Introduction
To describe my initial reaction to the style of life in China as culture shock would be an understatement. Life here is absolutely insane. While there are similarities between China and America, most of it is completely different. In this post I will show and describe to everyone the city in which I live, Pengshan, and the magnificent city that is Chengdu. I will further discuss how people in China live their daily lives and how I have come to acclimate myself to Chinese culture.
Pengshan
The picture above is of a man called Pengzhou. He is said to be one of the oldest men to have lived in China and is how Pengshan got its name. The statue is located at the end of the square and looks out over the entire city. As you can tell, the statue is ginormous. Directly behind the statue is the river that runs through Pengshan. Unfortunately, the day that I took these pictures it was relatively hazy out. There really is not much pollution where I am. Most of the pollution is limited to the East coast of China because a majority of the heavy industry and the most densely populated cities are located there. The town square is very beautiful. There a lot of shops and restaurants in the square. At night the square is full of people enjoying the cool weather and any entertainment that is offered. A lot of elderly woman and some men gather in the square to do some traditional Chinese dances. This happens every night.
The picture I posted to Instagram (@jonoblae)
The people in Pengshan are very nice. They always treat us very nicely, are willing to help us out with anything, and most importantly put up with our shenanigans. Most of the people who live in Pengshan have not seen many foreigners in their life. The city does not have a huge population, only about 75,000 people live in Pengshan. I would consider Pengshan to be a decently sized city; however, the people here consider it a rural town. I guess that makes sense considering Chengdu has seven million people within the city limits, but we will get to that later. Since most people in Pengshan are not used to seeing foreigners, they will blatantly stare at us... It used to be a little uncomfortable at first, but I have gotten used to it at this point. I imagine in the future that it might get a little annoying, but for now I am basically treated like a celebrity and I can't complain.
The downtown area of Pengshan is a very bustling place. There are people flooding the streets everywhere. There are all sorts of shops and restaurants all over the place downtown. We usually will go downtown on the weekends to walk around or if we need to buy something that is not available on campus. Here are some more pictures of the downtown area:
Here is a street directly across from the university...
Pengzhou square at night. As you can see, people are lighting and sending off lanterns into the sky. They were doing this for the Moon, or Mid-Autumn, Festival. There are also some people dancing around the statue as I have stated before...
And here is a picture of me sending off a lantern...
A small pagoda near the downtown area. At night it becomes lit up and steam is sprayed from the roof of the pagoda. I have no idea why, but it is pretty cool...
And the dancing...
You can find the most random things at all the stores in the downtown area. For example, baby turtles...
A pretty cool looking fire engine. I've only seen a fire engine once since I've been here...
And the bustling streets...
Just about everybody drives one of these little scooters. Clearly there are no child seats in China... I have seen entire families on these scooters. They will even just carry little babies in their arms. I have also seen dogs just sitting in between the drivers legs....
Or cats...
And our main form of transportation around town, the bus....
And no city in China is complete without their very own fake Apple store....
The driving in China could not be any crazier. In Pengshan, stoplights and other forms of traffic signs are basically optional. People will blast through red lights and busy intersections without hesitation, especially people on scooters. It is necessary to look both ways before crossing the street. If you don't, you'll probably end up in the hospital, or dead. In addition to this, the double yellow lines in the middle of the road might as well not exist. People will pass slower cars on small two lane roads without thinking twice. Before they pull into on-coming traffic, they simply lay on the horn. Honking may be considered rude in America and reserved for shitty drivers that might piss you off. In China, honking simply means, "watch out, I'm coming." Everyone is always honking.
I wish I had taken more pictures of how crazy the driving is here but everything always happens so quickly it is impossible for me to know when the bus or taxi driver is going to pull some ridiculous stunt. I only have this one:
As you can see this van has clearly driven into on coming traffic to pass another car... Like I said, the drivers are crazy...
One of the coolest parts of Pengshan is the street that is located directly across from the University. It isn't part of the down town area; however, there are tons of people out and about on the street. There are a lot of shops and restaurants on the street. But what makes it different from the down town area is the farmers market style that it has.
Fresh fish anyone?
And a dinner that we had with some of the students:
To wrap up the Pengshan section of the blog I will talk about Jinjiang College and my own living situation. The college has a beautiful campus and has a student body of about 15,000. The administration is relatively helpful... The Chinese don't really plan ahead like we do in America. We received all of our materials basically the day before we started teaching. And to top things off we met with department leaders two weeks into teaching... At this meeting they told us exactly how we should be teaching the students and the ways to act in the classroom. Like I said, we had this meeting two weeks into teaching... Nevertheless, they have been helpful and have also assigned us other, more experienced, teachers to help us with any problems that we might have. These teachers that have been assigned to us have proven to be extremely helpful. They are always willing to aid us in whatever problems we might have.
Here are some pictures of the college
I was fortunate enough to teach one of the students how to skateboard with the board that I had brought from America. We had a lot of fun skating around the basketball courts. He actually picked it up pretty quickly.
As you can see, there are a ton of basketball courts on campus. In the late afternoon and evenings these courts are absolutely packed full of students playing basketball.
Here is a picture of my department. The Foreign La guages School
More pictures from around campus...
The next couple pictures are from teachers day. On teachers day all of the teachers were given flowers and a 600 yuan bonus (about 100 US dollars). Pretty awesome day.
The big tall buildings are the student dorms. I went into the dorms once to help a student move. The dorms are about the same size as the dorms that I had in college; however, instead of having one room mate, they have 3 or 5... The dorms are pretty cramped....
The Man's bathroom...
For the first two weeks of school, all of the incoming freshman have to go through military training. They basically have to march around campus and chant different slogans. At one of the huge gatherings one of the students that we have befriended told me that the freshman students were being told how to think about Japan....
This last picture is from a banquet that is held every wednesday night in the teachers cafeteria. There is a lot of dancing, singing, as well as a raffle with various prizes...
And finally my apartment. They really given us everything we needed in terms of a living situation. The apartment that I have is nicer than anything I ever had in Boulder. I have the apartment all to myself, but all of the English teachers are my neighbors, so I never get lonely living by myself. Here are some pictures:
A nice queen size bed. Unfortunately, like most mattresses in China, it is very hard. Im getting used to it though...
Plenty of desk space
And I have my own balcony..
I even have my own washing machine...
And this is my drier! I have to hang all of my wet clothes from these racks on the ceiling. It takes about two days to dry...
Pretty decent view from the balcony...
Plenty of closet space...
And my bathroom. Thank god I have a Western toilet...
This is what normal Chinese toilets look like... (Well, maybe not this dirty, but you get the idea.)
And my living area. Yes, I have a Christmas tree. The teacher who lived in my apartment last year left it for me...
And also in my living area is my kitchen. It has everything that I would need...
I really have come to love Pengshan. It is a great town and I couldn't be happier to spend my first year in China here. It gives me the opportunity to see how Chinese people live because it is not a tourist destination whatsoever. It truly is an authentic Chinese town.
Chengdu
Chengdu is probably one of the coolest cities that I have ever been too. The city itself has a population of 7 million people and the great Chengdu area has a population of 14 million. There is a huge western influence in the town and I have heard that there are about 8,000 Westerners that actually live in the city. I have only been to Chengdu a handful of times but it is a gorgeous city. It is cluttered with huge sky scrapers and other large buildings.
On my most recent trip to Chengdu we finally went to the New Century Global Center. As I have said in previous posts, it is the largest building in the World. When we went to the building we only walked around the mall area of the building. Having said that, I only saw about 1/20th of the actual building. Within the building are two five star hotels, a beach resort club, water park, IMAX theater, ice skating rink, a mall, and a lot of office space.
Here are some pictures of the New Century Global Center:
From the outside...
The outside of the building is absolutely spectacular. The building towers over you completely. Since the outside of the building is so monstrous and elegant, one can only imagine what the inside looks like...
The picture above is the first sight as you walk into the building. That day, there was an Ironman exhibit in the foyer. Everything inside was beautiful and spotless. Below is a picture of probably the longest escalator that I have ever been on...
And from the top...
And of course an extremely frightening glass bridge... It is hard to tell from the picture, but it looks down about 5 stories...
The ice skating rink...
The IMAX theater...
Yes, they have Toys 'R' Us... And many other Western stores
Of course, what building isn't complete without a full beach resort in the middle of it...
Unfortunately, I could only see the entrance of the beach resort. One day we will go back to actually visit the resort. I have heard that there is an actual beach that has a wave pool, sand, among other amenities that are included at beach resorts. There is also a water park in the beach resort. I can't wait to go back and spend a day at the beach and water park.
Below is probably the coolest sink I have ever seen. There is a giant rod that comes down from the ceiling and dispenses the water into the sink bowl. Very cool.
The ceiling of the mall...
And some more pictures that I took as we were leaving. The outside of the building is just incredible. I had to take more...
There are giant screens that show the significance of the New Century Global Center...
The area around the New Century Global Center is a site of recent development. There is a lot of construction in the surrounding area. There is also a lot of really cool looking buildings that have already been built. Here are some pictures of Century City:
There are really cool looking apartment buildings all around the area, and Chengdu for that matter...
Some construction going on around the area...
And a very interesting looking building...
In the main area of Chengdu there are buildings everywhere. You can barely even see the sky in the center of Chengdu because there are ginormous buildings every where in sight.
Here are some pictures from the center of Chengdu:
Our hotel room for the night, we had a great view: (On the left, Devin - On the right, James)
This room cost each of us about 5 US dollars...
Chengdu at night - Simply stunning...
The night life...
Here is a Western bar that had a ton of different types of beer. It is very hard to find good beer in Pengshan, so this was pretty necessary.
And I took one picture while we were at a club in Chengdu. I was busy doing other things....
I really can't explain to you how great of a time I am having here in China. I hope that these pictures are able to show you how my life style has completely changed from when I lived in America. They really do treat us like kings. I could not be more satisfied with my living arrangements as well as the people that have come to teach at the university with me.
I honestly don't know where I would be if I never had the opportunity to learn as much about China as I have from Professor Timothy Weston at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He truly opened my eyes to an entirely different world and enabled me to come to China by introducing me to Alice Renouf, the director of the Colorado China Council. I am having the time of my life in China and I owe it to Professor Weston, Alice Renouf, and most importantly, my parents.
Jono
