BA-255: Doing Business in China was more a spontaneous endeavor for me than a well-thought-out decision. The moment I heard that there was going to be a contingent of students from my school going to China over the summer, I needed to be a part of it. Ultimately, I managed to convince myself that this trip would be highly pivotal in kick-starting my dream of becoming a real traveler.
(I know. I already narcissistic-ally claim to be an avid traveler by having this blog. But in reality, China would have only been the fourth country I'd have truly visited—just barely scratching the surface.)
In the course of two weeks, we stayed in the city of Nanjing while we took courses at Southeast University (SEU), the host institution. According to the internet, SEU has roughly over 40,000 kids; its student body is a traumatic ten times larger in size than ours—and thus, traumatized we were. The school has three campuses and the one we stayed at was called Sipailou; it was located in the middle of the city.
Our first day of class was on a Tuesday. To get to our classroom every morning, we had to literally survive the walk between our hotel and the International building. On a usual day, all we had to do was dodge the mopeds that kept trying to run us over. On one occasion, however, a monsoon brought about an ankle-deep flood which we were forced to wade through—this time, it involved evading rogue patches of garbage and other unmentionables.
In the unlikely event that we made it to class alive, we attended two lectures daily, one on Chinese Language and another on International Business Communication. Due to their lack of rigor, these classes were very boring. Perhaps we could have used a little more incentive to pay attention because treating the classes solely like discussions meant that no effort would be made on our part, except to try to keep our eyes open.
After class, we went straight to the canteen because by then it was lunchtime! (Always my favorite subject.)
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| This is probably the worst and least appetizing example ever. Sorry, SEU. |
Lunch and dinner almost always took place at the canteen. SEU gave each of us a declining balance card which you needed to buy food with but which, due to some impeccable accounting, didn't have enough funds to last any of us for the entire two weeks. But don't get me wrong. Each meal, if you ate from where all the regular students lined up for like I did, costs roughly 6 kuai ($1). That gave you a crap ton of rice and two sides of your choice.
Although severely lacking in presentation (it was served on
Other than the stuff served on metal plates, upstairs, where everyone else in our group ate at, served more pricey meals like dumplings, chow mien, and steak. At first, I was too scared to eat there because (1) I couldn't read the menus and (2) I couldn't order in Chinese. But eventually, after getting a whiff of common sense, I realized that I could simply point at the menu and say "Wo yao zhe ge" (I want this).
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| Sometimes, it's fun to get lost. |
After lunch, we would typically have one hour to kill before heading off to an excursion, which I've given examples of in previous posts. But if we didn't go anywhere, then we would spend our time playing basketball with the local students or exploring the city.
As someone from a small, suburban-borderline-rural campus, it definitely took some time getting used to life on an urban campus, not to mention on a campus in a completely different country. Actually, I take that back. I don't think I ever got used to it.
In the end, pioneering Pacific University's newest summer travel course was not as easy a task as I had expected, nor was I even the slightest bit prepared for any of the circumstances I encountered throughout the trip. Yet, although I'm making it sound like I had a pretty rough time, in actuality, jumping into the many unfamiliar trials we, as a group, faced resulted in what was perhaps the most rewarding set of outcomes I, as a self-christened new traveler, could have ever ask for.
