About four days ago I arrived in China, in my opinion the perfect time to reflect on what has happened in the past days. I will try to keep you updated with a lot of amusing stories ( =) ) and hopefully some pictures to give you a good impression of my year. But, first of all…
… what the hell am I doing in China?
Well, that’s a question I’ve asked myself a lot of times in the past days. First part of the answer: I am doing a year-long voluntary service at the Information Center of the German Academic Exchange Service at the Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China. Second part: I’m taking a year off between Bachelor and Master to learn Chinese and get an impression of the Chinese culture. This is why I’ve been taking Chinese courses, freaking out about weight limit of 30 kg for my flight and trying to read a lot of books on China. However, September 20th approached fast and I still felt unprepared.
September 20th, 2011
On the day I was supposed to leave I still had to pack and organize a lot of things. A long time it looked like it was going to be close, but finally we arrived at Hamburg Airport about 3 hours before take-off. Luckily, I decided to check my luggage in early, because as it turned out there were some unexpected problems with my Chinese visa. Nevertheless, on time at 9:25 pm my plane and I took off with the direction of Dubai Airport. With lots of delicious food and about 2 movies and a little bit of sleeping later I arrived in Dubai just to take off 5 hours later with the direction of Guangzhou. After landing and about an hour of standing in line at the immigration control I was picked up by a Chinese student to be taken to the Campus and the hostel.
Something between Mumbai and New York
How to describe my impressions of Guangzhou? The area around the Sun Yat-Sen 大学 (Sun Yat-Sen University) reminds me of certain areas in Mumbai, India: Huge streets, lots of cars and masses of people (only the cows, goats and buffalos in the middle of the streets are missing). Also the smell here in Guangzhou is different, somehow it’s sweeter. On the other hand, a couple of subway stations further downtown huge, silver and extremely modern skyscrapers remind me of New York and its skyline. To my surprise Guangzhou is a very green city. Not at all how I imagined a Chinese city with 12 million inhabitants. However, I expect to be more surprised, the more I see from Guangzhou.
About doves and other interesting stuff
The first days were filled with a couple of ‘firsts’ (like the first time I ate dove or the first time a Chinese person understood a sentence I said) and lots of organizational stuff: apartment hunting, getting money, choosing a ‘good’ cell phone number, and so on and so on… wait! A good cell phone number? How can a cell phone number be good or bad? This is actually quite interesting: as the Chinese word for the number four (sì = 四) sounds the same as the Chinese word for death (si = 死), four is considered an unlucky number. Particularly bad is the combination 145 (wuyaosi), which sounds like wo yao si (我要死), which translates to “I want to die”. Eight (ba = 八) on the other hand stands for money and fortune. So a cell phone number containing lots of eights and no fours is better than one with lots of fours. Unfortunately I was not too successful and ended up with two fours and no eight. Ils sont fous les Chinois…
Questions…
Over the past days thousands of questions have crossed my mind, this is to give you a small impression: How do I find out my inner temperature or my inner humidity? How many people fit into a 36 story apartment building? How expensive should a one bedroom apartment be? For the sake of positive Feng Shui, is it really sensible to have two nightstands instead of one? How high is the electricity bill to illuminate the Zhu Jiang (珠江 = Pearl River) every night? What food is considered ‘cold’ and what ‘warm’ (for those of you that are now thinking: ‘what the heck, warm food is warm and cold food is cold!’ Not with the Chinese. I will keep you updated once I find out what system there is behind those categories)? When will I be able to understand a Chinese real estate agent? Do you take the furry toilet-seat-cover off before going to the toilet? How do I get the Chinese taxi driver to drive to my new apartment without sufficient Chinese from my side and no street name knowledge from his side? What’s the shortest way from my apartment to work? How hard does a mattress have to be?
I am dying to know the further adventures! Please continue to post! Jim and I are watching from afar and enjoying your posts!