Post-China Advice #1

Post-China advice #1

When leaving China make sure to withdraw money from your Chinese bank account, because many banks don't allow you to transfer money abroad unless you actually physically go to said bank and transfer it from there in person.

In theory you can withdraw it at an atm abroad, but not many support chinese cards.

I had some money left so now the only way to get it out is to either remove it when/if I go back to China or to purchase something from a Chinese site and have it sent all the way here.

Option number 2 isn't too bad actually, I have my eye on this really nice steamer so that I can make some baozi and jiaozi properly, but the point stands. Especially if it's a large amount, make sure to either withdraw it as cash or to send it back home if you're leaving.

Main types of Chinese Opera pt. 1

There are many different types of chinese opera, so here are some of the main ones!

Peking Opera 京剧 (Jīngjù)

This is probably one of the most well-known operas, originating from Beijing during the Qing dynasty. There are 4 main roles:

1.生 (shēng), which is usually an older dignified male character such as a scholar, which can be divided into older, younger and martial 生 aka 武生 (wǔshēng)

2. 旦 (dàn), a female role which was previously played by men as women were not allowed to perform during the Qing dynasty, but nowadays both men and women can play this role. This role has several subtypes:

闺门旦 (guīméndàn), a young unmarried high-status virtuous woman, whose main focus is singing.

正旦 (Zhèngdàn)/青衣 (Qīngyī), an elegant, middle-aged, usually married woman who mainly sings.

花旦 (Huādàn), a young woman who unlike the Guīméndàn focuses on speech and movement.

武旦 (Wǔdàn), this is a martial arts role with quite a lot of stunts and fighting with rare singing moments

刀马旦 (Dāomǎdàn), a young brave warrior, who usually focuses on acrobatics, singing and dancing unlike the Wǔdàn.

老旦 (Lǎodàn), is an older female role, usually with a lower singing voice.

彩旦 (Cǎi dàn), is more of a clown role, which is apparently more commonly performed by men

4. 净 (Jìng), a "rough man" role, usually has a vibrant and strong character, which has heavy face painting.

5. 丑 (chǒu), the clown role, which is one of the most physically demanding roles due to the acting and acrobatics combo, despite being considered as a minor role.

There are over 1400 stories used in Peking Opera, with 2 traditional types, civil and martial. Civil focuses on the relationship between the characters and is usually about normal daily occurrences, whereas martial is more about action and fighting. Another more modern type of differentiation divides the plays into traditional (pre-1949ish), plays created after 1949, and contemporary plays.

Kunqu Opera 昆曲 (kūnqǔ)

This is one of the oldest types of Chinese opera, originating from Kunshan, combining signing, dancing and martial arts. It features similar characters like the Peking Opera with another character 末 (Mò), who is an old man with a long beard.

However, there are some differences, as Kunqu uses softer, melodic music and different instruments such as the flute as the main accompanying instrument rather than Peking Opera's stringed instruments. The types of stories are also different, as Kunqu's focus more on the romantic and poetic aspect, exploring various classical stories. Peking Opera's stories tend to be a bit more varied as previously mentioned.

Traditionally, Kunqu was mostly for the upper-class as the stories performed were classical Chinese literature, and at the time not everyone had the opportunity to learn. This may be why Kunqu typically uses classic chinese, whereas Peking uses a combination of both classic and vernacular, making it more available for everyone.

Yue Opera 越剧 (yuèjù)

This opera is also known as Shaoxing opera, originating from Shaoxing, Zhejiang in early 1900s. Originally the performances featured only male actors but nowadays all-female performance troupes are becoming the standard. It's interestingly the 2nd most loved opera type, just after Peking Opera as it's slow and romantic form is perfect for love stories such as The Butterfly Lovers.

Yue Opera also features the usual set of character types e.g. 生，旦 etc. except they are usually played by women.

In terms of appearance, Yue Opera tends to go for a more subtle makeup look (as subtle as stage makeup can be) and simpler but nonetheless gorgeous costumes, in contrast to Peking Opera's dramatic and bursting colors.

Yue Opera usually relies on string instruments, with a smaller musical ensemble and musical accompaniment so that the performers singing is more clear unlike Peking Opera's stronger background music.

Slavic roots western mind turns 1 year old today!

It's been exactly a year since my very first post as slavic roots western mind, and looking back it's been a good year. I'm thankful for everyone for sticking around and supporting me, here's to hoping for more years like this!🥂

My favourite works by Andrey Shishkin: 1. Берегиня/Bereginya (2017) 2. Уральский сказ/ Ural tale (2016) 3. Среча/Srecha (2017) 4. Ярило/Yarilo (2016) 5. Архистратиг/ Archistratig (2018) 6. Девана/ Devana (2013) 7. Ларец/ Casket (2013)

Oh got it! I'm still sorting through it, but so far the best source I found was Inner Mongolia University's course on Open163. They have a good beginners course, but the only possible snag is that they use the traditional script rather than the cyrilic. Most of the chinese courses also actually use the traditional script, which they do teach but it does make things a bit more challenging imo.

Discovered that there are regular flights between Germany and Mongolia so decided to give Mongolian another try. I was pleasantly shocked to discover that there are now more and better learning resources available.

My main mistake was relying solely on english teaching material, I completely forgot that I know other languages e.g. Chinese and the resources found on Baidu look promising.

I might make a post with the resources and material at some point, but for now I need to sort out what's useful and what's not suitable yet.

Who knows, perhaps a summer exploring Mongolia isn't such a distant ethereal dream after all.

There's nothing like an online recruiting conference for potential employees/applicants at a chinese company to humble you. It's like I understand, but then I absolutely don't and the topics keep flowing so quickly.

And this was just the presentation about the company culture, the job positions and responsibilities, etc. I could understand the information presented on the slides, but my listening skills definitely need more work.

On the plus side, I now know exactly what I need to brush up on if I want to try for an office job in China although the intense and fast-paced working environment has it's own challenges. Time will tell.