There is one nice thing about it never going below freezing here, and it's the beautiful greenery of campus. It looks like none of the plants have gone dormant. There are many tropical plants here that haven't seen before. I think the cherry blossoms are starting to bloom now too. Today we went to the library to get our faculty cards and saw the lakes and the black swans that live here. The campus is truly beautiful and I still haven't seen all of it.
They say that Chongqing is one China's four furnaces. When they say this, they're talking about summer. The winter here is exactly the opposite. As I've written before, none of the buildings have central heating. Most of the buildings on campus have no heating whatsoever. Thankfully, my apartment has heaters or I wouldn't be able to handle this. But while it is 45+ degrees outside, it's also ~45 degrees inside. Walking around in this temperature is great. But working and sitting for at least six hours a day is just miserable. By my second hour of work, I'm freezing over. It also doesn't get hot as the day goes on because it's always overcast. Today was sunny which really warmed me up when I was outside, but the buildings just stay cold for the whole day. Within the next week or so it's supposed to get warmer. But with this coming heat, brings the rain season. But at least it will be warm.
There is one nice thing about it never going below freezing here, and it's the beautiful greenery of campus. It looks like none of the plants have gone dormant. There are many tropical plants here that haven't seen before. I think the cherry blossoms are starting to bloom now too. Today we went to the library to get our faculty cards and saw the lakes and the black swans that live here. The campus is truly beautiful and I still haven't seen all of it.
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Being three days in to the semester, we're all starting to notice some oversights, miscommunications, and other things that aren't the way they should be. As of today, we have a way to login to the CQU wireless network but we still have issues with it. The classroom where we will be spending most of our time for labs, has no access to internet. This wouldn't be a huge issue if the class wasn't dependent on using Blackboard. Being unable to access Blackboard makes it difficult to give the students documents for the lab and for the students their labs. While they are trying to work on it, that doesn't change the difficulties that we're experiencing. Another issue is that the lab equipment for the other class has not yet arrived. This is not something that we can change, as the equipment is tied up in customs. But it's still a big problem. With exception to the issues mentioned, the classes are going well. But the biggest inconvenience for me is my 80 yuan per diem. As part of the agreement, we were to get a 80 yuan (about 13.5$) cash for each day for food and other expenses. We've been here for almost a week and we haven't seen any of it. I'm sure it will be worked out in the near future but it's just frustrating that it's not worked out. With exception to my television not working, my apartment is finally in full working order. My shower was fixed yesterday and the hot water is consistent. I'm really glad that things are starting to come together at my place now. In my building, there are many other teachers that are foreign to China. I've met a lot of them and most of them are English teachers. A recurring theme among talking to them about the university is trouble with communication. To this point, I would have to agree with them. But with this in mind, it has a very important lesson for me and any engineer. And the lesson is that communication is key for anything to run smoothly. I know that it sounds cheesy but it really is important. Especially when dealing with an international operation.
And as an after thought, this is the first year of this program. When I signed up for this, I signed up to help start the program and to be able to roll with the punches. I've been able to work under sub optimal conditions and I will continue to until the situation changes. For this joint effort between the two universities to work, a stable program must be established. I'm part of the trial team and these are the trials that I have to go through. And even with these difficulties, I'm still very happy with my decision to go come to China for a semester. An extremely large part of staying for extended time in a foreign country is adapting to their lifestyles and culture. With the exception to a few things, nothing has really taken me by too big of a surprise here. Simple things such as not drinking water and hang drying all clothing are worth noticing, but I'm not going to delve too much into trivial tasks like that. If this is your first post of my blog that you are reading, I would advise you to read a different one. This post will contain some crude and gross content. The first thing that I noticed was that all of the clothing that infants wear has a cut in the back that their diaper sticks out from. In the past, there would be no diaper there and the children would go freely about their business. Thankfully, this is no longer a common practice. I did however see something very similar to this when I shopping for apartment supplies. I was outside in front of a store when a mother leads her child outside. The child then squats and shits right there on the sidewalk. After the mother cleans up the child, they both just walk away as if nothing happened. I couldn't believe what I had just saw. This was the first thing here that had really taken my by surprise. The second thing that happened was at the supermarket near my apartment. I went to reach for a bag of chips when something fell and hit my hand. I first thought that it was loose product or something like that. Unfortunately, that was not the case. What had fallen was a mouse and it appeared to have crippled itself during his fall. A little freaked out, I walked away and left it there. Before I was 5 feet away, a woman that worked for the store came up and just stepped on it. Another employee then came and swept up the mess. I understand that this sort of thing happens everywhere, but it was still surprising to me. My next surprise was another supermarket. At the supermarkets and grocery stores here, they have fish tanks with live fish so that customers know they are getting the freshest fish possible. I never thought about how the fish gets from the store to the customer though. What I saw answered the questions that I hadn't really asked. A man chose the fish that he wanted and the clerk used his net to remove the fish from the tank. The clerk then lays the fish and the net on the ground and crushes the fish's head with a hammer like object. It wasn't the most pleasant thing to witness but I guess that's just how its done here. The final part of this post isn't an event as much as its a series of observations I've had about our cultural differences. Eating here is something to witness. It's loud, messy, and very fast. When eating, people have very few reservations that people from America have. Spitting on the tablecloth, slurping the food, and being messy is perfectly acceptable. Another thing I've noticed is that you are expected to provide your own paper for everything. Bathrooms require that you bring your own paper as well as most cafeterias. And with exception to a few areas, people will just leave garbage wherever. I noticed many people just throw their garbage onto the sidewalk as they entered a store. What's shocking to me, is that most of these things are just considered the norm here.
I'm not trying to complain about any of the things that I've seen while I'm here. I just wanted to make it clear that people need to willing to go very far out of their comfort zone if they want to live internationally. These are the things that one needs to be okay with. Every culture is different and I'm sure the Chinese will see things that people do in America and have disgust or surprise towards it. I want this to be both a look into some of the extreme differences between our cultures as well as a warning for people who want to travel so that they can live within another nation's culture. After a long weekend of preparing my apartment and running around to get settled in, I was finally able to start working. On Sunday night, I got to meet the students that I will be working with, and they're great. They seem very eager to learn and happy to a part of this program. Going to class today was like nothing I had ever seen before. The streets of the campus were flooded with students trying to get class. There were people piling up around the doors because not enough could get through. And moving through the buildings was also tough. I eventually made it to class and it went well.
The way the university schedules the students here is very different from how it is in America. It seems that most classes are 100 minutes long with a ten minute break in between. And all the students change classes at the same time. They also eat at the same time, which makes finding food even harder for me. We were fortunate enough to be led to the faculty eating area. I'm also really enjoying the food here. It's very different from what American Chinese food is like and it's always good. Being somewhat forced to use chopsticks has made me fairly good at using them, I'm even starting to prefer them over forks. The only problem is that even though the food here is great, I can't eat rice and noodles for two-three meals a day. Finding diversity with food is tough around here but I'm still looking. The supermarkets here are also really different. The meat is all out and in the open. They like their meat to be fresh and not preserved. The supermarkets also have live fish tanks and pallets of rice to choose from. I feel like I am adapting well to different lifestyle here but we'll have to see. After a very cramped ride from the airport to the apartments, we're led to our rooms and we meet landlord who is there to check us in. One thing that I had noticed before, was that there was a great language barrier between me and the people here. This situation was no different. Our hostess had to translate everything for us when we arrived. Our first surprise, of the many that would come, was that we had to pay a 500y deposit for the apartment and then 200y for the utilities. Having just gone to Beijing and being a college student, I didn't have the money to pay for this. We were all also under the impression that it would be taken care of by the time that we got here. But after a stressful night and a lot of diligent work from our contact at UC, everything was worked out. I'll take this time to describe the apartment. These apartments are bleak. A huge part of living in China is dealing with energy conservation. Since I'm living south of the Yangtze, none of the buildings have central heating. Because of this, all of the rooms have individual heaters in them. There's only one issue with the heaters, they're only in Chinese. So figuring out how to heat a room is quite a struggle. Another result of the energy saving effort of the country is that there are little to no dryers and all of the lights are fluorescent. These two things aren't a huge issue, they're only a small inconvenience. But upon arrival, the rooms were very minimal and the furniture was the same. At first, I was a little creeped out by the room. The hallways outside the room are noise activated so it leaves some creepy dark areas during the night. If it wasn't for how tired I was the first night, I probably wouldn't have gotten much sleep. But I've started to come around to the rooms and I'm enjoying it. But as I went through the room, I noticed more things that were missing or wrong. The place didn't have hot water running, internet, and a bathroom light that worked. It took awhile, but I eventually got everything working and operational. Up until this point, I've just talked about how things haven't been working out well in Chongqing, and I want to make it clear, I really like it here. It was have had a rough start, but it's great here. The area is beautiful and the people are great. Our first day here, we were taken out to lunch with the Dean here and then taken to a large supermarket for supplies. We walked to the supermarket and went through an amazing shopping district. From what I've seen from Chongqing, I can't wait to see more.
Our last day in Beijing would consist of us going to airport and flying to Chongqing. A task that's easier said than done. After arriving at the airport, we are greeted by two men who appear to work for the airport. After telling them our flight number, they take us to the Air China station. Once we get there, they take our bags and passports and begin to speak to the people that are working the desk. After a long time of waiting and doubting that this was legitimate, the men came through with our boarding passes. After much waiting, we managed to board our plane and depart to Chongqing. Beijing was a great place to visit, even though it had some very stressful moments. But once we landed in Chongqing, we were greeted by our hostess and departed for our
For our last day in Beijing, we had the day to ourselves. So we decided to take the subway and go to the Silk Market. After we figured out how to get there, we went to it. The subways in Beijing are truly something to behold. With exception to finding a place to stand or sit, the subways are very well organized and extremely easy to use. But nothing could have prepared us for the Silk Market, that place was crazy. Words cannot describe the Silk Market. As you enter this place, you're greeted by sales people working out of room the size of a small bedroom. These rooms are lined with cheap merchandise. And the hallway of rooms never seems to end. They had sections for shoes, jackets, luggage, clocks, shirts... Anything you could think of, it was there. And the salespeople were ruthless.They would call you out as you walked past and chase you down as you left. There was no stopping them. After walking through and seeing store after store that had nothing to offer me, I came across a sport shop that had hundreds of jerseys. I made a big mistake by walking in there. After lots of haggling with the woman that worked there, I came out with a great Canucks jersey. After walking around some more, I found my way to a watch shop and bought the watch that I had been always looking for. Once we left the Silk Market, we decided we should see what McDonalds is like in China. Not to ruin any dreams, but it's about the same. A big mac is decent no matter where you go. The risky thing however, was trying a fountain drink. Having not realized it when I ordered it, I ended up with a fountain drink with ice. I decided to try and it see what happened. I was amazed to have not gotten ill, it was a miracle. In the end, the day went well. At the end, we prepared
After the Forbidden City, we went to the Silk Factory and a place that specialized in jade. The Silk Factory taught us how silk is made and how the products were produced. The jade building showed us how Jade is carved and taught us about the different types of jade.After eating lunch at the jade building, we made our way to the Great Wall. At the Great Wall, we were given two paths. The first path would be easy, the second would be steep and tiring. We chose the second one. At first it was daunting, the stairs were not the best and the path was very steep. But we powered through and saw some amazing sights. It's truly humbling to see something made on such a large scale be able to last the test of time. Through the hike we ran into many people. I attempted to use my recently learned Chinese to communicate but it didn't go too well. I did however get to use some French that I learned in high school. At one point, we were at the top of one of the towers, and a group of Chinese people wanted to take their pictures with us. We happily said yes, and one by one the group got their pictures taken with us. After that, we slowly made our way to the top of the wall. The sight from up there was breathtaking and very much worth all of the effort. After we had our fill, we slowly made our way down and back to the van to head back to the hotel.
We started our second day off by meeting with our tour guide near the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square. We walked to the Forbidden City and on our way we stopped and looked at Tienanmen Square. We learned a brief history about it and what the functions of the buildings are now. It was very interesting to see how the past Chinese history is merging and becoming more functional with the modern Chinese culture. After learning about Tienanmen Square, we entered the Forbidden City. The Forbidden city can only be described by being huge and magnificent. As we entered the Forbidden City, we were greeted with Chinese Tradition. The entrance to the Forbidden City is by the Rank Bridge. The Rank Bridge is a series of bridges that allow you entrance to the city. Your status determines what bridge you would take to enter the city. The center bridge was reserved for only the emperor while the outer bridges were for those of lesser status. The Morning Line also continues through the city. . As we moved through the Forbidden City, we learned more and more about the Emperors and how they lived within the city. We also learned that is was extremely large. It has about 800+ buildings but there are 9999 rooms in the entire city. The last part of the city that we saw was the Imperial Garden. The Imperial Garden was the last part of the Forbidden City tour. The garden was beautiful in the winter and I can only imagine how great it must look during the summer. The tree I am in front of here is the Lover's Tree. It is said that if you are photographed in front of it, it will bring you good fortune and a good spouse. I mean, why not get your picture taken in front of it? But after the Imperial Garden, we walked back to the van and made our way to the next part of our day.
For our first day in Beijing, we were taken on a tour through the city. We went from the Beijing Zoo to see pandas and wound up at an amazing Buddhist Temple. Our first stop was to see the pandas. We went to Beijing Zoo in the morning and stayed for about half and hour. When we were there, the pandas didn't do much but eat, but it was still very cool to see them. After the zoo, we went to a pearl museum. The pearl museum was very interesting. We learned about all of the different types of pearls and how they are found. To test if a pearl is real or not, you must grind it against another pearl, if there is a dust left behind and the pearl looks the same, you know that it is real. After a great presentation, we were able to view the showroom and buy some pearls. I ended up buying my sisters some nice bracelets. From the pearl museum, we went to the 2008 Beijing Olympic area. The Olympic park was very cool to see. The buildings were beautiful and gigantic. We didn't get to go inside any of them but it was still very cool to go there. In the picture above, you can see the one stadium that was used during the games. But also in the picture is the morning line. This path goes back to ancient Chinese history. This path was intended for use by only the Emperor. The penalty for stepping on this path was very severe. But nowadays, anyone can walk on it. Along the Olympic path, there were many kiosks that sold various goods. There were also people walking around offering to take our pictures and sell us kites. We then went to the Tea House. The Tea House was a great experience. We are given our own private room with various tea leaves sitting in front of us in containers. Our hostess then came in and prepared our teas for us to taste. The tea was amazing, we tried Juniper, Oolong, Pu'er, and fruit tea. We learned about tea and how it is prepared and how it should be served. I thought that the Tea House was a great cultural experience for us and it really helped immerse me in the culture. The next stop on our tour would only immerse us more. After the Tea House, we went on a rickshaw tour of the Wutong District of Beijing. The Wutong District is full of buildings that are from Ancient China.
These buildings have a courtyard and multiple buildings within them for people to live in. These households have four main buildings, the northern building is for the elders of the house, the eastern building is for the young men and the western building is for the women. They believed that because the sun rose from the east, the boys should be there because it would bring them hope and a good future. Of course, things are now very different. These households have been converted to allow a maximum amount of people to live inside them. Small houses have been put inside so that more people are able to live within them. After a brief ride through the district, we were taken to a small house inside of one of these household and served a wonderful home cooked meal. We learned a lot about the history of Chinese living and what some of the struggles are of the standard person that lives inside the city. I am so glad that we were able to do this part of the tour because this put an amazing perspective on things for me. After this, we went to our final stop for the day, the Lama Temple The Lama Temple was a beautiful temple that many Buddhists go to to say prayers and to give tributes to the many Buddhas. As we made our way through the Temple, we saw all the different Buddhas and learned about what they each represent. The most common Buddha that is seen in America is the laughing Buddha, he represents happiness. But other Buddhas represent past, present, and future, wealth, health, and live. It was a very beautiful and tranquil place. As we walked through there were many people praying and burning incense. It is believed that when incense is burned, it allows for peoples troubles to be taken away from them with the smoke. It was a very interesting experience to see a different culture practice their religion. In the last building of the Temple, there was the world's largest single carved Buddha. It was 18 meters tall and extremely humbling. Seeing the Lama Temple was another amazing immersion experience for us and I would love to go there again. Once we left the temple, we went back to the hotel. We were all very tired from the day so we decided to take a nap. I guess we were more tired than we expected because that nap ended up lasting until the morning. I feel like I am slowly adjusting to the massive time difference. My next post will be about our second day in Beijing. |