Fun, and Many Struggles

Hello again, anyone who may be reading this.

Well, its been almost two weeks since I landed in China.  And I've had mixed feelings about it ever since.  Some parts are very cool, and I have enjoyed them.  Many parts have been very frustrating as I have been making the transition to living in China.  I am going to start with the positive, because its always best to begin with that, in my opinion.

So, the fun.  Since arriving, I have met quite a few people from quite a few different countries.  Russians, Peruvians, Chinese, Indonesians, and many others.  I have gotten to study with some, play ping pong with others, and attend musical shows with still others.  These parts of the trip have been incredibly fun, and I do look forward to getting to hang out with these new friends more as the semester continues.

Also, the trips we have scheduled begin this Saturday.  Our first trip is to "The Biggest Lake in China."  That is its tourist definition from what the other abroad students and I could find online.  The other trips are to interesting locations as well, spread out through the semester.  I am still looking forward to those trips, and I think they are going to be very interesting.

Now, with that said, this trip has had struggles almost daily since I landed.  The language barrier was, and still is, a much bigger problem than we were told before we left America.  Yes, most of the Chinese students I have met know how to say "hello" and "goodbye" in English.  Just like I learned how to say "ni hao" and "zaijian" before I left America.  But, just like I still can't speak Chinese, they still can't speak English, and communication has been one of the hardest things since arriving here in China.  To anyone looking to go on this trip in the future, I would suggest learning some Chinese before hand, and not just hello and goodbye.

Not only has communication in the country been a problem, but communication outside the country has been a major problem as well.  I didn't find out until after I arrived that the Foreign Student dorm we are in does not provide wifi to dorm rooms.  We had been told that the new campus would have that free wifi.  Instead, the wifi is only located on floors one and four, and even then only at certain times in the day.  This doesn't mean that we can't get internet in our rooms for our stay, though.  In order to get a wired connection, we all shelled out almost 300 yuan.  The connection didn't start until September 1.  And even when it did, it has been down more often than it has been available.  To make matters worse, the technicians responsible for setting it up fall in the group of Chinese people that don't know English.  Meaning asking questions and getting things fixed is a nightmare in itself.

There have been other little glitches along the way, but those are the biggest things that I wish I had been told before I left the United States.  I hope that I can save some other students this hassle should they decide to take this trip as well.  That's really all I have time for now.  I'm down in the first floor lobby again, as my wired connection hasn't worked for the past four hours or so, and people are starting to fill in and want more time before the wifi is turned off.  I'll update again as soon as more happens, which will probably be after our first trip.

Thanks again for reading,

Adam