All the Good Smells: Settling in, surprises, and sobering thoughts

I know, it's been two weeks since my last post... shoot me! But SOOOOO MUCH has happened since the last time I posted. Working, running errands, and playin' mommy for a pack of nineteen-year-old Mississippi college kids is exhausting, especially when coupled up with mountains of vocabulary words to "bei yi bei" (memorize) and lengthy essays to write every night. But regardless of all that craziness, I have some fun China stories to share.

Here I am at the top of Lao Shan, an 1132.7meter high mountain thirty kilometers east of downtown Qingdao:

First off, shopping here is amazing. At this monstrous four-story shopping center called Ji Mo Lu, every single brand name item that can be knocked off is indeed knocked off. Naturally, shelves are filled with the stuff you find on the streets in New York- Gucci purses, Louis Vuitton luggage, Prada sunglasses and the like- but on top of those niceties are sparkly high heels, cooking supplies, and even knock off Toms shoes (buying these would probably send you straight to hell), all for amazingly cheap prices. There's a lot of bargaining involved, and often you can get stuff for less than half of the asking price. I've been stocking up on some wonders for friends and family back home :)

Earlier this week, I hit up Ji Mo Lu with my friends Kaz and Mallory, looking for sunglasses. Kaz was looking for clothes. As we browsed through the super-sketchy, grimy little stalls in the first basement level where women's attire is sold, we encountered some fun sights. One store seemed to feature mostly extremely revealing flight attendant costumes, prom dresses, and very uncomfortable looking lingerie. Another specialized in misspelled "Convorse" shoes and matching t-shirts. But our favorite stop of the day was an average-looking, tiny little shop filled with pretty, frilly girls' clothes. Kaz picked out a white lacy sleeveless top with a zipper in the front, and proceeded to try it on behind a little shower curtain in the back corner. Something about my friend Kaz: she has lots of curves in the right places. And the lao ban, or shopkeeper, sure saw it. As soon as Kaz came out and showed her stuff, Lao ban lady ran up to her with the usual Chinglish string of compliments: "Ah looka looka so breutifurl, looka good, buy buy buy" and such. Then, placing two hands on Kaz's left breast and squeezing appreciatively, she exclaimed in Chinese: "Oh, so BIG!" I guess, to middle-aged Chinese ladies, such molestation isn't considered inappropriate. In any case, we just kind of went with it.

Part II: Living Arrangements

On a slightly more serious note, I’ll show off some pictures. Here’s Building Number 13, my home for the next five weeks. Gorgeous place.

My dorm room in China is pretty posh by Chinese standards: two twin beds, two writing desks, an air conditioning box unit, and a private bathroom with shower attachment and seated toilet.

There are clothes washers on every other floor, but no dryers; so, to compensate, I purchased this beautifully spidery piece of junk at the Carrefour store. It falls apart at least once a day. And when I wake up at night, I always have the terrifying feeling that those arms and clothespins are going to grab me and drag me down to clothes-drying hell…

But really, I have no room to complain about the dorm situation for exchange students at Qingdao University. In comparison, the living arrangements for normal college students in China are beyond horrendous to us spoiled Americans. Though I’d heard stories and seen these buildings from outside, I had yet to actually step foot in a Chinese dorm room until my Chinese roommate, Dong Lin, snuck me into her Chinese dorm the other day. While fanning myself in the warm, un-air-conditioned building, I managed to snap a few shots.

Foreign students aren’t usually even allowed into the Chinese dorms- probably so we won’t find out how terrible of a living environment these dorms are. Because of this, the Ayi, or dorm cleaning/guardwoman, was not pleased at all to see me walking down the six flights of stairs leading back from Dong Lin’s room. That’s right- a room on the sixth floor of a building with no elevator is home to six girls, whose beds do not have proper mattresses, and whose bare-floor living space is smaller than the average dorm room in Crosby. The place was reminiscent of a slightly dirty shoebox filled with bunk beds. There aren’t even any showers in the building- instead, these girls have to walk ten minutes across campus to the special Showering Building behind the library, with soap and towels in hand.

So here I am, typing away on my MacBook Pro and listening to (and smelling) my roommate chomp on some pickled eel. I’m waiting for the air conditioning to cool the room back down- Dong Lin, like most Chinese people, feel that “conditioning the air” can “unbalance one’s system,” leading to a cold-like illness called “Kong tiao bing,” or “Air conditioning illness.” So, every time she comes in, she shuts off that air conditioner- or puts it on 80+ degrees.

Still, I have absolutely no room to complain.

I feel almost sad sometimes, spending my summers in Qingdao. It’s not necessarily homesickness, or culture shock, or stress from everything I have to do; though to some extent, maybe it’s all of those things. But most of all, China makes me refocus my perspective. At home, we whine when the internet’s too slow for our YouTube videos to load, or when a classroom or office is a bit too hot or too cold, or when the kids down the hall won’t keep it quiet at 1:00 am, or even when Wendy’s puts too much ketchup on our double cheeseburger. In China, thousands- no, millions- of college kids walk across campus to the showering building once a week to wash their hair, fall asleep on a hard plank bed to the sound of jackhammers, live without any sort of air conditioning, central or box, and can’t even afford the luxury of an “exotic” double cheeseburger.

Part III: Touristy stuff

So far, I’ve climbed a mountain (see the pic at the top of this post!), visited the Tsingtao (Qingdao) beer factory, and made appearances in the family photos of countless nameless Chinese people. They like snapping pics too, when a blonde girl poses in front of something cool.