November 3 - Night and Day (The First Two Days) - Day 1 (Oct. 30)

So I finally have some time to write a nice, extremely long blog post for you all. As the title says, life here is pretty crazy.

So I finally have some time to write a nice, extremely long blog post for you all. As the title says, life here is pretty crazy.

Day 1

I arrived in Zhengzhou on October 30th, which was a nice, warm and polluted Saturday morning. I took a couple of videos from the window of the plane, which I can't show on my blog unfortunately, but which show just how incredibly, nauseatingly thick the haze is here. Breathing is like constantly smoking cigarettes when you are outside.

As soon as I stepped down from the plane, I was extremely worried about pickpockets and thieves as this part of China has a particularly bad reputation for it. I quickly snatched my baggage from the carousel, inspecting it quickly for damage to the locks. Everything seemed okay, so I proceeded to security screening. Chinese security requires not only that you don't bring forbidden items off the plane, but also that you do not bring forbidden items into the country.

I put my bags through the machine and the security guard said: "You have books in your bag. Take them out now."

So I took the books out and showed that they were just dictionaries and textbooks. Satisfied I wasn't a subversive to the state, she allowed me to go on freely.

Coming out of the screening area, I immediately saw the man who was sent to meet me at the airport. He was holding a sign up with my name on it, very easy to spot. He started asking me about my trip and we made some small talk and then he said, on the way to the car, "I think you're going to be the star of our school." I asked him why he thought that. He said, "You are tall, young, handsome and foreign. The girls will go crazy." I was a little bit embarrassed, so we walked in silence for a while. Then all I heard was giggling, so I turned around to see a couple of girls smiling behind their hands, pointing at me and giggling a bit. I turned back around and kept walking. Eventually we came to a place where we had to stop for a moment to let someone pass. So I stopped abruptly. The girls behind us were so intent on me, they didn't notice I stopped until the bumped right into my back.

We got into the car then and drove back towards the city. The driver was really taciturn and completely ignored me, even when I later thanked him for the ride. My first impressions of Zhengzhou were pretty positive. It looked like a very thriving, vibrant city. I drove through the eastern part of the city, which is being highly developed and touted as a new business district. It's very modern there and there is even a highly stylized showpiece building created by a Canadian architect.

I had my first taste of traffic in Zhengzhou from the point of view of a passenger in a car. The experience is a little bit harrowing. Imagine the most dense traffic you've ever seen, then add about a hundred times more pedestrians and scooters and bicycles, then consider that no one bothers with the rules of the road. The only rule is to avoid hitting someone or being hit. It's pure chaos. On the other hand, as I later found out as a pedestrian, it's paradoxically pretty safe. You can walk out into the road and the scooters and cars flow all around you. No one wants to hit anyone because the penalties for injuring someone when you are in a vehicle are very severe (must pay the injured person's injury-related medical expenses for life).

Eventually we got to the university campus. It's fairly compact and very nice. Lots of trees, a large sports area in the middle of it and not too crowded. My contact, Vincent, pointed out a little fruit seller from whom I could get cheap apples and bananas.

We arrived at the hotel at which my apartment is located (the school owns some apartments within the hotel) and unloaded my stuff. I was informed that my apartment was on the third floor, but that my building had an elevator. As we stepped inside said elevator, I was told that they had cleaned my apartment, but there may still be a little bit of dust. Apparently, the previous occupant had left the apartment 2 months previously and, in this city of ubiquitous thick, black, choking dust, left the window open. It was only discovered that the window had been open when they went to clean my apartment. So we arrived at my door and as he opened it, I stepped inside with a little trepidation.

It's enormous and beautiful. My apartment is amazing. It's got decent furniture, a full kitchen and bathroom, a gigantic living and dining area and two huge bedrooms. The master bedroom has a huge king-sized bed in it and the other room has a desk for my computer (I had to move the desk to the second bedroom from the master bedroom because the second bedroom is the only place that has any internet connection). I was provided with a couch, two armchairs, a coffee table, a huge broken TV that I would never have used anyway, a western toilet, a shower, a bathroom and kitchen sink, a clothes washing machine and dryer in one, a refrigerator, a gas range, a hot plate, a microwave, a beer fridge, a plate/porcelain display cabinet, several bedside tables, a dining room table and chairs, a king-sized bed and a cabinet in which to hang my clothes. Not too bad. There are some pictures attached to this post that show my apartment. It's bigger than it looks.

Unfortunately, it was also dirtier. There was a thick layer of dust on absolutely everything. Keep in mind that at this time, I had last eaten at 5am (it was noon then) and I had last slept 40 hours previously. I looked at all the dirt and realized I could not do anything but clean for now. Rest would have to come later.

Vincent took me to a nearby market to buy some basic necessities like toilet paper and laundry detergent in addition to a mop and soap for cleaning the floor. The market is right across the street from my hotel and it's like a flea market, but on an epic scale. I listened to Vincent as he bargained for me and it didn't seem like he was trying very hard, but I also had a very hard time understanding what he was saying because they speak a local dialect here. This was my first taste of so-called 河南话 (He Nan hua) or the language of Henan province, of which i still understand very little.

Anyway, after we got all my stuff and went back to my place, Vincent said "Okay, see you Monday," and promptly left. I looked back at the filthy apartment and resolutely started cleaning, as it was the most pressing concern at that time. 

During that time, I also tried without success to get my computer and internet up and running. My first problem was that when I plugged my power bar into the wall, there was a power surge and my apartment's fuse blew. I reset the fuse and then did it again and the fuse blew again. Then my electricity went out. So I called Vincent. He said he'd call the hotel's management to send some workers up.

They came up a little while later and plugged in my power bar, turned on my computer, flipped on the lights and everything worked fine. They didn't have to do any work. I felt like an idiot. The younger of the two workers really liked my laptop and started playing with it until he saw that it was made by Toshiba, so he turned to me with a look of surprise and disgust on his face and said pretty loudly: "这是日本的!!!" (zhe shi ri ben de!!! This is Japanese!!!). I told him in Canada we don't really care what country a laptop comes from. He seemed mollified and told me it seems very modern and powerful.

I tried to get online so I could tell you all that I was okay, but when I opened my browser, it asked me for an account number. I wasn't aware of any account number, so I called Vincent and he directed me to the hotel manager and that I should ask for an account number, or 密码 (mi ma). This turned out to be my first ever fully Chinese interaction with a stranger. It went really smoothly. She spoke Mandarin with a fairly clear accent and, pretty soon, I was back up in my apartment looking for the internet. I got there all ready to input the number when I realized there was something wrong with my computer - it was frozen and in overdrive. I had to wait for the battery to die to see if the computer were completely fried or not, so I left it alone and went back to cleaning. I was really, really worried that I had destroyed my computer somehow and lost my only link to the outside world. Fortunately that wasn't the case as you can tell by reading this post.

By the time I finished cleaning half the apartment  (the important half - I still haven't cleaned the rest and I'm leaving that for this weekend) it was 9pm. Both hungry and exhausted, as I hadn't eaten since five in the morning and hadn't slept for 49 hours, I fell into bed and blacked out.