Thoughts on the First Week

We have completed our first week of classes and here are my ten initial thoughts about life at China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) and learning Mandarin.

1. Concrete and more Concrete – For those of you who feel that the VUB lacks some charm, it’s unfortunate you cannot visit CFAU to understand just how lucky you are.

2. CFAU means business – We went out to investigate what the campus had to offer and….no social nights, no campus pub, and you can hear a pin drop any time past 9pm. While this may seem sad, it is because this university is set up to produce Chinese diplomats and they take studying very seriously. You can see the lights on in every dorm room late into the evening with students sitting at their desks studying – studying – and studying. It was then that we decided that we should quickly return to our room and try to fit in.

3. Meals cost 80 cents – While it may not be always be tasty and sometimes we are not really sure what we are eating, food is very cheap on campus. It is very difficult to spend more than 80 euro-cents for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. When we feel like splurging, we go to the proper restaurant on campus and stuff ourselves with Chinese delicacies for no more than 5 Euros.

4. Tai Chi Quan – We have decided to soak up as much of the culture as possible and we have signed up for Tai Chi Quan. For those of you unfamiliar with this traditional Chinese martial art, you have probably seen people in the park where ever you are from doing super slow motion movements and looking a little suspicious. Yes, that will be us. Looking forward to it.

5. Speaking is like singing – One word, four different tones, and four different meanings. We feel like we are in choir practice. Very enjoyable though.

6. Writing is like drawing a masterpiece – Every Chinese character has a story and particular meaning and it can be very tricky to get it right. You know how you look back at your school work from time to time from when you were five years old and laugh because your printing was ridiculous? That is us right now.

7. Diverse international student body – Our beginner class has three Kazakhstanis (yes it’s Kazakhstanis, not Kazakhs), three Japanese, two Sudanese diplomats, one Yankee Doodle (unfortunately) and myself – a Canuck. While BSIS also has an interesting mix of students, western nations obviously tend to dominate. At CFAU, we are certainly the minority within the minority and I find it both trying and beneficial as we are the outsiders so to speak but there are beneficial contacts and friendships to be made.

8. Professionalism – While the university might not be much to look at, the lecturers certainly know their stuff and demand a lot. We constantly feel under pressure to study and missing a class is not an option as it would set us back from the pack of hard-working students within our classes. It’s a great challenge but one we are enjoying.

9. Curfew? – Yes, that’s right. Apparently we are supposed to be back in our rooms at 11:30pm. If we will not be back by then, we must apply ahead of time so that they are aware of our whereabouts. All I can say is ridiculous. We got back at 7 am on Saturday morning and nothing was said or done…perhaps they thought we were coming back from breakfast?

10. Internet Firewall – Cannot access Facebook, cannot access YouTube, and cannot access legitimate news sources – just wonderful. Hey, but we can sign up and access QQ! This is the Chinese equivalent to Facebook and everyone we meet is astonished we don’t have an account. Hmmm….

    Daniel (丹尼尔)

     

    

    A page from Dan's notebook

     

    Well, we finished our first week of classes. The general consensus is that Chinese is not easy. Part of the problem is that we translate the English words to Chinese pinyin, which is the Latin spelling of the Chinese words. We then have to learn the corresponding Chinese symbols, so we essentially have to memorize the pronunciation and the way to draw the character. Then there is the pronunciation, which requires formations of your mouth and tongue that are not natural in English. Combinations of letters are also pronounced differently than they are in English, so we have to remember that as well when speaking. Overall though, we are enjoying the experience.

    We are taking 20 hours of Chinese (Mandarin) a week, from 8am-noon everyday. While we have to wake up early, it gives us the rest of the day to study, work out, read, nap, etc. We did not study much the first week because the proposals for our theses were due on Friday, but with that out of the way, we can focus more on learning the language. At least until we actually start writing our theses.

    On Sunday evening, we spent a good 4-5 hours studying. We’ve already learned about 30 characters – their meaning and how to draw/write/scribble them. There are certain rules for the strokes of each character, generally in a left to right/top to bottom pattern, but some of them have 10+ strokes and it isn’t easy to remember. It probably just becomes habit after a while.

    We’ve discovered that we are the laughing-stock of most everyone that works here. The people at the cafeteria laugh at us because we simply point to the things we want, oftentimes not even knowing what it is. We’ve only struck out a few times though so far, so no harm done and we’ve been lucky with the food so far in that it hasn’t affected either of us negatively. It’s all quite good, even when we have no idea what we’re eating. The other night we were out on the town and wandered into a street vendor’s little shack and tried various things that were stewing in a spicy broth. We have no idea what we ate, but it was all pretty tasty and we didn’t die, so I suppose it was safe? We also have no idea how things work in our dorm/hotel, so we tried to change our sheets today and carried all of them downstairs in a large bundle, only to be told they get changed on the weekend only. They must have felt sorry for us though as they went ahead and gave us clean ones anyway.

    We haven’t done any other tourist stuff. We did take a shopping trip last week, practicing our haggling in the stores. At a stall that had “designer” jeans, we were initially quoted a price of ¥960 ( 100, $140). After offering us a “special price” of only ¥600 a pair, we spent 30 minutes haggling her down to ¥150 a pair, a price she said was “killing her”, though we suspect we still overpaid. It is certainly an interesting place. If you so much as even look in a stall, they’ll pull things off the racks for you to try on. And heaven help you if you do try it on; they won’t stop badgering you until you walk away and turn a corner.

    The weather has been quite drastic here, though we’ve actually seen the sun several times! It was quite nice out Friday and Saturday, but when we woke up on Sunday, there was 4 inches of snow and more coming down. Today it’s mostly melting away and it’s supposed to get up to 60-65 on Friday. Unless they do something to alter the weather.

    In some good news, we found a cantina on campus that offers individual meals for quite cheap that taste, which we generally do for both lunch and dinner. It’s much better than spending, ¥50 for dinner, no matter how cheap even that is. We’re looking into a few trips, but it’s difficult with classes five days a week and not wanting to miss any, as we’ll fall behind. Well, it’s time for bed now.

    明天见 – See you tomorrow (Míngtiān jiàn)

    汉语 – Chinese language (Hànyǔ)

    美国人 – American (Měiguórèn)

    天安门 – Tian’ anmen

    不客气 – You are welcome (Bù kèqì)

    对不起 – I’m sorry (Duìbùqǐ)

    再见 – Goodbye (Zàijiàn)

    Jesse (杰西)

Fog (smog), Communism and Food

Welcome to Dan and Jesse’s blog while in China. We left Brussels on March 22nd, flying through London Heathrow on British Airways. The 10 hour flight from London to Beijing was delayed by 90 minutes as they had to change the plane, due no doubt to “mechanical issues”, but we arrived in Beijing safely, if not an hour late. We were picked up by a driver and taken to our accommodations on the campus of the China Foreign Affairs University where we will be studying for their spring semester. The International Exchange Center, where we are staying, is set up like a hotel, with a reception desk and maids to clean our rooms. We also get hot water delivered to our door every morning, good for tea or to cook our noodles. I though I was done with ramen noodles after undergrad, but this has proven me wrong.

Arriving a week before orientation, we had several days to look around the capital city. We’ve taken in Tian’ amen Square – with the ever-present giant portrait of Mao Tsetung and the mausoleum with his embalmed body – and the Forbidden City, home to Chinese emperors for 600 years, ending with the Qing dynasty in the early 20th century. Off-limits to commoners for hundreds of years, the Forbidden City exists essentially as it did when in official use and is the central focus point of Beijing. Consisting of 9,999 rooms (9 is one of several lucky numbers in China), the Forbidden City is an enormous footprint at the center of Beijing. We spent over an hour inside the walls, but saw less than half of what was available to explore. A future trip will have to be made to see the rest of it.

Part of our time was spent watching the Olympics, though much of the coverage on CCTV was focused on the Chinese athletes, so we saw much aerials, curling, figure skating and short track speed skating. Luckily however, we were able to watch several hockey games, including the gold medal game between Canada and the USA. Seeing as how Dan is Canadian and Jesse is American, the 4am game provided a spicy atmosphere inside the dorm-style room. Despite the early time, both of us were enthralled by the action and managed to keep the insults to a minimum.

Several of Dan’s friends from his time in South Korea came over to Beijing several days ago and we joined them for dinner on a couple nights. Our meals consisted of Peking duck, friend rice, veggies, sizzling beef, prawns, spicy chicken wings, ribs and many bottles of Tsing Tao. Both meals were amazing and for what we got, the 150 RMB price per person (about 18 Euro or $21) was well worth it. But even here that is rather expensive. Our first meal was at a Hot Pot, where you are given a flavored broth in which you cook cabbage, lettuce, carrots, radish, tomatoes, tofu and your choice of meat as well as noodles. This meal, along with a beer, was 33 RMB and took us nearly two hours to eat. Additionally, a restaurant near campus, appropriately named “Beef Noodle Restaurant” serves a beef noodle dish for 8RMB. Both of us are rather sick of noodles however, as they are more popular in Beijing while rice is a more prevalent dish in the South.

Naturally the smog here is ever-present, yesterday being the first day we’ve seen blue sky since we’ve been here. It’s constantly gray, making the atmosphere quite drab and the older buildings display the classic hallmarks of Communist thinking. Chinese are constantly spitting, a vain attempt to rid their bodies of the pollution. People rarely wait for others to get off the metro before pushing their way on. The green walk light at intersections means you can cross the street, but if a car comes, it’s not going to stop for you. Both of us decided to take a full 20 hours of Mandarin classes, as the IR classes on offer are essentially the same as what we took at Kent. We are going to audit a couple classes (Foreign Policy Analysis, American Foreign Policies) just to see what they say in them, but we decided that our time in China would be best served by learning as much Chinese as possible. As a notoriously difficult language, our progress may be slow, but if we establish a good base, both of us will be satisfied. We both will have to write our Master’s Thesis while here, so when classes start next week, our days will be quite full.

As can be imagined, many websites are blocked from inside China. Facebook, YouTube and the like are unavailable, while several others are blocked randomly during the day, forcing us to wait 15 minutes and try again. While our TV has CNN and BBC, they regularly monitor the stories that are broadcast. Several days ago, CNN was airing a piece about the Earthquakes in China last year and the parents who protested the shoddy construction of the schools. Several minutes into the show, the TV screen went black and only returned when a new story was being aired. It is amazing the lengths they will go to block any criticism of the government.

That’s it for now, more will be forthcoming as our adventures continue and classes begin.

Chinese words of the day:
Dan – 丹 (Dān)
Jesse – 杰西 (Jié xi)
Hello – 您好 (Nín hǎo)
Thank you – 谢谢 (Xièxiè)
Beijing – 北京 (Běijīng)
China – 中国 (Zhōngguó)

Dan and Jesse