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Published: August 29th 2006
August 29, 2006, Nanjing, Nan Shan Hotel
First Impressions
This is a long entry. I want to record all these first impressions.
It’s time to catch up the blog. I flew with my good friend, Linell, from Chicago to Shanghai (Pudong airport), spent the night in a hotel there, caught the bus to Nanjing, and negotiated a car to get to the campus of Nanjing Normal University. We were met by Wu Yidong from the foreign affairs office, who took me to my apartment. But the apartment’s not ready yet—broken plumbing—so I’m staying in the Nan Shan Hotel on the campus.
The flight was amazing. Huge jet, as expected; mainly Chinese passengers. The movie screens were on the back of the chairs in front of us and we had a lot of choices. I watched “RV”, “Akeela and the Bee”, and part of “Citizen Kane”. We could watch the plane’s progress with an aerial map that changed directions and reported statistics as we flew of altitude, miles/km, times, etc. in English and in Chinese. (I’m so lucky that my first language is English and not French or Spanish, etc.)
My bags were overweight by I had to pay only $25. I listened to the Chinese CD that Joey and April gave me, and of course, I slept.
The Jin Jiang Hotel in Pudong was very Chinese, thank goodness. The lobby was air-conditioned as well as the room. The humidity here is so high that I immediately perspire and my hair gets wet. We decided to take it easy and adjust to the time change. We had green tea in the lobby and I learned I should let the waitress give me hot water on the same leaves at least 3 times. The first glassful is bitter, the second just right, and the third is weak. I couldn’t get the hang of straining the tea through the leaves with my teeth, so I was spitting out a lot of leaves into my napkin. I guess I need more practice.
The hotel has a beautiful, large dining room. We ate early—greens, fish served on an elaborate sterno heated server with a fish soup, rice, etc. It was delicious and my chopstick skills were good enough to fill me up. The dining room filled up, at least 200 people. The table next to us was a mix of Italians and Chinese. People did not stare at us as much as I expected. Life has certainly changed in China since my last trip in 1978!
Back in the room, while Linell was in the shower, I decided to plug in my hairdryer from the US. I changed the setting to 225 from 125 and added the kind of adapter plug I thought it needed. When I plugged it in, though, huge spark and all the lights went out. Luckily, I wasn’t electrocuted, but Linell was yelling, “What happened?” I found an attendant down the hall, and after she saw the problem, she brought back a mechanic with a ladder. He opened a panel in the ceiling and flipped the circuit breaker. He was very interested in the dryer and what I had done. He indicated I could get a hairdryer from the main desk. I did that and gave him the old one. That’s when I noticed that my hand had black marks on it, but luckily they weren’t burns and washed off.
After a great buffet breakfast in the lobby—congee rice, hot milk, steamed rolls, etc. but no caffeine (we drank more of Linell’s packets of coffee, milk and sugar in the room), we took the shuttle to the airport and caught the bus to Nanjing. It was a five hour trip with two 15 minute breaks. The first was a bathroom break and the second for food. We bought a bunch of packaged nuts, crackers, cookies that were terrible, and water and coffee. The bus was comfortable, like an old Greyhound—reclining seats and footrests, plus a tray that pulled out of the arm rest. But remember that I have two 55 pound bags, 2 small bags and Linell has two small duffle bags. When we arrived in Nanjing, we were worried about hauling all that baggage to the taxis that were more than a block away. Linell negotiated with a young man with a broken umbrella (in the bright sunshine) and he helped us carry it all to his “taxi.” This was an old, broken down small mini bus with no air-conditioning. It was quite a trip, but he helped us when we were stuck.
I waited with all my luggage on the street by the Damen, the main gate for the campus, while Linell took her bags to her apartment and called the foreign affairs office. I enjoyed waiting. I was across the street from the ubiquitous McDonalds and surrounded by foot traffic, bicycles, motor scooters, electric bikes, cars, etc. You can never forget that there are a lot of people in China. Shortly, WuYidong took me and the luggage to my apartment in the graduate student housing—a very tall apartment building. My apartment is 1310; you guessed it! The 13th floor. It’s a good thing that I’m not superstitious about that number, after all one of the most famous groups was Jesus and the 12 disciples.
Wu Yidong had a long discussion with the people at the desk and after checking out the apartment decided it had to be fixed and I could stay in a hotel for a few days. I left the two big bags there and came to the hotel. The apartment is nice and roomy. Please come visit me; I have two bedrooms. Each bedroom has a balcony that looks over the city. I have a washing machine and bars in the balcony to hang hangers for my clothes to dry. I also have a tool, a long handled stick with loops on the end to hang the hangers on the poles.
The air conditioner/heater is managed with a remote. There is one in each bedroom. Apparently people use the bedrooms a lot. The entry to the apartment is a small space with 2 wood upholstered chairs and the table for eating and the refrigerator. Any heat or air would have to come from the bedrooms. The bathroom is off to the right and the kitchen to the left. The bathroom is all tile with a shower curtain across half and a drain in the floor. I guess the water will be all over the floor in there. The washing machine is in the bathroom. I do have a western toilet. The kitchen is small and has a two burner stove and a microwave. Right now it’s pretty dirty so when I move in I’ll clean it up. The rest of the apartment is clean. Again, apparently the kitchens collect a lot of grease from all the frying and it’s not a priority to scrub it. The floors are probably cleaner than the stove. All the apartments have an exhaust fan over the stove to keep the cooking smells out. The halls smell good and the lobby and elevators smell good. I have all the basic furniture but no towels or pans or dishes. A maid comes once a week with clean linens for the bed and she will clean the apartment.
You know I’ll decorate it once I move in.
The campus is classically beautiful. I’ve walked around a lot—and got lost several times. The roads are winding and it’s really a small space. Luckily it’s under historic preservation because there are several of the old buildings with the tile roofs and gargoyles. They have neon outlines, so tonight I may walk around in the dark to look at the lights. I had to go through a long tunnel at one point on the walk. I learned that the tunnels were built in the 1950’s when we in the US were building bomb shelters. The Chinese built these bomb shelters, too. I’ll take pictures today and tomorrow. The gardens and the lake are breathtaking. It’s not a large area, maybe only a mile square or a bit bigger. This is one of three campuses. There are 28,000 students and Nanjing Normal University, NNU, ranks about 25th among the universities. It’s a provincial university and because Jiansu is a wealthy province, there’s a lot of money here. You can tell that by all the cars used by the faculty and staff. In addition to the regular students, there’s an additional 8-10,000 continuing education student body. I learned some of the statistics at the banquet held for us yesterday. Wu Yidong invited Linell and me and 2 young women from Wellesley College to lunch. We ate in a banquet room at the Nan Shan Hotel. One of the girls is a vegetarian, so more vegetables were ordered. It was a huge meal and absolutely delicious. Linell and I regretted that we didn’t take some food home with us for supper. I don’t have a refrigerator, but she does.
Wellesley has a program with a fellowship and supports two teachers every year at a small college on campus. I think it’s a women’s college. Rachel and Eleanor just arrived and will probably stay for two years. Rachel just finished two years teaching in Japan. Eleanor just graduated and knows Chinese—lucky her. They both have taken certification courses for teaching English as a foreign language. We did talk about the cultural differences about plagiarizing. It’s not a moral issue in most of the world as it is in the US. Linell teaches a qualitative research course for graduate and under graduate students and spends a lot of time dealing with plagiarizing. (By the way, on the way to the market we noticed that the DVD/CD shops were only selling legal copies. There must have been a crack down on illegal copying. Apparently, the crack down’s happen periodically.)
Now I will leave you. We are going to buy cell phones and have a friend who will come and help us negotiate.
I'll add photos later.
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April
non-member comment
Wow!
How exciting! China sounds wonderful - I told you the food would be good! It seems that the locals are treating you well, and that your accomodations will be good. I'm glad you're doing well. Thinking about you - and so proud of you - love, April =)