life thus far
I am still around. Internet is still hard to come by. There is no internet in my temporary room and they are in the process of moving offices so there is now only one computer for public use amongst the 90 IES students.
I am currently sharing a room with a guy from Rice university in texas. He is a weird guy and difficult to have a conversation with. He is also shocked by china and spends most of his time in the room. He also has curly hair and 5 large bottles of "curvaceous curls" to help accentuate his precious collection of curls.
I move into my homestay tomorrow. No idea who or where it will be. They promised it would be within 30min travel. Their plan is to have us all show up on pickup day and just call out names and have the students and the family acquaint themselves. I did manage to extract a small bit of info..one of the host fathers is a retired geologist, I mentioned I was an EA major and interested in exploring, hiking, having an active host family not too much tv.
The first part of the week was busy. Too many long boring info sessions on policy, procedure, and safety. All read directly from powerpoint presentations project on a large screen or multiple large screens. Some were even in broken english. The next three days are mostly free, aside from moving in and getting to know my family, I only have to do my homework for the first day of class. Yes homework for the first day of class. Yesterday we met our teachers...or rather sat in a room with them long enough for them to give us books and instructions on what are homework was and that it was due at 8am on monday. I dont yet know what my teachers name is or where class is, but i have homework.
Yesterday i went downtown and figured out how the buses and subway work. At the bus stops there are large boards with bus schedules on them all in chinese, which is ok because i can read most of it. What is not ok is the stop names are mostly local names that do not appear on maps and i do not know. So bus riding is mostly trail and error and lots of asking for help. Both the subway and buses are packed...but no one is riding on the roofs, at least in the city.
Downtown we found a few shopping districts and we were assaulted by salespeople. "Sir you want to buy wallet. I give you best price. You good friend." Some even grabbed my arm in an attempt to sell me something i did not want. I bargained with one of them for a backpack and got her down from $25 to $3, but did not purchase the bag because of its poor quality.
The other day, in an effort to force people off campus the program had us split into teams of 3 and gave us little slips of paper with place names on them. We were to go to the place..somehow with out asking english speakers and return with proof of our success. The two other guys in my group immediately returned to their rooms to take naps and recover from a heavy night of drinking. So i ventured alone only to be hugely disappointed when i arrived. I found a department store, something similar to walmart. I was just unlucky, other groups got better destinations.
The IES students are the only ones on campus thus far. The rest of the university does not arrive or start until the 8th or 9th. Many of the IES students have started to form habits similar to what they had in the us. They go out at night to western bars and return sometime between 12 and 4am.
I bought a bike. $13. It is a real winner, black,dirty, old, and it works. I have ridden it around the city some. Biggest ride was 20km...in about 3 hours. You ride in the streets with the cars, buses, and other bikes. There is constant stopping and going. Most of the bikes are single speed bikes and gear low so top speed comes soon and is slow.
Food. I have eaten many types of food and have no idea what most were. For the first few days the program took us in big groups and bought our meals. Most of the food was meat in various sauces with a few cabbage or potato dishes. In addition to restaurants there are many street vendors selling "small foods," kabobs, pancake looking things, dumplings, etc. There are also fruit stands at which i have brought peaches, plums, grapes and pears, all of which are different than what you are familiar with. I havent been sick yet, but still am in the adjustment phases.
We have two weeks of class then we go on a two week field trip along the silk road to the western border of china. It is a long trip and I am not sure i will enjoy that much time spent on buses, trains, or planes, but it should be interesting. The trip will end near the border of pakistan, north of tibet. We will be traveling in 4 groups of 22. I am not keen on the idea of being herded like sheep as has been done thus far on the program..and hope to get away from the mass.
I am currently sharing a room with a guy from Rice university in texas. He is a weird guy and difficult to have a conversation with. He is also shocked by china and spends most of his time in the room. He also has curly hair and 5 large bottles of "curvaceous curls" to help accentuate his precious collection of curls.
I move into my homestay tomorrow. No idea who or where it will be. They promised it would be within 30min travel. Their plan is to have us all show up on pickup day and just call out names and have the students and the family acquaint themselves. I did manage to extract a small bit of info..one of the host fathers is a retired geologist, I mentioned I was an EA major and interested in exploring, hiking, having an active host family not too much tv.
The first part of the week was busy. Too many long boring info sessions on policy, procedure, and safety. All read directly from powerpoint presentations project on a large screen or multiple large screens. Some were even in broken english. The next three days are mostly free, aside from moving in and getting to know my family, I only have to do my homework for the first day of class. Yes homework for the first day of class. Yesterday we met our teachers...or rather sat in a room with them long enough for them to give us books and instructions on what are homework was and that it was due at 8am on monday. I dont yet know what my teachers name is or where class is, but i have homework.
Yesterday i went downtown and figured out how the buses and subway work. At the bus stops there are large boards with bus schedules on them all in chinese, which is ok because i can read most of it. What is not ok is the stop names are mostly local names that do not appear on maps and i do not know. So bus riding is mostly trail and error and lots of asking for help. Both the subway and buses are packed...but no one is riding on the roofs, at least in the city.
Downtown we found a few shopping districts and we were assaulted by salespeople. "Sir you want to buy wallet. I give you best price. You good friend." Some even grabbed my arm in an attempt to sell me something i did not want. I bargained with one of them for a backpack and got her down from $25 to $3, but did not purchase the bag because of its poor quality.
The other day, in an effort to force people off campus the program had us split into teams of 3 and gave us little slips of paper with place names on them. We were to go to the place..somehow with out asking english speakers and return with proof of our success. The two other guys in my group immediately returned to their rooms to take naps and recover from a heavy night of drinking. So i ventured alone only to be hugely disappointed when i arrived. I found a department store, something similar to walmart. I was just unlucky, other groups got better destinations.
The IES students are the only ones on campus thus far. The rest of the university does not arrive or start until the 8th or 9th. Many of the IES students have started to form habits similar to what they had in the us. They go out at night to western bars and return sometime between 12 and 4am.
I bought a bike. $13. It is a real winner, black,dirty, old, and it works. I have ridden it around the city some. Biggest ride was 20km...in about 3 hours. You ride in the streets with the cars, buses, and other bikes. There is constant stopping and going. Most of the bikes are single speed bikes and gear low so top speed comes soon and is slow.Food. I have eaten many types of food and have no idea what most were. For the first few days the program took us in big groups and bought our meals. Most of the food was meat in various sauces with a few cabbage or potato dishes. In addition to restaurants there are many street vendors selling "small foods," kabobs, pancake looking things, dumplings, etc. There are also fruit stands at which i have brought peaches, plums, grapes and pears, all of which are different than what you are familiar with. I havent been sick yet, but still am in the adjustment phases.
We have two weeks of class then we go on a two week field trip along the silk road to the western border of china. It is a long trip and I am not sure i will enjoy that much time spent on buses, trains, or planes, but it should be interesting. The trip will end near the border of pakistan, north of tibet. We will be traveling in 4 groups of 22. I am not keen on the idea of being herded like sheep as has been done thus far on the program..and hope to get away from the mass.
posted by kejiesheng at 11:23 AM
5 Comments:
Have you asked your roommate with the curvaceous curls if he is related to a certain Bruce?
It all sounds fascinating, Jason!
Haha to Caitlin. And I agree that it sounds amazing. Can't wait to hear how it goes meeting the host parents. Keep up the posts.
Hi,
I'm glad to see that you are trying to learn and fit in rather than bring the good ole usa with you!! I'm sure your time in Thailand and India have put much of this in a different light.
Have fun and keep us all posted.
What an adventure! Didn't really expect the IES students to add that much of a weird element to the experience, yikes.
Good on you for getting the bike. Hope the host family is a winner.
Dreaming of the Silk Road...can't wait to hear,smell and taste thru your next installment :)
Yeah, I found I felt the same way about being in a herd of Americans initially when I was in Chile and tried to distance myself however I could. Unfortunately that did not really translate to forming many friendships with Chileans. My host parents were really awesome, so hopefully you'll get lucky in that way too. And at least a few gringos were pretty cool in my program, too. In fact, I'm with one of them now, who goes to the University of Puget Sound. Find yourself Chinese student groups and stick with them. In Chile there were a number of mountaineering and running clubs that I found.
Love,
Andrew
Post a Comment
<< Home