My blog title has never been so accurate.
When I chose the name of this blog, nearly 10 years ago, I must have had some inkling that I'd truly earn it...
When you move to a new country, you don't assume that things will go smoothly. You expect confusion and stress and shifting into a new identity of: bumbling foreigner. I expected myself to exhibit incompetence when living in Uganda and Laos (and Italy) and I wasn't wrong. Actually, in recent years I've discovered that an entire rich and nuanced terrain of incompetence also exists for me at home in America, and so I've sort of come to see it as a default state for me. The nice thing about Laos and Uganda was that rules seemed pretty flexible and some things that are complicated to do in the U.S. were more easily achievable, such as buying a motorcycle without a license or getting a sim card by just walking into a kiosk and asking for one.
In my estimation after several days of life in Wuhan, I have reached a previously uncharted degree of incompetence that is so blinding that someone has literally been assigned to me as a full-time babysitter/life coach/gentle leader. My gentle leader is Chen, a wonderful woman who is a graduate student in TESOL/Linguistics at HUST; she met me at my front gate of my apartment the minute I was dropped off from the airport like a sweaty, newborn colt with hundreds of pounds of chocolate and sunscreen.
Chen is amazing; I'd literally be catatonic and wandering around the trees here if it weren't for her. Which brings me to the trees on my campus, which are frankly a little out of control, since they are all the same type of tree and make every street look identical...like these two entirely different streets below:
...which brings me back to rampant confusion and dishevelment. Actually, before I get too confused, I'd like to go over some things that I know happened and that I'm confident enough to report on in an objective manner.
So, I arrived in Beijing more than a week ago now and spent about 5 days getting fat off of breakfast buffets and writing love poems to my big, fluffy poof of a fancy hotel bed. We did a bunch of training during the days and each session could be distilled into one of two messages, either, "You can do anything here!" or "You can't do anything here" and then I put a lot of dumplings and hot pot in my mouth organ to avoid using my jet-lagged head organ to think about things. It was nice though to meet all the other fellows again and also the local embassy staff. During the week, I was able to meet both my "host" and my "post" contacts, which rhyme quite cutely. My "host" is a person from my host university who serves as a primary academic contact. My host is a delightful man who goes by Derek. Derek teaches interpretation and translation at HUST, is trying to lose weight mostly by a method that consists of taking a drug that inhibits caloric intake (?) and then eating a bunch of cake, and prefers the Backstreet Boys to K-Pop. Derek is another gentle-leader for me at HUST.
My "post" contact is Simon, who works at the Wuhan consulate. His job is to keep me busy with secondary projects, like conducting workshops/seminars and running English clubs in Wuhan. Simon lived in Austin for grad school, likes Taylor Swift, and cowboys. This is Simon looking bored AF at a traditional puppet show.
One day, we all piled into a bus and went on a cultural outing which consisted of me trying to listen to our tour guide describe ancient chinese dwellings and culture as Derek talked at me about boy bands and real estate in Beijing.
The most awkward part of our orientation week in Beijing was when we went to the Iowan, pro-life ambassador's fancy house to listen to him say some words. I think we all enjoyed the deviled eggs though. Here is when we (fellows, local embassy/consulate staff) posed on his staircase:
I flew into Wuhan with Lauryn and Zac (Lauryn is a fellow at another university in Wuhan and Zac is her husband), Simon, Derek, and Lauryn's host contact. We all took different cabs from the airport to get to our respective locations and so I found myself alone and reflective on the 30 minute drive through Wuhan. Here is what I wrote as I looked out the window, my first impressions of Wuhan:
Everything is under construction.
Buildings come in groups of 5-10 identical skyscrapers, some impossibly thin
Then, there are scores of old, decrepit, but more interesting apartments that are short and squat.
I'm not sure what's pollution or what's cloud but I do see blue sky.
I'm relieved and more excited to be in Wuhan despite a lot of uncertainty. I'm eager to pack and be alone.
Cranes are perched atop so many buildings. We just passed over the Yangtze river, which is wide and brown. City on all sides of me, in every direction. More city than I knew possible. The river is wide. Why is it unnerving that the buildings are copies of each other?
Suddenly, trees. Then, the longest tunnel. Still in tunnel. Emerging into sunlight, the sight of forested hills, and then we are turning into the campus, out of nowhere. (Below: City in all directions)
Most of HUST, including my little foreign student/teacher complex, is shady with tree cover. From the outside of the campus looking in, it looks like a forest. Hence, it really seems to come out of nowhere, since one moment you are in a huge, raucous city, and the next moment you are turning into what appears to be a quiet forest. Universities in China are often enclosed from the outside world by gates..in these two pictures below you can see what it looks when standing at the entrance of one of the gates in the same spot but looking in opposite directions...the city ends suddenly and if you turn the other direction, you enter a forested campus.
When Chen met me at the International Housing Apartments, which is the section of campus where all the foreigners are quarantined, I have to admit that I felt skeptical about my living situation. The apartment was hot as Hades, dingy, and a bit run-down. After figuring out the air conditioner and buying a few weird plants and taping pictures the wall, I'm feeling a lot better. I'm still not sure how I'm going to cook meals in a closet, but that's for another day!
In its current state: (pending air purifiers, yoga mat, and other fun things)
The Master (and only!) Bedroom:
The Contemplation Room:
The Area where my Fridge is:
Kitchen Closet & Bathroom: Not Pictured.
The Outside of my building:
The last three days have truly been a blur. The first morning that I woke up in my new apartment, Chen came to meet me for what can only be described as the day that I first knew confusion and failure. Our airtight plan was to obtain a phone and bank account, and after about 10 hours and countless different detours and shops and backtracking and lines and refusal of service, I finally had the first. Because China is flying at a break-neck pace in all things technology, my samsung model is basically unrecognizable here and none of the phone companies even have sims that work with it, so I had to buy a weird new phone that I don't know how to use. In order to apply for a bank account, you need a Chinese phone number, an original contract of employment, your passport, a Chinese 'friend', and a horcrux, although the list magically varies from bank to bank. We got turned away from all banks on this first day. Chen, having never helped a foreigner jump through these hoops, became irate at why it was so hard to do these simple things. I was amazed at how disorienting it is to not be able to read ANYTHING that I see...it inspires an intense feeling of helplessness. That helplessness was mixed in a pot of bureaucratic inanities and gratuitous policies that made me feel like my very presence in this place was an unwanted nuisance.
When I got home that first night, sweaty, exhausted, and with two phones (which only when together become a real phone boy), I felt pretty defeated. I had heard from other fellows that their first days had been fruitful and that they were already using wechat as their form of payment (which is the ultimate grail here). After talking to Cuong on the phone and reflecting, it was obvious that not only was I incredibly lucky for being able to live in China, but I also had made a new (incredibly generous and patient!) friend through the long day of waiting in lines and arguing with clerks. Being with Chen for three days in a row has not only been necessary, since I am so helpless, but also wonderful. She is funny, laid-back, smart, and interesting. We talk about our cultures and laugh a lot. We are also both directionally...interesting. I feel really fortunate to already have made a friend here. We plan to meet up once a week during the school year to do English/Chinese language practice together.
Both today and yesterday were improvements in terms of overall morale and progress. I now have a bank account, a wechat wallet, a campus id, and a bus card. Chen also showed me where my classrooms are; this campus is huge, and unfortunately (or fortunately?) I live on the far west and and my classes are on the far easy end, which makes for something like a 30-40 minute walk. When the temperate gets cooler, it'll be a nice trot.
Here are some sights from campus yesterday and today:
View of the city from inside campus
One of my buildings
The library
A lotus pond on campus!
Freshman waiting in line for a school tour during their orientation:
In case I didn't make this apparent (I don't think I did)...I am literally adrift in an ocean of 18 year old Chinese boys. You can't open an umbrella without hitting one. I live on the west side of campus, which is where all the science and engineering buildings are, so I have to walk several kilometers over to the east to find women (who populate the humanities). The boys walk around with their noses buried in their phones, scurrying out of my way whenever I enter their field of vision. When I use cash instead of my phone to pay for stuff, they radiate a palpable annoyance at the extra 3 seconds that I'll take ahead of them in line. Often they just walk in front of me in line. Send me good vibes to keep my head above the adolescent sea of technology majors.
Yesterday, I met two international (and vegetarian!) grad students who live in the quarantine with me, one business PHd from Sri Lanka and a Chinese teacher from Thailand. Last night we took the subway together (an experience!) to one of the only vegetarian restaurants in Wuhan, which is attached to a Buddhist temple. We enjoyed traditional Wuhanese food done with vegetables!
When you move to a new country, you don't assume that things will go smoothly. You expect confusion and stress and shifting into a new identity of: bumbling foreigner. I expected myself to exhibit incompetence when living in Uganda and Laos (and Italy) and I wasn't wrong. Actually, in recent years I've discovered that an entire rich and nuanced terrain of incompetence also exists for me at home in America, and so I've sort of come to see it as a default state for me. The nice thing about Laos and Uganda was that rules seemed pretty flexible and some things that are complicated to do in the U.S. were more easily achievable, such as buying a motorcycle without a license or getting a sim card by just walking into a kiosk and asking for one.
In my estimation after several days of life in Wuhan, I have reached a previously uncharted degree of incompetence that is so blinding that someone has literally been assigned to me as a full-time babysitter/life coach/gentle leader. My gentle leader is Chen, a wonderful woman who is a graduate student in TESOL/Linguistics at HUST; she met me at my front gate of my apartment the minute I was dropped off from the airport like a sweaty, newborn colt with hundreds of pounds of chocolate and sunscreen.
Chen is amazing; I'd literally be catatonic and wandering around the trees here if it weren't for her. Which brings me to the trees on my campus, which are frankly a little out of control, since they are all the same type of tree and make every street look identical...like these two entirely different streets below:
...which brings me back to rampant confusion and dishevelment. Actually, before I get too confused, I'd like to go over some things that I know happened and that I'm confident enough to report on in an objective manner.
So, I arrived in Beijing more than a week ago now and spent about 5 days getting fat off of breakfast buffets and writing love poems to my big, fluffy poof of a fancy hotel bed. We did a bunch of training during the days and each session could be distilled into one of two messages, either, "You can do anything here!" or "You can't do anything here" and then I put a lot of dumplings and hot pot in my mouth organ to avoid using my jet-lagged head organ to think about things. It was nice though to meet all the other fellows again and also the local embassy staff. During the week, I was able to meet both my "host" and my "post" contacts, which rhyme quite cutely. My "host" is a person from my host university who serves as a primary academic contact. My host is a delightful man who goes by Derek. Derek teaches interpretation and translation at HUST, is trying to lose weight mostly by a method that consists of taking a drug that inhibits caloric intake (?) and then eating a bunch of cake, and prefers the Backstreet Boys to K-Pop. Derek is another gentle-leader for me at HUST.
My "post" contact is Simon, who works at the Wuhan consulate. His job is to keep me busy with secondary projects, like conducting workshops/seminars and running English clubs in Wuhan. Simon lived in Austin for grad school, likes Taylor Swift, and cowboys. This is Simon looking bored AF at a traditional puppet show.
One day, we all piled into a bus and went on a cultural outing which consisted of me trying to listen to our tour guide describe ancient chinese dwellings and culture as Derek talked at me about boy bands and real estate in Beijing.
The most awkward part of our orientation week in Beijing was when we went to the Iowan, pro-life ambassador's fancy house to listen to him say some words. I think we all enjoyed the deviled eggs though. Here is when we (fellows, local embassy/consulate staff) posed on his staircase:
I flew into Wuhan with Lauryn and Zac (Lauryn is a fellow at another university in Wuhan and Zac is her husband), Simon, Derek, and Lauryn's host contact. We all took different cabs from the airport to get to our respective locations and so I found myself alone and reflective on the 30 minute drive through Wuhan. Here is what I wrote as I looked out the window, my first impressions of Wuhan:
Everything is under construction.
Buildings come in groups of 5-10 identical skyscrapers, some impossibly thin
Then, there are scores of old, decrepit, but more interesting apartments that are short and squat.
I'm not sure what's pollution or what's cloud but I do see blue sky.
I'm relieved and more excited to be in Wuhan despite a lot of uncertainty. I'm eager to pack and be alone.
Cranes are perched atop so many buildings. We just passed over the Yangtze river, which is wide and brown. City on all sides of me, in every direction. More city than I knew possible. The river is wide. Why is it unnerving that the buildings are copies of each other?
Suddenly, trees. Then, the longest tunnel. Still in tunnel. Emerging into sunlight, the sight of forested hills, and then we are turning into the campus, out of nowhere. (Below: City in all directions)
Most of HUST, including my little foreign student/teacher complex, is shady with tree cover. From the outside of the campus looking in, it looks like a forest. Hence, it really seems to come out of nowhere, since one moment you are in a huge, raucous city, and the next moment you are turning into what appears to be a quiet forest. Universities in China are often enclosed from the outside world by gates..in these two pictures below you can see what it looks when standing at the entrance of one of the gates in the same spot but looking in opposite directions...the city ends suddenly and if you turn the other direction, you enter a forested campus.
When Chen met me at the International Housing Apartments, which is the section of campus where all the foreigners are quarantined, I have to admit that I felt skeptical about my living situation. The apartment was hot as Hades, dingy, and a bit run-down. After figuring out the air conditioner and buying a few weird plants and taping pictures the wall, I'm feeling a lot better. I'm still not sure how I'm going to cook meals in a closet, but that's for another day!
In its current state: (pending air purifiers, yoga mat, and other fun things)
The Master (and only!) Bedroom:
The Contemplation Room:
The Area where my Fridge is:
Kitchen Closet & Bathroom: Not Pictured.
The Outside of my building:
The last three days have truly been a blur. The first morning that I woke up in my new apartment, Chen came to meet me for what can only be described as the day that I first knew confusion and failure. Our airtight plan was to obtain a phone and bank account, and after about 10 hours and countless different detours and shops and backtracking and lines and refusal of service, I finally had the first. Because China is flying at a break-neck pace in all things technology, my samsung model is basically unrecognizable here and none of the phone companies even have sims that work with it, so I had to buy a weird new phone that I don't know how to use. In order to apply for a bank account, you need a Chinese phone number, an original contract of employment, your passport, a Chinese 'friend', and a horcrux, although the list magically varies from bank to bank. We got turned away from all banks on this first day. Chen, having never helped a foreigner jump through these hoops, became irate at why it was so hard to do these simple things. I was amazed at how disorienting it is to not be able to read ANYTHING that I see...it inspires an intense feeling of helplessness. That helplessness was mixed in a pot of bureaucratic inanities and gratuitous policies that made me feel like my very presence in this place was an unwanted nuisance.
When I got home that first night, sweaty, exhausted, and with two phones (which only when together become a real phone boy), I felt pretty defeated. I had heard from other fellows that their first days had been fruitful and that they were already using wechat as their form of payment (which is the ultimate grail here). After talking to Cuong on the phone and reflecting, it was obvious that not only was I incredibly lucky for being able to live in China, but I also had made a new (incredibly generous and patient!) friend through the long day of waiting in lines and arguing with clerks. Being with Chen for three days in a row has not only been necessary, since I am so helpless, but also wonderful. She is funny, laid-back, smart, and interesting. We talk about our cultures and laugh a lot. We are also both directionally...interesting. I feel really fortunate to already have made a friend here. We plan to meet up once a week during the school year to do English/Chinese language practice together.
Both today and yesterday were improvements in terms of overall morale and progress. I now have a bank account, a wechat wallet, a campus id, and a bus card. Chen also showed me where my classrooms are; this campus is huge, and unfortunately (or fortunately?) I live on the far west and and my classes are on the far easy end, which makes for something like a 30-40 minute walk. When the temperate gets cooler, it'll be a nice trot.
Here are some sights from campus yesterday and today:
View of the city from inside campus
In case I didn't make this apparent (I don't think I did)...I am literally adrift in an ocean of 18 year old Chinese boys. You can't open an umbrella without hitting one. I live on the west side of campus, which is where all the science and engineering buildings are, so I have to walk several kilometers over to the east to find women (who populate the humanities). The boys walk around with their noses buried in their phones, scurrying out of my way whenever I enter their field of vision. When I use cash instead of my phone to pay for stuff, they radiate a palpable annoyance at the extra 3 seconds that I'll take ahead of them in line. Often they just walk in front of me in line. Send me good vibes to keep my head above the adolescent sea of technology majors.
Yesterday, I met two international (and vegetarian!) grad students who live in the quarantine with me, one business PHd from Sri Lanka and a Chinese teacher from Thailand. Last night we took the subway together (an experience!) to one of the only vegetarian restaurants in Wuhan, which is attached to a Buddhist temple. We enjoyed traditional Wuhanese food done with vegetables!
Dishevelment and confusion aside, I am feeling really happy to be here. I feel ripped from my comfort zone and bestowed new eyes with which I can marvel at the world. The sheer number of people who are everywhere!--The bustle, the aroma, the food, the cell phone use! China is in your face in a way I have never seen before; in comparison, Lao shrinks from view like a gentle receding tide. (For example, the subway!)
Everyone I have talked to here has been kind and generous. It is said that strangers in China aren't necessarily polite to each other but once you have a relationship with someone, you are bound together with kindness and consideration. For every person that budges in front of me in a line, there's another person who will spend their entire day with me waiting in line to get a sim card. I need to remember that.
Love you all.
Ilse
This is so funny!! You never told me about the horcrux you keep around to setup bank accounts. I assume it was a gift. :) You are great with your words!
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