Marsha Salecker

Wednesday…I WILL get a camera today - darn it! So we head to another Agricultural Bank of China branch, thinking I got the whole VISA thing cleared up, to first get more money to put on the card. But this of course didn’t work - those ATMs didn’t take VISA, so on the cab ride over we remember seeing a Bank of China about 4 blocks away. Being a beautiful day we decide to walk to it. We finally get there and - wouldn’t you know it - it is a brand new branch and not even open yet! Not believing our luck - and laughing about it- we look around and spot another Bank of China a block away. We get there and actually get money out of the ATM! Yea! Now we are about ... read more

It was Friday and the plan was to open a bank account at the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), which is affiliated with Wells Fargo transfer some money over, get a UnionPay card and - Presto! - a camera. But instead the next day we went to a branch of the ABC who looked at us - yes even the native Chinese man, like we were aliens - I mean who had ever heard of transferring money from one country to another!? (Wells Fargo said they do it all the time - but obviously not at this branch). They sent us to the Bank Of China, who at least knew we were human, but they also were not sure what to do with my account number. Finally I decided that what I would do was ... read more

I want to stress again how much I love the people of this city. They are very curious about foreigners and are always trying to come up and start a conversation - asking where you are from, and telling you about how their brother/daughter/friend went somewhere (not necessarily the USA- it could be France or Brazil) 3 years ago, and so on…. They seem very interested in knowing about other places outside of China - not desperately so, they seem very content here, but they still seem to find it novel to talk to us. As I said they are extremely helpful, curious, relatively clean, and full of life. Unfortunately life has a kind of a disgusting side. After being here a while you realize how sterile of an environment we have created in the USA ... read more

Yesterday we decide to start the day by looking around Tianjin a bit more, and we ended up going to Home Word again. This is just a big chaotic department store where you can get a lot of the things you need - groceries, toiletries, notebooks, clothing, etc. It is definitely and experience! All sorts of cheaply made things in bright colors all set to the background of relatively loud “cutesy” music that is reminiscent of Barney or Teletubbies singing. But I did get a few things I needed including ginger toothpaste - which I hope is anti-freeze free - but it is Crest so I feel maybe I can trust it. After that I was so hot and tired that I took a nap. It has been 90+ degrees and I have been told it ... read more

As for the school things that I have been doing (Oh yeah! That is the reason I am here!) I am feeling a bit pathetic. There is only one person with less Chinese knowledge than me- he has none. I have only had the equivalent of 1 semester - and I took that 2 semesters ago. So I have forgotten a lot of the little Chinese I have learned. So today we had a written and an oral placement exam. Although it really wasn’t a placement exam because we will be in the classes we signed up for no matter how we did in the exams. And I did pathetically. I am the only one in my class. Most of the people here have complete a full year (either 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc) not half years ... read more