Call me SiMoN !!

Exams time is like judgement day for every student, but it's inevitable. I'm going to have my exams within 18 days from now and to be honest, I'm nervous, but helpless. All I can do is to cram everything given and taught by the lecturers. Unlike secondary school, I haven't had any exams prior to now, so the exam formats are still strange and unknown to me.

Christmas is coming soon, but it will be a lonely Christmas for us (Tiffiny and I). We have each other, but nothing is comparable to celebrating Christmas with our beloved families. Receiving presents is one thing, but the warmnest and feeling are different when you have to celebrate such a joyful and sacred event. In China, religious activities are seriously banned because in the concept of China Communist Party, such a small party can be a threat to their national status and religion is considered an obstacle for the nation to develop freely and completely. I don't really approve this "idea" because spiritual development is really helpful as it relieves spiritual pain and provides undefined strength for its believers.

It will be different Christmas in a non-religious country. There is always something missing when there is no religios elements in a religious event. But anyway, I'll try to cherish this special Christmas in a foreign place, other than my home sweet home.

Today, we had our first in-class exam for Hospital English Conversation. Basically, the aim of the class is to teach the medical students how to interact with their patients. Throughout the whole class, I've learned a lot of medical terms and time is insufficient for me to digest them all. But for the conversation part, I didn't really learn much from it because after the introduction of certain illnesses, the teacher will just let us partners to play roles of doctor and patient.

Last week, we had our first round of oral exam, which requires every partner to stand in front of the class and the "doctor" will try to diagnose the "patient's" condition according to the differential diagnosis. Tiffiny and I did it quite good, if that's what the teacher meant when he said "Very good, guys!". Half of the class haven't had their turn yet because every partner had their turn according to their name list (which is noted down based on their seats). When the whole class finished their first round, we had our second round conversation, Sore Throat, and we have to switch our roles with our partner. As usual, everyone had their turn according to their seat location. And this was when the annoying thing happened.

Tiffiny and I (and my friend's team) waited patiently for our turn as the teams in front of us had to give their conversation first. And in a sudden of no where, two teams just overtook our turn and pretended to sit in front of us. Because of these two teams who don't have a clue of what "wait for your turn" means, our turn was postponed. D*mn you all! We had been using this wait-for-your-turn approach since the first day of the class, unless the teacher asked for volunteers or pointed out your team. This is just outrageous.

One of these "outrageous" team were my roommates and their attitude has long been an eye-sore for me. Their arrogance really get into my skin and they are the only person in my room whom I really dislike, especially the other guy who is shorter. He seemed to enjoy teaching people everything, sounds like a know-it-all guy. He even tried to teach me thoeries of playing guitar, though he didn't know how to play. Stop telling Bill Gates how to make Microsoft. I can play guitar far better than you do, and you don't have the right to teach me like I'm a guitar noob. He stopped annoying me after I kept my guitar in my guitar bag, where it is unreachable from him. He once took my guitar and placed it in his room, instead of giving it back to me and say thank you. Quite a dominant guy, if that's the proper word to describe him.

After the exam, though I lost my turn to perform today, at least I've learned something very important about these two guys. A good precaution before getting myself into their traps. When they returned to our dorm, they acted like nothing had happened, but actually some of us were seriously annoyed by their act.

Medical school, known to have gathered most of the elite students (I'm not trying to convey any intelligence or ability discrimination), but because of their intelligence, most of them are seriously damaged by their anxiety and lust of being the best (or better). Well, this is life. I think I have to get myself used to it. "Simon, just endure when you can, or just ignore them." A good advice.

Hai, is this what we called "the unfortunate event"? My bike was stolen two days ago when I parked it at the parking lot below our classroom building! I'm trying to suppress myself from condemning those bastards, but it's very hard.

Two of my roommates lost their bike, and one of them lost two of his bikes. Unlucky, huh? Since the bicycle theft, students complained to the security department to installed one or two surveillance camera around the parking lot, but all they did was installing a few light bulbs there. Maybe the school is trying to ignore us students from causing more troubles for them and they did something as simple as possible to shut us up.

Ever since that day, when my roommates lost their bikes, some of my friends went to buy better quality locks. Original one, instead of the pirated brand. And for myself, I didn't buy a really good lock because I thought it was too costly and unnecessary as I already got one and that was sufficient for me. The next few weeks were quite safe and nothing bad happened. Compared to others, I am the only one using the chain lock, which they considered the lousiest lock because you just have to keep on stabbing the key hole to unlock the whole thing. I didn't buy that as much as others did, anyway.

Maybe it was my pay back for not being sincere with my bicycle's security. Maybe I was really that unlucky to become those filthy bastards target. We complained the whole matter to the security guards on shift and all they did was giving us a whole bunch of excuses. "Sorry wor, sometimes we just didn't notice anything peculiar when we were changing our shift." "What? Many people lost their bicycle too, so don't think it's the end of the world, okay?" "Stop fingering us security guards without any proves, okay?!" Waliu... My friends told me to complain as if I've lost my head and exaggerate about the situation. But, frankly speaking, I was completely empty and when they gave me all those excuses, nah, what for argueing with them? I've lost my bicycle and talking to them was a waste of time.

Now, all I could do i sto assure myself with a very useful assurance when you lost something or being treated in a very unexpected manner, "This is China mah...what can you do about it?" All I wish is that I could cope myself with the whole culture in China as soon as possible.

Buy a new bicycle or not? Dilemma...

Before, I'd mentioned about the dancing practice which kept me busy for quite some time, and all the hard work and sweat were all for that 2 hours performance (or less). So far as I could recall, I had my first stage dance when I was at the Chinese Language and Cultural College 华文学院 in conjunction to the Water Festival. Well, I won't be using much time briefing about the Water Festival, but it was fun and wet.

As for the dancing practice, we were "recruited" to perform during the GuangZhou International Tourism Expo at TianHe Stadium 天河体育馆. The organization we are in is called CT, abbreviation for Cultural Troupe in GuangZhou. It was sad to tell you guys about it, but we are actually the last Cultural Troupe representing Malaysia with truly Malaysians in China. The CT groups in Beijing and Shanghai had already been disbanded due to insufficient source of energy. In fact, the dancers for CTs in Beijing and Shanghai were actually China mainland students, instead of Malaysian students!! Wow, that is a really pathetic fact to be heard of. So, I guess we as the last surviving CT group, we have to struggle harder to maintain its survival. To be more realistic, we have to do so too because we will be able to maintain our alternative financial source as we will receive extra reward for each performance we performed (occasionally).

Back to my actual topic, the performance was on the 29-30th of November, accompanied by the cold and windy weather. I'll just neglect talking the training, as there were a lot of conflicts and misunderstanding throughout the training (a very common phenomena). I was actually confused about my feelings towards the performance. The mixture of nervousity and ecstasy confused me. I was nervous because that was my newbie experience for performing in front of the public and mass medias. I was ecstatic because I had the chance of training my guts dancing in front of so many people, with my friends.

My friend saw this in the newspaper regarding the Expo.

On the way to our so called "fitting-room"...

I like those balloons.

This is the stage. Try to zoom in the photo. Those dancers were barely wearing any clothes!! Woohooo!!
Here the "giant" booth I've mentioned just now.

The typical posters of Malaysia, with no other races except the Malays.

Empty...

This is our "fitting-room"...in the middle of the booth...

Jun Hao with his cosmetician (she's just our CT president)

Caren with the real cosmetician (our dancing Cikgu, he is really good with what he's doing)

Tiffiny!! It's so rare to see her with any make ups, but she was gorgeous anyway with it.

Me! Our president said that I didn't need any make up coz my skin was already fair enough. A compliment?

Tiffiny looked so different in this photo.

Notice the girl's emotion at the right.

Tiffiny with her Indian make up.

Qi Song wore his Sarawakian costume, and it was windy and cold, and...

...he was freezing as Iban's outfit was very simple and little.

It was very squeezy to change our costumes under the booth and we barely had any space to sit or squat. The lack of privacy was a serious issue because the visitors were holding cameras and some of those irresposible people took photos of those girls changing their costumes. Though the girls did their safety measure, those horny and lusty old man were too over with their action. Despise them.

Me in my Malay costume. Kind of suit me, but...
Me and Tiffiny~
4 Malay muskeeteers!

We 6 newbies in CT! Handsomes and beauties!

Honestly, I think those Malay costumes suited me quite fit, it is always weird for a Chinese to look good in Malay costume. This is not racial discrimination, but I don't think I will look good in Chinese costume. Kinda sad. But anyway, a lot of visitors asked Tiffiny to take photo with them and that was a great honour because I didn't see many of our other CT members being asked to take photo by any visitors. To my surprise, a lady approached me with her friend and asked me to take photo with her. Hehe. At least that was a good compliment and confirmation for myself.

Here's Tiffiny with a star-looking lady.

Lol, I looked stupid and stiff in this one. Shy mah!!

We were quite early before the performance, so we had our lunch there, provided by a Singaporean cuisin restaurant. The food was very Malaysian (Singapore and Malaysia same one lah) and it was actually our first time eating a very Malaysian style curry after being in China for almost 3 months. Curry in GuangZhou tasted very weirdly, not spicy enough. Besides curry, we had fried rice and friend noodles. We enjoyed the food so much, especially the curry.

This is the fried noodle. Fried noodle actually tasted better than fried rice.

This is the fried rice, but it tasted a bit different.

The whole exhibition lasted for two days, and we had two different sets of dance. The first package mainly consisted of Malay dances; the second package had more ethnic dances: Malay, Chinese, Indian, Kadazan, Iban and more. Personally, I could remember the dancing steps for the first package clearer, but the second package was quite strange for me because I always forget the steps.

Me acting macho in Kadazan outfit! ^^

Iban and Kadazan.

Iban and Indian.

Wearing those costumes for the girls made them look fatter because the girls had to wear so many clothes at a time. Costumes and accessories for the girls were so much more complicating than the guys. The performance went on smoothly, with no technical problems, but I did a lot of mistakes during the dance. I forgot some steps, did some actions too fast, and many more. Embarrassing la! At least I admitted my mistakes. The only thing that really pissed me off is that some people when they did some mistakes, instead of admitting their mistakes, they talked about others' mistakes and complained why others didn't do so. By doing so, other people will not realize the mistakes that those particular people had made. Clever hoh.

Here's a short clip of our dancing. This is the package one dance.


This is the package two dance.


Two weeks of intensive training, two hours of performing. It was an unforgetable experience for a green guy like me, especially when it comes to performing on stage. When I came back from the stadium, I arranged all my costumes and took pictures of them. Enjoy!

The first Malay costume.

Second set of Malay outfit.

Kadazan outfit.

Last but not least, my Chinese costume.

That's all for today's post. While writing this post, I caught a flu and my nose became so stuffy that I could hardly breathe. The weather in GuangZhou right now is cool and windy, unlike Beijing which is freezing. I can just wear shorts and sleeveless T-shirt sometimes, but sometimes, I had to wear my thick jacket and looked like a dumpling.

Got to go to sleep now. Good night!

See ya!