Inaugural Post, 8/31/2009 – 学期开始 - 开学 (The Semester Begins – Classes Begin)

I have now been in China for about 6 days and all I can say is that it’s been one experience after another. I always knew that it would be something completely foreign from the way I’ve lived in the United States, but it is almost impossible to understand the degree of otherness which has characterized my time in China so far. The (shameless) stares, the (loud) sounds, the (bad) smells, the (disgusting) hocking of spit into the street, it’s as though they have taken every bad habit that could manifest itself in a person and multiplied it by 1.4 billion. Then they took 5 million of those people and put them into a city where you have to wear a light jacket during the day in late August, let alone what you have to wear in the dead of winter. But despite all these things, you can find something to enjoy in Harbin, such as eating for less than a dollar; being able to enjoy a big bottle of hapi (Harbin Beer) with a big plate of dumplings and baozi or ma la mian; or also explaining to the Chinese that even though she is White and I’m Black we are both still American and yes, my entire family is American.


I’m looking forward to the start of classes today. These past six days have made me feel a little bit useless, as we’ve been moving from city to city and from hotel to hotel, eating out in big groups and walking aimlessly around the city to pass the time. However, given the fact that I can’t speak any English, I’m a little nervous. Even just starting the pledge last night I felt myself fading fast from all of the entra energy I had to expend just to get myself to have a five-year old level conversation with my classmates. It is frustrating when you can’t figure out how to express yourself or understand what your teacher or your roommate or the people on the street are trying to say to you, and when you don’t have English as a safety net you lose any remaining sense of comfort that you somehow would have retained despite being on the opposite side of the world from everything that you’ve known. But I took a pledge and I’m stuck with it until December 12 when I complete all of my exams. I figured that if I work hard for the next two weeks my Chinese will improve to the extent that I won’t get so tired just from trying to have a semidecent conversation with my roommate or my classmates. As for the professor that I have to do research with, I just hope that I can somehow understand him and slap something together to present to the teachers by the end of the semester.