Sapore di Cina

Learn Chinese, Travel or Work in China

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Climbing Mount Emei: Invisible monkeys, gurneys and canes

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Mount EmeiThe top of Emei Shan

Mount Emei (or Emei Shan, in Chinese) is a 3099 m. mountain located 150 Km South of Chengdu, Sichuan Province. As the title says, it’s a sacred Buddhist mountains and, moreover, an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

I must say that climbing this mountain was quite an experience. But before let’s see how to get there.

You can get there from Chengdu by bus (buses depart from Xinnanmen Station every twenty minutes and the ticket costs around 50 RMB) or by train (20 RMB). The trip takes about ninety minutes. Another popular option is to take the overnight train from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province. It will cost you around 190 RMB for an hard sleeper ticket and it will take around twelve hours.

What route did I choose? I came here directly from Lugu Lake, which is located at the border between Yunnan and Sichuan. [Read more…]

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The singles market of People Square, Shanghai

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singles market shanghai

After publishing The Chinese Sex Symbol: What are Chinese women looking for? we received several messages of people claiming that if twenty years ago it was true that in China there was some pressure to get married as soon as possible, nowadays the situation has changed, especially in the big cities.

Really?

Even if I acknowledge that the Chinese society has evolved tremendously in the last years (I’m not blind), the reality is that the pressure to get married is still there, even when it comes down to the so called international metropolises such as Shanghai and Beijing.

But I’m not here to waste your time with my theories. Today I’ll only expose facts. If there wasn’t any pressure to get married, how the hell are you going to explain the photos that I’m sharing today? [Read more…]

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The best cheap hostels in Hong Kong: Causeway Bay and Chung King Mansion

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cheap hostel hong kong

Today I want to introduce my favorite cheap hostels in Hong Kong. Why I emphasize the word “cheap”? Because Hong Kong is bloody expensive, especially when it comes down to accommodation. Thus find a decent cheap room may represent a challenge.

If can afford an expensive hotel you can head to Agoda.com and book the room you like more instead of keep reading this article.

By the way, if you are interested on the topic here you find our guide to find an hotel in Mainland China. [Read more…]

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“Brothers” by Yu Hua: A glance at modern China – Book Review

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Brothers by Yu Hua

This article was born last week after I went to a private gynecological hospital in Beijing.

The damned association phenomenon

The fact is that at the doors of this luxury hospital (beside the bathroom that was, as usual, awful) hang up the panels with the specialization of each doctor.

Given my mixed feelings of boredom and curiosity I went around reading a bunch of them. And I was quite surprised when I stumbled upon the following one:

Specialization: Hymen Reconstructive Surgery

I suddenly thought about 兄弟 (Brothers), the novel of Yu Hua. [Read more…]

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Tibetan monasteries and a revolution on the bus – Photo Essays

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Tibeta Monastery

This article tells the last part of my travel to Tibet. If you didn’t read them yet, in the first two episodes you can learn about my adventures in Lhasa or virtually exploring the The holy lakes of Tibet.

The day after visiting the Namtso lake we get again on the bus and start our trip from Lhasa to Shigatse. We arrive at Yamdrok lake around 1 pm and to the Kharola Glacier a couple of hours later (see photos below).

Nobody told us where Shigatse was nor how much time would take to get there. So I wasn’t psychologically prepared to stay all day in a bus. The truth is that Tibet is huge and it takes time to move to a place to another. Is it worth the effort? Yep, for me it is! [Read more…]

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My experience with the acupuncture in China

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acupuncture in China

Last year I broke my wrist which, after more than a year, keeps aching. It’s a very annoying pain, sometimes feeble, other times stabbing. So I decided that I must solve this situation. Or at least try to solve it.

I stopped to practice artistic gymnastic but it didn’t help. Conversely, things got worse. Thus I decided to test a different solution.

I’ve exposed the problem to my “hosting mom” (I’m 16 years old and I live with a Chinese family this year) and she suggested me to go for traditional Chinese medicine. [Read more…]

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My trip on the Transsiberian Express (Russia, Mongolia, and China)

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Video: Transsiberian 2009 produced by Lluis Jané (yes, the one with long hairs it’s me).

I’ve already discussed in a previous article how to plan your trip on the Transsiberian Express.

Itinerary: Trans-Mongolian (Moscow-Beijing) with stops in Irkutz and Ulan-Bator.

Goal: Reach Beijing in 23 days, that is before our return flight will take off! [Read more…]

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A Small Trick to Learn How to Write Chinese Characters Faster

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Want to learn the fastest way to learn how to write Chinese characters? Click here!

Today I want to show you how taking the time to learn the 256 Chinese radicals (that is the basic components of any Chinese character) will allow you to learn Chinese characters much faster. I will do it through a real life experience (no worries, you won’t hear any overly complicated or abstract theories here!)

Just to recap my situation, on February 2013 I’ve started to learn how to write Chinese characters using Skritter, an interactive software that allows you to learn characters faster by reviewing flashcards with a clever scheduling (click on the link if you want to understand how it works).

My goals were to:

  • Add new flashcards and review old flashcards for a total of ten minutes per day.
  • Using mnemonics to actively study the characters that I can’t remember (instead of trying to remember them by reviewing them over and over again).
  • Study all the characters and words of the HSK lists from HSK1 to HSK4, that is 1076 characters and about 700 words composed by the same characters.

[Read more…]

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The Holy Lakes of Tibet (Photo Essays)

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Holy Lakes of Tibet

Before to visit a country, or a region, we all have a general idea of what to expect. And, unless we research our trip in advance, this idea is usually wrong.

I was expecting to find a barren land composed by mountains and rocks in Tibet. Conversely, the Eastern Tibet plateau is a green land where Lakes act as the main character.

There are nine Holy Lakes in Tibet. Today I want to focus on the two that I was able to visit, Namtso Lake and Yamdrok Lake. They are, together with Manasarovar Lake, the most famous lakes of Tibet. [Read more…]

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What do you expect from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet?

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Travel to LhasaPotala Palace view’s from Jokhang Temple

When I arrived in Lhasa all I could think about was that I needed a shower. I got there by train and it was two days that I couldn’t get one.

Beside that, I felt a sense of accomplishment. When I was a teenager I could imagine myself traveling to Paris, or even Los Angeles… after all I had seen these place in so many movies. It seemed possible.

But going to Tibet? No way.

Then again, sometimes reality goes beyond fantasy and here I was, at 3,650 meters of altitude, just in front of the exit of Lhasa’s train station.

Are we missing anyone?

The third thing I thought was “Where the hell is our tour guide?”

It was two days that I didn’t see him (since we left from Beijing) and I’m not used to follow a guide. But you aren’t allow to travel to Tibet by yourself, as I’ve explained on my guide to Tibet. So here I was… looking for our chubby Tibetan guide. [Read more…]

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Teaching Chinese to white devils: Interview to Luna

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teaching Chinese

Click here to discover what Chinese courses
that we recommend at the moment!

I have been thinking for a long time on the topic of my first article about Chinese learning. Finally I decided to make an interview to one of the first Chinese people I meet in Beijing. I’m talking about Luna, a Chinese language and culture teacher.

She has taught mandarin in several schools, including the Ecuador’s Confucius Institute of Quito and Guayaquil. She has also collaborated with the European Science and Technology Fellowship Programme, which brought 58 European researchers to China during the period 2009-2012, and contributed on the elaboration of some HSK exams.

At the moment she is working as a teacher at the Beijing Film Academy, teaching an unconventional Chinese course that exploits Chinese movies to learn the Chinese language and culture. [Read more…]

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Interview with John Pasden, the founder of Sinosplice and AllSet Learning

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John Pasden

While I was editing the interview that I did with Julien, the founder of Marco Polo Project, I was fascinated by the problems one needs to solve in order to grow an online project to the point of having enough human and economic resources for investing even more on software and content development and create a great product.

Hence I asked to myself:

“Who else was able to realize something amazing on the field of online Chinese learning?”

And I thought about John Pasden. A couple of days after I contacted him. John was kind enough to accept to answer to a few questions. This is the result of our conversation! [Read more…]

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What’s Marco Polo Project? Interview with the founder Julien Leyre

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marco polo project

World is small. And the internet is even smaller.

In early February I joined the Hacking Chinese Characters Challenge.

One of the rules decided by the guy that proposed the challenge, Olle Linge from Hacking Chinese (check it, it’s one of the best resources out there to learn Chinese), was that we had to connect via email with the two people that joined the challenge before and after us.

This is how I got in touch with Julien Leyre who, after we introduced ourselves and our goals with Chinese language, followed up with this email: [Read more…]

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On celebrating Chinese New Year with a Chinese family

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Chinese New Year

This article was written by Marta Lovisolo, who studies in an high-school at Nanjing since September 2012. She lives with a Chinese family so, when she refers to her dad, mom, sister and so on she’s actually referring to the family that is hosting her.

Click here to read my interview to Marta, an insider point of view on the life of Chinese high-school students.

But I stop here. Let’s Marta do the talk! [Read more…]

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Food from Dongbei (North East China) – Photo Essays

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Food from Dongbei

I took this pictures last time I went to eat in a Dongbei restaurant in Shanghai. We were only four people but we still order all that. We ended up paying 40 RMB each (about 6.5 USD).

The Dongbei is the North East region of China. Even if people tend to associate China with rice, this isn’t exact. While in the South of the country the staple food is rice, in the North is wheat. Especially in the North East, they also eat a lot of potatoes and corn.

Dongbei restaurants

The restaurant from Dongbei are within my favorite Chinese restaurants (perhaps at the same level of Xinjiang’s restaurants). [Read more…]

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A method that you should avoid in order to learn Mandarin fast

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remember the hanzi

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that we recommend at the moment!

“There aren’t many actual shortcuts. Things that look like shortcuts are actually detours (disguised as less work),” Seth Godin.

Today I want to talk about Remember the Hanzi, an alternative method to remember Chinese characters.

If you never heard about it, I suggest you to read my review of the method before to keep reading this article.

Seven reasons for which you should avoid Remember the Hanzi (if your goal is to speak Mandarin as fast as you can)

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What there is on my backpack when I travel around Asia?

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what to bring to chinaMy luggage during my three weeks in Xinjang.

One of the questions that I receive from the readers that are coming to China is:

“What the hell should I put on my backpack?”

My answer usually is:

“Unless you are planning to climb the Everest, the same things that you would bring to any other place. Just remember that the Chinese winter is cold, so bring a couple of warm clothes.”

Today I want to share what I bring when I travel around China or South East Asia and how I organize my stuff.

p.s. This is also what I would bring to America, Africa or Oceania.

How do I travel?

I always travel with a 70 liters Ferrino backpack ( the grand-parent of this one) that I bought in 2000 (yes, it’s indestructible!) and a smaller backpack North Face that I bought in 2011.

In the sequel I will call [Read more…]

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Food from Xinjiang, the Chinese muslim province (Photo Essays)

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Xinjiang Food

When I talk about “Xinjiang food” I refer to the traditional Uyghur cuisine. The reason is that here about half of the population belongs to the Uyghur minority, a Muslim ethnic group that has its own language and culture.

Even if Xinjiang is part of China, its food shares much more characteristics with the Turkish and Central Asia food. So, every time I need a break from Chinese cuisine, I go to a Xinjiang restaurant (they are all around China). [Read more…]

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Interview to Marta, who is 16 years old and is studying in a Chinese high-school

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study in a chinese highschoolAt the Chinese Great Wall (Marta is on the right side, in the foreground).

Anatomy of an interview

At the end of November I received the following email:

Hey,

I’m Marta, I’m almost seventeen and this year I live in Nanjing, I study in a Chinese high-school, I have a Chinese mom and sister (I mean, they host me at their house), I live the life and follow the rules of a traditional Chinese adolescent.

When I arrived here I thought that I knew everything about China. But after only a week I understood how wrong I was.

So I began to read a lot, till I also found your blog. Now I’m trying to open myself to all these new experiences and forget what I knew about China from Italy.

My answer was quite predictable: [Read more…]

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Quantum Memory Power: Improve your memory and learn languages

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quantum memory power

Click here to discover what Chinese courses
that we recommend at the moment!

Why should you be interested on memory?

The reason for which people that have a better memory will learn a language better and faster should be obvious. No matters the language you are studying, if you want to achieve fluency you’ll need to remember a ton of words: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions. Also, you’ll have to learn the grammar and pronunciation rules.

Mandarin takes this challenge to the next level. Not only you will need to learn the tones and a new pronunciation system (pinyin). But you will also need to remember the characters (if you are planning to learn Chinese without taking characters in to account you are only misleading yourself). [Read more…]