䷩ 益 Increasing. Favorable to have somewhere to go. Favorable to cross great rivers.

I left China and came back to the US in March 2019. This is a six-part series to look back at my time in the guo.

China Retrospective

A friend of mine said it was very valuable for him to recount the experiences he had in China in a way that his family and friends did back at home. He did this with Microsoft Sway, but since this blog is here I figured it could be done on a webpage.

I’ll be splitting this into six parts: The first, what you’re reading now, is my first week or two in China. The second is the rest of my first semester. The third is traveling with my parents, the fourth is traveling by myself, the fifth my second semester and my departure from Nanjing, and the sixth a summary of what I loved and learned about China – a year after my departure.

Preparing for the Journey

The weeks and days leading to my departure to a year in China was like walking down the basement stairs as a child to get something I needed from down there: On an otherwise bright day, I opened the door to see darkness. In childhood I dreaded the darkness of these stairs and would need to cross through it to turn the light on at the bottom of the steps. Frequently I would close my eyes as it was preferable to catching a glimpse of the monsters that might lurk in the dark.

There was a lot of times I would be with my friends and think that some activity would be the last I would do with them for a long time: The last time at AJ O’Brady’s with the Menomonee Falls crew, the last time having a Computer Society meeting, the last time playing chess with my close friend, the last time having a dinner with my family, the last American “continental breakfast” of cereal and cheap yogurt at the hotel the morning I left.

My visa and packing was done, and on the drive to the airport through the Chicago suburbs I caught my last glimpses of the old cars and anxious American traffic. These were aesthetics that I didn’t realize until a few months into China that were completely unique to the country. As I left the car and said goodbye to my dad, I forgot the package of snacks my mom packed for me in the trunk of the car. My mom in all her loving care always packed some snacks for any trip we did, and I missed the beef jerky and childhood candies during times of homesickness in Nanjing.

Day One

The trip itself was uneventful, and upon arrival in Shanghai I was disoriented and illogical, deciding to take a cheap night bus from the Hongqiao airport all the way to the inner city to the Shanghai Railway station to save maybe $10 on a fast train ticket. After wandering around the airport for hours finding the bus and evading the taxi hawkers, I bought my ticket early that morning (K4028) and boarded a slow train to Nanjing. I couldn’t sleep on the 16+ hour flight to China and arrived on the final day of registration. I was tired but knew I needed to be awake for the next 12 hours. I found a sleeper car and slept in one of many unoccupied beds for the 3 or so hour journey, pretending I didn’t understand the train attendant when they said I needed to pay for the beds rather than the hard seat my ticket indicated.

I arrived at Nanjing Station at 8am and made my way to the student building I heard I needed to get to. Arriving at Gulou station and wandering around with my now-broken luggage, I finally entered the school lobby and talked to the first person in line that looked friendly – A German named Nicolas who ended up being a best friend until the day he left in December. I asked him what lodging was going to be like, and he told me that I would need to get a dorm in the building we were in which was much like a hotel, with shared double dorm rooms. Partly because I didn’t have the money for that yet (let alone the tuition!) I opted for a hotel later that day. Finding the hotel was trouble enough because I wanted something cheap and close to campus, but most cheap options were only for Chinese people – they couldn’t be bothered to go through the foreigner passport registration process.

After dropping off my luggage with a school helper and waiting in line to complete the preliminary things like insurance and photos, I found that the tuition needed to be paid that day. (Later it turns out this was a suggestion, and just needed to be paid by the end of the first week of classes!) So I trudged off to an ICBC and tried to get the money out with my bank card to find a limit of 2500元 when I needed 9500元. This required me to call my parents and ask for a western union transfer, the first of which didn’t go through because I forgot to mark down “Jr.” on the sheet.

Getting back with a bundle of cash, I was told that at that point they were no longer accepting cash, so I should use alipay which needed a Chinese bank account. And wouldn’t you know, the banks were almost closed by then. I couldn’t find the bank in time but was told when I got back that they could wait another week.

Knowing I didn’t have anything else urgent for the day, I slept for the first time since I woke up “that morning” in Chicago in a hard bed at a hotel next to campus.

Days After

After this it was a matter of getting errands done:

• Get bank account
• Get SIM card
• Get apartment
• Take class placement test
• Complete residency registration
• Get medical check
• Get visa

Nothing was too urgent besides housing, and I went through a reality agent named “Sunny” and took the third place I could find: An apartment on 青岛路 a 10 minutes walk from class which had in the house an old lady, an old man, a food delivery driver, a Korean student, and occasionally the lady’s daughter and grandson. A very packed and noisy house. I was told I could use the kitchen but they changed their mind after I signed the lease. Good thing I argued for a 3 month lease vs. 6.

At the reality agent I met a couple, Robin a guy from the Netherlands, and Aga a gal from Poland. Both were also close friends for the rest of the time there.

To hopefully meet some company for the time in China, I arranged a meetup with the three already mentioned, Nicholas, Robin, and Aga. We had some fried rice on the corner of 汉口路 and 青岛路 and shared some beers.

Classes

At first I tested into 中上 but moved up to 中下 for a bit more difficulty. The classes were interesting and completely different from what I had in the US. People were there from all over the world: 40% Koreans, 20% Europeans, and the rest from Japan, Mexico, Russia, and other countries. It’s here in our class that I met another great friend, Dani.

Classes were divided into roughly two hour blocks with 10 minutes in the middle for a break, and there was 20 minute breaks between classes.

The Zonghe (comprehensive) class was taught by a by-the-books teacher straight out of the textbook, but was great for learning grammar and formally looking into reading stories and memorizing vocabulary. We watched videos that pertained to the class and on most days had to memorize vocabulary for a tingxie (listen-write) test where the teacher said a word and we had to write the characters.

The Kouyu (speaking) class was taught by a friendly woman with curly dark hair, classes, and a contagious smile. She would make a goal to have every student say at least a bit of Chinese during each day, which sometimes meant walking around the class and calling on everyone to answer a question.

The Tingli (listening) class… It was frankly a pretty boring and by the books class that most students dreaded, but the teacher was young and with a lot of energy and really tried to teach us some useful young slangy words (like 小姐姐/小哥哥 or 老铁). It helped that developed a crush on her and schemed from the moment of the first class that I would try to get her out on a date (which sort of happened… read on.)

The Newspaper class was reading articles for the first half and then having the teacher talk at us for the second part. Not too interactive and it happened early on Fridays so it’s hard to remember these.

Moving on

After the first few weeks and getting settled into classes, I decided to pursue larger goals like joining student organizations and working myself into the larger world of China vs just the school.

Retrospective & Lessons Learned

• That first day in China was miserable. I woke up early in Chicago and didn’t sleep for more than 24 hours on a day where lots of important stuff needed to get done. But in hindsight, most of the stressful stuff (finding room and board, paying tuition, setting up a bank account) could have waited for a few more days without consequence. It would have helped to either get there a day or week earlier, or to talk to the staff and make absolutely certain there’s no way to postpone some of those tasks.
• The three friends I met that day; Nik, Robin, and Aga, were all met in stressful situations. During those moments you realize how powerful a relationship formed from mutual struggle can be, and how important it is to make friends in a new environment.
• Developing a crush on a teacher really helps you pay attention and do all the homework for that class.
• Moving to a class more difficult than the level you tested into is great if you’re willing to put up with the work. I think there’s some principle about how you’ll rise to the average of a group, and that’s especially true with learning a language. Surrounding yourself with people better than you at a given skill should bring you up to their level higher.