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Issue: 1179 Date: 3/28/2013
Become A Fan, Like St. Louis Chinese American News
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Reflection, Delving into the East: an experience in Nanjing
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| 請您關注和惠顧聖路易時報的廣告客戶，並向朋友推薦聖路易時報，感謝您的支持！ |
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Written by Michael Daugherty, Class of 2014St. Louis University High School
Since last Monday, juniors Nathan Dalakalis, Tristan Finazzo, and I have been living in Nanjing, China. We each stay with a host family of a student at Nanjing Foreign Language School (NFLS), St. Louis U. High's sister school in China, and attend school with Chinese students from 7:45-4:30 every day.
Before I go into specifics, I have a quick announcement that I am sure will be reassuring to the overwhelming majority of people reading this. Despite popular belief, Tang still exists. However, at the hotel breakfast where I found it, it was served hot.
Unlike in America, there isn't much of a separation between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In general, I have had a lot of rice, a lot of fruit, and a lot of stuffed things like dumplings.
The food is probably my favorite part of China. I don't know how the system works, but food is ridiculously cheap here. Across the street from school there is a restaurant where you can get a huge bowl of noodles with whatever you want for less than two dollars. At stores, 20-ounce bottles of soda are 50 cents.
Last Friday, Nathan and I climbed a small mountain in Nanjing called Purple Mountain with my host family. There was a concession stand selling drinks near the top so I bought a drink called milk tea which is basically milk mixed with tea and a lot of sugar. The drink cost eight yuan ($1.30), which my host mother explained to be so expensive because cars could not travel to the top of the mountain. I explained to my host family that while it was 8 yuan for an "expensive" drink in China, at baseball games in the US it could cost $8 (48 yuan) for a drink. They were amazed by how expensive drinks and other food can be in America.
Not only has the food been cheap, but it has been delicious despite being strange sometimes. The strangest things I've eaten have been pig's stomach, cow's ear, octopus, congealed duck blood that tasted like tofu, and some strange duck organ that is processed and eaten like candy over here. Almost all of the animal is used over here for something. People in China seem to be a lot more conscious of avoiding waste than people in America.
Every morning and afternoon, I take a bus to and from school much like I do in St. Louis. In the morning, Jack, the Chinese student I stay with, and I run to the bus stop (we are always in a hurry), past buildings that appear very outdated compared to what I am used to in St. Louis.
Every morning I am reminded about the pollution problems in China. The air doesn't smell too terrible, unless you are by a road, but the air just doesn't feel right. A lot of people smoke in China, and the air always has a faint scent of cigarettes and diesel fuel. Because of the smog, there have only been a couple days with blue skies. Many people wear masks to filter the air they are breathing.
While the pollution isn't great for my health, the scariest parts of my day are when I have to cross the street. Drivers in China are nothing like the drivers in America. All of the lane markings, including the centerline, are suggestions at best. Cars change lanes constantly, and sometimes just drive between two lanes. Instead of slowing down or stopping when making a right turn while people are crossing the street, cars maintain their speed and force the pedestrians to move out of the way. Even after I have avoided all of the crazy drivers, I have to deal with dodging the people on bicycles and mopeds (who have their own lane on the sides of the road divided by a median), to make it to the bus stop.
The buses in Nanjing do not have time schedules, and instead they constantly run. Because many buses arrive at the bus stop at once, the buses have to form a line when they stop. Sometimes, the bus I need to get on is at the end of the line. I, sometimes along with many other people, will have to run to the bus to avoid missing it. Because there are so many buses, I have only been crammed onto a bus filled to full capacity twice.
The aspect of living in China that has been the hardest for me to acclimate to is the lack of heating. The temperature has been in the 30s and 40s for much of the trip, but most Chinese people, including my host family, only use heating if it becomes even colder. Not only has my family not used heating, but they have also kept many windows open despite the cold. While I am writing this article in my room, I can see my breath. I have had to wear a lot of clothes indoors, which has been slightly uncomfortable because people in China do not wash their clothes as often as people do in America. An interesting part about washing clothes is that basically no one in China uses a dryer to dry their clothes, instead of air-drying them. Jack said that the only time he has ever seen a clothes dryer was at a laundromat.
Besides the food, the best parts of living in China have been the badminton and ping pong. After being exposed to highly competitive badminton, I am shocked that it is not more popular in America. The ping-pong athletes over here are intense. In fact, ping-pong is offered as a P.E. class along with badminton. Some days four- or five-year-old girls are being coached in the room full of ping-pong tables. I guess the school rents out the tables or something to whomever wants to play there. Although the little girls are hardly taller than the table, they are easily better than I am.
It has also been great to feel like a celebrity in certain occasions. A couple times when Nathan, Tristan, and I have been out in public people have either asked us to take pictures with them or we have noticed them taking pictures of us. The students at the school have also been extremely kind and welcoming to us.
If you get the chance to go to China, I would definitely recommend it. Although the pollution is not pleasant, it has been amazing to experience a culture extremely different from my own. Without access to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or Google, China feels very far away from St. Louis, but I am still constantly surrounded by American food, cars, and music. Nathan, Tristan, and I will be back at school after Easter break. |
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