Arrival

I Arrived!

Last Friday, May 16th at 5:50am (Eastern Standard), I boarded the first of several planes it would take to get me to Chengdu, China. At about 8:30pm Saturday local time (8:30am EST) I left the Chengdu airport. I love Chengdu. The people are sincerely nice and patient in trying to decipher my mixture of poor Chinese and pantomime. The apartment assigned by USAC (University Study Abroad Consortium) is gigantic and I will probably devote an entire post just to it.

My classes are exactly what I need. I am taking a Chinese language class and auditing another. Also I am taking a one credit modern Chinese culture class. Both my Chinese culture instructor and one of the language instructors lived through the Cultural Revolution and do not feel shy about sharing their personal experiences, which were not pleasant.

I have forgotten so much Chinese, but it's coming back quickly. Communicating with shop attendants and waiters is an interesting game. In restaurants I usually just say something like, "I want a chicken dish that isn't too hot" and let the waitress pick for me. So far I have been successful. The food is ridiculously cheap. A meal that fed nine people and had left-overs only cost about $12 US. A can of soda costs about a quarter, and I know I'm being overcharged. The currency exchange is 7 to 1 (Chinese yuan to American dollar). After changing money, I felt fantastically rich. It's still weird to look at a ¥100 bill and have to remind myself that it's only about $14.25.

People are always eager to practice their English.

As bad as my Chinese may be, it is nowhere near as bad as their English. It is compulsory to study English in grade school, but it would seem that not all students are successful. When I do meet a Chinese person who speaks English well, it's surprising. The other night while dining in a Cantonese restaurant, I met a doctoral student studying Tibetan anthropology at the same university which my classes are held. He wanted to practice his English with a native speaker to see if his English is comprehensible. He plans to try and be a guest lecturer in the US after he finishes his doctorate specializing in Tibetan art and culture and how Tibetan society has changed in the recent decades. He'd be perfect for IU.

Language hasn't been my only challenge.

This is a Turkish toilet, or in layman's terms, a squat pot. About half the toilets are this style. For instance, the building where my classes are held have these. Only these.

The Earthquake

I know many of you have been concerned that Sichuan, Chengdu's province, has just suffered a massive earthquake. Chengdu itself has had very little damage thanks to many geological factors. First, the fault line is located on the opposite side of a mountain chain, and the seismic activity has to pass through the mountains before it can reach Chengdu. Also, the type of sediment Chengdu is built on is different than in the mountains. The mountains are solid, hard rock. Chengdu, since it was founded along a river, is built upon layers of spongy sediment which absorbs the shocks and lessens them. There have been several aftershocks, I've felt about one a day since I arrived, but nothing scary.

I'm not scared, but lots of Chengdu's citizens are. Many of them live in high rise apartments, so when the big earthquake hit, they were thrown around a lot. They no longer feel safe in their apartments and prefer to pitch tents in open parks and plazas than sleep in their apartments. I asked the coordinator of my program what kind of education the Chinese get in grade school about natural disasters like earthquakes. She replied that they didn't get any. I can't imagine how terrifying that would be to not really know what an earthquake is and then all of a sudden have a massive one. Sichuan hasn't had an earthquake since 1930, so very few people alive were even aware that Chengdu could have an earthquake. Government geologists said that we should expect to have an aftershock everyday. When there wasn't one for a day and a half, a rumor spread in the city (supported by a news broadcast) that the earth was just saving up for a very big aftershock. The geologists' guess that we would have a daily aftershock was taken as a concrete prediction, and the lack of one scared people (meanwhile it is impossible to predict aftershocks and earthquakes). In actuality, there have been more than one aftershock a day, including that day and a half period. It's just that they have been so small no one can feel them. Every morning it seems one of my fellow students will ask, "Did you feel the aftershock last night?" and the reply will either be, "There was an aftershock?" or "Yeah, I felt both of them." Being in a ninth floor apartment, I tend to feel them. It's harder to feel them on the ground.

Well, that's enough of a post for now. For a sneak-peek at up coming attractions, this Saturday we are going to the Panda Research Center!