China Moment 一

I love China moments. And lucky me, I get to have them pretty often.

For example, today I lost my scarf. It's not really chilly enough to wear scarves yet, but when I'm riding my bike my neck sometimes gets cold. It was an awesome, brightly colored scarf with "Dia de los Muertos" style skulls all over. I bought it last year at the Hankouxi Lu Night Market. I must have dropped it while I was walking (bike in tow) with visitors from Shanghai, my mom's college friend Joan and her two kids, Kyra and Cullen.

I checked around the cafe where we were, but I think I must have dropped it before then. I was bummed. And my neck was cold. So on my way back, I happened to bike past that very night market where I bought my scarf one year earlier. A stall with tons of scarves caught my eye, so I pulled over. I picked out one of the only scarves that wasn't covered in fake Louis Vuitton logos or crazy hot pink Hello Kitty patterns and asked how much it was.

26 RMB. That's approximately $4USD. "Can you make it cheaper?" I asked her. She suggested 24 RMB. I suggested 18 RMB. We settled on 20.

So I walked away with my new $3 scarf. I put it on right away, and my neck was nice and toasty. I actually think this scarf is softer, prettier, and matches my coat better than the skull one did anyway...

It wasn't really a China moment specifically, but it was definitely some kind of moment. The moments that make me smile. The moments I want to remember because they're so short and sweet but I often don't. Walkin' away with a super cheap, really beautiful scarf that I bought on a lark, on my way home.

Here, China Doll demonstrates two extremely fashionable ways of displaying her new scarf.

Which is better? China Doll... fashion extraordinaire...

China Doll's New Bike

Remember that girl who got lost in Grinnell, Iowa? The small city with numbered streets?

Remember that girl who had to wear a cast for the 3rd grade Newscasting Session because she hurt her arm on a bike? That girl who hurt her arm on a bike when she gently love-tapped a shrubbery?

A shrubbery, for crying out loud.

Well, that girl got a bike. It was not her brightest of ideas.

Living at Hohai University has some large advantages over my location from last year, the biggest (and maybe only) advantage being my large living space and beautiful tree-lined campus. The most drastic change is the location. Last year, my dorm was in an extremely centralized place. There were tons of buses that ran frequently from the bus stop across the street. And the food... oh the food...

Even though I am only a 25-30 minute walk away from my old apartment, the change feels drastic. There are no buses that leave from the back gate (close to where I live) and there are only a few buses at the front gate, which is a 10 minute walk at least. Plus, the major construction nearby hinders the bus routes, and has demolished a lot of the business near my apartment (including restaurants.) The lack of convenient buses and shortage of good restaurants made the idea of getting a bike appealing. I decided to go for it.

Lela and I took the bus to Tangzi Lu, the street in Nanjing known for selling cheap, second-hand (read: stolen) bikes. I've noticed that in China, there are often markets where everyone sells exactly the same thing. It's useful when you're going to buy something specific: a lot of  merchandise are centralized in the same place. It also makes it really overwhelming, since there are so many options. When my mom and I went to the Pearl Market in Beijing, it was just stall after stall of the same pearls over and  over. Just pearls for what seemed like eternity. That's what Tangzi Lu looked like.

Even though there were bikes for days, none caught my eye. Immediately, Lela picked out a pink Giant bicycle, which she able to bargain way down. But I was still on the hunt. After a few failed attempts (the "salespeople," which I put in quotes because it was basically just people selling bikes on the side of the road, weren't willing to bargain) this lady came up to us out of nowhere. 

"Buying a bicycle?" she asked in Chinese. She waved at us to follow.

I thought we were going to the visible side alley with lots of bikes lined up along the brick wall. Nope. We went further into the alley, twisting and turning. I found it hard to believe she could even wheel a bike back there it got so tight. Finally, we arrived this little hole in the wall with 20-30 bikes lined up. On the other side, some old men were spray painting bikes army green and attaching a wagon to each one. No idea.

I found a bike I liked, but again, I was having trouble getting it at the price my Chinese friend had advised me not to go above. Tired and frustrated, I ended up paying 10 RMB more than "the highest I should pay at Tagzi Lu" but included was two locks and two bells (one for me, one for Lela.) I figured Lela deserved a bell after all the haggling she did for me and after all the indecision I put her through.

Now came the scary part. Buying a bike meant biking home. Having not ridden a bike in over a year, it would have been nice to start out on the Hohai campus, biking up to Shanghai Lu, my old stomping grounds. Nope. I had to bike from a new place during rush hour traffic.

It was trial by fire, to say the least. I discovered that when the bike was going downhill at rapid speed, the breaks were not as useful as on a new, American-sold bike. Lela and I followed the bus route back to her school, then I biked home from there. Even though I led the way for awhile, I could not have done that without Lela.

There it is!

My purse just barely fits in the basket...

The next day, I biked to the technology market to retrieve my unlocked iPhone. That was a huge win for me. I had no idea where I was going and I was riding by myself. Apparently, the way to Zhujiang Lu is a "bike lane" that is actually also a pedestrian walkway, so I had to do some impressive bike maneuvering and bell ringing.

As scary as riding a bike is in Nanjing, having this bike is a lifesaver. What it saves me in time and money it gives me back in heart attacks and conniptions. Bikes seems to follow their own traffic rules here: sometimes they follow the vehicle traffic and sometimes they act more like pedestrians. The only thing I'm yet to perfect is the left turn. It's not super intuitive...

I hope that having a bike will help me learn the city better. So far, I really love it. This China Doll isn't as fragile as she seems—biking along the traffic-ridden, law-unabiding roads...

She's Back!

SHE’S BACK!

That’s right boy and girls, your favorite rambling, hyper-observant China Doll has returned to the place where it all began: Nanjing, China.

I will be teaching oral English at Hohai Univeristy, one of the many colleges in Nanjing. I live about fifteen minutes walking distance from where I lived last year, so even though I do not know this specific area terribly well; the areas I do know are not so far away.

China Doll has not had the easiest of transitions this time around. Last year, any homesickness or disgust was masked by excitement and newness. Since I had already lived here, I expected to feel fully moved in and ready to go as soon as I arrived, which was, of course, not the case. My university apartment needed a lot of hardcore cleaning (I wish I had taken before and after pictures, it was insane.) I’ve also killed, well, let’s be honest, had someone else kill four roaches so far. Even though I have sheets and more furniture now, I still need to go to Ikea for kitchen supplies… and then furniture on which to keep those supplies. Right now, I don’t think about much else than getting food into the apartment (but away from the cockroaches) so that I don’t have to worry about where I can go for my next meal that isn’t a huge inconvenience. I also don’t think about anything other than getting internet, which is supposed to happen today or tomorrow, but since it’s China I’m trying not to get my hopes up.

My expectation was that since I had already lived in Nanjing, I already had things figured out. I haven’t felt like going out and exploring this new area because I thought of this as “coming back again” not as “coming back anew” and it irks me that I have to relearn everything: where to buy fruit, where to bank, where I can get free WiFi. I quickly realized that my new home is pretty far away from everywhere I’ve needed and wanted to go, even for groceries, so I have decided to buy a bike. The thought of biking in Nanjing totally freaks me out, but I think that it’s necessary.

To be honest, my first week here was miserable. I get choked up thinking about how badly I wanted to go home. This is my sixth year living so far from my family and friends—it will be my sixth Rosh Hashanah without Grama Minnie’s apple cake, my sixth Thanksgiving without my family, my sixth year of missing birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, graduations, and the little things that other 20-somethings who live close to home get to experience. I know that I’m lucky that I get to live abroad and have different, unique opportunities, but I still get that nagging feeling like something is missing. Especially considering that after this summer I could have said, “screw China” and remained in the states, (probably) employed and close to home, this transition was even more difficult than I could have ever anticipated.

That being said, I’m back. And I can’t complain about how much I want to go home when this year is filled with possibilities. I have loved seeing all my friends from last year, and one of my close Grinnell friends, Evan, moved in with me last week. I am already getting psyched for my first upcoming holiday break. I can’t wait to start lesson planning and to meet my students. I am excited for what this year holds, but I’m also afraid that I won’t take advantage of my time here. I’ve been so reluctant to leave my comfort zone in my first week back: I am yet to explore the campus and surrounding areas. So readers, hold me accountable! If I’m not updating with awesome stories on the regular, tell me to get my butt out of my apartment…

China Doll signing off the first of many posts to come!