Intro to Tianjin + Week 1

Before I delve into the depths of my first week here, I must amend an oversight from a previous blog. I commented on two beautiful people who helped me stay awake before my flight, well there were three! I forgot my beautiful sister, Ariel, who drove me...nay! Upon her back she conveyed me to Metro Airport, through treacherous landscapes. She faced demons and dragons and not once did she allow my eyes to close during that arduous trek! So, unto thee I give thy due, O Sister Mine! 谢谢您(Thanks)!

So, our hiatus in Tianjin begins with a brief tour of the city, the tour was indeed brief1 So, I researched it, for I would not set before thine eyes anything less than my best! It may be a little dry, though I have certainly whittled out the tedious facts, but here is the history of Tianjin;

Tianjin (meaning “port for the emperor”) is widely known as “Jin’gu”, “Jinmen”, etc. The history of Tianjin dates back to the digging of the Grand Cannal in Sui Dynasty (581-618). The present Sancha Hekou near Jin’ gang Bridge used to be the confluence of the South Canal and the North Canal. And it is from this place that Tianjin has expanded and developed. After the middle period of Tang Dynasty (618-907), Tianjin developed into a ferry terminal for the transportation of grain and silk from the south to the north. In Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) and Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368), with the establishment of “Zhigu Zhai” and “Haijin Town”, Tianjin became a town of great military significance as well as a hub for the water transportation of grains.

blah blah blah, that's boring, so I'm gonna summarize for you...Tianjin became a fortress, then a city fortress. It then became an actual city, and this is what is often said about it: "Tianjin is a glistening pearl by the Bohai Sea, and it will surely become even brighter." This is what I say, " First off, pearls don't glow, or emit any kind of light! Secondly, Tianjin is a city, not a pearl, and it certainly doesn't do anything remotely close to glistening! I say this because of one crucial fact. Some long dead emperor guy thought it would be nice to float supplies along a river to his palace, and the fact that there weren't any rivers in the Tianjin area was just a minor detail, a mere setback. He had one cut into the ground, and obviously that's all there was to it right? Nothing else needed, right? Wrong, he did not give a thought to filtration or purification, two things all natural rivers have. So, a thousand years later, this non-purifying, unfiltrated....mess... sits outside my dorm room window, and it stinks to high heaven. On the bright side, if it's gloomy outside, and you squint...it looks really pretty. But, Tianjin is a city rich in Culture and History, and has many other things to offer.



Week 1

Our first day of school was full of surprise and adaptation. It began with an Opening Ceremony, during which we all listened to the Dean of Nankai Uniersity's Chinese Department give a speech, in Chinese (didn't understand a word of it!), and who was to be our primary instructor, Mei Laoshi (May L-ow-shi), also gifted us with a beautiful speech in Chinese (this one was translated for us.). Following the ceremony, we were sent to class. The Chinese are really adamant about education! Okay, we all were aware that our classes would be given in Chinese, but we thought we'd have some form of written documentation informing us of our homework assignments. Well, we were wrong, we were told in Chinese (rapidly spoken I might add!), what our first homework assignment would be. All of us misunderstood and studied the wrong things! Thus, we all performed poorly on the first quiz. But, there is some silver lining around this dark cloud, I learned that if I brought my voice recorder to class, I could record and later replay the words my teacher spoke until I understood them! So, that was the last quiz I plan to perform poorly on!

We have three teachers here, the first is Mei (May) Laoshi. She is by far my favorite teacher. She is fun, interesting, funny, and an outstanding teacher. She manages to relate the lessons to our American style life and thinking, and during our breaks and after class, she will join us and play hacky sack (don't know if I spelled that right). By the way, I learned how to play hacky sack, in China it's called 踢毽子(Ti Jianzi). The second teacher is Li Laoshi. She is very boring, and speaks to us as if we were retarded kindergarden children. The good thing about her way of teaching, is that I completely understand evreything that she says! I will leave it at that. Now, my third teacher is an artist, literally. I forgot her name, but she has over 50 pieces of her work in the Tianjin Art Museum. She is my caligraphy teacher, which I take once a week. I've discovered that I'm horrible at caligrapy, but my teacher told me I will get better (she promised), and that I'm not too shabby at painting. She made us paint some flowers in a vase, Chinese people go wild for flowers, and even wilder for a vase! After class, we met our tutors. My tutor's name is Zhang Chao, he's a pretty cool guy. He has this startling habit of licking out his tongue whenever he tells a joke, and he spits a lot when he talks. But, that aside, I really like him, and I'm sure I'll learn a lot from him. We scheduled the days we'd meet and have our tutorial sessions, then submitted our schedules to our Director, Teng Laoshi.

My weekly schedule is like this; Monday through Friday, our entire class has Chinese language study from 8:30-12:10, on Mondays we have an additional culture study (the first week's study was Chinese Medicinal Practices, and I think the next is Traditional Chinese Cooking!) Wednesdays is the day I have my Caligraphy class. Now, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I have mandatory tutoring sessions with my tutor, Zhang Chao - whose name I've forgotten ten times already...! We have a quiz everyday we do not have a test, so I study everyday, even on the weekends. This is a large part of the reason I am not up to date with this blog. But, as my Sister (Hey fool!), Eric Stanko (oh hey!), and Ryo (balls and wieners!) would say, "Excuses excuses...and some other vulgar curse words that I will not write!" (Mama, I hope you read this, and realize your Little Angel is a Big Devil!)

When I could find the time, I went out to walk around and see whatever I could. I observed some interesting things about China. 1.) Traffic is way worse than I originally thought it to be. My roomie and I went sight-seeing/shopping, and were being driven in a taxi. We were in oncoming traffic so much, that by the fifth time we barely acknowledged the fact. 2) Women in China has been through a lot. As my tutor and I were walking down the street I noticed some really tiny shoes. I remarked upon them saying that surely they were for infants or little children. He refuted my statement, and began explaining to me how things were done in early China. Apparently when a female child reached the age of 10-12, her foot was bound, and remained bound until she'd realized her full growth. Because men in that day and age thought small feet (and small waists as well) were extremely attractive, so women were forced to cater to the men's fetishes. My tutor's grandmother had her feet bound, and she told him that after a long while, she lost the majority of the feeling in her feet. But, before that happened, she was in constant pain and discomfort. A side not to this, is that when the great flood washed through Tianjin , the women with bound feet could not walk very steadily, let alone run, and a large majority of them were washed away by the flood! Women also had to wear really high collars, which prevented them from turning their heads to look around. The men didn't want their women's eyes wandering, freedom like that only belonged to a man. I know what you're thinking, and you're right, simply barbaric. We Americans would never ever deform or torture ourselves to appease anyone! I thought so too, until I remembered that we did...corsets, high heels, or bustiers anyone? Anyway, the third thing I learned is that family is highly valued here, more so than anything else. Here, it's a crime to not take care of your parents in their old age. Children continue to live with their parents until they marry, and it doesn't matter if you're a male or female. During a wedding ceremony, I had the opportunity to attend one!, the parents of the bride and groom are honored, and the wife and groom must serve their soon-to-be-spouse's parents tea (did I mention that I HATE tea?)



This school week blew by, and was filled with quizzes and other scholarly things like reading, translating, and homework, you know all the stuff that makes life fun. It ended on a pretty good note, I had a test, on which I scored a 95% to the disgruntlement of my roommate. Apparently he thinks it's really unfair that he studied practically the entire weekend before the exam, while I only watched movies, shopped, skyped with some friends, and did a 30 minute cram session right before the test, and outscored him. Justin, some people have to study, and some people don't, and some people have really great short term memories...! Okay, it's late and speaking of the devil, dear Justin just walked in drunk on Chinese alcohol. I'm gonna sign off and catch you cats later! hopefully with hilarious drunk Justin stories! Until next time!

再见！(Zaijian-bye)

-罗可斯