Wednesday, June 3rd 2009, 10:46 PM (Nanjing, China)

Greetings and salutations!

Today, of course, is Wednesday, June 3. A little higher level mathematics will reveal that I have been in China for three weeks and one day and I will return to the United States in exactly three weeks from now. I don’t particularly have much to write about in the way of events, but the majority of this post will discuss interesting tidbits and quirks that I’ve come across in the first half of my trip.

Sunday, we had class. After class, I worked on my paper for a bit, listened to a presentation about innovative construction by the local DOT (some of the most creative bridges I’ve ever seen- and they offered employment too!), went to dinner, and studied for my exam.

Monday – my birthday – I had a difficult time with the exam and spent all afternoon writing my paper. In the evening however, the hosts were sponsoring a farewell banquet for my Traffic professor, who is returning to the States tomorrow. I pretended like it was a birthday banquet. There were 23 courses in all! It was excellent too. Funny thing about banquets in China… they serve wine and beer. Typically, you don’t drink until someone toasts something or someone. Well, plenty of people toasted me. Good thing I brought my water along and the wine was weak!

On Tuesday, I went to class, then wrote my paper and studied for the final exam.

Today, I took my Traffic Engineering final exam (which went really well), then I spent the afternoon relaxing in my room. Exciting? I think so.

Tomorrow is the first day of CE497 – a crash course (pardon the pun) in vehicle dynamics, electric circuits, and thermodynamics. After Traffic, this course promises to be a piece of cake: no paper, no final, 3 noncumulative tests. I’m excited.

So there’s the scoop on the week’s activities, but now for a sort of rundown on some of the observations I’ve made. The order here is in stream-of-consciousness, and I can’t even promise that the following rambling will make any sense at all, so you’re welcome to turn back now, before it’s too late!

1. Music.
I have yet to find a good theatre performance. I saw a poster with two traditional instruments, but I can’t read Chinese, so I took a picture. I just need someone to translate it. That said, I have heard some music. The lady on the boat was playing the pipa. Since then, I’ve crossed paths with a few poor/homeless people playing some amazing music. Of course, being a sucker for awesome traditional music, I’ve tipped them. The first occasion was a man and women performing over the weekend. As far as I can tell based on memory, one was playing a dizi and the other a qinqin. I think. They were very good. The second occasion occurred today, as our group passed a man playing…uh… Well, based on a photograph and some research, I think he was playing a Sanxian with a bow. That’s my best guess anyway. Whatever the case, it was really beautiful sounding!

2. The sidewalks.
All sidewalks here have a row of tiles running their entire length. Each square tile has a two by 6 grid of raised rectangles that run parallel to the sidewalk. At corners, the tile changes to a grid of raised bumps. It took us a while to learn why these are everywhere, but it’s really quite clever. More extra credit to the first person who can come up with the right answer!

3. Street signals.
They all have countdown timers until the next phase. When you’re stopped, a red timer signals when the next green is. A green timer accompanies a green signal to tell when a yellow is coming. Of course, yellows also have a timer of 3 measly seconds! I think this is a great system that should be adopted by the States!

4. Elderly people playing games.
At the nearest street corner in the mid afternoon every day, one can find 40 to 50 people sitting in the shade, four to a table playing mah jong or Chinese chess. I intend to take my new Chinese chess set and take on someone, with no intention of winning. I have a feeling, if I went, sat down, and set up a board, someone would come up and play me. How cool would that be?

5. Bartering.
I’m not good at it, but getting better ;-) It’s everywhere, and I think being foreign helps. Every vendor has an identical calculator. You ask how much it costs (they understand that, haha), and they type in a number. You type a lower number. The process continues until an agreement is reached. It seems to me that they’re pretty quick to lower the price – I almost feel bad that I’m cheating them out of their product, but it’s their system. As an example, the price of something I wanted was 260 Yuan. I countered with 130 (and I should have started lower!). After about 90 seconds, we agreed on 150. That’s the way it goes.

6. Common Foods.
Sure everyone knows about rice and noodles, but having been here three weeks, I’m seeing trends in other food as well. Watermelon is served as dessert for every meal. Fish is never deboned and everything is cooked in oil. Interestingly, a popular banquet food here is crawfish! Having some crawfish boil experience from home, it fell on me to teach some in our group how to eat them. Naturally, they don’t use Cajun spice, but the best ones I’ve had were baked with cheese! Dinner foods (noodles, rice, green beans, dumplings, rolls, etc) are served at breakfast… with hot fruit juice! Finally, napkins are few and far between. I think that’s China’s attempt at being green, but I haven’t verified that theory yet.

7. Construction.
The design-build process for most projects (sky scrapers, bridges, subway, etc) is under five years. Small scale projects such as pedestrian and two lane overpasses are completed within one year. I’m jealous.

Well, that’s it for now. I can’t think of anything else off the top of my head, and I have to get to sleep. In the next installment, I’ll continue the list if I come up with anything else!