2/04/09
Today we had IS throughout the day. In the morning we had Taoism and Buddhism. We learned how Taoism and Buddhism were established. The lecturer was the same person as yesterday. Today topic was interesting, because i like religion stuff, as religion stuff really makes you think beyond the limits.
After lunch, we had another IS lecture, it was about Traditional Chinese Wedding and Feng Shui. This topic was also interesting, as I get to know how the Chinese celebrate their wedding. Then at around 4 pm was Feng Shui lecture. Feng shui this topic really makes people wonder, because in Feng Shui, things that you won’t be expecting might affect your life, it really keeps you in mystery.
After lesson, we went for a earlier dinner and then went back to our dorm to do our IS summary.
REFLECTION
Today i gained the most information so far in Wuhan, i learned the history of Taoism, Buddhism and gained some knowledge on Feng Shui and Chinese wedding culture.
However i felt that the lecturer doesn’t really tell us what Taoism and Buddhism are really about. I can tell that his knowledge of Taoism and Buddhism is limited. Maybe he just want to briefly explain what Taoism and Buddhism are about...
Next was Chinese weddings i learned that auspicious dates are required for the Chinese wedding, the betrothal and the installation of the bridal bed. A Chinese monk, a temple official or a fortune teller are able to advise on a suitable date based on the couple's birth dates and times. Some may also refer to the Chinese calendar or almanac for good days. Usually, even numbered months and dates are preferred, and the lunar seventh month is avoided as it is the month of the Hungry Ghost Festival, haha.
Lastly was Feng Shui, I learned that Feng Shui is about the 5 elements, FIRE - PASSION AND HIGH ENERGY , EARTH - NOURISHMENT AND STABILITY, METAL - CLARITY AND PRECISENESS, WATER - EASE, FRESHNESS AND ABUNDANCE , WOOD - HEALTH AND VITALITY. I also learned the things placed in your bedroom may affect your luck and life. A slight repositioning of furniture will be sufficient , repositioning the bedroom art or decor items is good enough. If you make a big change in the positioning of your furniture, the Feng Shui will be changed.

Overall, the IS lecture really worth listening, as I get to know lots of new stuff…

1/04/09
Yeah! Finally two weeks to go. Today was Aprilful day, haha... everyone started making lame jokes and began to punk others. Well, in the morning we had our IS lecture. Today topic was Chinese traditional thoughts. The lecturer is the principal of the foreign language school, his English was good, he can speak fluently. It was a 4hours lecture. During this lecture we learned many things; we learned the history of china, the mindset of the Chinese in the past and the history of Confucius.
After the IS lecture, we went for lunch and back to class again at 2pm for the summary of this lecture. Then after classes we went for basketball. We asked many of our peers to join us; almost half the group played with us basketball.
After basketball, we went to the canteen for dinner, then we went back to our dorm and continue our miniproject…
REFLECTION
Today IS topic was very interesting, it really inspired me. I briefly had some knowledge about each dynasty in China. The most interesting part on today IS topic is the thought of Confucius (孔夫子) and Mencius. The lecturer said that if everyone follows the thought of Confucius exactly, then the world will be in peace, there won’t be war, crime and conflict. As Mencius believed men are born innocent. Everyone could be a sage. They have the inclination towards goodness. All the social corruptions and perversions are due to the distortion of human nature and the falling away of men’s character from its original goodness. The abuse of innate goodness that leads men into evil doings could be vanish if the individual has once recovered his/her original goodness and the state returned to the purity. This is one of the core of Mencius’ doctrine, the orthodoxy of the Confucian school.
Yup is true you know, we human seriously has no direction at all, in this modern society, most of us had our own modern thoughts, everyone only care for themselves, and humans never be satisfy. The problem with human is that, they do not know which way to follow, the good side or the bad side, worst still, some may thought that the good side might be bad for them and likewise the bad side might be good for them.
Well… Confucianism is just only a teaching, so the decision is still up to the people whether they should follow Confucian thoughts. I personally felt that parents is the most role in this part. Just like the story of Mencuis. When Mencius was a boy, their house was near a graveyard. The boys played a game of grave-digging and Mencius was most energetic at the game---building the tombs and burying the dead. “This is no place for my child.” said Mother Mong, so she moved to live next to a market. This time Mencius played with the boys to peddle (叫卖) the “goods”. Mother Mong said once more, “This is no place for my child.” Once again she moved to live near a school. This time Mercies played at reading and practiced rituals. “ This is truly a place for my child,” said the mother and she settled down. Mencius learned the six arts and became a learned scholar. Mother Mong was a great mother who knew the significance of gradual transformation.

This part of Mencius story tells us that, the environment forms the child character. Thus as a parent, you have to choose the correct environment for your child, if not he/she will go a stray.

Confucian

31/03/09
Today was a super stress day, after finishing Lab6, we have to rush for the last chapter, which is Lab7. We had APPG the whole day, we did both lecture and tutorial at the time. Lab7 was really hard to comprehend, it has a new code called, Array. This Array thing really pissed me off, i gotto kept asking for help. I really don’t understand this topic and the pace we are going was too fast for me. Well, i have to be strong and persevere, only two more weeks to go.
After lesson we ate ‘zhu chao’, we ordered 7 dishes, 2meat, 2vegetables, 2soup and a clay pot. Today the food were fresh and tasty, well, maybe we are lucky, because usually the fish and vegetables were not that fresh.
After dinner we went back to our dorm to finish up our Lab7. We did the task in a group. As in a group we can discuss and solve the problem easily. If u do solo, you can’t really figure out andy thing unless you are really that great.
At around 10 pm we finish our Lab7, we then went out for supper but I did not ate. I just get a can of drink. I bought those drinks that can reduce my heatedness, in Chinese is called ‘lang cha’. The ‘lang cha’ taste really good, after finishing one can, i ran back to the shop and purchase a carton of it, haha i think i might get addicted.
REFLECTION
In the dorm, every one of us did Lab7 together, and then i began to feel that friends are really very important. When there is difficulty, one can’t solve the problem for sure, but when everyone comes together, the will and motivation is there.At the first week everyone was like, you do your stuff and i do my thing, totally have no connection. After we had been for quite awhile, our bonding gets stronger. Now we always come of our room and have some chit-chatting before we go to bed.

Haha this rawkz man... woo damm cooling~~

30/03/09
Today lesson starts at 10 am earlier than usual, as yesterday we had BBQ. We had APPG throughout the whole day and we did Lab6. Lab6 was really very difficult, it involve return and private declaration. We spent the whole day just doing Lab6, we were really stress out. After school, our work was still not yet complete. We rush for a quick dinner and head back to dorm immediately. The moment we reached our dorm, we immediately set up our lap top and continue our APPG Lab6. I finish my work at around 11pm, pretty stress huh, haha...
After i finished my worked, Ya Lun came back from outside and announce to us that, Dave got food poisoning and was in the hospital. Everyone of us was shocked and started to ask “HEY! WHAT HAPPEN?”, “Is he alright?”,”How serious?” , “OMG!”...
Well Ya Lun just heard this news from someone, he can’t really tell us in detail. Nothing much too, except for APPG...
REFLECTION
After hearing about Dave bad news, i began to think what causes him to get food poisoning. Then BBQ this word came into my mind. Definitely is he ate uncooked food yesterday. The place we had our BBQ last night, has no light, we have to take our torches to light up the place. As a result, you can’t really see whether the food was cooked already or uncooked.Maybe thats how Dave got food poisoning...

29/03/09
Today was a SLACKING DAY, i did not go anywhere, because i not feeling well, having a bad cough. I woke up at around 10 30 am, which is the latest so far haha. My friends went to the IT mall for shopping. I was the only one left in the dorm. In the afternoon i went to the canteen for lunch, i ate fried rice without chilli, ha-ha, can’t take anymore heaty stuff.
In the dorm, i did my laundry, yesterday journal and the plan for my mini project. At around 4pm everyone was back, they bought me a MP4 from the IT mall, which was damm cool man. The price is even more cool, it is just 235 RMB(55 sing), IT IS DAMM CHEAP FOR A 4 GB MP4! I was very happy, then the next moment, Mr Chua called us to get ready and proceed to BBQ with those Wuhan students.
The BBQ location is just next to our school. First we set up the barbecue pit, it was so difficult to set up without a fire starter. In order to set up the fire, we gotto plug dry grasses from the garden there just to replace the fire starter. What worse still was, our group was the last to set up the barbecue pit. Everyone was tired and yet we still have to barbecue the food. When the sun set, we have to flash our torches to barbecue the food, if not it will be total darkness, you don’t even know whether the food is cooked or uncooked. However, we still enjoyed this BBQ with the China students, we eat and drink together happily.
At night, my friends and i were still hungry. We decided to eat fishball again, haha. We the to the fishball restaurant again, this time round we did not ordered as much as usual. Then after the meal we head back to our dorm. Well nothing much today, we spent half the day resting in the room and now my cough is getting better.
REFLECTION
The MP4 that my friends bought for me was really cheap. Although is brandless, the quality is there. It could played movies and music, and the sound quality is perfectly fine, it is really worth buying. Come on a 4 GB MP4 just for 55 Sing dollars...At the BBQ, i realised that the place we had our barbecue was a deserted park. There were gardens, playground, ponds and running tracks. When the sky goes dark, it was quite creepy there, as there is no street lamp. It was like total darkness.


HAha...My New MP4, worth just only 55 Sing dollars!

BBQ~~

BBQ, Good =)

Everyone busy barbecue barbecue barbecue...

The lake just beside our BBQ. Waaa so beautiful...

Yummy Yummy chicken wings. I like, I like...

28/03/09
Yeah, finally is the weekend of the 4th week of this trip. Today we went to Hankou for shopping! Actually we are not going for shopping; today trip is viewing Wuhan first bridge. Due to the bad weather, we gotto cancelled our usual plan.
We walked along the wet, slippery road, soaking in the freezing cold rain. Luckily I brought my rain coat along with me. Firstly we went for lunch. We ate fast food at there. After having our meal we head for SHOPPING!
There were many shops along the streets, brands like Nike, Adidas, Keppa, and their local brand, PEAK, ME&CITY and some fake imitation, haha. We shopped from 12 noon to 3pm, I bought many stuff, oh ya, I bought something for my mum too, I brought her a ME&CITY coat, WHICH WORTH 150…….YUAN, nia not in sing dollar ha-ha.
After shopping in hankou street, the tour guide asked us whether we still want to have more shopping. Well half of the group wanted to shop some more and the remaining half wanted to slack in their dorm.
We went to a shopping centre where is near to the Yellow Crank Tower. In the shopping centre, most of the shops sell fake brand stuff, like porter, LV and GUUGI. Most of my friends bought the porter bags and some bought shoes. As the shoes there are damm cheap.
Then at night we went to eat SOUP BUN again, this time round the soup bun is tastier than the previous time we ate at our school there. We also ate foods at the Wu Chang Street, the entire street sells food. However the food there was so oily till u hardly taste the food, ha-ha.
Then after dinner we took a cab back to our school and attend a short briefing for Mr Chua and Mr Ma. I really enjoy my day, because it was a shopping day…
REFLECTION

The weather hasn't been so cold since 3 weeks ago. The weather today is horrible. It was so chilling, everyone were freezing. In addition, the heavy rain makes it worst. As we didn’t expect that the temperature went down to less than 10 degree Celsius, we did not put on enough warm clothing. As a result, we were extremely cold and uncomfortable. And some went to buy jackets during today Han Kou shopping trip.

Hello Han Kou.

Group photo in Han Kou.

Me at the shopping streets.

Nights in Han Kou.

27/03/09
Today was special, we had no lesson, but we had an industrial visit. We went to a fibre optic cable company. At there we learned many things; we learn the process of how the fibre optic was made and what are the raw materials required.
There is a speaker there explaining to us the process of the fibre optic cable. Luckily there is Mr Chua translating for us. As the speaker is a Chinese he tends to speak in a form of the locals which ‘WE, couldn’t catch it. Mr Chua was a PRO translator; he really explained exactly what that speaker had said.
The company was huge and their industrial facilities were World class standard. The speaker told us that in the laboratory they minimize the level of dust to its lowest possibility. There were many machines and computers in the laboratory. The whole place was spacious and clean of course.
It was a 30 minutes exhibit although i know there is still more to be discover. We took a group photo before we leave the place. We took the school bus back to our school for lunch.
After lunch, we return to our dorm for revision, because at 4pm we will have a test. In the dorm we really study very hard. Then at 4 pm we sat for the test, it was pretty tough, but i still manage to do it. After the test, we went for dinner and is raining, everyone of us were soaked in the rain, haha.
REFLECTION
At the industrial trip, i learn many stuff about optic fibre. Basically, Optic fibre is used to make wire which conduct electricity. Optic fibre is considered a best material used for making wire compared to copper etc. Hence, the prices for it are also high.
The person-in-charge explained to us the processes of manufacturing the Optic fibre. The main point is that the equipments and materials etc must be clean for good production. Optic fibre really is a good investment and somemore is in China. You know before i came to here i was expecting a high tech and high class building in China, finally i saw it. YEAH!

The company name...

waa look at this.

These are the cables.

Cheese* Look at Mr Ma, soo handsome.