On our last day in Xiamen we were all woken up at the bright and early 6:00AM to visit the last three things we didn't see in the city: a Buddhist temple, a fort, and a former fishing village turned shopping center. I actually don't have much to say on anything since we spent so little time in each location. What I can say is that the Buddhist temples in other parts of China were nicer than the one in Xiamen simply because they had less people. The fort is a fort, it had big guns pointed at the Nationalist (I guess now Democratic Progressive after their last election) "Republic of China" occupying Taiwan; we only spent like 20 minutes there so I think we actually spent more time driving to and from the fort than we did in the fort. Finally we went to an old fishing village that is now a shopping center, I had coffee and tasted a Taiwanese shaved ice. Diplomatic abnormalities and political conflict are no reason why we can't enjoy a shaved ice every once in a while, right? We had lunch at a distinctively Chinese barn of a sea food restaurant that was actually pretty good. I guess I got the fish I wanted but I could have used a Sedrin (the local Xiamen beer). We were then taken to the train station for our six hour trip back to Shanghai. We made it back pretty late so my friends and I got a roast meat sandwich from less sketchy roast meat guy.
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I am now back at ECNU, in my bed, writing my blog. My last day in Xiamen was actually quite a long one, we had a 6:00AM wake up time only to get back to campus by 9:00PM. I didn't really get to write at breakfast (like I was normally doing in Xiamen) nor did I get to write at night (because by the time I got back to my room I was in no position to write anything) so I am going to try to publish my last two days in Xiaman a bit later than I planed.
On my second day in Xiamen, my group of ECNU international students was taken three hours away form Xiamen to visit the home of the Hakka People (客家民族), one of China's 56 ethnic groups. The particular Hakka community we visited, the Fujian Tulou Earthen Buildings site, is one of China's many UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We did have some delays in getting there though; one of the roads was ripped up for construction so it took us about half an hour just to pass that small stretch of street, eventually though we did make it to the site. The Tulou buildings are Earthen buildings built to protect the Hakka people from the roving bandits and wild animals that were common in the mountains of Imperial China. Each Hakka clan would have their own Tulou building that house all the essentials for relatively comfortable living at the time, such as water wells and Buddhist temples. Since most bandits just wanted to get the booty quickly and leave, they were unwilling to besiege the fortified Tulou buildings. The site was interesting I guess, I got a lot of good photos and the Fujian Tulou buildings were defiantly neat but I don't know if it was worth the six hours on the bus there and back to see them. Walking around the site, it was clear that many other people weren't willing to make the drive. While the buildings are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a China National Tourism Authority AAAAA Tourist Site, for China there were hardly any people there. It felt like Zhangjiajie got more tourists in the off season than the Fujian Tulou did in far better weather. If you compare the Fujian Tulou to the number of tourists China's really famous world heritage sites get, like the Forbidden City of Beijing or the Terracotta Army of Xi'an, the Fujian Tulou felt down right abandon. For both lunch and dinner I had Hakka food. The Hakka were traditionally an agrarian people and their salty vegetable biased foods reflect this. I wasn't super into our lunch, I guess we went to a touristy restaurant that knew none of us would ever come back there for the food. Dinner was actually really good, the local Hakka restaurant in Xiamen proper was tasty and seemed thrilled to have such a large group of foreign customers. The food served for both lunch and dinner weren't pretty, I can't picture the Great Qing Emperor digging down on a plate of the tofu we had for lunch or the eggplant we had for dinner. It was all filling though which is what you want after a long day in the field. All in all, I guess I am glad I went if for no other reason than I can say I did.
Yesterday my group and I took a ferry to Gulang Island (鼓浪屿) to enjoy the views, musuems, buildings, fruit, and history. Gulang Island seems to have been the center of foreign activity in Xiamen so had the former British, American, German, and Japanese counculates all preserved to vairing degrees. Just walming around the streets was nice as it is a very pretty island. We got to see two museums: a small art museum which was nice I guess and a piano museum which was kind of cool. Lunch was alright. I noticed that the Chinese dont get into the water, they just sit on the beach and look at the sea. I got these cool sea shell good luck charms which was nice, no one other than the one guy I bought it from sold them. For dinner I got hotpot, the local beer, and a Hong Kong egg waffle. Overall a fun day.
From and early 6:30AM starting time, my group of about 40 ECNU International students hit the high spead rail to Xiamen, a bit south of Shanghai by Taiwan. After one sixish hour train ride and one book (The Jewz of Kaifeng by Prof. Xu Xi ) we arrived. We really hit the ground running, visiting the campus of Xiamen University with its unique architecture that blends Chinese and Western. The university (along with a near by middle and elementry school) were all founded by a Mr. Cheng Jiagang, a Xiamen local who made a fortune doing something in Singapore, and boy did we hear alot about this guy. He did seem to have a bit of an ego, the middle school only has bathrooms on the first floor because he wants people to exercise more and he named everything after himself, the area does seem quite well off thanks to his help. We then visited his grave, a large piller covered in carvingd of stuff to help teach the young, even in death. It was kind of cool and gave us some great vieas of the sea (something I don't often see in Shanghai disipte the second character in Shanghai [海] meaning sea). We then returned to the hotel to drop our stuff off and find dinner. They took us to a mall type thing and told us to have fun finding food. My friends and I ended up finding a place that sold various forms of chicken, steak, and lobster. I would like to proudly announce that we found General Tsao's Chicken in China, for real. It was actually very different from the American verson, it had bones for instance. I then went back to my room and went to bed, since I was a coffee short of my usual and I was up for a while.
Tomorrow, Wednesday 19th, I will be going on the Spring ECNU field trip to Xiamen in Fujin Provence by Taiwan. Xiamen is a "small" Chinese city noted for its lovely gardens, seafood, and for being one of the first cities the Chinese Emperors opened to the Western "barbarians." It should be fun, I am looking forward to sitting on a patio drinking Tsingtao, eating a horrifically unkosher animal, shaking my fist at the Republic of China occupied the Provence of Taiwan. I have high hopes for Xiamen, it should be fun. Hopefully ECNU's staff will let me chill a bit because that is really what one should do in a shore city. It should be noted that a shore city and a beach city in China are very different things. The only real beaches in China are on Hainan while the whole east of the country has shore. For the most part, you can't swim in good chunks of the country. I will keep the blog updated.
Yesterday, I was trying to sign up for ECNU’s field trip to ether Xiamen or Guilin. Before you signed up you needed to fill out a form detailing who you are and your project proposal for the field trip to a city you might never have been before. Now we weren’t told much about this project, other than the basic requirements and the rumor that it is a way to prevent the frequent drinking that was common on last semester fieldtrip to Beijing. You also needed the full fieldtrip fee in cash (a topic I have went into several times before) and a copy of your passport. For some reason, they implemented a rule that only 40 people can go on each trip given out on a first come first serve basis, the quality of your project proposal didn’t seem to have any bearing on this. I got in line at about 12:30 and I was about the 60th person in line. It took me until about 3:00 before I got to give my paperwork to the one person checking in forms. She asked me a few questions about my project before giving me a receipt, another form to fill out, and sent me on my way. I got lucky, I heard at least four students spent more time in line than me and didn’t get a trip since both trips were filled by the time they go to the front. This second form asked for much of the same information as the first form, except the second form asked if you were vegetarian or Muslim so you could get special meals. Thankfully this form was all online so I didn’t have to get back into line to turn it in. Now, you might be wondering why we couldn’t skip all this bureaucratic mess and just have everyone who wanted to go on a trip fill out one online form that included the project proposal and let people come anytime within the next week to answer questions about their proposal and pay the fee. Even if you wanted to enforce the hard 40/40 split of students you still could since you could have your form software can likely keep track of the order people signed up in. That is a very good question, what is more perplexing is that this system was what they did last semester and it worked great. I guess it is another attempt to discourage drunkenness since anyone who wants to just drink that badly would skip the line and just drink in Shanghai. Still, even heavy drinkers might want a change of scenery for their drinking and waiting in line drunk might have made it more bearable. It is all alright though in the end. Some of my friends, classmates, and I got a trip to the city of Xiamen. Stay tuned for that when it comes.
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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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