Tongji · Dominik Mayer · Products, Asia, Productivity

Buying books for my third and last semester at Tongji. They have strange titles. The most important one: “Climbing up”. And no “Elementary Chinese” next semester. Now it’s called “Intermediate Chinese”. I’m afraid.

I stumbled upon this picture of a common dish around here (although I’ve never seen it with onions):

While I still don’t like the version they serve in the Tongji Cafeteria, I’ve eaten quite good ones in the meantime.

Su-Lin, the cook and photographer, posted the recipe in her blog. I haven’t tried it yet but you can do it. And if you want to enjoy the real Chinese experience just get tomatoes that are not yet ripe or contain black spots or holes and don’t cut them away. :-P

Because of Labor Day on Thursday Tongji moved the classes from Friday to Sunday giving us three days off. The downside is that we have to go to school on Sunday. At first I thought it was a joke but it’s obviously not.

The midterms are over and learning for them has improved my Chinese quite a bit. Inspired by a student of Sinology I had decided not to study any tones as memorizing doesn’t work, I can’t speak them anyway and most Chinese also understand me if I don’t use them. That doesn’t mean that I won’t try to learn them by speaking.

In the midterms we solved some exercises in teamwork and I would have never thought that one day a Chinese would copy from me in a Chinese exam. ;-)

According to Tongji it’s no problem to stay longer as long as TUM agrees. So the question is: Do I really want to stay longer? I don’t know. Fortunately I don’t have to decide right away.

I asked my coordinator in Germany and she said I could stay longer. Let’s hope that I’ll get another admission from Tongji. If everything works out I would fly to Munich, write my exams and come back to Shanghai.

The beginning of our two day study trip to Linan organized by the International School. Price: 50 Yuan (about 4,50 Euro).

Opposite to the International Students Building: