It is a university or is it a prison?

Picture from the Shanghai Art and Design Academy web pages

Jinlin is studying interior design in Shanghai Art and Design Academy ( 上海 工艺美术 职业 学院, Shàng hǎi  Gōng yì měi shù  Zhí yè  Xué yuàn ). It is located near the Shanghai suburb of Jiading, about 20 kilometers from Shanghai downtown. You can see the location in Google maps.

It seems like a modern "western style" university campus and they have nice comprehensive web pages open to the world at http://www.gymy.cn/ describing topics from beautiful sculpture works and nice Photoshop creations to stories of industry co-operation. But it turns out there are peculiar different aspects to the studies there, particularly related to freedom (or lack of) of students.

Already in the beginning of Jinlins studies I was surprised to find out that the university starts with one month of tough military training. Then when planning my trip to Shanghai, it become apparent that the school has lectures on all seven days of the week, no free Saturdays or Sundays. There is not a single day of holiday during the semester between 1.9.2012 and 31.1.2013. I had reserved my trip to include two weekends in attempt to maximize our time together but the school schedule meant that there was no difference in her ability to see me on weekends compared to weekdays.

Just few days before my travel even more weird limitations appeared. I had reserved a hotel for us for nine nights in the centre of Jiading, about 1.5 kilometres from her campus. She then told me she can't stay with me in the hotel overnight. I knew that she lives in the campus in a six-person dormitory with other students. But I only then learned that no student is allowed to stay overnight out from the campus. They must sleep every night in their dorms. If they go out from the campus, they must return latest 10 PM in the evening, no exceptions. Guards will walk around the dorms and check everyone is present. Lights will be turned off 11 PM. All students are adults but it does not seem to me that they are treated with the attitude of freedom and responsibility granted to adult university students in the west.

Final surprise come during the trip. I knew she was busy on classes on most days before 4 PM so I mostly did sightseeing or work on my own during that time. One day I though: I'll go and see around her campus! I did not hope to see her: just the campus area. It looks nice in the pictures, I like architectural photography and it seemed like a nice idea to see the actual buildings she is so closely tied in the current phase of her life. So on a nice day I walked to the Shanghai Art and Design College. I took some photos from the street approaching the campus entrance:

"Shanghai Art and Design Academy"

Well, it turns our those were the only pictures I got. You see, there is only one entrance to the fenced campus area. And it has guards. And the guards stop you when you try to walk in. And when you smile at them and ask "Wǒ  Kě yǐ  Pāi shè  Yī Xiē  Zhào piàn  Zhè lǐ  Ma?" (Can I take some pictures here?) they reply "Bù  Kě yǐ" (No, that is not okay). They don't allow you to enter at all. So I had to go away, no more seeing or pictures of the Shanghai Art and Design Academy.

Seriously, what's the point of being so strict? It's not that they would have some kind of super-valuable secrets compared to, say, Helsinki university and Harvard university that allow visitors to stroll freely on their campuses and even enter freely most buildings on the campus. It's not that there would be some kind of terrorist attacks going on in China and they would have to limit access for security reasons.

One student going out was observing my discussion with the guards and tried to explain to me with bad English and some Chinese that in order to enter the campus I would have to make appointment with some of the teaching staff. It seems that the default mode in Chinese public space is that things are forbidden and only allowed by special permission whereas in western public space things are usually allowed by default and only forbidden for specific reasons in specific cases. I prefer the western way.

By the way, did you know that Chinese are not allowed freely to move within their country? A person living in some town has a living permit, "Hukou" (户口) , to that town and cannot decide to move to another place on his own accord. He must apply for a permission to move from the officials and the application might be rejected. This has led to situation where millions of people move without permission and become "illegal immigrants" inside their own home country, losing many social rights and risking of being arrested and departed to their designated home area. It's a weird place.

Bye bye baby

Jinlin in her new coat on Sunday

I returned to Finland on Monday and have been since then quite busy with work, dinners with friends and associations, meeting my boys and "enjoying" some jet-lag. Another party of 20 guests coming up here at my place tomorrow evening and then for the weekend to board-gaming event with my boys. Good to be busy now to avoid excessive feelings of emptiness and to match Jinlins busy study schedule. She told her school pressure is getting even worse now when the final month of the term ending at Chinese new year approaches. I can believe that since it's 2 AM in China at the moment and she was still doing some schoolwork :-(

It was a good visit. Very peculiar combination of love, work and sightseeing, but good. In the end she was able to spend time with me on five of my nine days in Shanghai, less than I had originally hoped when I bought the tickets but more than she had promised just before the trip. Mostly my moods were very good and I think hers were as well. There were few low points such as Tuesday evening when she had to return to her school and I knew there will be two whole days without seeing her again until Friday. And then of course the inevitable separation after our last hours together on Sunday. "Bye Bye Bù  Hǎo" (bye-bye not good) like we were talking before. But that's ok, that's how it's supposed to be. Like the Finnish Neon 2 love song "Kemiaa" tells: "Sen täytyy joskus satuttaa... Ei siitä muuten mitään tuliskaan" (It has to sometimes hurt... It would not otherwise work).

Bought her roses and lilies for farewell gift

This trip was setting a good precedent for a series of hopefully more frequent visits. The flights, hotel and visa cost only 800 euros and food is cheap so I can afford to travel there several times per year. Furthermore this visit did not consume almost any of my holiday days since I was able to work few hours every day when Jinlin was at her school. So we agreed I will go next time already at Chinese new year, in February 10 next year, when her first term has ended and she has some real holiday we can spend in Henan. That's only two months to wait compared to the five months between the last two visits.

Going for it

Most importantly, there was renewed commitment to the relationship. That will be needed, since her current degree studies will take still at least 1.5 years more and there is no much hope for getting to live together before that. I was telling in a chat yesterday about my occasional worries that time and distance would become a problem or she would find someone else in China. I greatly respect her courage:

Jinlin:   我 不 怕 时间 或者 距离 . 你 担心 ？
Wǒ  Bù  Pà  Shí jiān  Huò zhě  Jù lí  .  Nǐ  Dān xīn  ？
( I am not afraid of time or distance. Do you worry? ) 

Robert:  对 我 一点 担心 . 但是 我 开心 你 不 怕
Duì  Wǒ  Yī diǎn  Dān xīn  .  Dàn shì  Wǒ  Kāi xīn  Nǐ  Bù  Pà
( Yes, I worry a little. Although I am happy you are not afraid ) 

Jinlin:  是的 ， 我 理解 你的 心情
Shì de，  Wǒ  Lǐ jiě  Nǐ de  Xīn qíng
( Yes, I understand your feeling )

Robert: 我 尝试 很 忍耐
Wǒ  Cháng shì  Hěn  Rěn nài
( I try to be very patient )

Regarding my other worry, she was equally determined:

Robert:  但 有时 我 担心 你 找 别 人 在 中国 。
Dàn  Yǒu shí  Wǒ  Dān xīn  Nǐ  Zhǎo  Bié  Rén  Zài  Zhōng guó  。
( But sometimes I worry you find someone else in China ) 

Jinlin: 我 心理 有人， 放不下 别人， 所以 你 懂 ？
Wǒ  Xīn lǐ  Yǒu rén，Fàng bù xià  Bié rén，Suǒ yǐ  Nǐ  Dǒng  ？
( When my heart is on someone, there is no space for anyone else, do you understand? ) 

 Robert: 是的 . 谢谢
Shì de  .  Xiè xiè  :-)
( Yes, thank you! )

 What a great lady she is! Makes me proud of her and willing to strive for same level of resolution :-)

I've posted links to some pictures on the trip already earlier, but here's the full collection: Arrival, Sunday in Jiading, Qiuxia garden, Karaoke, Shanghai downtown, Shanghai Bund, Jade Buddha Temple, Buying clothes.

Jinlin and the smiley

Everybody knows this classic smiley "giggle" or "laughter character. Eyes almost closed as upward crescents and mouth covered with the hand. In the animated version of these, the head is also usually bobbing up and down a little to indicate laughter. This smiley is along the standard collection in most instant messaging programs and I have been definitely using it a lot even before meeting Jinlin.

But what's with the hand in front of the mouth? I never much understood that since that is almost never seen in Finland or rest of the western world. Perhaps in the 1930's but not in the present century. But in China (and elsewhere in Asia as well) it can still be considered rude to laugh with your mouth wide open, exposing your teeth. It's getting more rare but at least Jinlin, with her traditional upbringing outside of the large metropolises, has the habit of rising her hand in front of her mouth within one second of laughter setting in. 

In the traditional Chinese way of thought, the girl should be graceful and elegant and people don't like young girl mouth open "so big like shark" showing their teeth. The true lady is not supposed to grin, but smile without show their teeth. In Chinese slang the term " 笑不露齿" (Xiào bù lù chǐ) is used, meaning literally "Laugh not revealing teeth". In the old days ladies had fans and could smile behind them. This habit comes down all the way from Confucianism, which teaches that public displays of emotion should be repressed. Especially for women, laughter was not considered feminine.

You can see Jinlins cute reaction to smiling in this short video from our metro trip to the Bund on tuesday:

Jinlin does this even when she is just in my company although I do not mind seeing her smiling mouth. In fact I like it - it is one of the great joys of relationship to make other one feel happy. And I think that emancipation of Asian women requires their liberation from requirements of what has been traditionally considered "feminine" and "unfeminine".  

Luckily I have a quick finger for my cameras shutter-button and sometimes I can catch the rare moment of beautiful big smile just before it's being covered ;-)  But I must say I consider her "giggle-character" kind of laugh very cute also. So whether she will move more towards the open western culture or stay within the Chinese tradition, good both ways. And the best point of course is that we can make each other smile and laugh often, an important aspect in a good relationship especially when common language is still not perfect.

Well eaten, warm and happy in Shanghai

Before this trip I wrote about Jinlin being Hungry, Cold, Broke and Desperate in Shanghai. Yesterday was a nice antithesis of these. We've had good food and happiness together on the earlier days as well, but now we also fulfilled our plan of buying her warm clothes for the increasingly chilling Shanghai winter. That will be needed: It's been still 12-15 C here in the past week but on some days next week the day temperatures will not rise above 5 C. We bought a coat, trousers, hat and shoes. It was nice to observe her combine practical aspects of the clothes with stylistics ones. Most women I know are very thoughtful about the appearance of their clothes and Jinlin with her art-student background is definitely no exception, to the contrary. She was extraordinary grateful and happy for my support (谢谢 你的 钱 , 我 很 开心, Xiè xiè  Nǐ de  Qián  , Wǒ  Hěn  Kāi xīn) and I was equally happy to able to use some money for something so useful when she was in need. 

I have been increasingly glad that I did in the end come to visit her this time. It is true that her studies have limited out time together and before the trip she was even hesitant whether she wants me to come now at all because of these limitations. But in the end this has not taken away much from the happiness together. It has been very nice to see how her mood here with me has seemed so much better than in some of our earlier pre-travel chats (or the days of silence that resulted from her being hesitant in chatting on bad mood)

The good food

Talking of being well eaten, the food is great here on the days we can go eating together with Jinlin. When I go to restaurants alone, I am still very limited in my possibilities. I can ask for a menu in Chinese, do the small-talk with the waiter and in the end ask for the bill and pay. But I can only read the simplest Hanyi so the menus are mostly useless to me and in the end I have to negotiate with the waiter something simple outside the menu with my "huge" food vocabulary of "meat", "noodles", "rice", "fried", "chicken", "beef", "vegetable" and "egg". Jiading is a suburb of Shanghai with few foreign tourists, so most restaurants do not have the kind of picture menus (or English menus) that can be found downtown.

Very tasty, very large lunch

But boy when we eat together! She quickly orders the table full of exquisite delicacies that explode taste-buds with delight! And here "table full" also refers to quantity: she tends to order so much food (in form of so many dishes) on one meal that 3-4 hungry people could be fed from that. In China it is considered polite to order more food than the people in table can possibly eat and Jinlin is no exception to this habit of showing how you are "generous" to your guests. If you are having the role of a "host" on a meal, you are supposed to take utmost care that your "guests" are not left hungry even if this care leads to lots of waste. Personally, I find this habit distressing, given that every year, the world wastes 1.3 billion tons of food, 33 percent of all food produced. Especially in China, with still real issues of getting its huge population fed and where dying of starvation was common in the 1950's, I feel it's sad to leave the table every time with piles of good food. There are attempts of recycling programs for the restaurant scraps but they are not working very well. So I've new tried to suggest to Jinlin in as polite and mild way as possible that we could perhaps sometimes order little bit less food. Let's see how that goes. Meanwhile I try to keep my conscience in check and enjoy :-)

Karaoke!

Jinlin singing last night

Our mutual interest with Jinlin in singing and karaoke come apparent rather early in our relationship when we started to complement our video-chats and photo exchange by sending each other MP3-files of us singing to karaoke-backgrounds or on top of the original artists. You can listen to some of her songs to me from here, here and here and examples of my obviously less pretty singing in here and here :-) These songs have been nice gifts, one way of adding a dimension to the relationship, bridging the distance and keeping the feel of the other one during the long moments without live connection.

During our July trip to Yunnan we were occasionally searching for Karaoke places to sing "live" together but in the end our travel schedule limited our singing to some technically limited session in various hotel rooms. So when planning for activities here in Shanghai, karaoke was one of the top items.

Getting the act together

Long corridors and many rooms in "Shanghai Song City"

Last night we went to one of the larger karaoke-places in Jiading, 上海歌城 (Shànghǎi gē chéng), "Shanghai Song City". These places have very little to do with the typical Finnish "bar karaoke" where all customers in the bar share same venue and submit song-wishes to the DJ with pieces of paper. More true to the way karaoke is done in its home-country Japan, Shanghai Song City is like a hotel with many corridors and dozens of private rooms with good sound insulation. A group of people rents a room for one or more hours and they have a private karaoke-system to use. No more endless waiting in the bar for your turn to come. And whereas in Finnish karaoke bars high alcohol consumption is almost a prerequisite to get the folks on the stage (indeed the karaoke itself is free and the bars get their money from booze), here you pay for the real thing and no beverages are available. Well, there are also other places in China where you pay for pretty girls to come sing karaoke and drink with you but that is a different story...

Yeah, She's more sexy but I give 110% !

In the end we sang over 30 songs and had really good time. I must say the quality of the technical setup in the room was good and selection of English songs was surprisingly wide as well. Jinlin sang mostly Chinese songs, including versions of the songs above she had sent me earlier as files. I sang, among others, Michael Jacksons "Stranger in Moscow", Beatles "All you need is love" and "Yesterday", Seals "Killer", R. Kellys "Gotham City" and Coldplays "Speed of Sound" and "Lovers in Japan". And we also sang together Kelly Sweets "We Are One" (which we had practiced together in the summer). And as a very entertaining surprise bonus number we did together the all-known "Gangnam Style" by Psy :-) This entertainment value seems lasting with still today both occasionally shouting "Oppa Gangnam Style!" or "Sexy Lady!" to each other :-)

More pictures of the karaoke night here.

KaLaOK!

It is quite peculiar, how the word "Karaoke" has been adopted to Chinese language. As I have written before, many foreign words are adopted to Chinese via transliteration i.e. using Chinese characters whose pronunciation resembles (although does not quite match) that of the foreign word. For example Finland in Chinese is "Fēnlán" from the characters 芬 (Fēn) 兰 (Lán). Some other words, typically technical or rare foreign words, are simply written with western alphabet in middle of the Chinese characters. The treatment of word "Karaoke" takes a rare combination of these approaches. It is written as:

卡拉OK    

Or, with replacing Hanyi characters with Pinyin tones:

Kǎ Lā OK

So part of the word is transliterated with Hanyi characters and part with a western "OK"! I don't know of any other case like this.

Aaaand... It's good again

Jinlin and chocolate

Time together with Jinlin yesterday was truly good. We ate in a nice restaurant, we did sightseeing in the Huilongtan park and Confucian temple of Jiading (photos here). We listened to music and browsed together pictures in the Finnish interior design magazines I brought her. We planned together activities for our remaining days together in Shanghai (at leas visiting the "Bund" and singing karaoke). But most of all, it was surprisingly easy in the end to be happy and optimistic with her, to smile with her and live in the present moment without worrying about the great challenges in our relationship. Recognizable smiles and manners, small inside humor that developed during the our summer trip to compensate for the lack of words, speaking clumsy Chinese and English with lots of funny misunderstandings... all of it felt surprisingly familiar, natural and good.

In the Confucius temple

I have Jinlin as present two varieties of Finnish chocolate. Other one we opened and ate together, other box she decided to keep as a Christmas present from me and open at christmas (Chinese 圣诞节, Shèng dàn jié, literally "Holy Birth Festival"). I gave her six issues of different Finnish home design magazines such as "Kaunis Koti" and "Glorian Kodit" as she had been expressing interest in those for her interior design studies. She was very happy about them and we were looking at the pictures together. And I gave her money which she would not like to take but needs to survive until the end of term in end of January. She told she is hand-knitting me a scarf for Christmas present but it's not quite ready yet so she will send it to me in post when I am back in Finland. How nice!

I felt that much of the pain and confusion from long silent days in separation was lifted.

And there has been definite improvement from the summer on how we can discuss things. No need to use mobile phone translation software any more. When I get a thought to my head I am in 90% of cases able to speak Chinese words that get the though across to Jinlin. I speak to her Chinese most of the time, resorting to some English words occasionally. She speaks bit more Chinese than English to me. I don't think her English ability is worse than my Chinese but she is perhaps bit more shy than me speaking clumsily. I suggested that tomorrow we might speak more English together so she gets more training as well. But I understand quite well her Chinese, so I understood nice things she said like "When you are in Finland, I miss you very much, you are inside my heart."

Surviving on my own in the no-english-land

In Shanghai metro

Ah, I've beaten the great internet firewall of China! :-) As I have written earlier, China has blocked access to Google, GMail, Youtube (a Google service), Blogspot (a Google service hosting this blog) and Facebook, among other useful internet services, for "security reasons" (read: censorship of free speech to aid the communist party stay in power). This is annoying for us western visitors since we are already used to these "dangerous" services and might want to use them during our trips.
    
On my last trip here I did not do any Facebook updates because of this (and because of our busy travel schedule with Jinlin). But now I am circumventing the blockage by taking a remote-desktop connection to my home server and then browsing the net from there. Bit clumsy, but works :-) This time there's also more possibilities and time for such updates since the hectic travel schedule in rural Yunnan has been changed to staying in single well-networked hotel in Shanghai and, due to Jinlins studies, I will be much of the time without her.

I arrived to Shanghai 10 AM Chinese time yesterday. My hotel is near Jinlins school in the Shanghai suburb of Jiading, quite on opposite side of the city from the airport. I took the Shanghai metro from end of the airport metro line to the end of line 11 to North Jiading station. The size of this metropolis is conveyed by the fact that this took more than 2 hours although the the metro had good speed and did not stop very often. Too bad I had not gotten any sleep on the previous night in the plane and there were no places to sit left :-) And too bad it means I have to wake up 5 AM on the day of leaving to make it to the plane :-( 

But despite the size, the metro is otherwise well arranged with clear signs, maps and indicators. Once during the metro trip there was a branching in the line and I could not determine from the information displays which way my train was going. I do not have mental barrier of speaking clumsy Chinese, but I unfortunately do have mental barrier of asking random people for directions in any language. But got over the barrier and asked a fellow passenger ( Qing wèn.  Zhè ge  Dì tiě  Qù  Shén me  Dì fāng ? "Excuse me, what place does this metro go to?" ) and also get an answer I understood and was helpful :-) 

In Jiading I pulled my luggage 500 m from the metro station to the location of my hotel. Or rather to the location where Google maps had been marking the address of my hotel. There was only a hospital there, no hotels. Too bad I did not have the Chinese name and address of the hotel on my printed infopaper and my laptop with the additional information was out of battery. Had to do 30 minutes of more walking and asking directions from two other hotels on the road. Lots of badly spoken and badly understood Chinese was involved in these other hotels as well, especially since I mistook the second one to be my hotel and a mass of misunderstandings followed.

Finally I was directed to the right hotel where I had reservation. It was about 1 km south from the point marked by Google maps. (Note to self: Don't rely on Google maps address locations in China in future.) Final challenge was to manage the check-in discussions with the helpful but once again no-word-of-anything-but-chinese staff. Had to use quite much my catch-all phrase  ( Duì bù qǐ  .  Wo bù  Míng bái, "Sorry, I do not understand") The mutual struggle with Chinese did fortunately seem to provide the staff amusement rather than frustration judging from their laughing together when in the end even the details of the deposit-payment were understood and all was clear :-)

More pictures from the way to Jiading here.

Now I have slept 14 hours, hopefully compensated for the lost night and in a few hours I will meet Jinlin. We will not have much time together during this trip due to her tough study schedule (7 days per week) and strict policies at her university (no sleeping away from campus and no visitors). I very much wish that we can both keep any disappointment from these limitations away from our minds for the time being so that we don't waste any of our short precious moments together to bitter thoughts but focus on the present and positive things.

Hungry, Cold, Broke and Desperate in Shanghai

Her eye

It's now ten days to my travel to Shanghai. It turns out Jinlin has been feeling quite miserable in there recently.

Signs of trouble come with her falling again progressively more silent in our chat window. In the past month I have written her 140 chat messages, she has written me only 50, most of which have been short statements about how busy she is. There have been periods of many days when I have been daily writing her something small about my life and asking about hers and not getting any replies. I have stated my worry about her silence and my happiness on any replies that she is able to give me.

I know she has been saying she is very busy and I do not doubt that, but seriously, how realistic is that someone does not have even 5 minutes a day (or every second day) to reply something small to "Hello, how are you?" messages? I am last person who wants to start negative speculation on other persons motivations (or lack of such). I do not want to read between lines or from non-existence of lines. Too often in the past my ex-partners have read some sinister intentions to my well-meaning words or interpreted my busy times or technical problems with internet as serious relationship issues. I think one should aim for the positive interpretation and in absence of information simply say "I do not know".

But when days pass, when message after message fades into the depths of internet without reply, when I know she has both a laptop and a smartphone with full messaging capabilities working, sadness and speculation is difficult to avoid. With 5000 kilometers of distance there is no body-language to be read, no observations about daily life. You cannot see from the face of the other one that something is wrong and ask "what is wrong?" In fact with 5000 kilometer distance the lack of messages means lack of any kind of information.

I have written before that Jinlin is not very active in discussing difficult things but rather often chooses to avoid such topics. Jinlin seems to have indeed quite high mental barrier of bringing up problems in discussion. So when silence continues and the rare nuggets of words are small and shallow in meaning, even my non-speculating mind starts to speculate on bad possibilities. Does she not want to continue the relationship? Does she have some awful secret? I am flying to Shanghai in ten days and she has not replied to my requests of planning some activities together. If she does not have 5 minutes per day for me remotely, is there any possibility for any time together there?

Talk the talk

Finally, during last weekend, we had a longer chat and she opened up about her troubles and reasons for silence. Jinlins text in Chinese with my translation, my text in italics:

没办法中国教育, I cannot help the Chinese education system
我很难过,  I am really sad
我身上的钱还有几百块, I have few hundred yen money left [~50 euros]
可是我的坚持到过年,  But this should last until I return home on New Year [Feb 2013]
我现在只吃一点点的饭菜, I can now only eat very few meals per day
今天我只吃了早上和中午, Today I could eat only breakfast and lunch

I'm sad. I though the University to provide you with meals.

我们大学是自己拿钱买卡吃饭。In our university we must pay our own meals
所以我母亲没有那么多钱给我。My mother did not give me much money
很难过。我很没心情    Really sad. Really low mood.

This is very bad. When we meet in Shanghai, I can give to money. I can sen you some before. You should have told me about this problem earlier darling. You should not be alone with such problem.

很遗憾。我之前很难过。 I'm really sorry. I have been really sad already earlier.
我很忙碌。身上的钱不多  I have been really busy. I have very little money
天气变冷我没有保暖的衣服  Weather is getting chilly. I have no warm clothes.
也没有钱去接你  I don't have money to come to airport to welcome you.

Sounds bad. You should have told me. I will help you. When we meet, I will buy your warm clothes. My dear, you must learn to talk to me. I need to know if there is trouble.

我甚至不想你来。I even did not want you to come to Shanghai.
我不仅仅没时间也没钱。I don't only lack time, I also don't have money.
所以我很担心。Hence I have been very worried.
我在周末除了上课就去兼职赚钱 I have tried to do some part-time job after classes.
可是我没有拿到那么多钱。But the pay has been very small.
所以很失望。Hence I have been really desperate.
很抱歉我妈妈并不富裕 I am really sorry my mother is not wealthy

You do not need money because of my trip to Shanghai. I can pay my costs and give you money. Life is not always so easy. But I am glad that you have told me. You have been too silent recently. Such silence is bad in a relationship.

是的。我不想麻烦你。Yes. I did not want to trouble you.
让你给我钱   Did not want to allow you to give me money.
我不告诉你其实是怕你担心我  I did not tell you because I fear you will worry about me.
我很会很难过  Will make me very sad.
谢谢你 Thank you.

Darling, of course I can worry about you. But that is okay. You give me more trouble, if you have a problem but don't talk to me. In recent weeks, I have been worried, because you have talked with me so little. I have been worried that you do not want to speak with me. But now I understand your problem better.

很抱歉我很抱歉 Very sorry, I am really sorry.

Please in the future do not be silent for a long time. If you are silent I might think you do not love me. When you are happy, talk to me. When you're sad, talk to me. If you are busy talk to me a little. We might be sad, still do not stop talking to me. Can you do this?

好的. 我很抱歉  Okay. I'm really sorry
我实在心情不好，我很难  When I am on really low mood, it is difficult to talk.

Thank you darling. I understand that you can be in a bad mood. I can also sometimes be in bad mood. But you can say to me: "Dear, today I feel bad, do not want to talk." This is a okay. I will understand that. This is far better than silence.

很抱歉我很对不起. I'm really sorry, I much apologize

That's okay, it is now good, all is forgiven and I will help you. It is late, go to sleep now. We chat again soon. Even when you in a bad mood ;-)

再见 Bye :-)

Tāng - Táng - Bāng - Děng - Dàn

Last time I wrote about Chinese Writer -software I wrote. I have now added over 400 words to the word database of the software and it's becoming quite useful writing tool. There are also several improvements in the user interface to speed up the writing process. Most importantly, the Hanyi (chinese characters) and Pinyin (phonetic romanisation) are now entered to same field and pinyin-syllables replaced in-place with the chosen hanyi-character. Second improvement is integration with Google translate for quick adding of new words. One can select unknown hanyi-characters and press Alt+A to open Google translate window with those characters and their pinyin plus English translation. Finally, there is connection to the helpful pinyin table website for checking pronunciation of the syllables:

My expanded usage of pinyin has been encouraging me to try to clarify the subtle differences (if any) in pronunciation of some common similar sounding words. Like I wrote in the beginning of my blog, the major difficulty in mandarin language is the huge number of similar sounding words. After one year of studying I must conclude that this is very real and practical source of confusion and not just some theoretical issue. In many commonly used words of every day language, the sound difference is minimal if any. Here are some of my common stumbling blocks that I still mix up when listening to the audio lessons and even more when speaking myself:

"Zhu"-sounding words that have high tones:

• To go:  去 Qù      (like Finnish  "Zhy")
• Out:   出  Chū     (like Finnish  "Zhu" in back of mouth)
• Vinegar:  醋  Cù  (like Finnish  "Zhu" in front of mouth)
• To live: 住  Zhù    (like Finnish "Zu")
• To eat: 吃 Chī     (like English "Zrr")

"yy"-sounding words with middle-low tones:

• Rain:  雨  Yǔ      (like Finnish "yy")
• Language:  语  Yǔ   (like Finnish "yy")
• Fish:  鱼  Yú   (like Finnish "yy")

"tang"-sounding words:

• Soup:   汤  Tāng   (like Finnish "tang")
• Sugar:  糖   Táng  (like Finnish "tang", bit lower tone)
• Wait:   等   Děng (like Finnish "tang", low tone)
• Egg:     蛋  Dàn    (like Finnish "tan")
• Help:   帮   Bāng (like Finnish "pang")

English vs. Music:

• English language: 英语  Yīng yǔ  (like Finnish "ingjyy")
• Music: 音乐 Yīn yuè  (like Finnish "ingjye")

I know vs. I'm late:

• I know: 我知道 Wǒ  Zhī dào    (like Finnish "voo tsrr tao")
• I am late: 我迟到 Wǒ  Chí dào   (like Finnish "voo tsrr tao", with "ts" bit lower tone)

Sometimes vs. Busy:

• Sometimes:  有时  Yǒu shí  (like Finnish "jou srr")
• Busy: 有事  Yǒu shì (like Finnish "jou srr", bit stringer voice)

But as we call it in the software business: it's not a problem, it's a challenge :-)

So, I made my own software for writing Chinese!

From early on in my learning of Chinese language, I decided to concentrate my efforts to the spoken language, not writing. One reason for this is the sheer mind-blowing number and complexity of the characters. Another reason to focus on speaking is that for writing (in the internet) various translation tools are available, but when we are face-to-face with Jinlin, speaking is a must. Finally, my busy life allows more time for listening to Chinese audio-lessons (eg. when driving or walking) than studying the visual appearance of the characters at home.

In the beginning when I translates from English to Chinese with Google translate used occasionally "round-trip" checking to verify validity of the translation. In this method one translates the translated Chinese back to English and checks that the result resembles enough your original intention. While this is useful method that I have used a lot, it has significant draw-backs. First, it is slow and clumsy. Especially when the result of the round-trip translation is not correct enough, one must make random structural variations to the original sentence in the hope of finding form that translates better. Second, if the round-trip translation does not produce good result, the Chinese translation could still be okay and the problem only in the translation back to English - but one does not know this, leading to unnecessary random changes.

Pinyin to the rescue

Today I have been getting sufficiently fluent in Chinese to be able to check the validity of the translation to both directions in most cases. How is this possible when my skills are only in speaking, not in the characters? It's made possible by pinyin, the way to phonetically write Chinese with English alphabet. For example following is a line written by Jinlin on our 4th October 2012 chat in Chinese characters (Hanyu), Pinyin and English:

Hanyu:  非常好.  我很开心. 我希望你来上海
Pinyin:  Fēicháng hǎo. Wǒ hěn kāixīn. Wǒ  Xī wàng  Nǐ  Lái  Shàng hǎi
English: Extremely good. I am very happy. I hope you come to Shanghai.

Because I am able to speak and understand these sentences in spoken Mandarin, I am also able to read and understand the corresponding phonetic pinyin. When translating between English and Chinese in Google translate, the resulting pinyin is also shown. By looking at the pinyin I am able to directly see if the meaning is what I intended without doing round-trip to English. While this direct checking saves time and improves accuracy of the translation, it is sometimes frustrating in different way. Often I know what sequence of Pinyin I want to get as outcome but I don't know what English sentence to write to make the tool produce that.

The obvious question is of course: couldn't there be a tool that allows me to write directly in pinyin and produce the corresponding Chinese characters? In principle many such tools exist: most Chinese writing tools are based on pinyin input. This is because it is clearly not convenient to make a keyboard with over 3000 keys for the different characters. Neither is is convenient to specify the intended character by drawing the strokes on screen (although you can try it at http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/mouse.html). Hence pinyin is the standard method to use: if you install Chinese input language to windows and start hacking or use online tool like http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/ime.html, you will write pinyin.

So what's the catch? Well, there are only about 400 different pinyin syllables but several thousands of characters in Chinese. So for each pinyin syllable there are dozens of different Hanyu characters. User of these tools must choose the intended Hanyu character from a list of matching characters and this requires visual knowledge of the Hanyu. You can see this if you try for example to use the free online Chinese writing tool above to write "I am" in Chinese. Pinyin for "I" is "wo" and pinyin for "am" is "shi". But for each of these syllables you get more than ten possible Chinese characters to choose from. Without recognizing the characters you can not select the right characters 我 and 是. Like I have discussed previously "ma" can mean, among other things, horse, mother or curse and "shi" can mean even more things than "ma".

Computer nerd strikes back

But wait! How about writing pinyin syllables and then choosing from a list of English -meanings the correct  intention and hence correct Hanyu character? That would allow person with written English and spoken Chinese skills to write full Chinese with full control and no translation errors. But alas, no such program seems to exist. Not until now anyway ;-) Since I'm a programmer both in my job and hobby, I made one today. Here's a screen shot::

With this tool one can write pinyin to the input field and select the desired matching word from automatically updated list of matches by pressing corresponding number. The selected character(s) are added to the sentence in the "Chinese" field and displayed as combined Hanyu-Pinjyn.

It's a small cute program done in C# using WPF and XAML for the user interface, LINQ for functional list-processing and XML database for the words. It was great fun to make! Here as an example is a key function that splits string of Chinese characters to chunks of words based on recursive dictionary lookup:

The program is of course only as useful as the database of words it contains. Today I have been adding the first 125 words and I have been already successfully using it to write first directly composed sentences to Jinlin. The program should be quite useful in everyday writing when I get to the ~500 word level that approximates my current vocabulary. I can also use it to comprehend Chinese written by Jinlin by copy-pasting Hanyu to the "Chinese"-field and inspecting the break-down of words produced. And while it's a writing tool, playing around with the words and expanding the database is bound to further also my primary goal of more fluent speaking ability.

I'm coming to Shanghai, Ready or Not!

Some good news and some bad news. But some background first. During the past three months our initial plans of Jinlin visiting Finland morphed into a plan of me visiting her in Shanghai:

2012-08-07: Jinlin: You asked if I can visit Finland in September. But in September I must be in school, learning my specialized courses. I will go to Shanghai, and then plan to go to Finland. In November will be China's National Day, I will probably have then seven days of the holiday and I can come to Finland.

2012-08-08: Robert: I have two weeks vacation left. If you come to Finland for one week, I have one extra week left. I thought, maybe, I once again came to visit China. I could come to Shanghai on October before your visit to Finland? I know that you do not have holiday then, but I can do sightseeing when you are in school in daytime and  we can be together in the evening. What do you think?

2012-08-09: Jinlin: I think such plan is very good. If I am at school at the time you visit China, I think you can also visit my school. To get to know my new study friends.

2012-09-14: Robert: Dear, you told me that you can visit to Finland in one week in November, because you have school holidays, then. See when I looked at the Chinese calendar is the festival. I do not see any public holiday in China in November. Do you have a holiday, like you told me, in November? I hope you have a holiday in November, so you still have time to arrange VISA.

2012-09-29: Robert: I worry that you do not have much time left now to arrange your visit to Finland in November. What do you think? You have not told me how your travel plans progress. In any case, I have a visa ready, I can come to Shanghai, if you tell me when is the right time.

2012-10-04 Robert: Honey, do you know if you can come to Finland this year? Although I hope you can come, I understand, if this is not possible. But I need to know.
Jinlin: I also hope to be able to come to Finland but I'm very busy studying. I hope I can have the time to come.
Robert: I have my visa valid. Therefore, it is easy to come to Shanghai. So, if you do not come I can come to visit you.
Jinlin: Very good. I hope you come to Shanghai 

2012-10-08 Robert: I am planning now my visit to Shanghai. Because it turned out you do not have any school holiday, I will choose the time according to what best fits my schedule. I intend in Shanghai from December 2 to December 8. Tomorrow I will buy tickets. I try to book a hotel near your school. Can you give the address of your school? 
Jinlin: My school in Shanghai Jiading District Jiahang Road 851

2012-10-09 Robert: Tomorrow, I will buy a ticket to Shanghai.
Jinlin: Good. How long will you stay in Shanghai?
Robert: I will be in eight days. I will arrive on 1st December.
Jinlin: Good. But I will not have much time to accompany you.
Robert: I understand. Would some other time be better? Do you have any holiday in the coming months?
Jinlin: Maybe. I am busy studying at daytime.
Robert: I know. But I prefer to come anyway, even if you are busy during the day. Otherwise, we can not see each other at all.
Jinlin: Okay. Thank you for your love.
Robert: Thank you dear for your lovely words. If you get some holiday later, I can come again.

Now to the good news: I got quite good price for Finnair flight tickets to Shanghai. The Stockmann department store had it's yearly "crazy days" rebates at a very suitable time for my plans. In co-operation with Finnair, Stockmann was selling Shanghai flights with 560 euros compared to the normal 800 euro price. Of course Aeroflot has even slightly lower price at 480 euros, but that includes 12 hour wait in Moscow on both ways. The extra 80 euros is definitely worth the extra 24 hours of time (and rest) gained. So I was happy to tell Jinlin:

2012-10-15 Robert: I have good news. I now have a ticket to Shanghai!
Jinlin: Well, you can send the information to my mailbox.
Robert: Sent! I will be in Shanghai for two weekends and one week.

Then come the bad news:

Jinlin: In fact, I am very sad the airport is very far from my school. And I can not leave. I'm sorry, but I think you should not come at this time. You can consider meeting me in February in Zhengzhou.

Well, that felt bit of a let-down, I must say. But there was no way I would be cancelling the trip at that point with the non-refundable ticket in my pocket, with the plans that we had been discussing before and with the postponing our earlier attempts to meet:

Robert: Dear, I have bought an expensive flight ticket. So, I'll come to Shanghai whether you want or not. You should have told me earlier if you do not want me to come now. You do not have to come to the airport. I will take care of all my travel arrangements. I will be in Shanghai for nine days. This includes two weekends. I can do my own sightseeing. But surely you can see me on some evening or weekend?

Fortunately it turned out that Jinlins main worry was her not being able to come to meet me at the airport. Quite unnecessary worry indeed. So things turned out to be quite okay after all and earlier plans nicely back on track:

Jinlin: I estimate I cannot come to the airport. My school is in the suburbs, too far from the airport. I will be late from school when I come to the airport.
Robert: Do not worry about the airport. I'll come to your school. I reserved at a nearby hotel. I can arrange these things.
Jinlin: Okay. I have classes on weekends also but I can arrange time on weekend afternoons.
Robert: Thank you dear!
Jinlin: Tell me your hotel. We can meet at your hotel.
Jinlin: I can also help you to plan your sightseeing routes for the days. We can use our time together to visit the Shanghai Bund. 

It will be interesting to see in the end how much time we can have together during the trip. A Pessimist might say that I'm travelling 6000 km to see my girlfriend and then she's not even with me most of the time. But an optimist might say that I'll get to travel for an interesting sightseeing experience to an exotic city and, by the way, there is the bonus of having lovely and dear female company every evening for free ;-) Now that sounds to me like a glass half full :-)

Anatomy of a misunderstanding?

So how is it possible that she was even temporarily asking me not to come after I told her I had bought the ticket? Didn't we have clear agreement about the plan? When re-reading our discussion I noted there might have been misunderstanding on my part in a critical point in our planning discussion above:

2012-10-09 Robert: Tomorrow, I will buy a ticket to Shanghai. [...]Jinlin: Good. But I will not have much time to accompany you.
Robert: I understand. Would some other time be better? Do you have any holiday in the coming months?Jinlin: Maybe. I am busy studying at daytime.

I automatically interpreted her answer "Maybe" to my most recent question: "Do you have any holiday in coming months?". So I though: "She does not even know whether she will have any holiday in the foreseeable future, no use waiting and hoping for that. Hence better to go now as planned, holiday or not."

But after re-reading this chat now, I realize the "Maybe" might well have referred to my first question "Would some other time be better?" This would make more sense in the light of "I am busy studying in the daytime" which makes sense to the question of the suitability of this time but does not make sense to the question about possible holiday times. Furthermore this exchange took place in text chat which has usually considerable temporal overlap between each others writings. So she might have started to write the answer to the first question before even seeing the second one, whereas I would have seen her answer to the first question only after writing the second one.

And with the Chinese politeness considered, "Maybe" to the first question would most certainly mean "Yes".

Well, my bad if I misunderstood her comments in this way. But if that is the case, I am still happy about my misunderstanding. Because otherwise I might have been kind enough to postpone our plans once more and seen her next time earliest in February, three long cold months later. That would have been a let-down. So it will be Shanghai in December or bust :-)

P.S. She has a new haircut and sent me nice new pictures. Without and with some make-up:

    

Me gusta

It's so nice she likes my boys!

Me and Ilkka chatting with Jinlin

Ah, Jinlin has her internet connection finally working again! We are back to our cozy video chats - what a nice and happy relief from weeks of forced low-bandwidth communication! She is living in a student dormitory with five other girls, so there can be quite much noise and chatter to be heard in the background. But in the evening she can sit on her bed with a curtain drawn around it to form a nice little "tent" for some measure of privacy.

Last Wednesday evening and now again on Friday we had the possibility to revive another nice and warm habit: my son Ilkka having a funny chat with Jinlin. Ilkka is 9-year old humorous and sporty boy. He has just started English classes in his school, but he has learned quite much already beforehand from computer games and from his 12-year old brother Arttu. Arttu and Ilkka spend with me every second weekend, Wednesday evenings and few weeks in the summer.

The funny pics extravaganza

While my boys are not yet quite able to carry out directly a meaningful English conversation with Jinlin, I can occasionally translate between them. But the more funny and unexpected way of communication is via emoticons: Jinlin and Ilkka have quite spontaneously developed a habit of sending each other great volleys of emoticons and similar funny small pictures. They laugh at each others creative combination of funny and naughty pics available at QQ messenger and compete who can get the best reaction from the other :-) It's great fun to watch them and laugh together with them (example screenshot from their exchange below)

From my past experience I am very aware that one should not take for granted that new spouse gets along, accepts or is accepted by ones children from previous relationships. So it's been a great relief and joy that both Jinlin and my boys have had only positive things to say from each other. She likes children in general and starting from her first reaction in our first "falling in love chat" her attitude has been very positive:

2011-10-08. Robert: I have two boys, Arttu and Ilkka, age 12 and 8. They are sweet. I have divorced already some years ago 

Jinlin: I love children! I don't mind 

My boys are equally generally accepting towards almost all adults, spouses or companions. Of course Jinlin was still concerned in the beginning about my boys acceptance of her:

2011-10-21 Robert: Ilkka is here with me. My boys are here for the weekend
Jinlin: What he thinks of me?
Robert: I can ask later what they think of you :-)
They do not know much about you yet
They just know I am writing letters with a nice Chinese woman :-)
They find it amusing that dad has a Chinese girlfriend :-)
Jinlin: I see. They are very cute. He is very handsome. Like you
Robert: He likes to play with me :-)
Jinlin: He is very lively.
Robert: Yes, he is! He likes sports and climbing to trees!
Jinlin: He loves you
Robert:  I think so :-) I love my boys as well :-)
Robert: Arttu is more interested in reading and writing and science
Jinlin: That will be fine. Can cultivate his interest

Jinlin chatting from her bed "tent"

At some point in the past when we were able to chat more frequently my boys were even talking enthusiastically about Jinlin to their mother (my ex-wife). This has prompted their mother to develop positive attitude for Jinlin and declaration that she is happy for us and happy on the prospect of Jinlin moving to Finland to live with me. Quite a feat of constructive attitude there! This, combined with my other ex-wife having even higher level of praise towards Jinlin and encouragement for my relationship with her has at times resulted in almost surreal opposite to the stereotypical negative attitudes that ex-spouses are supposed to have towards current spouses (according to web discussion forums anyway).

Fathers lost and gained

My father died when I was seven years old. Jinlin 'lost' her father in divorce when she was four years old:

2011-10-17. Unfortunately, I was very small when my father left me. He and I go far from each other, I wasn't close to him. For many years I even do not call him daddy. But in fact, my heart is the love for my dad. But when I met him I could not express my feelings. My half-sister and I were alike, but I did not take a photo. I regret that.

With these losses of fathers, we both appreciate my good relationship with my boys and she understands the need for me to stay geographically close to my boys at least until they are adults. So although in principle we could solve our getting-to-live-together problem by me getting a job from Shanghai, we both understand that because of my boys the only acceptable way currently is for her to move to Finland.

As the planned date of Jinlins moving to Finland, or even visiting here, has been pushed further to the future, by boys have been also sharing some minor part of the disappointment. But children are luckily quick to adapt and forget, so when the planned Finland trip was first moved from September to November and then dropped completely in favor of me planning to go to Shanghai instead, the boys have been understanding.

Of course, we have also plans, though currently seemingly distant ones, for our own kids:

2011-10-10 Jinlin: You and me: mixed-race children 
Robert: Yes! they are cute 

2011-11-12 Robert: That was Arttu
Jinlin: Your lovely son
Robert: Yes, they are both lovely in their own ways :-) Arttu likes to make imaginary stories and fantasy worlds.
Jinlin: Very good, has the very good imagination.
Robert: When we have baby together in the future, I will be good father and you will be good mother and we will be happy together! :-)
Jinlin: Yes. I hope our child same color eyes as you have, because I love your eyes.
Robert: I hope have same color as you! :-)
Jinlin: Yes. Ha-ha, why?
Robert: Because I love your dark eyes! But because you like my eye color I am happy with that for our children as well :-)

It's been a year of changes

Today is Sunday 7th October 2012 and I am sitting with my laptop at my summer cottage at Tammisaari. This is not really any more the time of the year to have enjoyable holiday here but instead the last visit before the winter to do preparations for the house and the jetty before the long winter break.

Dejavu, just like year ago. It was in this same place, coming here for the same pre-winter preparations, sitting with the same laptop, on Friday 7th October 2011, when Jinlin and I exchanged our first messages. So I thought I would do some reflection on one of the core questions of our relationship: When and how will be be living together?

There's been lots of love, lots of learning and lots of good moments between us, in the net and during my trip in China. I am glad we have found each other. Unfortunately, the topmost feeling in my mind at the moment is still a mild melancholy from not knowing - or even having a plan or estimate - on when and how we could finally upgrade our remote relationship to a close-up one. In the beginning it seemed much more clear: we had a plan, we talked a lot about the plan and refined the plan. But according to that plan we would have already been married and living in Finland together for two months now. So the original plan did not come to being.

In our first month, the plan of Jinlin coming to live in Finland in summer 2012 was going strong. I wrote her of possibilities to study interior design and other arts in Finland and she was:

2012-10-10 Robert:  Do you want to move with me to Finland to live with me? :-)
Jinlin:  Yes. I want to, but it is difficult to leave my mother. Because I love her. I go to Finland with you. But you want to see my family, to my home for a few days. We can always later go from Finland back to China. Can also take my mother to visit Finland.

2012-10-17 Jinlin: I want to go to Finland to contact your country's characteristics. I like your country house design. I'm very interested. I would like to study in your country. I love Finland. Ha. This is a wonderful thing. I 'm going to Finland. You take me to the forest. To a more beautiful place.

2011-11-05 Jinlin: After going to Finland there are many complex things to do, I am not afraid of difficulties, because I have you, I think we can solve, I really think a lot of things to be discussed, I like to discuss with you, learning.

2011-11-07 Jinlin: Applying to go to Finland with you life? Will that be ok? I'll be there for you, love you.

2011-11-13 Jinlin: I am graduating high school in June next year. I plan to apply to go to Finland next year. I said to my mother: 'I want to go to Finland'. She says to let me go, but later life can only rely on my own. She wants me to study in Finland to enter the University. [...] But I do not worry, because I think we can overcome these problems, I love you, dear.

During November it turned out that the Helsinki Aalto University design courses were only available in English language only for students who have already bachelors degree from some foreign university. Alternative plans started to pop up in our discussion but summer 2012 was still the main option:

2011-11-14 Jinlin:  I contacted a abroad intermediary agent. They and some schools in Finland have cooperation. Contact me. IELTS study in Shanghai, then abroad. I will ask for the specifics. I think it was good. 

2011-11-19 Robert: So it seems that in order to study interior design in Finland you must first learn Finnish language quite well. So then I propose following. Lets get married in China in autumn 2012 and then come to Finland together!  The first year in Finland you study the language with me and with the many available courses. Then in spring 2013 you apply to Aalto university or some other school for programs starting in autumn 2013.

2011-11-20 Jinlin: I think we can get married in Finland and then went to China to tell my mother. Ha, so she can rest assured, ha. We wait wedding in China until the age that we can hold the wedding in China. Then we have two weddings, that is good thing. I was so happy, and happiness. I love you is so excellent. Every time I think of you, I so happy, like song so wonderful, that is love. The force.

2011-11-25 Jinlin: But I also worry about, is that I didn't apply successfully to Finland, I only in China's University, so how to do? I know in Chinese university can exchange students. We can see the result of the examination. If I can't apply for the past, I think I will go to Finland to travel. Even so, we also want to apply to, ah, do not worry too much, time is long, I will only love you more and more.

In December it become clear that Jinlins mother was not any more so supportive of her daughters Finland-plans, and there was also other tensions between them. But still we tried to keep to the "together after summer 2012":

2011-12-06 Jinlin: Honey. You know I don't want you sad. There may be very obvious cultural differences. Marriage in China is a very important thing, so you can rest assured, I asked my mother. I told her, how you perfect. I let her know, how you worry about me and how I can feel you care about me. I think we don't have to give up the idea, in life if the best thing to lose, what a pity, even if we have a lot of difficulties! We should be able to find a good way to solve, but yesterday I feel your sadness, I feel sad, I was worried about you. So you know, even after she really against it, I will go Finland with you. I don't think I will regret, regret my mother would not support me, but I must have the achievement with university. I want to succeed, so she would have pride in me.

2011-12-06 Robert: It is good when we return together to Finland next July I do not have to go to work immediately. I can be with you all day for some weeks first. So you get good start!
Jinlin: Very nice. I love you baby.

2011-12-14 Jinlin: Dear you is my best gift, this is very good.  I said to you I want to escape from my mother. It's not kidding, now you probably should know. I'll be very sad in such situation, I will work to, I will also love her. When I have the ability of time, I will let my mother be happy. She and I almost no quarrel. When she shouts, I choose silence, I think this is a good way to avoid. I also understand her heart, so dear when we go to Finland?

2011-12-15 [My mother] said I never let her feel proud. She was envious of others, and it makes me sad, so I'm sick. Today I rest at home. Although my mother and I have a lot of different opinions we still love each other. So I want to escape her management. Go to Finland! Strive. Want to let her know, I was actually very good, but I don't like her way of education. I want to have you to accompany! Later I will be very good.

When February 2012 come, Jinlin had already bent on the pressure from her mother and abandoned the "together in summer 2012" plan in favor of starting university in China and coming to Finland after half year:

2012-02-05 Jinlin: In the past my thoughts have not been mature, I think my mother have a lot of ideas I do not like, now I know it is my fault, my mother for me, love me.  Plan in the future will have some changes, my art school in China for half a semester, then go to school in Finland, this is very convenient, we will save a lot of time looking for the school. From Chinese university I can apply directly to the Finland school to go to study, it is convenient. 

Robert: Ok, I understand. Then we will live together bit later than I had hoped :-( But perhaps it is for the best? I think the biggest challenge to study in Finland will be Finnish language. That is why I had proposed to be in Finland to study the language. 

Jinlin: Yes, my dear, don't worry, I think this is the best plan. Don't worry, in China's Beijing province they teach Finnish language, I plan to go to Beijing to study at the school and study Finnish for half term, then apply to Finland schools.

We still continued to plan for her to visit Finland in the end of the summer after my visit to China in June 2012. This did not happen either due to her university starting in September and preparations for that beforehand. Some hope existed to get her to visit still later this year:

2011-08-08 Robert: Let's then plan for your visit to Finland some time in autumn 2012. You said September is too early, then perhaps October? My children are asking: When is Chen coming to Finland? I do not know what to answer.

Jinlin: I will plan, what time to travel to Finland. Rest assured that I will let your child play with me. So do not worry. I will let you tell your kids when Chen will come to Finland. I can in November, China's National Day, likely there will be seven days of the holiday, I can go to Finland.

After beginning of the university, the level of communication we have managed has been low, first due to her military training month and in the past week her not having internet connection to her laptop yet. But because November is approaching fast, I did try to squeeze answer about her. Few days ago she managed to tell me: "I would like to come visit Finland but I do not know if I will have holiday". Well, this I already now understood to mean "I cannot come" so I proposed for myself to come to Shanghai still before end of the year. Even if she does not have any holiday from her school we can be together in evenings and I can do sightseeing in Shanghai at daytime. She agreed and that's what I will start planning now. If mountain does not come to Mohammed, Mohammed shall go to the mountain.

Discussing difficult things, Asian style

Jinlin does not seem to be very direct in telling bad news, things that might disappoint other one. This is understandable of course, but still I would very much prefer to be disappointed early on if there are changes in plans affecting our future. Take can take the hit, get over it, adjust my course in the light of the new information. That is the Finnish way, but perhaps not the Asian way. In my previous work with Chinese and Indian software developers I have noted that they too are eager to present positive status reports even if there are problems so that the problems are discovered only much later creating much more hassle.

Now I am not the kind of person who insists on fixed plans. From my work in software development and from my past relationships I know that plans must be flexible and refined or updated together as needed when situations change. But if two people have a shared plan and other person realizes some impediment that will disrupt the plan, I think it would be fair and just to let the other party know as soon as possible that the plan needs to be abandoned or changed. And if a plan aiming for some target needs to be abandoned then it would be fair and just to make a new plan together rather than just let things hang in gray twilight of no plans.


Still, at the moment, I feel there is no current plan of how, when and where we will be living together with Jinlin. The old plans have been fading away. The latest agreed plan about her doing half year of university and then applying to Finland cannot obviously happen any more. But nothing concrete has been coming to replace it. No dates, no years, no names of schools. From all our past discussion I do not doubt that Jinlin wants to come to Finland to live happily ever after with me. But I cannot avoid some measure of worry when her answers are mostly: "don't worry, I will let you know" followed by days, weeks and months passing with no new information or thoughts on the matter.

In a stereotypical western relationship the woman wants to discuss the details and plans of their relationship and marriage and future together while the man wants to have sex and drink beer with buddies and watch football and avoid any kind of "relationship discussions". It is ironical that now in my relationship with Jinlin we now seem to have opposite situation: I would be more worried and hence more eager to discuss practical matters related to the development and future of our relationship.

Patience and flexibility are virtues but determination and planning ahead are also virtues. I aim to live peacefully and happily in uncertain situations and I try to avoid being control-freak who must know all of present and future (obviously futile attempts). I am willing to proceed step by step without knowing the long-term future. But I still do respect long-term planning in important matters.

"Future will be good"

Few days ago we had a joyful and rare (in recent times) possibility to chat with each other properly when she was able to go to an internet cafe. The best news was that she is supposed to get her own laptop connected to internet finally on Monday 8th October, that is tomorrow. We also discussed the longing for each other in times of limited communication:

Robert: I miss you every day. I look at your photos, I write my blog about us, I read your old messages and I listen to your music so I stay connected to you and my love for you. 

Jinlin: It is sad that since the starting of my school I have not been able to have much time with you. But the future will be good. I hope you understand. 

Indeed I hope and also want to believe that our future together will be good. But in the silence of the evening, when cold October wind is blowing outside in the trees, a little melancholy is difficult to avoid.