Tid Bits

There are many differences between China and home. First, their fashion sense is phenomenal, in my opinion. In any case it is ten times better than my own. Everyone here is dressed in leggings and a fancy coat or the guys have this cool vest and skinny jeans. I haven't had the chance to snap a picture, but I will try in the coming adventures. Seriously everyone makes an effort to look presentable every single day, and they pull it off quite nicely. Anyway, I wanted to share a few photos and practices of the Chinese culture, so prepare your minds to be blown.

As international students, we are staying at Zhejiang International University, which has a hotel located on campus. The eight students, myself included, that have come from UW-RF are staying in a dorm that is run by the hotel. The actual hotel, houses the female students while our own dorm is used for international students. Word on the street is that our rooms / dorm are much better than the Chinese student's housing. Apparently there are about six people to a room with only a couple tiny desks. That is not the case for us, as you can see in the picture above. We have the luxury of two desks, two very firm, but also comfortable beds, and two closet cabinet deals that you cannot see. A thing to note is that what we call heaters are called air conditioners here. You may be able to see it in the picture, it is in the upper left corner and it is a white box thing hanging on the wall. The Chinese student dorms do not have air conditioners like most, if not all, people in China.

The cafeteria, or eatery as they like to call it, is gigantic, but not unlike what you would find in the states. The primary rush hour is around noon and there are smaller places to choose from besides the regular school food. The problem is that the menu for the other areas are all in Chinese except for one, but if you order from there the cooks do not speak English and you have no idea what dish is being brought out anyway. Over at the regular school lunch area there are multiple windows with different choices at each window. Again, none of the cooks / servers speak English so you are left playing the pointing game until you have a tray full of food. Oh, and forks are a novelty item here, I will be a master chop stick user by the of this trip. I may turn out an expert fly catcher like Mr. Miyagi.

A common mode of transportation here are scooter / moped deals or bicycles, which could run you over at any given moment if you are not paying attention. Seriously, these things are everywhere and they will be riding all up on the "side walk", I'm not really sure you could say there are side walks here, because people will be riding their bikes and mopeds wherever they please. So a word of caution, watch. your. back! and front for that matter, they will slow down , but only stop if they are 100% sure you are not getting out of the way on time. 

And just to leave you with one more fun fact, clothes dryers are not a thing here. They do exist, but they are big 'ol piles of junk! So the good people of China hang their clothes EVERYWHERE! I am not kidding you. It is the funnest thing ever, especially on campus. There is a track here with a chain link fence running around it and students will hang their blankets on it and clothes so they can dry, and there are outdoor clothes line contraptions between buildings and on roof tops. It is the craziest thing, not really, but it is pretty unique compared to home. Anyway there are some fun differences that I have encountered thus far, but there are many more. With that goodnight my friends and I will see you when I see you! Much love