China – Page 5 – Valpo Voyager

Category: China (page 5 of 7)

Sunday night's English club

汉语难

Happy China National Day! 65 years ago today the People’s Republic of China was founded. Think of it like 4th of July in the United States.

As a student, China National Day means I get a week off of classes. Although I just started last Tuesday, I’m not complaining.

For someone who is far from gifted when it comes to language, I’d say the Mandarin classes have started off pretty well. My class has just under twenty students, a few of the students are teachers themselves (retired, or in other subjects) and many students are in grad school or have just graduated, I’m one of the youngest. Although we haven’t had a lot of time for conversation it is really neat to be in a class with students from large swaths of the globe—though South America and Africa are notably absent (and seemingly underrepresented in the International College as a whole). The students in my class hail from Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Scotland, and England.

The Russian and Ukrainian are pals and I haven’t got anything worse than friendly greetings from the Pakistani or Yemeni, even though the American government conducts unlawful drone strikes in their countries. It may simply be the type of people study abroad attracts, but I get the impression that we all are far more open to conversation and friendship than reflecting the fractious policies or conflicts of our respective governments.

Our class has developed a sort of bashful good humor as our three Chinese teachers frequently call on us to speak or write on the board, which we often do with great trepidation. At first I found the pace and newness of the language to be staggering but by yesterday I felt as though it had balanced out. That said, we are learning 10-15 new words daily and spend fifteen hours a week in the classroom, so it isn’t far-fetched to believe we may actually learn “a year of Chinese” in eight weeks.

The Chinese teachers also bring their own unique style to class as well. Alex, the speaking teacher, is the most casual of the three and enjoys watching movies or making fun of the Beijing accent’s excessive use of the ‘r’ sound on word endings. He also gets points in my book for the Anonymous wallpaper and Google.com bookmark on his laptop. (Although Google’s services are blocked here, the company’s name is still treated as a verb, and I haven’t heard anyone say “Baidu” or “Bing” it.) Since listening is my worst subject I’m extra luckily that the listening teacher is the nicest of the bunch. The grammar teacher, Ma Laoshi, is strict, but she is still very nice.

Although China National Holiday is one of the most popular times for locals to travel, we still decided to venture out today. (That said, we’ve all rescheduled our travel plans for the week and are staying in Hangzhou because of the steep prices and crowds.) We visited Hefang Street, just south of downtown, which is jammed with eateries and little shops selling jewelry, clothing, and other touristy nicknacks. I wasn’t in a shopping mood, I’d seen many similar items in Beijing or Xi’an. So I tried to make the best out of people watching, and ending up starring in the occasional Chinese tourist photo. Many Chinese who come to Hangzhou during this week aren’t accustom to seeing foreigners so we are get a little celebrity treatment.

At dusk I went for a run in Forest Park just behind campus. It has become my favorite almost daily getaway and takes less than thirty minutes to get to the top and back. Though haze always obscures the horizon, it is a treat to look out on a city of millions from such a forested haven. The hills stretched to the southern horizon, cradling West Lake on their eastern flank, the Xixi wetlands faded into obscurity to the southwest, an office complex covered in photovoltaics stood next to large construction project at the base of the hill while a small fireworks show burst above the apartments.

With the start of classes, the prolonged excitement and newness of China has definitely been dampened for me. Lazy afternoons of wandering around Hangzhou are now replaced by copying Chinese characters and practicing pronunciation. Also gone is the newness of the most obvious cultural differences which initially provided much to ponder and entertain. I am still trying to go to as many ‘English clubs’ as I can. They provide me the best way to interact and get to know the local Chinese—or in the case of last Sunday’s club, a German woman who’d just road tripped from L.A. to Seattle. (We got to talk about Oregon!)

And lastly, as much as I like to follow current events, I’ve spent a growing number of hours in the recent days glued to the BBC’s live coverage of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Even though I’m hundreds of miles from Hong Kong and except between the international students not even whispers of #OccupyHK have reached me here. (The increased police presence I noticed today is most likely for the holiday and its the proliferation of tourists.) While the BBC has published reports noting Beijing’s heavy hand on the Uighur minority and violence in Xinjiang, the scale and coverage of Hong Kong’s protests has the potential to be a defining moment for years to come. I’ve found it disheartening that among my Valpo peers there is so much seeming apathy—especially when we hail from a country that is supposed to be emblematic of freedom and democracy. (Though it shouldn’t be a surprise, I’ve known about the general public’s political apathy since starting debate in high school.) While China sensors Weibo terms, blocks Instagram and publishes almost comically skewed views of the Occupy protests I’ve been thrilled by the amazing teamwork and civility of the Hong Kongers. While the BBC and western media may clearly highlight the best of the protestors, I haven’t read anything to suggest that they’ve done anything worse than protest—the economic and stability harm argument is weak. For perspective, Hangzhou, one of the nicest cities in China, often can’t keep its streets clean (even with a near army of public servants) and meanwhile the protesters collect their own recycling and trash! Being in China makes following the protests all the more exciting, especially given the entrenched stances of both sides. Two years after the violent protests of the Arab Spring it is hard not to whole-heartedly root for a group with such a strong claim to the moral high ground after Sunday’s teargassing. #UmbrellaRevolution

written on October 1st, 2014

Sunday night’s English club

The main quad of Yuquan Campus

The crowd on Hefang Street

The National Silk Museum with Zhejiang University of Technology students

A Luxurious Life!

September 22, 2014 / Tobiah Meinzen / 0 Comments

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!

A typical rush-hour intersection

The National Silk Museum with Zhejiang University of Technology students

Visiting Dafo Temple in Xinchang

Looking west from the top of Forest Park on a particularly grey day

Watching the fountain and light show on West Lake for Mid-Autumn Festival.

Thursday night English Club!

Zinjingang Campus

We are not in Indiana any more…welcome to the future

September 13, 2014 / Tobiah Meinzen / 0 Comments

Except for the unfamiliar banter around me I might as well be sitting in some coffee shop just blocks away from any American college campus: Worn brick accents on the walls, chic wooden shelves, the occasional potted plant, a wall covered in sticky notes, colorful couches, abundant wifi, and cartoon chalkboard art. Instead I’m in 1897, a little cafe tucked into the first floor of one of the Yuquan Campus’ numerous dorms in Hangzhou.

Mr. Egg, a local English teacher and tutor who I met last Sunday invited me here last night (just a five minute walk through the maze of buildings from my dorm) to participate in another English club. There were seven Chinese at the club this evening. All of us were college students except for Mr. Egg and a guy named Erik, a software designer. I was the only foreigner. Most of the students happened to be studying some form of mechanical engineering which I thought was pretty neat, and provided at least some initial fodder for conversation.

We talked about job aspirations, hometowns, families, sports, transportation (trains and vehicles) and eventually politics. (Fun Fact: Hangzhou grants license plates via a lottery system: 10,000 a month, though they often get 100,000 applicants a month.) Erik asked about my opinion on a Scottish independence. Unfortunately I was caught flat-footed on that particular topic because although I’ve had plenty of time in the last week to indulge my news-reading appetite I had not read anything on the subject. Erik seemed surprising concerned about the economic effects (in China) of Scottish independence. I was at first very surprised, but his reasons were not too far-fetched. Then today on CNN International I noticed an article highlighting fears in China over Scottish independence. Although the article was substantially more focused on the political implications of successful separatist movements.

~ ~ ~ Post interrupted: time to go to dinner with Leifeng, new friend from Sunday’s English club. ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ 24 hours later… ~ ~ ~

Well this place is just incredible.

Leifeng picked up four of us (foreigners), took us to dinner and then an English Club. Now if I’ve experienced any “culture shock” since arriving it hasn’t been the numerous people, the odd smells, the lack of a personal bubbles or the new food—it has been the utter generosity, friendliness, and curiosity of the Chinese. In comparison Americans seem cold, aloof and overly private. Back to the story…

I felt surprisingly safe riding shotgun as Leifeng deftly maneuvered his Porsche Cayenne through the obstacle course that is Hangzhou traffic. Dinner was at a ubiquitous yet wonderful hole-in-the-wall restaurant. At the English Club I spent most of the time talking with a man named Alan, who works in the financial sector. He taught himself English as a hobby, and loves reading classics such as A Tale of Two Cities and keeping up with world (western) news. Though we ended up talking about the cultural differences in relationships, dating, and marriage—why? (Yes, why are on the Chinese so interested in the American hook-up culture and our terrible divorce rate?) Alan’s explanation of for his relationship-oriented questions was brilliant: “Love is universal.” Whew, being a conduit for the American-norm is a rather gargantuan task, though it provided ample opportunity to reflect on norms we take for granted.

Now going back in time by a day: On Wednesday the Valpo/Luther group took a city bus to Zhejiang’s main campus. Huge slate and glass academic buildings surrounded the southern perimeter while an expansive park and lake filled the middle of campus (with dorms on the northern half). No American campus can compare except maybe Stanford. (In an attempt to be politically correct I’ve tried to use United States instead of America whenever possible, but the international community clearly recognizes us as America or American.)

We ate lunch on the Zinjingang campus in at complex that can serve 15,000 students per meal. The cafeteria we were in had a single counter (probably a 100’+ long) with every dish individually plated and a slow progressing crowd of Chinese often two or three people deep filling their trays while the cashiers did the mental addition so fast that number pads would be superfluous. (Turns out the second cafeteria was closed so this one was doing double duty, but for the price and variety I was completely fine with giving up all personal space and tolerating ten minutes of gently pushing through the crowd.)

China has somehow managed to become a model of efficiency (probably out of shear necessity). The controlled chaos of traffic and nonexistent lines can leave more regimented foreigners scratching their heads. It helps immensely that Chinese exhibit very little aggression or need for personal space.

Since ZJU’s orientation doesn’t start until next week our dorm has seen an increasing number of new foreign students arriving in the last few days. In the last hour I made new friends from Belgium, England and France…nothing liking traveling to the opposite side of the globe as a way to make new friends! We’ve shared a meal, visited the ATM and convenience store, climbed the ridge behind campus and are going clubbing together tonight!

Made in China… I’m not the best pink hat model.

Zinjingang Campus

Total Strangers

September 8, 2014 / Tobiah Meinzen / 0 Comments

The Group at West Lake

With the start of the Zhejiang University trimester (and intensive Chinese language classes) still a few weeks away, the Valpo group definitely enjoyed our four-day weekend (ending today). I still feel as though I’m somewhat on summer vacation as homework for the weekend was only a few pages of reflection writing and reading Confucius’ Analects (with rather dense, though helpful, commentary).

One of the neat aspects of studying abroad at a large university is the presence of dozens of other foreign students. Our group from Valpo now includes a German student, two students from Rhode Island U and occasionally students from Long Island U. We’ve met students from England, Italy, and Cameroon.

For the first few nights of the long weekend we explored Hangzhou’s night life. It took us a couple tries to find a bar with a dance floor. The first bar we visited consisted of young Chinese nonchalantly sitting or standing around little tables while colored lights and thunderous music filled the smoky air. The bar we finally settled on was similar but provided a dance floor and a live band covering a variety of American and Chinese pop music.

On Saturday night we went to a ‘KTV.’ KTV is a cross between a karaoke bar and a hotel where our group rented a room (drinks included) for the night equipped with a karaoke machine. We shared many laughs as we sang everything from Beyoncé to Backstreet Boys.

It is also worth noting for my Nutella-loving friends back at Valpo that there is a little crêpe shop just about 100’ from my dorm which makes banana and Nutella crêpes for ¥9 (about $1.50). Actually the abundance of cheap ice cream (including eye-brow raising flavors such as Rye or Wheat) along with numerous little bakeries have definitely increased my desert and pastry intake over the past few weeks.

The highlight of the weekend though definitely had to be Sunday evening.

Sunday morning started off normally. I awoke before seven, went running up the hill behind campus, then returned to the dorm for a breakfast of eggs and noodles. After breakfast I revised my reflection papers, followed the UO vs MSU football game (Go Ducks!) on ESPN Gamecast, read the news, and emailed. After a mid afternoon snack I decided to take my laptop outside to write (the humidity has decreased to a reasonable level finally). I had hardly began my email when a young Chinese couple walked over to me and greeted me in English.

They introduced themselves as Mr. Egg (he likes eggs, though it is pronounced more like ‘Agga’) and Llena. He’s an English teacher and she teaches preschool. Anyway they were participating in a contest to find foreigners and whoever had the most pictures with foreigners wins an iPhone 6 (not sure on the details, but it doesn’t matter). Anyway we get to talking, the common conversation starters: location, vocation, education, time in Hangzhou…

Five minutes later the rest of the Valpo group walks by, returning from a shopping trip to Wal-Mart. They come over and we all get to talking, two more friends of Agga and Llena’s shows up as well. As our group had no evening plans we ended up spontaneously joining the four Chinese and a group of Italian students for dinner at a nearby ‘American’ restaurant/sports bar called the Vineyard (which serves a very interesting potato-carrot veggie burger). Boisterous conversation continued over drinks and cheesy peanut butter bread (yes it is a delicious thing). Dan explained American football to one of them, we talked about sports, hometowns, and shared the occasional crude jokes.

But that’s not all.

After a couple hours at the Vineyard we took taxis across town to a mall/cinema complex where we met another half dozen Chinese at a Starbucks. It turns out that Egg organizes one of many informal “English” clubs around Hangzhou which are drop-in affairs (often meeting in parks or cafes on weekends) aimed to gather Chinese (and native English speakers) to practice and speak in English. So now at this Starbucks I found myself getting dating advice from two young Chinese women. (I had also just divulged pretty much my entire relationship history to them too.) We talked about hair styles (as they couldn’t believe my summertime long-hair and beard photos) and sexual orientation. I didn’t imagine China would be the place where the LGBTQ topic would be addressed so casually.

We then finished off the night at KFC (some of us hadn’t eaten at the Vineyard) where I ended up talking to an electrical engineer (and briefly met a Chinese-American from Detroit who’d worked on hybrid vehicles for Ford). The engineer and I talked a bit about Chinese and U.S. politics, particularly in relation to the economic/construction/housing policies.

So the best evening thus far in Hangzhou was filled with six hours of impromptu conversation with Chinese strangers (with exceptional English) on topics ranging from dating to sports to LGBT issues to politics to careers.

Leaving KFC we walked past a couple of nice cars, just parked in a row amongst the pedestrians. Well not just nice cars, a Maserati, an Audi R8, and a Ferrari California. A few minutes of ogling by the guys ensued. Then we took a taxi back to campus, it was 10:30pm, so much for that email I started at 3…

Welcome to China.

Olympic Park - Beijing

A Grand China Tour

September 2, 2014 / Tobiah Meinzen / 0 Comments

Two days ago the Valpo group returned to Hangzhou after a weeklong whirlwind trip through Chinese religious, cultural and political history. We visited three cities: Qufu, Beijing, and Xi’an. In those cities we toured the following sites (listed in chronological order): The Temple of Confucius, Confucius’ Grave, The Temple (Altar) of Heaven, The Hongqiao Pearl Market, The Great Wall, The Beijing Olympic Park, Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Wild Goose Pagoda, The Terra Cotta Warriors, Xi’an’s Muslim Quarter (including The Great Mosque), and the Shaanxi History Museum.

Now I’ll see if I can compress the highlights of those places into a reasonable length post.

The high speed rail system in China shares more similarities with the American airline industry than our Amtrak. The Hangzhou East Railway station is a huge high-ceilinged building with numerous security check points, fast food joints, and nearly a dozen gates/escalators leading down to the train platforms below. In the train huge windows and ample leg room treated us nicely on our three hour ride to Qufu. The quietness of the train and the smoothness of the ride did much to hide the fact that we cruised at 300km/hr (or ~180mph).

Qufu is a small town (~200,000 pop.) and most notably home to Confucius. As we drove to the walled-in old city we pasted dozens of high-rise apartments in various stages of completions which our guide informed us were part of the “new Qufu.” In Qufu (and likewise in most of China) many historical structures have undergone continual restoration or rebuilds since their original conception centuries ago. The Temple of Confucius is set in a forest with a central corridor which has numerous “gates.” These gates, pavilions, and stone tablets were erected by various dynasties after Confucius as ways to honor him and provide a place to “worship” Confucius. The roofs and eves of the gates and pavilions are massive, repetitive and intricate structures combining brightly painted symbols, patterns, and often dragons. (As an engineer the quantity of rafters looks like overkill.) Stone lions, dragons, and turtles were also common along our path (a few unicorns too)! After the temple we visited Confucius’ simple grave—a giant mound of earth a forest. Smaller mounds at the entrance of the forest were the graves of commoners, and the mounds grew in size with the importance of the thinker they contained.

The next day we took the high speed rail to Beijing. In Beijing we visited the Temple of Heaven (technically it is more like the Altar of Heaven) where the emperor would make biannual prayers and sacrifices to Heaven. Much of the architecture was similar to Qufu, but here the importance of colors (blue roof tiles) and shapes (circular buildings for Heaven and rectangular walls to symbolize Earth) stood out.

We then visited the Hangqiao Pearl Market who’s fourth floor has been visited by numerous foreign dignitaries to shop for jewelry. Meanwhile the bottom three floors are crammed with stalls selling counterfeit design handbags, silk scarves, fake-iPhones, loads of Beats products and other miscellaneous electronics of dubious authenticity. I had fun bartering for fake iPhones and found a few real Galaxy S5s. For dinner the non-vegetarians in the group had Peking duck (a Beijing speciality).

The following day we visited the Great Wall outside of Beijing. The highway weaving up a mountain valley reminded me of Colorado and I had fun climbing and descending the Great Wall——it is the closest I’ve been to hiking a mountain in a long time. After a couple hundred vertical feet the number of folks thins out dramatically and I could more easily ponder the massive effort to both build the wall and run an army up and down the variable height and often far too steep steps. In the afternoon we drove by the Olympic Park, walked through Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, and climbed a hill in a local park to get a 360˚ view of Beijing. Unlike the many cold monolithic monuments of Washington D.C., the Forbidden City is filled with color and extravagant detail, all the while great attention is given to overall symmetry and mathematical relations between walls and buildings.

On Thursday we took the high speed train to Xi’an where we visited the Wild Goose Pagoda—a nearly millennia old Buddhist library and meditation center. Xi’an was a very neat city—it had a newer feeling than both Beijing and Hangzhou, although it is famous for being the ancient capitol city of China. We drove past Aston Martin and Lamborghini dealerships and Gucci and Prada stores. For dinner we found a bustling street near our hotel with numerous locals frying and cooking in little stands where we got some delicious and cheap noodles.

On our second day in Xi’an we visited the Terra Cotta warriors. The vast scale of thousands life-size clay soldiers each unique and detailed make it a well-deserving contender to be the 8th Wonder of the World. In the afternoon we walked through the Muslim Quarter of Xi’an which contained the Great Mosque (one of the first mosques in China)—yet with a small single minaret and Chinese style architecture only the Arabic inscriptions gave away its religious affiliation.

On our final day of traveling with visited the Shaanzi History Museum in Xi’an which contained numerous artifacts and replicas (often undistinguished from the “real” items) from ancient China. The handiwork of their jewelers and stone carvers was quiet impressive though I felt as id most of the exhibits didn’t provide enough historical context to accompany the numerous artifacts.

We then flew back to Hangzhou on a new A321. From jade to jet it was one amazing trip!

Outside the Temple of Confucius

A common occurrence: impromptu photos with locals

A traditional Chinese gate in Qufu

The Great Wall!

#Pride – Luther & Valpo

Hangzhou: First Impressions

August 26, 2014 / Tobiah Meinzen / 0 Comments

It is hard to believe I’ve only been in China for a week. With the exception of the language barrier I feel that I’ve acclimated very quickly to my new life in Hangzhou.

Our group had safe and smooth flight from O’Hare to Shanghai where we met Professor Pati. Even though the flight was 14 hours long we chased the sun westward so the window shades in our 747 were the only respite from continually bright clouds and sky all the way from Chicago to China as we flew over Canada, Alaska, the Bering Sea, South Korea and finally the East China Sea.

We took a bus from Shanghai to Hangzhou, about a two hour trip. It may sound cliche, but as our bus weaved towards Hangzhou I felt as though I had been dropped into a Soviet-era James Bond movie set—the monstrous scale of unfinished apartment complexes, verdant fields and farm houses abutting sprawling power plants, a concrete suspension bridge rising as a sword into the hazy sky, and most of all reddish sunlight filtering through the thick smog.

We spent the next three days exploring Hangzhou. Sometimes as a whole group with Professor Pati and his family, or in small groups or solo. Our wandering walks were thoroughly enjoyable.

Hangzhou truly has a mixed-use transportation grid. Taxis and buses practically clog the streets while bicycles and electric mopeds scurry in and out of traffic, often in dedicated lanes at the edge of the street while pedestrians stroll past various shops and stalls on wide sidewalks. Traffic at first looks to be a recipe for disaster as lanes vanished in intersections—but after further observation it looks as though the Chinese has a much more fluid approach to driving—constantly speeding up, slowing down, weaving around parked cars and mopeds—versus the rigid, aggressive and territorial driving of American cities like Chicago.

Three aspects of Hangzhou though have stood out to me:

First is the widespread aim at electricity and water conservation. Our dorm rations electricity and reduces water pressure to a functional minimum—living at Holden I completely understand the importance of these measures. Recycling receptacles are common sites along city streets and nearly all the apartment buildings surrounding campus have laundry hanging out the window. While the signage and small steps won’t completely satiate China’s consumption it is very heartening to see a government taking conservation seriously.

Second, is the absolute abundance of greenery. When the sun is not blocked by smog or tall buildings I often find myself under a roof of leaves—the street just outside my dorm is a verdant tunnel. Shrubs and trees hug the sidewalks and squeeze between buildings. The Zhejiang University campus where I’m living abuts a ribbon of forested hills which contains numerous trails—the ridge trail probably runs at least a dozen miles to the south. Only a mile or so from campus is West Lake (think China’s equivalent of Central Park). I spent on free day walking around the Lake (about 10 miles)—the park space was well maintained and lovely. The use of well-marked paths cordoned off green areas allows lush vegetation to thrive among the throngs of locals and tourists.

Third, the Chinese people are incredibly friendly. Growing up in Eugene I was used to making eye-contact with strangers in passing and saying ‘hello.’ The shear volume of people make that difficult in Hangzhou, but whenever I (or our group) stumbled through a food menu or asked for directions or found a local English speaker they were always more than happy to help. When walking around West Lake I was invited by an elderly gentleman to visit the “English Corner” where every Sunday locals gather to practice their Chinese. Never in the US could I imagine myself (or anyone else) spontaneously spending twenty minutes of my day telling total strangers in a city park about my life, but there I found myself in front of a score of inquisitive Chinese.

Currently I’m sitting in a Beijing hotel room, tomorrow we climb the Great Wall—so more stories and pictures will be coming soon!

Shanghai Airport: Still smiling 15 hours later!

The International Dorm

Walking Near West Lake

West Lake

Hangzhou, China: Tomorrow*!

August 19, 2014 / Tobiah Meinzen / 0 Comments

With the exception of a few hours in Canada I have never been out of the United States, now I’m less than 48 hours away from beginning four months living on the opposite side of the globe. Wow.

At this time tomorrow I’ll be boarding a Boeing 747 at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport with half a dozen of my Valpo peers and a couple students from Luther College in Iowa for a direct flight to Shanghai. At the Shanghai Pudong International Airport we will meet our Valpo advisor for our semester China, Professor Pati who holds the Surjit S. Patheja Chair in World Religions and Ethics at Valparaiso University.

The Chicago Skyline from Millennium Park

Hanging out with Valpo friends at the Bean yesterday.

I arrived in Chicago yesterday after spending a short month at home in Eugene, Oregon filled with camping and hiking adventures. Going to school at Valpo and spending my summers working in Alaska I’ve become a fairly decent domestic traveller and I hope my compact packing and public transit experience will translate to an smooth time across the Pacific.

Packing almost done!

My knowledge of Mandarin is nill, as an engineering major the semester in China for me is purely for the experience. I’m especially glad that most of my peers know some Chinese and have travelled to China before. We will be living in an international dorm building on one of Zhejiang University’s campuses in Hangzhou, China. Besides taking Mandarin we will also have classes on Chinese History and East Asian religions.

Given that this is my first time overseas I’m not at all sure what to expect and have thus tried to keep my assumptions to a bare minimum. I expect my biggest difficulty will be the language barrier—I’m not good at language to begin with, especially distinguishing subtle tonal differences in words. (How did I make it in choir? Good question, I still don’t know myself.) Therefore I’m going to have to try extra hard to be outgoing and form connections with my Chinese peers. Hopefully the linguistic hurdles I will undoubtably encounter are more often humorous than frustrating.

Although I will be far more informed about my new city in a few weeks I also realize that the “small” (6 million) city of Hangzhou will be a new type environment as well. The ‘big Alaskan town’ I worked in has hardly two thousands residents and barely 50 miles of roads total, Eugene qualifies as a city with a big university and approximately 200,000 people and Valpo is distinctly small town at 30,000. So my brief visits to Chicago are the closest I’ve come to somewhere like Hangzhou. Luckily Hangzhou has generous green space around West Lake which is located near the city center which I look forward to exploring. And explore I shall!

*It might be Thursday by the time we actually get to Hangzhou, not sure how it all shakes out with the International Date Line and time zones.

Introduction: Tobiah Meinzen in Hangzhou, China!

August 18, 2014 / studyabroad / 0 Comments

For as long as I remember I knew I wanted to study abroad when in college. Growing up I was
interested in exploring new places, a trait I probably inherited from my father, a high school history
teacher who was born in India and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone.

I chose to attend Valpo in part because it provided a flexible schedule for engineers to study
abroad. As an engineer, Valpo’s Hangzhou study center is a huge asset. Given the huge manufacturing
and economic resources of China, collaboration with China has become a crucial element of any large
engineering transnational corporation, especially the consumer electronics industry which I am
particularly interested in.

When the Caterpillar Scholarship became available, it made my decision even easier. My
engineering advisor and I had already set aside the fall 2014 semester for me to study abroad.

I think the biggest way I have prepared for studying abroad (besides Valpo’s pre departure class)
has been by reflecting on my previous experiences moving to entirely new places: Holden Village,
Alaska, and Valpo.

In reflection, I have found that it is often the little things that are most surprising or hardest to
adapt to. I know there will be obvious differences between myself and the residents of Hangzhou,
language being the biggest. But by recognizing the big differences it is often possible to miss the effects
of the little differences.

For instance, when I worked at Holden Village a political philosophy was very obvious in daily
life and religious services, yet when I arrived at Valpo I found that politics could be a very polarizing
topic and were thus not talked about frequently. This difference in the treatment of political issues is
surely one I’ll have to be aware of in China where the government is relatively authoritarian.

Another difference I found was in attitudes towards recycling and consumption (aspects of
environmentalism). Holden Village was very aware of their environmental impact and we hand-sorted
all the trash and recycling, whereas at Valpo recycling is a much more passive act, simply a different
colored bin and in Alaska there were no recycling facilities, most of their trash is incinerated.

Therefore I have found that awareness for little aspects of a new culture/society can have a
dramatic impact on how I conduct myself in society and can help easy my transition into a new culture/
environment.

!Additional Note: Since graduating high school I have maintained my own blog at
blog.tobiahmeinzen.com (80 posts, 5000+ views) which details my travels including 9 months spent at
Holden Village and two summers working in Dillingham, Alaska. Both experiences have been similar to
study abroad in the sense that I moved to a new location without any connections. My posts from my
time at Holden and in Alaska include photos, details of day-to-day life and reflections on my experiences
in those places.

Putting the ‘study’ in study abroad

November 19, 2013 / studyabroad / 0 Comments

“Studying is an easy aspect of studying aboard to neglect. While we all came here as exchange students knowing that we would have to go to class and study as if we were at home, it’s very easy to get swept up in the exciting and new environment around you and forget all about classes.

Last week we had midterms that counted for seventy percent of our grade. We had four midterms in total covering each of our class. If I had been asked a week before midterms what helped improve my Chinese language skills the most while in China I would have said it had been my day to day interactions with the people in my area. It was not until I started studying for my midterms that I realized why my interactions with people in China had helped improved my Chinese language skills so dramatically.

Every lesson I learned in class gave me the foundation I needed so that I was able to build on it through my daily activities. I never noticed before how dependent the amount I learned outside of the classroom was on what I learned inside the classroom. The material I was taught inside of my different classes allowed me to retain the information I received outside of them.

While studying for our exams last week was both stressful and tedious, it gave us the chance to reflect on how far we have come in such a short while. What I will take away from last week’s midterms is to appreciate the study aspect of study abroad because despite the fact that the classes can be difficult at times, they have greatly influenced my experience in China and have pushed me to strengthen my skills and understanding of the Chinese language.” -Marquisha

Trip to Beijing!

November 19, 2013 / studyabroad / 0 Comments

“About a week ago we traveled to Beijing for the weekend. There was some hesitation early in the week as pollution there has been quite bad. But we took off, knowing the conditions would not be ideal, but that the iconic sights would still be there.

We left early Friday morning from the station and proceeded to sit for about 5 hours on the long but fast ride. We were greeted upon arrival by Professor Lin (he had been touring the country for a week), who put us on a bus and took us to the Temple of Heaven, where we were welcomed by rain, pollution, and our tardiness. We were unable to actually enter parts of the Temple as it was too late in the afternoon. The Temple itself is a humongous park/square type of place with some interesting history relating to the emperor and The Mandate of Heaven.

After a walk around the Temple, we came out by the Pearl Market, where we were those typical tourists bartering and consuming in the portrayed Chinese market. We bought and bought and asked for cheaper prices. Still, a noteworthy place.

Dinner was incredible that night. We celebrated a couple of birthdays in the group over Beijing Duck at one of China’s most famous Beijing Duck restaurant chains. Professor Lin ordered well and we all enjoyed ourselves.

Professor Lin left Saturday open for us to plan our own day. That meant many different things for all of us. However, we all started the day out together by going to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Tiananmen Square is comparable to the National Mall in DC. On the four sides of the square lie The Forbidden City, The National Museum, The Building of the People’s Congress, and Mao’s Mausoleum. Some of us toured the sites around the square. I chose not to, and I spent my day with a friend eating great food, walking around Hou Hai (a lake surrounded by shops and restaurants in old buildings), and shopping at Beijing’s markets.

Sunday morning we woke up ready to visit one of the sites of the Great Wall. After two days of pretty horrible smog, we woke up to a clear, blue, and beautiful sky. After a short drive but a long trip to the site, we were dropped off at the foot of a mountain. While there, we had a couple of hours to make a climb up and down the wall. I think most of us found the site pretty incredible, as the hype of the site was matched by our experience. A noteworthy feature: the discrepancies between the sizes of the steps. This made the climbs up and back intriguing as some steps varied very noticeably in height.

After the Wall, Lin treated us to another huge meal. We followed that with a traffic-filled ride back to the train station and long ride back to Hangzhou. Overall, a very enjoyable weekend. While we spent a short amount of time in Beijing, I don’t think any of us wasted time, as we all were able to visit and experience the parts and sights of Beijing we found most fascinating. Hopefully though, the short stay there will prompt us all to return and experience more of the nation’s capital. ”

-Calvin

Valpo Voyager

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