The travels of Justin

“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’m often asked what kind of things are different between Canada and China to which my first response is always the same: the driving. It’s not so much of a critisim as it is simply is a very clear difference between two countries. My rule of thumb for safe travelling to any country you are unfamiliar with is to stand on a street corner for 5-minutes and just observe how people react to their surroundings. I have given that advice to people going from Canada to anywhere, and I’ve given that advice to my Chinese friends going to Canada.

My first feelings of the traffic here was similar to that in Thailand. In both countries, the traffic appears as total chaos to the untrained eye; however, oberservation will reveal that everyone knows how to get around safely except you. Some of these countries may have high road accident rates, but the greatest threat to your personal safety is YOU, because you don’t understand what’s going on around you. I came close to danger a few times in Thailand to learn this lesson, and Ryan had his own close calls when we first arrived in Beijing.

Anyway, I decided to write this post today after finding a video of traffic on a street corner in India. After 8-months of living in China I don’t find anything in this video very surprising, although I would add that Tianjin is generally more orderly than what you see in the video. If you’re curious what traffic can look like in some countries, make sure you watch this video.

Video of a busy intersection in India

Hob Gadling says: If you’ve visited India, you’ll know that driving is akin to a martial art. (They don’t give black belts yet, but they should!) Here’s a video I found on ‘It Rocks Everything’ showing a small intersection in India.

Things to look out for:

• The pedestrian momentarily trapped between a car and a scooter
• The white car in the top right corner which goes the wrong way

touque tip: BoingBoing.net

As class was finishing up, Ryan and I started talking about how much we wanted to travel again. On my last trip to Shanghai I made a few friends, but didn’t see as many sights as I would have liked. Ryan asked me why I didn’t just go; after all, we study and prepare enough that we shouldn’t have to worry about affecting our grades. I asked him if he wanted to go together and just like that our idea was hatched. By 8:40 that evening we were watching Tianjin pass the train window excited to wake up in metropolitan Shanghai.

Tonight is my second night here, staying with a friend who’s been so kind to share his apartment with the two of us. There is a sign outside the apartment, by the main road, that measures the ambient noise in real-time. I’ve seen these in a few places around the city, but it really is amazing to eat lunch and consider what impact a constant 65-85 dB noise level has on people. I couldn’t help wondering what the level is in downtown Vancouver, but the scale of population is so different I can imagine few Vancouver locations that could possibly have any chance of coming close. Speaking last week to a group of primary and middle school teachers, I said that “even your small buildings are huge to me.”

My cellphone ran out of money today, so I cannot make any outgoing calls or messages despite the ability to receive without any problem. I had a few messages that wanted quick responses and I’m certain they’re going to assume I’m ignoring them. My simcard is from Tianjin so I can only add money to it when I’m there. Actually, I just put money on it a few days ago, but apparently I burned through it trying to make travel arrangements. I might try to use a public phone tomorrow to return a call or two, but it’s just impossible for me to get privacy when dealing with important things. I’m not even dealing with anything very private, but I still don’t want to share everything with whoever feels like bending their ear to listen to what the foreigner is saying. Either way, the expectation that anyone with a cellphone will always be at your beckon call is sure to mix badly with this situation causing someone to be offended.

It’s really great to be travelling while there’s no official holiday. Chinese holiday’s are all each about a week-long which means it’s impossible, as far as I know, to get a train ticket anywhere unless you have a connection and grease someone’s palm. The student union makes sure students going home for Spring festival have train tickets, but no one bothered to tell us about it until too late. I suppose the fact that students are required to go home for the festival gives the school some responsibility to help students leave. Even if I could have afforded an airplane, even the flights were booked solid. It may not be tourist season yet, but the streets are still packed with people and we have to work extra hard, because of the extra attention, to convince the wandering peddlers that we don’t want to buy girls, massages, sex, Rolex watches, hashish, or even coffee, let alone do we want to view an ‘art exhibition’ by some friendly ’students’ who just want to pressure you into buying overpriced art prints. During tourist season the crowds are even thicker, and I’m glad for the relative calm to go sightseeing, talk to locals, and find my way around this enormous interesting city.