Backpacking day one

Packing was interesting: I ended up with two bags of extra clothes I could't fit into my two backpacks. I spent several minutes relearning how to adjust straps to desired lengths. I found an esky that I had left in the top of my cupboard and completely forgotten about. I found out that a friend lived just opposite me from the main road and that he was willing to store my extra stuff (Thanks again!).

Walking around in the hot Canberra weather, I learned how to use my backpacks. It took me a while to realise that I could wear one on the bag and the other on the front; that you can use the straps to support the weight of the packs; that there are always two straps that can be strapped over the front of one's body. I will be able to bring 30 KG on Malaysia Airlines, so this is the first time that I have travelled overseas and not worried about the weight!

It will be freezing in Hénán, so I'm bringing the sleeping bag that I bought for participating in the ANU Mountaineering Club. And when I wrapped it up by rolling it out tightly as I sat on it, I was reminded of my one camping trip in the Snowy Mountains (in which I only brought one change of clothes for the whole weekend and had to borrow stuff from everyone. Let's hope I'm better prepared this time).

I am also bringing some cash, travel EFTPOS cards for HK, a MP3 player, a cellphone, an international student ID, travel itineraries, warm clothing, a seat pillow, a watch (that I can't figure out how to tune), running shoes, gloves (I hope they're still in there!), socks, underwear, passport/visa, earplugs, face masks for pollution (which I got in the mail on the day I moved out), a waterproof jacket, a padded jacket, a medical kit, medicine, extra bandaids, notebooks and stationary, travel insurance and accommodation details, and finally, a travel diary my mum gave me... which included a sense of adventure and a book in its "To bring" list. I should have thought the sense of adventure was automatically included! In any case, I should probably buy protein powder, creatine, icepacks and power transformers as well...

I was given a lot of advice about travelling in China: I should only speak Chinese, I should never drink tapwater, I should stay away from street food, I should plan the taxi to the hotel before I arrive, I should always look like I am going somewhere. 

I am now a student backpacker.

Preparing for my trip to YunTai Mountain International Culture And Martial Arts School

Where do I begin? I will be going to a school in Central China in Winter. It will be freezing. There will be no heating or hot showers. I will be training for at least 4 hours a day. I will be able to practice my Mandarin and perhaps learn more French and German while I'm at it. And the journey may be dangerous at times. But I'm not the type to give up, so I figure that I might as well prepare for the experience as well as see what people like me, who have never been athletic or fit, can learn from this experience.

This is the first time I am travelling overseas, and as a young female, I will have to exercise utmost caution! Like arrange transfers from the airport before I arrive. So I book a hotel. I can use Uber to get to the hotel. But what about all the exploring I'll want to do in Beijing? I can't stay in hotels, schools and transit the whole time!

It will be freezing. And I do not respond well to cold. When you're cold, your muscles stiffen, you're more prone to injury. The showers will be cold. There will be snow. We may even get wet. We will have to clean our clothing by hand in cold water.

But everyone there will be experiencing the same amounts of coldness, and I can prepare for it by bringing heat packs and adequate clothing; as well as getting myself used to cold. In the beginning of November, I did two things: I began sleeping with the window open so that it would be cold in my bedroom (which didn't work because I couldn't get to sleep in the midst of doing exams), and I stopped wearing long sleeved clothing (which I actually coped with better on cold nights).

The biggest challenge for me at the Martial Arts School will be trying to get to sleep when I have been exercising all day, have just forced my body under a cold shower head, and am lying there shivering to death. It will be vital to get completely dry and wear as much clothing to bed as possible. My sleeping bag isn't that great, but it might help.

Another challenge will be adjusting to the food. I read that it's quite common for travellers to get diarrhea. But that'll be fine: As long as I am careful, stay away from Zhengzhou street food and get to the martial arts school safely, I will be fine (probably).

It's quite lucky that I decided to get into skiing this year, because I got an idea of what sort clothing you should bring to a location in which it is snowing and one is exercising. At the ANU Mountaineering Club, we went to camping skiing trips, where we had to bring food, tents, sleeping bags and LOTS of non-cotton, breathable clothing. Another extracurricular thing that prepared me for this trip was orienteering. We spend hours and hours running through the coldest hours of the day and through all types of weather. Therefore, probably the biggest lesson I've learned is that if you buy gear that is shitty and doesn't suit you, expect to buy 5 more of the same. I already spent a lot of money on thermal underwear and waterproof jackets. I have read that you can buy very good quality clothing from the academy itself, but I still want to be prepared before I go.

Speak of the devil: money. Everything to do with travel seems to incur a huge cost. I wasn't expecting to go on exchange when I paid for my return flight to China, so there will probably be an extra cost there. Because I misread something on the CUHK application guidelines, I ended up wasting money on a bank draft they didn't want. I included vaccines cause Hepatitis A and B, and Typhoid are listed as health risks for China. Here, I'll write up a list (in $AUD):

• Chinese Visa ($110)
• Passport photos for China Visa, HK Visa, CUHK application and identification at the martial arts school ($22)
• Hong Kong Visa and CUHK application for later ($610)
• Unnecessary bank draft that I had to reprocess ($100)
• Bus to Sydney Airport ($30)
• Plane from Sydney to Beijing ($1300)
• Fee for changing the return flight to May
• Plane from Beijing to Zhengzhou  ($160
• Plane from Zhengzhou to Hong Kong
• Vaccines ($150)
• Travel insurance for China ($190)
• Waterproof jacket ($70)
• Other warm gear ($200+)
• Protein bars ($
• Travel power adapter
• 60 L backpack ($200)
• Enough contraception pills for 6 months ($28)
• Phone credit
• Heat packs
• Misc ($30)

So many costs! And then there's the constant exercise! And there's the language barrier! In any case, keep your eyes peeled for posts on Tora Shotokan Karate (I'm doing a seminar this weekend), Beijing and adapting to life at the martial arts school!

Mandarin Review: 成／to become

One of the chapters in New Practical Chinese Reader is called 你快要成“中国通”了/you are almost becoming a "China hand". It is pronounced as chéng, and the character has the same pronunciation and tone as 诚 (indeed/if).

Example sentences of 成 also include 成了明星/he became a star. In the meaning of "accomplish," example sentences are 成不了大事/cannot achieve great deeds; 他是个能成大事的人/he is a great achiever. You can also use 成 to indicate that something is alright. E.g.成！就这么办 / ok, go ahead or 没有你可不成 / (we) are not ok without you. 成 can also mean "one tenth" as in 三成／ thirty percent.

Synonyms include

• 成为 （為）： 成为热门话题／become a hot topic (conversation).
• 变成: 把水力变成电力/the water was changed into electrical power .
• 为/為: 一分为二 ／ divide into two。
• 做： 用这间（這間）房子做教室／turn this room into a classroom.In Japanese 成 (the na in nasa) can mean to achieve or make. e.g. 大事をなす / to achieve greatness, and 意味をなさない / doesn't make sense.

In Cantonese, 成 means "succeed" and is used in the word 䏲成 ／regard as.

It seems to have a positive connotation of completion.

下年我成四年级学生。也留学生。所以，我会在大学宿舍住。

Mandarin Review: 年级 / 年級 / niánjí / level, grade

While I'm in Hong Kong, I will be studying Mandarin/Pútōnghuà. And my Chinese final exam is on Thursday. So every day this week, I will do an article on a new Chinese word with pronunciation, example sentences, character meaning, etymology, usage, special notes on stroke order, and if I can manage it, usages in popular media, twitter and/or literature where they are relevant. I want to learn Traditional characters, so wherever the traditional commonly differs from the Simplified I shall include them after the simplified or in brackets where there is only one or two different characters in a sentence. My assumption in these articles is that they are not for absolute beginners of Chinese: Ideally, they are suited for people at my level: People who have been studying Mandarin for one year outside of China.

My first object of analysis is niánjí 年级, which is the word that you use when you're talking about which "year level" or grade of school you are at. It's a counter word, so it always comes after numbers and before nouns, as in the sentence 你几年级？／ Nǐ jǐ niánjí? ／lit: you how many year level? / trans: what is your year level? 是三年级学生 / Wǒ shì Sān niánjí xuéshēng / I am a third year student. Next year, after I complete my exchange, I will be a 四年级学生. 我的妹妹唸几（幾）年级？Wǒ de mèimei niàn jǐ niánjí? 我想。。。我的姐妹都在TAFE唸一年級。

Synonyms include 等级, Děngjí, which I guess, since 级 means "level" by itself and 等 can mean "grade/class" on its own e.g. 共分三等 /Gòng fēn sān děng / (something that has been) classified into three grades, indicating a more general meaning than 年级, which literally means "year level." 品级 / Pǐnjí can be used for "grade" as well, but since 品 means goods, it may refer to the quality of merchandise or something. 级别 / Jíbié refers to one's level within an organisation as opposed to their year level within the marking system, e.g. 教授级别 / Jiàoshòu jíbié / professor level. or 学生级别 / Xuéshēng jíbié. For instance, 可以申请教练级别的对应关系 / 可以申請教練級別的對應關係 / Xuéshēng jíbié kěyǐ shēnqǐng jiàoliàn jíbié de duìyìng guānxì / Students may choose the teaching level curriculum (That's not the literal translation, but if you check the website, which is one of many martial arts schools in China, you can tell the meaning from context.) 年度 ／niándù refers to the the calendar year, e.g. 年度计划 / 年度計劃 / Niándù jìhuà / annual plan.

Now for the characters: 年 can be tricky for beginners to write nicely because they don't realise that the vertical line through the middle must go last. But as a basic character with a similar pronunciation to the Japanese nen, it is self-explanatory. 級 has the phonetic component ji which it shares with 及 and极 (as in 好极了）, and the radical means "silk," which I have no idea how to explain. I mean, why on earth would you use a wood radical for 极？

You may notice that a lot of words have two characters with the same meaning, such as 等级. I'm not sure myself yet why this is the case, I think it has something to do with how Classical Chinese has had to adapt to European style writing. Another thing you may notice is that when reading Chinese and trying to get the meaning, you often have to read the entire sentence (at the very least) to get the meaning of the various components. This is because Chinese, like English, is highly inflected, meaning that meanings are dependent on the location in the sentence.

The meaning is the same for written Cantonese (pronunciation: nìhn4kāp1), but not for Japanese (nen), which omits the 級. The first part of 三年学生　sannen gakusei sounds almost similar to Mandarin!

＊Note: Example sentences are taken from the Cambridge Chinese dictionary or scribe origins.

10 Things I learned from applying for an exchange programme

1. It's always worth applying for and finishing exchange programmes even if you don't think you'll make it.
2. Institutions that are involved in the exchanges are primarily concerned with filling spaces with reasonably adept candidates.
3. It's always monumentally easier to get all paperwork done in person if possible.
4. It can be difficult to find teachers to give you academic recommendations, but this is easier if you do the exchange later on in your degree.
5. Some universities have 2 semesters, whilst others have 2 terms. Timetabling always varies.
6. Many courses in Hong Kong are taught in English.
7. Cantonese has a lot of glottal stops.
8. Hong Kong is not a popular place to go on exchange in Australia (everyone wants to go to China or Japan).
9. It's like a job application: You have to explain what you have to offer and why your exchange is worth all the fuss.
10. The more communication with staff from institutions and fellow exchange students, the easier it is to fulfil all the requirements.