Umbrellas seem almost to be a way of life in China. When I was in Beijing several years ago, I grew accustomed to carrying a wonderfully light, collapsible yellow umbrella wherever I went, holding it high to shade the harsh May sunlight, which actually comes from everywhere because of the white dome of smog that covers the city. People don’t use raincoats, except for these really cool poncho things I saw today that are built for use on bikes and electric scooters. The front is long enough and shaped perfectly to cover the arms all the way down to the handlebars, and drape over the front basket. It was kind of cool to see all of the bikers in identical, brightly colored ponchos speeding through an intersection. Next time it rains I’ll be sure to get a picture.
It’s not as sunny in early September Hangzhou, so I planned to wait until my first market shopping expedition to buy one this time around, mostly to have something small and simple to look for and practice bargaining with. My hand was forced when I woke up this morning and discovered a persistent downpour outside.
After breakfast, Weilin, Xueqin and I had a rather leisurely hour and a half to kill before class, so we went over to the campus convenience store to buy our yucan (umbrellas: I’m continuously tempted to pepper this with Chinese phrases, please forgive the occasional vocabulary lesson). I took some time to peruse the selection of largely unidentifiable snacks which take up the bulk of shelf space in the store. It seems Chinese people like their snacks small, sweet, crunchy, and often with various strange fillings. There’s also an entire aisle devoted to cup-of-noodles in diverse flavors and containers, most slightly larger than a pint of ice cream. It seems whether in China or America, college students really like to eat fangbian mian (literally “convenient noodles”). Xueqin and I picked out brightly colored umbrellas with flower decals, while Weilin settled on a more suitable dark plaid.
My last class ended at 2:30, and I really didn’t want to sit in my dorm all day, so I seized on a bit of advice offered up from semesters past: “Don’t wait around for a group of people to decide when to eat, where to go, etc. If it’s not going to get decided, leave and do your own thing” (the speaker was apparently diabetic, and said if he’d waited each time people couldn’t decide where to eat, his health would have been at risk). So I grabbed some Hangzhou magazines and set off on a bus toward a coffee house I’d seen reviewed and knew I could find. I had quite a nice afternoon sipping my espresso and reading up on Hangzhou life and events, and perusing the maps to further fit together in my head exactly where things are. I managed to figure out a route to yet another sight of interest, which I walked to and got on a different bus to come back.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Monday, September 3, 2007
Weekend Whatnot
Last night included several fun and new experiences, beginning with a dinner banquet (at which my roommate helpfully and somewhat jokingly pulled a chicken head out of a large soup tureen Honggang was messing with and placed it in his bowl for him) with more kinds of dishes than I can remember (off the top of my head, a duck-skin mushu thing, bean sprouts with pork, fish, spicy tofu, cucumbers in soy sauce). Later, a bunch of people went to this really smoky dive bar outside the back gate of the school. My roommate actually came for a while and tried to learn how to play quarters, which was lots of fun, but she left when it got too loud. I had my first encounter with a gross bar bathroom, complete with squat toilet, with a rather good Karaoke rendition of “Layla” as background noise. The night ended at a gigantic nightclub, complete with professional dancers performing on a platform and a subwoofer so big it could function as a pacemaker. Early bird that I am, I held out until around 1:00 when, thankfully, three other people were willing to get in a cab with me and come back. Not a bad night considering I spent less than 50 yuan, about $6.
To give everyone an idea what exactly I’ll be doing for the next semester, I’ll fill you in on some of the activities we’ve had yesterday and today. Yesterday was our final orientation meeting (no more English allowed “in the air”), and then a meeting about our classes. I am taking two elective courses. One is called, vaguely, “Discussion and Debate” and is basically aimed at strengthening and broadening our spoken Chinese by discussing contemporary issues of society and culture in China. The other is called “Contemporary Literature”, and is just that, complete with 1000 character bi-weekly essays. In addition everyone is taking a one-on-two dialogue class, aimed at drilling pronunciation and speech patterns into our heads by running set dialogues with a speaking partner. My partner is not a Middlebury student, in fact she’s in China for over a year on a Fulbright grant.
My fourth class was discussed over lunch today. The one-on-one is basically an opportunity to study anything we want that has to do with China. We’ve all been paired up with graduate students or recent graduates who specialize in the field we requested, and we will work with them to develop a curriculum of research and prepare presentations on our topics. At lunch today we met our one-on-one teachers to discuss the proposals we wrote months ago and get to know each other a bit. My topic is Urbanization in China, and since that’s a really broad topic we spent some time today trying to figure out exactly what I’ll be studying. I think a lot will have to do with urban policies and housing rights, but also the effects of rapid urbanization on city infrastructure, rural economies and the like.
This afternoon we went on a hike (by we I mean almost all 58 students and roommates). The initial climb was a rather miserable rainy, sweaty, out-of-shape mess, but we had a chance to look around a very tranquil monastery most of the way up, and after that the rain let up a bit, and we had an easier up-and-down climb along a ridge overlooking Hangzhou’s famous tea fields (Hangzhou is the tea drinking capital of the world, and also apparently grows a lot of it). On the climb down, as we actually passed through one of the post-downpour fields, I realized how fragrant the bushes really are. Combined with the muggy atmosphere, the smell really made it seem as if I were walking through a pot of Jasmine tea. I’m sure there’s some sort of pun or metaphor that can be drawn from that, perhaps something about steeping oneself in a new culture?
We were surprised to find a large room with tables at the bottom of the mountain. We sat down, and when dinner arrived I laughed aloud: trays and trays of wraps and subs, brought from Hangzhou’s only Subway, chock full of every pickle, pepper and dressing available, plus boxes of cookies. I think everyone enjoyed the hint of home, and I spent the meal explaining why the sandwich is called a submarine and talking about American eating habits. I think the roommates were all pretty gracious about the food, which I’m not sure whether or not they liked.
To give everyone an idea what exactly I’ll be doing for the next semester, I’ll fill you in on some of the activities we’ve had yesterday and today. Yesterday was our final orientation meeting (no more English allowed “in the air”), and then a meeting about our classes. I am taking two elective courses. One is called, vaguely, “Discussion and Debate” and is basically aimed at strengthening and broadening our spoken Chinese by discussing contemporary issues of society and culture in China. The other is called “Contemporary Literature”, and is just that, complete with 1000 character bi-weekly essays. In addition everyone is taking a one-on-two dialogue class, aimed at drilling pronunciation and speech patterns into our heads by running set dialogues with a speaking partner. My partner is not a Middlebury student, in fact she’s in China for over a year on a Fulbright grant.
My fourth class was discussed over lunch today. The one-on-one is basically an opportunity to study anything we want that has to do with China. We’ve all been paired up with graduate students or recent graduates who specialize in the field we requested, and we will work with them to develop a curriculum of research and prepare presentations on our topics. At lunch today we met our one-on-one teachers to discuss the proposals we wrote months ago and get to know each other a bit. My topic is Urbanization in China, and since that’s a really broad topic we spent some time today trying to figure out exactly what I’ll be studying. I think a lot will have to do with urban policies and housing rights, but also the effects of rapid urbanization on city infrastructure, rural economies and the like.
This afternoon we went on a hike (by we I mean almost all 58 students and roommates). The initial climb was a rather miserable rainy, sweaty, out-of-shape mess, but we had a chance to look around a very tranquil monastery most of the way up, and after that the rain let up a bit, and we had an easier up-and-down climb along a ridge overlooking Hangzhou’s famous tea fields (Hangzhou is the tea drinking capital of the world, and also apparently grows a lot of it). On the climb down, as we actually passed through one of the post-downpour fields, I realized how fragrant the bushes really are. Combined with the muggy atmosphere, the smell really made it seem as if I were walking through a pot of Jasmine tea. I’m sure there’s some sort of pun or metaphor that can be drawn from that, perhaps something about steeping oneself in a new culture?
We were surprised to find a large room with tables at the bottom of the mountain. We sat down, and when dinner arrived I laughed aloud: trays and trays of wraps and subs, brought from Hangzhou’s only Subway, chock full of every pickle, pepper and dressing available, plus boxes of cookies. I think everyone enjoyed the hint of home, and I spent the meal explaining why the sandwich is called a submarine and talking about American eating habits. I think the roommates were all pretty gracious about the food, which I’m not sure whether or not they liked.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Get on the Bus
In addition to the numerous orientation meetings we have had with our residential director Jeremy, our main assignment these past two days has been to familiarize ourselves with the city of Hangzhou, by way of its bus system. Though I can easily maneuver my way through the subway systems in most major cities, I have never set foot on a public bus without someone who knew where we were going. I’m apprehensive about buses in English, so this seemed like a suitable if scary challenge for us, and I was excited to do it, since I really hope to spend a lot of time away from the university campus.
The map Jeremy gave us is actually quite useful, though it’s taking me a while to get used to reading it. It features an almost illegible map of the city with various areas of interest highlighted in boxes, with logos that are color coded for the stop from which we can get there (our campus is close to four different bus stops). The areas are then blown up next to the map, with landmarks, bus stop names, line numbers and other relevant information. This is less overwhelming than a big diagram of bus lines and stops I am unlikely to use, but I’m having trouble changing this network of nodes and arbitrary bus numbers into a mental picture of where things are in the city.
Yesterday we mostly failed in our mission of practicing using the buses. Instead, five of us set out with three roommates to take care of some banking business and buy cell phones, a major order of business as apparently cell phones are vital for integration into Chinese youth culture, and text messages are more common than emails. Buying five cell phones proved more difficult than one might expect: the first store we went to had many models available, but didn’t seem to have any phones that were actually for sale. The second place had sold out of the cheapest model, and had only one of our next choice, which Xueqin bought (I’m going to use Chinese names on this, if you really want to know who these people are you can ask). Finally we found a place with four acceptable phones, and spent a ridiculous amount of time processing the paperwork to buy them. A phone is not complete, however, without a SIM card plan and phone number, which is bought at a China Mobile store. By the time we got back to campus, the stores were closing, so we had to go out again today to finish the task. We again spent lots of time today buying a plan that would work, but eventually got our phones up and running. If only we’d had the relatively calm experience of a few of our classmates, who found these things easily, and were handed a six-pack of beer upon purchase of their phone plans.
Since we let the roommates tell us when to get on and off the buses yesterday, today we picked a suitable destination and set off. The harder part was, of course, finding a suitable return bus after we’d wandered from our original destination. Xueqin and I, the only ones who had not turned back earlier, checked maybe three different bus stops before (figures) finding the one we used to get back yesterday. In such a big city, we’ve managed to walk the same one stretch along the West Lake twice in two days.In the end, though, I’ve learned that it’s really easy to get to interesting places on the bus, and only slightly harder to get back, as long as you don’t mind searching a bit.
The map Jeremy gave us is actually quite useful, though it’s taking me a while to get used to reading it. It features an almost illegible map of the city with various areas of interest highlighted in boxes, with logos that are color coded for the stop from which we can get there (our campus is close to four different bus stops). The areas are then blown up next to the map, with landmarks, bus stop names, line numbers and other relevant information. This is less overwhelming than a big diagram of bus lines and stops I am unlikely to use, but I’m having trouble changing this network of nodes and arbitrary bus numbers into a mental picture of where things are in the city.
Yesterday we mostly failed in our mission of practicing using the buses. Instead, five of us set out with three roommates to take care of some banking business and buy cell phones, a major order of business as apparently cell phones are vital for integration into Chinese youth culture, and text messages are more common than emails. Buying five cell phones proved more difficult than one might expect: the first store we went to had many models available, but didn’t seem to have any phones that were actually for sale. The second place had sold out of the cheapest model, and had only one of our next choice, which Xueqin bought (I’m going to use Chinese names on this, if you really want to know who these people are you can ask). Finally we found a place with four acceptable phones, and spent a ridiculous amount of time processing the paperwork to buy them. A phone is not complete, however, without a SIM card plan and phone number, which is bought at a China Mobile store. By the time we got back to campus, the stores were closing, so we had to go out again today to finish the task. We again spent lots of time today buying a plan that would work, but eventually got our phones up and running. If only we’d had the relatively calm experience of a few of our classmates, who found these things easily, and were handed a six-pack of beer upon purchase of their phone plans.
Since we let the roommates tell us when to get on and off the buses yesterday, today we picked a suitable destination and set off. The harder part was, of course, finding a suitable return bus after we’d wandered from our original destination. Xueqin and I, the only ones who had not turned back earlier, checked maybe three different bus stops before (figures) finding the one we used to get back yesterday. In such a big city, we’ve managed to walk the same one stretch along the West Lake twice in two days.In the end, though, I’ve learned that it’s really easy to get to interesting places on the bus, and only slightly harder to get back, as long as you don’t mind searching a bit.
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