Arrived in Zhengzhou
2 weeks late, a trip to Canberra (and some minor car damage - sorry mum!), and many arguments with the embassy, I finally received my "Z" working visa and have arrived in China. My flight to Guangzhou was long and boring. China Southern has no English reading material, played the same movie 4 times in a row ("Le Coeur des Hommes" - very strange watching a French movie dubbed into Chinese with Chinglish subtitles), so I entertained myself by talking in half Chinese half English with the 50 year old woman sitting next to me, listening to my backlog of ChinesePod podcasts and sleeping.
I stayed overnight in Guangzhou in the China Southern hotel which was inconveniently located about an hours drive from the airport, apparently near downtown. Guangzhou is hot and humid, and despite the fact that the hotel room was probably no bigger than 4m x 4m, the air conditioner seemed to have a lot of trouble keeping the temperature less than 30 degrees all night. I ate dinner at KFC (no comment - I was tired and not ready to face a Chinese menu) - this was an interesting experience because the restaurant was about 17 times bigger than any KFC I have ever seen and it was full, at 9pm, of people scoffing down chicken which is even greasier and more disgusting than you get at home.
The next morning we took the bus back to the airport and boarded my plane to Zhengzhou. On it I met a couple of Zhengzhou locals who have been studying in Sydney - probably the only 2 other English on the plane (most of them seemed fascinated that a Westerner would even be going to Zhengzhou). I was collected by the Director of External Relations at Henan University of Technology (where I will be teaching from September) and he took me to Zhengzhou University, where I am now studying.
At Zhengzhou University I am staying in the Liuxuesheng Sushe (foreign students accommodation). The apartment I was promised was to be 2-bedroom (translate 2 beds in 1 room), have a Western toilet (true, though not Western enough to be able to process toilet paper - this has to be placed in the bin after being used - yes that's right), a TV and DVD player (no DVD player, but I have no DVDs anyway) and air conditioned (delivered on that). Nevertheless it is extremely cheap, quite comfortable and very conveniently located on campus so I am content with it for now.
I arrived on Sunday and only ventured out of my room twice: once to eat lunch at the Shitang (students cafeteria) and once to buy some groceries. The Shitang is a fascinating place. The food I have never seen before in my life, and is very hard to describe. A lot of it looks like something you wouldn't dream of eating, but mostly tastes very good. Quite salty, sometimes spicey, but all the time extroadinarily cheap. I have had 8 meals so far in the Shitang, and this has cost me in total about 30 yuan (divide by 6). A bowel of soup is 0.2 yuan!! The second time I left my apartment was to buy groceries - armed with my Chinese phrase book and dictionary. NOBODY in Zhengzhou speaks English. Even the simplest thing like buying toilet paper or soap is a challenge. I say the word for soap, they take me to laundry detergent, I ask how much a phone card is and they give me the extended version - not a word of which I understand. I just end up pointing and hoping what I end up with is right.
I started classes on Monday, 2 weeks after the rest of the class started (still pissed at the Embassy!). The classes are conducted only in Mandarin and the teachers, despite claiming to have studied English for 10 years, know amazingly few English words. My Chinese is better than their English, and I have studied for 6 months. Anyway its good practise. The rest of the class is Russian students and 1 Greek girl who speaks good English. They are all very nice but the Russians speak little or no English, and jabber in Russian through a lot of the class. The Greek girl I get along with well, though she seems to dislike a lot of things about China and Chinese people ("They eat like pigs") and I sometimes wonder how she will cope for the next 6 months she will be here.
The class is at quite a good level for me despite having missed 2 weeks, though my reading and writing need a lot of improvement. We have classes every day, morning and afternoon, and I have been spending every other hour of every day learning characters and trying (mostly pretty poorly) to learn to write them. I have been watching a bit of TV (only 1 English channel out of 62 channels, but I have been trying to avoid that one) and just walking around the campus looking around. The campus is massive and although it is summer holidays there are still a lot of people around. I will venture out with my camera soon and post up some photos.
Anyway, it is time to go back to studying. I have purchased a mobile phone so if you feel like calling me pls email for the number. I hope you are all well!
I stayed overnight in Guangzhou in the China Southern hotel which was inconveniently located about an hours drive from the airport, apparently near downtown. Guangzhou is hot and humid, and despite the fact that the hotel room was probably no bigger than 4m x 4m, the air conditioner seemed to have a lot of trouble keeping the temperature less than 30 degrees all night. I ate dinner at KFC (no comment - I was tired and not ready to face a Chinese menu) - this was an interesting experience because the restaurant was about 17 times bigger than any KFC I have ever seen and it was full, at 9pm, of people scoffing down chicken which is even greasier and more disgusting than you get at home.
The next morning we took the bus back to the airport and boarded my plane to Zhengzhou. On it I met a couple of Zhengzhou locals who have been studying in Sydney - probably the only 2 other English on the plane (most of them seemed fascinated that a Westerner would even be going to Zhengzhou). I was collected by the Director of External Relations at Henan University of Technology (where I will be teaching from September) and he took me to Zhengzhou University, where I am now studying.
At Zhengzhou University I am staying in the Liuxuesheng Sushe (foreign students accommodation). The apartment I was promised was to be 2-bedroom (translate 2 beds in 1 room), have a Western toilet (true, though not Western enough to be able to process toilet paper - this has to be placed in the bin after being used - yes that's right), a TV and DVD player (no DVD player, but I have no DVDs anyway) and air conditioned (delivered on that). Nevertheless it is extremely cheap, quite comfortable and very conveniently located on campus so I am content with it for now.
I arrived on Sunday and only ventured out of my room twice: once to eat lunch at the Shitang (students cafeteria) and once to buy some groceries. The Shitang is a fascinating place. The food I have never seen before in my life, and is very hard to describe. A lot of it looks like something you wouldn't dream of eating, but mostly tastes very good. Quite salty, sometimes spicey, but all the time extroadinarily cheap. I have had 8 meals so far in the Shitang, and this has cost me in total about 30 yuan (divide by 6). A bowel of soup is 0.2 yuan!! The second time I left my apartment was to buy groceries - armed with my Chinese phrase book and dictionary. NOBODY in Zhengzhou speaks English. Even the simplest thing like buying toilet paper or soap is a challenge. I say the word for soap, they take me to laundry detergent, I ask how much a phone card is and they give me the extended version - not a word of which I understand. I just end up pointing and hoping what I end up with is right.
I started classes on Monday, 2 weeks after the rest of the class started (still pissed at the Embassy!). The classes are conducted only in Mandarin and the teachers, despite claiming to have studied English for 10 years, know amazingly few English words. My Chinese is better than their English, and I have studied for 6 months. Anyway its good practise. The rest of the class is Russian students and 1 Greek girl who speaks good English. They are all very nice but the Russians speak little or no English, and jabber in Russian through a lot of the class. The Greek girl I get along with well, though she seems to dislike a lot of things about China and Chinese people ("They eat like pigs") and I sometimes wonder how she will cope for the next 6 months she will be here.
The class is at quite a good level for me despite having missed 2 weeks, though my reading and writing need a lot of improvement. We have classes every day, morning and afternoon, and I have been spending every other hour of every day learning characters and trying (mostly pretty poorly) to learn to write them. I have been watching a bit of TV (only 1 English channel out of 62 channels, but I have been trying to avoid that one) and just walking around the campus looking around. The campus is massive and although it is summer holidays there are still a lot of people around. I will venture out with my camera soon and post up some photos.
Anyway, it is time to go back to studying. I have purchased a mobile phone so if you feel like calling me pls email for the number. I hope you are all well!
posted by Unknown | 11:12 am
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