University's first week

Finally, I have the time to report a bit again :)

The house party on Friday was quite fun, and our friends where it took place immediately made the Chinese neighbors unhappy because we were so loud. On Saturday, we slept in, watched a movie, had cold pizza for breakfast, and then went to the beach for a short time but only for an hour because it was relatively crowded and the weather was unfortunately not as good as in the morning. Sunday was also unspectacular, we cleaned the apartment a bit and went out for curry with our friends in the evening.

On Mondays, we had our first day at university. The buildings where we have our lectures are called Mingzhe and Shuyin and are located a bit far apart on the campus. Unfortunately, I haven't seen much of the campus so far except for these two buildings, but in the 3rd week of lectures, we will have an introduction and a campus tour.

The first lecture was Human Resource Management with a lecturer named Orhan. I think he comes from Turkey, but he didn't talk about it. We all introduced ourselves and were supposed to say a bit about ourselves and our expectations for the course. The classes are tiny compared to Mainz, so far we have hardly had more than 20 students. In one course, there were only four of us.

The classes are a mix of European, American, quite a few Africans, one from Kazakhstan, one from the Philippines (is that what they are called?), a girl from Bhutan, and several Thais.

Overall, it's very school-like here. We have attendance requirements, coming late deducts points (fortunately, most courses start at 10), and participation affects the grade. In many modules, we don't have a written exam, but several quizzes, a midterm exam, essays, and group presentations. Of course, it's completely different from Mainz, but I think it will be good and we will take away a lot more. Of course, everything is taught in English, which I find pretty cool!

After university, we went to a small underground market. It's a large area under a building where stands and small shops are lined up and you can buy all sorts of things relatively cheaply. There was fashion (including many fake brands), jewelry, cosmetics, and all sorts of other things. They even had hamsters, rabbits, and turtles. But we just walked around and didn't buy anything, although I would have found a little hamster very cute ;-).

In the evening, we went to our new favorite bar here, the Helens Bar. One person from our group had a birthday and celebrated there, and it was a very fun evening. After four hours of sleep, we dragged ourselves to the university for the Negotiation Workshop, which is also taught by Orhan. On the way, we grabbed a dumpling. Dumplings are filled dough balls with meat or vegetables, and they are really delicious. I'm full after two pieces, and one costs only 39 cents - a real bargain.

In the negotiation course, there were only four of us, and after an hour, Orhan let us go luckily, so we had time for a nap before the next class :). Next, we continued with Airline Management with a funny Chinese lecturer.

I also took E-Business, Business Ethics, Strategic Management, Sports Marketing, Basic Chinese, and English for special academic purposes, but depending on what I like and what the University of Mainz recognizes, I will drop a few of them.

So far, I find everything quite interesting, so I hope to learn a bit more next week to make better decisions.

E-Business and Strategic Management are taught by an Indian lecturer whom I sometimes don't understand very well. Business Ethics is taught by a relatively young American who has the Zen sign tattooed on his forearm and first set up a WeChat (Chinese Whatsapp) for our course.

On Wednesdays, we finally managed to register with the police, and the police officers sit there in their station and smoke one cigarette after another. The work ethic is a bit different here than with us, everyone is much more relaxed and takes their time with everything or is extremely spontaneous, and then it has to happen right now. Some people even sleep in their chairs. And I find it really unpleasant that smoking is allowed even in closed rooms here, we are really spoiled in Germany.

When you register here, you get a Chinese name that they can translate into their characters.

So Laura became Lola and Richy became Litschade. I think Julian stayed Julian, and Giulia simply got her last name. For me, Elena became Ailina.

In the evening, we went to a really big underground market at Victory Square. We actually go everywhere by taxi since we no longer live so close to a subway station. Taking a taxi is so cheap. It takes us 27 minutes to get to Victory Square from our place even though it's only 12 km away, and we pay a total of €3.50 for that, which is just under €1.16 per person. You can't even get from Eberstadt to Darmstadt that cheaply by train.

The underground market had three floors, and there was a lot to buy, but we arrived quite late and just walked through and had some food. Afterwards, we ended up at a "gourmet market". There, you could buy dried sea cucumbers in fancy wooden boxes for a small fortune and put together dried fish and shrimps like a sweet bag, except that it's not sweet but stinks.

So, we definitely had a lot of fun looking at all of this, and I would also love to upload the smells for you here, but the technology isn't there yet ;-).

On Thursdays, there was the unimaginable rain that I have ever experienced. Within minutes, the streets turned into rivers, and we got so wet on the way to the university that after the first lecture, we went home to take a hot shower because we were freezing in the university rooms.

The lecture we attended was with Peter Bittler from Heidelberg. You travel halfway around the world and have a German lecturer in the middle of China. But he found the international students much cooler than us, and I think he left Germany on purpose to not have any Germans around him anymore (tough luck).

After our lecture on Friday, we sat down together to plan our trip during the Golden Week. The Golden Week is the first week of October, and the Chinese have time off, so we also have no university. So, we and 589 million Chinese will do a bit of traveling. Our plan was originally to fly from Dalian to Shanghai, spend a few days there, and then take the train from Shanghai to Hangzouh (a fast train, about 1.5 hours for €7 - the German Railways could learn from that). In Hangzouh, it's supposed to be very beautiful, and we want to spend some time there and then continue by train to Suzhou and then fly back to Dalian from Wuxi.

Prices skyrocket during the Golden Week, so we want to fly on Wednesday evening of the week before and only travel until Thursday during the Golden Week.

Today, we tried to book, but the flights, train seats, and hostels are going really fast, so we're leaving out Suzhou now and only trying to book the other things.

If you Google Golden Week China, you see terrible pictures of millions of people at Chinese sights, and I'm really curious if our plan will work out like this or if we won't dare to leave the hostel in the end because of the crowds :D.

Yesterday, Giulia and I went shopping together at Wanda Plaza, and then Julian joined us for dinner in the evening. Today, we were actually just at home, and right now, I'm sitting on our couch and will just read a bit and go to sleep.

We are already traveling a lot and experiencing a lot, and I'm rarely alone, but I still feel like I have a bit of time for myself and to read or write here, and that feels very good. I feel comfortable here (although I naturally miss my loved ones), and I think we're getting more settled every day. Only the language is really a big barrier, I hope I can learn at least a little bit of Mandarin to be able to have a conversation or order food without just using gestures and Google Translate or Waygoo (an app that translates characters via camera).

Until next time,

Silva