First week of December & Jinmen, Taiwan

It’s getting cold. Well, this isn’t too new a phenomenon of course, but last week’s abnormal warmth (I even had to turn our AC unit on, briefly! Last time we did that was probably early October…) made this one feel all the much colder. Not that it’s really all that cold either- I’d say it’s comparable to Florida, just windier and more consistent temperature-wise.

As for other recent happenings, last week I participated in the first meeting of a dance club on campus. They meet every Wednesday and spend one hour teaching “modern” dance (basically ballroom dancing), and the second hour on Latin dancing. I was the only non-Chinese there, which was a little intimidating, but I quickly made a new friend as most of the dances they taught that night were for pairs. I’m pretty horrendous at dancing and I had a hard time remembering all the steps, but it was still fun! I didn’t make it this week but I’m going to try to attend when I can, at least for the Latin dancing portion if nothing else.

The club situation here is a bit odd I may add- the first time any clubs advertised was at least 1.5 months after school started, and the biggest club fair type event I’ve seen so far was just 2 weeks ago— over halfway through the fall semester! Perhaps the clubs have all been meeting since the beginning, but advertise throughout the year?….

So far the dance thing is the only extracurricular thing on campus I’ve gotten myself involved in so far. There’s a couple interesting ones I’ve seen that we definitely don’t have back at home, such as a kite club, a tea club, and a Cantonese club (not sure if this is for people who are interested in learning the dialect, or for Chinese who had it as a first language to get the chance to hang out and talk with others like them).

Now onto Jinmen!….

Last month I made a weekend trip to 金門 Jinmen, Taiwan. Jinmen, also spelled as Kinmen, is a set of two islands: Big Jinmen, and Little Jinmen (also called 烈嶼 Lieyu). Despite being under Taiwan’s jurisdiction, they are much, much closer to China (you can see just how close in the little map below I threw together for reference). Given the history of rocky relations between the two in past decades, direct travel between China and Jinmen was actually prohibited until recent years. Now however, a trip to Taiwan is only a matter of a 45 minute ferry ride from right here in Xiamen!

I probably would have included Jinmen in my travels at some point here regardless since it is so ridiculously close, but one of my primary reasons for going when I did was because one of my friends from my university in America is working there!! Given how tiny my university is it’s pretty crazy we ended up approximately 12 miles away from each other, despite being on the entire other side of the world. I’m extremely grateful as this not only means having a familiar face nearby, but that we can both serve as each other’s tour guides in our travels to “the other side”.

Friday afternoon I took a bus to the ferry terminal, which is conveniently on the side of Xiamen island closest to me, unlike the ferry terminal I had to go to to get to Gulangyu in October. Ticket was somewhere around $30 USD one way, and after quickly exchanging some of my RMB to Taiwan dollars I was rushed on the next boat, which left port 3 or 4 minutes after I boarded (hence the rush!). There were only a few others besides me on board from what I could see from my seat. I’m not too certain if the majority of Xiamen-Jinmen travel is mostly mainland tourists, or Jinmen residents making trips to Xiamen (from my understanding there’s a lot of bureaucratic hoops to jump through as a Chinese resident to go to Taiwan, so my guess is the latter), but either way Friday evening was clearly not a busy time.

After enjoying the ocean views, albeit somewhat foggy, I arrived at the ferry terminal in Jinmen. Customs and entry was painless as I was literally the only one at the non-Chinese foreigner window. There was no need for me to shell out any cash or do any bureaucratic procedures ahead of the time for a visa, as Americans are blessed with 30-days of visa-free entry to Taiwan (if only China was the same… even short-stay Chinese visas are about $200 😦 ). A short form and a stamp on my passport, and hello Taiwan!

Ferry terminal building. 金门欢迎您- Jinmen welcomes me!

My friend met me outside the ferry terminal and we made our way back to the apartment he and a few of the other Americans teaching English share to drop off my bag. We did this via the main method of transport in Jinmen- motorized scooter! I knew I’d just be riding on the back so I didn’t have any concerns about it beforehand, but that first ride from the ferry terminal was a bit nerve-wracking— not only due to it being my first time on the back of a scooter, or riding on one at all, but also as a result of being very familiar with the chaotic, fear and anxiety-inducing realm that is Chinese traffic. Thankfully, Jinmen’s traffic is entirely unlike China’s; people actually obey the traffic rules! Also unlike China, the roads are not crowded at all, and once sun goes down they are practically empty. People end their days pretty early in Jinmen, as became particularly evident as we searched for some dinner-time grub after a short tour of some of the main parts of Big Jinmen via scooter. It was about 7:30 pm and we found our intended restaurant had already closed! Luckily there was another restaurant a short walk away that was still open. From there we went to…. the name is fleeting me at the moment, but it’s a large mall that was recently built on the island. It’s big and lavish, and full of expensive stores that the locals can’t afford shop at. It’s intended audience is tourists, which the city expects to large increases in in coming years. For the time being, as you can imagine, it’s a bit desolate. It does have a movie theater however which is a popular spot. With not too much else to do at this time of night (8:30 pm….) on this little Taiwanese island a hundred miles away from actual Taiwan, we caught a movie- a Thai horror film called Gui Difang (Ghost Place… I’m gonna assume it has a more elegant title in Thai). Two Americans in a Taiwanese movie theater, watching a Thai movie with Chinese subtitles- quite the mix of cultures and languages!

The tickets were about the same price as tickets in America, however the popcorn and snack were oddly cheap- for not even a dollar extra you get a popcorn and regular size drink (“regular” size drinks in China/Taiwan are usually equivalent to America’s “kid-size”…. really puts our portion situation into perspective!). As for the movie- it was alright, just your typical horror movie, for the most part. We were both able to follow the subtitles pretty well which we were happy about.

Now, Day 2! I had the first few hours of the day to myself as my friend from back home was participating in a bike race that morning. That gave me some time to explore on my own, which I always appreciate! I just wandered around nearby, didn’t take any buses (which are free for all the residents!) or anything as I didn’t want to come back too late, or get lost.

I got to see bunches of small temples scattered here and there, nestled among modern life.

I found and browsed a book shop filled with just comic books. I’ve never seen one of these in China myself- it definitely seems like manga is much more common in Taiwan (perhaps due to the Japanese influence).

I ran across multiple 7-11’s, and got my self a small, triangle-shaped, sushi thing and some juice as a snack. 7-11’s are just stand alone convenience stores here (not connected to gas stations), are extremely popular, and are way more versatile than the ones in the U.S.— you can pay bills, or buy tickets concerts or shows there, for example!

After my 7-11 stop I successfully found my way back to the apartment, and started on the rest of the day’s journey, which consisted of quite a lot!

First up was the Military Brothel Museum. Some background- Jinmen has a ton of military history, as much of the fighting between China and Taiwan occurred in the area. Naturally, there were thousands of troops stationed here during that time, thus a number of military brothels were established, or as they were officially referred to at the time, “tea houses.” I am not sure if the other brothels are still standing, but one was eventually transformed into the museum we visited in order to inform subsequent generations of this important, but unfortunate piece of local history.

Courtyard of the museum.

Next up was a trip to a ceramics factory. The factory is open to the public so we got the chance to get a look at all the stages of some local ceramic production. Most of the ceramics included the characters 高粱 on the outside, so it seems most of their production, at least currently, is going towards bottling for the very famous alcohol produced here- Jinmen Kaoliang. There was only a handful of people working when we were there, however I’m not sure if it’s typically like that. Regardless, it was a very chill and relaxed environment- definitely no people crammed up in production lines working away or anything of that sort. It did feel a bit odd and moderately invasive just wandering through and observing people work, but the workers didn’t appear to have an issue with it themselves, and the idle ones even made friendly conversation with us.

Another scooter ride away, and we were at Jinmen’s Taiwu Mountain! At the bottom of the mountain, there was a war memorial with hundreds of graves, as well as a small military base (there still dozens of them on the island, which are still maintained today).

We climbed up to the top of the mountain, which gives a great view of the island— unfortunately the weather was still pretty foggy.

On the walk back down from the mountain, we stopped at a temple. There was some incredible artwork and imagery inside (as usual for Buddhist temples!), as well as many impressive statues of Buddhist figures outside of the buildings and covering the adjacent hill.

My favorite picture from the trip.

Day 3 was much shorter, but we still got an impressive amount done in the time before I left back for Xiamen. We started with a visit to one of Jinmen’s many underground military tunnels. The Kuomintang used to keep boats and other military materials in these, however they are no longer in use and are just tourist destinations now.

Entrance to the tunnel.

The end of the tunnel- now closed off, as you can see.

After the military tunnel we set off for Little Jinmen/Lieyu. From the same ferry terminal I initially arrived in, we boarded the boat that shuffles every 30 minutes between the two islands of Jinmen. Like the buses, the boat is also free to passengers!

Lieyu is definitely much more rural than its larger counterpart- evident of this, I was informed there was only one 7-11 on the whole island (there are over 5,000 in all of Taiwan, by the way). My friend showed me around, still on the scooter as there’s an area for loading them on the boat, before taking me to see the little elementary school he teaches at there. From there, we went to a delicious restaurant that specialized in taro dishes. Lieyu is covered in taro farms so they consequently have a special expertise in just how to use them in food. The special set we got included a number of dishes, from soup all the way to dessert— all incredibly delicious, and almost all including taro in them in some form or another.

The taro restaurant.

After the taro-filled lunch, we took the boat back to Big Jinmen, and I gave my huge thanks and a goodbye to my friend, as I had to catch the ferry back to Xiamen before it got too late. While I saw most of what Jinmen has to offer to travelers in my few days there (since it is such a small place), this glimpse of Taiwan and how great and clean and beautiful Jinmen was made me so excited to explore and further experience Taiwan in the future!

And aboard the ferry home I went.

November 27, 2014

Happy Thanksgiving from Xiamen!

As you can probably guess, Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated over here (though it seems most Chinese around my age and younger are familiar with it, probably due to their years of English classes). I wasn’t even aware it was Thanksgiving until halfway through the day. Thus this Thursday has, and will likely, proceed like most Thursdays here in Xiang’an- relaxing after having finished my classes for the week (the academic ones, at least- Friday afternoons I have a calligraphy class, which is extremely laid back).

Last week was midterms week. It was a little odd preparing for my exams while at the same time seeing people on various social media outlets back home posting about the upcoming finals period. I was a little nervous coming up to midterms as none of our classes so far have had tests or even any small quizzes until that point, but luckily our teachers did a good job of outlining the test structure and the material that would be on them. I ended up with a 85 on my comprehensive Chinese class midterm, which was much higher than I was expecting, mostly due to a subpar essay (I had 8 minutes left to write what was supposed to be a 350-400 character composition….). In my speaking class I got a 84— content wise I did nearly perfectly but this teacher is particularly relentless when it comes to tones. Which I do appreciate, as most Chinese teachers tend to overlook these slight mispronunciations. While a teacher of Chinese to foreigners is used to understanding shoddy Chinese, the average Chinese person is not, thus these small errors can lead to a complete lack of understanding, or at worst, a very awkward situation as your mispronounced tone may have a completely unintended, or even vulgar, meaning.

Anyways, midterms have come and gone, and now I’m into the second half of my first semester here. What else is particularly new lately? ….I’ve probably been drinking a little too many milk teas, haha (both prepackaged and freshly made). I finally got around to getting a bus card. This is good as it means I am not having to constantly having to try to collect change, and each trip on the bus costs me only .8 kuai now (13 cents) as opposed to 1 (or 2 kuai if going farther into the island, which is typically the case). Yeah, not that huge of a saving, but it will definitely add up after being here for the whole school year.

Also this past weekend I finally got my Taobao/Alipay account working! Taobao is essentially the amazon.com of China, while Alipay is the equivalent of Paypal. An event earlier this month can give you an idea of the scope of Taobao’s business. November 11th in China is known as “Single’s Day” (note Nov. 11 in numbers is, appropriately, 11/11) a day to either lament one’s lack of romance life or celebrate their single status. In recent years this has transformed into an online shopping holiday, akin to our Cyber Monday- in fact, it is the world’s largest online shopping holiday (and I bet you haven’t even heard of it until now)! This Single’s Day, the Alibaba group (which includes Taobao and the online wholesale retailer Alibaba.com) sold over $9 billion dollars of goods, with the first $1 billion sold in the first 17 minutes of the day. Compare this to the most recent Cyber Monday in America, in which about $1.5 billion of sales were made over the entire day.

While I joined the game a little too late to take advantage of the huge Single’s Day discounts, I’ve still been really happy with the site. Goods are usually cheaper than they are in-store, there’s a really good reviewing system in place for both products and sellers, shipping is free or very cheap, not to mention ridiculously fast. I ordered 3 items early Saturday morning and received 2 out of 3 by noon Monday, with the third item coming in the next day. With those benefits and the fact that I absolutely love receiving mail in general, I know I’ll definitely be making good use of Taobao in the future!
I did do some traveling during two of the weekends this month (to Kinmen, Taiwan, and the Hakka Tulou about 3 hours away), I will be updating soon with those as I have to organize those photos up a bit first. Here’s some assorted photos from here in Xiamen taken since the last post however-

Tea and coffee in the city with a couple classmates and Chinese friends.

Pink sun looking west over Xiang’an.

Siming district, Xiamen.

Zhongshan Park in Siming, about 30 minute walk from previous picture.

National Day & Golden Week Travels

Just three days ago officially marks my first month in Xiamen. It’s been a few weeks since I last posted, and in the passing of that time I can now honestly say I’ve settled in. I’ve much better learned my way around the area, as I’ve now been to a number of places both on the island, and off, here in the comparatively rural Xiang’an. It’s nice finally being able to recognize places I pass while on the bus and have a more specific idea of where I am when off campus.

Just a few days ago we finally received our stipend money- a total of 4050元 ($660 USD) which includes the one-time resettlement payment, money for textbooks (my textbooks for this semester cost a total of 220元, about $36 USD. We are given 500元 to cover this which I believe is supposed to be for both semesters?), and September’s monthly stipend. I should have another 1400元 coming in in a matter of days for this month’s stipend, which means I am feeling pretty comfortable money-wise recently, which is super welcome after having to fork up a reasonable sum in the first two or so weeks. As long as I don’t spoil myself with too many milk teas from the drink shops on campus (which is highly possible) or eating out too often, the monthly stipends should at the very least cover all my food costs for the rest of my time here.

Despite being here for a month, we have only just recently got into the hang of classes! After only one and a half weeks of class, we were given a week off (referred to as “Golden Week”), Oct. 1-7, for China’s National Day (which celebrates the founding of the People’s Republic of China, in 1949). While I don’t like to complain about time off, having a vacation so early in the semester isn’t quite the best timing, especially with the short-notice to assemble any plans (as a foreigner who had no idea about Golden Week beforehand), in addition to the complications of travel without a passport since many of us newly-arrived students at this time were, and still are, waiting for the residence permits to be processed and our passports returned to us (if you’re not a resident, stuff like renting hotel rooms requires you present your passport). I would have loved to visit Taiwan since it’d be a great last minute getaway, considering it really is just a hop and a skip away from Xiamen, but I could not leave the country as my visa is only single-entry until I get my residence permit (which should be Oct. 28!). The other element that added to the conundrum of Golden Week travel is the fact that virtually everyone else in this billion-plus population country is also on vacation, meaning that nearly anywhere you go will be extremely crowded and overrun with tourists.

Thus, my National Day break didn’t consist of any particularly elaborate plans, which is unfortunate considering we only really have one other day off during the semester, before winter break in late January.

My roommate was gone the first few days of Golden Week, staying with two friends on an island up off the coast of the northern part of Fujian province (same province Xiamen is in). It was a bit odd adjusting to the absence after having shared a room (and all my classes too!) for the previous weeks, but it did mean some alone time which I quite appreciate, as it is much harder for me to come across here compared to home.

My roommate was supposed to be gone through the end of the break, but things didn’t go quite as smoothly as planned for them, so she returned a few days early to Xiamen and brought along the two Chinese friends she had been staying with. They were going to visit and stay for a night on Gulangyu Island, and invited me to come along since it’s right here in Xiamen.

For some background, Gulangyu is a tiny little island a few hundred meters from the southwestern edge of Xiamen Island. It’s one of the top destinations for travelers here in Xiamen— in fact, Xiamen University and Gulangyu Island are probably the two most popular places of interest here, aside from the beaches.
Of course I agreed to come along with them, as I wanted to at least to do some local sight-seeing if nothing else with my last few days of complete free-time. So, I made the two-plus hour journey westward by bus, from Xiang’an all the way across to the farthest side of Xiamen Island at Lundu Ferry Terminal. I found my roommate and her buddies and we got our tickets before heading on an extremely brief trip by ferry, perhaps 7-8 minutes long from dock to dock.

Things were very crowded on the ferry, and the parts of Gulangyu closest to the ferry terminal there were pretty crowded as well, but outside of those areas I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of people. There were a number of beaches, for example, in which there were only a couple of other people there, and during the night, sometimes we were the only ones there. Still, the day we went to Gulangyu there were apparently 35,000 total visitors to this less than 1 square mile island, with 50,000 the day before, and likely even more in the days previous to that, considering we visited in the final days of Golden Week.

Gulangyu really is a charming little island. The environment is very much different from that of most other places in China. Reason one, is that cars and other gas-powered vehicles are prohibited on the island! There are a few electric-powered golf-cart type vehicles, but even bicycles were not a super common sight. Walking is the main mode of transport there, which is really no hassle considering the size of the island (it can be very hilly though). Reason two, is that the island consists of many late 19th/early 20th century European-style buildings, villas, and mansions, which gives the surroundings a really unique feel, particularly since this still is China after all. Under the Treaty of Nanjing in the 1840s, which was one of the many vastly unfair treaties China endured in its so-called “100 years of humiliation,” Xiamen was made a port in which foreign countries could freely come through and trade goods. During that time many foreigners choose to make home on Gulangyu, in large, lavish, western-style homes. At the height of this period, at least 13 different countries all held consulates on the island, including the U.S. None are left today however, as most westerners left the island around the time of World War II.

There are a number of standard tourist attractions on the island, including a botanical gardens, a piano museum, and Sunlight Rock (the highest point on the island). During our two days on the island however, we did not visit any of these attractions, and mostly spent our time meandering through the winding, narrow streets that cross through the island and exploring on our own. We all loved Gulangyu and had a really great time, and while our two Chinese friends that accompanied us have now returned back to their hometowns, my roommate and I will definitely be going back again soon.

人山人海- A ton of people (“people mountain people sea” as you say in Chinese) waiting for the ferry to Gulangyu.

View from the ferry.

The seafood market where we picked out our dinner from.

Fresh crab, clams, and shrimp (not pictured). Eating crab is a bit difficult as no tools are provided- just have to rely on your hands and teeth.

Night view of Xiamen from Gulangyu.

Another view of Xiamen from Gulangyu.

More beach, and view of the mainland, I believe (not Xiamen island)

And, yours truly.

Venturing to Xiamen Island

This past weekend I got a chance to get off of campus and onto the main island, thanks to some newly-made Chinese friends. It was a good end to a weekend which had commenced with the frustrating event that was attempting to fix my student card. Both my roommate’s card and my own have not been linked to our Bank of China accounts for whatever reason, so we made a trip off campus to Xindian (kinda the “downtown” area of this district it seems, if you could call it that?), where the nearest Bank of China is located at. A long, grueling walk in the sun to the bus stop, a 20-minute bus ride, a ¾ mile walk while not quite knowing that we were going the right way or not, and an hour-plus wait at the bank later, I find out that my passport is needed for them to assist me with anything, and my roommate forgot her newly-set ATM password (6 digits here instead of the usual 4 in America, I may add). Thus, we dejectedly returned home with still-useless cards- not before stopping at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant however, where we sat on little colored plastic stools and were served a filling and much-needed dinner by a sweet Chinese lady who excitedly chatted with us (we’ll be going back when in Xindian again, for sure).

Saturday night, my roommate introduced me to two Chinese friends she had recently made- Yangchun and Yanqiu. Chun means spring and qiu means fall, a super cute coincidence as Miss Spring and Fall are great friends and always together. We invited them to our dorm and we finally made use of our otherwise normally lifeless living room by all playing a card game together. We had brought up the possibility of going together to the beach, but we were told there was maybe going to be a typhoon the next day! (it was actually not so much a typhoon as merely remnants of one that made landfall a few days previous way southwest of here) So, beach was definitely out of the plan. But pending non-typhoon weather, the two offered to take us to see the main campus of Xiamen University in Siming district on the main island. That may not sound that interesting, but the Xiamen University has long been regarded as having one of the most beautiful campuses in the entire country. It’s actually one of the main tourist attractions of Xiamen (which the city by the way is one of the most popular destinations in the country for Chinese tourists!), enough that the university has been having a lot of problems due to this and just recently enacted much stricter policies regarding when non-students can visit the university. Our campus in Xiang’an doesn’t have this problem I should note, since we are rather out of the way from the island and all.

Sunday thankfully ended up being typhoon-free, although it was certainly a cloudy and overcast day (great for a day of exploring, not as great for taking pictures however!). So in the afternoon the four of us and one of Yangchun and Yanqiu’s classmates, Weiming, headed out the east gate on got on the 751 bus, which conveniently goes from our campus to the other (along with something like 40 stops in between here and there…).

This was my first time getting to see the city since I’ve been here. Observing the surroundings on the bus, it definitely looked like more your typical urban China, compared to Xiang’an which is completely lacking that urban feel (I ran into some cows while riding my bike around the back edge of campus the other day…).

Weiming had asked what I had eaten so far that day, and I casually mentioned that I hadn’t really apart from a snack, due to the whole non-functioning student card dilemma (I can eat by the way, it’s just always more of a hassle to do so since I can’t use the cafeteria), so they suddenly changed plans to get off early to find something to eat. In hindsight, I should have expected this- if anyone in China asks if you’ve eaten and you haven’t, or if you’re hungry and you reply yes, definitely prepare to be either offered food or taken somewhere to get food.

So we got off the bus and arrived at quaint little food street tucked between buildings. I was pretty overwhelmed by the choice of options at all the stalls so when they gestured to one stall selling fish balls and asked if I liked them I nodded (I’ve had them before and already knew I liked them) and just went ahead and got those. I know, fish balls probably sounds really gross, but all it is is ground up fish in a tight ball- like a fish meatball (that’s probably not helping with the gross factor… it’s good, I swear!!). Thus my first food on the island consisted of a large cup with two each of two kinds of fish balls in a light broth- one a slightly gray color, and the other white, with a meat filling on the inside. I followed this up with some freshly sliced mango- there’s so many mangos on Xiamen island! (where we got off the bus at the main campus was surrounded by stalls and carts selling literally just piles and piles of mangos)

The end of the food street, so you can’t see much other than where we bought the (very large) mango from, on the right

From the food street we got on another bus, which turned out to not be going where we needed. This mistake cost us at least an extra 45 minutes, but I did not mind at all considering it meant seeing more of Xiamen, which of course nearly any of which I had yet to see. This incorrect route also went up and through a mountain, which had some really great scenery too.

Finally we arrived at Xiamen University, on the very southwest corner of the island (Xiang’an is east of the island, so by bus it’s well over an hour-long trip one way). Weiming bought us all some kind of odd, chunky tea drink (including nuts, beans, chewy clear rectangular pieces and a thick layer of black jelly, perhaps grass jelly, covering the bottom of the cup). I wasn’t a big fan (it would’ve been fine for me if it was just the tea and the black jelly stuff), but of course said that I liked it and drank/ate most of it anyways. With drinks in hand we headed to Furong Tunnel, which is a long tunnel under part of the campus, which is famous in Xiamen due to its walls covered in students’ artwork and doodles. It was way longer than I expected it to be, but it was cool to see everything that people drew on the walls.

Me, the roomie, and Spring and Fall looking rather unamused

“I love you, goodbye”

After walking through the tunnel we explored the campus a bit- it really was a beautiful campus. There were a ton of people out and about in general, and you could definitely feel more of a student culture there— a feel which is lacking at our campus (but this is expected since ours is brand-new and hasn’t already been established for decades like this one). As it got darker we headed up a small mountain/hill thing, and at the top was a nice, serene lake. We sat on the ledge overlooking the lake and relaxed, listening to the occasional splash of fish and watching bats and birds flutter by. Hungry from the trek uphill to the hill-top lake, we later went back down and headed to one of the cafeterias, before getting on the bus (the correct bus, this time) back to the outskirts of Xiamen that are our home, for now.

Cloudy but a great view of the biggest building at Xiamen University nonetheless.

The First Days

I apologize if this is a bit long-winded, and many of my posts likely will be. This blog is both for keeping other people updated as well as acting as a kind of journal for myself, so in the case of the latter I definitely like keeping the details.

The Flight
It was an awfully long journey to Xiamen- 2 hours to the Orlando airport, from there to Los Angeles, to Guangzhou (which took almost 15 hours), to Xiamen Airport, and then about a 40-minute car ride from there. For the first portion I flew Virgin America, which was actually the first time I flew with them, and I was pretty impressed. For the other 2 legs I flew for the first time with a Chinese airliner, China Southern. The plane to Guangzhou was one of those ginormous Airbus planes (seating something ridiculous like 500+ people). It was a double-decker plane which I thought was pretty cool, since I remember seeing them when I was little and wishing I could fly in one someday- young me is at last satisfied!

I was already kinda feeling like I was in China by that point as almost all the passengers were Chinese and due to the flight attendants’ spotty English, not to mention the video they played near the end of the flight- in what was at least a 10-minute video, 2 young Chinese flight attendants and a narrator guided the passengers through face and head massages, leg, neck, and shoulder stretches, and massaging various pressure points to prepare everyone for getting up and moving again. About half the people followed along, moreso the old than the young. This was something you’d certainly only see on a Chinese airline.

The school had offered airport pickup service, so getting from the airport to Xiamen University was thankfully quite easy. After picking up my baggage and spotting the woman with the sign for international college of the university, I was whisked off to a van and, very quickly, made my way off Xiamen island to Xiang’an district on the mainland. I had forgotten how haphazardly people drive here, and the ride to the university was a very efficient reminder of that. The driver, who spoke in a local dialect which I couldn’t understand at all, was clearly in a bit of a hurry thus he passed cars by driving on the opposite side of the road, cut to the front of a turning lane that was too long by just driving around and pulling in front of the line, and unrelated to his apparent rushing, often drove in 2 lanes at the same time too.

Going off the island towards the east (the airport is located on Xiamen island), you pass through an underwater tunnel, which was pretty neat. It was a lot longer than I was expecting and probably took 8-10 minutes from the island side to the mainland side.

On the ride I also realized how much the school really is kind of in the middle of nowhere! In total contrast from Beijing, there are no tall buildings around (apart from those of the school). The area in the vicinity is either undeveloped, or in the process of being developed. I know Xiamen University plans for this campus (which is not the main campus, located on the island, by the way) to have something like 30,000 students by 2020, so I’m sure with that and the ongoing development this place will look completely different in a few years.

Registration Weekend
Once I got to campus, I commenced the overwhelming whirlwind of an experience that was registration. This consisted of paying the dorm deposit, getting your room keys, filling and signing forms to give to the local police station, getting our student e-card (which is used for everything from buying food in the canteen, to paying for hot water for showers, checking out books, buying things at privately-run businesses on campus, etc.), linking our e-card to a bank account, turning in documents, signing up for a mobile phone plan if you needed …. as you can tell, there was a ton that was needed to be done. Even though there was typically Chinese students around who spoke English to help if needed, things were still very confusing.

The dorms consist of 4 bedrooms with 2 people in each, a living room, and a bathroom with two stalls which contain a shower and toilet. My dorm ended up being on the sixth floor, only accessible by stairs, which I was definitely not too thrilled about, especially after experiencing the exact same situation last time I was in China! Luckily I had 2 guys offer to help bring my luggage up- I had about 80 pounds of stuff altogether so I was super relieved at that (unlike last time, in which I lugged everything up myself all at once).
Despite the help, with the amalgamation of the confusion, heat, lack of AC due to the fact I forgot to get my AC remote when I got my keys, dehydration and also not knowing where I could even get something to drink (since faucet water isn’t clean enough), exhaustion, the dirtiness of the room (particularly the bathroom), and the stress of having no method of contacting my parents who were anxious to know I had arrived safely, I was definitely not in the best of moods. Thankfully, that first day had been the most stressful day by far, and things have been much better since as I’ve settled in.

On the second day, I had some much-needed time to relax since I was finished with registering. This also gave me time to buy stuff I needed for my room like a trash can, broom, laundry detergent, and some shower shoes (since in China you have shoes specifically to wear to the bathroom).

I also bought a bike! For about ~$60 USD I got a new bike with a basket and lock included. I did haggle a little bit (I only brought it down 20 kuai (~3 USD) from 380) but I didn’t feel like going full-on bargain mode since the lady selling them was so nice (giving me and the two friends with me bottles of water since it was hot, for example). A bike has made getting around camps so, so much easier. Most people do end up getting one because of that. There are probably thousands of bikes on campus- enough that under the main campus buildings there are actually bike parking garages!

I would be posting more pictures, but I haven’t actually gotten around to taking too many yet. Many of the ones I did happen to take while in Xiamen were on my new (and free??!) Chinese phone, however, it decided to randomly delete all the pictures on it as of yesterday afternoon 😦 so, it’ll be a little longer before I have a nicer balance of writing and visuals.

At Guangzhou Baiyun Airport

The squatty potty that caught me by surprise at the airport! (Beijing airport had had western-style toilets so I was naively expecting the same)

Pineapple flavored Taiwanese beer with a whole 2.8% alcohol (and 5% juice). “Texas Grilled BBQ” flavor Lays chips in the background.

你好 from Xiamen!

Looks like I’ve been here a full 3 days now. I am just writing now as I just today got internet service in my dorm room. It’s proven to be a very confusing and difficult process to get internet access on campus, unfortunately. Assuming this keeps working (which past experience in China has certainly taught me not to assume), I should be able to post semi-regularly now. Also, it turns out Google and Google services like Gmail are now blocked in China, which was a huge frustration and disappointment, as that meant that I both couldn’t access my school email back home and couldn’t access the tools I normally use to bypass the censoring when necessary (such as posting here- WordPress is blocked). So I essentially had no choice but to buy a VPN- this is good since VPNs are way more reliable at accessing blocked sites than what I normally use, but I’m afraid having one may also mean I will spend too much time on the internet or become too invested in things back home, both of which you definitely want to avoid when studying abroad.

A ton has happened since leaving the U.S., although I’m going to hold off writing too much about anything at the moment since I have to be up quite early tomorrow- Xiamen University is organizing transportation for students to get their health examination done bright and early at 7:50 am (a health exam is needed in order to get a residence permit in China. I waited to do it in China because it requires some weird things like a chest x-ray and EKG, which would’ve cost me hundreds in the U.S. since insurance won’t cover it as there’s no reasonable cause for me to get one. As reference, the full exam here will only cost about $81).

Some quick things to note before I finish this and head to sleep:
-This campus is huge!! Everything is new, the buildings are really big and impressive-looking, and there’s still a lot more being built too. For the first two days I essentially was confined to the international dorm area and the nearest cafeteria, since everything else was way too far to walk comfortably to in the daytime heat. A bike really is necessary here.

-It’s so, so hot here. Really the weather is about the same as back home in Florida, however AC is not nearly as universal, which makes a huge difference. Classrooms, offices, and your own room (if you keep the AC unit on- we have to pay for our own electricity I should note) are really the only places that I’ve noticed so far that are consistently air-conditioned on campus. The size of the campus certainly adds to the heat too, since going anywhere means being in the sun for a significant amount of time. As a result of all this, I find myself really sweaty and dehydrated many times throughout the day and pretty much need to shower twice a day if I wanna feel clean. This should be temporary though, as fall comes closer- I can’t wait for things to get cooler.

-The mix of international students is a lot different than the school I went to in Beijing (which was majority Koreans). It’s much more diverse which is pretty cool, I’ve met people from every continent (well, minus Antarctica of course) and from way too many different countries to remember. I haven’t noticed any particular country that more people tend to be coming from.

View from my balcony. I think that might be downtown Xiang’an in the distance?

<1 Week 'till Departure

It’s a Friday night, and it’s a bit nerve-wracking (but exciting!) knowing this weekend will be my last in America for quite a while. Everything’s mostly set at this point- plane tickets are of course booked (I have a lovely 27-hour journey ahead of me, including layovers), student visa was acquired with little hassle, exchanged some currency so I can pay for transportation to the school and my dorm deposit and what not- I don’t really have much else I need to do other than buy some extra contacts solution and maybe some non-perishable snacks (something cheesy perhaps… cheese is pretty hard to find in China, sadly!). I suppose I’ll leave most the packing for the 2 or 3 days before- it’s gonna be a whole 10 months but I’m going to pack as lightly as I can! Especially knowing firsthand how much one can acquire from less than half that time away from home….

Recently I’ve been in contact with a number of students who will also be going to Xiamen University this year, both Confucius Scholarship recipients and those who will be there through other means. I have yet to meet another American student who will be on the same campus as myself, but the others I’ve been talked to so far are coming from countries like the Netherlands, Morocco, Vietnam, and Germany. I’m excited that I’ll be meeting people from such a diverse set of countries over the next year! I also had the pleasant surprise of learning there is an alumni from my current university who is living in Xiamen, along with a recent classmate of mine who happened to be placed by the Fulbright program just a few miles from where I’ll be, so it’s good to know I’ll have some more familiar people close by as well!

I realize that most of the people who will be reading this probably don’t know much at all about the city of Xiamen, and may very likely have never heard of it, so I’ll try to do an brief introductory post to the city and university before I leave.

Campus map, official admissions letter, and new student info from the accepted student packet Xiamen University sent in July.

June 10, 2012- Wangfujing

Well, I had an entry already partially written up, but I wanted to get around to writing about today’s events before forgetting it all. Overall this past weekend has been pretty amazing, one of the best of my time here! 

Today I was forced to wake up early, as my host sister had a normal day of class despite it being Sunday, to make up for the days off we had for the Gaokao. After getting back to the dorm (literally half of my shampoo disappeared during my absence, strangely), I went on skype for a bit, then ended up just taking a nap till almost 11. 

Sunday is usually our day for going out to places farther away from the school, since during the week we have to stay pretty close to school because of our curfew. This Sunday was the second to last one I have left here (!!!), so I knew I had to make use of it somehow. My main things on my to do list were Nanluoguxiang (since I haven’t been there since like the second month here, and need to get souvenir stuff), Wangfujing (for their infamous snack street and the amazing 5 or 6 story book store), and this other street called Xinjiekou I believe (dozens of instrument stores all together, modern and traditional- lots of neat stuff), since we had to rush through there last time we went. 

I was still kinda tired and feeling lazy from all the activities the previous day, so I kinda wanted to just stay at the dorm, but around 1 I decided to try to ask around if anyone wanted to come to Wangfujing with me. It ended up just being Ariel and I, who is another NSLI-Y student, since the people I normally do stuff with were either busy or somewhere else. 

After about an hour of riding various subway lines to get there, we finally arrived. First we headed to the snack street, which was thankfully only like a 5 minute walk once you’re out of the station. There was lots of interesting foods- squid on a stick, starfish, some kinds of weird bugs, and lots and lots of scorpions. I was determined to try at least one of the strange foods before leaving. Before getting anything to eat we just walked around for a while, did a lot of souvenir shopping for family back home (I had no idea there was so many, or any at all, souvenir vendors on the snack street). There was this one guy Ariel was bargaining with, and it was definitely the most fun bargaining I’ve experienced haha. He joked around with us and just made these ridiculous faces as we tried to lower the prices and what not- even walking out of the store we were still cracking up. 

We made our way to about the end of the snack street, and made our first food purchase. We started off pretty tame, strangeness-wise. The name has fled me, but it’s like a ball of almost cotton looking substance with crushed nuts, or something like that, inside of it (see included picture for reference; although, you can’t see the texture so well in it). It was rather difficult to eat due to the cotton-y substance, but it tasted fine. 

A few stalls away, was one of the many vendors with a collection of odd creatures for consumption. After having debated up until this point while we had been walking around, I decided to go with… starfish! It seemed the most edible/least gross looking out of my options. As the lady threw the starfish (already dead) into the pot to cook, I discovered it happened to be the most expensive thing they had, at a hefty 30 kuai (~5 US dollars, even more expensive considering I can get myself some kind of meal for 10 kuai or less). Not like I could change at that point, and even if I could I don’t know what else I could have summoned the courage to consume. As my starfish was cooking, the vendor really tried to get me to get some scorpion as well- according to her, apparently it is good for your skin (and a lot better tasting than it looks). Her persistence almost had me persuaded to try one, but I just didn’t think I would be able to handle the texture (at least these scorpions weren’t still moving like some of the other ones I saw). 

As for the about how eating the starfish went… well, you can thank Ariel for the lovely video I have included in this post and go take a look at that (in which you can hear the beginning of the following event near the end). 

So, my eating of the starfish caught the attention of the neighboring vendor, as I’m assuming the foreigners they see usually only look at the really bizarre stuff, not eat it. I forget what happened exactly that led to it, but one of the three guys handed us a tiny headless chicken, around 2.5 inches long maybe (it didn’t look fetal but it was small enough it would’ve been from either right before or right after hatching). Ariel couldn’t possibly have it since she eats kosher, so they then tried to get me to eat it. It looked kinda gross, and at first glance and thought there’s no way I’m going to eat that. I mean it had bones and everything, how are you supposed to eat all that and not hurt yourself? In the midst of this they unilaterally added to the dare that if I wouldn’t eat it I had to give them a kiss. So, with that added to the mix and a sudden urge of bravery, I took a bite out of the newborn chicken. The bones were nothing more than some extra crunchiness that could be easily chewed; to my surprise, it wasn’t that bad at all (and way better than my starfish)! They were still insisting on that kiss though, so a while after finishing my baby chicken, I followed Ariel’s suggestion and just blew them a kiss before we went on our way, which worked as my thank you for the free food and probably one of my most fun/entertaining experience I’ve had with random Chinese people. (I have a video of eating the chicken and some of the talking with the stall workers as well, which I may or may not post later) 

Afterwards we headed out of the snack street and over to the bookstore, with over 5 stories of books (among some other things, like electronic foreign language dictionaries and such) that puts any Barnes and Noble to shame. I needed to hoard some Chinese books before going back home since obviously in America they won’t be as easy or cheap to obtain. Since I had hardly any money left, I ended up just getting an introductory textbook on classical chinese and an illustrated book of Chinese idioms, which was rather expensive at 39 kuai (especially when there was more in depth ones for like 16- but none of those would have been as entertaining to read since they lacked this ones colorfulness, and even comics to show examples!).

May 31, 2012

Pictures, as promised! From the Great Wall and Shisanling/Ming Tombs. 

I was gonna include a picture of on of the four certificates that I got at an assembly that they always have a few weeks after midterms/finals, but I haven’t got around to it and I’d rather not postpone posting ever more. I had already known I was getting something for perfect attendance and most improvement since out teacher told us beforehand, but I also got two for a Xi’an picture competition (1st and 2nd place out of the 3 language classes I believe). I don’t remember what pictures I gave to my teacher or which ones won for that matter, and I’ve kept forgetting to ask since I’m curious as to which ones were chosen. 

This week has probably been the busiest for me this semester so far, aside from midterms week perhaps. 

Things I need to do:
-Finish my homework! (lucky me, class gets significantly busier once I have a ton of stuff to do)
-Finish my powerpoint, and manage not to freak out over it until Monday, which is when we present. Still a ton left to do, but my final essay is done at least (came out to about 1070 characters long, didn’t even have to look up many words at all so I’m pretty happy).
-Practice my shuffling. Why, you ask? …I guess I’ve neglected to mention that 7 of the Americans plus me have been in the process of creating a dance for a flashmob. Although, 8 people isn’t exactly much of a ‘mob’, so maybe “surprise group dance” is a more appropriate name. Once the weather started getting better about 2 months ago every week during PE class we would rehearse (and now we’ve started to practice in the dorm common room as well as our time is winding down). We were originally just going to do it in the cafeteria, but since then we’ve discovered there is some kind of performance the international department is putting together on the 17th, so that will be our contribution. In addition, we’ve started getting more extravagant ideas with our actual flashmob, for example now we want to get matching outfits for to look snazzier, and quite likely perform it at this one plaza at Sanlitun. Considering we amassed a crowd of at least 100+ people watching us on the field when we were finishing up practicing today (since their PE class was gonna start there was a ton of people there), we know we can definitely pull it off when there actually are random people watching. That moment today was a little bit scary, but rather exciting and made us only more looking forward to when it’s finally perfected.
-Assorted college related things- housing forms, etc.
-Back up my computer, or at least my pictures if nothing else… I don’t think I’ve done that since before Xi’an, so I would kinda die a little inside if I lost all that. 

Random fact about China for this week:
-There is a Hello Kitty restaurant! When attempting to navigate my way to Sanlitun alone the other week I came across a sign for it (a picture of which I have included in this post). Speaking of strange restaurants, I hear Beijing also has one of those toilet themed restaurants… considering I’ve seen the one in Taiwan on TV at least 2 or 3 times before in America hopefully someone knows what I’m talking about…

May 23, 2012

Just going to summarize some stuff I forgot to mention in previous posts/major stuff from the past weeks, since if I tried to cover every detail in detail I’d be writing here for quite a while. (pictures will be up a little later!)

-The Great Wall! For our most recent monthly school trip we finally got to visit none other than China’s most infamous landmark. We visited the Badaling section of the wall, which was about 1-1.5 hours away from the school, in the outskirts of Beijing. I honestly kinda wasn’t expecting it to be too impressive, figuring it was just a stone wall, but it definitely surpassed my expectations. My host sister says the whole section takes about an hour to climb (notice I don’t use ‘walk’- some of the steps were practically to my knees, it’s a lot steeper than I would have thought it to be), although we just mainly stuck to the one end of it. At Badaling, on the way to the actual wall itself, there was a ton of little food and souvenir vendors, in addition to some random exhibits of black bears as well, so that definitely made it even more interesting. Overall, that day will certainly be remembered as one of the defining ones of my time here in China.

-Shisanling, aka the Ming Tombs. We visited this on the way to the Great Wall. I found it a little boring honestly- minus the literal piles of money just laying around. Some Chinese emperors were buried here, so at the room with the tombs (and the emperor’s chair), people would throw money, mostly 1 kuai bills- to give the emperors money in the afterlife I’m assuming. It’s collected into piles a couple feet high in some places, which was bizarre in itself to see.

-I had my first experience with KTV! To clarify, KTV is the name for these karaoke places in China. Basically, how it works is you rent out a private room for an hour or two with a couple of friends (or a lot- we had about 15 people when I went). I don’t know if it’s like this at other places, but at the one I went to all the rooms had a different theme- as we were led to ours, the rooms I saw included Mario and Hello-Kitty themed rooms (ours was just beach themed). Inside the room is a big TV and all the necessary equipment to sing your heart away. Surprisingly, they had a large collection of popular English songs, and Korean and Japanese ones as well (this isn’t as common in smaller KTV places though). Usually you also order food for everyone to snack on as well, which is delivered right to your room. However, we had just gone out to eat so the only food we had later was some birthday cake from Cold Stone. It was pretty fun, and yes, I actually did sing at some point (although the music was louder than the mics… thankfully). Oh and one other memorable thing from that place- for some reason, the bathrooms there had those really fancy high-tech toilets, that I had thought only existed in Japan. Only after wondering why the seat was so warm (its heated) did I notice a panel with a bunch of buttons I couldn’t quite decipher. Usually, unless you’re in a hotel or a place that is somewhat frequented by foreigners, you’re stuck with the hole-in-the-ground squatty potty, so that was no doubt an unexpected (and interesting!) surprise.

-HSK! That is, the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi- basically a standardized test to determine your Chinese language ability. In class our teachers have been preparing us for Level 4 (there’s 6 in total) until this point, with frequent practice tests and what not. The days before, I was constantly studying the nearly 20 page HSK 4 vocab list they gave us earlier in the semester to prepare us, about 1200 words long (which I’m proud to say I learned almost all of!). I remember back in February, less than 24 hours after arriving in China we were forced to take a mock HSK 4 test as an entrance exam. It seemed practically impossible at the time… After asking one of the year long people what they thought of it, they said it was pretty easy- me and one of the other new people who was there when I asked, were astonished by this, and consequently agreed we’d both be pretty darn satisfied if we thought the same by the time we left. Well, fast forward about 3 months and a week, after spending about 100 minutes on a Sunday morning in a testing room somewhere in Beijing, I left thinking that the test was relatively easy. To have reached that goal, and with time to spare, I was feeling pretty accomplished with my progress thus far.

As of this week our class has shrank significantly, as our two Ethiopian classmates returned home, along with one of the Korean girls as well, leaving us with about 10 kids in total in our class. With this and all the recent group pictures we’ve been forced to take for our yearbook-type-thing (and individual ones as well, in full graduation attire), it definitely feels like the school year is winding down.

Also, we received news today, after writing a proposal last week, that we got permission from the NSLI-Y people back in DC to be finished with class after our graduation June 12th; this basically means about a week and a half to explore Beijing ourselves and get to see and do the things we’ve been wanting to do but haven’t go the chance to. Of course, this came with a number of conditions, but they were all pretty reasonable. I feel like that’s a little bit long, and to do everything we wanted would require a lot of money, so I may only go some days, if that’s possible. Additionally, I actually just don’t want to stop class yet, I feel (well, I know) there’s so much Chinese I have left to learn, and I really just want to continue studying it.

Fun Fact(s) About China!:
-You know those pretty oriental fans you always see? People still actually use them here, for cooling off in the hot weather and what not.
-Chinese people seem to kinda like processed meats (or at least, I encounter them rather frequently)…. The majority of the time I’ve had fried rice, with all the vegetables and such mixed in, it also contained little cubes of spam-type meat, just a bit pinker. This Chinese spam is also frequently in sushi here (by the way, sushi is ridiculously cheap here, it’s pretty amazing), it’s always available for breakfast in the cafeteria as a sandwich type thing, etc.