A room with a view

View from my window.

Last Friday after more than 2 months of travelling I finally arrived in Xiamen. From now on I will stay in the same place again, at least that’s what I’m planning to do. Much to my surprise I immediately found a room on the day I arrived. I expected to find a room somewhere this week with a lot of hassle and the whole search to be quite frustrating. But apart from the bargaining it turned out to be quite easy.

When I just got off the bus I found out that the youth hostel, where I planned on staying the first week was already full. So I went to the first internet bar I saw, and searched for the number of the University’s foreign student department. When I called them, I was surprised to hear that they would immediately send someone from a housing agency to the main gate of the university, to help me find a room.

I was even more surprised to find out that the student working for the agency could speak decent English. This is quite a change from Wuhu, where even the English majors don’t speak English that well. The first room she showed me was quite small and 600 Yuan more expensive than I had in mind. Apart from the size and the rent, I wasn’t very happy with the room. The second one she showed me, had the price I had in mind, but this room was even smaller, and didn’t have any windows. And because the room wasn’t that new anymore all in all it looked kind of depressing. Not a very good place to live, to say the least.

Fortunately the landlady had another room upstairs. This room was a lot bigger and had two big windows opposite each other, both with a great view. Outside the room there was a roof balcony, from where you could see the sea and on the other side the university campus. I immediately liked this room, but unfortunately the landlord wanted 500 Yuan more than I was planning on paying for accommodation. It was a very nice room but not being sure of getting a part time job here, I thought I could better go and find another room. Because I said that this was a really nice room, but just a bit too expensive for me the landlord offered the rent 200 Yuan cheaper, I still thought this was too expensive, so I left. Downstairs we were surprised by a phone call. “What about 300 Yuan Cheaper?”

So I experienced my first bargaining over a room, which went quite successful in my opinion. So far I heard that my new neighborhood close to the university is in general quite expensive, especially for foreigners. However I still think it’s a bit strange to bargain over the rent, that’s just impossible to do in Amsterdam. Though it’s a lot harder to find a room in Amsterdam as well.

View from the other window. Outside the photo on the right is the university.

On a side note, from my balcony you can even see the statue of the Chinese hero Koxinga, who is standing on another small Island (Gulangyu). They have a very big statue of him, because he defeated the Dutch colonists in Taiwan and reoccupied Chinese land. Therefore he is a Chinese/Taiwanese hero and one of the landmarks in my new city.

All in all I’m quite happy with my new room, although I’m not sure how long I will live here. Opposite one of my big windows, there is an empty piece of land, which will most likely turn into a construction site very soon. So maybe I’ll need to find another room again in a few weeks…
But until that happens I’m quite glad to have this place and I will first see how everything will go with the university. Tomorrow is already the registration date!

My new room

Shanghai

Shanghai on a distance of only 6 hours with bus from Wuhu, is very different than Wuhu, but not so different as I expected it to be. Of course the city is far more bigger, crowded, richer, developed and international, which all together might make a huge difference, but apart from those differences, the city is still so Chinese. When I first got here I compared it to Hong Kong, but the difference with Hong Kong is a lot bigger in my opinion.

Shanghai might actually have more old colonial buildings than Hong Kong does, but despite those old European style buildings the people and the city’s atmosphere is so Chinese. There are quite a lot of foreigners here as well, but the difference with Hong Kong is, that here they all seem to be temporary residents or tourist, while in Hong Kong those other foreigners are also locals. Maybe people from Hong Kong disagree with me on that point, but if they live there for more than 20 years, they are just as local as anyone else who lived there 20 years.

There are probably some foreigners living for more than 20 years in Shanghai as well, but they are a very small minority. Compared to a cosmopolitan city like Hong Kong it’s nothing. The foreigners here look like lost expats or tourists like me, which is the same as anywhere else in China. Another big difference with Hong Kong is the attitude from the local Chinese towards foreigners, they don’t stare at you anymore like in the more remote parts of China, but they thread you far from equal. While in Hong Kong the locals thread foreigners the same way like in Amsterdam or London. In Shanghai foreigners are living in a different world. Certain bars are only visited by expats, while there are Chinese clubs who are only visited by wealthy Chinese and some lost tourists. It’s the same situation in other Chinese cities, but I guess in the city with the most foreigners in China it’s more visible. It also seems to be a rule that foreigners need to pay more here, while in most parts of China it happens more occasional. Shanghai is a bit more expensive than the rest of China, but compared to Hong Kong it’s still very cheap.

A disappointment in Shanghai was that they are busy with construction works everywhere, including the famous Bund, which made it impossible to walk there. A useless but interesting fact about Shanghai I heard is that at some point in time, 75% of the worlds construction sites where based here. I haven’t checked whether it’s true or not, but seeing them building everywhere in this city makes me believe it is. It’s impossible to walk here for 10 minutes without seeing a construction site. The new subway line in Amsterdam is nothing compared to this. Another disappointment has been the weather here, which was not very good. As good as every day it was cloudy with a few days some rain as well. Still it’s quite hot, so walking around in Shanghai is not so pleasant.

Ferrari on the Bund next to one of the many construction sites.

Despite the construction sites, the weather and the hawkers (Which I haven’t mentioned yet, but they are approaching foreigners everywhere here, which is a bit annoying sometimes) I had a nice week here. This afternoon I’ll travel to Hangzhou, less than 2 hours with the train and next weekend I’ll already be arriving in Xiamen. Time is going very fast.

A half year

Today I’m exactly half a year in China. It’s the longest time I’ve been away from home. And in what kind of country! It’s a different world on this side of the world that’s for sure. After half a year I thought of writing some kind of evaluation about the last half year. First I tought of writing something about China or Chinese people. But when I was on the train towards Wuhu, I had to think about how many different opinions foreigners have about this country, and how many different experiences other foreigners have over here. The last couple of weeks I heard so many stories and opinions about China and the Chinese from other travelers, and they were all so different. Fellow travelers said that Chinese people are so friendly, rude, racist, conservative, curious, disinterested, helpful, funny, stupid, intelligent, uneducated, poor, rich, etc. I found the viewpoints so different that it’s almost like they all went to different countries. The only thing which everyone agreed to was that China is so big.

For me that might be the only thing which is undeniable. This country is just so big with so many people, that it’s possible to have so many different experiences over here. In half a year I had a lot of different experiences over here. I’ve met a lot of very friendly Chinese people, but of course there are also unfriendly people. They can be pretty rude, especially around train and bus stations and they usually spit without any shame, although in Beijing I only saw it a few times and I also know Chinese people who find this behavior very uncivilized. After half a year I’m not really sure what to think of China and the Chinese. This country has just too many different faces, as a figure of speech, though for China it’s true literally as well.

Yesterday morning I arrived back “home” in Wuhu. The place changed quite a bit since I left two months ago, things are changing very fast in China. Despite the changes it feels very familiar to be back again. Maybe it’s just that I know where I am and that I can go to places without looking at maps or thinking which way I should go. Or maybe after almost 4 months this place has become my home in China, although I wouldn’t really call it home cause it’s still so different than where I’m from. I have to admit that I’m getting used to the way things are around here, though off course I still miss my real home now and then, but not enough to make me go back yet.

The last half year past very fast, so fast that I can still perfectly remember the last day and night I was in Holland. Of course I also remember the first two weeks I had in China, when I just arrived, when everything was still new. When going for diner was still a complete surprise. Yesterday when I walked through the underground tunnel of the train station I had a déjà vu of the first time I walked through that tunnel at 5 in the morning, when I started my teaching job here, hoping that there would be someone from the school to pick me up outside the station. The teaching period was very interesting and it was nice to get to know this city in more detail. Very different than the travelling I just did, cause I saw a lot more places in China, but the idea I have about all those places is not very detailed to say the least. Well I enjoyed both periods and that’s the most important. Overall it has been a great adventure so far.

A little bit less than 2 weeks traveling left, before I finally go and search for a new home in Xiamen, where I will be studying very soon. Monday I’ll get my new visa and then Tuesday I’ll leave to Shanghai. After enjoying Hong Kong I’m curious how the economic metropolis of the mainland is going to be.

Travel update

More than two weeks back in China already, so it’s about time for an update again. So first things first, I finally went to the great wall of China! It was a very impressive place to be. Definitely one of my highlights in China. I walked over a less touristic part of the wall together with three French girls and an Canadian couple. It was a really good part of the wall, with nice views and even some parts which were not restored. All together it was a very nice walk from about 4 hours.

In Beijing I Also went to the Summer Palace, but this place was quite disappointing, because there where far too many people there. It proves me that Chinese tourists want different things than Western tourists, cause they seemed to love this place, while I found it one of the most disappointing places I’ve seen in China. On the other hand the Chinese also know more of the history about this place, while I have no to little idea.

After Beijing I took a night train to Hohhot, the capital of inner Mongolia. Now I’ve been on night trains before in China, and so far my experience with them has been great (Yes, even the train ride of 32 hours was quite good.) Let me quickly add, that so far I’ve always had a nice hard sleeper, which is not a great bed, but good value for the money your paying. This time however I had a hard seat… and I was one of the lucky ones. There were also people who didn’t had a seat, and just stood or sat on the floor the whole night long. Even though I might have been luckier than others, I still had a horrible night on the train, and didn’t slept for one minute.

I went to Hohhot to visit the grasslands of inner Mongolia, who turned out to be a circus for Chinese tourists. Another sign that Chinese tourist really want different things than me. It reminded me a little bit of Centerparks in Holland, a kind of holiday resort where you can imagine to be staying in real nature. There are big camps of tents with Chinese tourists, including karaoke and “real” Mongolian restaurants. Another thing which disappointed me here, was that I didn’t feel for one second that I was in Mongolia. The people were Chinese and the ones who looked a little bit different, where still very Chinese. Maybe I would have liked it more when I went here, when I just got to China. But now after my travel experience in the west of Sichuan to the Tibetan towns, this was just simply disappointing.

After Hohhot I moved on to a very ugly city called Datong. This city was poor and polluted and made me very happy that I lived in Wuhu instead of this place. The reason however why I went here, where the Yungang caves with big Buddha statues and these were happily enough quite impressive. From Datong I took another hard seat in the train (daytime though) towards a small city called Pingyao. This is about the only Chinese city which inside the town walls hasn’t got any new buildings. All the buildings inside the city walls are 18th and 19th century. Yes, that’s quite a big change from the main Chinese cities. I really liked this place, it was nice to see an older more historical part of China.

After Pingyao I decided to go off the beaten (foreign) tourist route, and take a look at one of the not so many Chinese waterfalls. This place is visited by a lot of Chinese, but almost no foreigners go to this place. Mainly because it’s off the beaten track and it’s less easy to reach than most places in China. This trip turned out to be more interesting than I expected, it included Chinese people who wanted to see European money, a stay in two very small villages, who see very few foreigners and finally a stay in a city where most hotels didn’t accept foreigners, happily enough there was a Chinese woman who helped me to find a hotel, cause else it would have taken hours to find accommodation. Oh and of course the waterfall who wasn’t as impressive as I hoped, to be honest. But the trip itself through a more remote (poor) region of China, with sometimes a bit xenophobic, but most times very curious people, of whom most never even heard of Holland was worth it. Quite a change from the beaten track, Beijing, Pingyao, Yunnan etc, which made it very special to see.

Yesterday I arrived in Xi’an and although I enjoyed the last trip through mostly rural China, I’m glad to be back in a developed city again. Tomorrow I will go to the famous terracotta army. Hopefully I will be able to somehow put some pictures up any time soon.