Day to day living

(A picture of a meal from the student cafeteria - don't ask me what it was, because I still don't know!)

Since my google page cannot be updated from China and I cannot access facebook, I will be hosting my pictures from China on a new website once I finish updating my account. I will put the link up once it is ready!

My McDonald’s adventure was pretty interesting. My meal, which cost 20 kuai (about $3), included a small (kid size!) Coca Cola, a thing of five chicken McNuggets, and a medium sized fry. All of this was beyond my control – I didn’t even get to choose my drink! And getting it to go meant they put everything in separate bags for me to carry, including the drink! It made me definitely miss our ridiculously over-sized American meals to only have five McNuggets for my adult meal, but then, the small portions here are great for someone small like me. I can’t complain since I don’t have a refrigerator to keep leftovers, anyway!

As for other mundane things I have done this weekend (besides guiltily play videogames!), I had the adventure of doing laundry again today. In China, or at least in this university, there are no dryers. Every where you look there are clotheslines and clothes being hung in pretty creative ways. On the end of our dorm is a balcony and that is where I hang my clothes, personally. It is so different to deal with! It makes me nervous having my clothes out for everyone to see and anyone to steal, but since all of the clothes I brought I plan on leaving behind (my wardrobe at home is getting too large, and I have a lot of old clothes!), I am not too concerned. It is interesting to think about, though – small things like not having a dryer and having to hang clothes out to dry! I really am quite spoiled! :)

Eggplants!

(A picture of the dining area for students near our dorm)

Today is the day that I break down and eat at McDonald’s. It has been a few weeks now and after my first Chinese test today and I think I deserve it! I passed my first test today, which is great! It may be wrong to reward myself with French fries and chicken nuggets but that’s just how I do things.

The food in China, however, is absolutely amazing! Two of my favorite dishes here have been eggplant and bok choy. Apparently, there are different kinds of eggplant raised in China. You’re probably thinking eggplant sounds pretty gross but trust me - it’s easily one of the most delicious things when it is cooked right! Yesterday I ate at a vegetarian restaurant with friends and we had Japanese-style eggplant with miso and cilantro and, now, normally…vegetables don’t get me excited. But China really knows how to make their vegetables taste delicious!

Bok choy is a typical Chinese food and every time I encounter it, it always tastes a little different. I really wish I knew how they cook these things and make them so great, but since I have no cooking skills AT ALL, I will just hope that some authentic Chinese restaurant will have them back in the States! There is one dish that I know I won’t find, though, and that’s the rice burritos we get on the streets. They are literally like burritos, but instead of a flour shell it’s glutinous rice molded together. With beef, lettuce, cucumbers, and some other random tofu things inside – it’s a wonderful, wonderful creation by the Chinese street vendors.

My experience with China has been really different in regards to food, compared to Singapore. There are durians here, but I still have yet to eat one! A durian is a famous fruit from Southeast Asia that smells like death (trust me on this), but a lot of people love the taste if you can get over the texture. Here, though, there is bread and there is chocolate! I really missed bread and chocolate while I was in Singapore but they have been really accessible here. Of course, there is a lot of rice, but it is almost like I had more rice in Southeast Asia than I did in China!






(Pictures of my delicious rice burrito lunch!)

My one slightly serious/complex blog entry

(A picture from the side of our dorm - being on the 9th floor definitely has its advantages!)

During the Fall 2007 semester, I took The American Life of Japanese Women with professor Jan Bardsley as a first-year seminar (specifically for UNC first-year students). It was easily the best course I have had thus far at UNC-Chapel Hill! And, even more so than my Chinese Civilization course (which was also wonderful), studying the travels of Asian women in the United States as well as American women in Japan and Asian nationst helped prepare me for this travel in more of a mental way than I had ever anticipated.

One of the best books that prepared me for my trip was Cathy Davidson’s 36 Views of Mount Fuji and how traveling in Asia, through Davidson’s eyes, was “a look at the seductiveness and disappointments of being a stranger in a strange land, the memoir of a deeply personal interior journey, and a poignant meditation on whether we can see things clearly only at a distance.” I finally feel like I can connect with the story that I read a year ago, now that I am in Asia. And I keep encountering events that remind me of it daily. Simply knowing that other people had gone through these things, other American women like myself, puts things is such a different perspective that’s also so much easier to handle.

One of the biggest points we discussed in class when talking about this book, however, was how people act when they are abroad. Davidson herself explains the joy of being in a foreign country and relishing the anonymity of it all, not having to bow to your host country’s cultural rules (since you are, after all, an ignorant foreigner). This includes feeling free to represent and interpret your own country’s rules in your new settings however you want to. I feel like this is happening on this trip with some of my peers. This happened in Singapore but since we are living here, the lines are being blurred more and more as different sides of people show, in good ways and bad ways.

If you went abroad, do you know how you would react to your settings? Would you continue abiding the laws of your home country, knowing you might go unpunished here? Would you choose to abide by certain norms and etiquette, and ignore the ones you don’t necessarily agree with or find troublesome? I feel like abroad, we are getting a different sense of one another on this trip. But I do not know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, as people say things here that could be rude back home, but I do not know if that should be held against them since…we aren’t back home.

I am afraid most people use study abroad as an excuse to go out and do stupid things. I’ve already talked about this with people close to me and I don’t know how to interpret my peers here at times, and their actions. Should people still be accountable under our home country’s standards while in a foreign country? Or is that something that is expected to bend and break while abroad, to give people a taste of what Davidson felt at the anonymity of roaming around a nation, relieved from all cultural rules and societal norms?

Being a foreign spectacle

(A view of the beach, which is about five minutes away from our dorm - Xiamen is an island with Xiamen Airport at the very northern part and Xiamen University at the very southern part)

One of the biggest changes we have had to get adjusted to, besides the massive language barrier, is the fact that we are stared at every where we go. Language is definitely the main differing aspect of being here in China, for sure! We were trying to figure it out the other day – is it possible to have intensively studied any other language than Chinese for an entire year, go visit the country, and still not be able to read a single thing? In other words, be completely illiterate, even though you’ve already put so much effort in and can barely speak to a small child, let alone a grown adult? It’s so difficult to deal with, at times! But we’re still trying our hardest. :D

Everyone has had different reactions to being constantly stared at. The Asian people in our group that were born in China or raised in Asian households get no looks what so ever, unless people speak them and they’re unable to speak back as fluently – then they get odd looks, until they can explain they’re American. We have Derek, who is African American and tall, and I respect him so much for being here and tolerating the looks of amazement that he always gets. Phebe was blonde (but has since dyed her hair black) but still has some wonderfully artistic tattoos on her arms, and she has blue eyes to boot. I’m a typical weiguoren (foreigner) with my white skin, blue-ish eyes, and curly hair – there’s no blending in for any of us. And the weirdest thing is when people start taking pictures of us! I’ve had one or two requests myself to be in a picture. The latest one was when a girl came up to myself and Diana, another participant on this program, asking to get her picture with us. Diana ran away, not wanting to be involved – I just stood and smiled, doing that typical peace sign pose and knowing I would never know what would happen to this picture. I find it amusing, though it’s making other people so uncomfortable!

Imagine not being able to blend in with the crowd! Just think about it. If they were hostile looks, it would be so much more difficult to deal with. That’s how I feel most foreigners are treated in America, though here, the stares are just of curiosity and friendliness. Because of that, the looks I’ve been getting haven’t bothered me in the least. I smile at the people that stare and sometimes get smiles back. In our culture, it’s rude to stare…but here, if you’re different, it’s a given. It fascinates me! Though I hope my fellow participants will be able to deal with it after a while, too. I guess I’ve gotten so used to the feeling of being weird and an oddity where-ever I go that now that people are openly staring at me instead of thinking I’m weird behind my back, it is easier to deal with :) But it’s definitely a part of going to China that most people don’t think about – you are constantly a spectacle and on show!


(My favorite picture from the Economics Conference we went to, in which we were constantly photographed! I couldn't help taking a picture of my own)

Bloggin' in China

When I got to China, I felt very disoriented and one of the most materialistic actions in the world helped me get over my feelings of being unsettled – shopping. Just from buying things like towels, snacks, water, laundry detergent, and other such things, I felt so much better!

Shopping in China is a very interesting task not much different from in the United States. The main thing that’s strange is the fact that everything is in Chinese currency! In China, they have yuans instead of dollars, also known as kuai. Tens of cents are counted out in mao, and single cents are fen. Right now, if you divide anything by approximately 6, it’s about how much you would pay in the United States with our own dollar. This is a very challenging thing to do when you are doing your normal shopping! Division skills ARE important if you plan on studying abroad, especially since I had to do this in Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia too…and each currency was different! Priorities are also different abroad. There were tons of clothes at the shopping market we went to today that were around 10 kuai a piece (about $1.50, in the United States!) which was also as much as I spent on a dinner on Thursday night that included chicken, rice, and bok choy! Food is relatively cheap as are clothes, but luxury items are the expensive thing. My Chinese cell phone was 375 kuai (about $60) so it was about the same as a US phone! If you’re paying for brand names, it’s also much more expensive – and anything that’s Western or resembling Western goods has a higher price, too. Today I got two badminton racquets for 40 kuai all together, though there were some that were over a few hundred kuai! It all depends on what you’re looking for, in some cases. I wanted to get tennis equipment but I have yet to see tennis courts (and tennis balls are 40 kuai to a can of three balls!) so I figured badminton would be a nice alternative, especially since it is a sport that Asian countries dominate in. :) I could learn a lot here!

So the next time you’re out buying things – be glad you don’t have to divide or multiply by anything to figure out what it’s actually costing you! I know I can’t wait to be back in the United States with those high prices again, just so my math skills can take a well earned break! :)

Zaijian!

Megan

Getting settled

I still do not have a stable internet connection as of this afternoon, but hopefully by Friday they will be installing internet connections in our rooms! :) Until then, still feel free to leave messages or send me an email at carriker@email.unc.edu if you want to get in touch or have any questions at all!

So far, China has been so incredible, but so different than anything I have ever experienced before! Even different than my time in Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia – it is very, very difficult for a tourist or visitor to get by here, to say the least! I was talking to another international student yesterday (named Siv – she’s from Norway!) and we were discussing how, at least in Singapore, Thailand, and other places, you can get by with hand gestures and sign language. That’s just not the case here, though. Without Chinese or even being able to at least comprehend the spoken language, it’s pretty hopeless..not to mention the fact that the locals speak another dialect of Chinese entirely!

In China, because of its massive size, nearly every large city and province has its own dialect of Chinese that the local people speak. These aren’t dialects like they are in the United States, though – at leas tin the United States, the spoken language is generally the same. In China, the dialects are essentially different spoken languages entirely. Here in Xiamen (population 3 million, small for a Chinese city), it is the Minnan dialect. Normal Mandarin has four different tones and the Minnan dialect, even though it is part of the same language as Mandarin, has a completely different setup of tones and spoken language. ALL of Chinese can be read in either traditional or simplified characters – that is the thing that seems to bind Chinese together. But spoken Chinese…even if you’ve grown up speaking and learning Mandarin, you still would be unable to talk to the locals here in Xiamen! It is overwhelming but fascinating at the same time :)

My plan right now is to try to update every Sunday/Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (my time, though!) and for now, I will just ramble on my experiences in China as the days go by! :)

Zaijian!

Megan