Life in Hangzhou

---

So it’s been a while. I have been in Hangzhou for 3 weeks now and I realize that you know nothing of what is going on. My bad. I feel a discomfort in my chest. I think I feel remorse. Nah. I am just joking. It is just gas from the food. Bah-zinga.

Classes are easy. I enjoy History of Asia usually, but International Relations is just giving me terms for things I already know for the most part. The only problem is the class discussions. I am in school with Management and Engineering kids that have no clue how to analyze facts or explain how their horribly incorrect conclusions connect to the point their trying to make. What frustrates me more is that I end up doing exactly what they do and offer counter conclusions (which I will admit actually make sense based on the evidence) and then fail to connect it to my argument and then fail to point out their mistakes or lack of gray matter. Hopefully I can fix this before our weeklong debates next week in International Relations. Sorry, had to get that get that one off my chest.

Food is really cheap here; I spend about 10 to 15 Yuan a day, which is about 2 bucks. Still, I want Little Richards, for those of you that ears that can take me on the 29th. I have been trying new foods here that aren’t available back in North Carolina. There is this fruit that is very tasty. It has not English name. It is a citrus fruit, tastes kind of like a mango. The snacks are also different. The crackers all have some type of vegetable or other flavor mixed in with the batter and baked in. I have found onion crackers, wheat crackers, carrot crackers, and vitamin crackers. The Oreos are filed with different fillings such as orange, raspberry, mango, and blueberry. Toto we aren’t in Kansas anymore.

The beds are really stiff. I have gotten used to it now and I did not find it that bad at first, but a really comfortable bus seat will put me down. I can’t remember if I have said anything about that before.

Driving is absolutely ridiculous, Ordered chaos. It’s so crazy but I have not seen that many accidents. There must be an art to it.

So living in China is not all that different from the US. Just getting things done takes a lot more patience. I tried to do laundry the first time (in the machines in the basement not at the cleaners) and it took about 5 days for the laundry ladies to actually do it. They were either not doing anything or would not take it after 3 p.m. It’s kind of aggravating how some of the things work here. Instead of putting money in the machines and people doing the work themselves you have to buy tickets at the 2nd floor convenient store that over charges for all of there food and drink. Then you give the money a really “rude” woman in the basement for her to take care of your laundry. I had to get that one off my chest, too.

What has been going on? We have gone to the Tea Museum, which was cool to see a more rural area of China. We also went to the big campus of Zhejiang University (which is where I am) and met some new Chinese friends there and got to see Asia’s biggest cafeteria. In the same day, we went to The West Lake Impressions show. West Lake is the historic lake of Hangzhou (the city in which I live) and the choreographer of the opening ceremony in Beijing choreographed the show. The Impressions are a visual play that shows many events from the history of West Lake. Really cool to see. We also went to a pagoda garden, where there were stone models of the most famous pagodas in China.

The only other thing to talk about that I have not talked about is the weather. It was really hot for the first week and then it started to rain. It started to rain and it continued to rain and it has been on an off ever since, but mostly on. I will not complain about rain getting in the way in North Carolina.

I think that is the brief over view of my time in Hangzhou so far. Hope that satisfies you. Until next time...

---

Photos

Mystery Fruit
There is no name for this, but it just came into season and its a piece of mango-ish heaven.

West Lake Impressions
This is an image of the show. There is a lot more to it, but this is a good shot.

Pagoda Garden
This is one of the pagodas in the garden. This is a medium size one. They all had really big attention to detail and the setting was remarkable.

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

We love finding new fruits and vegetables
Those looks very interesting.

[Davide]

loquat
That fruit may be a 枇杷 （pípa）， the English name is “loquat”