The luck of the irish and the mad Hatters

My last post was fairly negative about Ireland so I wanted to post something positive and you can't get much more positive than St Patricks day! Coming soon on the 17th of MARCH!!!

If there is one thing that Irish people are truly proud of and patriotic about, its the colour green, and March is the month with the most important day (asides from Christmas) on the Irish Calender, St Patrick's day.

You will never meet an Irish person who doesn't love St Patrick's day, Obviously I am no different. I love the parades the atmosphere and the freedom to wear your favourite green white and orange attire and not look strange. 

Whether you go to Dublin City Centre or stay in one of the local towns you are bound to have a day full of fun. For me most years I spend it in my home town Bray and it is the only day where you see the streets completely packed and everyone standing on the side of the street watching the parade go by. Also every year we always have a carnival at the sea front, which is always an essential part of St Patrick's day. I am not much of a drinker so I rarely join in any of the drinking festivitiies at night but of course it's there.... 

But one thing I have never thought twice about was wearing the colour green it seems harmless right. Sure some shades of green are less attractive than others... but other than that why not? But today I was alarmed when one of my Chinese friends Jia Qi said to me "Oh my god I can't believe you guys wear green hats!!!!" 

Naturally I was really curious when I heard this, what is wrong with green hats? They are funny and cute and tradition.... 

Then he told me, In China nobody ever wears a green hat it's extremely unlucky... How?? If a chinese man wears a green hat it means his wife has had sex with another man! Wow talk about shooting St Patrick! 

Then tonight I wanted to test my boyfriends reaction as I thought perhaps it's only northern Chinese people who think this way.... NO!!! My boyfriend said "Why do you always learn something bad about Chinese??? Don't ever let me wear a green hat" and then he stormed off.

So I did a bit of research to find out what is the meaning of this strange unluckiness and here it is "There is an old story in China, about a businessman, a tailor, and the businessman's wife. (You can guess where this is going...) Whenever the businessman left his village to go on a business trip, his wife would cheat on him with the village tailor. To make it easier for the tailor to know when the businessman was going away, the businessman's wife asked the tailor to make a green hat for the businessman. Whenever the wife put the green hat on her husband's head, this served as a signal to the tailor that the businessman was leaving the village. Over time, the other villagers figured out what was going on, and they would say to one another...Tade laopo gei ta dai lv maozi le..."His wife has put the green hat on him."

To this day, this phrase is what Chinese people use to talk about wives having affairs. This phrase is the reason why Chinese men never wear green hats"

Looks like I put my foot in it. I know I am considerably early with this post but definitely stay tuned to see some of my St Patrick's day festivities on the 17th of March!

The downside of overtime

Recently I wrote about how my boyfriends hours at work have completely fluctuated,(here) He went from working an average of 40 hours per week between June and November. Then in December we had a huge snow storm and his hours at work became less and less. Last week he worked a measly 4 hours because the restaurant wasn't busy at all.

He was quite disheartened all week. Then yesterday he went to work 1pm-5pm and was asked to work overtime til 10pm. However it was midnight and I hadn't heard anything from him since 7pm so I thought something must be wrong with him and text him and rang him and couldn't get through to him... Then he rang me at 12.30 and he told me that  his head chef, Paddy had asked him to stay even later...  

Normally this would be a really good thing, the more hours the better, but not this time. All I felt was sick to my stomach. His head chef had asked him to sell burgers at a barbecue outside in the beer garden while a musician played, in front of all the costumers while the head chef himself drank with his friends. 

Maybe I am jumping to conclusion but it screams racism, whether its indirect or direct or accidental racism I don't know but to me it sounded disgusting. No Irish person in their right mind would agree to do this type  of  task. In my head it was like a puppet on a string,

You say jump, I say how high.

He told me today that he had never felt so embarrassed and uncomfortable in his whole life, he said everyone was staring at him and joking about him and someone even commented to his head chef  

"Paddy your here drinking and you left poor him doing the burgers"

The problem is he just wouldn't say no because he was afraid he would lose his job. However to make matters worse. He was told that a bar man would give him a lift home and when he finished at 2am, the barman told him to pack up quickly because presumably he wanted to go home. This morning when he went to work he found out, in the rush he left the burgers outside... Being the good hearted person he is insisted on paying for the burgers 30 euro! Furthermore in the end he had to get a taxi home because the bar man left him waiting in the cold. The taxi cost 10 euro.

So in the end he made 50 euro selling burgers, had to pay 30 euro for the wasted burgers and 10 euro for the taxi and was left with 10 euro for all the embarrassment. I have a good mind to complain to the restaurant about this disgraceful treatment.

What do you have Toulouse?

Normally Friday is my favorite day for classes despite the fact I have to get up extra early, usually 8.45 in order to catch the bus at 9.15 however today I had to get up even earlier than usual, 8.15 to catch the bus at 8.45 because I wanted to go to a talk on a Dual Masters Degree program in Toulouse, France. 

So I rushed out of the apartment determined not to be late for the 10.00 talk and arrived at almost 9.15. So there was absolutely no chance that I would be late, when I got to the classroom there was no one there...

I sat down and then 2 Chinese girls came in and looked at me curiously and asked "Do you have a class now?" No I'm here for a talk... "oh we are as well!!" 5 minutes nobody else had turned up not even the speaker, I thought we must be in the wrong room.... Then a Chinese guy came in and asked "Is there a talk? then he sat down then another guy came in a french guy from Toulouse! He wanted to go on an exchange program back to Toulouse?? Ireland obviously wasn't meeting his expectations...

Then at 10.15 my program coordinator came in and said "The speaker is delayed and will be here in 3 minutes... so we waited and waited and still no speaker and no other students... Then the program coordinator came back and said we have to move to another classroom... The talk started at 10.30 just as my favorite class Global Competitive strategies was supposed to start :(

This is ireland nothing ever runs on time... but I think it was time well spent. The Dual Degree sounds very attractive but is also rather pricey. 8000 euro tuition fees, 350-500 euro per month for rent and maybe 300 more for food and going out...

The lady giving the speech explained to us, that in France a masters degree usually takes 2 years... so If we go over to France we are entering the second year of a masters program. which consists of 6 months of classes and a compulsory 6 month paid internship then you graduate 1 and a half years later, with a french Masters...

In order to get a chance to do this Dual Masters you have to fill out an application form online and then attend an interview and fingers crossed you get it. I haven't talked to my parents yet... so I have to wait and see.... Because I have never lived overseas alone before and I have never done an Erasmus this sounds really interesting to me.

Too be continued.....

The I word

The I word- Illegal cropped up yesterday, I don't know why but Ireland and Irish people are absolutely obsessed with labels, Everyone has to fit into some nice little category. Why can't someone just be a person and not labeled by the various stamps they have attained?

 

Yesterday I was in the sitting room and my Mom suddenly said "There seems to be a lot of Chinese men around the town these days, I take it he (My boyfriend) is Illegal?" It wasn't a question it was a statement. Anyway I quickly explained in fact he isn't illegal, Which in fact is not entirely true... I like to say he is in the Limbo position He is neither illegal or Legal a such he is just here. My Mom just doesn't get it, Immigration is complicated stuff. 

Our A word the Application requires a lot of tedious work. We keep coming across blockages on the way. Currently we are looking for a snooker club for him to join and there is none in Bray so we had to give that up. Our next option is a badminton club, which also isn't looking good. As my dad is in a badminton club and my boyfriend doesn't want to join the same one as him. So that requires more research. Another option is a basketball club, if we can't find one of them then we will have to widen the search again.

Another aspect of the application is the money transfer from China which proves my boyfriend is being supported by his family. Everything requires some sort of proof.

It's a really good thing that i am such a good secret keeper!

One simple request

I have known several Chinese men during the last 3 years, ranging from the incredibly rude, generous, caring, spontaneous, crazy, show offs, etc. But in all my time I have never had such a strange request or more like an order... Last night i was having a nice cosy time with my boyfriend and we were rather loved up. Then he said he wanted to play some games on my phone.... I knew he wanted to read my messages.. ugh i really hate this. I just find it such an intrusion thats private. Its not like i can check his messages and have some fun because he never sends texts anyway except to people from his work, how boring is that? The rest of the time he just calls his friends and speaks in Chinese. So its no fun to play with his phone... In actual fact he wasn't the only man who wanted to check my messages that day.... but thats another story... both times i refused.... and i deleted all my messages. actually by accident but it was a happy accident lol!

Actually my fear of getting my messages checked stems back from when i was a kid, My dad used to have a rule that nobody can check his messages, because they are private.... I was just a kid and was pretty nosey and curious.... and his phone was lying around... and i read his messages several times.... and discovered he was having an affair on my mom. definitely without a doubt. I continued to read his messages for several weeks and then i stoped because i didn't know what to do. I never told my mom and i never said anything to my dad i just kept the secret and often when i was furious with my dad i would cry angry with rage. but i never said anything I felt it was my own fault i should never of checked his messages... I think that whole cheating scenario really had a bad impact on me.. Even now i still have a huge desire and cravingv for new things. new people.  obviously i wouldn't cheat on my boyfriend, but i do enjoy company of new people alot and of other people who i don 't see very often...

Anyway back to the request i got last night "Can i use your phone for 10 days?" Initially i thought it was a joke? I said no, no way. Thats mine why should i give it to him besides i had barely even had the phone 10 days! In fact yesterday was me and my phones 10 days anniversary together lol. Then he got so angry and sulky, eventually i siad fine take it. Just to stop him sulking and then he siad no I don't want it i was just testing you and he said he couldn't believe i was so obsessed with money. He told me that if he had a Chinese girlfriend and asked her could he use her phone for 10 days. she would say of course take it for as long as you want... and she would be happy about it? Then he said so this is irish. you are so ugly. Then he went to sleep. I was left lying there wondering what is so bad about me not letting him have my phone. 

Here is my phone, The Samsung Galaxy Europa

I really don't think it was a money thing, Although his phone is not as good as mine i just couldn't understand why should i give him my phone its mine. i feel a personal attachment to all my phones.

Is this an Irish mentality that we don't share?

Do we always have to get something of equal worth.