Wrapping It Up, Getting Home

I'll do this last post just to wrap up the end of my experience and put a close to this crazy time in the Orient. After graduation we basically had a day left in Harbin before we headed out to Beijing via train the next morning. After getting unnecessarily lost on the way to Pizza Hut (Robbie Smith was leading, what a terrible mistake) we had a fantastic time arguing with the Pizza Hut server about the size of the pizza and the price. They brought out the wrong size pizza, then said they'd add another small one and it would be fair--but it clearly wouldn't have been, so we refused. They were angry. We were angry. Then Kerri did the math on a napkin (I think she even used pi to estimate area or something...it was crazy) to prove they were wrong...they didn't really like that. Anyway, we ate our stupid pizza and paid the ridiculous bill. I was still hungry.

For the rest of the afternoon we just wandered around Harbin. I bought a suit jacket for my brother. When I re-met the group and tried it on to show them, some random lady came up, felt the fabric of the jacket, smiled real sketchy like, then walked off. I didn't even realize she was doing it at the time, but everyone told me two seconds after the fact. There was also one lady trying to sell something useless--I don't even remember what--and was saying, "One kuai, one kuai, one kuai, one kuai", repeating the price over and over again. So I walked over to her and said, "Excuse me, but how much is it?" At first she was confused, then she just smiled and said, "Crazy foreigner." We both laughed, it was pretty funny I guess.

So the next morning we set off toward Beijing in a nice sleeper train. Everyone just kind of hung out in the dining car, since we all seemed to have a couple Chinese strangers in our room who had annexed it for the night. It wasn't until my girlfriend started getting a bit upset over leaving Harbin that I realized I would probably never see these people again. Not just my classmates...some of then I would actually see...but our Chinese roommates. We had made friends with a lot of them. Actually, I made better friends with Yue Yang and Huang Lin than my roommate, and I still keep in touch with them. Since I do plan on going back to China, there's always a possibility of seeing them, but the chances are about as slim as China's population is large.

When we woke up--or rather for me, opened my eyes, since I can never sleep on those trains--we were in Beijing. After that train ride, and two-month semester, I felt kind of like the lady at the service desk of our hotel. Our one night stay at a western-style hotel included a western-style buffet. It was awesome; hit that up twice. We first set out to the dirt market--I guess kind of like a flea market (shown in the second pic). This one guy tried to sell me this ridiculous hat (first picture) and said I could look like an indian, like that is something I've always strove for. This guy was crazy. He even did the full expression, as you can see in the picture. We haggled for some art and random stuff that would later become souvenirs and Christmas gifts.

That night we went to Houhai Lake, which is the same place I ran around for days on end last summer. The night life there is really great, so we just kind of hung out for a while. When we decided that we weren't willing to pay the absurd prices to sit on one of the outside couches to have some beer (drinking inside is much cheaper, but that defeats the purpose) we just headed back to the hotel. It was past midnight anyway, and people had to get up for flights. Sometime between then and when we left for the airport the next day, I bought some corn flavored ice cream. I tried it just before Robbie, who is eating it like a cob in the fourth picture. To tell the truth, I probably could have finished it if I was really hungry...

Leaving the next day was kind of sad, but pretty exciting. I was ready to get back to overpriced burgers, democracy, personal transportation, the REAL football, and the fattest population in the world. Going to the airport I could already smell America. Lauren and Chelsea, from my class, were on the same flight, so we all split two cabs. Apparently these two girls knew the system. You just tell the Chinese service person that since we're tall Americans, we should get the emergency exit. It worked, and it was awesome. Chelsea just gave me a sleeping pill and I konked out for the 13 hour flight. I knew I was in America when I smelled the sweet clean air of Los Angeles (and yes, it was clean compared to China's air, I just didn't realize it until I had something to compare to).

I arrived back in Jacksonville at about 6:30 am. I had to be at the airport for my flight to Nashville at 1:00. Thus ensued a blitzkrieg of packing, but I was happy to be home, if only for about four hours.

Graduation

So I know no one is reading at this point...four months after the fact...but I'm doing this more for my sake than for anyone else. Kind of just want to remember what went down while it's still semi-clear in my head. Anyway, I finished up the semester, and I figured my grades would be okay (about 3 months after graduation I found out my actual grades, which is a ridiculous amount of time considering Vandy is CET's biggest customer). It was really a great feeling to have all that over with and see the huge improvements. Some of the teachers gave speeches, as well as the head of CET Harbin, Ren Laoshi (in the first picture), and they were actually pretty meaningful. Ren Laoshi was awesome. I secretly had a crush on her...not really, but sort of. She was an awesome teacher--so nice about everything, and always tried to make every interaction with her a learning experience. But anyway, I usually tune those speeches out and stare off into space, but this time I actually listened. Maybe it was just because they were speaking Chinese and I had to listen closely, but whatever.

They brought the food out, which, for the most part was pretty horrible. Ding Lobi and I had this thing (not sure what it was), and it was probably the worst taste I've ever tasted. At the end of the ceremony--after receiving our diplomas--the language pledge was lifted, and we could speak English again. It was kind of awkward. Some people's voices sounded a lot different when they spoke English, and actually, at our table we continued to speak Chinese because at least half the people sitting there were Chinese, and communication was just easier that way.

But before all this, they gave awards for the person who most stuck to the language pledge, which was Hu Ketong. On the way to graduation he was drank a pint of beer...10:00 in the morning...that's awesome. That award was decided by peer voting, and a few friends and I wrote in Robbie Smith, aka Ding Lobi, who frequently--almost absurdly often--violated the language pledge. It was pretty funny. And there were other awards, such as Most Improved. I didn't get any of them--not really that surprised. It was crazy to think back to the time eight weeks earlier when I walked into the room with 30 odd people who looked like they were going to embarrass me back into 5th grade with their intense Chinese. At graduation this same group of people were (pretty much) all my friends, and some of them very good friends...In the second picture I'm with Huang Lin, probably one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He was always willing to drop whatever he was doing just to talk or hang out. I could definitely take a lesson from him. So yea, I definitely gained a lot more than just better Chinese in Harbin.

Classes are Over, but the Lessons Keep Coming

Tuesday we had our last class, and immediately afterward I cracked open a 13 cent beer (not really, but they are cheaper than dirt--or at least cheaper than Coke). Now we're into finals. These last few days I have felt my Chinese language abilities come to a pinnacle. While I have everyday conversations with my classmates, it's not the same as talking with a real Chinese person--when talking to another student you have to lower your vocabulary, because maybe the other person doesn't know a word that you know, or you don't know a word they do. The end result is a dumbed-down conversation.

But yesterday starting with the conversation with the taxi driver about all kinds of stuff, including China's and the U.S.'s pollution; continuing through my 15 minute oral report/Q&A on China's non-public economy; and finishing up with my 20 minute oral interview/test with my Chinese Spoken Language teacher today, I can finally see the full effects of two months of not speaking English. I think the real topper was when Ren Laoshi, the director of this CET program in Harbin, personally sat in on my oral report, and in the end commented on how much I had improved (My teacher at Vandy also has an advisory position with CET, and a relationship with Ren Laoshi and other teachers at the program, so many teachers knew me before I even got here). She has been so helpful through this program, and I hear from others who had her as a teacher here last year that she was an extremely good one. I'm really not surprised.

Anyway, so the continuing lessons I was referring to in my title actually concerns the aforementioned taxi driver--I was with him on my way to Bank of China--the main bank of China and the only place you can exchange money. To simplify China's banking system, it has 4 banks: Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and Bank of China (BOC). From what my teacher tells me, there really is no difference, except that Bank of China is the main one (the names have nothing to do with the customers' occupations).

So I'm at BOC at about 12 noon, and the first thing I notice is the mass chaos of probably more than 50 customers banking/waiting to be served. I'd been there before, but not when it was this busy, so I only knew that you had to take a number when I saw other people holding them. But where to get them? After looking around for a good few minutes I figured out that the BOC "manager on duty" was handing them out next to the printing machine. After waiting behind 3 or 4 other people waiting to talk with him, I finally told him what I wanted to do--exchange travelers checks--and which window I needed to go to. He gave me my number--only 7 people in front of me--but failed to give me the form to fill out while I wait.

Well no problem, I'll just go to the Form Table and find it. After digging through the unorganized forms, I realized that it wasn't there. I went back over to the "manager" and waited another few minutes behind people, then asked where the form was. He dug around a bit, and finally found it. I sit down and fill it out in all of 3 minutes, and then notice that there are still 7 people in front of me. But this is because they only have 1 worker behind the Foreign Currency Exchange windows. After waiting 20 minutes only to have 1 person in front of me finish, I go over to the "manager" and ask him if it is always this slow. He said because it is between 12:00 and 1:00, it is "rest time." I've also noticed this practice at the hospital I went to for my leg x-ray: between 12:00 and 1:30 there, things just shut down.

This is one huge difference between China's economy (banks especially) and the U.S.'s economy: in the States, when you have a room that full of customers, your private banks are going to alternate workers in and out, or tell them to take their lunch break during the slow times; in China, when all the banks are owned by the government, who cares? What are your customers going to do, go to one of the other 3 banks you own?

So after waiting another 10 or so minutes while one more person is served, it's my turn: the other people in front of me have given up. I get the window and tell the lady that I'd like to exchange travelers checks. At this point, as expected, she tells me that from 12-1:00 you can't exchange travelers checks--for what reason I didn't understand, but I don't think there's an international law about exchanging travelers checks during lunch time. I tell her that the "manager on duty" said that I could exchange them now, and she said "he doesn't know." (Now you know why I've been putting "manager" in quotations) So now I've got 15 minutes to kill until 1:00, and I didn't bring anything (material for my oral presentation later that day) to do, so I walk outside and just kind of stare into space.

Nearly 15 minutes later I'm back in the bank and sure enough, 20 or so workers march into the room and take their positions--the staff has just doubled. I go to the first open window I see (the lady said since I already waited an hour, I didn't need a waiting number). It takes me all of 5 minutes and I'm out of that god-forbidden place.

As you can tell, my experience with Chinese state-owned-enterprises wasn't exactly a positive one. While I have been saying that China just has 4 banks, this isn't completely true. China entered the WTO in 2002, and their 5 year grace period for implementing economic reforms, such as opening up their banking industry to foreign and private competition, has just expired. Citibank already has branches in Beijing and Shanghai, and is the first-ever bank in China to launch a drive-through ATM.

This is what opening up their banking system and economy will do--increase the quality of service. And as you can tell, I definitely think it needs it.

Sorry for the lack of pictures...nothing that interesting happen lately, except getting little sleep and studying until my head hurts.

Kareoke--Chinese Style (kind of like everything else I do in China)

Wow, it's been a long time. This last week of schoolwork was pretty tough--I actually felt like I was back at Vandy. A large part of the reason it was so tough was because I went to see a doctor to get my leg X-rayed for bone damage (if you didn't know I've been fighting a calf strain for some 2+ weeks now). Turns out there is no bone problem, and I have thus started swimming religiously. Taking a taxi to and from the swimming center, swimming, and showering all together might be about 3 hours. Hence my delinquency.

But I want to fill you in on a pretty bizarre and surprisingly good time we had singing karaoke last weekend. A bunch of us decided to go out to the main strip, and then after walking around for long enough, a couple people suggested we go sing karaoke. I was pretty reluctant to go at first, as it was already 10:30...far past my bedtime. But obviously I went--it was a place called KTV--which stands for "Karaoke Television" and is a reference to MTV. You might be able to tell from the pictures that the facilities are pretty plush.

When you first walk into the building, you notice that everything's a good bit cleaner and newer than the facilities of any other building you've been into lately. There are many rooms, and you can rent one out for about $6 an hour (if you think that's cheap, try dividing it between 6 people--it's like splitting hairs). From what I hear it's a popular place to make business deals--yea, not over round of golf, but an hour or two of karaoke. From what I've read online there is supposedly something called a "Special KTV" where men can choose a hostess for the night--basically an escort service--but these are mostly in Taiwan. So while my friends were taking care of registration and such, I kind of just checked the place out.

Like I said, the facilities were comparable to anything you'd see in the States, and they even had these cool looking water dishes all around with marbles in the bottom (see pic). In some childish reflex, what did I do? Oh yea, I stuck my finger in the water. As soon as I did it I realized what that pretty dish's purpose was: it was a spit dish. While spitting has greatly been reduced by changing attitudes toward it here in China, it's still living strong. In the locker room at the swimming pool I go to there's spit buckets next to every group of lockers, and at every end of the lanes of the swimming pool.

So anyway, that was stupid, but it was on to the karaoke. Starting out we sang some Chinese songs, which were ridiculously fast for our Chinese language abilities. Then our machine had some problems coordinating the words with the music, so after getting that figured out, we sung Britney Spears' "Drive Me Crazy", Backstreet Boys' (personal favorite for karaoke) "Tell Me Why", Van Halen's "Jump", Aerosmith's "Dream On", that song from Grease (don't remember, the girls picked that one), a plethora of Disney songs: "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?", "Under the Sea", "A Whole New World" and more. That's me in the 3rd picture getting way too into "A Whole New World" (thanks Cody and Jeff).

Probably the funniest point came when we were singing "Beauty and the Beast."

When the karaoke machine doesn't have a music video for the song (most didn't) it would play this stock footage to stand in as the background movie. This background movie, which looked liked it was shot by one person about 30 years ago, just got weirder and weirder. At one point, the movie was just this Chinese farmer in the middle of nowhere hoeing away. At another point it was at a public swimming pool in the United States, focusing on one person for about a minute and then another person for a minute.

Needless to say, the background movie didn't

lend to the vibe of the music, but this was especially true during "Beauty and the Beast." Of course, this is a pretty romantic song--it is about love at least. However, when the song came on, the background movie instantly switched to some mid-1900s black and white war movie. If you look at the picture you can see the solider with the rifle slung over his back. There's nothing better than singing "Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme..." while watching a solider brutally assault the opposition.

We left at 1:00am, a whopping $2 poorer, and happy we all decided to do it. There was also a feeling of awkwardness, because we're not allowed to SPEAK English, but we had just SUNG a lot of English. Maybe we were bending the rules a bit, but how often do you get to stick your hand in a spit dish?

Lost in Translation

In the past 6 weeks my friends and I have discovered a new past time: finding the craziest 翻译 (fanyi), which means "translations." I'm sure if you're a Spanish speaker, you see some pretty funny translations in the States. However, because Chinese and English are so far apart linguistically, you often get some pretty laughable translations.

There's an obvious divide on where the best translations are: you're private companies, especially foreign ones such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour are going to have the best translations--they're paying translators a good sum of money not to screw it up, and it's in their best interest to look like a competent company. Your little local Chinese restaurants are okay, although you don't see much translations there in the first place. They often get some translations wrong, but many Chinese have command of the English language, so it's not a problem for them. The worst is certainly your public parks and attractions. There's really nothing hinging on whether or not they get these translations right or not--people are still going to come to their parks for their beauty, or in my case, the hilarious translations.

So below throughout this post there are some signs and other funny stuff either I or my friends have seen, some more laughable the others.

In the 2nd picture of the rock, if you look to the left of it you can see the "firm" rock in the background. They weren't joking around, that thing wasn't going anywhere.

On the picture of the red material, you're guess is as good as mine--I'm still trying to figure it out.

The picture of the disco club with the Indian prominently mounted on the entrance--we didn't actually go in--is pretty interesting. My classmate Robbie, when he first saw it, aptly put it, "A disco with Cowboys, Indians, and neon lights--it looks like someone watched way too many American movies and mashed them all together."

I think my favorite has to be the last picture. It's on the same type of sign as the first one and a few others--these were all found at Sun Island the first weekend here. Of course, Sun Island is a a big attraction here in Harbin, and of course it's government owned and run.

Other than wasting my time looking for ridiculous translations, I have been studying, even if my blogs don't exactly portray it. This last was pretty cool because things are finally starting to click. I'm actually retaining vocab and grammar, and I can watch a Chinese TV program or read simple newspaper articles with minimal difficulty. I've also switched several websites over to Chinese language, and also portions of my computer's operating system. It's kind of slow at first working with all that Chinese, and kind of scary when a pop up box comes up in Chinese and you're not sure whether you're deleting important things (or course, you kind of have to consult the dictionary). But all this helps, and now I don't even think twice about speaking Chinese. Kind of a shame I have to go back in two weeks.

This weekend we go bowling, so I'm gonna put some people to shame. I'll let you know how the slaughtering goes.

The Closest Thing to Family at 7000 Miles Away

Anyone who's traveled, and has any attachment to their family whatsoever (okay, maybe not the brothers), knows what home sickness is all about. While I do "suffer" from this "sickness", it's not as extreme as a lot of people (after all, I only go home from college 3 times a year). But when you're in a different country, the situation isn't quite the same.

At Vandy, before you leave for your study abroad destination, they give you a handout called "The Mood Graph" or something to that effect--not really sure, threw mine away. As stupid as it sounds, it is pretty accurate. When first arriving at, say for example China, you've got a little culture shock but are really happy overall, checking everything out. About 1/3 of the way in you get a little depressed, a little tired of your roommate's idiosyncrasies or eating your 300th bowl of rice--all you want are some chicken enchiladas. At about the 1/2 way point you get in the groove, and everything's cool. Hit the 3/4 mark and you start getting excited about going home but at the same time enjoying everything in China and a little sad that you'll soon be leaving.

That's about where I am right now. Excited to see all you people back in the States (I'm as surprised as you are) but just starting to really get to know these people here--kind of stinks I'll have to leave. So when Yinglian (English name is Helen) came to Harbin last week, it was the closest I'll come to being with family during these 2 months. If you don't remember, she's the lady I stayed with last summer in Beijing and had a real good time hanging with her son Daniel. She was in Harbin for a few days visiting her parents (Harbin's her hometown).

She had initially planned on inviting me to her parent's newly remodeled house, but since it wasn't done she instead took me out to a Bavarian barbecue restaurant with her childhood friend Mrs. Yuan (couldn't remember her first name) and her son.

The first picture is us at the restaurant with Daniel on the left. This was my second time at this restaurant and both times they had singing and dancing Russians (I think I told you about them in the first or second post). First off, I'm not a big fan of Russian women, but these were loud (couldn't have a conversation at the table) AND they were dancing right in front of the buffet bar. I think I was the only one up getting food at the buffet bar while they were dancing, squeezing my way between their twirls and spins to get to the goods. Yinglian asked me, "Do you think they are beautiful?" There was just something awkward about how she said it, really funny actually. She often asks me if I think so-and-so is "beautiful," and I usually give her a straight answer. Of course, the way I use Chinese is probably beyond awkward, so I can't talk.

Anyway, the dinner was nice--got to meet Mrs. Yuan (on the far right in the 2nd pic; Yinglian is in the white shirt), who is going to have me over for dinner soon. I gave Daniel an Amelia Island t-shirt and some sharks' teeth that my mom sent me because I was stupid and forgot to bring gifts. And Yinglian invited me to stay at her house when I return to Beijing for my flight back (although I think I have to stay at a hotel with the program). It is sure nice to know I have someone I can depend on in a country where I'm so isolated. And if you're one of my college or high school friends reading this, and thinking this post was a bit...fruity, sorry but some of it just had to be said.

The Story of a Chinese Schoolboy

Okay, so it's not really a "story" about any specific "schoolboy." (Just typing "schoolboy" brings to mind the Dumb and Dumber quote by Jim Carey, "I desperately want to make love to a schoolboy.") Actually, I was sitting here in my room on an uneventful Friday night--except that I helped a couple neighbors fix their toilet--and started talking with my roommate and his friend, Yue Yang. He's probably my favorite Chinese friend here in Harbin because he's talks really clearly and doesn't hesitate to help you--and he's just an all around cool guy (He prefers American rap over Chinese music).

Anyway, we eventually got to the topic about college life and what it's like growing up in China--specifically going to school. Some of the stuff they told me was crazy, and some hilarious. I'll share what I've got with you here. (This first picture is HIT's main building--designed by Russians, if you couldn't tell)

Students start out in Kindergarten at about age 3-4--pretty standard, but that's about where the similarities end. Elementary school runs from age 5 or 6 to 11 or 12. This includes grades 1-5. At elementary school students are expected to arrive around 7:15 a.m. and study on their own and get situated until 8:00, when classes officially start. They then sit through 5 classes in the morning, in a similar structure to America where the teachers come to the students. The afternoon holds a 2 hour rest/lunch break, 2 more classes, and individual study time. Students head home around 5:30. Let me just reemphasize, THIS IS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.

I told Yue Yang and Hongbo that if this was the States, and you told 2nd graders they had "Individual Study Time," it would be mass chaos. They then enlightened me with probably the funniest thing I heard all night. It seems students are instilled with a very strict sense of conduct and personal behaviour. Sitting at your desk with perfect posture, you have two options: you can hold your hands together behind your back, or you can lay your forearms on the edge of your desk running parallel to your body and one on top of the other (they are nice enough to let you choose which forearm you want situated on top). When the teacher asks a question, and you think you know the answer, you are expected to raise your top forearm like your elbow has a hinge connecting it to your other hand's fingers. When you are called on, you are expected to stand up (of course with perfect posture) and answer the question, with arms at your side, and national pride in your heart. This practice usually ends at 4th grade, but my friends said many students continue to do it out of habit, and many college students still stand up when called upon. (This 2nd pic is one of our classes--that's a pretty large one--and has no relation to this story)

Come 4th grade, they start writing long articles with no Pinyin--what students first learn before the Chinese characters, which helps them learn pronunciation. Middle school runs from 6th grade to 9th grade, and it is here that they start learning to form English sentences. Sometime during elementary school they begin learning the alphabet and basic words. At the same time they are continuing to study the Chinese language, and begin learning Chinese and world history. It is also during middle school that they start night study time: an average middle school day would be similar to the layout of elementary school I stated above, except that instead of being done for the day at 5:30pm, you have to return at for class time/individual study from 7:30-9:30pm. Most aspects of high school (grades 10-12) are similar except that night study runs later--10:00pm.

If that's not enough, you have what's called a Cram School, which are popular all throughout Asia. Ten or 15 years ago, this would be an afternoon/night school that focused primarily on math, Chinese, or English language skills. It used to be mostly for poor students or students who want to get ahead, but now, it's the situation where if you don't attend you're falling behind and hurting your chances of attending a good college. Where they fit this into that busy day I'm not sure, but it's an option that's getting more and more popular--especially since these days you can choose other Cram Schools, ones that specialize in art, music, etc. If families choose not to go down that route, parents often times give their children homework they create. My Chinese teacher at Vandy personally told us she gives her son homework almost every day.

And if you noticed the emphasis on math (how they previously could only choose from language or math), it's true that math is king over here. Every large city and province has a Math Olympics (think Spelling Bee) and teachers push students pretty hard to compete and to eventually advance to the national level--it's kind of a big deal.

So arriving at college, most Chinese students think life is pretty sweet. They've already gotten into a college, the fruit of all those night classes and Cram Schools. However, depending on the student, a Chinese college student will attend 20-32 hours of class per week (The U.S. standard is 15). I guess it's necessary when you have 10 different classes (e.g. Economics, Biology, Calculus). When I told my friends I was taking 4 classes for a total of 12 hours per week, they just laughed. And college here in China is a bargain, relatively speaking. At Harbin Institute of Technology, my host college here and one of the top 10 in the country, annual tuition is runs around $750 and annual dorm/books is about $500. Can't argue with that! When I told them that my all inclusive college bill runs around $50,000, and I almost had to check for their pulse. (This last pic is St. Sophia's Cathedral, the most photographed building in Harbin--I still haven't personally seen it)

It seems the hot major is Information Technology. If you graduate with this major or find the right job--one with one of China's monopolies (The oil companies are especially good--there's only 3: PetroChina, Sinopec, and CNOOC)--you can command an annual salary of over $6000. However, pulling this off is tough, and most college grads earn about half that amount. They told me that companies to work for are divided into tiers, according to desirability. The first tier would be a British or American company, under that would be a Japanese or Korean one, then a Hong Kong or Taiwanese enterprise, and on the 4th tier would be a Chinese one.

I hope this gives you a little bit of insight into the details of school life here in China, and I hope I didn't bore you to death with the details. If you've heard different than what I've got here in this post, I'd love to hear what you have to say--maybe some of this info is wrong. But you have to take it with a grain of salt: my friends told me this was their experience, so other students' experiences are certain to have some differences.