Today's topic was Rural to Urban Migration. I've actually met quite a few of rural migrants who are going to bigger cities for work since I've been in Tianjin. They're the most curious individuals of all. They love to ask me questions, and I love the chance to practice Chinese. "How much money do you make? Where do you work? How long ago did you move away from China? How much does your house cost? What kind of work do you do? How much does your car cost? Do American dishes really look like the ones on TV? Is there Chinese food in America? How many hours a week do you work? How about your parents? Where do they live?" And I struggle to answer. I love how people here have so much patience for my ... read more

When I watch the Asian news at home or read articles about China, I kept hearing terms about urban and rural populations. While I always understand the gist of it, I never realized how much more complicated the hukuo system really was. Today's topic was on Rural to Urban Migration and Migrant Laborers. I loved the professor who talked about the social safety net program. What really stuck out at me was how similar the challenges of this developing nation are to ours. Their healthcare reform ideas, their social safety net programs, their struggle to fund these operations through tax dollars. Except how in the world do you tax a Chinese citizen? It's a mostly cash society from what I understand. How do you keep the system honest? Especially when most people are only partially employed. ... read more

Morning I spent sleeping off a cold. I also had my first adventure with the laundry machine. I brought one carry on filled 3/4 of the way with gifts for my relatives and 1/4 of the way with my clothes. It was time to wash. Our afternoon lecture was on Current Social Issues in China: Employment, Housing and Social Security. I grew up with a father who held a deep seated (and understandable) resentment towards Communism. My mother didn't exactly feel much better about it, since her parents went through the Cultural Revolution. It was interesting to see the theological ideals behind the regime's purpose from a slightly more objective perspective. However objective the opinion is may be argued however. The professor was from the School of Government at Nankai. Nonetheless he didn't argue the morality ... read more

Yesterday was exhausting. I think it was the tour bus. I once rode a tour bus with my women's rights activist group to Washington, DC. We were protesting around the White House. With several thousand other women (and men). Somewhere in the middle of the 17 hour road trip, I had a very serious desire to throw myself out the window. That's when I realized I'm claustrophobic in tour buses. Clearly I made it back alive or else you would not be reading this blog. But I still hate tour buses. Today's tour bus ride was much shorter. We visited the Tianjin Urban Planning Museum. The facility was amazing, and the plans for Tianjin were incredible. So incredible, in fact, that I was too distracted to take a picture. Hey, I never said this was a ... read more

I got my haircut last week. My hairstylist was your typical urban Chinese boy. He was hip, and urban cool. He wore dark wash jeans and a chain wallet. He had a big leather collar on his wrist. He also had a hat on that said, "Fuck In A Box". I didn't mean to drop a F-bomb on you all. But I can only be honest in recording my experience. Forgive me. I asked my Chinese partner to ask the hairstylist if he knew what it meant. She giggled and said that everyone here watched American TV, so he probably did. She never asked. It's been about 4 days. I still have the strong desire to walk back to that shop and tell him to never, ever, ever, ever wear that in the USA if he ... read more

The Great Wall (Wanli ChangCheng) was: Amazing. Fulfilling. Surreal. Mind blowing. There aren't enough words to describe it. It was an out of body experience. Our tour guide told us a saying in Chinese, that we are not true men until we have walked upon the Great Wall. Well I've walked the great wall, and I'm still a woman. But if it had worked, we would totally shut down Thailand's sex change tourism industry for sure! To walk along a structure that was already in existence nearly 3000 years ago, which is nearly 4000 miles in length leaves you in awe of mankind's ingenuity. The actual structure I walked upon was built in the Ming Dynasty around 1600. This was a battleground and once defended empires. If you look to the North, the mountains were the ... read more

There comes a day in your travel where you burn out. Today was it. We were up and on a bus by 6:30 am and just got home at 10:30. After a four hour trip we were at the Great Wall, which was amazing. We also bussed the Ming Tombs, and saw the Olympics 2008 site. And quite frankly, I'm so tired and cranky from being on a bus with 19 people all day that I would pay money (more money!) to be back in St Petersburg in my house right now. I don't do 16 hour road trips well at all. Especially when I get back into town too late for dinner. Don't get me wrong, it was absolutely amazing to be at those sites. The Great Wall was an experience I can never forget. ... read more

First day of lectures today. We talked about religion, philosophy, and cultural influences on China. Then we covered about 5000 years of Chinese history. It only took six hours. I think information started spilling out of my ears. We have different lecturers everyday. A lot of them have worked for USF at one point as a guest professor. If you ever wondered what a classroom looks like at a Chinese University, I can tell you it looks exactly like a classroom at an American University. But they write in Chinese! And look, they don't eat dogs here! They have them for pets! During our lu... read more

We've been communicating with our Chinese student counterparts for several months now. I finally got to meet my counterpart Yiling in person today. It was very exciting. She's a sociology major who's doing her undergraduate thesis on homosexuality throughout Chinese history. And her English is phenomenal. It put me to shame! She knew that I liked Chinese poetry (though my knowledge is limited). So she gave me this fan with a famous poem written on the back. Unfortunately I was able to decipher about 20% of it. She helped me through a few sentences, but we never managed to finish the whole thing. Here she is with her friend Fang Ping, who is working with my roommate. I also took a tour of Nankai University. Only parts of the campus w... read more

When I did my study abroad orientation workshop at USF, they explained that we may experience an inverted version of homesickness when we came back home. Apparently many students (especially in China) get quite a bit of attention while they are abroad, and they experience a...euphoria at their new celebrity like status. I laughed it off. Tianjin has 14 million inhabitants. Nankai University has about 23,000 students not including the internationals who come to study each year. This is the Princeton or Yale of the Orient. This is the University that attracts renowned people from around the world. They have a Mormon Chinese Classic professor here for christ's sake. Oh and did I mention that one block away there's a whole other University? I'm just a drop in the bucket. No one will notice me. And ... read more