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.