Almost four months have gone by since I left for China and I still haven’t really gotten the chance to talk about my daily life very much. I am living in a dormitory at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ ‘Old Campus’, located at 明故宫 (Minggugong, meaning Ming Ancient Palace), but taking classes at the ‘New Campus’. While much of my time in Ottawa during first and second year was spent travelling to and from school, attending class or doing homework and assignments, I have much more free time here due to a reduced scholarly commitment. This has given me the opportunity to do more exploring of the city of Nanjing.
Bike lanes!
Nanjing is a rather bicycle-friendly city, with segregated bike/scooter lanes on most major roads. Nevertheless, this is spoken in relative terms, as the bike lanes can be scary when crowded, even with the occasional traffic jam. All this said, shortly after having arrived in Nanjing, I went with some other exchange students to a bike market to buy a used (read: most likely stolen) bike. Not long after, my bike was also stolen, so I purchased a new one with two more secure locks. I frequently go on bike trips in my spare time, be it going downtown, to the library, the supermarket, a cool-looking place on the map or just to randomly explore.
While I mentioned that I didn’t have to commit very much time to school, I am still working towards a university degree and school is a necessary part of these efforts. It’s funny how that works, isn’t it? This semester, I am taking three classes plus an online class with Carleton. Since my language skills are not strong enough to attend regular classes in Mandarin, all of my classes (with the exception of Mandarin class) are run in English and all of my classmates are other international and exchange students. This is somewhat unfortunate, in that it is much more difficult to make local friends as the exchange students are more likely to live in their own bubble of sorts.
Snow! While it lasted…
With the coming of winter, there has inevitably been a change in the weather. From the 40 degree days of September, -5 degrees seems like a big change, although it's nothing compared to Ottawa. Ceteris paribus, all else being equal, this would be true; alas, someone up in the high ranks of the government decided that heating is not necessary in buildings in the southern half of China. This makes living generally colder than it would be otherwise, although the international student dormitories have some form of (very inefficient) heating.
雪菜肉丝面 (Snow-vegetable meat-slice noodles)
Food on a daily basis has also become more interesting than the initial “point, pay and eat” system that we initially relied on. Now that I have some more food characters in my vocabulary, I try to limit myself to ordering off of the very extensive menus. These usually produce less westernized and better tasting food!
In the last while, I also went and visited Beijing with some other Canadian students. We walked on the Great Wall, went into Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and ate Beijing roast duck. I am looking forward to more extensive travels once my exams finish in mid-January!