Culture Shock!
I landed in
China 3 days ago and already I feel like I’ve been here for ages! The culture
is so very different and so far, it has been an enjoyable experience. After
landing in Beijing and spending a short time there getting to know my fellow
interns, I journeyed for 8 hours on a train to Harbin University where I’m
about to begin my training. The train ride itself wasn’t too bad – over 40 interns
pretty much took over the carriage and we walked around chatting to each other
whilst eating massive pots of noodles (there was free hot water available!)
Firstly,
the food. Oh wow! I mean generally it has been amazing. As there is a large
group of us I thought restaurants catering for us might be
problematic. Thankfully ImmerQi (the internship program) have planned
everything to the smallest detail. We sit in groups of around 10 and then a
wide selection of food is brought in front of us and placed on a ‘lazy susan’
(I don’t know the Chinese term) and everyone can have a bit of what they like.
It is not like England where you order one dish just for yourself, you can try
and eat as much of anything you like!
Breakfast is weird in China, there's no other way to say it! There is no distinction between types of foods and the time of day
to eat them. For example, In England we may have cereal in the morning,
sandwich at lunch and a cooked dinner. Here, my breakfast has been… well… not
really sure how to describe it, so here’s a picture:
The green
stuff was the saltiest food I have ever tasted (and even had a spicy kick to
it). As soon as I put it in my mouth I wanted to spit it out, but I was
surrounded by Chinese people and I wanted to avoid offending them, so I forced myself to finish
it and then downed half a bottle of water. I then just
ate the eggs and the strange bun thing (pretty much like bread).
One of the
big concerns about coming to China is the level of pollution and the impact
on our health. Whilst I haven't been here long, I've only seen a handful of people
wearing masks and the majority of locals didn’t bother. Despite this, I could
clearly taste and feel the pollution in Beijing on our walks to dinner in the evening, and
at night when the streets were lit up you see a faint smog. Luckily there's an app that can tell you the pollution level of any city and how dangerous is it. Even though I didn't use a
mask, I was prepared!
Something
else I have learnt is the Chinese view certain numbers as lucky or unlucky. The
name of our hotel was called ‘Super 8’ and for them, 8 is lucky as in their
language is sounds very close to their word for ‘prosper’. On the flipside, the
number 4 is considered extremely unlucky, as in their language it sounds close
to the word death. For this reason, number 4 is often omitted from things like
table numbers, floor levels etc.
I’m going
to end my first blog entry on something pretty special. As part of our tour day
and ‘getting to know each other’ period, we went to the Great Wall of China!
What an incredible experience it was. We didn’t have much time so I couldn’t
climb all the way up (the steps were so steep and went on for what seemed like
forever), plus it was fairly hot but I’m hoping to come back once I’ve finished
my internship.
And finally, here are all the interns together (from my group, there are even more at the university!). These are the people I will spending the next week with as we prepare for 5 months of teaching!
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