Winter is here and as I look outside and see a different Hangzhou that I had come to just 4 months ago. But it is not merely all the snow and crisp breeze that makes it such a different place. Now, I walk around campus and see familiar faces. The delivery guy from the West gate Sichuan restaurant, the student of medicine that I had met at a party on campus, the lady who works in our dormitory; we would smile at each other and share a few polite words as we continued along with our daily business.
The Hangzhou I came to a month ago was unfamiliar; I didn’t know most of these students from all these different schools all over the US whom each had very different experiences and backgrounds from me. Walking around campus I would not recognize anyone, travelling around by bus was a challenge, ordering from a menu at any restaurant was a task, I wouldn’t imagine ordering home delivery without help from one of the roommates.
The school work has been hard and time-consuming, and sometimes I would lose perspective on what my motives behind spending a semester abroad in Hangzhou were. We were surrounding ourselves with a culture to which we were challenged to acclimatize to, get familiar with and get comfortable with. Somewhere along the path towards where I am now, I feel that I was successful in achieving these goals.
Culture in some terms is impossible to describe and harder to understand; it is constantly evolving and folding into itself the influences of the new and conservation and oftentimes, the revival of the old. To claim to understand the finer points of someone else’s lifestyle and culture is to put a space between you and him or her, whereby you ought to study it. Wherever we live, we are each different but yet make up small pieces of a collage that we refer to as a common culture.
I have come to believe that the best manner in which to understand a culture is not to constantly be aware of the differences and finer points but to celebrate and explore what you share with someone else. I think that if you spend enough time upholding this approach you will naturally build on this foundation of what you share with your hosts and together begin to explore and imbibe more and also contribute more to this exchange.
Thus the best way to understand a culture, at the end of the day, is to become a part of it, contribute to its evolution in your own little way. I have been a part of this very unusual community of students at this pretty usual university in a pretty standard city in China. Over the last few months, this little community has become closer, more homey and more comfortable. I think the fact that the program only had 13 students and 13 roommates was a great plus as we had an experience to develop meaningful relationships, all within the context of being in Hangzhou.
I like the fact that we made this list of things to do pushed us to have a good time this last one month and also not get too preoccupied with work, for example, we spent a great afternoon at the zoo when we would have likely just spend studying at the dormitory. Also got to see my first panda.
Participating in the University’s soccer tournament was also a lot of fun. Our team which was aptly named “Multinational Cooperation” in Chinese did quite well. Recently we were also invited to a party hosted by one of the academic departments at the University. The party was based on building connections with people from outside China. It which included many games and other activities and helped break the ice and was really successful in what it intended to do, I think. I was also asked to play the role of host at the event and a few of us arranged a song to sing there too. Performing and hosting in Chinese in front of a bunch of Chinese students was a nerve-racking experience, but it was definitely worth it.
Since my last blog post, I also had the chance to spend a weekend at my roommate’s hometown- Yiwu which hosts the largest shopping center in the world. Yiwu is a fascinating place and I really enjoyed learning more about my roommate in a family setting and meeting his family.
We also made our way to a primary school nearby where we had the amazing opportunity to play with little kids who were very very excited to meet people from all over the world and also more than willing to show us how they have fun and the games they play. We also showed them a few of the games we grew up playing. I hope that they will continue to play them even after we leave Hangzhou. A week ago, a few of us went to watch the Zhejiang basketball team play their first game of the season. 4 months in Hangzhou meant that we not only had a team to support but also feel some allegiance to.
After the Hangzhou semester ends, a friend and I will be heading back to Shangrila for a week long course in Tibetan Thanka painting at an Arts academy. I look forward to heading back to place that already seems quite familiar. Once the week is up we will head to Xi’an and then onwards to Qingdao before we reach Beijing for January Term. Leaving Hangzhou will be difficult as I feel that I have developed a deep bond with the city. I have already begun looking for an internship next summer either in Shanghai or Hangzhou. Heading back and once again adjusting to life in US next semester will definitely be a challenge as there is going to be so much about the life here that I am going to miss very much. If someone was to ask me about my experience here, it would be very difficult to summarize into a few minutes.
CHINA: my experiences with environmentalism, development and lifestyle.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Making Lists .
These past two weeks have been nothing but uneventful. Last weekend the group of us made a trip down to Yunshan village in the Ningbo district of Zhejiang. It is a tiny village surrounded on three sides by pretty large cities. It had held on to its charm, and other than the large highway and train tracks cutting through, it was exactly like I had imagined it would be, the misty rice fields and all. Yunshan is home to one of our friends from our host university here in Hangzhou. We were put up at the town hall offices and our hosts were very welcoming. After settling in a few of us were interviewed by a local news crew as we pretending to shovel around some rice grain. Actually, I am not all that clear who they were, but they had a big camera and a pretty lady with a hand-mike.
Being in a village, we had the chance to eat some of the local delicacies, a good change from Hangzhou food. Zhuting’s family (our hosts) also happen to own a pig farm with more than a 1000 pigs, which of course meant there was a lot of pork on the table. It isn’t abnormal, at a special meal to be consuming such a wide variety of animals that it would make most zoos jealous. But don’t worry we are getting used to it.
Also, we got to walk around the little town along its disproportionally wide roads to the pig farms, duck coops and fish ponds and hiked (strolled) up a mountain in the center of town. We did try our hand at fishing and failed quite miserably, but it was a good way to spend a lazy weekend afternoon. That Sunday I met up with family in Shanghai and made it back to Hangzhou just in time for class the next morning.
After a tiring week of school work, we decided to treat ourselves to the midnight premier of Harry Potter. (I may have watched it the next afternoon too). We had opted for the tickets that provided us with free tea which caused a couple of us to disturb the entire theater audience by having to run out and back in half-way through the movie so as to head to the restroom. Embarrassing. Us laowais are apparently not all that immune to the competence of all the diuretics we injest daily, all that tea: from longjing to bubble aah.
It has finally dawned upon us that the semester here in Hangzhou is slowly coming to an end, we have less than a month now. One evening, a few of us got together and wrote out a list of things we would like to accomplish before we leave. These include singing together on a crowded bus, taking our professors out to a bar, walk a full circle around the Western Lake, eat smelly tofu, eat with our hands etc. We have already made it through a bunch of things on the list but I am pretty excited for the time we have left here.
Being in a village, we had the chance to eat some of the local delicacies, a good change from Hangzhou food. Zhuting’s family (our hosts) also happen to own a pig farm with more than a 1000 pigs, which of course meant there was a lot of pork on the table. It isn’t abnormal, at a special meal to be consuming such a wide variety of animals that it would make most zoos jealous. But don’t worry we are getting used to it.
Also, we got to walk around the little town along its disproportionally wide roads to the pig farms, duck coops and fish ponds and hiked (strolled) up a mountain in the center of town. We did try our hand at fishing and failed quite miserably, but it was a good way to spend a lazy weekend afternoon. That Sunday I met up with family in Shanghai and made it back to Hangzhou just in time for class the next morning.
After a tiring week of school work, we decided to treat ourselves to the midnight premier of Harry Potter. (I may have watched it the next afternoon too). We had opted for the tickets that provided us with free tea which caused a couple of us to disturb the entire theater audience by having to run out and back in half-way through the movie so as to head to the restroom. Embarrassing. Us laowais are apparently not all that immune to the competence of all the diuretics we injest daily, all that tea: from longjing to bubble aah.
It has finally dawned upon us that the semester here in Hangzhou is slowly coming to an end, we have less than a month now. One evening, a few of us got together and wrote out a list of things we would like to accomplish before we leave. These include singing together on a crowded bus, taking our professors out to a bar, walk a full circle around the Western Lake, eat smelly tofu, eat with our hands etc. We have already made it through a bunch of things on the list but I am pretty excited for the time we have left here.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Travels
Our fall break lasted for 10 days which gave us ample opportunity to plan a wide-ranging trip around Southern China. Our plans were ambitious, balancing train times with flight times and hotels and possible altitude sickness; but in the end it paid off.
5 friends from the program and I began our first leg of the trip with what can only be called a jolt of chaos to help break our cycle of the previous exam week. Having left early so that we would not have to rush, we reached the Hangzhou train station only to realize a second before entering the station (with 40 minutes before our train would leave) that we were at the wrong station, and that we were meant to go to the Hangzhou South station. Now this second station is not a couple of blocks away, not even in Hangzhou actually. So, after a brave battle to secure taxis we headed off to the next station and after an even more panicked taxi ride, ran up stairs and down stairs and through the (wrong) terminal and finally made it on to the train literally seconds before it left. (Take that pessimistic taxi driver!)
I would rather have not begun a 36 hour train ride sweaty and panting, but alas. We reached Kunming, Yunnan to some beautiful weather and made our way around the city; ate a couple of great meals (with real cheese!), rode on a boat, bumper boats even (equipped with spray-gun), and a few of us joined in a middle-aged women's morning dance-aerobic routine. After checking out Kunming's night life for a grand total of 15 minutes (worth it), we headed to the correct station for our night-long train ride to Lijiang, Yunnan. It may have been that we were all grumpy in the morning, but none of us particularly warmed up to Lijiang and soon were on a 4 hour long bus ride on to Shangrila (Xianggelila). Shangrila is a quaint town tucked away in the high plains of the largely Tibetan north-west corner of Yunnan province.
We spent 3 days in Shangrila and had a blast. We did spent most of our time eating momos and other variants of Yak produce. It would be safe to say we have eaten, drank and smelled our lifetime's share of yak. (That yoghurt was particularly yakky). Shangrila is a beautiful place and the people are very warm. After the Hangzhou semester ends, I and a friend will be heading back to Shangrila for a week long course in Tibetan Tanka painting at an Arts academy. I look forward to heading back to place that already seems quite familiar.
We made our way back to Kunming after which we flew to Shenzhen. And after a painful few hours of waiting in lines we finally made it across the border to Hongkong where I stayed with a Middlebury friend of mine, Chris and his very hospitable family. It was interesting to be in a pseudo-Chinese environment where not many people speak Mandarin, it made me realize how much it really does help to have a working knowledge of the local language. (si kuai haishi shi kuai?!!: 4 bucks or 10 bucks?! can hardly make out the difference.) But at the same time, Hongkong is a very navigable, tourist friendly city. And the 3 days there went by quite quickly. Before we knew it we were back on a train, this time headed for our very own Hangzhou.
I think we got a break from studies just when we needed it and took full advantage of it. Overall I am glad we managed to visit so many very different places and met so many very different people. Very often, we think of China as this united, uniform entity. Yet in every town you pass through there is diversity that is being and that is to be celebrated; a local delicacy, a local accent, a new art form, a proud history or an age-old lifestyle.
5 friends from the program and I began our first leg of the trip with what can only be called a jolt of chaos to help break our cycle of the previous exam week. Having left early so that we would not have to rush, we reached the Hangzhou train station only to realize a second before entering the station (with 40 minutes before our train would leave) that we were at the wrong station, and that we were meant to go to the Hangzhou South station. Now this second station is not a couple of blocks away, not even in Hangzhou actually. So, after a brave battle to secure taxis we headed off to the next station and after an even more panicked taxi ride, ran up stairs and down stairs and through the (wrong) terminal and finally made it on to the train literally seconds before it left. (Take that pessimistic taxi driver!)
I would rather have not begun a 36 hour train ride sweaty and panting, but alas. We reached Kunming, Yunnan to some beautiful weather and made our way around the city; ate a couple of great meals (with real cheese!), rode on a boat, bumper boats even (equipped with spray-gun), and a few of us joined in a middle-aged women's morning dance-aerobic routine. After checking out Kunming's night life for a grand total of 15 minutes (worth it), we headed to the correct station for our night-long train ride to Lijiang, Yunnan. It may have been that we were all grumpy in the morning, but none of us particularly warmed up to Lijiang and soon were on a 4 hour long bus ride on to Shangrila (Xianggelila). Shangrila is a quaint town tucked away in the high plains of the largely Tibetan north-west corner of Yunnan province.
We spent 3 days in Shangrila and had a blast. We did spent most of our time eating momos and other variants of Yak produce. It would be safe to say we have eaten, drank and smelled our lifetime's share of yak. (That yoghurt was particularly yakky). Shangrila is a beautiful place and the people are very warm. After the Hangzhou semester ends, I and a friend will be heading back to Shangrila for a week long course in Tibetan Tanka painting at an Arts academy. I look forward to heading back to place that already seems quite familiar.
We made our way back to Kunming after which we flew to Shenzhen. And after a painful few hours of waiting in lines we finally made it across the border to Hongkong where I stayed with a Middlebury friend of mine, Chris and his very hospitable family. It was interesting to be in a pseudo-Chinese environment where not many people speak Mandarin, it made me realize how much it really does help to have a working knowledge of the local language. (si kuai haishi shi kuai?!!: 4 bucks or 10 bucks?! can hardly make out the difference.) But at the same time, Hongkong is a very navigable, tourist friendly city. And the 3 days there went by quite quickly. Before we knew it we were back on a train, this time headed for our very own Hangzhou.
I think we got a break from studies just when we needed it and took full advantage of it. Overall I am glad we managed to visit so many very different places and met so many very different people. Very often, we think of China as this united, uniform entity. Yet in every town you pass through there is diversity that is being and that is to be celebrated; a local delicacy, a local accent, a new art form, a proud history or an age-old lifestyle.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Getting down to business
This has been my first trip to China and although I come from India, not all that far away, I must admit I held a certain romanticized view and (possibly skewed) understanding of the Far East. Being a student of the Mandarin language in the United States does not do much to correct these views. Yes, the language is soaked through with the flavour of the Chinese culture. But during the first two years of study of the language, the depth of access to these inbuilt stores of knowledge is not very deep and we land up playing up the stereotypes- get together and make jiaozis or get together and eat moon cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
But since I have gotten to China I feel like I have not only a deeper knowledge of the language but also gained a perspective on the nuances of everyday life of the people of Hangzhou; where jiaozis aren’t anything extraordinary and the Mid-Autumn Festival comes by pretty inconsequentially once in year.
Other than physically being in China, I have consciously tried to deepen my understanding of the elements of culture and history embedded in the language. Language is slower to evolve than culture is and being around those who have lived the language for their whole lives often gives one an interesting insight, without them necessarily being aware of it. I have taken to a deeper interest in chengyus (4 character sayings) For example, the chengyu 入木三分 (rumusanfen) which translates roughly to – “to enter three-tenths of an inch into timber.” This chengyu refers to the penetrating analysis of a situation or thing. It originates from the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420 AD) where a famous calligrapher by the name of 王羲之(Wang Xizhi) was so beautiful, bold and vigorous that once a carpenter found that the ink of the characters he had once written on a plank had soaked almost one centimeter into it.
This last month and a half in Hangzhou has no doubt helped to shake up the most fundamental of these previously romanticized ideas of a vast culture. China is a huge country and of course the culture of each region tends to be an amalgamation of the local, national, political and western influences. These cultural nuances most tangibly manifest themselves in the language or the food of the region. I enjoy finding out these small differences. Whether it be the slight difference in taste in between the Shanghai 小笼包 (xiaolongbao) specialty dumplings and those you get here in Hangzhou or whether it be picking up on the Beijing accent and special North China characteristics when Tao Laoshi speaks as opposed to Qiu Laoshi’s Southern accent.
Before coming to China, I was looking forward to being as little like a tourist as possible and getting into a routine like any other college kid would here at the Zhejiang University of Technology. I would say that I have definitely gotten into a routine, but I feel that it isn’t much like that of the other students at the college, it seems more rigorous, but our roommates have given us a valuable insight into what it is really like for a regular student at the college.
I can imagine that this program without the roommates would be very different that what it is now and we would be losing out on so much of experiencing the student culture here at Hangzhou. It is actually very interesting to witness how our lives and what we are used to and comfortable doing has merged with that of our roommates. This makes sure we don’t get too comfortable with our own habits and are really experiencing living everyday with a Chinese roommate. When picking places to travel, or places to eat or trying to get a new perspective on something that I am writing about in an essay for class or even figured out what all the buttons on the washing machine mean; my roommate and other roommates in the program have always been around to help us cross the bridge between living here as a tourist and really living here.
Being a pseudo-Hangzhouren thus far has truly been a joy. The Hangzhou research class and the Business Chinese class has definitely helped me gain insight into the lives of the people here, the history of the city and the intricate weave of Zhejiang culture represented here. It is great to have the opportunity to attend class on Hangzhou food and then eat 东坡肉(dongporou) or learn about Walmart’s progress in China and then investigate what you have learnt at a nearby Walmart’s for next week’s essay.
The neighbourhood surrounding the university has been as vibrant and alive as ever. As mentioned earlier, literally every second building hosts a restaurant, many of which boast cheap and delicious food from all over the country. It has been quite an experience getting to know which ones we like better than others and becoming regulars at some of them. There is a new pizza place near the West Gate that serves some real good spaghetti, though the English translations on the menu are particularly great- anyone up for some “Italy face allocated bacon butter juice”? Building relationships with waiters and the managers at houmen, the bubble tea place and with the take-out folk has been a strong contributor to my immersion in Hangzhou life.
Lately I have made two weekend trips to Shanghai and although it is just an hour and a half away, it is very different from Hangzhou. With Pudong, Nanjing Road and the Bund; it is a beautiful and massive city that never sleeps and I yet feel that I have much more to see and do in Shanghai and I look forward to going back one day soon. I entered myself into a 1 kilogram burger (plus fries) eating competition; had to get it all down before 10 minutes were up, and with 9 minutes and 47 seconds I left the restaurant with a picture of myself on the restaurant hall-of-fame wall and the uncomfortable feeling like I was close to throwing up. This weekend we are off on a 10 day adventure to the Yunan province (Kunming and Shangrila) and then onwards to Hongkong. I can't wait.
But since I have gotten to China I feel like I have not only a deeper knowledge of the language but also gained a perspective on the nuances of everyday life of the people of Hangzhou; where jiaozis aren’t anything extraordinary and the Mid-Autumn Festival comes by pretty inconsequentially once in year.
Other than physically being in China, I have consciously tried to deepen my understanding of the elements of culture and history embedded in the language. Language is slower to evolve than culture is and being around those who have lived the language for their whole lives often gives one an interesting insight, without them necessarily being aware of it. I have taken to a deeper interest in chengyus (4 character sayings) For example, the chengyu 入木三分 (rumusanfen) which translates roughly to – “to enter three-tenths of an inch into timber.” This chengyu refers to the penetrating analysis of a situation or thing. It originates from the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420 AD) where a famous calligrapher by the name of 王羲之(Wang Xizhi) was so beautiful, bold and vigorous that once a carpenter found that the ink of the characters he had once written on a plank had soaked almost one centimeter into it.
This last month and a half in Hangzhou has no doubt helped to shake up the most fundamental of these previously romanticized ideas of a vast culture. China is a huge country and of course the culture of each region tends to be an amalgamation of the local, national, political and western influences. These cultural nuances most tangibly manifest themselves in the language or the food of the region. I enjoy finding out these small differences. Whether it be the slight difference in taste in between the Shanghai 小笼包 (xiaolongbao) specialty dumplings and those you get here in Hangzhou or whether it be picking up on the Beijing accent and special North China characteristics when Tao Laoshi speaks as opposed to Qiu Laoshi’s Southern accent.
Before coming to China, I was looking forward to being as little like a tourist as possible and getting into a routine like any other college kid would here at the Zhejiang University of Technology. I would say that I have definitely gotten into a routine, but I feel that it isn’t much like that of the other students at the college, it seems more rigorous, but our roommates have given us a valuable insight into what it is really like for a regular student at the college.
I can imagine that this program without the roommates would be very different that what it is now and we would be losing out on so much of experiencing the student culture here at Hangzhou. It is actually very interesting to witness how our lives and what we are used to and comfortable doing has merged with that of our roommates. This makes sure we don’t get too comfortable with our own habits and are really experiencing living everyday with a Chinese roommate. When picking places to travel, or places to eat or trying to get a new perspective on something that I am writing about in an essay for class or even figured out what all the buttons on the washing machine mean; my roommate and other roommates in the program have always been around to help us cross the bridge between living here as a tourist and really living here.
Being a pseudo-Hangzhouren thus far has truly been a joy. The Hangzhou research class and the Business Chinese class has definitely helped me gain insight into the lives of the people here, the history of the city and the intricate weave of Zhejiang culture represented here. It is great to have the opportunity to attend class on Hangzhou food and then eat 东坡肉(dongporou) or learn about Walmart’s progress in China and then investigate what you have learnt at a nearby Walmart’s for next week’s essay.
The neighbourhood surrounding the university has been as vibrant and alive as ever. As mentioned earlier, literally every second building hosts a restaurant, many of which boast cheap and delicious food from all over the country. It has been quite an experience getting to know which ones we like better than others and becoming regulars at some of them. There is a new pizza place near the West Gate that serves some real good spaghetti, though the English translations on the menu are particularly great- anyone up for some “Italy face allocated bacon butter juice”? Building relationships with waiters and the managers at houmen, the bubble tea place and with the take-out folk has been a strong contributor to my immersion in Hangzhou life.
Lately I have made two weekend trips to Shanghai and although it is just an hour and a half away, it is very different from Hangzhou. With Pudong, Nanjing Road and the Bund; it is a beautiful and massive city that never sleeps and I yet feel that I have much more to see and do in Shanghai and I look forward to going back one day soon. I entered myself into a 1 kilogram burger (plus fries) eating competition; had to get it all down before 10 minutes were up, and with 9 minutes and 47 seconds I left the restaurant with a picture of myself on the restaurant hall-of-fame wall and the uncomfortable feeling like I was close to throwing up. This weekend we are off on a 10 day adventure to the Yunan province (Kunming and Shangrila) and then onwards to Hongkong. I can't wait.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Mountains, Flutes and Constants
Last weekend, most of our group (roommates and all) headed southwest on a 5 hour train journey to a city named YuShan in the Jiangxi province. From there we had a short journey up to SanQingShan (roughly translates to the Three Distinct Mountains). I think most of us were not quite sure of what we were getting in to, for example not many of us packed for colder weather as we had just left Hangzhou’s mid-thirties. But we were treated to an amazing range of granite peaks and valleys and wooded slopes, with the life-sized versions of the trees that Bonsais are likely to have been harvested from.
The whole spectacle, with the sunlight appearing and disappearing in a moody display with the clouds and fog, I remember thinking that poor Ansel Adams had missed out on quite so much out in the East. Speaking of which, I have uploaded some photographs to the above link and I warn that they do not do justice. We spent the night out in tents at the courtyard of a Daoist temple near the summit of one the tallest peaks in the area and woke up early the next morning with the hope of catching the sunrise. It turned out that we were slightly late which meant that we, draped in our sleeping bags to keep warm and holding our bamboo walking sticks had a very brisk Gandhiesque march up the rest of the way. Still beautiful. We got back late Sunday night and after getting all my homework done for the next day couldn’t help but feeling really enthused about wherever my next trip out of Hangzhou would take me.
Otherwise, the last two weeks have seen me falling into the academic routine, which also means that I am beginning to discover where my free time in the week tends to lie. I have taken up learning the Dizi (the Chinese bamboo flute). The class is held in a music instrument store right outside the main gate of the campus with my teacher is a 60+ year old man named Tu Laoshi. His strong southern accent, with all the technical and music terms he throws at me and the fact that the Dizi is a little more complicated than its Indian counterpart all adds up to the class being pretty challenging but I already feel that I am starting to get a hang of things. And it helps that the man’s tea is excellent. Also the class is held close to the glass window of the store which tends to collect a crowd of little kids watching me struggle. If anything puts pressure on the laowai to perform, that’s it.
Hangzhou has cooled down suddenly and drastically this last week due to the typhoon at the nearby coast and the grey skies and constant drizzle have let loose a tangible gloominess. But that didn’t stop a few of us making a quiet weekend evening getaway to the commercial downtown of the city in search of a Subway sandwich. This was my first time to that part of the city and it is really quite impressive. It only lacks a certain rustic charm, in my view, that much of the rest of the city boasts. I feel that there is a constant push and pull between the traditional and (pardon the cliché) the western. If I were to compare Hangzhou to Bombay, I feel that the existence of the extremes of these two concepts is definitely more prominent here in Hangzhou and there is not much of interplay. I worry whether the youth of my generation have been forced to choose this way or the other, with a compromise yet unheard of. The generation gap, for historical reasons and others, is considerable but it means that the country is socially heading into an eerily predictable direction. I hope, on this one, that I am wrong as there is much to lose.
But I begun to gain a sense of one thing that is slower to evolve and has locked within its nuances so many little pieces of culture and history; the language. Whether it is the chengyu (the four character idioms) which itself can carry the meaning and weight of an epic, or the basic everyday greeting of ni chifan le ma? (have you eaten yet?) maybe the forces of yesteryear are putting up a fight without us even realizing.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Hangzhou, our new home ...
Being away from college while it’s on is a weird experience, but finally beginning to feel at home. This week went by really quick, classes are in full swing- three weeks of rest after Language School and I am finally back to being a full time college student again. And what do college students do best? Enjoy their weekends. Our weekend began on Thursday (no class this past Friday) with a hike up Hangzhou’s Baoshishan (Gem Mountain). Once you summit, there awaits a beautifully-aged pagoda and a grand view of the Western Lake beneath and the expanse of the city. The weather that day was particularly humid and warm which meant that by the time we made it back down we were all pretty exhausted and famished and a dinner at a Thai restaurant and a midnight snack at McDonald’s ensued.
The next day was definitely my favourite yet, while at Hangzhou. We all slept in and did absolutely nothing but hang around and chat till the afternoon after which a few of us decided that we should cook dinner. After a trip the supermarket for Indian food ingredients (where it took longer than expected because turmeric isn’t all that easy to explain in Chinese), we cooked a very multiethnic but equally yum meal. The weekend also including a very embarrassing performance (to all of us) when we went bowling and a couple of hours at a very swanky KTV (karaoke place).
While at the supermarket, my friend and I came across the little animal section (not for consumption, by the way) and decided that post dinner we would head to the night market to buy ourselves a couple of little turtles. We did indeed head to the night market near our school after dinner, but the xiaodongwu seller chap was nowhere to be seen. So the bunch of us didn’t lose hope and KangKang (my good ole roommate) said he knew of another place a bus ride away that possible also sold turtles. After a couple of hours on our critter-hunt we finally found a store. But after much deliberation, Aiman and I went on to buy not turtles but rabbits instead.
2 of them. Little, brown and named BuSan and BuSi (literally means “Not three” and “Not four”. When put together BuSanBuSi roughly translated to the ever useful words “shady” or “dubious”; a favourite of Middlebury Chinese students). So far they have been quite a joy, though BuSan is proving to be a little troublesome. He escaped from his cage and disappeared into a hole behind a desk in my room on the first day we got him, which prompted a stressful 12-person search for him throughout the building at 1 in the morning for a good half an hour. And yesterday he did his business on poor KangKang’s bed.
Anyway, back to school. I am taking 4 classes- Hangzhou Studies (A class about the city of Hangzhou, a historic, cultural and ethnic look at the place where I shall be spending my next 3 months), Classical Chinese (the counterpart to Europe’s Latin), Business Chinese (A class about foreign and local businesses in China) and my One-on-One class (The topic I chose for this class is China’s International Environmental Policy). My classes are all very small and very engaging thus far. The teachers seem pretty dedicated and interesting and they also expect us to work hard and the daily load of homework is pretty heavy. But that means I have more to look forward to this weekend when we have the first of our small group travels planned. I am heading with my roommate and 4 others to a place called SanQingShan (Three Distinct Mountains, I swear these things sound better in Chinese). I hope to get a look at a different side of this part of China, away from the chaos of the city, and up the poetic stony peaks at SanQingShan.
Till now Hangzhou has struck me as a place where the people attribute to their natural surroundings a sort of essentiality and importance. There isn’t a resistance to the flow of the seasons and the seasonal adjustment to the cuisine is a sign of this, for example a special dish made from bamboo shoots is only available in the winter time and in the fall, each yet having distinct flavours). The recognition of the vitality and the dominion of nature in the olden days leads to places in China tending to have names more like Hangzhou (the province at the crossing of the river), Beijing (capital to the North), Shanghai (literally- on the sea) as opposed to Mumbai (named after Mumba devi, a goddess) or Washington DC.
Moreover, as you may have a gathered from this and previous posts, the Xihu or Western lake, is quite evidently the historic and in some senses the emotional heart of the city. You can’t say you have traveled to Hangzhou and have not spent a couple of hours by the calm waters of the lake. But overall, it isn’t all that big, and not that all that clean, and the causeways and lotuses and mountains do provide it with a certain gleam but nothing that Lake Champlain can’t match up to, for example. What really makes the lake special, is as much the human investment in the idea of the beauty of the lake as much as the actual beauty of it. It is said that there are 10 scenic views to the lake, including QuYuanFengHe (To see the lotus stirred by breeze in the QuYuan garden) or PingHuQiuYue (To see the autumn moon over the calm lake) or even DuanQiaoCanXue (To see the snow melt on the Broken Bridge). There is even one that made it onto the 1 yuan note is the SanTanYinYue (To see the three pools mirroring the moon).
Such a consciousness of what surrounds them provides the people of this city with a sort of natural desire to preserve. In the years to come, when the choices that China will need to make get harder and more vital to where we as a globe are heading; I hope that this inherent trait will play a role.
The next day was definitely my favourite yet, while at Hangzhou. We all slept in and did absolutely nothing but hang around and chat till the afternoon after which a few of us decided that we should cook dinner. After a trip the supermarket for Indian food ingredients (where it took longer than expected because turmeric isn’t all that easy to explain in Chinese), we cooked a very multiethnic but equally yum meal. The weekend also including a very embarrassing performance (to all of us) when we went bowling and a couple of hours at a very swanky KTV (karaoke place).
While at the supermarket, my friend and I came across the little animal section (not for consumption, by the way) and decided that post dinner we would head to the night market to buy ourselves a couple of little turtles. We did indeed head to the night market near our school after dinner, but the xiaodongwu seller chap was nowhere to be seen. So the bunch of us didn’t lose hope and KangKang (my good ole roommate) said he knew of another place a bus ride away that possible also sold turtles. After a couple of hours on our critter-hunt we finally found a store. But after much deliberation, Aiman and I went on to buy not turtles but rabbits instead.
2 of them. Little, brown and named BuSan and BuSi (literally means “Not three” and “Not four”. When put together BuSanBuSi roughly translated to the ever useful words “shady” or “dubious”; a favourite of Middlebury Chinese students). So far they have been quite a joy, though BuSan is proving to be a little troublesome. He escaped from his cage and disappeared into a hole behind a desk in my room on the first day we got him, which prompted a stressful 12-person search for him throughout the building at 1 in the morning for a good half an hour. And yesterday he did his business on poor KangKang’s bed.
Anyway, back to school. I am taking 4 classes- Hangzhou Studies (A class about the city of Hangzhou, a historic, cultural and ethnic look at the place where I shall be spending my next 3 months), Classical Chinese (the counterpart to Europe’s Latin), Business Chinese (A class about foreign and local businesses in China) and my One-on-One class (The topic I chose for this class is China’s International Environmental Policy). My classes are all very small and very engaging thus far. The teachers seem pretty dedicated and interesting and they also expect us to work hard and the daily load of homework is pretty heavy. But that means I have more to look forward to this weekend when we have the first of our small group travels planned. I am heading with my roommate and 4 others to a place called SanQingShan (Three Distinct Mountains, I swear these things sound better in Chinese). I hope to get a look at a different side of this part of China, away from the chaos of the city, and up the poetic stony peaks at SanQingShan.
Till now Hangzhou has struck me as a place where the people attribute to their natural surroundings a sort of essentiality and importance. There isn’t a resistance to the flow of the seasons and the seasonal adjustment to the cuisine is a sign of this, for example a special dish made from bamboo shoots is only available in the winter time and in the fall, each yet having distinct flavours). The recognition of the vitality and the dominion of nature in the olden days leads to places in China tending to have names more like Hangzhou (the province at the crossing of the river), Beijing (capital to the North), Shanghai (literally- on the sea) as opposed to Mumbai (named after Mumba devi, a goddess) or Washington DC.
Moreover, as you may have a gathered from this and previous posts, the Xihu or Western lake, is quite evidently the historic and in some senses the emotional heart of the city. You can’t say you have traveled to Hangzhou and have not spent a couple of hours by the calm waters of the lake. But overall, it isn’t all that big, and not that all that clean, and the causeways and lotuses and mountains do provide it with a certain gleam but nothing that Lake Champlain can’t match up to, for example. What really makes the lake special, is as much the human investment in the idea of the beauty of the lake as much as the actual beauty of it. It is said that there are 10 scenic views to the lake, including QuYuanFengHe (To see the lotus stirred by breeze in the QuYuan garden) or PingHuQiuYue (To see the autumn moon over the calm lake) or even DuanQiaoCanXue (To see the snow melt on the Broken Bridge). There is even one that made it onto the 1 yuan note is the SanTanYinYue (To see the three pools mirroring the moon).
Such a consciousness of what surrounds them provides the people of this city with a sort of natural desire to preserve. In the years to come, when the choices that China will need to make get harder and more vital to where we as a globe are heading; I hope that this inherent trait will play a role.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
The Start ...
[I want to first apologize for my poor English in this post but I have been speaking a whole bunch of Chinese and I am sort of losing my grip already. Also, its late and watching Inception in Chinese (just got back from the movie theatre) can really fry one’s brain.]
My short break at home had come to an end and I after reaching Singapore spent the evening with my family who resides there. At midnight I caught my next flight to Beijing. Of course, we Bombay folk must be everywhere and I bumped into an old friend from middle school who was to be on my flight as well. As the only waiguoren on the flight down to Hangzhou from Beijing, I fulfilled my solemn duty as a Chinese student and attempted to eavesdrop on as many conversations as possible. I threw my poor neighbour quite off guard (who was earlier engaged in explaining to his wife that most Indians are very tall and that I wasn’t anything spectacular) after ordering a glass of apple juice in Chinese from the airhostess.
For formalities sake, I guess my first impression of China was probably being pretty surprised at how popular kendeji (KFC) at the Beijing airport can be at 8 in the morning.
My to-be roommate Zhang Kangzhong and his friend, also another roommate on the program, Zhou Li picked me up from the Hangzhou airport. Thus it begins... I guess a good place to start is to talk about our roommates as they have been a very important part of these last few days for each of the 13 of us on the program this semester. Each of us has been assigned a Chinese roommate from our host university, the Zhejiang University of Technology. These 13 students were first nominated by their teachers and then selected after an interview from a pool of more than a 100. So one can imagine that they are a pretty bright and dedicated lot. There are also exceedingly kind and have welcomed us very warmly to their campus and into their lives.
The campus is located bang in the centre of town and is walled off from the chaos of the surrounding city. Thus far, Hangzhou has come across as an elegant balance of the new and old but all very authentically Chinese. The other 12 students on the program also seem like a pretty enthusiastic and fun bunch and I am excited to get to know them better.
School starts on Monday but until that day we have been kept and kept ourselves really busy. There could not have been a better way to spend our first few hours in Hangzhou than to receive the inaugural Chinese medicinal paojiao (foot soak) and massage at a place near campus. Other than that we have spent much time walking around the campus and neighbourhood getting accustomed to our new surroundings (and the September Hangzhou heat). This included picking up my Chinese cell phone (for those who are interested the haoma is 15258854108- I know it by heart because I have had to say it so many times in a different language), buying other necessities at a local mart and frequent stops at the night market (and yes language-schoolers they actually do sell xiaodongwus (litte animals)). A couple of days ago a few of us also watched 3 Idiots (a new Bollywood movie) with English and Chinese subtitles; it was a very good movie though there were definitely parts where I was not sure what to read and what to listen to.
The food so far has been brilliant. Midnight snacks at the night market; the baozis, jiaozis, bubble teas and other objects I don’t recognize are all things I look forward to enjoying over the next few months. The 3 canteens on campus offer a really wide spread of cheap and tasty food. This evening was our opening banquet at a local, pretty classy restaurant and that solidified my belief that Hangzhou was a worthwhile culinary choice to make as to where to spend a semester away from Proctor’s Panini grills.
Yesterday evening, our entire group cruised on world-famous Xihu (West Lake), Hangzhou’s biggest attraction for good reason, and with the small boats making their way around the lake to the backdrop of wide pagoda-topped mountains and the sunset, it truly is beautiful. After our hour-long cruise we headed off to the famous Coco jiuba (club) for our first night on the town. What was supposed to be a short half an hour to check out the scene before retiring for the night became a long and very fun night with new friends and the excitement at the sudden realization that in this new and strange land there is so much we can and already were all enjoying together.
My short break at home had come to an end and I after reaching Singapore spent the evening with my family who resides there. At midnight I caught my next flight to Beijing. Of course, we Bombay folk must be everywhere and I bumped into an old friend from middle school who was to be on my flight as well. As the only waiguoren on the flight down to Hangzhou from Beijing, I fulfilled my solemn duty as a Chinese student and attempted to eavesdrop on as many conversations as possible. I threw my poor neighbour quite off guard (who was earlier engaged in explaining to his wife that most Indians are very tall and that I wasn’t anything spectacular) after ordering a glass of apple juice in Chinese from the airhostess.
For formalities sake, I guess my first impression of China was probably being pretty surprised at how popular kendeji (KFC) at the Beijing airport can be at 8 in the morning.
My to-be roommate Zhang Kangzhong and his friend, also another roommate on the program, Zhou Li picked me up from the Hangzhou airport. Thus it begins... I guess a good place to start is to talk about our roommates as they have been a very important part of these last few days for each of the 13 of us on the program this semester. Each of us has been assigned a Chinese roommate from our host university, the Zhejiang University of Technology. These 13 students were first nominated by their teachers and then selected after an interview from a pool of more than a 100. So one can imagine that they are a pretty bright and dedicated lot. There are also exceedingly kind and have welcomed us very warmly to their campus and into their lives.
The campus is located bang in the centre of town and is walled off from the chaos of the surrounding city. Thus far, Hangzhou has come across as an elegant balance of the new and old but all very authentically Chinese. The other 12 students on the program also seem like a pretty enthusiastic and fun bunch and I am excited to get to know them better.
School starts on Monday but until that day we have been kept and kept ourselves really busy. There could not have been a better way to spend our first few hours in Hangzhou than to receive the inaugural Chinese medicinal paojiao (foot soak) and massage at a place near campus. Other than that we have spent much time walking around the campus and neighbourhood getting accustomed to our new surroundings (and the September Hangzhou heat). This included picking up my Chinese cell phone (for those who are interested the haoma is 15258854108- I know it by heart because I have had to say it so many times in a different language), buying other necessities at a local mart and frequent stops at the night market (and yes language-schoolers they actually do sell xiaodongwus (litte animals)). A couple of days ago a few of us also watched 3 Idiots (a new Bollywood movie) with English and Chinese subtitles; it was a very good movie though there were definitely parts where I was not sure what to read and what to listen to.
The food so far has been brilliant. Midnight snacks at the night market; the baozis, jiaozis, bubble teas and other objects I don’t recognize are all things I look forward to enjoying over the next few months. The 3 canteens on campus offer a really wide spread of cheap and tasty food. This evening was our opening banquet at a local, pretty classy restaurant and that solidified my belief that Hangzhou was a worthwhile culinary choice to make as to where to spend a semester away from Proctor’s Panini grills.
Yesterday evening, our entire group cruised on world-famous Xihu (West Lake), Hangzhou’s biggest attraction for good reason, and with the small boats making their way around the lake to the backdrop of wide pagoda-topped mountains and the sunset, it truly is beautiful. After our hour-long cruise we headed off to the famous Coco jiuba (club) for our first night on the town. What was supposed to be a short half an hour to check out the scene before retiring for the night became a long and very fun night with new friends and the excitement at the sudden realization that in this new and strange land there is so much we can and already were all enjoying together.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Bombay and Beyond
Out of the Bombay airport, mid-monsoons, and the intensity of the rains is the first thing that hits me, most literally. 21 years and there is no getting used to it. In the downpour, we squeeze forward. The cab driver and I straining to see the road ahead; yet that familiar heavy air, blurry lights and colours and sounds make their way to where I am seated. But I had returned to a very different city to where I had visited just a short year ago. Post a trip down the Sealink, I daresay Bombay now boasts a formidable skyline with many more crane-crested high-rises well on their way to completion. This filled me with a sense of pride. Bombay is taller and faster, stronger and richer. At college we often talk about the developing East. India and China: the engines of our near future. This was it.
Two weeks at home has been hectic and a blast (又…又 :) ). Meeting family and friends across town and the burbs (overall, a massive expanse of city) including a day long trip to Pune meant that this trip home was little rest and much play, but I hadn't expected otherwise. For example when the location of compromise to meet up with friends is Chembur you know you are in for a long day (Chembur is an hour long train journey from Victoria Terminus [I had called Victoria Terminus ‘VT’ originally and then realized that would probably confuse many of my New England friends]). One expectation that was satisfied, however, was the quality of all the home food which was thoroughly enjoyed over these last two weeks. I write this whilst distracted olfactorally (that really should be a word) by the kitchen. Unfortunately a minor oil spill off the coast of Bombay meant no seafood for me. And as far as any self-respecting Rele is concerned, that is a pretty big blow.
Anyway, on one of my journeys to the north of the city in a swanky new local bus (complete with reserved seats for the handicapped, women and aged as well as TV monitors to play popular Bollywood music videos) a physically-handicapped young man climbed on from the front of the crowded bus and politely asked another man seated in a handicapped zone to vacate the seat for him, describing that he could not remain standing for very long periods of time. The other chap (note: not handicapped in the least) quite simply refused and carried on with his own business. This little incident, however isolated it may have been, got me thinking. Here is a city that recently had made me very proud as grand physical evidence of the successes of Indian democracy. Development. Was there a cost? Was I too blinded in the folly of the desire for my country to ‘develop’. Where does compassion for the other fit into the equation?
We often portray a nation’s development as a race. Although I think that this sort of portrayal is flawed and harmful for reasons I could detail upon in a later blog post, I believe that the general endeavor to improve the standard of living of a peoples is definitely a journey down a particular road. But this road does have many crossings and do we look left and right before we traverse often enough? How far can our racehorse-with-blinders approach take us before we have left someone behind? How many more of these BP vs. the coastlines of the Gulf of Mexico and Vedanta Mining vs. the Dongria Kondh tribes of Orissa affairs can we permit?
I would never argue that development is blind to the sympathies of all the parties involved and is not in general good interest. But I wonder whether development can be deemed sustainable without a tangible element of compassion built into the very core of its purpose.
Early tomorrow morning I head off to Hangzhou, China for a semester and then on to Beijing during January. I decided to start writing a blog with the purpose of posing many more such questions and themes and hopefully answering a few while in a land with many interesting similarities and differences to my own home. I hope my time in China will provide me with a different perspective on questions related to development, environmentalism and lifestyle. I also intend to write about the food, the people, the cities and my experiences. This is my first blog post and if all goes well many more are to come.
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