My friend who I proofread her Master's Thesis just graduated ECNU and needed to get rid of some plants because she couldn't bring back to her home town in Hunan Province, so she gave them to me. While they were both lovely I am unequipped to be a plant parrent this year since I can't look after them over break and I can't import them to the US when I return home. Forentually one of my Shanghaiese exchange partners was willing to adopt them from me. She just posted a WeChat Moment about gardening so I think I picked the right person, it is still kind of sad though.
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I had another lecture for the Global Business Project today on ECNU'S Minhang campus. Since we don't get time to eat lunch on the Zhongbei campus, we instead had it on Minhang. This is an egg pancake thing I got, it is not like the Shanghai egg pancakes I blogged about some time ago but it was alright. They forgot to add the chicken that might have made it better. I also got a Chinese hamburger that I forgot to take a picture of. Today I made another attempt to pay for my room. It is not that I don't have the money, it is just that ECNU doesn't seem to accept any form of payment other than cash. Using a credit card in China is extremely difficult, almost no one takes them. Debit cards aren't much better, only a few places and the ATMs accept visa cards. It is completely normal just to have several thousand US dollars worth of physical Renminbi lying around so you can get to paying for what ever largish purchase you need to make. I heard this steams from the Chinese people's aversion to using credit for anything, as it is seen as spending money you don't have, and the lack of access to credit in China. What is interesting though is that China's mobile banking system is really advanced. The most common convenient payment method are the mobile payment systems like Alipay or WeChat Pay. China's mobile payment systems are actually more advanced the America's and are far more commonly used. Most places, including the ENCU cafeteria and many of the street venders, accept ether Alipay or WeChat Pay. For smaller payments it is actually more common to use a mobile payment system than cash, credit, or debit. Skipping steps on the development ladder is actually very common. The average Chinese had very little capital until Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms in the 1980s, so only really needed little bits of cash to get by. By the time many Chinese had enough money do demand a more convenient payment system, mobile payment was already invented so they must embraced that. We see similar patterns in Africa where, once the population started demanding phones, cellphones were already invented so it just made more sense to build an advanced cell system than a old school land line system.
Even though Facebook, and consequently Facebook Messenger, is blocked in China many Chinese still want some type of online messenger system to use, enter WeChat. The vast majority of Chinese and foreigners I have met in China have a WeChat account and use it regularly, more regularly than texting or calling. Even Chabad's Rabbi in Shanghai has a WeChat that he uses to share info about the Chabad House's activates and events. While WeChat has a Facebook wall esk "Moments" page and "subscription" accounts the app is really designed for person to person or group communication. In terms of features I would put WeChat's feature set far ahead of Facebook Messenger's. While Messenger offers a rarely used payment feature as kind of a side thing, WeChat pay seems almost more useful then a credit card in China. Also, WeChat offers voice calling and GPS maps which are both useful features that Facebook doesn't offer. Finally, WeChat has a sticker collection feature, that Facebook doesn't, which is simply far too fun. You will whole heartedly agree with the old adage "a picture is worth 1,000 words" when you express approval for something with a clapping Xi Jinping or showing confusion with a ground hog shouting "啊." My biggest issue with WeChat is that they most probably likely turn over chat logs and metadata over to the Chinese government whenever the government wants it. While for me this is not a problem as I avoid doing anything too sketchy or illegal, it is a problem though for activists who find that the police know the plans they made on WeChat a little too well. If I needed any level of security for my conversation I would not use WeChat. In China, I enjoy WeChat and I wish Facebook would steal some ideas from them. Outside of China, I will only use WeChat to communicate with my Chinese friends in part because of its limited use in the US and in part form its total lack of security. This morning, I was woken up by a Skype call with my Mom who is actively at my family's Thanksgiving party in New Jersey. Because of how time zones work, even though it is November 25th in Shanghai, it is still the 24th on the East Coast of the United States. I enjoyed popping in for Thanksgiving, even if it was a bit confusing for not fully awake me. While this 12 or 13 hour (depending on day light savings time) is somewhat difficult to wrap your head around, fear not China has even more time zone weirdness if today also being tomorrow or yesterday makes too much sense for you. If hypothetically I was studying in Western China in cities like Lasa, Tibet Autonomous Region or Chengdu, Sichuan Provence the legal time difference would be the same 12 or 13 hours. Unlike many countries, all of China legally sets their clocks to Beijing's time zone instead of using the 5 time zones China actually covers. While this is ok for someone like me in Shanghai who would be in the same time zone as Beijing anyway, the significant difference between solar time and clock time poses a real problem for people in West China. Many just ignore the law altogether and use either what time zone they should be in or they adjust their schedules to compensate for the difference in solar time and clock time; hypothetically you would have lunch at 10:00AM when it is solar noon instead of having lunch at 12:00PM which is clock noon. This time zone oddness also means that the largest amount you would ever officially have to change your clocks by crossing one time zone is if you went from far West China (UTC +8:00) to Afghanistan (UTC +4:30). Afghanistan is one of a few countries to use a non-standard half an hour time zone. China also borders North Korea who, interestingly but kind of unsurprisingly, uses the non-standard half an hour time zone of UTC +8:30. If you really wanted to mess with your time zones and didn't care what countries you had to go to do it, an overland trip from Afghanistan, through China, and ending up in North Korea would be your best bet. I fully expect that Thanksgiving I won't have to deal with any of this time zone stuff, since I will be celebrating Thanksgiving from New Jersey, USA.
Unlike English, which tends to adopt foreign words to get new words, Chinese tends to gets new words by combining preexisting Chinese words. For example, the Chinese word for computer is 电脑; with 电 meaning electrionic and 脑 meaning brain combining to form the complex concept of a computer. Thanksgiving can be broken down into 感恩,meaning greatful, which can iteself be broken down into 感,feel or sense; 嗯,kindness; and 节,meaning holiday. Still, my favorite example of this is turkey, which in Chinese is 火鸡,from 火 meaning fire and 鸡 meaning chicken. While I am a fan of turkey and Thanksgiving, it would be significantly cooler if instead of eating a bird with a named after a country it isn't from for Thanksgiving we all sat around the table and ate a fire chicken! While it may be a funny literal translation with our pure white domesticated turkeys you can defiantly see the fire connection with some of the more while turkeys with their glistening feathers. Even though Chinese has a perfectly good word for turkey and the stereotype of China is that the people will eat any animal under the sun, turkey is rare in China. I am sure if I wanted to buy a turkey I could get one somewhere in Shanghai, but I believe it would be quite the quest.
As part of my pay for proofreading, I got to go to dinner at one of the nicer restaurants in Global Harbor Mall, Deep South Yunnan Cuisine (yes that is its name) that always kind of intrigued me. Most of the food was good, my host didn't really like to tofu dish we got even though the fish, vegetables, and special bamboo rice we ordered were all good. This does give me a chance to talk about what parts of Chinese dinner and meal etiquette I picked up. If you are spending any significant lenght if time in China, you will be invited to a meal and knowing the etiquette is helpful. The first and most important rule is that a dinner for two in China, even among people of opposite genders, is not inherently romantic like it kind of is in the US. Strictly platonic friends and people doing business can have a meal together without any implied romance. Infact, if you do business with a person asking them to a meal is expected, even if the business is as small as proofreading a master's thesis. I have been warned that if you start doing larger and larger business deals in China at some point drinking becomes expected. I have not hit that point yet but from what I gathered it is considered impolite to refuse a drink after you accepted the first one and you, as the guest, are expected to keep up with the company's designated drinking representative. I also heard the drinking this is more expected for males than for females though. Finally, I heard that, whatever the occasion for a meal, eat as much as you like whenever you like. You don't have to wait for someone to finish talking before you can eat again nor do you need to ensure that everyone has eaten. Most people here are of the camp that if you don't have enough food than you can always order more.
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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