A Photo Journal: Traffic

Freshman arrived this weekend and with them came a lot of laughter. Herding cats is an apt description of what occurs. On these days, we make sure we spend a lot of time outdoors because it is so funny. Of course, there are a lot of RFPs and parents beating their children in an attempt for them to speak with the foreigners, yet these moments are eclipsed by the entertainment provided.

Below is a mere glimpse of one intersection on campus within a thirty second time frame.

The fun part - these scenes are not uncommon in this country. 

Mishmash Mutterings

I never imagined that we would plop into this tropical village, become completely infatuated with its idiosyncrasies, and do everything possible to uncover the charms.

I never imagined that we would set up a home on a campus inhabited by 30,000 students, eat at the canteen (and get sick), enjoy Chinese food from around the country outside the front gate (and get sick), walk alongside multiple students as they desperately tried to figure out their path, judge endless competitions, and find job stability.

Five years.

This could be the beginning of the end, as there is supposedly a law that foreigners can only teach at the same institution for five years.

This could be the beginning of another year, for it is China - laws change, laws are ignored, laws are perpetually misinterpreted.

Either way, five years is much longer than I ever dreamed to be in one location and whatever may come in ten months, I am not in charge.

In honor of a new semester, I snapped some photos over the past week to highlight the changes and not changes of our beloved campus.

Our first year, a scary Soviet-style science building stood here. We returned our second year to an empty field which became a wild jungle. Third year, a little bulldozing was the prelude to a continual stairway construction. The project lasted so long that when completed, the staircase was already falling apart. Last year, concrete was laid and a tombstone erected in honor of those students who died in the pursuit of knowledge. The latter is hypothetical, but the tombstone is real. When I left for the summer, this plaza was halfway completed with marble, which was already discoloring.

Imagine our surprise to return to disaster. Everything completed was torn up, complete with a large hole that had been filled was unfilled. Sarcophagi are sporadically erected throughout the plaza and the makings of a fountain have been laid. In five years, I have seen the library fountain turned on six times, so I do not have much hope of actually seeing this one in action.

Life lesson of China: If a fountain is turned on, someone important is in the area.

Second life lesson of China: Construction work will begin two days before people arrive. Work will only happen when people can see it.

I learned a new Chinese phrase this week, which translates to "tofu building." This phrase describes a new building that falls apart like tofu. After two years, a few worker protests, and the polluting of the west lake, we have a new teaching building. Zach and I decided to take a stroll through it three days prior to classes beginning. Imagine our surprise to find a majority of the ceiling on the floor.

As well as, most of the building is incomplete, it was flooded via a firehouse leak, and it is a building that looks fifty years old already. We shared these observations with a teacher friend, who told us that she refused to take classes in the new building. Why? When she was completing her masters at another university who built a new building, within two years the rate of cancer among students and teachers skyrocketed. They tied it to the new building.

I have one class in this tofu building.

In five years, nothing has been done to the football pitch. It has been a soggy season, so this has been a common sight.

The incursion of cars in this country has been staggering. When we started, we might see one or two personal vehicles on campus. Today, it is a continual traffic jam. Stripes have been liberally painted on any flat surface to designate a parking spot, yet it still is not enough to contain the influx. However, Chinese do not heed traffic or parking rules anyway, so the yellow lines are viewed more like guidelines for what parking could look like.

Another side to this very visible increase of four-wheeled freedom has been body weight. Yes, China is getting fat. Nice terms such as big boned and strong looking has made its way into the vernacular.

While most of the world is fearful of a bee colony collapse, China's stance is as follows: Screw the crisis and butcher a tree. We came home this week to a very naked front yard. Instead of relocating the hive or, heaven forbid, just letting it thrive, hacking a tree was the only way to deal with a natural beehive.

Freshman are coming. Their arrival is preceded by every storefront looking like this one. Forget refrigerators, microwaves and totes, all a Chinese student needs is a bucket, mop, broom, dustpan and hangers.

One thing that never changes is the Chinese ability to sleep anywhere. We caught this glimpse of our diligent tile workers at the end of the afternoon siesta.

Why were they sleeping on our sidewalk?

Another bout of construction chaos as school began. If I had snapped a picture to the left of this, the scene would have been piles of sand, strands of fishing wire, and mounds of tiles.

Oh, China. 

Post America: One Week

The return journey included a batch of gut wrenching farewells, sprinting through two airports, an unnecessary customs check, a checked bag becoming a carry on, a four hour holiday by a runway, and a lost bag that turned up the next day. It seems that itineraries with longer layovers are necessary in future bookings, but with our travel curse, I fear that all flights would be delayed and the same scenario would be faced.

Humidity, warmth, and a sign reading "Z H  N   I  NG" were the welcoming arms of China. Our hutong greeted us with no dead animal carcasses, three cockroaches running from human invasion, minimal mold, and a lot of dirt, dust, and mustiness. By 4am, we finally showered and slept.

In full disclosure, the ugly side of our return has been each of us spending two days on the toilet, a double dose of allergic reactions - my lips and Zach's leg. Sadly, each has become a normal occurrence which instigates a flurry of Benedryl consumption and topical cream applications. I am also harboring a nice bout of head congestion. Yet, our return has not only been met with maladies.

GECKOS

It appears that our vacant hutong was the gecko love shack because it is now the playpen for a plethora of baby geckos. Territorial even in their infancy, we have three in the bedroom, two in the kitchen/hallway, and at least four or five in the living room. Their antics as they figure out how to navigate this wild concrete fortress are a delight. However, their skydiving maneuvers onto the floor have been close calls with treading human feet.

The hutong also was gecko fight club as I have a tail-less gecko hanging out in my wardrobe, recuperating.

MASHA'S CONCERT

It was such a happy reunion with our Russian friends, an afternoon tea to swap stories of the summer. We were thrilled that our early arrival allowed us to enjoy an evening concert by Masha a couple nights later. Her musical skills continue to put me in awe.

RAIN FOR DAYS

This picture showcases what our sky has looked like for six days. In a freak series of weather patterns, Zhanjiang has been experiencing a constant deluge of rain - a perpetual typhoon without the wind. Such moisture has wrecked havoc on the hutong - our bedroom ceiling is leaking horribly, nothing is drying so fans and the air conditioner are running continuously, and I am a spray-bottle-filled-with-bleach vigilante towards the mold that is continuously rearing its ugly head.

On the positive side, our tropical paradise is very lush, green, and abundantly growing.

MEETING OF THE MASSES

Squawks of Leizhouhua, laughter, a hedge trimmer, and motorbikes turned into bumper bikes made the dissonance of our Wednesday morning wake-up call. Perplexed by such a commotion at 8am, we were further flummoxed as to why so many people were hanging out on our walkway and the opposite building. Apparently the troops had been assembled for some purpose, yet even taking a stroll through the mayhem, such purpose was not uncovered. However, we did learn that a humongous hornets nest is perched in the large tree (in the right of the picture where the large group of men are standing.)

LEIZHOU OPERA

The banshee wails were heard and she was close. I asked our fruit stand lady and she confirmed that a Leizhou opera was taking place in the village across the street. She was perplexed about my interest for she knows I cannot understand the local dialect. I agreed that words were not the draw, but rather the beautiful costumes. She eagerly escorted us to the stage, thrilled that we would be so interested in a local custom.

This seemed to be our official welcome back to China. Sitting alongside the young and old of the local village, watching a play that has been re-enacted time after time in a dialect that the government is continually trying to eradicate. The wee ones run amok while the old men suck on their pipes or take deep draws on their cigarettes. Old women gossip in groups or sit alone in their own thoughts. The local deities are positioned for prime viewing, incense curling in and around the statues.

While we still have pangs of sadness for those we left on the other side of the globe, Zhanjiang is our home for this season and I am so grateful to tread these village paths and sit among its dwellers, enjoying high-pitched screeches from beautifully dressed actors.