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Published: April 19th 2011
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Hello again friends! The last time I wrote to you I had just arrived in Hangzhou for the International Conference on Social Cognition and Neuroscience. That has now been completed and I am back in Jinhua! So, let me catch you up on all that I have been up to over the past week. After arriving in Hangzhou, we were driven to our amazing conference resort, where we were all given private suites to stay in for the duration of the conference. It was so nice! I had hot water for my shower, a comfy bed with an actual normal mattress, and even a balcony. On the first full day of the conference, we drove to Zhejiang Sci-Tech University for the opening ceremonies and initial presentations. Researchers from all over the world attended- China, Canada, U.S., Japan, and France were the countries represented in the various presentations. I quickly came to the realization that I was the only graduate student presenter; everyone else was either a professor or post-doc. This made me very nervous, but Cathy assured me I would be fine and would survive it, haha. I was up to present my research on the second day of the conference,
and everything ended up going really well! The talk lasted for 45 minutes and then there was a short period in which people could ask various questions about the data. I was asked a lot of great questions and was able to provide good answers for most of them, and I received a lot of positive feedback about my research, which is always nice to hear!
The third day of the conference was the sight-seeing day, so we got up early and went hiking at Five Clouds Mountain. On the hike, we stopped and visited a Buddhist temple and later came across rows and rows of bushes on which green tea leaves are grown. It had rained the night before, so there was still a thick fog down in a lot of the mountain valleys, which made for some really great scenery. After the hike, we went to Xi Hu (West Lake), which I had visited with Weifang and Haizhen several weeks ago. However, because Xi Hu is so large, I didn't see a single repeated thing on this visit! Kang said that he has a special place he always visits when he comes to Xi Hu, so he
took us there and we sat for awhile and ordered tea and some very unusual soup that was made from the roots of a water lily. On the way back to the conference hotel, we stopped and did a little shopping in downtown Hangzhou and went to a really nice restaurant that served experimental Chinese cuisine. Kang knew the chef, so she prepared all sorts of special dishes for us. It was a nightmare trying to catch a taxi back to the conference hotel that night, though- in fact, at one point, Kang and two of the other researchers had been waiting for so long, they decided to take a break and get a foot massage at one of the local businesses!
We finally headed back to Jinhua on Thursday. Several of the researchers decided to stay an extra few days after the conference in order to visit Zhejiang Normal University, so it was really nice to have guests visiting our university and it gave us a chance to show them around. Friday was a horribly stressful day for me; I was given so much work to do before I head back to Canada and then the 3-D camera
suddenly just broke for no apparent reason. First, the flashes in the studio lights refused to synchronize with the system. I got that fixed, but then the camera settings all switched back to the factory settings and even when I manually reset them, they just kept changing back again. After two hours, I got that fixed, and then the images started coming out overexposed. When I got that fixed, the system refused to calibrate. It was a nightmare and a disastrous evening that caused me a great deal of stress and agony. Thankfully, one of the visiting researchers was familiar with the camera system and came in the next morning and helped me finally fix the calibration problem. We still have no idea what even caused the problem in first place, but it's resolved now and hopefully won't act up again in my remaining time here.
The weekend was spent doing TONS of testing. Leping (one of my research assistants) and I were so tired by the end of it that at one point, she was to bring a participant in to the testing room and instead just came in the room herself and read me off all his
information while shutting the door in his face because she forgot about him! Thankfully, we had some time off on Sunday afternoon to recuperate. During this time, I went with Cathy, Kang, and Frank (a visiting researcher from the University of California) to Double Dragon Cave. I had already visited some of the cave systems several weeks ago with Angela and Orange, but I had so much fun I didn't mind going back a second time. This time, we were also able to visit some more caves and sights that I didn't get a chance to see last time. We went into Er Xian, a cave system that was used by Daoist monks as a meditation chamber over 1000 years ago. We were also able to visit a Daoist temple that was built in the mountain region surrounding the caves. The architecture was really amazing, as you can see in my photos.
Since that trip, I have largely been doing more testing and getting everything ready for the research assistants to continue testing after I leave China. Tomorrow we are hauling the 3-D camera system over to a primary school in the area. It is so much equipment that
I am taking 4 students with me who will help me carry everything and get it set up. We had to take the whole system apart this evening, which was kind of depressing because 1) my office area looks so empty and sterile now and 2) I remember how much of a pain it was setting it up in the first place! I am hoping we are going to get a lot of photos tomorrow in the school and that the kids will be cooperative and not squirm around too much because they need to stay really still for the camera!
In terms of other events, I have just been loving getting to hang out with all my friends here in China and I am starting to get a little sad because I will soon be leaving and will miss all of them! The other day, my friend Huchao said he wrote an essay about me and posted it on renren (Chinese facebook) and all his friends just loved it. I was very curious what this essay was about (it was in Chinese), so I asked him to translate it for me. He said it was about how a
foreigner is visiting his lab, and even though she looks so different from everyone else and is from so far away, she is just like the Chinese students and wants the same things out of life as them. He said this is a message of hope- that no matter where we are raised, we are all essentially the same. I was very honored he wrote this whole essay about me and that it seemed to inspire his friends. Even if all my research projects turn out to be failures, I will still consider this trip a success because of the friends I've made, the strengthening of my character, and all I have learned about myself and others who really aren't so different from me.
Only about one more week left- the time has flown by!
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Marilyn Deever
non-member comment
So-o-o interesting
Hi Lindsey, You are having so many wonderful experiences--and, of course, a few stressful ones. What a great accomplishment to give your presentation as a graduate student! Good job! Also, you were so persevering as you worked through the camera difficulties, How frustrating that must have been! I hope all "runs smoothly" the rest of the trip. The scenery is just outstanding in your pictures. It does seem that the time has gone by very quickly. We are getting ready for Easter around here. Easter Breakfast Potluck is Sunday. Your mom is such a great help. I'm leaving shortly to buy some fresh flowers for the tables and some treats for the kids. We have had rain for most days. It has been one gray day following another. I'm so ready for bright spring colors, beautiful flowers, and SUNSHINE. But, whatever the weather, it will be a beautiful and joyous Easter Sunday. We miss you. I hope you have a blessed Easter Sunday wherever you are. Blessings, Marilyn