Oy

With computer troubles, I may not be able to update my blog soon. My last blog post that I had typed up was lost to a random shutdown so I will simply post this one in its stead. If anyone could give me suggestions on how to fix an overheating laptop while stuck in Xiamen, China – it would be greatly appreciated :) I haven’t even succeeded thus far in finding compressed air to try to clean out the fans. I know, air in a can is a pretty crazy idea, but surely somebody is bound to have it somewhere here...

Researching food! :)

(麦当劳！ McDonald's in China!)


Not much to say about this week! Having survived another consecutive battery of three-hour long Chinese classes within the past five days, I am ready for a breather! Yet, there is no rest for the study abroad student :) I have two ten-page research papers coming up, a group project to present in about two weeks, a book to read (China Candid by Sang Ye)…along with my sanity to keep in tact!


While I could try to explain the rules of Mahjong, I have realized that there are WAY too many variations to even begin an explanation on this blog. Instead, I’ll leave this post short and mention my second research paper (with all advice and suggestions welcome!) While my first paper is going to be on western influences in the Chinese gaming industry, in general, my second paper will be on McDonald’s. I I will be doing my research on McDonald's applies to the phrase "Made in China" and the differences I have learned about Chinese McDonald's (versus American McDonald's). I will also be discussing the localization of McDonald's in China and what has made it evolve culturally.


Any suggestions for how to go about this? I think I might try to interview workers, if I can find some that speak English. Of course, there will have to be some “research” done on the food, too! :D I am fascinated with the way America’s fast food culture has been interpreted here – maybe others will be interested, too!

Hallowen, Mahjong, Voting - oh my!

(Picture of the inside of "Matang Village" or the Yinlu factory)

(Xiamen Yinlu Food Co. is famous for its canned foods and other bottled products - we got to go through the entire factory!)

A few days after Halloween and a lot has happened! China does not really celebrate Halloween, though it is beginning to be a popular holiday shipped over directly from the United States. The American students here definitely celebrated, though, with a lot of partying and crazy costumes!


The day after, we went to the Matang Village, which wasn’t even really a village! It was the home of Xiamen Yinlu Foods Co. which built a gated technological/factory community where the Matang Village used to exist.


“Xiamen Yinlu Group locates in the first batch of °National County and Township Enterprise Scientific and Technological Park Xiamen Yinlu Hi-Tech Park, which occupies 800,000 square meters with nearing 400,000 square meters construction area, it is one of the largest manufacturing facility of canned foods and beverages in both Fujian province and the country, key supported developing enterprise of Fujian province” from here


A few days ago, I also received word that my ballot arrived back home! Voting in Surry County, I had the pleasure of participating in my first presidential election as well as vote to re-elect my mother for her position on the School Board. It was exciting, as well as to vote from abroad! I had planned this two months ago when I applied for my ballot, received it last month, then immediately sent it off again. I am still so excited it made its way back to the States!


Something that was even better, though, was re-learning to play Mahjong yesterday with my Chinese language teacher. After two games of learning rounds, our teacher joined us playing. With a bit of luck on my side, I then won the next three games until we called it quits. :) It was a lot of fun and I can’t wait to buy my own Mahjong set to bring back home! I will try to explain the rules again later, though there are so many variations that it is kind of pointless :D

Random Encounters!

(Xiamen University! The main building, as seen from the lake)

(Another lakeside view!)

(From my seat on the rock, on an island within the lake! The tall building near the tree trunk is actually my dorm, the Cai Qingjie International/Overseas Student Building!)


This afternoon, I decided to heed all of my classmates’ (and professor’s) advice and get out a bit more. I have become a recluse that sits around doing homework all of my weekends and talking to my dear friends from home. So today, the weather was beautiful, there was a great breeze, and everyone in the U.S. was asleep – I decided to get out a bit!

I went to the library with friends, but the Chinese library wasn’t very different from our American University libraries! The main difference was that all of the books were in Chinese and everyone had bottles of tea instead of Coke, Pepsi, and Red Bull. :)


After I spent time there doing homework, I figured it was time to get out! I took my camera and took these pictures while I just wandered around campus. I finally settled around the lake to sit and read the last book I brought with me on this trip, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Galdwell. As soon as I sat down, though, I noticed a couple near me that was busy taking pictures of each other. I know the problem of having only separate pictures and wanting to get them together…so I offered to take their picture for them. All of a sudden, I found myself in their pictures, too :) They were so excited to meet an American and my next hour was basically commandeered as we spent a good deal of time asking questions between their broken English and my broken Chinese. It was fun and quite an adventure/learning experience! After exchanging e-mail addresses, I then went to go eat dumplings with Diana. Mmm, mmm – 饺子!


I am trying to get out more and meet more Chinese people before my last two months run up here. Hopefully this will still be quite interesting and I will learn more and more about the Chinese culture!

(The couple I ended up sitting with and befriending :) Their names were Zhao Long Xia and Lan Qin)

(We started getting random pictures together - this candid one was my favorite! I kept laughing at our inability to converse without mixing languages...)

Research Paper Ahoy

(Random picture from Quanzhou, one of my favorites!)

With about two months into this program, China is still as fascinating and foreign as ever! We have all definitely established our routines by this point, though there is quite a ways to go. As a group, we have established our favorite restaurants, our favorite work spots, our favorite people, and some semblance of order has evolved. Yet, homework will always persist!


Soon, we will be beginning our final research projects for our Asian Studies course with the UNC professor that is supervising us throughout this experience. I would love some suggestions for my own topic! The title of the course (ASIA 244) is Mapping Differences: Contemporary Chinese Social and Cultural Practices from Historical Perspectives.


“With the multitude of changes in the reform era of the last thirty years, has China – at least in urban areas such as Xiamen – become just another modern “capitalistic” society? Western visitors to China have had a very long history of writing about the “Middle Kingdom” and its supposed distinctive cultural and social features that set it apart from “the West.” Have those features been displaced by the recent onslaught of the forces of globalization – capital, technology, and cultural products – from the outside, or have those features persisted or perhaps been reconfigured and resurfaced in new guises and forms? How does one tell if something is “Chinese” or not these days? To whom and why is the question important? Or is it important?


The objective of the class is not only to provide the students with some useful context for evaluating the breathtaking pace of change in contemporary China, but also to help them to think critically about what we mean by “difference.” In Xiamen, students will have an opportunity to integrate class readings with their own experience of living in China, and to explore issues relating to a variety of cultural and social practices, such as gender relations, music, medicine, beliefs, sexuality and so on.”


I am hoping to focus my final research paper on video games in contemporary China, but I cannot decide yet which route to take. I can choose to discuss the impact of massively multi-player online role-playing games (and gold farming, the famously Chinese industry of selling virtual money), the blurring of Asian cultures within video games (and doing some “in depth” research with my own video games, of course!), or thinking of different topics to concentrate on. I would also love to investigate the issue of certain games being allowed in China while others are not, but I am afraid this would be a risky topic! :)


Any advice or suggestions would be absolutely wonderful!

Back from Quanzhou

(Entrance to the Cai Ancestral Family housing area that we got to tour!)


Long time no see! After this past weekend spending a mandatory overnight field trip in Quanzhou, these past two weeks have been full of catching up to my class work! I have had little time for relaxation, though it seems like there is always just too much to do here!


Quanzhou is in the Fujian Province (which is the same province of Xiamen, the city I am living in). There are 22 provinces in China – they are not the same as our states in America, though! China’s provinces are more like Canada’s provinces and Canada has 10 provinces . Every province in China has a large city and a claim to fame, but they do not have province capitals like we have state capitals. Because all of China answers to the political capital of Beijing, there is really only one capital of China. Beijing is considered to be the political and cultural center of all of China, though Shanghai is the economical center and base of most international businesses. Beijing also hosted the 2008 Olympics this past summer!


In Quanzhou, there were a lot of Muslim influences as there were tombs in Arabic, a mosque, and many other religious things all over the place. We stayed in a very nice hotel but our tour guide was not very good at reading our moods, and the trip sort of ended in rebellion. It was still a learning experience, though! We got to see some of the older, unaltered parts of China as well as visit several museums and tourist sites.


(Muslim tombs in China! All of the gravestones had both traditional Chinese as well as Arabic)


(Famous temple in Fujian province!)

Back from Shanghai!

(The Oriental Pearl Tower! We did not have to buy tickets, thanks to Gene's cousin getting us in! Tickets were actually 300 kuai to just get in, which would be about $50 in the United States)

(Gene's super nice cousin who helped show us around the Oriental Pearl Tower and gave me an unintentional lesson on Chinese guanxi!)

After an amazing week in Shanghai and experiencing a VERY different part of Chinese culture, I am now back in Xiamen and sitting through yet another bit of a tropical storm. An advice to anyone reading this: before you decide to live a portion of your life in a country by studying abroad, PLEASE do me a favor and check out the weather patterns of that country before you head out! :) I thought I was right in assuming it would be a safe place, that typhoon season had passed, and that all I would be dealing with is heat and humidity. I got the last part right and normally typhoon season would be over, but not this year it seems!


Shanghai was indeed amazing, though – I got to experience Shanghai food, Shanghainese (the local dialect that is VERY different from Mandarin, the dialect that I am learning), a big city culture (the traffic was even more terrifying than New York City’s!), and so much more! I also got a valuable lesson on guanxi, the notion of interpersonal relationships in China, similar to the good old boy system in the United States and present in many other cultures. Basically, Gene’s cousin got us into the Oriental Pearl Tower for free and we got to cut lines, get free drinks, and get preferential treatment all due to Gene’s cousin’s status. It was a lesson on cultural differences, to be sure!


I also received pity from Gene as he took me to a very upscale Western restaurant and I got steak. That was a great experience :) I also got to witness KFC in China, which is much more interesting than McDonald’s! I could write all day about the fast food restaurants here in China and their differences, as well as their similarities – but fortunately, I’ll get to do that in my class this week while we talk about consumer culture in China (and the rise of capitalism). Basically, people are buying more things here and that is changing a lot of aspects on China, especially their purchases of food! America is trying to cash in on this by altering franchises, like KFC and McDonald’s, for Chinese consumers and the products are fascinating.

(A picture of my meal at KFC! The long box had creme brulee pastries in it and the smaller boxes had "chicken hamburgers" in them. They also had fruit juices, french fries, and the normal chicken wings - though it all tasted so different! The little containers also had Chinese variations of coleslaw...it was a learning experience!)