Chinese is completely clouded by my thick English accent, and the Korean students are just straight-out terrible speakers. The main faillure of this analysis is that the Koreans and I can understand each other perfectly... <-- This guy has become quite a problem.
At first we thought there were just a few cultural differences between the Brits and this American. Then I realised: No. He's just a selfish, rude asshole. If he isn't talking, he doesn't care. We'll manage to get a conversation going, and if it doesn't invovle him he makes ridiculous, unrelated comments about his life that no one cares about. If I here once more how hard it is to be gay and mormon I will shoot him. Same stories over and over again. Last night we went to a lovely Italian place (ironic slightly) and spent 3 hours listening to him fuss about how a 30-something Japanese girl was trying to ask him out. In reality she was asking whether America had laws against relationships where there was a large age-gap. -_______________-

Anyway! It's 7:30 and I need to get dressed and find something to ingest ^^ A bon day to you all!