Feeding Time at the (Student) Zoo

Taken at the middle/high school located beside my university (Dongcai). 

Every day, this couple would bring lunch to the students and pass it to them via the school gates. Because of the large amount of food and specificity of the orders, I believe the parties on both sides of the gates had an agreement in place for this daily routine. 

Admit it, with the iron bars and the frantic manner in which the students try to hand over money and get their food, you can't help but make the mental jump to "zoo".

Photo of the Day: The South Gate

The back walk-up to Dongcai, where I studied Chinese in the fall semester. I didn't live in the international student dorms so I had to commute every day; class ended daily at noon and I would usually walk through this gate to reach the 202 tram.

There were two other gates, Main and East, but this exit was lined with many cheap lunch-time food options. Not long after the semester began, I fell into a very predictable routine of going from class to the same noodle shop every day before heading back to my apartment.

The university and actual gate in this picture are past where the pink buildings are. For the record, this was probably the West Gate. I just labeled it South in my mind because it was on a downhill slope.

Photo of the Day: Modernity

What's that in the sky? It's a bird- it's a plane- it's yet another highrise! As with most of industrialized China, there is always something bigger, taller, and shinier being built. I heard that along the beach, apartment ads would claim they had the "best view" of the ocean...until another development would spring up, higher and even closer to the beach, blocking the original one's ocean view and selling point.

The blue train at the bottom is the 202 tram that ran north to south in Dalian (the 201 ran east to west and was more of an old-fashioned trolley). I rode this tram for twenty minutes every day at noon to get home from university. I didn't dare ride it during morning rush hour, though, because I like having enough oxygen to breathe.

Photo of the Day: More fun with signs

Another favorite sign of mine (the other being this one), also found on the Dongcai side of town. I have no idea what it's referencing, since you don't see tractors nor horses in cities like Dalian. Or cities in China in general, since there'd be no place for them on the roads.

Photo of the Day: Detour

Apologies for the weekend hiatus, went home for some business.

Story behind this photo: I got lost on my way to lunch one warm September day (I got off at the right bus stop, but started walking north instead of south) and ended up on a very isolating walk up the hills between Dongcai and Liaoning High School. I found this flower vine blossoming in the cement jungle towards the end of this hike. I wound up nearly half an hour late to lunch, but it was a lovely diversion.

-Insert your own cliche analogy about the lone wild flower here-

Photo of the Day: The 406

The 406 bus in Dalian. Fairly empty and calm; during rush hour (and even when it's not rush hour) the buses can get extremely packed. For Westerners with a sense of a 'personal bubble' (and with a sense of smell) it can be a bit uncomfortable. Sardines in a can comes nowhere close to just how tightly packed you are- I've had many a bus ride where I didn't even have to hold onto anything and I still managed to stay completely still and upright on the bumpy bus ride.

Photo of the Day: 东北财经大学

The main building of 东北财经大学, or the Dongbei University of Finance and Economics.

The Chinese language students were only in there for the 'opening ceremony', the Chinese studies building and international dorm was a few hundred feet to this building's left.

Photo of the Day: Student Lunches

[The girl in the blue is the one I'm currently visiting in South Carolina for Spring Break.]

Eating lunch with my classmates (the two girls and guy in the foreground), all of them American. Class ended at 12 every day and there was an endless amount of choices for food around the Dongcai campus. They were all incredibly cheap too; usually costing 5 rmb for a bowl of noodles (~75 cents) or 7-10 rmb per person to share dishes 'family-style' as we're doing above.

Photo of the Day: No Exploding Cars

One of my favorite signs. Chinese below it translates to "urban area."

Taken on my daily 8 am commute to class; bus stop was behind me and Dongcai is just ahead on the left.

Photo of the Day: 广告

Outside the University of Finance and Economics (Dongcai), where I spent my second semester studying Chinese. (广告 means advertisement)

Photo of the Day: College Shopping

The Trust-Mart (like a Chinese version of Carrefour or Tesco) across the street from the side gates of Dongcai, our university

Election from abroad

It's easy to be left out of the loop when living abroad. I have no idea what movies or songs are popular back home right now, what the latest trends are, what's the big marketing campaign for Halloween and Thanksgiving, and I'm okay with all that because it keeps life simpler.

The only real downside was when it came to the election. I woke up Tuesday morning slightly excited about the election, about change on the horizon...only to remember that I was 13 hours ahead of the States (Daylight Savings Time couldn't have been pushed back another week, no?) and had another 36 hours to wait for results.

Wednesday morning I bolted out of bed at my normal time of seven am...only to remember again I still had yet another hour before polls started closing. Leanna was worse than I was; halfway through our first class she remembered about the election, after which she started to freak out, "What if Obama doesn't win?"

We get three breaks during our four hours of class, and during each break someone was running back to the dorms to check the votes. After the first break it was 77-34 Obama, but an hour later he had already climbed past 100. At the last break Sam, a Korean American friend, rushed into my classroom and raised his arms into the air and yelled, "Obama's our new president!!", effectively making all the Koreans and Russians very wary of us Americans.

To be fair, they had good reason to be wary. Many of us, like myself, had been abroad for the majority of the campaign season, including the climax over the last few months. Our celebration was weak at best, and constituted mainly posts on each others' facebooks and texting each other in all caps (it was only 1 pm our time after all), but we were rejoicing the fact that after all the turmoil we could only read about and missed out on, we had at least one reason to look forward to going home.

An interruption post about volleyball

I know I'm behind on National Holiday and my subsequent trip to Shanghai, but today was amazing and deserves its own post while I'm still reveling in it.

The Chinese language department had a volleyball tournament between all the classes over the last couple weeks, and my class had been doing pretty well. I always went home right after class so I never checked it out, but today Leanna had another class so I agreed to step in for her just for the first half hour because the rules stated every team needed at least two females.

Well turns out one of my classmates is actually a volleyball coach, and three other students (two Korean and one Russian) were also really good. I played on a team for two years, but that was like five years ago, so only basic skills like underhand serving and passing/setting really remain. I was more backup; but the coach and one of the tall Korean guys set up a set and spike almost every single volley, I was very impressed with our reaction times and strategic movement.

Our first two games we beat the other team 25-21 and 25-23, then the next two they beat us 25-18 and 25-20 (or something close to that). So going into the last game the refs (just young Chinese students) said we were only playing to 15 points...we ended up neck and neck the entire way, and the game finally ended with a tense 19-17. In all the games I played on a team I never was so into a game, nor did I enjoy winning a game so much. We ended up winning the Final as well after that, though it wasn't as much of a challenge.

It was fun as well because they mixed rules; you could use any part of your body- meaning you could kick the ball, bounce it off your head, etc...I made an incredible save by bouncing one off my shoulder.

I was impressed, I think every one of my classmates made it out to see the match by the end. So I got to interact with them outside of the classroom, and am now fully convinced we are the best class ever, we have the greatest personality and energy. They were all waving around trash bags making noise and the most enthusiastic la la dui (cheerleading squad), even when it started to drizzle and the sky started darkening at 4:30. My listening and intensive reading teacher even showed up. I'm so glad I decided to stay and experience the Chinese university life for once instead of going back to my apartment and lounging about on my laptop like I always do.

Four hours after we'd started, we finally finished taking pictures, getting our prizes (giant 'premium containers' of Nescafe) and congratulating each other, and we all went our separate ways...but I still get to see them tomorrow morning! As if leaving Dalian in two months weren't hard enough, now I'm in love with my class....