Qi and Cheese in China

Land o' Lakes is in China! You go Minnesota.
This has nothing to do with my blog post...

China brought a lot of anticipation and a lot of stress. It happened to be the final country before our Christmas extravaganza in Hong Kong and the arrival of many of our families and loved ones for winter vacation. So our time in China was often spent making travel plans, attempting to muster up Christmas cheer and make the arrival of the holidays as special as possible. Oddly, one of the places I found comfort was in one of the three Starbucks in Fuzhou, which happened to have its grand opening while we were visiting. I’m not a coffee drinker or a café-goer at home, and if I ever did decide to spend an afternoon in a café, it certainly wouldn’t be a Starbucks. It would be a Caribou J. But the moment I stepped into this place, I felt a little pang of comfort and American pride. The soothing smell, the cleanliness, the holiday cups, the photos of Seattle on the walls and the cheezy Christmas slogans. And the BATHROOMS! China is great for many reasons, but the public facilities are not one of them. I won’t go into the details but suffice it to say that they are pretty awful. So when I stepped into Starbucks’ brand new, chicly lit bathroom complete with a seated toilet, air freshener, toilet paper, soap AND paper towels, I took an extra minute or two to wipe.

The holiday music was such a nice surprise too. Harry Conick Jr., Joss Stone, Paul McCartney, and my favorite: “Mistletoe and Holly” by Frank Sinatra. It made studying for our two classes (taking more than one class at a time seems so impossible now) significantly more enjoyable.

Let me take a step back for a second to explain the whole China situation. As I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post, the group was stationed in dorms at Hwa Nan Women’s college in the outskirts of Fuzhou, a fairly large city in Fujian Province. Many of the Chinese students spoke English, but it wasn’t uncommon for them to nervously avoid speaking to us on account of the celebrity status we achieved the moment we arrived. We were definitely the entertainment of the year for these girls and I felt like I was being watched wherever I went.

But the reactions to our group went both ways. The other 50% of the Chinese students couldn’t get enough of us. All they wanted to do was spend time with us, whether it was out of a desire to practice their English or to associate themselves with the famous foreigners I’m not sure.

Anyway, Hwa Nan was one of about a dozen colleges in the university district of Fuzhou – a vast, sprawling region at the foot of a surrounding mountain range, which I never did learn the name of. 

The campus seemed huge when we first arrived, but it turns out there are only about 2500 students – comparable to Puget Sound. There is a nice pond in the center, one of which can be found on many college and business campuses in China for the feng shui value.

The dorms were simple and cold, in temperature and atmosphere. Buildings aren’t built with heaters anywhere in the south of China, even though it can get to be between 40 and 50°F. Only the Foreign Teachers Building had portable heating units in the living spaces, which we were lucky to have been able to access. But the dorms gave us all we needed. The female Pacrimmers stayed four to a room on bunks, each room with one shower, sink and squat toilet. We had warm comforters, a water heater and a few small foam cots to place on our bunks.

It was sparse and not super comfortable for me, but I’m not complaining. We were pretty lucky actually, considering the Chinese girls live eight to a room, without laundry facilities or mattresses. That’s right, they sleep on nothing but reed mats spread over the wooden bunks. And I thought my back was sore…

We ate in the cafeteria with the other students and had class everyday in a REGULAR classroom! It’s CRAZY how normal it was. We didn’t have a whole lot of opportunities to explore the area, because there is literally nothing around Hwa Nan but other university campuses. There were various “student streets” a short walk away with fast food vendors (nothing like American fast food), clothing shops, knockoffs and lots and lots of bubble tea. The college students’ only connection with the outside world came from the 89 bus line, which ran into the heart of Fuzhou. It was right off of this line that the Starbucks was located.

I know I have been talking a lot about how I had been planning to tackle China with renewed vigor and curiosity, and tackle China I did. But thoughts of the holidays encouraged me to make room for a few non-Asian indulgences.

One of my favorite memories of my time in China was the discovery of the Anne of Green Gables series on DVD in the Foreign Teachers House library. When I say library, I mean amalgamation of English books (mostly classics) and various VHSs and DVDs that had been left behind over the years by Western English teachers during their one or two year teaching gigs at Hwa Nan. The DVD selection is limited to say the least and I was so happy to discover not only that it contained such a major part of my childhood entertainment, but also two other Pacrimmers who shared my love for the fiery redhead. Thank you to Selina and Rachael! I thoroughly enjoyed our hours spent ogling over Gilbert Blythe.

One of the biggest influences on my experience in China was my Chinese buddy, Sophie. She and 24 of her English-speaking classmates were chosen to serve as our guides to Fuzhou culture, much like the PAs in Vietnam. I was SO lucky to have been paired with Sophie, as many of my peers’ buddies didn’t care to keep in touch with them. But Sophie was awesome. She was like a firm but loving big sister to me, always steering me in the right direction in busy crowds and making sure I wore enough warm clothes on cold days. Her family lived about an hour away from campus and she frequently took the bus home, but was more than willing to make the hour-long journey back to Hwa Nan anytime to spend time with me.

I will never forget the afternoon she rode the bus all way to campus just to pick me up and bring me to her home for an incredible Chinese meal cooked by her father. It was one of the best meals of my life for sure, not only because of the incredible unique food, but because of her family's generosity. This was the first time I had really been able to observe family life and domestic culture in any of the countries we’ve been to, and it gave me a much more intimate understanding of the lifestyle of many modern Chinese people.

Apart from Sophie, my next strongest link to Chinese culture was through our Chinese Philosophy class, and the fieldtrips it entailed. It was fascinating to draw connections between the teachings of Confucius, Lao Tzu and other classical philosophers, and modern Chinese culture. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to the most relevant and interesting course material, which had to do with Mao and they way his Cultural Revolution tried to discredit the “old ways,” until the final day or two of class. But I guess that’s the nature of having classes that only last 4 weeks. Stuff goes fast.

One of our best field trips was to WuYi Shan, or WuYi Mountain, the site of the great philosopher Zhu Xi’s ancient retreat center. This place had some good qi, and in order to fully experience it, we took a (chilly) bamboo rafting trip, hiked into the mountains and observed traditional life in the countryside. Of course, in typical PacRim fashion, this was all accomplished in a mere two days.

And I haven’t even begun to talk about the FOOD! More to come.