Visiting Japanese studies

One of the studies that hold my interests is Japanese. I’m just so fascinated with the country and Asia itself. So two birds with one stone, right?
This week I went to visit the university and attended some classes. Usually I just look at their schedules and walk right in, but this time I could only attend classes after I’d registered.
And so I ended up attending classes with a bunch of other people interested in Japan. Although…interested in Japan? More like interested with anime, manga, fashion…..I don’t really think that’s a good reason to study a language and culture. You will have to spend a lot of hours just learning the language and you will also learn about politics, sociology and relations/comparisons between other countries. Seems a bit of a waste of time and money to make all that effort just so you can watch anime. Better study something else and learn the language on the side.

Another thing I’ve noticed is how those people didn’t seem to be very critical about the content and job perspectives. They found everything great and wonderful and just asked about the chances of studying abroad or living in Japan. Doesn’t seem all that important to me but maybe I’m just weird that way. To me it’s more important if it’s possible to combine it with a job, what kind of  job perspectives there are and what the dropout rates are. In 1st year about 150-200 students are accepted. By the time the second semester arrives 1/3 will have left and in 3rd year only 50-70 student are left. Of those even less decide to Master in Japanese.

It frightens me. What if I do decide to study it only to find the language too difficult? My next study will definitely have to be the right one. I can’t afford to lose any more time and money. I talked to the head of the Japanese section and she gave me permission to walk in anytime I want so I’ll have a good sense of what the study is like. Now I only need the alumni database and a Japanese textbook to see if the difficulty isn’t too high.
Let’s hope it isn’t.

Tags: japanese studies, university

And the journey continues!

This is a story about a little, little girl. After this little, little girl graduated she decided to go Taiwan for a month and fell in love!
Then, soon afterwards she went to college.
But, once there….

Tags: china, job, university

Letterday

Today I got a letter from Japan. I started a letter exchange with a girl from Sapporo. The letters are in English and Japanese. I can read the English just fine, but don’t even get me started on the Japanese….I don’t even know which syllable is written on the paper! It all looks so squiggly…I can read Japanese from books just fine, but this…I wonder if she’d feel insulted when I ask her to write down all the syllables separately on a paper so I can get to know her handwriting. I don’t want to depend on the English part to know what she’s written!

Makes me wonder though, her western handwriting is really clear and beautiful. I wish mine was like that. My Japanese handwriting is better than my native handwriting, how messed up is that? And I can practise and practise but it never seems to get any better.
I wonder how it is that in one writing one can have a beautiful handwriting and in the other a chicken scratch.

Tags: handwriting, penpal

Food on puberty.

It’s been quite a while since my last post. I apologise. I’ve started studying. Anthropology to be exact. I swear, never in my whole life have I felt so lost! And that’s saying a lot! Don’t get me wrong, I like studying(sort of..) but I just feel so lonely!

At my old school I always had people to socialize with. But now…sure, I talk with people but it just stays really superficial and you don’t really meet up with them again. I’m always going to college now not knowing who I’ll end up sitting next to. Most of the time they’re people I don’t know. And then I try to start-up a conversation. And they are so boring…where do you live, where were you born, what do you think of this lesson…pffff. And if I don’t ask anything then they’ll just stay quiet.

But other than that I’m doing great! Did you know that puberty isn’t innate? Apparently it depends on the culture you grow up in. I’m still ready the book so I can’t really go into depth about it. But it makes sense if you think about it. I mean, societies aren’t the same everywhere and when you look back at history the people then didn’t have to make that many choices. It was like: you are born into this family so you will probably end up doing this job and marrying this person. So there was less of a reason to go through puberty.

And what else have I read? I read something about poo! Poo you say? Why poo? Well, poo is also looked at differently depending on where you live. But that’s for another time ;p Right now it’s nightmarket time!
Ever since I went to Taiwan I’ve fallen in love with nightmarkets. And a while ago we had a nightmarket here! Just like the one from last year.

Only this time it was bigger and there were more people. So many more that getting your food took a long time! I had to wait about 30 minutes I think for my Korean quesadilla! Didn’t make it any less tasty though(is less tasty proper English?). I also had some kind of fishstuff with bread. All those other things I didn’t try because I was(and still am) low on cash. But I saw a stand selling food made out of pumpkin, cupcake and chocolate stands, bara stands, stands with mediterranean food and Indian food. But no gulaabjamun this year   For those who don’t know: gulaabjamun is the brown stuff in the post from last year.

And now this foodlover is going to study. Which I’ve been doing on and off all day. I’m starting to think the whole ”45minutes-15minutes” method is not working for me. After the 15 minutes I usually don’t go back to studying for a long time.

Tags: foodparty, nightmarket, puberty

Baibai sweet potato country, hello home!

After one month of being in Taiwan it took some time getting used to being back home again. I felt as if I had too much time on my hands. When I was in Taiwan I would usually get up around 6 or 7 and go to bed at 12 or later. And I would walk around all day.

Taiwan was so much fun! I travelled from north to south and would have liked to go to the eastern part as well but there simply wasn’t enough time. I would stay local’s home’s and sometimes they would show me around or have dinner with me. The people in Taiwan were so nice. There weren’t a lot of foreigners there so sometimes they would stare at me or make some small talk. But I did not feel threatened at all. It’s not like in the west when a girl’s traveling alone and men will bother her. They just let me go my own way. Maybe they are just better mannered or maybe they are just too shy ;p

And whenever I went out I would always be given freebies. One lady even gave me her pineapple! Which I ate that day and was delicious. My trip in Taiwan certainly turned out to be a culinary trip. I’ve tried out so many things. Here a few of my favourites: Taro popsicle, tarocake, tarobread(Ijust love taro!), sushitaiwanese style( like with fishpowder on it and stuff), mochi, stinky tofu, intestines, hotpots, curry icecream, pyramid dumplings, normal dumplings, fried taro, freshly caught fish and lots more!  And you know what the best part of this all is? I didn’t gain any weight at all! In fact, I lost some! But of course when I went on a trip too Brussels I gained weight for some strange reason….karma I think…

I send a lot of emails to family and friends and I’m thinking of translating them into English and posting them here.
For now you guys will just have to make do with some pictures:

Only three pictures for now guys. The pictures are too big for me to put up a lot of them. For some reason my cam does not have the option to make the pictures take up less space…I will try putting the memory card into someone else’s camera and see if I can make them smaller that way.

Tags: Taiwan, Taiwantrip

Fashionshow

The designers are from Antwerpen fashion Academy and are in their third year. They had an assignment to make a collection based on non-western traditional fashion and had to tune it to our time. The names of the designers are shown in the video. I like the ones I put the slideshow up for. The fashionshow was during the Amsterdam fashionweek.

Tags: Amsterdam fashionweek, Antwerpen Fashion Academy, Fashionshow

Self mutilation to reach the beauty ideal

Beauty is important to a lot of people in this world. Most of them are female. Most girls want to be thin, have long hair and have big breasts.
They go on a diet(which is not the right way), eat very little and excercise a lot. Some girls even get plastic surgery to look the way they think others will find beautiful.
I have also heard this story:
Asian people would like to look more western so they get nosejobs done and make their eyes look bigger with circle lenses or get surgery done on their eyes. But I’ve heard that there are also girls who don’t want to spend money on surgery. They have another trick to make their eyes look bigger. I’ve heard that they use a needle and go along their eyelids with it.
I don’t know anyone who does this and don’t know if it really works, but it probably hurts like hell!
This just shows that when it comes to beauty this world is mad.

Tags: beauty, eyelid, selfmutilation

One ticket to station North please!

This is Gare Du Nord, a Dutch jazzband singing in English. Enjoy!

Tags: Gare Du Nord, Jazz

Taiwan

I’ll be in Taiwan for a whole month. In fact I’m in Taiwan right now but this is a scheduled post.
Why am I on holiday in Taiwan? Originally I was planning on going to Hong kong with two friends. So I worked a lot and put all my money on the bank. But unfortunately(or fortunately) our friendship didn’t really survive.. And since I had all the money anyways I thought by myself, why not go alone? But then I thougt…mmm I don’t speak any Chinese..and I heard that Hong kong is quite expensive..so I began looking for alternatives.
Taiwan is not a big country, it’s civilised,people speak English, has good food and nice things to see.
Here’s some pictures of where I’ll be going(don’t own them):

  

I’m not yet sure where the house is but I’ll ask the tourist informationcentre. There’s also a Hello Kitty McDonald’s and a Hello Kitty restaurant and bakery!

Tags: Hello Kitty, Taiwan

The return of the bird!

And I’m back again on wordpress! What have I’ve been doing the last few months? Simply put preparing for exams! And I passed! Tomorrow is my graduation day! I’m so happy I passed. Those months were really stressful for me. I’ve lost some weight. I had to write an essay and do some research with someone but it didn’t go well at all! And I also had practicals for languages and I was paired with an autistic classmate of mine. Working with him was really horrible. He kept forgetting everything and never did anything! And when I confronted him he would not really react at all. It was as if he didn’t understand what the big deal was.
In the week I had to work with him I lost 5 kilo’s!!!!! I was so glad when it was over!

What else have I been doing? I had to decide which university I would attend and pick a study. I kept having doubts but eventually I applied for anthropology. Now I can only hope for a decent job with it…I think I will specialise in Asia and politics and I will try to do a Honoursprogramme next year. That should increase my chances on a good job. And of course I’ll have to do some networking wihooo….

I was also really busy planning for my Taiwan trip! Just a few more days and then will come the greatest time ever!!!
But more about my Taiwan trip later^^

Tags: exams, graduation