The travels of Justin

After facing many complications and sending daily essays by email, I suddenly needed a break from writing. I wanted to share two interesting views of living and/or studying abroad:

• Kevin Lim (and dad) post advice for Singaporeans and others living abroad.
• JAVA JIVE - Quarter Life Crisis: Part One (Life as an Expat)

(touque tip: AsiaPundit)

• I ate delicious french bread with cheese and garlic from a local bakery near where I’m staying. The croissants actually taste like croissants, unlike Tianjin where bakeries use oil instead of butter to make their product look like the foreign and exotic croissant, but the flavour isn’t the same.
• On a street corner — far from the downtown core — about 20-men and a young boy sleep on the pavement. People tell me that they are given 1-year notice to vacate their apartment buildings to make way for new development, but many families don’t plan for the eventual day. I don’t know if that’s entirely true, but I know that it’s not common for many Chinese to plan even 1-day in advance. I personally have a hard time imagining a family — any family — not making plans to avoid homelessness.
• At a Shanghai bar some girls walk around to each table offering free complementary cigarettes. One girl hands them out from the giant box she’s carrying, while the other uses a PowerPoint presentation on her tablet-PC to show you how good these cigaretts are. “They are very good for your health,” she tells me. No thanks, I think I’ll pass.
• Helping my friend buy a new DVD-Writer we visited Tai Ping Yang Shu Ma (太平洋数码) — the big electronics market in the Pudong area of Shanghai. My friend negotiated hard for a BenQ model from one vendor, but decided he’d go to another. The second vendor had a Samsung model. As we inspected the hardware we noticed the box and packaging for the Samsung DVD writer was identical to the BenQ packaging with one exception: only the brand name was changed. You have to be careful to spot the fakes.

Despite my best efforts, it seems almost impossible to find out what my options are for housing on campus while most people are on vacation during the summer holiday. Since progress is at a standstill, I’m going to cool off and enjoy some dark German beer in Shanghai with my Swabian friend. In the meantime, here are some random observations from around Nanchang:

• As my bus stopped near Nanchang’s Galactic Peace International Hotel I watched a bus driver accidentally close the doors on a very pregnant woman and I was reminded to write about how many babies there are in Nanchang. Every sidewalk, store, restaurant, bus, park, street, and fish pond in the city seems to be crawling with kids leading their patient parents or grandparents around. I think Nanchang is an especially good place to visit with children because it seems like restaurant workers are always playing with half-naked babies. Many of the children belong to workers and I’ve seen kids reporting to working parents at grocery stores and even the internet bar I’m at now.

  
  Baby in Chinese ‘ba’ pants

• The rice in Nanchang is very different from that in the north of China and is very similar to that in Thailand. The food is not as spicy as what I imagine from Sichuan cuisine, but uses a lot of strong pepper to flavour most dishes if not actually using hot-peppers (la jiao 辣椒). Fried rice or mien (noodles) are not as heavily fried, and portions seem a tad smaller. One restaurant made me pay RMB$0.50 for package of napkins, but most restaurants provide a standar roll of cheap tissue in a bland-looking container on the table.
• There’s a commercial for the “Nanchang Modern Reproduction Hospital” that plays on the TV’s on city busses. It starts out with the newly married couple running together in blissful love. Fast forward a bit to the future and it seems they face a problem, but they’re not worried because they know the solution. The next scene is the wife, looking quite attractive for the equally attractive team of medical professionals sitting around her. She looks happy, like she just had a little massage. When she leaves the care of these happy workers her husband stands up from the waiting room where he looks like he’s comfortably watching TV without worry. That’s where they reunite with the vigiour and passion of their honeymoon.
• I get a laugh everytime I see an advertisement for the “Galactic Peace International Hotel”.
• I wanted to write something about walking through crowds, but Imagethief’s story of “Escalation” is so funny that I suggest you read it too.
• Sound measurement, which I first saw in Shanghai, is also done in Nanchang at 8-1 Square (八一广场) and the Tengwang Pavilion. Even the beautiful and peacful pavilion is subject to hitting 80 dB.

  

My first photos of Nanchang are available for public consumption. Enjoy!

湖滨公园 (Park and lake near the north campus)

“That’s China of the 1980’s,” says the man sharing my train compartment as the train slows to enter Nanchang City (南昌市). Easily spotting the red maple leaf I met Mr. Yan, a Nanchang student who spent 3-months in TRU as an enchange student and was kind enough to be my first contact at 6 AM in an unfamiliar city train station. We weaved through the crowd of hungry taxis and hopped into one at an easy exit point where we could set off for the school campus.

I was taken to the north campus of Nanchang University (南昌大学) and quickly learned that if I needed a taxi to bring me home, I’d better know the difference between the 3 possible campus locations: north campus (北区), south campus (南区), and the new campus (前湖校区). Like most schools at this time of year, the place is practically deserted compared to how it will look during the school year. While we stood outside a dormitory waiting for my administrative contact to arrive I preformed an impromtu dance number for the local workers in a dismal attempt to stop the aggressive mosquitoes who were feasting on my legs. It seemed like this was going to be my home for the summer, but then it became clear that the officials here in China who are handling my exchage neglected to register me with the university registrar.

Snce I am not a registered student, I cannot live in a dorm, so I’m staying in a hotel on campus. My new friends carefully selected the place from an advertisement on a bulletin board as we walked purposfully toward the dorms bent on finding a suitable temporary solution. Taking nothing for granted, I carefully inspected the 3-beds in my room, the air conditioner, and then walked down the hall to the public bathrooms and showers to be certain I was willing to live with this place. It wasn’t until my first evening that I took my first shower and discovered there is no hot or cold water; instead, there is a valve on the wall that, when opened, releases water from an open pipe eminating from the wall above my head. The water is cool, but not cold, and is welcome after a day in the Nanchang summer heat although winter visitors might have a different story to share.

Breakfast on the morning of my arrival was also memorable, because it was so horrible. My friends around the world have always said how amazingly open to different food. My mouth waters equally whether I’m dining at Thai, Indian, Chinese, Korean, or any other nation’s food that I’ve enjoyed in my lifetime. With this indifferent attitude, I approached the lone open window at the NanDa (the local term for Nanchang University, 南大) cafeteria at 7 AM and indifferently ordered a variety of Baozi (包子) — a steamed bun with filling. Somehow my friend enjoyed the delicious meat baozi, while my tastebuds were twice accosted by a spicy pickled vegetable (bean?) and a third filled with a square of white granulated sugar. In the spirit of friendship I concealed my discomfort to my hosts who certainly were not responsible for my bad choice. Rest assured, dear readers (and potential travellers), the spicy food here is actually very delicious and the style is noticably different from Tianjin. My dinner on my first day was also memorable because the restaurant, CBC (China Best Chicken), is almost a total carbon-copy of KFC, and has even registered a trademark for their brand name.

I’m safe and having quite the adventure already.

I’m helping out at an education expo in Beijing this weekend. I couldn’t believe that I was greeted outside the expo centre by scalpers selling tickets. “我有” (I have), is my reply, but one guy keep trying assuming that I am brushing him off instinctually. Once he realizes that I’m actually speaking Chinese with a strong accent, a TRU rep brings me my entrance badge and the scalpers are left to find their next target.

This expo brings together many schools from around the world so that parents can easily get information about each university. I think I’ve learned a lot in the past year about how difficult it can be for Chinese families to painlessly get answers about foreign schools. I remember how complicated the university system seemed to me when I was trying to enroll after working in industry for 8-years, but 15-minutes of talking with an Academic Advisor (thanks Peter!) gave me clarity and understanding. It may be some comfort to my friends to know that the systems can also seem a little strange to native English-speaking people too.

These families also face differences in how the academic system functions from country to country. For example, Chinese schools (and individual departments) are ranked numerically by the government so it’s easy to know what school is officially the best or most famous across the country or region. It’s very different in Canada where two schools can each excel in a particular aspect such as where I’ve heard some PhD programs are excellent if you want to be a published researcher while the same PhD program could be a bad choice if you prefer to work in industry.

To my Chinese friends out there (and even my Canadian ones) who are thinking about studying abroad, don’t let all the regulations and details frustrate you. When the websites and brochures aren’t making sense to you, just pick up the phone and call the school. For my Chinese friends who have a difficult time with speaking on the phone, I know many schools (including TRU) have Chinese speaking people who can make your life easier. JIA YOU!

I left Dalian a few days ago to meet a train traveling from Beijing to Nanchang. I learned that — for reasons beyond my understanding — it is impossible to buy a train ticket for a Beijing train from anywhere outside the capital. A friend who happend to be visiting Beijing purchased the ticket for me, but made a mistake when telling me what time it departed the Beijing train station; thus, at 4 PM on the 14^th I learned that my 6 PM train had actually left at 2 PM. Luckily for me, some friends have opened their house so I can avoid hotel costs so I’m not totally stranded. In a stroke of good timing, Thompson Rivers University has asked me to represent the school at an education expo in Beijing this weekend where I’ll tell people about my experience and help answer questions about our fantastic university. On the 24^th I’ll finally catch a train to Nanchang to renew my visa, find an apartment, and make myself at home for the coming year.

Even though I’ve now been living in China for almost a whole year, my Chinese language skills are painfully limited, because I’ve been studying business classes taught in English instead of learning Mandarin. A year in Nanchang to study Chinese language will bring many challenges and opportunities, but there is a question that I always have to answer: why Nanchang?

I can understand why foreigners might ask me this question when cities like Shanghai and Beijing are famous names even to someone who might not be able to find China on a map; however, Nanchang provokes a surprising reaction from my Chinese friends. Several people have offered me jobs to stay in Tianjin so I don’t learn the “bad pronounciation” in southern China. Other people fear that because the province is the poorest &mash; or at least it’s one of the poorest — in China, I will be terribly uncomfortable and cannot possibly enjoy living there. To these nay sayers I say this: maybe you are right.

However, the partnership between TRU and Nanchang University is brand new so I will be the first representative student from TRU to test it, just as I was the first to participate in the joint program at the Tianjin University of Technolgy (天津理工大学). I guess you could say that, for me, it’s exciting to blaze a new trail for future exchange students to learn about our different cultures so we can understand each other and find common ground.

I too was worried about the strong accent of a southern province affecting my future in China and I spoke to an American friend, Michael, that I met in Tianjin. Michael completed his MBA in Tianjin on an exchange program and now lives in Guangzhou with his wife. They told me about a friend who has studied Mandarin in places far from the capital. We all agree that understanding the official standard pronounciation is vital to communicating across this vast country; however, despite being based on the Beijing accent, every region has their own way of modifying the sound — Beijing included. To communicate effectively in any part of China, one has to learn the official language and the regional changes. I have friends in Tianjin who have been to Nanchang and say they couldn’t understand anyone, so this problem will obviously confront me regardless where I study. I only hope I can learn the standard accent in the classroom, and local accent on the street and one day have the linguistic skills to talk with my friends no matter what part of this very interesting country they hail from.

When it comes to being uncomfortable and living without the amenities from home I would say that it’s true that some foreigners can’t seem to survive without a 5-star hotel. I don’t care — I came here to learn about the real China. One cannot understand the whole of China by experiencing a single city, so I consider this a great opportunity to know a very different part of the country that sounds a bit neglected by everyone except the writers at Newsweek International.

In fact, some of the photos I’ve seen of Nanchang show that it’s a beautiful city with a lot to discover, which makes me surprised when I’m confronted with people telling me to go somewhere else.

So who knows what is in store for me this year. Whatever happens, it’s certain shaping up to be another exciting year.

Dan Harris at the China Law Blog discovered that Newsweek is calling Nanchang one of the worlds “ten most dynamic cities.”

Aside from the formalities of getting settled in, I haven’t made any specific plans for exploring the area. If any of you, my readers, have questions about Nanchang, I invite you to put them in the coments and I’ll do my best to look into it.

I’ve just wrapped up a week in Dalian (大连市) and I can tell you it’s been nice. Staying with friends, I’ve had access to the internet long enough to upload a lot of photos that have been waiting for such an occassion. Here’s a view from the 29^th floor apartment I’ve been staying:

Dalian skyline

It’s reputation as a beautiful city is accurate with lush green trees lining every street. The seafood reputation comes from being surrounded by water on three sides and you can find an endless strip of fresh-seafood bbq in the downtown core. One of the things I particularly enjoyed was the variety of foreign foods here. My hometown of Vancouver, Canada has restaurants serving food from all over the globe, but the university district of Tianjin offers very little foreign food compared to what I am used to. Two of the most memorable meals I’ve enjoyed here have been Japanese teppanyaki with and Korean hwe (회) which is Korean-style sashimi.

Teppanyaki in Dalian

In a couple hours I’ll be heading back to Tianjin to meet Ryan for his last day in China. In two days he’ll board a plane and return to Kamloops while I board another train for Nanchang (南昌市). The lucky guy has been travelling around south-western China for a couple weeks with our friends and I’ve heard that seeing the China outside Tianjin has really changed his perspective of the country — I can’t wait to get some of his travel stories. In Nanchang, I need to renew my visa and find an apartment. The staff at Nanchang University have been very friendly and helpful so far, which gives me much to look forward too.

In 9-months Tianjin has become a familiar place for me, just as Kamloops did in my single year of living there. From the cosy dorm at TUT, it’s hard to imagine the amazing growth that this city will experience over the next 5-years. With its population of 10-million people (about 1/3 the population of Canada), Tianjin is often referred to as a “second-tier” city to distinguish it against the most famous cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Dan Harris at the China Law blog gives an excellent introduction for the uninitiated of the changes that await investors and opportunity-seekers (including future TRU study-abroad students) in a great article featuring Tianjin:

• Tianjin, China — Second Tier City With A Bright Future

And it looks like Airbus is looking at putting their first non-European factory in Tianjin: “Tianjin, China — Flying High.“