Ok so today is Miss Rebecca’s birthday! And we had a BIGGGG BIRTHDAY BASH for her yesterday night in the hostel. We bought her a MEGA HUGE cake. (Reasons for being mega huge: it is mainly coated with 90% of cream and 10% of sponge cake). Oh we witnessed the whole process of the cake making by the pastry master. He was super skillful with his designing of the cake with the cream and colour gel. It was quite an eye opener because you seldom see the whole process of cake making in Singapore.
So at around 12.15am, we knocked on her room door. After she was out, we sang her a birthday song! All OIP mates were involved. Awwww…. How sweet~~~
Touched face.
Rebbb!
Group Shot.
Yesterday night, many of us were totally exhausted but we persevered till 12.15am just for the birthday bash! Are you touched Miss Rebecca? =D
Right after the cutting of the cake, a CAKE FIGHT occurred!
Finally after everyone was sparkling clean, we took a group shot.
--------------After 5 Hours of Sleep--------------
COLD & ICY.
2nd BPE lesson – 9am
Dragging myself out of the bed was such a difficult task. =X Had too many late nights and I have been in ‘deadly’ mode since the last few days. I need to find time to replenish my sleep! Ok so as usual, got ourselves ready and left for lessons.
The weather today was much colder than yesterday. Wind was very strong and some of us were don with windbreakers etc. This was what made us seemed alien to the China students because all of them were dressed in just T-shirt & Jeans. But never mind about that as long as the weather remains cold and windy for the next few weeks =))
All of us were wearing ‘break-the-wind’ jackets even in the classroom because the window was WIDE open. (& we closed it after a few hours).
Today, Mr Loh went through chapter 2 of BPE followed by quiz 2.
Quiz Paper.
After lessons, lunch in campus Canteen 2.
We went to the 2nd level canteen today and due to the enclosed area, the canteen was filled with oily smog. The oil stench was also terrible. As usual students were all crowding in front of the stalls with no queues.
Settled at a beef noodle stall.
PISSED OFF SESSION.
I actually waited for >20 minutes for just a bowl of noodles while others who ordered later than me had already taken their food and were eating happily. Started to lose my cool when I actually asked the lady who took my order where was my noodle and she just return my question with “ errr… 你刚才叫什么?’ I repeated my order and waited again. Waiting…waiting...waiting… a lot of food were served but none was mine. I seriously flared up. You know china people likes to talk super loudly and the loudest one would always get the order first, thus I walked up to the woman who was cooking and raised my voice. “我的好了没有？！我等很久了你知道吗？！”
None of us understand what she was talking about because of her strong accent. And at last my food came, I somewhat scolded her and walked away. And behind she was scolding me too. So whatever! (*Personal experience, thus some emotional factor was placed in it to express my anger.)
Shun qing met with the same experience as me but because she was too soft spoken, she got scolded instead. (observation: in china, never be soft-spoken. The loudest one will always be the one who win the quarrel. Trust me.)
Going back to our hostel, we suddenly decided to do some ‘room makeover’. Eshlyn mopped the floor, I tidied up the wires and labelled it to prevent tangling and shun qing helped around and took care of our luggages which was placed outside our room. Didn’t know that our room would feel really like our home after it was tidied and clean up. :))) it was really very cosy and warm. Previously, we had to wear our slippers to move around in the room. But now we can walk barefooted even to the cement floor toilet! =D It was our combined effort! Thanks esh and shun for making me feel like home.
A final trio photo in our sparking clean room!
After the birthday bash which was specially created for Rebecca, I realized that friends do matter a lot in our lives. If no one were to take the initiative to plan her birthday, she would be just celebrating her birthday overseas alone. Many a times, things only require some initiative to be taken to make it happen.
For the incident which happened in the school canteen, I really hope that they change this culture of not having a systematic queuing system and not adopt the ‘the loudest one win’ culture. Comparing Singapore’s service and service over here in Wuhan, there is really nothing to complain about service provided in Singapore. We even have campaigns such as GEMS or organizations such as CASE to deal with bad service issue. But over here, there is no such thing as ‘customer is always the biggest’. They wouldn’t mind losing you as a customer which I don’t know why also. And because they don’t have organizations such as CASE to deal with bad service issue, thus this explains why service in China is so bad. So Singaporeans out there: stop complaining about bad service issues or post images or videos on STOMP for bad service. I bet your expectation of a good service will drop drastically after you have experienced it here and returned to Singapore. In the mean time, before they decide to turn systematic and learn the meaning of queuing up, I shall blend in and absorb their culture by talking loudly, not queuing up and talk LOUDER to the people here.
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
(Thus, I as an individual alone would not be able to influence the culture of China. By acknowledging this fact, I have no choice but to challenge myself to change to compromise the situation and habits of China citizens. Your level of adaption when you are alone overseas plays a very important part in how fast you are able to accept the culture of the country, be it positive or negative.)
