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.