The great wall last week was good -the 2+ days I spent at CSR conferences were nice, and seeing my roommates return was also a nice change... but nothing compares to my weekend in Tianjin where I was helping one of our newest AIESEC branches with their first real recruitment.
Inbetween eating Tianjin's local delicacies (goubuli, shibajiemahua and fantastic breakfast snacks) I was handing out flyers at canteens; doing another 15 minute speech to 100 chinese students and coaching 4 lovely girls from Nankai University. Oh, and whilst riding one of their bikes, with the owner of the bike on the back, I managed to completely mangle the wheel!
It was great fun walking into a 'water bar' (sells fruit jiuces for the less alocoholic of Chinese students) that has 8 tables and 15 chairs, and then rearranging it to squeeze 50 students on chairs, plus 5 facilitators and 4 laptops (strategically located around the room) whilst the staff sold the students cold drinks (only 1 fan, no a/c, and the drinks were fantastic). Then I was listening to students talk about 'whether China's reaction to Japan is fair' and 'should gay people be allowed to raise children' (not something that is particularly controversial in the UK but thought of differently here I've learned).
Apart from the dancing in the middle of the campus (looking like a real idiot trying to copy the video playing on my laptop balanced on top of a nearby car) and playing name games near 1 of the exits of the Uni; I spent the 2 nights in one of the male dorms.
I've seen several dorms before, but not for long or in much detail, so was kind of excited to stay in one. It was one of the slightly more expensive ones (about 50 UK pounds for an entire academic year, which is almost double the cheapest ones). The cheapest are 6-8 per room with a central desk to share, mine was 4 per room each with a desk under their (raised) bed. Actually at this University I don't think there were curfews, and my building even had a lift (only 7 floors -I think anything above 5 tends to have a lift in China). Weird experiences:
#1 the bathroom: a long sink with several taps and a pipe in the corner for shower (so kind of public), oh well nothing to be cleaned then!
#2 the bedroom: too hot to need covers, and turn fan off at night, so everyone sleeps in their undies and without covers
#3 in the dorm (each dorm was about 5 rooms, each of 4 students. 3 dorms on each floor) everyone also walks around in their underwear..all day; i mean the best way to keep cool right, and women aren't allowed? anyway, when in Rome...
#4 in the toilets (not western, but not too bad) at 7am for 20 minutes, and not being able to leave because the cleaner was cleaning the dorm. Foreigners not allowed in (let alone to stay) and I didn't fancy being kicked out the building in my underwear
photos will be up soon (embarrasingly). News about China? more action off the coast around Taiwan and Japan (hotting up, expect something to happen in next 2-3 yrs), big deal made of stupid Europeans turning up to renegotiate textile quotas etc.
Off to bed, sweating (its got hot again), and happy and proud of my Nankai girls doing such a great job this weekend. They even chatted up the guy in charge of classrooms who will now lend them a kitted-out classroom anytime.
Adam
p.s. Great Wall last weekend with 13 of us was soooo much fun with suuuuch good weather and sooo on
p.p.s. If England win the cricket it will make up for the abysmal football performance
p.p.p.s Word of the weekend was the chinese for basket (the one on a bike) that transported my laptop around Nankai several times whilst I became an expert at carrying small chinese girls on the back of their bikes!
No comments:
Post a Comment