Thursday, March 19, 2009
Been quite a busy week here in Chengdu. Fortunately, the weather has been great, with temperatures reaching 75. The Chinese people are still wearing multiple layers of sweaters. Perhaps they will catch on at some point. Yuanqiang claims that wearing warmer clothes now will "season" people so that the summer doesn't seem as hot. Who knows whether this is true or not. Maybe they should wear shorts in the fall to prepare for winter (I didn't notice that when I got here). Anyways, I'm looking forward to continued good weather and another weekend with two games of ultimate!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Yesterday we had another successful round of Chengdu ultimate pick up. It has caught on pretty well; the first participants couldn't wait until next week to get back out on the field. Hopefully we can finagle a couple of the rugby players for next time. Although people are often surprised at how much running is involved, they don't seem to mind getting tired out if they can catch a few frisbees. More random updates as they come.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
The first attempt to play ultimate frisbee in Chengdu was a rousing success. Not only were passes completed and goals scored, but the overall level of play was inspiring. First time players were catching consistently and being patient with the frisbee. Wily veterans were making solid cuts and showing mild restraint with their throws. Most importantly, everybody was involved and had a great time.
Highlights:
Chenyaolong complaining that his arm was tired and he needed to take a five minute rest after ten minutes of warm-up throwing.
Playing six on six!
Only having to pay for half a field at the end.
Getting good representation from both foreigners and locals.
Drinking beer with new found friends and playing frisbee golf on the streets of Chengdu after dinner.
Highlights:
Chenyaolong complaining that his arm was tired and he needed to take a five minute rest after ten minutes of warm-up throwing.
Playing six on six!
Only having to pay for half a field at the end.
Getting good representation from both foreigners and locals.
Drinking beer with new found friends and playing frisbee golf on the streets of Chengdu after dinner.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Mornings
My cell-phone alarm rings for the second time after a ten minute snooze, and I groggily sit up in bed. The air temperature is probably 45 degrees in my apartment, which makes leaving the cocoon of warmth I've spent all night forming a daunting undertaking. With sudden remorse, I'm into my slippers shuffling towards the bathroom to get ready for the day. Hot water from the shower and heat lamps take the edge off of the morning chill and force my brain to start functioning. I try to dry myself off and battle the cold again, this time by putting on damp clothes. True dryness is a feeling that isn't to be found in Chengdu. The idea of hang drying clothes and towels is futile, but it is the way that things are done, and I don't have a dryer anyways.
Butter hits the skillet with a reassuring sizzle. Three eggs are cracked and begin to fry. Fortunately, I've found a pepper grinder and black pepper corns. A dash of salt and breakfast is almost ready. I sit on the couch watching CCTV 5 or CCTV 9. Five is the sports channel, and occasionally has highlights from the NBA, and CCTV 9 is the only English channel on Chinese television. They show a small variety of shows including daily international and business news and shows about modern Chinese culture and ancient Chinese history. The scope is recognizably narrow, although I do give them credit for fairly accurate coverage of international events and some very interesting talk shows where they actively discuss domestic and foreign politics with earnest, vibrant opinions.
Strawberry yogurt and a banana for the road complete the beginning of the day. The elevator is always dirty, and there are all sorts of obstacles to an uneventful trip to the first floor. Men enter and talk loudly on cell phones while smoking cigarettes in a confined space. Their disregard for others is blatant and all encompassing. They walk in the elevator before people leave, regardless of current occupants bumping into women and children, and if there happen to be two of them, the decibel war begins. There appears to be no freight elevator in the building, so movers, janitors, and anybody else carrying large equipment all uses the central four elevators –of which at any given time 2-3 are functional. This explains the smell of garbage and the frequent debris. The bottom floor has a guard and a small counter with three women and a man who seem to be hardly working.
There are three routes that I have taken to work with some regularity. All three include the same first part. Outside my apartment I walk off of the tiled stones that constitute the entrance to my building and onto concrete and dirt in various iterations. At first, I often made the mistake of assuming that just because a path is narrow and poorly paved it is not open to cars, but now I realize that this is not the case.
The first area I cross on my way to work is a parking lot with faded yellow lines that map out 100 or so marginally larger than car sized spaces. Due to the general lack of space, the crossing can be a bit of a madhouse. A Chinese man that often is perched on a chair with a cigarette in hand takes on the air of controlling the situation. With hoots, hollers, and hand gestures, he guides every car into their destined spot. Just to up the ante, there is also a loading dock for a furniture outlet that empties into the back of the parking lot and an entrance to an underground parking garage. Areas in China are often high density in terms of use and management, but this doesn't stop each individual manager from acting as the king of his domain. If you watch the man who runs the parking lot shouting and gesticulating while on standing his chair, to the western eye it seems unnecessary and amusing. But the reality of the situation is that he is indeed very necessary to maintaining order, even if it is just in this one small parking lot.
After the parking lot, I hit the main streets. The first street is lined with specialty shops including junk shops, massage parlors (and more), the typical repeated small convenience stores, wood and carpentry, water delivery, hair salons, and restaurants. Again due to the high density, there is a great deal of repetition in services and stores. I usually jaywalk across this street because it is actually safer than waiting at the stoplight for the walk signal. This is because if I wait for the walk signal I have to deal with taxis and buses making turns. There are three major dangers that I have run into when crossing streets in Chengdu. The first and foremost is the buses. The drivers have no conception of respecting pedestrians or other drivers. They must be paid on a system where they are rewarded for speed or the number of people they pick up because these are the only two objectives that they heed. They also like to drive as fast as possible; even faster than the taxis. The taxis remind me of green shells from Mario Brothers because of their velocity and color. They bounce around the streets at high speeds occupying space as it becomes available. The third and perhaps most sinister threat, is the electric bicycle. Just when there is an opening in traffic large enough to warrant a venture across the street, out of nowhere, an electric bike will come whizzing around the corner at high speed. The only traffic accident that I was involved in occurred on a wet night when just such a vehicle was flying down the street at a dangerous speed. Aichanglin and I had just gotten a walk signal so we were stepping off the curb when our motorized foe saw us and jammed his breaks fishtailing towards us. I was able to step out of the way because I was the closer person and saw him coming early, but Aichanglin was not as lucky, and his arm got clipped by a mirror. Fortunately, it wasn't a serious injury, but the danger was real. Three of the other accidents I have seen involved motorized bikes and cars, which is one of the reasons I am still fearful to bike around the city.
One hundred meters after crossing the first major street, I take a left onto a smaller road that feeds into the back of the hospital. When I don't have time to make breakfast, I often go to a small bakery on this side street for some baked rolls (mianbaos). When first ordering mianbaos I had no idea what was going to be in on the inside, and sometimes I would be delighted by coconut or fruit filling, and other times I would be looking for a trashcan after a bite of pungent, salty bean curd. That's pretty much how things go as a traveler, especially when your language skills aren't up to par (it is notable that most locals speak a dialect unless you ask them to speak mandarin). Fortunately, I have a pretty good idea of what is going on in terms of what's what now, so breakfast out of the house is less of an adventure than it used to be.
When I first walked to work, I would choose to go through West China Hospital. The hospital, like many hospitals, is a bustling place with people from all walks of life. It has over 4000 beds making it the largest hospital in China. By the back gate to the hospital, there is always an old lady whose cart bears a large black cauldron topped with slightly charred sweet potatoes which she sells. After walking through the gate, pale yellow buildings line the concrete path that lead to a central plaza. On most days, I see old men and women with mottled skin and yellow teeth walking by sweeping brooms made of a bamboo shaft with long twigs tightly strung together as the head. On other days, a younger pair of women walks by with a rubber hoses spraying water on the concrete path.
The central plaza of the hospital has guards, tropical looking greenery, the usual supply of Chinese men smoking cigarettes and talking loudly, and doctors and patients. People often stared at me in droves when I walked through this area, and to be honest, in my first few days, I stared right back. Patients of all ages with strange ailments wander the area, and there is always something strange or interesting going on. One day, I saw a large group gathered around two women and a doctor engaged in a shouting match, about what I'll never know. Something that I learned quickly is that Chinese people love a scene, and there are usually enough people around to encircle three or four people deep in a hurry.
The final part of my walk through the hospital area is by the emergency room, which is a scene in of itself. The ER is tucked away in a corner of the hospital grounds, as if the architect wanted to shield the public from the fracas that is a daily occurrence. In this area, I don’t get nearly as many stares, because strange is the norm. Patients come in on foot and in ambulances, which are really nothing more than minivans equipped with flashing lights. The ambulances never seem to be in any type of hurry; maybe this is why most people come in on foot.
After a week of walking through the hospital, I started exploring and found a faster way to get to work. This involves braving a street that I now affectionately call "dirty" street. The reason for the disorganization and frequent trash piles that litter the street is that this street that contains many small, local markets. Not only does this mean a lot of foot traffic, but shopkeepers subscribe to the "if you put trash on the street somebody will eventually remove it" system. Butcher shops consist of chunks of meat hanging from cruel black hooks, and the odd assortment of ground meat and animal parts. One special store has deep brown livers and foamy, pink-white lungs hanging by bloody tracheas. The vegetable stores contain local produce including various greens, mushrooms, and tubers. Sichuan is known for its produce because there is a lot of farmland in the area surrounding the city, and the results are a lush and varied selection. There is also a local fish store with eels, prawns, and fish swimming in overcrowded, blue plastic tubs. An old woman keeps a constant watch on the freshness of the water, emptying and refilling the plastic tubs consistently. This creates a small pond in the street about two thirds of the way down towards the hospital. Small stores that sell baked and smoked meats are located every 30 meters or so. Yellow and brown cooked chickens and ducks accompany pig's feet, ears, and just about everything else.
The final route to work that I discovered, which is now the one that I take with most frequency, is a back alley through a residential area. It is a relatively clean and quite street. Old ladies and small children wander around the alley. The old women usually move a little bit slower than the brightly adorned overly clothed children that they are following. The children usually wear bright reds and blues decorated with puffy animal pictures. One remarkable difference from American children is the large slit in the children's pants allowing for easy public squatting. As I walk down the alley, I often see old men sitting on small stools playing Chinese chess, and sometimes another middle-aged man will be sitting next to them watching, patiently stripping a tangled pile of copper wire.
...
Friends From Work
In the office, communication is often accomplished through QQ, a computer chat program. It is faster than e-mail, and documents or other files can be sent directly through the program at high speed because we all share a network. Most mornings at around 11:00 Aichanglin will inquire via chat what my plans for lunch are. Most days we will either go to the cafeteria, which I don't particularly like, or a dumpling and rice-noodle joint that is literally run out of a parking lot. Usually around 11:30 Aichanglin will walk into my office with a smile on his face. He walks with a noticeable limp because of permanent damage to his nervous system due to disease as a child. But his disability doesn't seem to dampen his spirit or intellectual curiosity. "How's it going?" He'll say with a smile on his face, as what once was a confusing colloquial phrase has now become a source of delight. We often talk at lunch about simple subjects like how our work is going, or what we did the past weekend. We speak a mix of Chinese and English as sometimes one language is more useful than the other to get our point across.
Although most Chinese people who are in higher education institutions have studied English for more than 10 years, their speaking and listening skills are usually very poor. This is because of the nature of their English education. Class sizes are usually large, ranging from 50 to 100 students, leaving little room for individualized language development. Additionally, the classes (not just language classes) are run by having the teachers dictate information to the students. The result, from a language perspective, is students who are great readers with a high level vocabulary but no ability to creatively apply their language skills orally or in writing. There are also very few opportunities to hear and understand native speakers, so although they may be able to understand a Chinese English teacher, they often have trouble with native speakers due to speed and pronunciation differences. The other side of this, as exemplified by Yuanqiang and Aichanglin, the people who have spoken the most English with me, is that their English improves very quickly. They have a great vocabulary to draw on. This is particularly true for students from my center, where part of their job as graduate students is to read and understand a great number of scientific articles written in English. So they actually have plenty of language experience. With a little nurturing and encouragement their skills blossom quickly.
Across the street from our office is the administrative office building for the hospital and a large parking lot for ambulances and security vehicles. Tucked away in a corner of the parking lot is a small outdoor kitchen where Aichanglin, Yuanqiang, and I sometimes get lunch. Lettuce heads sit stacked adjacent to a stove with several large pots constantly boiling. A fat woman with a large smile and a face dampened by constant perspiration wanders around the area taking orders and adding msg, salt, vinegar, spices, lettuce, and dumplings or rice noodles into the bowls and the boiling pots. The main customers are ambulance drivers, local policemen, and hospital workers. The food is salty, spicy, and flavorful, as you would expect from a local eatery in Sichuan. My personal favorite is chaoshou, or a version of dumplings with a ball of meat wrapped in dough, but unlike the dumpling there is excess dough hanging of the center creating dangling flaps. There are also no scallions in the meat, although I don't know whether this is just a local choice, or a widespread difference between chaoshou and normal dumplings. Trying to explain to Aichanglin that to Americans they would both be called dumplings precipitates a funny conversation where I end up trying to explain in Chinese that among the Eskimos they have many more words for snow than we do. Like many conversations we have, despite the fact that there is not a complete exchange of ideas, the point gets across.
Another place that we will commonly go to have lunch is the cafeteria next to the student dorms. The cafeteria is a two floored concrete box structure. The first floor consists of repeated red metal tables bearing worn down coca-cola insignias and a small office where you can buy points to put on an electronic card. The whole floor can seat a couple hundred people. During lunchtime, the students form a sea of bobbing black heads chatting loudly as they form lines to get food. Orange plastic trays and piles of wooden chopsticks are provided. The food is presented in steaming piles behind a plastic wall that encircles half of the cafeteria. Cafeteria workers listen for orders, and shovel some of whichever pile you name --or in my case point-- onto on a plate and ring it up on a machine where you scan your card. The choices are plentiful, although the flavors are for the most part uninspiring.
After lunch in the cafeteria, I'll often go over to Yuanqiang's dorm room to watch a movie or relax. He lives on the third floor of another unassuming concrete box. Three raps on the metal door usually stir a commotion inside consisting of some muffled Chinese that I can't comprehend. Yuanqiang is usually the first to the door as he is closest to the entrance and has quick reactions. He lives with three friends who are all in medical school. The room is as small as is functionally possible with raised beds that literally sit on top of their respective closets and desk areas. Yuanqiang is a straightforward, good guy with interests in basketball, beer, movies, and friends. Unfortunately for him, his nose has been firmly pressed to the grindstone finding and selecting articles for systematic reviews on top of going to classes. I reason that it is not uncommon for him to work 65 hours a week. If you add in watching a couple movies and every single Houston Rockets game, there isn't much time for anything else. The two of Yuanqiang's roommates I've talked with are pretty interesting fellows. Liubin, is the resident video gamer. He is skinny as a stick, and he lives off of packaged noodles (perhaps this is why he looks like one). He is always full of opinions and good natured teasing. His quick wit provides a great partnership with Panfeixu, another roommate who is a rare character indeed. Panfeixu is always curious about things and loves to ask strange questions and perceive strange answers. He is intelligent, and the way that he processes outside stimuli is different from most other Chinese people who just absorb information. He actively and creatively thinks about things, and isn't afraid to say what he is thinking about. The result is some very funny conversations between Liu and Pan as they play off each other's character.
…
That is all for now, hopefully this gives you a little window into what I’m experiencing. Next up is a summary of my trip to Laos and Thailand.
My cell-phone alarm rings for the second time after a ten minute snooze, and I groggily sit up in bed. The air temperature is probably 45 degrees in my apartment, which makes leaving the cocoon of warmth I've spent all night forming a daunting undertaking. With sudden remorse, I'm into my slippers shuffling towards the bathroom to get ready for the day. Hot water from the shower and heat lamps take the edge off of the morning chill and force my brain to start functioning. I try to dry myself off and battle the cold again, this time by putting on damp clothes. True dryness is a feeling that isn't to be found in Chengdu. The idea of hang drying clothes and towels is futile, but it is the way that things are done, and I don't have a dryer anyways.
Butter hits the skillet with a reassuring sizzle. Three eggs are cracked and begin to fry. Fortunately, I've found a pepper grinder and black pepper corns. A dash of salt and breakfast is almost ready. I sit on the couch watching CCTV 5 or CCTV 9. Five is the sports channel, and occasionally has highlights from the NBA, and CCTV 9 is the only English channel on Chinese television. They show a small variety of shows including daily international and business news and shows about modern Chinese culture and ancient Chinese history. The scope is recognizably narrow, although I do give them credit for fairly accurate coverage of international events and some very interesting talk shows where they actively discuss domestic and foreign politics with earnest, vibrant opinions.
Strawberry yogurt and a banana for the road complete the beginning of the day. The elevator is always dirty, and there are all sorts of obstacles to an uneventful trip to the first floor. Men enter and talk loudly on cell phones while smoking cigarettes in a confined space. Their disregard for others is blatant and all encompassing. They walk in the elevator before people leave, regardless of current occupants bumping into women and children, and if there happen to be two of them, the decibel war begins. There appears to be no freight elevator in the building, so movers, janitors, and anybody else carrying large equipment all uses the central four elevators –of which at any given time 2-3 are functional. This explains the smell of garbage and the frequent debris. The bottom floor has a guard and a small counter with three women and a man who seem to be hardly working.
There are three routes that I have taken to work with some regularity. All three include the same first part. Outside my apartment I walk off of the tiled stones that constitute the entrance to my building and onto concrete and dirt in various iterations. At first, I often made the mistake of assuming that just because a path is narrow and poorly paved it is not open to cars, but now I realize that this is not the case.
The first area I cross on my way to work is a parking lot with faded yellow lines that map out 100 or so marginally larger than car sized spaces. Due to the general lack of space, the crossing can be a bit of a madhouse. A Chinese man that often is perched on a chair with a cigarette in hand takes on the air of controlling the situation. With hoots, hollers, and hand gestures, he guides every car into their destined spot. Just to up the ante, there is also a loading dock for a furniture outlet that empties into the back of the parking lot and an entrance to an underground parking garage. Areas in China are often high density in terms of use and management, but this doesn't stop each individual manager from acting as the king of his domain. If you watch the man who runs the parking lot shouting and gesticulating while on standing his chair, to the western eye it seems unnecessary and amusing. But the reality of the situation is that he is indeed very necessary to maintaining order, even if it is just in this one small parking lot.
After the parking lot, I hit the main streets. The first street is lined with specialty shops including junk shops, massage parlors (and more), the typical repeated small convenience stores, wood and carpentry, water delivery, hair salons, and restaurants. Again due to the high density, there is a great deal of repetition in services and stores. I usually jaywalk across this street because it is actually safer than waiting at the stoplight for the walk signal. This is because if I wait for the walk signal I have to deal with taxis and buses making turns. There are three major dangers that I have run into when crossing streets in Chengdu. The first and foremost is the buses. The drivers have no conception of respecting pedestrians or other drivers. They must be paid on a system where they are rewarded for speed or the number of people they pick up because these are the only two objectives that they heed. They also like to drive as fast as possible; even faster than the taxis. The taxis remind me of green shells from Mario Brothers because of their velocity and color. They bounce around the streets at high speeds occupying space as it becomes available. The third and perhaps most sinister threat, is the electric bicycle. Just when there is an opening in traffic large enough to warrant a venture across the street, out of nowhere, an electric bike will come whizzing around the corner at high speed. The only traffic accident that I was involved in occurred on a wet night when just such a vehicle was flying down the street at a dangerous speed. Aichanglin and I had just gotten a walk signal so we were stepping off the curb when our motorized foe saw us and jammed his breaks fishtailing towards us. I was able to step out of the way because I was the closer person and saw him coming early, but Aichanglin was not as lucky, and his arm got clipped by a mirror. Fortunately, it wasn't a serious injury, but the danger was real. Three of the other accidents I have seen involved motorized bikes and cars, which is one of the reasons I am still fearful to bike around the city.
One hundred meters after crossing the first major street, I take a left onto a smaller road that feeds into the back of the hospital. When I don't have time to make breakfast, I often go to a small bakery on this side street for some baked rolls (mianbaos). When first ordering mianbaos I had no idea what was going to be in on the inside, and sometimes I would be delighted by coconut or fruit filling, and other times I would be looking for a trashcan after a bite of pungent, salty bean curd. That's pretty much how things go as a traveler, especially when your language skills aren't up to par (it is notable that most locals speak a dialect unless you ask them to speak mandarin). Fortunately, I have a pretty good idea of what is going on in terms of what's what now, so breakfast out of the house is less of an adventure than it used to be.
When I first walked to work, I would choose to go through West China Hospital. The hospital, like many hospitals, is a bustling place with people from all walks of life. It has over 4000 beds making it the largest hospital in China. By the back gate to the hospital, there is always an old lady whose cart bears a large black cauldron topped with slightly charred sweet potatoes which she sells. After walking through the gate, pale yellow buildings line the concrete path that lead to a central plaza. On most days, I see old men and women with mottled skin and yellow teeth walking by sweeping brooms made of a bamboo shaft with long twigs tightly strung together as the head. On other days, a younger pair of women walks by with a rubber hoses spraying water on the concrete path.
The central plaza of the hospital has guards, tropical looking greenery, the usual supply of Chinese men smoking cigarettes and talking loudly, and doctors and patients. People often stared at me in droves when I walked through this area, and to be honest, in my first few days, I stared right back. Patients of all ages with strange ailments wander the area, and there is always something strange or interesting going on. One day, I saw a large group gathered around two women and a doctor engaged in a shouting match, about what I'll never know. Something that I learned quickly is that Chinese people love a scene, and there are usually enough people around to encircle three or four people deep in a hurry.
The final part of my walk through the hospital area is by the emergency room, which is a scene in of itself. The ER is tucked away in a corner of the hospital grounds, as if the architect wanted to shield the public from the fracas that is a daily occurrence. In this area, I don’t get nearly as many stares, because strange is the norm. Patients come in on foot and in ambulances, which are really nothing more than minivans equipped with flashing lights. The ambulances never seem to be in any type of hurry; maybe this is why most people come in on foot.
After a week of walking through the hospital, I started exploring and found a faster way to get to work. This involves braving a street that I now affectionately call "dirty" street. The reason for the disorganization and frequent trash piles that litter the street is that this street that contains many small, local markets. Not only does this mean a lot of foot traffic, but shopkeepers subscribe to the "if you put trash on the street somebody will eventually remove it" system. Butcher shops consist of chunks of meat hanging from cruel black hooks, and the odd assortment of ground meat and animal parts. One special store has deep brown livers and foamy, pink-white lungs hanging by bloody tracheas. The vegetable stores contain local produce including various greens, mushrooms, and tubers. Sichuan is known for its produce because there is a lot of farmland in the area surrounding the city, and the results are a lush and varied selection. There is also a local fish store with eels, prawns, and fish swimming in overcrowded, blue plastic tubs. An old woman keeps a constant watch on the freshness of the water, emptying and refilling the plastic tubs consistently. This creates a small pond in the street about two thirds of the way down towards the hospital. Small stores that sell baked and smoked meats are located every 30 meters or so. Yellow and brown cooked chickens and ducks accompany pig's feet, ears, and just about everything else.
The final route to work that I discovered, which is now the one that I take with most frequency, is a back alley through a residential area. It is a relatively clean and quite street. Old ladies and small children wander around the alley. The old women usually move a little bit slower than the brightly adorned overly clothed children that they are following. The children usually wear bright reds and blues decorated with puffy animal pictures. One remarkable difference from American children is the large slit in the children's pants allowing for easy public squatting. As I walk down the alley, I often see old men sitting on small stools playing Chinese chess, and sometimes another middle-aged man will be sitting next to them watching, patiently stripping a tangled pile of copper wire.
...
Friends From Work
In the office, communication is often accomplished through QQ, a computer chat program. It is faster than e-mail, and documents or other files can be sent directly through the program at high speed because we all share a network. Most mornings at around 11:00 Aichanglin will inquire via chat what my plans for lunch are. Most days we will either go to the cafeteria, which I don't particularly like, or a dumpling and rice-noodle joint that is literally run out of a parking lot. Usually around 11:30 Aichanglin will walk into my office with a smile on his face. He walks with a noticeable limp because of permanent damage to his nervous system due to disease as a child. But his disability doesn't seem to dampen his spirit or intellectual curiosity. "How's it going?" He'll say with a smile on his face, as what once was a confusing colloquial phrase has now become a source of delight. We often talk at lunch about simple subjects like how our work is going, or what we did the past weekend. We speak a mix of Chinese and English as sometimes one language is more useful than the other to get our point across.
Although most Chinese people who are in higher education institutions have studied English for more than 10 years, their speaking and listening skills are usually very poor. This is because of the nature of their English education. Class sizes are usually large, ranging from 50 to 100 students, leaving little room for individualized language development. Additionally, the classes (not just language classes) are run by having the teachers dictate information to the students. The result, from a language perspective, is students who are great readers with a high level vocabulary but no ability to creatively apply their language skills orally or in writing. There are also very few opportunities to hear and understand native speakers, so although they may be able to understand a Chinese English teacher, they often have trouble with native speakers due to speed and pronunciation differences. The other side of this, as exemplified by Yuanqiang and Aichanglin, the people who have spoken the most English with me, is that their English improves very quickly. They have a great vocabulary to draw on. This is particularly true for students from my center, where part of their job as graduate students is to read and understand a great number of scientific articles written in English. So they actually have plenty of language experience. With a little nurturing and encouragement their skills blossom quickly.
Across the street from our office is the administrative office building for the hospital and a large parking lot for ambulances and security vehicles. Tucked away in a corner of the parking lot is a small outdoor kitchen where Aichanglin, Yuanqiang, and I sometimes get lunch. Lettuce heads sit stacked adjacent to a stove with several large pots constantly boiling. A fat woman with a large smile and a face dampened by constant perspiration wanders around the area taking orders and adding msg, salt, vinegar, spices, lettuce, and dumplings or rice noodles into the bowls and the boiling pots. The main customers are ambulance drivers, local policemen, and hospital workers. The food is salty, spicy, and flavorful, as you would expect from a local eatery in Sichuan. My personal favorite is chaoshou, or a version of dumplings with a ball of meat wrapped in dough, but unlike the dumpling there is excess dough hanging of the center creating dangling flaps. There are also no scallions in the meat, although I don't know whether this is just a local choice, or a widespread difference between chaoshou and normal dumplings. Trying to explain to Aichanglin that to Americans they would both be called dumplings precipitates a funny conversation where I end up trying to explain in Chinese that among the Eskimos they have many more words for snow than we do. Like many conversations we have, despite the fact that there is not a complete exchange of ideas, the point gets across.
Another place that we will commonly go to have lunch is the cafeteria next to the student dorms. The cafeteria is a two floored concrete box structure. The first floor consists of repeated red metal tables bearing worn down coca-cola insignias and a small office where you can buy points to put on an electronic card. The whole floor can seat a couple hundred people. During lunchtime, the students form a sea of bobbing black heads chatting loudly as they form lines to get food. Orange plastic trays and piles of wooden chopsticks are provided. The food is presented in steaming piles behind a plastic wall that encircles half of the cafeteria. Cafeteria workers listen for orders, and shovel some of whichever pile you name --or in my case point-- onto on a plate and ring it up on a machine where you scan your card. The choices are plentiful, although the flavors are for the most part uninspiring.
After lunch in the cafeteria, I'll often go over to Yuanqiang's dorm room to watch a movie or relax. He lives on the third floor of another unassuming concrete box. Three raps on the metal door usually stir a commotion inside consisting of some muffled Chinese that I can't comprehend. Yuanqiang is usually the first to the door as he is closest to the entrance and has quick reactions. He lives with three friends who are all in medical school. The room is as small as is functionally possible with raised beds that literally sit on top of their respective closets and desk areas. Yuanqiang is a straightforward, good guy with interests in basketball, beer, movies, and friends. Unfortunately for him, his nose has been firmly pressed to the grindstone finding and selecting articles for systematic reviews on top of going to classes. I reason that it is not uncommon for him to work 65 hours a week. If you add in watching a couple movies and every single Houston Rockets game, there isn't much time for anything else. The two of Yuanqiang's roommates I've talked with are pretty interesting fellows. Liubin, is the resident video gamer. He is skinny as a stick, and he lives off of packaged noodles (perhaps this is why he looks like one). He is always full of opinions and good natured teasing. His quick wit provides a great partnership with Panfeixu, another roommate who is a rare character indeed. Panfeixu is always curious about things and loves to ask strange questions and perceive strange answers. He is intelligent, and the way that he processes outside stimuli is different from most other Chinese people who just absorb information. He actively and creatively thinks about things, and isn't afraid to say what he is thinking about. The result is some very funny conversations between Liu and Pan as they play off each other's character.
…
That is all for now, hopefully this gives you a little window into what I’m experiencing. Next up is a summary of my trip to Laos and Thailand.
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