The travels of Justin

It’s tough to write from the internet bar. There are plenty of reasons to avoid the filthy internet bars, ranging from the stale smoke-filled air to inconvenience of having to walk 30-minutes from my house (each way) to the only internet bar that is satisfactory for me. Instead of quickly checking email, deleting spam, and otherwise having no messages, a visit to the internet bar is a 2- to 4-hour commitment that requires I try to catch up on what has happened in the outside world. If I try to chat with friends far away, or use Skype (currently my only vehicle for making long-distance calls), my visit takes even longer. The internet bar is a fine spot for travellers, but for daily interraction with the outside world it is far from suitable.

Tonight, I turned around to listen to two guys talking about me. I had been listening to a video when the cool breeze of a fan moved. I turned around to see what was happening and I only caught the words “加拿大人” (Canadian) while two boys were turned looking at me as they discussed me, obviously thinking I can’t understand their words.

It’s hard to know exactly how they know where I’m from, because no question seems to be off limits. Questions from university students and random locals usually centre on whether you like Chinese food, Chinese girls, your nationality, and any other detail of your life that pops into the mind of the interrogator. Even Chinese basketball superstar Yao Ming was recently mentioned in the China Daily as saying how there is no topic off limits in the locker-room with his fellow countrymen, but he had to learn there were certain topics off limits with his American teammates, because other cultures have different privacy boundries. I don’t have much problem with this, except that it’s annoying when I purposly come to the internet bar for the chore it has become. There’s simply nothing fun about writing a travelogue in a place that is inconvenient and uncomfortable.

I spent this past weekend in Beijing and made a big purchase intended to remove myself from the ritual of the internet bar: I bought a laptop computer. Less than 24-hours after my purchase, I arrived in my Nanchang apartment where the keyboard ceased to function. It is a hardware malfunction and I will have to pay to ship my laptop to Shanghai for repair.

Normally I detest laptops. They are not scalable like desktop computers. They lose value quickly. The components are specially engineered and thus have less market pressures to be price competitive compared to desktops — that translates to “freakin’ expensive” for non-economists. Since my goal is to stay in Asia to study both Chinese and Korean language, I had to concede to the fact that I can’t travel every year with a giant computer in tow.

I suppose this is all to say that once I have a computer I can write more often. So it might be another week or two (hopefully not longer than that) until I can return to writing regularly.

For months I’ve been in the dark about many critical issues, including when school starts. It always seemed like the strangest thing to be unknown by a school. Sure, I understand that the Chinese language courses for foreigners are operated much differently than degree courses, and approrpriately so, but I still couldn’t understand why no one had an answer. The closest thing to a clear target starting date was ‘near the end of September — maybe around the 20^th.’ Chinese people are famous for last minute events, and so it was on Friday night at 5:30pm I get invited to a 6pm dinner at a nearby hotel that would lift some of the fog surrounding these questions.

You can imagine my surprise when I was dining with heads of the International College at Nanchang University (NanDa 南昌大学) and I’m told that a decision was made to hold a meeting for foreign students 3-days later on the Monday. At the meeting, we’d have the chance to meet our classmates, and possibly learn when class will actually begin. At this point the start of classes sounds like progress, and I find it interesting to know at least some of my future classmates already in Nanchang. Since I arrived here months ago I’ve been asking to be introduced to some of my future classmates so we can get to know each other and share discoveries about the local area. With the exception of some Americans I had approached in a restaurant (”Do you study at NanDa?”), the International Department has always maintained that other foreign students wouldn’t arrive until closer to class starting. I’ve since learned, other foreign students have been here for several weeks (at minimum), with a few people having already spent 1.5 years in Nanchang.

Saturday night rolls around and I get a text message from my new American friends saying that they’ve heard class might be starting on Tuesday. Class on Tuesday? We’ll wait for the Monday meeting to know for sure, but this sounds good. Alright! Great! By this stage, I’m itching to start my lessons. The novelty of being in a foreign country has worn off a lot from my year in Tianjin. My studies in Tianjin were in English and did not include a language component so now it can be frustrating to be locked out of simple things just because I don’t have a rudimentary command of the language. Studying in class will be much more effective than trying to study on my own in my quiet apartment, but I can’t understand why I’m (1) hearing about class dates much earlier than expected, and (2) why I’m hearing about them through unofficial channels. I keep asking myself, if they want to attract foreign students to Nanchang, wouldn’t the class start date be considered as critical information? I can only assume that some approximate date had given to the other students since everyone is already here. I guess I didn’t get the memo.

“Umm… yeah. I’m just going to go ahead and get you another copy of the memo.” -Bill Lumbergh, Office Space

I was looking forward to this important Monday meeting, and decided that regardless of it’s outcome, I would at the very least be able to say I enjoyed an excellent breakfast of slightly overooked pancakes, eggs, and toast. Well, it is now Monday night and the meeting was a good one. Once we found the meeting room, 40 or so students sat themselves around a giant boardroom table with giant fake flower centrepieces adding colour to the room. The chair of the meeting had the understandable problem of picking a language to speak. We have people from Niger, West Africa (country unspecified), Mexico, USA, Canada (me!), Russia, Korea, and Japan. Do you use Chinese? Most people present understand a bit of Chinese, but most (certainly including me) can’t understand a full meeting in the language. What about English? Everyone who doesn’t speak English natively at least has some English training; however, nothing beats the clairity of your native tongue. Everything was spoken in several languages in turn: first Chinese to set the tone, then English for almost everybody, with some French and Korean used to clairify.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, class will not start. Instead, we’ll meet at 9 AM and take a trip the new campus of NanDa, on the outskirts of the city, to familiarize ourselves with the school’s third and biggest campus.

We were told class is expected to start either Thursday or Friday. It sounds like we’ll be starting with a review of phonetics while the teachers assess our ability. Then they’ll divide everyone into classes and make a plan.

After months of waiting, it has begun.

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 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.