JISHOU, HUNAN, Sept. 3 — Having spent the day (and night) before walking, riding the Hong Kong metro, taking two shuttle buses, flying on an airliner and finally riding soft-seat on an overnight train, I alighted at Jishou station bedraggled and somewhat sleep deprived. The total journey took on the order of 17 hours, about three of which included waiting for the train.

But I was here.

My contact person here, David Luo, met me at the train station. The train was packed with university students, who like me, needed to start class the next day. To get to campus, you either need to take a bus or hail a cab. David and I had to fight our way through this mob of college kids to find a cab not vying for their attention.

Let me tell you something about Chinese cabbies. They are fearless. Even in Jishou, a city of about 200,000, traffic at certain times of the day can be pretty hairy. The streets are occupied simultaneously by cabs, buses, private cars, scooters, motorbikes, pedicabs, bicycles and pedestrians. American-style traffic rules are non-existent. As in the ticket-window and train-boarding queues, it’s everyone for himself on the streets. I’ve now ridden in a Jishou cab — they are all red-and-black compact Citroëns — a half-dozen times. Cabbies will take any route, short of driving on the sidewalk, to get to your destination — even against traffic — cutting in front of trucks and buses, nearly nicking pedestrians and motorcyclists. Since all of the cabs seem to be undented or otherwise undamaged, I figure the cabbies can be trusted and I’ll just let the fates prevail. No sense in worrying about something I can’t control.

I reckon all the bad cabbies have either been fired (because they wrecked their cab) or quit to find a less stressful job, such as an air traffic controller in Shanghai.

We proceeded to the big hotel in town, which serves a Western-style buffet breakfast, where I ate my fill. David introduced me to Christopher, one of the English majors, who was to take me to my flat. I also received a basic little cell phone to use until I got my own. (This phone actually carries a number used by David’s office, so periodically I would get fax calls and voice calls from people who were very perplexed when I answered in English.)

Now, I knew I was going to do a lot of walking, as I did in college, but I did not expect that my flat would be in the last building on one of the tallest hills overlooking campus. On top of that, it’s also a fourth-floor walkup. So, I will get my exercise for sure!

Christopher was dragging my 20-kilo duffle, so the two of us had to stop a couple of times to catch our wind. Eventually I arrived at my flat, well-fed but totally exhausted.

Some folks back home warned me that flats in China are small. So the size of the place did not floor me. Actually, it’s pretty comfortable. Here’s the layout. (I have pics on Picasa here.)

The entry opens into the living room, where there is couch, an armchair, a TV and DVD player, a coffee table, a water dispenser and a fan. To the left, is a shoebox of a kitchen with a two-burner stove (using bottled gas), a fridge, a tiny sink and a microwave. I also have a wok and a rice cooker. To the right of the entry is the bedroom, which like the living room is about 25′ by 25′. Further on, a door leads you to another room that’s half balcony, half sunporch, containing a table, a clothesline that I think Yao Ming must have installed, and a tiny Little Swan (aka Haier) clothes washer. The bathroom is to the right.

Mercifully, I did not get a squat toilet. Instead the apartment comes with a western-style sit-down commode. The bathroom, which is about a small as the kitchen, also contains the water heater and the shower. But it’s not laid out like an American bathroom, with a separate stall for the shower. Instead there is a floor drain. When you shower, you close the bathroom door and take your shower right alongside the toilet. It is waterproof, after all.

Oh, there is air conditioning, which does a decent job of keeping the bedroom cool. But at night, I can open all the windows and get a nice breeze passing through the flat, so I don’t need to run the AC much. (Keeping the windows open, however, makes the local rooster’s morning call all the louder. I don’t really need an alarm clock if the neighbors are keeping free-range chickens!)

My Internet connection was not working, so I unpacked and crashed for a couple of hours, before rendezvousing with David for lunch and a brief orientation.

We went back to the hotel. He had informed the manager that I was new to China and hungry besides, so she took it open herself to supply David, me and Frank, who heads the Office of International Exchange, with enough food to feed a small army. We toasted each other with Kingway light beer (a Shenzhen brew that’s not bad) and tucked into our banquet.

I have discovered that in China, the doggie bag is unheard of. Restaurant leftovers are not taken home to be eaten later. What you don’t eat, stays. Where it goes from there, I can’t hazard to say.

After lunch I learned that I was the only foreign English teacher on campus so far; David’s attempts to find another were not being all that successful. My teaching load would be (tentatively) five classes spread over four days: on Mondays, Oral Business English for seniors; Tuesdays, Oral English for sophomores; Wednesdays, Oral English for seniors, and Thursday, Writing English followed by Writing Business English, both for seniors. The textbooks are sparse. I can use them as guideposts, but essentially I’m on my own, which is about what I expected.

David and Frank released me to return to my flat, where I rested some more, before Christopher and two other energetic English majors, Ava and Sophia, took me around to buy a China Mobile SIM card for my Treo [details about that project will come later], to tour Jishou proper and to eat a delicious meal at a local restaurant. We also checked out the Jun Hua supermarket near the campus, where they helped me find a desk lamp (31.50 yuan, about US$5), some drinks for the fridge, and a discount card entitling me to a 10% discount there.

Around 7 or so, we parted company and I spent the rest of the evening relishing a enjoyable, if tiring day, and preparing for my first class at 8 the next morning.

NEXT: The SIM card saga

September 3rd, 2008 | Tags: arrival, China, jishou | Category: China | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL