Poddies in Dubai?

Changye, Yes exactly! I looked that also up and they are likely to open a Confusius institute next year! I will cross my fingers that they do and are the first one to enroll haha!

Some people think I should hang my head in shame, but I refuse to go to the wall and the warriors. I have been a lot of times to Paris and refused to see the Eiffel tower as well :-) I liked going to 故宫 though (went a few times ) and 天安门 because that symbolized China before I actually lived here. (touristic)places do not have my special interest, but I really like your last suggestion and will definitely go there! For me China is daily life at the local markets streets etc. and chat with 老百姓 :-) That I will miss the most when I leave! But on the bright sight, there are Chinese everywhere!

Oh yes and of course one more thing I do before I go is visit Japan ( next month) haha!

> one more thing I do before I go is visit Japan

To be honest, I half-expected that you would visit Japan again before you leave East Asia, hehe.

Yes Zhen we are most likely to leave China at the end of the year! For me it is also very strange to think I will no longer be in a Chinese speaking environment. I am sad to leave China but grateful for the chance to fall in love with the language and happy for a new opportunity! Luckily I can take my hobby with me :-) Too bad it most likely is an Arabic speaking country haha!

So are you going to master another of the most-difficult-to-learn-for-an-English-speaker languages? Knowing both Mandarin and Arabic is possibly the most impressive thing in the world, except maybe for that move where you backflip and kick some dude in the head in mid-air. MAYBE.

Simon, to be honest, my first reaction to the whole thing was "Well I'm not going to learn Arabic". So as to most things I said no to initially, I end up doing it haha :-).

Millions of people in Xinjiang master both standard Chinese and Arabic - clearly it can be done if you start young enough! :)

good point. Hats off to them hey. Wonder how many of them also have English under their belt.

Actually, local people of Xinjiang write the Uyghur language with Arabic characters. But Uyghur is a Turkish language not an Arabic language.

A muslim doesn't always speak Arabic.

Quite right kimiik, I was carried away by the Arabic script. But I guess mastering the writing of both Chinese and Arabic is still an achievement - they both have their own impressive aesthetics. I am out of my depth here but Googling indicates sources that say Uyghur has a lot of loan words from Arabic, probably because of long history of trade with Arabic speaking people? (and there is reference to historically some other Arabic influences - I didn't follow that up.)

Ah that is good to hear! Thank you for your response! Do you happen to know anything about Mandarin classes / schools perhaps? :-)

i am afraid i don't know anything about schools. i go there on business for a few days at a time. I really like it there. May I recommend to you the bar at the al Qaasr hotel which is great (one of my favourites), There is also one at the top of the Address Hotel which is good.

As i said there are lots of chinese students in Dubai who will be amazed that you can speak mandarin and will I am sure be more than willing to converse. Even if there are no classes I am certain you will be able to find teachers.

Again thank you for your reply and suggestions, I will definitely check it out! I am happy to hear that I still would be able to use my Chinese.

If everything goes as planned，and you happen to be there again 我们 在 迪拜 喝一杯把！:-)

好的

Hahaha! Changye, I was looking at that book 2 days ago. That might be a little bit difficult for me :-). But thank you for your suggestions!

Was thinking about you yesterday when I saw "Das Leben der Anderen", spoken in German only Chinese and Spanish subt. :-) Have you seen that movie? You are studying German right?

ps. My dangdang order just came in :-)