March and April

In a few days, I will be going to Japan and before that, I wanted to give a sign of life. My last two months here in China were not bad at all. (Actually, there's a lot to report, but I was so busy traveling that I didn't have time to write.

After returning from the USA, it took me two to three weeks to readjust. There was a lot to do, especially for university and work. Using my first paycheck of the new semester, I booked a flight to Japan. I will stay there for eight days in the first week of May. Secondly, I traveled to Suzhou with my March paycheck. Suzhou is a water town near Hangzhou. It is called a water town because there are supposed to be countless bridges there, and right next to the city is a huge lake with islands. I traveled to one of these islands for two days. I didn't visit the city itself at all. I just passed through to get to the island (西山Xishang, translated: West Mountain). There, I spent a night with a Couchsurfer and his wife. It was incredibly helpful to know a local there. Guo, my host, gave me many tips, and I quickly felt like a local. I spent the two days on the island mainly "wandering". Guo gave me a few ideas of where I could go, and then I just started walking, and it was an absolute dream. There are some Chinese tourists in the area, but hardly any foreigners. That was an interesting experience for me. Especially the children looked at me with awe and wide eyes. But nobody completely freaked out. They were too used to seeing strangers there. What else can be said about the island is that it is very rural. The houses look old and worn out, and almost every house has a garden with fruits and vegetables. The mountains are full of tea plantations, there are small areas for growing vegetables, and dogs and chickens roam between the houses. For me, it was a nice contrast to the colorful and new Hangzhou - even though you can't describe my university like that. :D

The great thing about the island is that there are small paths everywhere between the tea plantations. These paths are also not private, and everyone is allowed to walk there. That means I could just start walking and hike through nature in China for the second time, after Hainan. I mainly did that on the first day. In the evening, I went to a pier to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, it had become cloudy by then, but it was still a beautiful evening.

The next morning, I started with a noodle soup, and then I took the bus to the other end of the island. Guo had told me that there is an old village there and several small islands connected by bridges. The village was okay, but the trip was definitely worth it because of the islands. On the bridges, it felt like being by the sea. I hadn't felt that much wind on my face for a long time - a dream. In Sulzthal and Ketterschwang, I often heard the wind in bed, and here in Hangzhou, the air is calm. For at least half an hour, I just let myself be blown away. After that, I wandered around the islands. It was wonderfully colorful and soooo quiet. Or rather, it was quiet until a group of tea pickers passed by me. :D For them, I was the total attraction, and of course, they had to take photos of me. But it was okay because they even asked first. So each of them took a selfie with me, and meanwhile, a friend held another phone to capture the moment when the friend took a selfie with the foreigner. It was quite amusing, and in the end, I naturally wanted to take a photo with the ladies as well. On my way down from the island, I met the group again, and as a farewell, they even gave me an apple. ( Back on the main island, I visited a temple that happened to be on the way back, and then I started the journey home.

The following weekend, I went to Shaoxing with a friend. The friend is Rie. She is a Japanese student who studied German literature in Jena and is now studying Chinese at ZUST. Shaoxing, like Suzhou, is a city not far from Hangzhou. We spent the weekend there and took everything easy. When we arrived on Friday evening, we just went out to eat and then had a bottle of traditional liquor. Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as our food.

Shaoxing itself has few attractions and sights. However, the area around the city is very beautiful. So we spent most of our time in nature and only went into the city in the evening. We accidentally found two beautiful old districts while strolling around. (: For Sunday, we had a specific goal. Shaoxing is the birthplace of Lu Xun. He is one of the most famous Chinese writers abroad and in China. He lived in the early 19th century and wrote critically about his own country. Fortunately, he became known in China and abroad before the Cultural Revolution. So his works and he himself couldn't be silenced or forgotten. His books are even used as readings in Chinese schools. But after visiting his birthplace, I see it somewhat critically. If his books in schools are treated the same way as his birthplace, they might as well not bother. The house is described as an AAA attraction, something really great. I would call it differently. Well, China and I have already had quite a few differences. They are still there even now when things are going so well for me here since September. But about the great AAA attraction: Chinese visitors have to show their ID. Rie and I as foreigners didn't have to. The same thing happened on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. I'll refrain from speculating about the reason at this point. Once inside, you could walk through his house and learn which room you were in with a few individual boards. Except for the few bedrooms, it was almost always clear anyway, and for the few rooms, something was explained like 'here the mother lived and read a lot. She lived from x to y and loved her son very much.' Well, great and important information. Luckily, the whole thing was free. Otherwise, I would have been quite annoyed. It was still a pity, though. You hardly learn anything about the person himself and his life. Instead, you can spend a lot of money on junk around the house. But I can't complain. The landscape there is super beautiful, and we were able to relax well. That was the goal of the weekend trip.

I spent the remaining weekends in Hangzhou, meeting friends and working more than usual. I had to make up for the classes I couldn't teach because of Japan, and then I tried to fit the rest of the semester's work into this time as well. Sebastian will come to me after Japan. :)) On his way from the USA to Germany, he will stay in Hangzhou for three weeks, and just two weeks after that, Mama and Klaus will come. When they come, my semester will already be over. Time is flying... I'm already in Japan now. :D Before my departure, I didn't manage to write everything. A brief explanation of the pictures: the first 12 pictures are from the island, then there are pictures from Shaoxing, and then a picture of me picking tea. The trip was organized by the university, and I also attended a soccer game with Anas and Malaq. They are two of my best friends here. They come from Syria and Somalia.