Greetings family and friends across the world! Today’s blog is coming from the 11th floor of the Liu Yuan Hotel in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. It has been an eventful couple of days here in Nanjing as we have settled ourselves in and are preparing to begin class tomorrow.
On a government front, it has been very interesting. The day after posting my last blog, blogger was censored! I clicked on my bookmark and a blank page comes up. No text. No explanation. Just the browser’s telltale statement, “Done.” Youtube is the same way. On that note, I will be posting here via my girlfriend, who has excitedly volunteered to login and post my stories on my behalf. Thanks Kalli!
The other wonderful government-related item of the past few days is that Jiangsu province has reported its first confirmed case of Swine Flu. In accordance with provincial decree, we – dirty Americans – are required to take our temperatures every day until Tuesday and inform them if anyone is over 37.5 degrees Celsius. Yesterday afternoon, I caught a cold (ugh!), but thankfully my temperature reads a cool 36.8, 0.2 below normal body temperature. Nasal decongestants are working wonders too!
So enough about that. Let’s talk Nanjing. Arriving in Nanjing Thursday afternoon, I was immediately struck by two things. First, the city is very green. No, I’m not talking about recycling or clean diesel buses, but rather the shear quantity of trees that line every street in the city. The trees appear to be in the maple family, have solid trunks, and branches that reach out at 90 degree angles at about 7 feet high. If you made a strong-man pose with your fists angled outward, you would get a good idea what these trees look like. It’s very pretty. The other thing that struck me was the quantity of smog. At no time since arriving on Thursday have I seen a blue sky. The sky has been cloudy most of the time, but even with today’s “sunny” weather, the sky is gray and visibility is limited to 5 miles or so. It’s not pretty. If it doesn’t clear up at all, I may need to start looking at pictures of blue skies and puffy white clouds so I don’t forget what they look like!
The people here are indeed very nice. Thursday we had dinner with our host and student guides and Friday, they showed us around campus. They even put up signs all over campus and in the hotel reading, “We welcome the faculty and students of NCSU for civil engineering study abroad.” The warm welcome was very nice and helped us to feel right at home.
Since our meals in Shanghai, the food has improved drastically (or maybe we’re becoming accustomed to it)! We have had a lot more dishes that Americans would think of as Chinese- chicken or beef with noodles, sweet and sour chicken, fried rice, egg drop soup, etc. Friday, we were on our own for dinner (the welcome banquet was delayed as part of the swine flu regulations), so many of us walked around looking for food together. Sadly, most of the group needed a break from Chinese food and stopped at KFC. Six of us, however, stayed the course and ate next door at a Chinese chain restaurant. I had spicy noodles and they were exceedingly good. I will definitely be returning there!
On the topic of food, my eating schedule looks like this: Breakfasts are provided by the hotel – buffet style with hot juice, toast, dumplings, noodles, cooked vegetables, and other apparent leftovers. Lunches will be in the school cafeteria as long as we can stand it. Imagine the quality of cafeteria food in the US with the menu choices of China and you understand how bad that could turn out! Finally, dinners will be whatever is convenient when evening rolls around. I assume Chinese, but that may not last too long.
So far, we have not done too much in Nanjing. Friday was spent touring the main and new campus. On Saturday, we were given a really broad tour of the city by bus. We drove to a number of sites, but due to the rain, we chose to stay on the bus. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a grocery store. That was pretty exciting. I noticed more American brands such as Oreo, Chips Ahoy, and Coca Cola but there were plenty of unfamiliar products too. One could buy fresh squid and eel in addition to a myriad exotic fruits and packaged goods. Employees were all over the store giving out free samples and talking over PA systems to convince shoppers how excellent the products were. In a promotion area, they were featuring Oreo wafers. Adjacent to them were some snack-sized yellow, white, and tan pouches. All the writing was in Chinese, but I decided to be adventurous. Thus, I picked up a yellow pouch and went to pay for that, a Fanta, and some chocolate-filled Koalas (lol- very yummy!). Once back on the bus, I opened my yellow pouch to determine what was inside. To my surprise, I found it filled with green, flat, leathery seeds. I bit into one and it was immediately apparent that I could not chew through the skin, so I split it in half with my hands. I asked our guide what it was and she said (after looking in an English-Chinese dictionary) it was a bean. Upon asking if I had to cook them, she said, “Yes. Fried.” We all burst out laughing. Sadly, I have no access to a pan and oil, so it looks like my leathery, tasteless beans are going to go to waste. No worries. I had fun.
That evening, I hung out with one of our guides, Jun. He bought me a Chinese Chess set as a gift and taught me how to play. It’s actually somewhat different than traditional chess, and it’s really fun! Afterward, we went to dinner in a sketchy hole-in-the-wall restaurant that a lot of the students like. Yeah, it was sketchy and somewhat unsanitary. I don’t know if I’ll do that again, but the noodles were pretty good.
Today, seven or eight of us finally branched out a bit by going to the Hongshan Forest Zoo. To get there, we walked to the Metro and rode four stops. The single Metro line here was completed only a couple years ago and a second line is in progress. To enter the Metro, the rider purchased a plastic chip from an automated kiosk by selecting their destination stop and inserting the appropriate amount (either two or four Yuan ~ $0.25-$0.50). Then, the rider passed through the turnstiles by holding the (apparently) magnetic chip against a sensor. To exit the Metro, the rider would insert the chip into an electromagnetic slot. It was really cool.
The zoo itself had benefits and drawbacks. It was surprisingly big and there was plenty of shade and interesting terrain to climb. The animals were also quite cool: three pandas, some Bengal tigers, ostriches, emus, peacocks, elephants, and a variety of others too. Unfortunately, however, we all realized that these animals were not being kept in the best condition. Water areas were very unclean. Plastic litter was in some animals’ cages. Most disappointing, however, was that most of the animals were kept in very small areas. As an example, the tigers (separated from each other) were each limited to an area less than the size of a hotel room. The poor gray wolf lay in its cage with significant chunks of its hair falling out. Even the birds were limited in their range of flight. Perhaps this was done to ensure guests would get to see the animals, or maybe there just wasn’t enough money to make larger cages, but either way, these cramped conditions were no way to house animals.
In any event, we had a good time in spite of becoming slightly depressed. Riding the Metro and walking the streets were fun, and I’m excited to do this more over the next few weeks. Unfortunately, tomorrow, Monday, is the first day of class. Class starts at 8 am and lasts three to three and a half hours. In addition, we will also have a guest lecturer tomorrow afternoon- Mr. Xia Wei, Vice Director of the Jiangsu DOT Highway Bureau, will be talking about Highway Construction in Jiangsu Province. Doesn’t that sound like fun?
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