TravelStream™ news feed for member kathryn.klug on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/kathryn.klug en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Sat, 02 Feb 2008 09:00:32 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kathryn.klug/china_2007/1201959720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kathryn.klug/china_2007/1201959720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kathryn.klug/china_2007/1201959720/tpod.html Sat, 02 Feb 2008 09:00:32 -0500 My adventures as a student intern in the Orient.

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Dalian, China

Well, I arrived back in China safely after a wonderful vacation back home. Nothing too eventful happened on the flight over. My flight was delayed a little while because of the snow in Chicago, but that wasn't too bad. While I was waiting, I talked with a couple of different Chinese ladies who were going back to China. One had lived in the US for a few years with her husband and son and the other was going back to her university in China after visiting her mother over Christmas holiday. The flight itself, like the first two, was long, but it was more intersting than the others. The in flight movies were more interesting than usual and the food wasn't bad either (except for this one snack that they give on every flight which I can't eat because 1) I'm just not hungry and 2) it tastes pretty bad. Who ever thought to put rice, onions, ginger, and raisins together and serve it cold, anyway? ) Speaking of meals, there is an upside to having to get special meals in-flight-- I think that my gluten free meals taste much better than the other passengers regular meals look!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kathryn.klug/china_2007/1190211960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kathryn.klug/china_2007/1190211960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kathryn.klug/china_2007/1190211960/tpod.html Sun, 14 Oct 2007 10:10:15 -0400 My adventures as a student intern in the Orient.

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Dalian, China

Culture fascinates me! I absolutely love to study the differences between different cultures. There are so many colorful and wonderful things to be found in the study of different peoples. That is why I took the opportunity to spend a semester as a student intern in China. I wanted to experience a different culture first hand.

My first sight of China was from my airplane window. What I saw was buildings upon buildings. Millions of people live together, crowded into high-rise apartments and condominiums. It is unreal to me how people can live so close together. Having been raised in the relatively sparsely populated Missouri Ozarks, I found the crowding to be quite an interesting thing to observe.

When I stepped off the airplane in Beijing, the first thing I noticed was the heat. It was hot, similar to Missouri, but not quite the same sort of heat. It was a thick heat. It was not humid, but the air was thick with pollution. I have never been in a place with pollution like China before. It smelled like rubber and oil, not unlike a mechanics shop, only out of doors on the tarmac.

My fellow interns and I took a shuttle from the tarmac to the terminal. That was an experience! We were crowded onto that bus standing up trying to keep our balance as it moved across the pavement. I stood back to back with another person; I do not know who. We were so crowded we used each other as a means of support as the bus swayed from side to side.

Inside the terminal, we walked through several lines to turn in our entry papers. There were so many people there of many different nationalities using many different languages. There were Africans, British, Canadians, Arabs, Americans, and perhaps other nationalities that I was not able to pick out of the crowd not to mention the Chinese. One thing I noticed was that the Beijing airport seemed hushed in comparison to Chicago's noisy O'Hare airport. I found this interesting since there were as many if not more people there as at O'Hare. There almost seemed to be a feeling of hushed expectancy as if everyone felt the same excitement and awe that I did about being in a new country.

The other two interns and I thought that someone was going to meet us at the Beijing airport, but apparently something was not communicated to us, so the other interns and I gathered and toted our baggage through the airport to our gate. An entrepreneurial Chinese man came and "helped" us find our gate and get everything lined up for our flight from Beijing to Dalian, the city where the school we are working and studying is. The man expected to be paid, of course, and one of the interns gave him a few dollars in American money since we had not changed any money into RMB, the Chinese currency, yet. Later we found out that there are many such people at the airports in China. They try to get a little extra money by "helping" the gullible foreigners by doing them a "service." Perhaps he did help us some, but it was not worth the fifteen dollars he was asking.

Once we had rechecked our baggage and gotten our boarding passes for the hour long flight from Beijing to Dalian, we settled in to wait for our flight to arrive. We had gotten to Beijing around 4:00 p.m. and our flight was not due to leave until 7:00 p.m. We sat in the lobby next to our gate for quite a while when a Chinese lady came up to me and asked me if I had flown into Beijing from Chicago. I was beginning to wonder how in the world she knew that I had, when she explained that she recognized me from the flight. I wore a cowboy hat on the flight over and that became my identifiable characteristic. She was a Chinese-born American citizen going back Dalian for her sister's wedding. She was very well spoken and told us that she worked in a bank in Chicago. I found it amazing that another American would take the exact same flights to the same places where we were going.

The flight to Dalian was a little bumpy, which was interesting. When we got to the Dalian airport and had collected our luggage we made our way towards the exit where, much to our relief, we saw someone holding a sign with our names on it. By that time we were so exhausted that we would not have done very well on our own trying to find the University or a place to stay for the night. The people who picked us up from the airport were very nice. They offered to take us to get something to eat or to buy necessities, which was very thoughtful, but we agreed among ourselves that we were so tired that we would like to get settled into our apartment and sleep before we thought about anything else.
Our first sight of our apartment building was not very enlightening as it becomes dark quite early in China compared to Missouri. All I could see was a lighted doorway and beyond that stairs. We climbed the stairs up to the third floor where our apartment is and were cordially welcomed into our little palace. It is a wonderful apartment with nice hardwood floors, comfortable furniture and very elegant, modern décor. I was in awe. My first apartment was perfect. My room was fully furnished, down to the thoughtfully provided pair of shoes to wear around the house. I felt quite at home.

The next morning I woke up before five a.m. and was fully awake. One of the very first things I did was look out my window to see what could be seen, which was not much at five am. As the sun rose, however, and more became visible, I was enchanted. I saw a little park outside my window in the next apartment complex with a large goose, reminding me of the one in the Mother Goose stories from my childhood, and strangely shaped objects- which I discovered as I watched, were exercise equipment. As I looked on, I saw a man come out and start swinging back and forth on one of the things. For the longest time I could not tell what he was doing, but as the light became brighter, I saw that he was exercising. I then noticed more people coming out and doing morning exercises. I find it fascinating, the way the Chinese exercise so diligently, for every morning, as I watch, I see the same people going into that park and doing the same exercises. Some exercise vigorously and others do the sedate Tai Chi. They are such a health conscious society compared to Americans. It seems that they would not need to do these exercises because they walk or bicycle everywhere, up hills and down as they carry heavy loads of groceries or books. There are cars, buses and taxis, but the greatest number of people walk, putting elevator riding, car driving, couch potato Americans quite to shame!

There are so many things to tell about China. There are so many new sensations here, sights, smells, and sounds, that it is hard to separate them out and evaluate them properly. My first few hours in China were a wonderful, exciting time. As I spend more time in China, I am being constantly exposed to new and strange sensory challenges which sometimes delight me, or sometimes disgust me. From the wonderful traditional Chinese music, to the smell of garbage rotting in the street, China is filled with interesting stimuli. The culture is intriguing. It is so strange, yet quite enthralling. These people live differently from me, but as I stay here, the more things I find in common with them. I love their culture. I am at ease in it, which is more than I can say, many times, about my own!

***

This is a paper that I wrote for English which I thought that you all might like to read.

Katie
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kathryn.klug/china_2007/1188244620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kathryn.klug/china_2007/1188244620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kathryn.klug/china_2007/1188244620/tpod.html Sun, 16 Sep 2007 05:02:14 -0400 My adventures as a student intern in the Orient.

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Dalian, China

Nihao ma? ("Hello, how are you" in Chinese.) I arrived safely in China Friday evening. There wasn't anyone to meet us at the Beijing airport, but we got through customs without a hitch, though I must say that I set off the metal detectors with my cowboy hat. That was an adventure. I had to be wanded with this little metal detector thing and then patted down by this Chinese lady, but it wasn't too bad. Once she figured out that it was my hat it was OK. While we were sitting near our gate, a Chinese woman came up to me and asked if I had flown from Chicago. She had been on the flight and recognized me by my hat. She lives in the US and was going to Dalian too, to go to her sister's wedding. Imagine that!

When we got to Dalian we made it through the airport without a hitch and we had people from the University waiting for us. It was a relief because we weren't sure where to go from there. They drove us to our apartment which is about a ten minutes walk from campus (I haven't timed it yet.) The apartment is awesome! I love it!!! Beautiful hardwood floors, and a generally nice, modern design.

On Saturday I woke up before 5 AM. Selina, one of the girls from the office, came at nine to take us to the University where we called home and checked our email (we don't have email or telephone service yet in our apartment.) After we got done with that she took us to new mart to buy a few necessities, and I got my first taste of Chinese food- I had a delicious grape flavored ice cream bar. We went back to the University then, and I called Mama and Papa again (Tami had called Selina and talked to me and insisted that I talk to my family for longer, which I really appreciated.) Then we met Phil Whitkorn (I think that is his last name), his wife and their two children. They took us out to eat our first real meal in China. I was a little aprehensive at first, because there were fish and eels and other apetizing looking things swimming in tanks in the front of the store (and smelling very fishy), waiting to be eaten. We had some kind of pork, chicken, spicy potatoes (potato strings with ginger and other spices), seasoned brocoli and of course rice. The rice that I got had scrambled egg in it. It was good. I really liked the chicken. We brought the meat and rice home and the other girls broght some pastries that they got at the resteraunt. I wish that I could have had some. They looked really good!

Sunday, we went to Church and met several new people. In the afternoon we went to Olympic square with Kayla and Chris, two teachers (not much older than us) from MSU. It was really neat seeing the sights there on the bay. After we were done with our walk we took a taxi (four girls in the backseat...) and went to New Mart to get some necessities. I got orange juice (that tastes like orange tang with some orange pulp added. It's good) and a can of peach flavored soda. I am saving the soda for later. After we were done shopping we walked home to put away our goodies and then went back out to get dinner at the same resteraunt that we had gone to on Saturday. That was an adventure, as we did not have someone to translate for us! We did OK though. We didn't get the Sprite that we thought we ordered, we drank green tea instead. It was good. We got two extra bowls of rice too, but oh well, we had it for breakfast this morning! We had the pork again and also ordered a plate of sweet and sour shrimp. We weren't sure what we were ordering, we just pointed to a picture on the menu and that's what we got! It was good. After dinner, we decided to explore the neighborhood right around where we live. There are a lot of people in China! It was really neat. At one point we had some little boys (around 7 or 8 years old) yell hello to us. I said hello back and they said something in Chinese to each other and laughed. I think they might have been saying something about us being foreigners, but I'm not sure... :) After we got home we hung out in the living room and did homework and discussed watching a movie, but we finally went to bed and I journaled.

Yesterday, we went to the bank and got some of our money exchanged. I feel rich now. They give you so much cash back for the cash you handed in! We also went to the University and found out what we are going to be doing. Thursdays we have our culture class from 8-11 am. We will also be working in the writing center to help the students with their papers. I'm not sure which days of the week I'll be working at the writing center. I'll try to post when I find out for sure. I am excited about the culture class. We are going to get to learn elementary Chinese! Woo hoo!!! I am going to enjoy working in the writing center, too. I love English and all the Chinese students I have met so far are really nice. One of the students, Christina, took Emma, Chelsea and I out and about town yesterday evening. We got to go to Wal-Mart! It was a lot like our Wal-Marts back at home- they even have the Great Value and Mainstay brands! After Wal-Mart we took our selves to a Japanese mall. It was pretty high end. Oh, I got Gatoraide. I haven't tried it yet, but the bottle looks pretty much the same except it is in Chinese! We then went to dinner at a resteraunt which we hadn't been to yet. We had been going to a resteraunt close to home which has very good food. This one was pretty nice. I had spicy chicken. It was good. It was one of the few things that I could have off of the menu (everything seemed to be made with dumplings or noodles.) Oh, I love the tea. It is really good and almost has a ricey flavor to it. We then took a cab home- the first time we have taken a cab without a translator with us! Christina told the cab driver where we needed to go and then walked home. The rascal wouldn't let us pay for her cab fare and insisted on walking! Oh, well, I hope she made it home OK!

Well, that is all the news I have for now.

Hitou jian! ("I'll see you later" in Chinese.)

Katie
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