I've only been here for 2 days now, but it feels more like a week! Today I woke up at 5am (again) and couldn't go back to sleep. But I woke up just in time to watch the clouds clear and for the sun to appear. It was like the campus was a completely different place bathed in sunlight instead of drizzle and fog. It stayed completely clear and hot for the entire day. But enough about the weather, although I will say that the humidity is making my hair realize it's ability to curl and poof. I look a little like I stepped out of the 80s.
I have a Chinese roommate named Nikki who I haven't met yet. She is finishing up an internship in Shanghai. She feels really bad that she wasn't here to help me adjust so she's told all of her friends among the other host students and roommates to come introduce themselves and check on me. It was crazy, within 5 minutes of getting my new cell phone and new number my host student, Tiffany, had texted Nikki my number and 10 minutes later Nikki called. Her English is perfect but she says she is going to speak Chinese with me as much as possible. It's a little lonely without her and I'm looking forward to when she moves in.
Since I've been waking up so early and I have no roommate yet, I've had some time to walk around our campus and explore it a bit on my own. This is making me pretty popular with other people in my program who get completely turned around the moment they leave our building. Our campus is really straight forward because it's a rectangle with only 4 gates in/out: north, east, south, and west. My program's host university is the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE). It has about 13,000 students, of which about 3,000 are international students, mostly from Korea, Europe, and Africa. Besides the 80 of us, there are only about 20 other American students on campus. We are living in the 2 international student dorms so we'll get to meet international students from other countries. However, they haven't moved in yet so my hall is strangely quiet.
UIBE is located in the Chaoyang district in North Eastern Beijing between the 3rd and 4th ring roads. We are East of the Olympic Stadium. The campus is actually very pretty with a lot of trees and it's about the same size as SCU's campus. I'm glad it's not too big! There is a grassy knoll type area right near the main cafeteria and yesterday one of the host students was telling us in a very scandalized tone about some "foreign women students" who sunbathed on it last year in nothing but bikinis! Oh if they could only see SCU when it get's above 75 degrees :)
The Chinese students we've met have been incredibly eager to help us and answer questions, but they are very curious about American culture. Yesterday our program held a Q & A panel of Chinese students to answer questions about the differences between American and Chinese cultures. They kept asking us if American High School and College is like Glee and Gossip Girl! That's where they get their info about American culture hahaha.
My first morning I was so proud of myself lol. Armed with a campus map and a sense of adventure, I first found the ATM and then a little coffee shop. Turns out they have Frappuccinos here and it was great because there was an English Menu. I managed to remember how to order and say thank you "xie xie." I got stared at a little walking around campus but I'm sure I'll get used to it.
Everything is so cheap here! $1=6.2ish RMB and a typical dish is $2-3! I went to the local campus market/grocery store and got a bunch of food and supplies and it only came out to 31 kuai (RMB) which is less than $5! I am definitely excited to go shopping.
This week we are having orientation and preparing for our 2 week trip across China along the ancient Silk Road. It's incredible the complexities of the relationships between different ethnic groups within China. In fact, we now cannot go into the western most province because of recent rioting and unrest, which is a bit disappointing. The sessions this week are a lot of information but are proving to be really helpful and fun. We've been exploring a lot of the local restaurants. My favorite so far is the 24 hour noodle place right outside West gate. They have the most entertaining wall mural and I posted a picture below :) No you don't need to get your eyes checked. That's definitely Avatar milking a cow.
I've been spending a lot of time trying to memorize the names and faces of the other people in my program. It's interesting to watch groups and friendships start to form. I met a guy named Kevin in my program who goes to San Jose State! We actually had the same Chinese Prof. who teaches at both SJSU and SCU! It's a small world :)
Tomorrow we are going to the Great Wall in the afternoon! Hopefully I'll have time to post more in the next few days. I have so many observations about Chinese culture that I just don't have the energy to delve into now. So until my next post, Zai Jian!
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