chapter eight, page fifty two:

This is his last day in China.


(Diary) Dear China (and diary), I have had a lot of fun here! I still miss Dalian the most though, the free-moving lifestyle and the weather. The really simply life you gave to your people.

I shall not forget the daily lunch song that you played for us, “I’m sitting right here but you can’t see me”, and the games you often set for me to play like hopscotch.

The trip has really exposed me to your culture, both in the way you live life as well as create art; it has been a really enriching moment in my life. On top of that, I am pretty sure my Chinese has improved quite a fair bit, at least I could imitate your precious accent.

Dear China, 今天我就要走了，再见

He is back in Singapore.

chapter eight, page fifty one:

The morning was wet, unfortunately. He headed out towards the Olympic Stadium, yet another pride of China. And once again, he was disappointed with her pride, but after a while, he realizes that he should not expect too much from them.

The stadium, as it always has portrayed itself, stood tall and bulky. Bulkier than he had imagined, it really did look a little too heavy. The inside was alright, he though, toilet’s were cool in red and black, but workmanship was a mess, perhaps it was meant to look that way?

The parapet walls of the Olympic Stadium were already broken, barely even a year old. From his own eyes, the stadium appeared to be much smaller than it looks, as if photographs of the stadium had all been faked, but after all, it is highly possible is not it?

The overall size was disappointing, an on top of it, he could no longer find the special torch that was attached to the roof of the stadium.



After the visit, he headed over to the Water Cube, this one was much better, he thought. Overall size was believable and the material of ETFE used was cool, although it looked slightly blackish already. Apparently the material used is self cleaning.


After which, the rest of the day was spent shopping. On his way to the shopping center, he passed by the famous CCTV building by Rem Koolhaas.

Shopping was exciting, for the first time, because the store owners were multilingual. Mandarin, English, Spanish and many more. It was really an interesting “sight to see”.

chapter eight, page fifty:

The morning started off with a visit to the Great Wall of China, the place he had always wanted to see and walk on. The moment he reached there, he excited abandoned his friends and climbed as far as time could take him, he only had an hour in total, half and hour up and the other half down, he planned. He raced all the way up, not giving up even though it was tiring. He believed he made it through at least seven sections of it, and reached nearly the highest point, at least it was where the point cable cars could only be taken to access the rest.


After the very quick time at the Wall, he headed off for the Summer Palace, where the Empress Dowager once ruled. It was an eerie place, especially the long famous corridor as almost no one could take a perfect clear shot of it. Strange indeed.

Having looked at all the art appreciation from the past, he felt that it was terribly weird, especially color coordination. Blue with green and some yellow, red with a dash of white and a whole lot of other gaudy colors.





After which, he was brought to the 13 graves of the emperors which does not allow much to be spoken off. And that is how it shall be kept.

That was how the day ended.

chapter seven, page forty nine:

He went to sleep at 3.30AM, all dressed up ready to leave, and woke up 2 hours later and finished up the packing. The bus left Dalian Polytechnic University at 6.30 for the airport and then he was ready to leave for Beijing.

The morning was wet. Just like how he had arrived in Dalian. Welcomed and sent off the same way. The weather dropped too, she cried for us.

Upon arrival at Beijing, he immediately headed to the Forbidden Palace and walked the whole stretch. It was a breath-taking site, a place he had always longed to go. The breath-taking site, unfortunately, slowly turned into a sigh-taking sight. Every section slowly looked the same, and there was nothing much left to snap for the camera.





As soon as he headed out of the Forbidden Palace, the big iconic photo of China hung proudly at the top of the wall. It was the portrait of Chairman Mao. Frantically he took out his camera and snapped furiously, an image he got excited over.

After which, he headed over to Tiananmen Square which really had nothing, and ended the day at the hotel.

chapter seven, page forty eight:

The days after submission have been spent enjoying himself in China. He headed off to the Dalian Zoo today, in anticipation to see the black-eyed pandas.

Upon arrival at the zoo after an hour plus journey, it was a completely disgusting scene to his eyes. Dead ducks, dead rabbits and ill looking baby-animals filled the animal farm, while ponies, zebras and other animals were looking dirty and ill-kept.





It was a terrible scene indeed. The animals looking sad, crying out for mercy but no one understands them, they just think it is entertaining them.

After a long day taking in gruesome images, he travelled by cable car to the long awaited panda, only to be disappointed with one, dirty panda, in an environment of faked bamboos made out of plastic, lying in its own waste, and without a doubt looking dead. China’s pride, this is China’s pride.


Having such a bad experience, he knew he needed a break from such obscene things. He headed off to XingHai area, where there was a castle turned into a seashell museum. Time was spent there snapping pictures, then heading home for rest.

chapter seven, page forty six:

Second submission rushed through, and completed. During the night, he went up the hill with his friends for the last time to see the night scene of the airport.

chapter seven, page forty five:

Final critique happened today for Jonathan and his partner. He believes it went pretty well, and the effort and hard work has paid off. No sleep is good.



In the evening, he attended a cultural performance organized by the school; it involved the local and international students. The whole performance was moving really fast and almost smooth, it felt as though it went perfect, but it also felt like it was not whole heartedly presented because of its quickness. Perhaps this is their way of life, to have everything fast paced.

The performances ranged from singing to dancing, magic shows to cultural performances like the wushu. The wushu was a scene of energy and bursting lights that gave double effects to the performer’s fast movements.

chapter seven, page forty four

He slept at the unknown hour again. He gave in once again at 5.30AM until 6.30AM and continued with work.

He could feel time ticking just in his face. Submission was to happen at 5PM at Room 505. There was still so much left to do, but as he usually is, he shall never have an incomplete submission.

Breakfast was skipped. Lunch was skipped. Finally he finished his work. He headed up to the room, Room 505 was the code, the disc passed on. He slumped into bed. He still had to prepare for critique the next day.

chapter six, page forty three:

Sunday, the day he said he would not do anything, but it was simply mission impossible.

It is his birthday today, a happy new year to him. He turns nineteen, his last year to have a “teen” at the back.

(Flashback) Work had been rushed for the past many days. Sleeping time from 3AM and getting later to 5AM was his life this week. He slept at 5AM yesterday.

He slept at zero hour yesterday, and managed to witness his birthday coming. He went back to his room at 12AM.

(Diary) I was up since Saturday, working through until 12AM on Sunday, my birthday. What a way to celebrate its entry. My friend called me to have some green bean soup at my room, which I suspected was something fishy. When I opened the door, it was pitch black. The whole of the ID group was there, screaming Happy Birthday and jumping out from no where trying to scare me, one of the best ones was from behind the curtain. They wrote wishes on balloons which they wanted me to eventually burst, and had some terrible after-effects on the bed. Black stains that is. They even wrote on the mirror, hopefully with washable art paint. It was really a surprise for me! Or at least I never had expected everyone to be there. Cake, as traditionally always there, was there. It was chocolate cake, or was it cream cake. The cake was ten percent sponge with the remaining as cream in different colors, with an additional topping of cream in a shape of two fat flowers. Truly disturbing when I tried to cut through it.







After the whole celebration, we had the real green bean soup.

Thank you everyone who was present at the birthday surprise!

After the surprise, he had no time to waste but continue on with work until 7AM in the morning when he gave in to sleep until 8.30AM, and continuing with work again.

In the night, just before the day came to an end, he treated himself to his favorite snack brought from Singapore. Unfortunately it was spent eating with work.

chapter six, page forty:

It is the Dumpling Festival holiday today, as well as for tomorrow. He woke up and headed out to the streets with two friends and got two dumplings to share. The dumplings here are different, or at least he does not know how it is done in Singapore, but for those here, the dumplings are soaked in water, dirty looking water.

For his first time, he tried red bean paste dumplings, something he had never heard of in Singapore. All he had had were meat dumplings, or bak zhang as it is called in Singapore.



The dumplings were just alright to him, bean paste looking like meat hence being a disappointment to the tongue every time a bite was in his mouth. He knew from that moment red bean paste dumpling, a no anymore.

After which, work was carried out and after a rather long working period, he decided to continue the dumpling festive mood by trying more. He headed back out to the street to get meat dumplings, only to be more disappointed.

To some extent, he felt shocked, stunned, disappointed and a whole lot of emotions. Laughing at how ridiculous the dumplings were, disappointed when compared with the Singapore standard, shocked by its taste and grossed out by its texture.

The meat dumpling was just weird. It was wrapped in barley instead of rice, and had meat the size of a 1yuan coin. The meat was cold and rock hard, it was not minced either, it came as a solid chunk. The “rice” looked terrible, like maggots chopped up and squished together. It was terrible.









Well at least something consoling for him was for him to find out that China eats dumplings with sugar, just like how he does back home. As for the nightmare, the sugar is still gross. It came as fine “snow sugar” that was wet.

After consuming the meat dumping, Lecturer Jonathan Ho came along with 24 dumplings, he gave each of us one. Two emotions filled him, how nice and oh the horror. Unfortunately, oh the horror was the correct emotion when consuming it once again. This time there were about three to five peanuts in the whole dumpling. It was mainly rice that had, had to be eaten with sugar, which helped by a millimeter.

As the day came to a wrap, he had soup dumplings for dinner, ten in a bowl.

Enough of dumplings, he thought.