My university changes every day. When I came for the site visit about two months ago, it was unlivable. Only the skeletons of buildings existed and not an ounce of green could be found on campus, which is strange for here. Now the teaching buildings are complete enough to hold classes all week long, the student dorms are abuzz with life (6 lives per tiny dorm room, to be exact), the soccer field is thickly coated in Astroturf and little oases exist in the most unexpected places. Despite the construction noise that has become the soundtrack to my life, the plethora of bottomless pits waiting to be stumbled into and the red dust hanging in the air and coating EVERYTHING, watching a campus spring up around me is pretty cool. CQIPC used to be in the heart of Chongqing, right across the street from the Olympic stadium and minutes by foot from a monorail stop. Downtown, in all of its skyscraping glory, was only a 15 minute monorail ride away. Now, at the new campus, it takes two hours by two different buses to wind up in downtown. We are literally at the end of the city. Beyond this campus, there is nothing but gently rolling green hills. And I think I’m growing to love it. Across the street from the university is what I would call a village, even though it’s still considered Chongqing. There, chickens run through the streets, which are too narrow with too many stairs to allow for cars, and people sit in front of their houses playing mahjong and chatting. Little kids run around pant-less and gardens are interspersed between the run down houses. I walk through there and I feel much more foreign, but some how much more right, than I ever do when I walk through downtown. I thought I would hate being in a huge city and far away from all the attractions, but who needs another towering skyscraper with a starbucks? My attractions come in the form of clucking chickens and counting stairs. I’m a little worried about my village, though. Future plans for this university include taking over the area across the street and turning it into a shopping district for the campus. I hope those plans include leaving the chickens, pant-less kids and mahjong players alone. We shall see.
Other than the possible demise of the village, I can’t wait to see how my campus develops over the next two years. It’s nice to be a part of it from the beginning, when a lot of things are just as new to everyone else as they are to me. We briefly visited the old campus during the site visit and it is puny in comparison to this place. Many universities are doing exactly what CQIPC is doing – selling their old downtown campus and building a new suburb one – because they need to modernize and to accommodate for an increasing student population. It’s hard right now because all of the teachers live near the old campus, so they’re doing that two hour commute every day, twice. But the monorail will eventually come all the way here and our campus will have its very own stop. I have the feeling the stop will open on the day I leave, but it’s still exciting to think that some day getting to downtown from here will be an hour long coast on the swanky monorail. Until then, I’ll savor walks through my chicken-lined village and venture into the overwhelming depths of downtown sparingly.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Training
Before anyone can begin their higher education as a college student, they must complete military training. The universities provide the training to all incoming freshmen and it's during the first 2 or 3 weeks of the semester. Currently, my school is on day 3, even though it's Saturday. My apartment overlooks the field where all of the training occurs and I've spent many minutes over the past few days observing the drills. Mostly what I've seen has been a lot of organized standing and sitting and walking around with lots of shouting. At all hours of the day, and many hours of the night, there's shouting. It sounds to me like they're yelling "Wheel! Of! Fortune!!" but I'm pretty sure they're just counting to four (yi! er! san! si!) as they do some sort of exercise. I don't know how they do it. It's been over 40/100 degrees the past 3 days and they're dressed in full camouflage suits standing or sitting still in the open sun. Granted, I am a pansy when it comes to heat, but it's got to be awfully sweaty out on that field. For a couple of days last week, my site mate and I contemplated asking our supervisor if we could join in the training, especially since there's very little for us to do right now because nearly all of our students are freshmen. Luckily we didn't pursue the idea. I've been hunkering down in my gloriously air conditioned apartment and getting some lesson planning and studying done. On Wednesday, the high is supposed to dip to 27/80 and I am counting down the days. Oh, to walk outside and be comfortable.
When I do toughen up and get outside, I experience a roller coaster of thoughts, especially when I'm alone. I'm trying to figure out the best way to handle being stared at and/or called to. Even though I'm in a huge city with lots of foreigners, we are still few and far between and I'm on the outskirts of the city. As I walk, I feel my hackles go up as a hand full of faces turn. I see a girl glance at me and whisper something to her friend, who immediately turns to look at me. She turns back to her friend and they both start giggling and whispering to each other. Maybe they were talking about the building behind me, who knows. I shrug and walk on, feeling confused and slyly checking my fly. A group of boys walks by. They stare, but smile, so I smile back. Okay. That was okay. A few minutes later, I walk by a building that's under construction. From within, I hear someone shout "Hello! Hello!!", but I see no one. I continue walking as another Hello rings out, followed by some string of Chinese that I can't understand. Whatever. I can't even see the dude and he's yelling at me. I give no response and ignore the subsequent hellos. My walk continues. I pass several people who seem to be purposefully not looking at me, though the side-ways glances are still noticeable. Thanks, I guess. Next a girl walks briskly past me. As she does, she smiles brightly and says “hello!” I smile back, a little surprised, and say hi. Well, she was nice. I hope I seemed nice. Huh. What next. I approach an old man who's carrying two heavy baskets that are slung over his shoulders with a thick bamboo rod. As we pass each other, I look to see if he's staring at me. He is. I match his stare. Despite his obviously heavy load, we nearly turn around backwards to stare at each other as we walk. Finally, he turns back and I breathe a sigh of relief. I know. I look weird. I dress weird. I sweat a lot. I know us foreigners are very very foreign here. I know. I get it. You're curious. You're surprised. You're happy I'm here or you’re not. You want me to feel welcome here or you want to make fun of me. Okay. So why can't I just deal and not let it get to me? Do I try to respond to all the hellos? Do I stare back? Do I smile at the giggles? Do I walk with head down and eyes glued to the side walk? I can’t figure it out. Each time I go for a walk, I feel humiliated, annoyed, rude, awkward, surprised and happy at some point. Every single time. It’s not just a walk anymore. It’s a parade. I’ll be here on this campus for two years and I’m going to make it a goal that I will one day go for a walk and feel nothing but happy. All we need is to get used to each other.
When I do toughen up and get outside, I experience a roller coaster of thoughts, especially when I'm alone. I'm trying to figure out the best way to handle being stared at and/or called to. Even though I'm in a huge city with lots of foreigners, we are still few and far between and I'm on the outskirts of the city. As I walk, I feel my hackles go up as a hand full of faces turn. I see a girl glance at me and whisper something to her friend, who immediately turns to look at me. She turns back to her friend and they both start giggling and whispering to each other. Maybe they were talking about the building behind me, who knows. I shrug and walk on, feeling confused and slyly checking my fly. A group of boys walks by. They stare, but smile, so I smile back. Okay. That was okay. A few minutes later, I walk by a building that's under construction. From within, I hear someone shout "Hello! Hello!!", but I see no one. I continue walking as another Hello rings out, followed by some string of Chinese that I can't understand. Whatever. I can't even see the dude and he's yelling at me. I give no response and ignore the subsequent hellos. My walk continues. I pass several people who seem to be purposefully not looking at me, though the side-ways glances are still noticeable. Thanks, I guess. Next a girl walks briskly past me. As she does, she smiles brightly and says “hello!” I smile back, a little surprised, and say hi. Well, she was nice. I hope I seemed nice. Huh. What next. I approach an old man who's carrying two heavy baskets that are slung over his shoulders with a thick bamboo rod. As we pass each other, I look to see if he's staring at me. He is. I match his stare. Despite his obviously heavy load, we nearly turn around backwards to stare at each other as we walk. Finally, he turns back and I breathe a sigh of relief. I know. I look weird. I dress weird. I sweat a lot. I know us foreigners are very very foreign here. I know. I get it. You're curious. You're surprised. You're happy I'm here or you’re not. You want me to feel welcome here or you want to make fun of me. Okay. So why can't I just deal and not let it get to me? Do I try to respond to all the hellos? Do I stare back? Do I smile at the giggles? Do I walk with head down and eyes glued to the side walk? I can’t figure it out. Each time I go for a walk, I feel humiliated, annoyed, rude, awkward, surprised and happy at some point. Every single time. It’s not just a walk anymore. It’s a parade. I’ll be here on this campus for two years and I’m going to make it a goal that I will one day go for a walk and feel nothing but happy. All we need is to get used to each other.
Friday, September 10, 2010
An Xue
I was almost a Stephanie. The top two picks on a pretty long list of possible baby names came down to Erin and Stephanie. We still have the list somewhere. It was written before my parents knew I was a girl and on the backside a few boy's names are scrawled. If I had been born with a Y chromosome, I'd be Anthony right now. I wonder what he'd be like. I'm not sure how Erin beat out Stephanie, or Anthony for that matter, maybe it was a coin toss, or my quarter of Irish blood taking charge, but I'm glad she won. I don't know how much really depends on name, but I'm pretty sure the Stephanie me would be an entirely different me.
I now have another name. When I arrived in China, my Chinese name was ready and waiting for me. An Xue, pronounced more like On Shoe-ay, was given to me by our training site language teachers, who all sat down with our pictures and our English names and decided what would suit each of the 23 of us best. Like in Romania, names are said family name first, then given name. An is my family name, meaning peaceful, and Xue is my given name and means snow, so my Chinese name is Peaceful Snow. All pale jokes aside, I like my name. During training, I was called by this name by all of the teachers, my host family and many of my fellow trainees. It has become part of who I am and I can feel An Xue taking on a life of her own. I hope I can cultivate her life into something unique and meaningful. I've spent 29 years turning into Erin, good and bad, and I hope I'm able to do something halfway respectable for An Xue over the next two years. It's a little intimidating, a clean slate. A name waiting for its history to start.
So far, An Xue has eaten hundreds of kilos of rice and has developed strong cravings for the grain when it's not eaten at least once a day. She has also acquired a taste for spicy food, which was previously seen as an impossible feat. She can use chopsticks to eat peanuts, noodles, eggs, pork, oatmeal, cow tongue, cow tail, banana, apple, pig lips AND spinach. She can also spit fish bones directly on the table without thinking too much about it. She can haggle for prices, even though her language skills are laughable (literally), and she will eventually figure out how to get from A to B, be it by bus, by foot, by train, by monorail or by taxi. She's got squatting down to an art and rarely misses. She can strike up elementary conversations with strangers, though those conversations don't go very far. Yet. Basically, she can survive. Now it's time to get the real story started. Teaching starts next week, just one class for now, but hopefully it will get the life of An Xue rolling a bit faster.
I now have another name. When I arrived in China, my Chinese name was ready and waiting for me. An Xue, pronounced more like On Shoe-ay, was given to me by our training site language teachers, who all sat down with our pictures and our English names and decided what would suit each of the 23 of us best. Like in Romania, names are said family name first, then given name. An is my family name, meaning peaceful, and Xue is my given name and means snow, so my Chinese name is Peaceful Snow. All pale jokes aside, I like my name. During training, I was called by this name by all of the teachers, my host family and many of my fellow trainees. It has become part of who I am and I can feel An Xue taking on a life of her own. I hope I can cultivate her life into something unique and meaningful. I've spent 29 years turning into Erin, good and bad, and I hope I'm able to do something halfway respectable for An Xue over the next two years. It's a little intimidating, a clean slate. A name waiting for its history to start.
So far, An Xue has eaten hundreds of kilos of rice and has developed strong cravings for the grain when it's not eaten at least once a day. She has also acquired a taste for spicy food, which was previously seen as an impossible feat. She can use chopsticks to eat peanuts, noodles, eggs, pork, oatmeal, cow tongue, cow tail, banana, apple, pig lips AND spinach. She can also spit fish bones directly on the table without thinking too much about it. She can haggle for prices, even though her language skills are laughable (literally), and she will eventually figure out how to get from A to B, be it by bus, by foot, by train, by monorail or by taxi. She's got squatting down to an art and rarely misses. She can strike up elementary conversations with strangers, though those conversations don't go very far. Yet. Basically, she can survive. Now it's time to get the real story started. Teaching starts next week, just one class for now, but hopefully it will get the life of An Xue rolling a bit faster.
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