Weekend in Zeeland

I was late again this morning, fortunatly my boss is still in Praag, otherwise he would say " It is reasonable you are late, because you live too far away." Well~everyone knows I live 2 minutes walking from the office.

I have had a very, very busy weekend. We went to walk the dog on beach Wassenaar on Saturday. (ps. it is not my dog) A super cute little doggy. The reason we took care of the dog for half day is, remie wants me to get some experiences about keeping a dog, otherwise I want to buy a dog everyday without thinking how difficult it will be. It was a great time to play with the dog on beach, coz this little fellow is quite lively. She shows her interest to all the dogs on the beach, and finally she got problem from an dog couple. That girl became jealouse that our princess is too close to her boyfriend. In Dutch they say, small dog but big world. Nobody agrees me to keep a dog because I am not able to supply it a good living condition yet. I think they are right, I have to wait if I really love dogs.

Our weekend trip just started after the sunset, we got on the train to Zeeland to meet remie's parents. It was the first time he introduced me to his parents. I did not feel nervous because I know most Dutch parents are quite kind and open-minded. Same as I thought, I had a nice weekend togethter with remie's family. I also met the grandmother of remie who is 87 years old already but still a healthy, fashion lady. The first question she asked me was "You are not going back to China, are you?" Because she has two grandsons both have Chinese girlfriends. But another grandson will go to settle in China next year with girlfriend. Grandma is afraid that I will bring remie away to China, too. She started to ask my name after made sure that I will stay in Netherlands.

We had a hard day on Sunday, we visited the beach and the forest in Zeeland with bicycle. Totally we biked about 25 km, I never biked such long distance in my life... I was very tired, but still feel excited to see the beautiful landscape in Zeeland. They have typical Dutch landscape which we always see from the paintings.

There are many big or small "Dam" in Netherlands to protect the land from water.

The old castle--->

In the forest --->

Lunch problem

I meet two difficulties since I start my work. The first one is language of course, I do not speak good Dutch, but I can at least understand what my collegues are talking about during lunch break. So it is not really boring for me, when they laugh, I can laugh as well.

The second problem is LUNCH!Or food...they eat bread everyday...but I do not like bread. I feel it even more difficult to let me eat bread everyday than to learn Dutch. Frankly after 5 years stay in Netherlands, I get used to everything here except food. Dutch people can eat bread morning and noon, then finally they eat something warm in the evening, every day after day... I do not like bread, so I feel terrible to have bread daily. When I look at the ham, cheese, salad on table, I still do not have wish to eat them with bread... Sometimes I eat cucumber or tomato or apple instead of dry bread... I am not keeping slim, but there is nothing else to eat. I ever planned to bring my own lunch to work, but we get free lunch from company and everybody eats together at a big table, I do not want to be apart from other collegues.

My collegues asked me what do Chinese eat for breakfast and lunch, if we eat noodles everyday. tja~how could I describe all kinds of Chinese lunch to them? As they know about noodles, there are many kinds of noodles in China, noodle with soup, fried noodle, noodle salad...haha, I really do not know how to make English name for every of them. Pancake with smoked meat and vegetable, a little bit black bean saus was my favourite lunch, or warm dishes with rice, or different Chinese snacks... I could eat everyday different lunch. But Dutch people think warm dish is only for dinner, not for daytime. I ever asked my boyfriend why cannot eat warm dish for lunch? He could not find out the reason. So it is just a culture I think.

Anyway, I am satisfied with dinner coz I make Chinese dinner myself and sometimes we go to restaurants for a change. I like Dutch restaurant as well, the only problem is bread... I hope I can get used to eat bread daily before I get sick of it.

Chinese hosting and ICP

How to let the website work with a Chinese hosting? This is the task I got for my work yesterday. After almost whole day researching, it became a mission impossible for us.

Since I work for a Dutch company wants to invest to Chinese telecommunications market，we have to obey the laws and rules made by "Telecommunication Management Bureau of Ministry of Information Industry" in China. Since 2001, every Chinese website has to register an ICP（Internet Communication Provider) permission, and upload the permission number at the bottom of the website with linking to TMBMII. If they find any website without ICP, the website will be blocked and the owner will receive bill about 500-1,000 euros.

There are 2 kinds of ICP permission for commercial and non-commercial websites. For commercial websites, 50% stock rights should belong to a Chinese company with an min. amount of company funds, which means if our company wants to get the ICP permission, they have to sell half of their company to Chinese. As a Chinese, I find this is a smart way to get foreign company stocks although it sounds unfair.

What the most unfair is, the ICP permission for non-commercial websites. Nowadays, more and more Chinese start to make their personal websites. It is a place to present themselves and share information with others. ICP actually means over-control for all websites in China. Everyone has to consider careful before putting information on his own website, maybe there is something that Chinese government does not want to see or hear. It is a pity to know Chinese internet becomes intranet which limited the view of Chinese citizen. And it sounds ridiculous as well, because the governement is pushing Chinese internet users to buy foreign hosting, but without efficiency to stop people's mouths.

A new start

I had idea to write blog in both English and Chinese for a long time, finally I gonna make it, although I am not a good writer or professional blogger who can keep a daily updating. Well~just take it easy, for myself, for my friends online.

For all the non-Chinese friends, I will introduce myself again. I am Chinese of course, but living in the Netherlands. I am learning Dutch as well, an interesting language with a lot of "g". Actually it is no problem to live in Netherlands without speaking any Dutch, because everybody speaks good English. But if you really want to join the Dutch culture, the best way is to learn their language. Another reason for me to learn Dutch is, my boyfriend is a Dutch, I hope at least one of us can communicate with native tongue at home in stead of both speak English.

I have been in Netherlands for 5 years, studying and working. I just start working for a short time, still did not get used to get up early. I was late again today, although I live near to the office than anyone else...I work as web developing&marketing which is quite different from my study. As the only Chinese in this small company, I get more pressure to learn Dutch to communicate with my collegues.

Well~it is a new start today, from this blog. I am still learning to use google blog, since it has more function than msn space. But it is a pity that blogspot is blocked in China.My another blog is in Chinese, I will try to keep both blogs updated at same time.