ISU China Study Abroad

We started out our trip to Shanghai on the 29th of May and had a
charter bus take us to the train station where we boarded a fast train
(like those in Europe) for a quick 1.5 hour ride from Hangzhou to
Shanghai.  It was a comfortable trip and the countryside sped by.

We made it to the Shanghai South train station where we got on the
subway and went 11 stops on line 1 into the center of Shanghai to the
Xin Mei East China Hotel.  We got everyone their rooms and had a rest
for a little while before going out in Shanghai.  It is amazing the
sheer number of people here.  Just moving around is tiring due to the
dodging and attention you have to pay to traffic.  I have been to New
York and this is an echelon above New York traffic.  There is honking
and squeaking of brakes and yelling and all other manner of sound
happening at the same time.  There are street urchins begging for
money and tugging on your clothes.  There are homeless people sleeping
in the subway entrance while the gentlemen in the Lexus drives by.
Shanghai is truly a city showing the dichotomy between the haves and
have-nots.

We went walking on Nanjing street after everyone got back together.
Nanjing street is the central shopping street (mainly for rich and
foreigners) in Shanghai.  It was very interesting to just watch people
there.  After about 2 hours of dodging people and trying to stay out
of the way of the trams that drive up and down the pedestrian mall, we
all got back on the subway and went over to the Pudong area near the
Pearl Tower where we had dinner at the Blue Frog Café.  It was a nice
western style dinner and we all had a good time.  It was a farewell
dinner for Dr. Schultz also as he was leaving the next morning to go
to Uganda on another study abroad trip.

After dinner, we walked a little bit and then took a double-decker bus
ride around the pudong area, being dropped off at the ferry that would
take us from that area across the river to the “Bund” which is a great
walkway next to the river where you can stand and watch the barges and
see the lights of the PuDong all lit up.

We were all very disappointed to see, upon arrival at the Bund, that
it was being renovated and there were no areas to access the walkway
so many of us walked back up Nanjing street to the Subway and went
back to the Hotel.

The next morning, Dr. Schultz left at 7am and we all met at 10am to
visit the Pearl Tower and the Shanghai Aquarium.  The pearl tower was
great and had a new feature.  The first observation deck (256 meters
up) had a new glass floor around the whole outside of the observation
area.  Many of us walked around on that floor getting a bit dizzy
looking straight down into nothing but the drop to the sidewalk below.
It was a little scary but still awesome.  We also went up to the top
observation deck at 350m.  That was an amazing view and can definitely
show viewers Shanghai’s air quality as skyscrapers in the distance
seem to just vaporize into “mist”.

The aquarium was awesome also as they have a long underwater tunnel
that you can go through to view fish and sharks swimming around you.
They have many strange undersea and river creatures that you might
never of heard of, like the giant Chinese Salamander that gets to be
up to 1 meter long and huge.  It was as big as a dog and was
interesting to watch come up for air.

After the aquarium, the students had free time to go and see what they
wanted to see and we met at 6pm to go to dinner.  There was a place we
heard of in Shanghai called XinTianDi so we decided to make a stop
there to see what was available for dinner.  When we arrived, we saw a
very European looking street with all sorts of Euro-style diners and
bars.  At that point we split up and some of us went to a Thai
restaurant while others went to a different restaurant.

The next morning (Sunday) we got together at 9am and went to the
Shanghai Museum for a look around.  It was great to go to the museum
and they had many very cool exhibits, but many were closed too.  It
was just amazing to see the age of some of the bronze casting and
pottery that they had available, back to 6800bc.

We had lunch near the hotel and checked out by 1pm.  We got back on
the subway for our 11-stop trip back to the Shangahi South train
station where we sat in a waiting room and at 2.45pm we boarded the
train back to Hangzhou.  Our driver met us at the station and took us
to the hotel (or “hometel” as some of us have started calling it).
Some of us went to West Lake for dinner while others of us went to the
Old Town district.

Tomorrow morning we are having a lecture about traditional Chinese
medicine and then will go to a Chinese medicine museum in the Old Town
district.  It should be interesting.  At that point we will collect
the journals and for the rest of Monday and Tuesday, the students will
have free time to see things and visit their favorite places in
Hangzhou before we get on the plane to come back to the States on
Wednesday.

See everyone soon!

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The students went to the tea department on campus today and got to
smell and taste many different kinds of teas. They were shown by the
#1 tea expert in all of China. It was a good day, but it was raining.

In the afternoon, there was a visit to a Buddhist Temple where the
students looked at some of the religious history of the area.
Afterward, a brief visit to the silk market and other venues with
supper on their own. It was a good day and this evening, everyone
seems to enjoy having a night off from attending hosted dinners.

Tomorrow, we leave for Dr. Guo’s village and we stay there overnight.
We will visit a pearl culture factory to see how pearls are produced
as well as be able to walk around and see some farmers’ houses in
town. That will be really interesting!

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We had a nice, relatively quiet day today. A few people got up and
went to Church, and then we all met at 11.00am to discuss the trip.

We stopped over to West Lake to get lunch afterward. At two O’clock
we listened to a seminar by Dr. Guo about farming in China and how
farmers are trying to increase their income. There was some history
before 1985 and after 1985 in terms of how food is getting to the
general population and what the differences were.

We visited a local market where there were fresh fish, live ducks,
live chickens, vegetables, and many other items for sale. This was
more like a farmer’s cooperative where groups of people get together
to sell products. Then we went to a supermarket to contrast the local
market.

The whole group was invited to dinner with a scientist who stayed at
ISU for half a year last year. He is now vice-president of the
Zhejiang Sci-Tech University in Hangzhou. He and his wife hosted
dinner at a very nice hotel restaurant. We all had a good time.

In the evening, some of us went to West Lake to watch the water show
that plays there every evening. There is a fountain in the lake that
shoots water through spigots to different songs. It was a lot like
some of the fountains in Las Vegas but a little larger scale and in
the actual lake. It was a nice show and they had it all lit up.
Hundreds of people were gathered around the shore taking video with
cell phones, video cameras, and other recording devices.

Tomorrow we split up a bit. Some of the leaders will visit with a
landscape nursery company where we have had student interns go, and
the others will take students to the Tea Department at Zhejiang
University and then to a Buddhist Temple for the afternoon.

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This morning we were asked for our temperature sheets early and were
taken by a maid and returned to us. We learned later in the day that
the whole temperature thing isn’t even a university suggestion, but
rather a city government policy so there was nothing the university or
the hotel could do about it. We met with some professors later in the
day who laughed at the idea and thought it was also silly due to the
amount of time we had already been in China.

Some of us skipped breakfast this morning, having eaten a lot over the
last several days and we congregated at 8.30 to head over to the new
Zhejiang Campus to meet the students who will be coming to Ames later
in the summer. We learned that the university has 5 campuses in town
and that it has a total student population of about 40,000.

We gave a brief presentation to introduce ourselves where we showed
the other students a couple slides of our familes, friends, pets,
things we like to do, etc. This presentation was followed by a short
introduction about Iowa to let them see the area they will be going
to. Many of the students know of places in the U.S. like New York,
Los Angeles, and other east and west-coast cities, but didn’t ever
consider the middle of the country. They were excited to see photos
of us and to hear some of the things they will be participating in
when they come to the states.

Many of the students seemed enamored with certain things in the U.S.
One student loved to watch the U.S. Open tennis tournament. Another
had studied geography and wanted to see the Mississippi river. Every
one of them seemed really excited to have us there and to be coming to
the U.S. for a visit.

The ISU students spent the afternoon and into the evening with the
Zhejiang university students and got to go to lunch in the largest
lunchroom (canteen) in Asia as well as see some of their living
arrangements and dorms. They were also invited to a masquerade party
and most of them had a good time.

The leader group went to the home of Dr. Guo who is organizing the
trip for us in China and is leading the student group from China to
the U.S. The group also met with some faculty in the college of
agriculture.

Tomorrow will be a more relaxing day with people optionally going to
church here, listening to a lecture, going to a supermarket close to
the hotel and having some free time to walk or taxi around the city.

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Today we went to the village of TengTou (a supposedly “environmental”)
village that was constructed more recently than yesterday’s village.
The area we visited did have some solar and wind-powered public
lighting, but other than that, it was more like a theme park than a
village.  We saw many newer homes that were perhaps more ecologically
friendly than others, but had no way of knowing.

The difference here was that we didn’t have anyone to tell us about
the village or how things were put together like we did yesterday.  We
stopped at a ticket office and had to purchase tickets to see the
ecological village which makes us think that it was more of a “show”
than anything.  Perhaps it was a trial village which they want to show
others in the country.

We had lunch there in a restaurant that was going to be full of other
tourists stopping at the village.  The owner had us go upstairs to the
individual rooms area and as we walked down the hall, we noticed that
all of the rooms had all ready been eaten in and messed up – not
cleaned at all.  Things were thrown around and dropped on the floor,
etc.  It actually looked like yesterday’s meal.  He had someone come
up and clean one of the rooms for us and then we had some good Chinese
food – eggplant, beef and peppers, rice, chicken and potatoes, and a
couple other dishes.

We left the village and went on from NingBo (where the village was
near) toward Shanghai and we took the new bridge (the longest open
water bridge in the world, just completed last year in April.  We also
got to stop at the rest area and the driver coaxed the construction
workers to allow us to stop and take photos of the bridge from there.
We had 10 minutes to take some photos and then we went across the rest
of the way.

The  bridge is built over the Hangzhou bay and over the tidal flats.
The tide was going out when we were stopped and the water was running
out to sea.  It was pretty neat.

On the way back, Difei told us that the hotel is making us take our
temperatures and record them every day and mark any symptoms that we
have.  This is AFTER having the same thing done on the plane, and
nevermind the fact that H1N1 would have shown up within a week of us
being here.  Dick and Denise had already been tested again in Dali at
the University as well.  The question is, how would they tell H1N1
from sickness caused by the bad air pollution?

This is a bit ridiculous and the security here is very bad anyway.  If
anything should be done, the country should put a moratorium on
spitting in public, make sure people wash their hands (which they
don’t) and make sure people cover their mouth when they sneeze (just
this morning a gentlemen sneezed all over the breakfast plates going
through the buffet).  Sigh, it’s just frustrating.

After taking a short break at the hotel, some of us went to watch some
of the students get haircuts.  Three of the women students got their
hair cut at a very nice salon which included a little massage again.
It was quite an experience and we got many looks as the “foreigners”.
It was good fun and everyone stares at us out of curiosity.  Much of
the time they also add a, “hello” to see how we respond.  When we also
respond, “hello” we usually get laughs as if they think what they say
won’t work and then suddenly does. It’s great.

Tomorrow we meet the students from Zhejiang University and go to the
new campus.  That will be a great opportunity and can’t wait to see
how that all works out.

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Ok, so we have done a number of things since our last blog entry. I
won’t relay them here because it would take a long time to type them
in. I will say that there are new photos posted on the picasa site
and will fill you in on our last day in Hangzhou.

The Photo Gallery:
http://picasaweb.google.com/tom.tschultz/China2009?feat=directlink

We arrived in Hangzhou at 6am this morning after a nice, relatively
quiet overnight train ride from Wuhan. We were met at the station by
one of Dr. Guo’s students and were taken to our hotel and were checked
in by about 6.30am. We had a chance to rest and shower (which we all
needed) and had a free morning to sleep or do what we needed to do to
relax. Some of us walked around the old agricultural campus. It is a
beautiful older campus and is being deserted slowly for the new
campus.

We had lunch with Dr. Guo at 11.30am where we went over a few things
with students and were welcomed to Hangzhou. After this, we enjoyed a
walk around West Lake, one of the main attractions in Hangzhou. We
took a short golf-cart tour and had some time to spend on our own
before dinner. We stopped at Pizza Hut for dinner (as it was so close
and we wanted to compare to the U.S.).

After dinner, it was off to the old market street to show everyone
what was available there if we had free time and wanted to go on our
own. It has many shops selling older historical and novelty items.
Nice place for souvenirs. I expect everyone will be going back a
couple times before the trip is over.

Our itinerary is full over the next 2 weeks and we will be having a
couple lectures tomorrow and will then visit a village outside of
Hangzhou that was turned into an industrial center from and
agricultural village. The interesting things about this is that there
wasn’t much emphasis placed on the ecology of the town while it was
being developed. The day after, we will visit another town of the
same sort where the ecology was thought of as it was being developed
so we can compare the two towns. It will be interesting to see how
that will all play out.

goodnight for now!

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Here is a link to photos that we will try to post periodically during our trip:

http://picasaweb.google.com/tom.tschultz/China2009?feat=directlink

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