Of impressions, ideas and waiting
Hi everyone, this is Owen and this is my podcast for Friday September the 11th. Welcome back to the new season of podcasts. First I'd like to tell you about a new feature on the PodClub app: it now comes with a new vocabulary trainer! You can now import new words from the podcasts and use the vocabulary trainer to help you practise and learn these. I hope you all enjoyed your summer and your holidays. My summer holiday came to an end a few weeks ago and I'm now back in the Middle Kingdom [1] after a memorable [2] visit to Europe. The highlights included visiting my family and meeting my niece [3] for the first time, trips to two great cities and eating too much. I've returned to China a few kilos heavier. I always forget how much I miss [4] cheese, bread and butter in China. The British love butter, they put butter on everything. It's something Vittoria, my Italian girlfriend, can't get her head around [5]. It was very nice to be back in Europe. It is a place I miss a lot and it made me want to plan a return in the near future. Today, I'll be talking about my impressions of two cities I visited, as well as a business idea and a book I read during my holiday.
I returned to some worrying news in China. People are talking about the economy a lot and the outlook [6] isn't good. The Shanghai stock exchange [7] has lost a lot of money and generally the numbers aren't good. Some people are saying the good days in China are coming to an end. I'm not sure it will happen so quickly but, nevertheless [8], maybe it's time for me to think of a move. On my holiday I visited two cities which could possibly be my next home. The first city was London. My flight to London Heathrow landed in the late afternoon. It was a nice sunny afternoon. The drive from the airport to my sister's house in the south-east of London took us some way along the Thames. When we crossed the river we got a good view of the Houses of Parliament and beyond. London looked beautiful in the late summer sun. Have you been to London before? What were your first impressions of London? Later on during my trip I went to visit some friends in Berlin. I had never been to Berlin before. My first impression was that it's not the most attractive city. Have you visited Berlin? What did you think of it? There was a programme on the BBC while I was in Wales about Londoners moving to Berlin. London is becoming so expensive that people are looking for alternatives. Berlin is high on the list. The cost of living in London would of course also be a problem for me. On the other hand, it's such a multicultural and culturally rich city, which is something that appeals to me after many years in China. The least appealing [9] aspect of London for me though – the side of London that I really don't like – is that it feels like the city has sold out [10]. Everywhere you go in London you see the same international shops, the same international chains [11] of cafes and restaurants. It seems there are only chain-shops, -cafes and -restaurants. And some public buildings, such as concert halls, have big corporate sponsors. The city feels corporate – controlled by multinational companies and impersonal. Berlin, on the other hand, felt very personal and independent. The area I was in had a lot of character. All the shops, bars and cafes are independently owned. And though not as multicultural as London, there is still a great mix of people in Berlin. Anyway, what are your opinions on these two cities? If you had to choose one of these cities to live in, which would it be? I would like to hear from you. There is a comment box for you to write in below, if you like.
One of the things I enjoyed a lot of during my holiday was cake. Everywhere I went there was cake on offer. There was always time for a cup of coffee or tea and a slice [12] of cake. And there were also my mother's homemade scones with clotted cream and jam [13]. In Berlin my friends were also always looking for a cafe to have a glass of chilled white wine and some cake. As I said before, I put on [14] a bit of weight. I'm not used to eating sweet things anymore. In China I very rarely [15] eat anything sweet. The Chinese don't have desserts. They never have anything sweet at the end of a meal. However if they do order something sweet in a restaurant, it usually gets served with all the other food, which in itself is very strange. The Chinese are gradually developing a taste for cake but they can't bake and no one has an oven [16] in the kitchen. Yet they are starting to copy the western tradition of birthday cakes. A number of bakeries in Kunming specialise in big fancy [17] cakes. In the shop windows they display fabulous layered cakes [18] with whipped cream and slices of fruit on top. The bakeries will also write a personal message on the cake using colourful icing [19]. The problem is that they taste industrial. They look amazing, but taste horrible. The actual cake is tasteless and the whipped cream isn't actual cream but a type of soft meringue instead. Incidentally [20], that is the story of China. They want everything to look good on the outside, but inside it's often not so good. Anyway, back to cake, I'm sure there is a market for good quality cake here in Kunming. People will pay more for a proper [21] cake, I'm certain. I know a French cafe in Kunming which sells very nice cake. I believe they do good business. And I also believe there is space for more such businesses. Is this a chance for me? I don't want a cafe. I just think I can sell my own cakes and I think I could deliver them. So now you are probably wondering: “Well, can he bake?” I think I can. Vittoria, my girlfriend enjoys my baking. I often bake cakes for friends and our parties. So let's just say I can. Now, what about the business? Well, first of all I don't need much start-up capital. I'll do some online marketing and then my cakes will sell themselves by word of mouth [22]. Eventually [23] I will also try the wedding cake business, which, I imagine, is very lucrative [24]. Now all I need are some good recipes. So what's the most delicious cake you bake? Do you think I'd be able to sell it? Let me have your ideas. Thanks in advance.
During my holiday I read a book called ‘Waiting'. A colleague recommended it. The book was written by a man called Ha Jin. Here are a few words about his life. He was born in the north east of China in 1956. In his early teens he joined the army during the Cultural Revolution. Then at the age of nineteen he went to university to study English. In 1985 he got a scholarship to study American literature in the United States of America. He was still living in America when the Tiananmen Square incident happened in 1989. It was then that he decided to stay in America for good. It was also at that point that he chose to write in English and not Chinese as a way to separate himself from what was happening in China. All his poetry, short stories and novels which have been published, he wrote in the English language. Another reason he chooses to write in English is because he finds the English language a lot more flexible than Chinese. For example, although there are hundreds if not thousands of dialects in the Chinese language it is almost impossible to write in a dialect. Every Chinese character has a fixed meaning. You can't show on the page how people really speak. Many of Ha Jin's stories are set during sensitive times in modern Chinese history, such as the Korean War or the Cultural Revolution. As a result all his books are currently banned [25] in China. ‘Waiting', the book I read, is about a man who wants to divorce his wife so that he can marry another woman. But in order to get a divorce both the husband and wife have to agree. This turns out to be a bit of a problem because his wife doesn't want a divorce. They were married in 1963 and it takes 18 years until the man gets his wish. In the end he marries the other woman, only to realise that he isn't happy with her either. Reading the descriptions of life in China during that time, the poverty, the restrictions on personal freedom and remembering that it wasn't that long ago is quite extraordinary. China has come incredibly far since those days, yet it's easy to forget that when you live here as a foreigner. Of course China still has a long way to come and I hope one day Ha Jin's books will also be published in the country they are all set in.
Thank you all very much for listening. If you have any questions, there's a comment box below for you to write in. By the way, to make learning even easier we've added a new vocabulary trainer to our PodClub app. This way you'll be able to import any difficult words and practise them whenever and wherever you like. Don't forget that you can listen to the podcast by downloading our app or by visiting our website www.podclub.ch. In two weeks' time Gerry will be back. My next podcast will be on October 9th. Until then I wish you a great month. Bye!
Glossaire: Owen in China [1] Middle Kingdom: another name for China
[2] memorable: easy to remember, difficult to forget
[3] niece: the daughter of my brother or sister
[4] miss: feel sad because something is not there, for example “I _ my mother's cooking when I'm in China”
[5] get (your) head around: understand (an informal way to say when something is difficult to understand)
[6] outlook: an idea of what the future will be like, for example “The economic _ is not good”
[7] stock exchange: a place where people buy and sell shares in companies, for example Wall Street
[8] nevertheless: despite a fact that has just been mentioned, for example “The weather looks bad. _ I'm going out for a walk.”
[9] the least appealing: the opposite of “the most attractive”
[10] sell out: If you do this, it means that you give up your moral principles and take money, for example “People think that the artist _ _ when he started advertising for a big multinational company”
[11] chain: a group of business that belong to the same company
[12] slice: piece (of cake or bread, for example)
[13] NB : Scones with clotted cream, butter and jam are a traditional thing to eat as part of an afternoon tea in Britain. A scone is a kind of small cake. If you see signs for “a cream tea”, this is what they are selling.
[14] put on: here: to add, to gain (for example “to _ _ a few kilos of weight”)
[15] rarely: not often
[16] oven: the place where you bake or roast food (part of a cooker)
[17] fancy: expensive and special
[18] layered (cakes): (cakes) with different parts, one on top of the other
[19] icing: a mixture of sugar and water that you put on top of a cake
[20] incidentally: by the way
[21] proper: real, authentic
[22] by word of mouth: (advertising) that depends of one person telling another person
[23] eventually: in the end (NB This is a “false friend”!)
[24] lucrative: a _ business is a business where you make a lot of money
[25] banned: made illegal, not allowed, for example “This book is _ in China
