Being a Tourist!

Hi all, this is Evan again. Sorry it took me so long to post! A combination of internet problems and a busy schedule, but hopefully I can keep updating more regularly now.  A lot’s happened since I last posted, so I’ll probably put up two posts relatively close together to cover more of it.  Also, these will eventually be less disjointed; the initial posts just have to cover a LOT of subject matter because it’s all so new.

Fun fact: Chinese universities have a lot of vacation days at the beginning of the year: I had class on the 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th, then four days off for the Mid-Autumn Festival.  We had a full week of school last week, but after Monday, we have the rest of the week off for National Holiday.  So the first couple of weeks are less schoolwork and more visiting Beijing, seeing the sites, and generally getting used to living here, which is totally ok by me!

First off, classes have been difficult.  I’m glad I didn’t get put in a higher level; it’s hard enough to keep up with the teacher as it is.  I’m working on finding a language partner to help me out, and I’m mostly keeping up with the homework, but the teachers speak entirely in Chinese, and it’s very difficult to follow what they’re saying. 

On the 14^th, I got to eat Hot Pot (火锅, huǒguō) for lunch, which is really fun, if a little messy.  There are pictures in my “pictures” page (hopefully), but the basic idea is that everybody orders communal plates of meat, vegetables, noodles, etc, and puts it in their own “hot pot” (heated pot of broth, sort of like a fondue pot) and lets it cook.  It’s fun, and been a while since I got to eat that way, so I was very glad. 

On the 15^th, I got to go to church for the first time since my arrival; I’m planning on continuing to attend this church; it’s a Chinese church with one English service and four Chinese services, fairly close to campus.  It was encouraging to attend; the place was filled almost to capacity with some foreigners, but mostly with Chinese nationals, and from several conversations I’ve had, it sounds like the other services are just as well attended.  It’s good to see that God is moving here, despite difficulties.

Thursday the 19^th was the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节, zhōngqiūjié), equivalent in many ways to our Thanksgiving.  People go home to visit family, or if they can’t at least call and talk and otherwise keep in touch.  The upshot is that the campus gets very empty on this holiday, so there’s not nearly as much to do.  It’s also traditional to give gifts of moon cakes to others on this day, and some Chinese friends were kind enough to give me some (I gave them some Florida souvenirs in return), so I had a pleasant, if uneventful holiday. 

On Saturday the 21^st, a couple of friends and I went and explored a part of the city known as HouHai (后海).  It’s an older, prettier area around a lake, with a lot of restaurants, bars, and stores.  It has a couple of “Hutongs” (胡同), or alleys nearby.  They are an older, narrower style of street that one generally associates with older cities, and we got to explore them pretty thoroughly; they are a fascinating place; the smells and sights are vivid and intriguing. 

            I’ve been to church two Sundays, but today I had to miss it because our school organized a tour of the Great Wall!  They drove us a couple of hours to a section of the wall near Beijing, and let us loose to explore and hike up and down. One of the things that pictures don’t really convey about the wall is how steep it is to walk on; there are steps on some sections of it, but on others it just slopes up and down, and it can be a bit slippery. In addition, the section we visited was less well kept up than the parts that you see in pictures, so it was quite an exciting hike!  Not dangerous, but a bit of a workout.  

I'm still alive!

Hey all, this is Evan again.  This took a lot longer than I thought because it is surprisingly hard to get decent internet access in China, due to a combination of certain firewalls, some difficult software on my own computer, and a finicky school network.  Suffice to say, I have at last found a way to post fairly regularly that should hold up in the long-term, but it took a while to figure out. 

So I’m sitting in the café on the second floor landing of my apartment, drinking my “fancy coffee” (American Latte, in my case) and eating some tasty chocolate cake (they’ll give you wi-fi access if you buy something) and trying to think of all the things I wanted to put in this first post from China.  Be warned; this one will ramble a little bit (ok, a lot).

 

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

Ok, first thing I noticed on arriving, on the taxi ride home from the airport; on the freeways, it is totally legitimate and acceptable to use the shoulder as a “third lane” of sorts.  People drive there and merge in and out just the same as any other lane on the highway. 

The International Student Office (ISO) is in a campus building that doubles as a hotel.  In this hotel, there was a household altar, with lit incense sticks.  I did not expect this at all; I know that many people who are not actively religious will burn incense to the old gods in times of trouble, but I did not expect something like that on a campus in Beijing.  It was both beautiful and a little bit sad.   

 

         One of the funny things about being here is seeing what types of things are considered “Western” or American.  Apart from clothing that has fake western writing on it, one of the more noticeable items are restaurants.  There are many coffee shops with Western coffee, music, and snacks (one was playing “the Dancing Queen” while I was there), but many of these snacks are a little bit strange.  For instance, there are “cookies” (dry, scone-like things that go with coffee) that supposedly have cheese in them (they still tasted all right, but definitely a weird combination). Apparently, adding cheese to anything makes it more Western.  Also, there is a restaurant/bar called “Laker’s Pizza.”  The Lakers are VERY popular over here, and the bar tries to associate itself with them. 

 

LIFE ON CAMPUS

            Getting myself set up to live here has presented its own set of challenges.  There are A LOT of international students; over 800 one-year or semester language students, equivalent to OU’s exchange students.  Thus, the ISO is both very efficient at dealing with international students and not very well equipped to provide individual help/translation.  This means that a lot of things like living arrangements, bank accounts, and cell phone service have to be dealt with (initially, at least) by the students themselves.  This seems a little bit harsh, but in the long run, it’s probably a good thing; it forces us to use our Chinese quickly, plus all of the businesses in the area are used to dealing with clueless international students J .  As a last resort, the ISO has always given us a piece of paper for each specific scenario with both English and Chinese, which we can hand to whoever we are trying to communicate with.  This has dealt with all of the communication barriers so far!

            I was also very impressed with the efficiency of the hospital used for our school physicals.  They had 4 or 5 stations for each student to go to, and gave several hundred of us complete physicals in a couple of hours, faster than some of my well-checks in the US.  A couple of friends and I were able to finish in less than an hour and take a taxi back to campus.  I realize that this is probably not standard experience at a hospital here, but it was still quite impressive. 

There are a lot more girls than guys on this campus. This is a teaching university (that’s what the “Normal” in Beijing Normal University means), and in China, teaching is generally more the field of women than men, with the result that the population of this school is noticeably more female. 

Monday is the first day of classes, and this means that all the new students are showing up yesterday and today, so things are much more crowded than they were last week, or than they will be in the future.  It’s funny, but some things are the same the world over.  I could instantly pick out many of the new students, because they usually had two parents in tow who were constantly and worriedly scanning the area, thinking “Is my son/daughter going to be safe here?  Are there nice people he or she can make friends with here?  Will he or she actually be able to find good food at these cafeterias?”  One key difference though, was that sometimes these entourages also included one or more grandparents; that was a little strange. 

On the subject of classes, I am currently enrolled in twenty hours of Chinese courses; I have my books, and I will be starting on Monday.  I’m pretty excited!

PS: will post pictures as soon as I can figure out the most effective way to do that on this blog.

It'll be an adventure!

Well, I'm off! (or will be by the time most of you read this.)  At 8:15 AM eastern time, my plane will leave from Orlando for Detroit, and then departs at 1:00 PM central time.  I'll land in Beijing 13 hours later!  I'm starting to get excited, and I'm in that sort of mood where I can't get to sleep, so I'll probably putter around finding make-work jobs for an hour or so before I go to bed.  I'll miss all of you a lot, and I hope to hear from you here or by email.  I'll post briefly when I arrive in China and get internet set up, but until then, this is Evan Pederson, signing off.

T minus 7 (days): one week out

So, I finally got around to setting up a blog for my coming trip to China; turns out it's pretty easy to do if you have a g-mail account.  That's nice because I don't have a whole lot of time to figure out complicated systems.  I plan to post weekly at least, maybe more depending on what my schedule is like.  I'll probably change the site a little bit as I discover exactly how this system works, and I'll certainly add more pictures!

I'm leaving a week from today.  Yeah, it still doesn't seem entirely real to me.  I've got almost everything I need, and I have a running list of things to get before I leave (currently: socks, tennis shoes, jeans and shoe goo), but it still feels really weird to think that 8 days from now, I'll be getting off a plane halfway around the world.  I went to China last summer on an internship, so most of the paralyzing fear of travelling to such a different country has worn off (and believe me, there was a LOT of fear), which is nice, but I might not really grasp the situation until a couple of days after I arrive.  

Anyway, I don't know how many people will visit this page, but if you come here and know other friends of mine (or of yours!) who would be interested in reading, please let them know!  Post the link on Facebook if you'd like; because I don't have a Facebook, I can't stay as connected as I'd like in that way, but I do want people to know what's going on, and this will be the best way to do that, and to stay in touch with me. Please comment if you can!