Quirks, Cars, and Walls

Well, imagine that! Three weeks have flown by and I’m just now getting to my first blog post. It has been quite the whirlwind getting settled down in Xi'an. I'm not really sure what I expected to find when I came to China, but what I've experienced in these past few weeks has certainly gone above and beyond anything I could have imagined.  Every horizon line is littered with construction cranes tearing down the old and building up the new. All the talk of transformation this country is going through is literally visible everyday.  This transformation seems to act as a constant reminder to the Chinese people to plan accordingly.

My first few days in China were spent getting oriented within the awesome group of students here with me on the Alliance program. We were briefed on various health and safety precautions, we took a Chinese language placement exam, and explored the main tourist attractions in Beijing. This included crossing through Tiananmen Square and the entrance to the Forbidden City, seeing a traditional Chinese dance routine in which 15 people were all able to ride a single bicycle, and ate delicious roasted duck as well as sampling every type of serpent, sea creature, and insect under the sun.

We hiked four miles of the Great Wall and all the while I was trying to imagine how this expansive wall crossing dangerously steep terrain could possibly run for nearly 32,000 miles in total. The stairs going up were perilous to say the least and little did we know that for every steep step up we took there would be an even steeper step down. Descending was incredibly disorienting and maintaining a vertical stance was difficult. We finished the hike just as the sun began to set and the light created a warm, foggy silhouette across the mountains that I couldn’t begin to capture in a photo.

That evening, our group of 12 boarded a 17-hour overnight train to Xi’an. I slept on the top of three bunks in a four by six ft compartment with 6 other people. We arrived in Xi’an to slightly warmer weather than the bitter, dry cold we had been experiencing in Beijing (according to our program director Beijing is experiencing the coldest winter in 40 years!) The weather in Xi’an has generally been cold and foggy/smoggy (something the weather forecast here calls “smokey”—and you know there’s nothing like waking up to another “smokey” day.) But every couple days we catch some sunrays in the morning as we walk to class.

The food has been amazing! This area is famous for its noodles and it is certainly well deserving of the reputation. I can get a steaming bowl of noodles, veggies, mushrooms, and tofu in a delicious spicy broth for 5 kuai (about $0.80). There are also amazing street food vendors on almost every corner serving “bings” (lightly fried bread, with veggies, an egg, and spices inside),“jia mo’s” (where you pick from an array of 20 different skewered meats/veggies/tofus/eggs, and they are fried and put in a thicker pita-like bread), Korean sushi, steamed dumplings, caramel coated fresh fruit, and so much more! Each of these delicious meals never costs more than 3 kuai (around $0.40 cents). It’s such an incredible deal!

There have been tons of interesting cultural quirks I’ve been getting accustomed to. One is that instead of putting diapers on toddlers, the Chinese have ingeniously incorporated an open slit in the back of babies’ pants so they can make any tree, lawn, or sidewalk, their personal potty by just squatting and well… doing their business. What’s funny is that when the kids are running around playing, you get a little flash of their behind every once in a while and I can never help but laugh in disbelief.

Another tricky situation I had to figure out fast was how to is cross the street! It seems like every country has a different set of appropriate road-crossing procedural rules… but in China, it’s a total free for all! Cars are turning whenever they feel like it. People walk out in front of on-coming traffic assuming everything will just stop! Bikes are everywhere weaving in and out of the craziness! There is never a dull moment when I take a walk around the area.

We have been living in some mediocre hotel rooms, as the school is currently remodeling our dorm rooms. They had originally anticipated finishing the renovation a week before we were planning to arrive in Xi’an. However, because contracts are understood very differently in China than in the United States, the school doesn’t feel obligated to finish anything on schedule. In China, a contract is between two individuals and so when Omar (our program director) wants to sign a contract with a school administrator, it isn’t viewed as the Alliance Program making a written agreement with the school, ?? ??? ??, X?'?n wàigu?y? dàxué, the Xi’an Foreign Language University, but rather the agreement is between Omar and the individual signing the contract. For this reason, no Chinese ever sign on to contracts because if they do, they individually will be held responsible for any and every mishap. It’s proved to be very frustrating in not only our living situation, but also our classroom setting, as Omar can’t get the school to turn on the heat in our classrooms!

Chinese class has been very challenging as we are cramming between 25-35 new characters into our heads daily. The professors are all great though. They are English education grad students at ?? ??? ??, X?'?n wàigu?y? dàxué, The Xi’an Foreign Language University too. In addition to Chinese, I’m also taking a Chinese art history class and a Silk Road Anthropology class, both of which promise to be work-intensive but very interesting subjects. There is never a better way to learn than through first hand experiences, and both professors are committed to incorporating all the resources Xi’an has to offer in our course curriculums.

There is so much more to say but I want to devote later posts to individual experiences, like biking the city wall, or all the immense construction projects currently underway, or witnessing child pick-pocketers, or taking part in a traditional tea ceremony with a local tea expert, or my first calligraphy class, or going out to one of Xi’an’s crazy clubs and seeing what Chinese dancing looks like (probably one of the more epileptic displays of non-rhythmic movement I’ve ever seen!) My photos are up on snapfish.com at this website

http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1045338028/a=2139256028_2139256028/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

More will be coming soon and if you want to check out a cool Chinese artist this guy Xu Bing is doing some interesting work abstracting Chinese characters. xubing.com

Comments

Posted on 2/08/2010 by

Juliette Monet

Hi Cali, thanks for sharing your adventures with us! it sounds like you've been doing and seeing lots and eating great food. It is making me hungry! Your photos are great too. I can't wait til the next installment. Take care, Juliette

Post a Comment

• Email
• Password
• Comment

Login & Post Comment