Integration Course

I finished my German language course in August, according to complementing of the language level B1 test.The German language level starts at the very basic level A1, then A2,B1, B2,C1 and C2.The highest level is C2, which is about the native speaker's level.

The German course was one of the immigration project supported by German government.It called 'Integration project'.

After I arrived Germany, when I went to the immigration office to change my visa, the immigration officer asked me the level of my German language.Then they decided if I need to go to the school or not, since my German level was zero. The immigration office recommended me some language schools for myself to choose. For this project, the government pays half of the school fee, which is in total 600 school hours. The students pay one euro per hour. Government sometimes also pays the complete money, if the students are are unable to pay the one euro.

If we past B1 test within 2 years after arrived in Germany, we can also get half money reimbursement from which we paid.

I heard the integration project started in 2005 because many immigrations living in Germany for many years but they are unable to speak any German.In the my A1 and A2 classes I met some people who have been living in Germany for 10 to 15 years.

Even though such integration course is not as efficient as the fully paid school.I still appreciated it very much.

'You have brother and sister?!!'

Yes, I have a brother and a sister!

Not only foreigners are surprised that I am not the only Child in my family, many Chinese people are also often wondering why. In my schools, I was usually the only person in the class who has brother and sister. People often ask me how come we have three children in my family, then I always very patient and proud to tell them the story how my parents brought us to the world.

In China, the one child policy started in the end of 1970s and implemented all over China at the beginning of 1980s. My sister was the second child of my family, she was born in end of 70s, so her birth was already against the rule, but Sichuan province is located in southwest China, which is one of the largest and most inaccessible provinces in China. When the one child rule started in our city really serious was the time of beginning of 80s. Here come to the story how my parents kept me, which I already told innumerable times.

When I was in my mom's belly, I was about 4 months. My parents didn't know how the birth control office got the news, they came to our house asked my parents to abort me. My father is a persevering man and he wanted to have three children. He argued with government and insisted to keep me. In the end, the officer could do nothing with my parents's wishes, another reason was at that time the rules were not that strict as later on in my city, so they asked my parents to pay some penalty to keep me. In the end my parents kept me by spending about 500 Chinese Yuan. It was a lot of money for my parents at that time, at that time one kinogram pork costed 1 Yuan. But they never regreted to have three of us.

One Day Staying in Beijing

In October I had a chance to fly to Beijing. Even though it was just one day's layover, but I haven't been back to China since one year, I was already satisfied even just a short meeting with my sister Dandan and other friends.

Here are the girls-my sister Dandan, niece Yingying, Nini and Qianqian.

The girls are prettier and Yingying is bigger. They all think that I have gained weight, and they keep asking me not to eat too much German breads. However I found German rolls are really delicious.

A mall trick in this photo. Do I look slimmer? When girls are together taking photos, all of us will try to hide ourselves in the back so that we look slimmer. Thats what I did in this photo.

I missed Chinese food!!! There are many Chinese restaurant in Germany, but the flavours changed a lot. I prefer to cook food at home other than going to a Chinese restaurant in Germany. When I was living in China, there are many things I didn't like to eat. But now when I go back, I enjoy to eat everything. Here Qianqian looked very enjoy the dinner..haha, so am I.
It was so great to go back to China meeting family and friends. I wish next time I can go back together with Martin. My family and friends in China also miss him.

Training Finished

I finished the training course finally. In between I also have done two training flights.

The training have been taken place in Munich, as we stayed in the hotel the airline company provided, so there's not much chance to use the Internet in the hotel. This was one of the reason why I couldn't update my blog in the past months.

We had two classes for this period of training, and two girls from another class didn't pass the tests, so that made all of rest people very nervous, especially me. In the end, luckily all the 20 people in my class have passed the training tests.

This photos was taken when I was in the hotel bus. At that time I was worrying about the emergency training on coming week. Because one night my friend from another class came to my room told me she failed the emergency training, she was told to go home. Which shocked me, then I started to worry. It was really unnecessary when I think back now.

When I am looking at this photo, it reminds me that now I have short hair, that is to the shoulder. My classmate from university looked at this photos and told me:' dear, you have to take good care of yourself, you look much older on the photo than your age':-(

Now I have half month holiday before next flight. Finally I can spend this weekend together with Martin at home. We haven't spent weekend together for a long time already(about one month?)-we both missed it.

I wish you all have a nice weekend. Sorry again for not been updated my blog for a long time.