It's Been 10 Months in China: Where I'm At

 

West Lake, Hangzhou

 Wowzas. It's been a loooooong time since I've written a blog post. Like, since I lived in Japan-long. Now I'm in China and I've almost been here for 10 months. I started out my Chinese life with vlogging to keep track of my life, let me condense my feelings, and show others who haven't been to China before what life is like here in this huge, Communist country. However, my willingness to sit down in front of my camera and to later edit my video together has unfortunately fizzled out recently. Part of it's just laziness, the other part is that it's just embarrassing to record yourself and have to watch it later. (It's not just me, right?)

Check out my YouTube channel, JosieInChina, if you haven't already!

     However, I thought, why don't I just sit down and write down my thoughts? It's been a while since I could utilize this kind of stream-of-consciousness. I'm not exactly a concise writer and I'm definitely not good at keeping a logical sequence going (even in English!) but let's have a little conversation about China, shall we? I might be doing a fair-share of the talking though, hope that's ok with you. Hear me out...

    First things first, and it's going to sound all sappy and romantic, but to boil down my reason for being in China, it's this: I'm here because of love. Because I went to Japan and fell in love with a Chinese man. And I continue to fall more and more in love with him every day.

    Don't get me wrong, we have our moments of miscommunication and stubbornness, but we're both willing to make things right sooner rather than later. Also, we both have a foreigner for a spouse. You've gotta meet in the middle. Your foreign spouse is never going to connect-the-dots in the same way as you. Things you know to be common sense have to be laid out in terms clearer-than-crystal. You have to show and teach on a constant basis, whether it be language, cooking, or your own country's customs. Thankfully, this is a life the two of us enjoy. I feel like it's such an adventure to live with and love someone who's first language is not your own.

One of our Chinese wedding photos

    All in all, I'm very lucky that I got into the botany department of Zhejiang University, otherwise I probably wouldn't be here. Zhejiang University is one of the best universities in China. At the time I applied, I was afraid with my less-than-perfect college GPA, lack of Chinese-language skills, and the fact that I almost failing my physics course, that I'd never have a chance. Whether it was fate or just the fact that the university was hungering for more American students, I got in. I can still remember screaming when I finally got my acceptance email. My mom also started yelling and my dog, Mika, started scrambling around my feet trying to find out what the hell happened.

The front gate of Zhejiang University (浙江大学) on a snowy, December day

    For Americans coming to China, you'll need a visa of one type or the other. After a little research, I found out that being a Chinese national's fiance really doesn't help out your visa situation. Even if you're married, for a marriage visa to be considered valid, you can't be studying or working in the country. So, what are you supposed to do? Be a housekeeper? NO thanks.

This is the symbol of Hangzhou (杭州)-can you see the characters in the shadow? Hint:they're reversed.

    So, let's start off with the basics! I live in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province which is considered to be sub-tropical Southeastern China in geological terms. To put it in simple terms, Hangzhou definitely has four solid seasons and they are hot, mildly hot, cold, and mildly hot again. Maybe you can tell that I don't do well with heat. Nope, not at all. There's a reason why Hangzhou is labeled as "one of the three furnaces of China." If it's possible, I think summer in Hangzhou is even hotter and more humid than summer in Kyushu, Japan and much colder in the winter. In the summertime, while my husband, Lu, slept soundly under a comforter I pushed that hot blanket and his body heat as far away as I could on our bed and slept with the fan pointed at me whilst I sweated like a marathoner on a 100 degree-day. Once rainy season (occurring now) is over, it'll be back to that unbearable heat. For once, I'm not minding these cold, rainy days. At least it's not hot yet~

Photo of Shnaghai's Hongqiao Railway Station- Shutterstock

For some distance perspective, we're about a 50 minute bullet-train ride from Shanghai's biggest train hub: Shanghai Hongqiao Station. The Hangzhou East Railway Station (杭州东点) is only two subway stops from our Datieguan (打铁关) station, making it very convenient to travel out of town. Speaking of convenience, is there anything more convenient and pleasant than shrinking a normally 3- hour journey into 50 minutes on a clean and efficient train? Furthermore, the ticket only costs $16 USD. Covering the same distance by train in the U.S. is about 10x more expensive. 

    My husband (like all other Chinese people) refer to Hangzhou as a "small" town. Ahahah. Small my a**. If a city has 9 million people and growing, I'd consider that a BIG city. Considering that 9 million people is more of a population than my entire home state of Washington, I consider it with a little bit different outlook than a Chinese person. So, for future reference, if a Chinese person tells you that they come from a "small city," take their words with a grain of salt. Or ten. 

My panorama of downtown from the Hangzhou Sports Center where we sometimes go to play badminton together.

    But you can't blame them as China has a total population of over 1 billion. In fact, some Googling tells me that China had a population of 1.3 billion in 2013. 

    Even with the Hangzhou municipal government limiting the amount of cars that can be on the roads (depending on your license plates you can't drive on certain days of the week, in certain, usually congested places like West Lake, or at certain times of the day) it's still always possible to get in a thick traffic jam, no matter where or what time of day. It drives Lu crazy. Honestly, it's been such a constant inconvenience the whole time I've been here, I'm expecting to encounter bad traffic any time I go out. If we have the choice, we go by bicycle. It's always faster and it's good exercise. 

We often cycle to and around West Lake

    So, I can hear the question you have lingering in the forefront of your mind: how's your Chinese? If I was here to study purely Chinese, I think I'd be much better. But I'm not. I'm here to study ecology. Honestly, it's just enough to get by on my own. I can't hold much of a conversation besides asking someone's name, where they're from, what they study/do for work. I can read most short sentences. I do know and recognize a lot of random foods, especially fruits and vegetables, so that helps when I go shopping or go out to eat. I took an intro-level Chinese class as it's required for international postgrad students (and, of course, I wanted to) but the pace was too slow and I would have rather just taught myself. I pulled an A. I tried to take the Intermediate course the next semester and it was waaaay too advanced for me and the class was full, so I gave up on hoping to learn from a university class. Zhejiang University really dropped the ball with that. How do they expect us to learn Chinese? 

In the meantime, I continue to do self-study with a textbook and listen from Lu. I also practice Chinese characters in a primary-colored practice book meant for little Chinese kids. I have no shame. As much as my Chinese friend says it's not an effective way to learn, I'll prove her wrong. It's basically how I learned Japanese, and Japanese characters are nine times out of ten more complicated than Chinese characters, 汉字. 

On the last day of Chinese New Year out in the festively-decorated square of our apartment complex

      In this post, I hope I was able to give you a little idea of what my life in China is like. Of course, this is just a introduction, so I wasn't able to delve into too many specific details. I'd like to in the future. I really want to go into detail about culture differences because boy, there are a lot!! I really appreciate hearing first-hand accounts from other people in foreign countries. I often check books out of the library based on people's stories of living abroad because I find it so fascinating.

   Hope to talk more soon!
      Josie