A Luxurious Life!

Time flies when you’re…in China…taking only two classes…eating lots of pastries…enjoying long walks…talking with locals…window shopping at ultra luxury malls…running in the rain…visiting museums and temples…reading the Analects…meeting new friends…watching movies…and having fun!

My extended and wondrous welcome to China is drawing to a close. Although we (the Valpo group) have been in Hangzhou for a month already due to scheduling differences between Valpo and Zhejiang U we haven’t started our Mandarin classes. That all changes tomorrow when we begin eight weeks of intensive study—fifteen classroom hours a week just for language and who knows how much homework.

Although I’ve been fully enjoying the luxury of open-ended exploration and long weekends it will be nice to start learning Mandarin. (“Thanks,” “Hi,” and “I want…” will only get me so far.) But my thoughts on school itself will have to wait until next week, so I’ll devote the rest of this post to a review of last week’s activities.

The quiet summer campus is gone, the number of students on campus has probably quadrupled since I arrived. From daybreak until late into the evening Chinese students steadily stream along the many roads through campus, when it rains a sea of colorful umbrellas stretch down the sidewalk. At the official “International college” welcome assembly last week we packed the auditorium with students from over one hundred nations. Wow! The assembly ended with performances of traditional music and dance of various Chinese provinces by ZJU students. The troupe’s performance was a lot of fun to watch, the performers clearly enjoyed what they were doing and they were incredibly talented.

Rainy skys have been more frequent, but the blessed cool and clean air they bring are well worth the grey drizzle. Besides, I’m from Eugene, I like the rain. After constant sweating for the first few weeks the ability to stroll around Hangzhou for hours while the air whispers of autumn is delightful.

On Saturday evening I attended Catholic Mass (in English) at a church tucked between shops and apartments near downtown. The service was very similar in liturgical order to the Lutheran services I’m familiar with. I found many of the hymn melodies hard to follow and the Priest’s message calling us to ‘evangelize’ seemed odd given Beijing’s restrictions of religion. Partitioners scattered through the narrow pews, the majority were Chinese but there was also a fair number of foreigners, especially Africans.

After the service Professor Pati, Michael and I walked the few miles back to campus. We stopped at various hole-in-the-wall bakeries and bemusedly strolled through a shopping mall filled with clothing and accessories imported from many of Europe’s finest brands. The wealth here is incredible, even if Alibaba’s IPO does create scores more millionaires in Hangzhou they already have plenty of competition to stand out among the BMWs, Benzs, Porsches, not to mention the occasional Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Tesla, or Maserati which dot the luxury mall parking lots. (Yes I’ve seen all those car brands.)

The best part of long walks though is the time they have provide to people watch. As someone who is not likely to strike-up conversation with a stranger I am more than happy to gather my experiences in a more passive manner. I’ve watched older folks practice tai chi and gather for dance groups in small parks; I’ve watched tired orange-garbed workers sweeping litter with homemade brooms; I’ve watched children enjoy snacks while riding on the back of their parents’ moped; I’ve watched young adults constantly on their phones; I’ve watched people sleep on buses with many times more passengers than seats; I’ve watched business men and women deftly negotiate thick traffic while blaring their car horns.

Also as a group we have visited the Dafo Temple in Xinchang, the Hangzhou Silk Market, the National Tea Museum, and the Zhejiang University of Technology campus. The Dafo Temple, a two hour bus ride south of Hangzhou, is set amid verdant hills. We visited on a drizzly day which added to the tranquility of the winding paths and various temples built into the hills—including the famous ‘Big Buddha’ sculpture (over 10 meters tall) which was carved out a mountainside over a millennium ago.

I picked up my textbooks today and so hopefully I am all ready for class tomorrow. Being in an international dorm, diversity is for once exists far more in actuality than in discussion—my class of sixteen has students from fifteen different countries. Should be fun!