This week I am going to give an a discussion of my harrowing
journey to Tianjin (from Beijing) and a little background on the town that I
spent my last six weeks in China in. This will set up for a week by week
discussion of what I did in Tianjin, where I went while staying there, and some
of the interesting things I did.
I was in Beijing until Thursday
(June 25th) and then my friend Dan flew back with his family to
Meiguo (America – or literally translated “beautiful country”). My trip to
Tianjin could best be described as “cumbersome.” This is based on a couple
factors. First, my friends that I stayed with in Beijing were both going back
to America and had a bunch of stuff to leave. This meant that I received a
bunch of free stuff to make my Tianjin stay better. This also meant that on my
trip to Tianjin I had to carry a bag with speakers in it, a suit bag, a very
heavy book bag, a very heavy laptop bag, and finally the $14 large suitcase I
bought on my first trip in Beijing. The second problem was the $14 suitcase.
There was a reason it cost $14. I was picking it up over a curb in Shanghai and
the wheel broke off, then the side handles fell off on their own accord, and
finally the top handle broke off on my way to Tianjin. This meant that I literally
had to drag the case on it bottom plastic and whenever I had to pick it up, I
got to use the extendable handle that is only meant for dragging. Yet somehow
that same piece of luggage survived all the way back to my house, where it
collapsed like the Blues Mobile.
So I took my cumbersome load and
bought a slow train ticket for 11 kuai – yes you read that right – 11 kuai
($1.70). The fun part about the slow train is that all the Chinese have no idea
why a westerner would ride the train because the fast train is only 60 kaui and
takes a fifth the time. I did it for the experience. What and experience it
was! Lugging all my bags onto the train was a job by itself. Add on the fact
that because the slow train has no foreigners riding it, the Chinese government
doesn’t put in ANY ESCALATORS ANYWHERE. So I literally carried a 50 lbs bag, a
book bag, a laptop bag, a suit bag, and a bag holding speakers up 8 flights of
concrete stairs. I looked like the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow, but drenched in
sweat because it was 90 degrees outside.
I haphazardly made it to Tianjin
only because I met a girl on the train who told me where my stop was and then
helped carry some of my bags across more flights of stairs (and got me a cab).
The one part of this experience I will take credit for is the fact that we only
spoke Chinese to one another. Thus I made it to the university partially by
luck and partially from my newly learned Chinese skills. I then drug
(literally) my bags into my room and lay down. My only comment was “I need to
throw that piece-of-s$%& bag away before I go back.”
Tianjin
During my stay in Tianjin I was able to travel back to Beijing a couple different times, over to Xi’an, to a small farming village, back to the Great Wall and flew down to the southerly island of Hainan. Finally I flew home August 9th and 10th. So, yes… I turned 21 as I came back to the United States. Score!
Let me first describe Tianjin a little bit. Germans once owned Tianjin (or ran it at least), so it is pretty international. This is not to say it is comparable to Beijing, but it is definitely more international than say… 80% of other places in China. What is interesting about Tianjin is that it is incredibly safe, very inexpensive, employs a lot of expatriates, and is known in China as a sleepy city. All of these factors work out beautifully for rambunctious college students. We did whatever we wanted to do in Tianjin. The businesses and vendors actually put out welcome signs for us! All of this is pretty cool because it allows one to live like a Rock Star, while paying the price of a pauper. That can also be a bad thing because you feel like you are living on monopoly money sometimes, so one becomes looser with their money. This is why I came back with an entire suitcase of souvenirs for people – You go shopping crazy!
A lot of expatriates also work in Tianjin because Tianjin has quite a few internationally focused schools as well as language schools. Actually knowing American English is probably the best skill (besides knowledge of Mandarin) one can have in China. This is because every Chinese student must pass an English portion of his or her high school “final” equivalent. So there are a lot of higher education institutes that continue teaching English – specifically American English because it is considered “business English.” So, while I was in Tianjin I was literally propositioned to work as both a bartender and as an English teacher.
Well, now that I explained a little about Tianjin let me explain the group I lived with. There were approximately forty-five students on the trip – fortyish from Florida State University and five from Miami University. I will never forget the Floridians. I love them and we had a blast. Specifically I want to discuss a couple people that I will bring up a lot.
Josh and Montana were brothers (one
was a junior the other had just graduated college) that knew how to party.
These two boys were affectionately known as the “Mustache Brothers” because of
their insane ability to grow full beards and mustaches. In fact, the entire
trip Montana kept a handlebar mustache while Josh generally kept a Fu-Man-Chu.
The brothers also accompanied me on my trip to Sanya (in Hainan).
Dave and Eric were roommates who
also became very good friends of mine. Dave looked like a bit like a typical
Miami surfer, except he didn’t surf and was from Minnesota originally. Eric was
shorter, dark haired, and quieter. Eric originally came from Philadelphia (Go
Cliff Lee and the Phillies!!) and was the craziest person on the trip in his
own quiet way. These two also accompanied me to Sanya. Thus we had five for our
fateful trip. Everyone else I will probably mention, but I specifically hung
out with these individuals a lot.
Well, I don’t know how I did it but it seems another blog is already up! Gosh, I try not to make these two long yet I can only discuss a few things if I do it this way. Well, from here on I am going to Discuss Week 1 and Beijing, week two and three and Xi’an, week four and Ji County, week five and Sanya, and my final week and the trip home. This means I have about five blogs left before I complete my summer discussion. This should work out well because that will be about the time of finals then winter break! Well, until next week. Zaijian!
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