Beach life, souvlaki, and failed exams

Springtime in Xiamen has its ups and downs. One week you are enjoying life at the seaside, flying a kite with a charming Chinese girl, eating authentic Greek food with a Dutch friend you randomly met at a Chinese party, then the next week rain is pouring down in buckets day in day out, and you fail the listening comprehension test of your mid-term exams (I scored only 58). The oral exam went relatively well (87), but in my perception I did not make a lot of progress since the end of the previous semester. I have the feeling I'm reaching the limit of my brain's capacity to memorize Chinese words and grammatical constructs. Although my vocabulary is slowly but steadily increasing, my reading speed is well below the required level to finish the written exam on time. The result of which was a meager 63 points, which would have been around 80 if I would have been able to to finish the test in the given time.
Sometimes when a stranger talks to me, or I receive a phone call, I have no idea what the person is talking about until after she or he walked away or hung up. It's embarrassing. Luckily there are enough people patient enough to allow me to process the data at my own speed. Learning a language is a never ending process, and compared to the Chinese learning English, I'm actually doing pretty well. I have no intentions to give up any time soon, and have (again) decided to stay here a bit longer, not in the least to give my relationship with Ling Ling a fair chance to develop into something more permanent. She is planning to move to Xiamen this summer, which will make a big difference.

Hip hip hooray!

Yesterday was my birthday. A modest affair this time. I shared a couple of absinthes with kYra and some locals and random tourists in the Absinthe bar, more and more becoming the place to be in Zeng Cuo An.
The drink is widely unknown in China, and many tourists don't actually like the taste of it, but as a curiousity it sells well. This bar which focuses strongly on this drink alone (in over 20 variations, all imported from Europe) and also sells ice cream and ukuleles, is as eccentric as it is genuinely cozy. Adding to the good vibes is the frequent appearance of a few local musicians (including the shopkeeper himself), often jamming together, or just playing solo.

The weekend is fantastically sunny, after a week of heavy rainfall every afternoon, not to mention my mid-term exams. This time I did not perform very well, I think, but it doesn't matter. It's just my hobby, after all!
To celebrate the weekend and the end of the exam week, I took out my new hammock again and found myself a couple of trees along the seaside. I still attract a lot of attention, with occasional requests for try-outs. I also took out my new camera to familiarize myself with the slightly different way of handling it, compared to my previous camera. There are some useful new features, and many I will probably never use, but its main benefits are the excellent image quality and sensitivity, I'm very happy with that, hip hip hooray!

My new camera arrived!

While chilling out in my hammock at the seaside, I got a call from the delivery man, who could not find my house. I did not expect him already today, since the camera was only ordered yesterday. What lightning speed, amazing!
I arranged to meet him at the bus stop, and quickly packed up my hammock and went over there by bike. Five minutes later he handed me the package, which I took home with great anticipation. It's not my birthday yet, but it almost felt like it was while cutting through the layers of tape and bubble wrap.
I can't help getting excited when unpacking electronic gear... As expected, the shipping carton contained two smaller boxes, one holding the camera, the other the lens. Since I ordered a non-standard set, I had to mount the lens myself. I did it quickly, to not give any dust the chance to enter the camera body after taking off the protective cover. The battery was already partly charged, so after inserting a memory card I was good to go.
Of course I didn't get to know all the ins and outs of this new camera in such a short time frame, but it didn't take long to find the aperture priority setting to take a first shot with the desired background blur, made possible with my large aperture f/1.7 lens. As it was already late in the afternoon, the light level in my room was quite low, making it an excellent opportunity to test this capability right from the start.
The result seen above was shot (from the hand) with 1/50 second exposure at the full aperture of  f/1.7 at 1600 ISO. Not bad eh?

Online shopping

After three months I finally bought a new camera to replace my broken LX-3. After some deliberation I went for the superior image quality of the recently introduced Lumix GX-1 mirror-less interchangeable lens camera, sporting a relatively large sensor, and offering much better image quality than the LX-3, especially at low light levels. To utilize this capability even more, I paired it with the highly rated 20 mm f/1.7 prime lens, instead of the not-too-exciting 14 - 42 mm f/3.5 - 5.6 zoom lens, which is the standard outfit for this camera. I might invest in another lens later, but rather enjoy the premise of going back to the roots of photography in shooting with a bright prime.
In the micro four-thirds format, 20 mm is the equivalent of a 40 mm lens on a classic 35 mm camera, slightly wider than the 50 mm standard lens of that format. However, as dpreview.com pointed out, 20 mm is the perfect normal lens for this sensor size, with its focal length equal to the sensor's diagonal.

Buying the camera didn't go without a hitch though. I again needed assistance of my Chinese friends to secure the deal. Ling Ling helped me with ordering on taobao.com, chatting with the vendor and making sure the equipment would be delivered in the desired configuration, and even chafing off a few kuai from the advertised price, closing the deal at 5260 RMB (640 Euro). She payed for it using her Chinese credit card (VISA is not accepted), after which I would promptly reimburse her by depositing cash (obtained from the ATM) in her account. That was easier said than done though. At the local ICBC branch I could not deposit cash in her account without having my own Chinese bank card. I had to ask another Chinese friend to help me with that, first depositing the cash into her account, and then transferring to Ling Ling's account at another bank. Of course, an extra fee (50 RMB) was charged for this service. At first, the bank clerk could not even find Ling Ling's bank in the computer system, and suggested I had the wrong name. After verifying by SMS I was sure I was right, and finally a more senior clerk was able to finalize the transaction. It cost me (and my friend) most of the afternoon to get it done.

On a more positive note, I recently spent an afternoon with Miao Qi on Gulangyu Island, and she brought her classic Pentax ME 35 mm analog camera, which she had picked up second-hand for next to nothing, including a nice 50 mm f/1.7 lens. It was an almost nostalgic experience to focus manually and adjust the aperture ring for the desired depth-of-view. It will take a few days before I will be able to see the results though, having to develop the film first. Besides the Pentax, she also owns a Canon 60D and the same LX-3 that I wasted in Thailand, but this analog excursion was delightful.
My new camera should arrive this week, just before (or on) my birthday this Friday, so I will have an excellent opportunity to try it out.

Hammock time!

Ever since I moved to Xiamen, it surprised me to almost never see people in hammocks. Only once I saw one, suspended between two trees along the scenic coast. Until that moment, I even thought hammocks were unknown in China, but a quick online survey showed that there are actually many shops offering them at very reasonable prices (50 to 80 RMB). It took a long time until I actually bought one though. Not in the least because navigating Chinese websites is still a real challenge for me. Websites such as taobao.com are very popular, and you can buy virtually anything online, at considerable lower prices than in a shop.
To order my hammock I needed help from a Chinese friend, and eventually it was Ling Ling who offered her assistance. More than that, she bought it for me as a birthday present, very sweet! It arrived two days later, and again I needed some help of a local to explain to the delivery man how to find my exact address.
The package looked rather smallish, compared to the hammock I have in Amsterdam, but after unpacking it seemed OK. Advertised as a 三人 (3-person) hammock, it is actually smaller than the one I have in Amsterdam, which was sold as a single-person hammock, but in my experience is big enough for two people (of my size or smaller). This one also seems just big enough to accommodate myself plus Ling Ling, but definitely not three!

Included in the package was a carrying bag (made from the same colourful broadly striped cotton cloth as the hammock itself), and a pair of ropes, made from recycled strands of polyester fabric. The ropes were not very long, and also rather thin, so I went out to get some proper nylon rope. I bought 10 meters for 9 RMB, cut it in two, so each end can easily be looped around a tree trunk or branch and then tied to the eyelets on either side of the hammock.
Yesterday was a beautiful warm and sunny afternoon, so a perfect day for a field test. I took my bike to the so-called Music Square at the seaside, and found two trees spaced 6 meters apart close to the shore. I was watched by a coconut vendor while hooking up, and once I installed myself, received a lot of attention from passers-by, at times taking pictures of the eccentric laowai.

Not long after that my friend Miao Qi arrived, whom I'd already met last September. She had called me to ask if I would be interested in a game of badminton, but after I told her of my hammock, she come over by bike to see and try it out for herself. Miao Qi is an aspiring journalist, and will move to Shanghai after her graduation this June. We now and then meet to talk about contemporary Chinese issues, and eat seafood together. She is also a keen photographer, so lots to talk about. She brought her brand new Kindle e-book reader, which is amazingly light (170 gram), less than a typical mobile phone. The matte black & white e-Ink screen is beautiful and very pleasant to read in bright sunlight, and with its ultra-low power consumption you could take it on a month-long trip without ever needing to recharge the battery. Better still, it cost her only 600 RMB (less than 75 Euro).

Camping on Wai Ling Ding Island

Almost two months into the spring semester, we had our much needed first break this week. The Qing Ming or tomb sweeping festival （清明节） is a national holiday of three days, allowing people to travel to their hometown to sweep the tombs of their ancestors and put some fresh flowers on the graves. I'm not sure how many people will actually take the trouble, but in any case it's a good excuse to take some days off.
In our case, two of the three lost days were compensated for with extra classes during the preceding weekend, so it was really just one extra day free. Still, just enough time to hop on the night bus to Zhuhai again to spend some time with Ling Ling, this time in the form of a camping trip to Wai Ling Ding Dao （外伶仃岛）, a small island some 35 km southeast of Zhuhai in the South-China Sea, and actually closer to Hong Kong than to mainland China.



The catamaran ferry took an hour and 45 minutes to bring us from Zhuhai to the island, stopping at Gui Shan Dao on the way. Most people got off there, leaving about 50 passengers for Wai Ling Ding Dao. We were not the only campers, but everyone chose the small beach as their camping spot, which was a bit too crowded to our taste (about twelve tents huddled around a large boulder), so we opted for a flat grassy patch just off the walkway along the rocky coast, with big sand-coloured boulders partly blocking our view of the sea. A nice spot, except for the fishy stench that came and went in whiffs, and seemed to be prevalent all around the coast, and was even stronger near the beach. Perhaps this was the reason the island never really developed a flourishing tourist industry, despite the nice scenery and clear waters. The small town near the port looked rather dilapidated, with neglected apartment blocks, and piles of rubbish. There was some construction going on to extend the coastal promenade, but it did not look very promising. Shabby-looking hotels and over-priced seafood restaurants also don't help to keep people coming back for more. It might have been more grand in the past, who knows.
The weather was fine. Slightly overcast, but balmy and dry, and good for hiking. It was however quite windy at night, which added some more excitement to the camping experience, our tent shaking violently at times, interrupting our sleep more than once. It has been almost three years since my last camping trip, and memories of the sometimes violent nightly weather in Iceland came to mind. According to Ling Ling's previous experience her tent was not waterproof, which I did not doubt after noticing the single-layer construction and unsealed seams, but luckily for us it was not a requirement on this trip.

Having only a mediocre phone camera at hand, I did not take any serious photos, but this heavily LOMO-fied Ling Ling in her tent is a more contemporary turn on photography, akin to the enormously popular Instagram and Hipstamatic trends. After the unfortunate encounter with sea water that rendered my LX-3 useless, I'm still not sure what to buy as a replacement. The abundance of choices doesn't really make it easier, and rather than just replacing it with its natural successor, the LX-5, which makes perfect sense, I am inclined to spend a bit more and upgrade to the next level in image quality and versatility, which is offered by the micro four-thirds format. I don't feel tempted to buy a DSLR though. Too big to always bring along. It's hard to imagine that I spent many years traveling with a heavy Canon A-1 with three lenses covering the entire focal range of 24 to 210 mm, and even including a small tripod, which I took to destinations around the world to shoot thousands of colour slides, all tucked away now in storage trays, maybe never being fortunate enough to see the light of day again.