In fact, at the time I was taking my ACCA exams in London, more than ten years ago, this was already common. We would have Malaysian students calling their friends at home, or receiving calls from them, telling them what topics came out. Due to the time difference the Malaysian would then have about 2-3 hours to revise said topics.

Of course, as we came aware of such events, the Mauritian students would try and find Malaysian friends who would pass on such valuable information. It was thought more as a levelling the ballgame between foreigners than cheating together. Evidently, it was not fair to other candidates.

However, there’s only so much it can help you with if you had not seriously studied before. The 3hrs cramming of main points can help achieve a pass mark if you’re a borderline failure, but if you’ve been a lazybum for the whole semester, you can’t expect miracles (normally). These students were more concerned with a passmark rather than winning the top prize remitted to the world’s best students.

Anyway, it is interesting that they’ve been using Facebook as one of the means of transmitting the tips. I guess the users must by now have changed all their personal data and probably deleted personal pictures. But how successful would the Mauritian government be in tracking them and what kind of punishment would be meted out to them? I still remember the government last year blocking the site and having the site administrators pull down the fake profiles of senior local political figures.

Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail

18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.

19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

22) I want it to be on record that I will record my record

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? Is it an odd, or an end? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why doesn’t “Buick” rhyme with “quick”?

I also enjoyed reading the different words used by Brits and Yanks to express the same thing (or not). You can check out the link here

Picture taken from Frontiers website.

I am registered with the Beijing office. I have been there twice, the last time being yesterday (Saturday). There are 3 people working there, on Saturdays only one of them work half-day. The difference between the Beijing office and the Shanghai office, is that the SH office is larger and has many people working there.

Also, when I was in SH, a fair amount of the seminars were apparently held in English; in BJ it seems like most of them are in Chinese, which I am not really willing to attend. (I asked one of the people in the BJ office, and apparently very few of the registered BJ members are foreigners).

The ACCA Beijing office sends me a couple of internet mail/publication. One is a monthly ACCA Beijing Newsletter in English where you get a recap of events the office organised during the month. It is in short and simple English, and contains some pictures. So it is easy for everyone to read and understand.

However, it also sends me a Finance & Accounting Newsletter. 财会信息快递. It is completely in Chinese and has no picture. I had not even read the first paragraph that I felt despair and if it was a real paper magazine, I would probably have thrown it in the direction of the bin. So hard to read. And I am not talking about the BJ office’s website that is completely in Chinese. :~(

It made me realise that despite my weak stabs at it, I am not confident enough to try and decipher Chinese documents. I am not talking about the Chinese textbooks that you read when learning the language, but the boring stuff that even in English you don’t really want to sit down and read.

I have decided that as from next week, I will try and write my posts both in English and Chinese, so as to try and maintain my level of Chinese. It will probably be full of mistakes and weird phrasing structure, so those who can understand Chinese, please do not laugh at my writings.

I plan to move to Beijing at the end of this week, where I will be spending the next few months taking mandarin courses and looking for a job there. Now, many people have been (more than) a little surprised. If for learning mandarin, why not stay in Shanghai and do it there? I mean, there are Chinese language schools in Shanghai also.

Well, true enough. But I feel I really need a place where most people speak mandarin all the time. In Shanghai, you can hear Shanghainese everywhere. I am not saying that they can’t or won’t speak mandarin. But you don’t feel the same. Plus I often watch a couple of channels that have Shanghainese dialects… Certainly won’t help my mandarin like that. That’s why I also rejected moving to Guangzhou in the end. As I understand, the influence of the local dialect (Cantonese) is even more noticeable. Furthermore, I love the Beijing accent, more precisely the ‘er hua yin’. I have missed it so much.

As for work, I have a reason which I prefer not to disclose for the moment. This week I need to pack my stuffs, get a train ticket to BJ, figure out the luggage consignment system…. I hope I don’t lose anything when I arrive in BJ.

Picture taken from The Beijing Page

It’s decided. After hearing the lady at the restaurant saying several times she didn’t understand at all what I wanted to order, I am going back to study mandarin for a few more months. I need to start practising it a lot, get back to the so-so level I was before I went back home.

Now I am going to get back to reading the book with 100 Daily Expressions. When I first bought it in Beijing, I couldn’t understand what was being said, my Chinese level was so poor. Now I get the points better and hope to be able to use them later. :P