First Day of Class

So when I signed up for this gig, they didn’t tell me I would be transported straight back into high school again. The maturity of Chinese students is kilometres below that of Canadian ones. It sounds harsh but it’s true. To add to the divide, I’ve been told on more than a few occasions that I’m a little more mature for my age than most. Okay, what do I mean? You want examples? Sure. I am experiencing a return of the period bell. When the bell rings, it’s time to start class. The next bell signals an explosive eruption of personal conversations (15 minute mid period break). The professor can’t finish their thought like in the West because competing with the wall of noise and lack of attention would be useless. I thought in the adult world, people look at their watches to ensure they are on time?

Anyways, the biggest difference in a Chinese classroom is the talking. Every student talks in conversational volumes to their classmates during the lecture! Constantly! The hearing impaired must be screwed in this system. The decibel volume of my classmates talking was often enough to overpower the professor. Granted, some things don’t change. The professor lectured in English and showed PowerPoint slides. She used the chalk board for formulas etcetera. That was all the same. What was astonishing was the blatant disrespect for the professor: talking over the lecturer, openly texting in class, sleeping on the desks, and so on.

Some more serious students would sometimes throw out a feeble “shush!” but it was often more symbolic than effective at quieting the riot of voices. This was my first day of class. Here we go.

And the Saints Go Marching By

Ee are san, Ee are San, Ee are San, EE ARE SAN! EE ARE SAN!

One two three, one two three... This was the chanting that woke me up in the early morning light of my first full day in China. My wristwatch barely registered 6:00am when it began. The synchronized chanting got progressively louder and seemingly more aggressive as the seconds ticked away. I rose and swung my tired legs over the side of the bed. As my bare toes probed the cold hardwood floor, I debated investigating further or returning to sleep. My curiosity won that battle. I grudgingly crawled out of my bed and shoved open my single 70s era window curtain. What I saw was a shocking display.

Hundreds of camouflage clad soldiers were marching through the streets! This was it. They had found out where I live! They were coming to get me! I felt like I was reliving the terrifying pages of Orson Well’s classic 1984. You know the scene where the thought police come bursting through the door and caught the protagonist red handed? How had they discovered my capitalist and democratic thoughts? My mind raced as my heart beat tried to keep pace; they were coming to get me and take me away! -----These silly thoughts tend to run through your head when you’re fighting off a 15 hour jet lag.

The soldiers, both male and female, wore standard green and brown jungle camouflage. Tight cheap synthetic leather belts kept the oversized uniforms from falling off of their variously undersized frames. Hats and arms were adorned with the communist party of China’s red flags and yellow stars. Gold metal badges fastened to the forefront of the hats glistened in the morning sun. It must have been 30⁰ with 80% humidity that morning: such discipline.

Drill sergeants circled the formations like hungry seagulls, waiting to pounce on malformations or missed steps. Soldier were chastised through verbal abuse, and physical consequences like Chinese jumping jacks (yes, they have a totally different style than we do), push-ups or buttox-to-ankle squats. The Chinese soldiers walked in perfect uniform rows of ten. Each step was synchronized with the last. Each arm swung in unison. The aggregate result of all of this unison was the thunderous clap of hundreds of boots treading the earth at the same moment, countless voices chanting in sync. It was incredible to watch. As I stared from my lofty perch in the fifth floor window my fear began do release. It was replaced with wonderment.
 
Cracks in the menacing facade of a well trained and lethal brigade began to show when I noticed that every now and again you could spot a soldier wearing white sneakers. The warehouse must be running short of standard issue green shoes in certain sizes, or maybe some soldiers forgot them. I’ll bet the ones with sneakers get a few extra push-ups for their oversight. From up in my dorm the Chinese looked quite disciplined but up close you could see they were nothing more than young cadets: going through the motions, disinterested and bored –not the lethal death squads I once imagined.
 
As it turns out, every second year university student must complete 2 or 3 weeks of mandatory military training. The training has been going on since I arrived over a week ago now. They should be wrapped up in a week or so.
 
The only interesting side note is that on occasion all of the soldiers form around the running field at once. They perform massive drills with thousands of cadets. The best part of this display is the emphatic general who stands on stage and screams commands into the microphone. His voice is carried over the entire campus as the P.A. system doesn’t seem to be able to just project to the field. The General often overloads the system with his frothing screaming so that his voice distorts beyond recognition and the speakers feedback. If I had binoculars I’m sure I could see a throbbing red vein swelling out of his forehead. How can one man with so much power sound so angry? He’s kind of like Kim Jong Ill but with a couple more doses of crazy. It reminds me of old Hitler films where he is rallying the troops. It’s a good thing nobody takes this guy too seriously.

Finally arriving in Tianjin

The first thing that stuck me about China was the H1N1 screening at the airport. As you walk through towards the baggage claim you pass through info red cameras with security guards diligently trying to flag anybody with a temperature. It was unnerving, very Orwellian experience. I felt like they were culling the sick and wounded. As I passed by, I shared glances with some westerners sitting behind the quarantine white curtain with terrified looks on their faces. My heart went out to them and through our eyes, I conveyed sympathy and compassion, they conveyed the terror of the unknown. What will happen to these people? I immediately thought of my mom. What if she was walking through and happened to be having a hot flash? I’ll bet she would be pulled aside for sure. (sorry mom)

The second thing about China, lining up doesn’t seem to really matter. I’ve been told people have been getting better about cueing in recent years but they’re nowhere near perfect. This is just one of the many cultural differences that I have to get used to. I’m often left at the back of the line with the bad seats because I’m not aggressive enough to cut in front of everyone.

And so after the usual rigaramroo with customs, baggage claim, and stopping by to talk to the info desk on how to get to my next destination I was off. Off on a bus ride that took me on the highways which meander up and over the seemingly endless Beijing canopy. Sometimes the road would dip low enough for me to see locals busily rushing down side streets in their rusting and squeaky bicycles, three wheelers, and moped. All of which are very popular forms of transportation in China.

Traffic moved at a snail’s pace as we neared popular bottlenecks. Eventually with some help from a friendly local on the bus, I got off at the right stop. I then caught a taxi to the train station. The train station was beautifully constructed and so big it nearly needed its own highway just to feed it. It was the newly constructed Beijing South Train Station, home to the world’s fastest train. I believe it travels at 360 km/hr +. Which is very convenient for me because it means I arrive in Tianjin in ½ an hour for under ten dollars.

Tianjin

Tianjin sits on the ‘gold coast” of north pacific China. This bustling metropolis began to take shape in the 12th century and is now China’s 3rd largest city next to Beijing and Shanghai. Trust me, when you get into the city, you know it. We’re talking about a population of 42.1 million people inhabiting a mere 11,300 square kilometres. Some cursory number crunching reveals (thank you Math 101) that I am living in a city where every square kilometre houses roughly 3,725 people.

Well at least I was sold by the University’s depiction of its campus. “A beautiful 1.5km campus covered with lakes, trees, and gardens.” Although that depiction might be streatching it a little, I'm quite happy here. It is China’s oldest University first founded in 1895. The campus offers all of the amenities including banks, a hospital, post office, shops, laundries, and restaurants. I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be using that post office often to send post cards and large boxed packed full of dirt cheap knockoffs to waiting hands overseas.

The Great Firewall of China

I appalogize to everybody waiting to see my pictures from China. You see, the reason my blogs aren't adorned with colourfull and funny pictures is not because I don't have any to share, but it's because they have been blocked.

In China, the internet is not like it is back home. Many MANY websites are blocked out. The internet runs very slowly, even on a broadband connection. This is due to thousands of cyber police, patrolling the net searching for deviants and innapropriate content.

I've been using what's called a proxy server to get into my Blog. It's a techy way of having a false identity on-line. It's the way most people get around the firewall but it's not perfect. For example, I can look in Facebook but I can't post anything or change anything. I can post to Blogger but only text; I'm not able to add photographs.

The powers that be have decided that Facebook, blogs, some news websites, and a long list of other websites are not appropriate for the continuing "harmony" of their people. Trust me, I think it sucks just as much as you do.

No Reservations

In the Vancouver airport I had what you could call my “last meal.“ A slice of pepperoni pizza, a Greek salad, and an orange Gatorade was on the menu. This was my last taste of normalcy. It felt like a humble gastric act of pity. An offer to my digestion system to somehow make up for the looming horrors that it soon may very well come to face while attempting to digest authentic Chinese cuisine.

I grumbled to my mother at the cafeteria table how much I hated long plane rides: the confinement, uncomfortably small spaces, and varying temperatures. But when all was said and done, my voyage was a fairly comfortable one. I didn’t feel like a caged lab rat as I sometimes do.

The only event to discolour my ride was finding a long black hair in nearly every dish and side dish I unwrapped. The first instance repulsed me. The appearance of the second, third, and consecutive hairs, always careful to be outside the gaze of other disapproving westerners, I received with a humorous chuckle. And in the back of my head I was thinking: welcome to China, throw your foe pas out the window and buckle in.

Air China Flight 992

Well the day has finally arrived. It snuck up on me as it always seems to do, and I don’t feel completely prepared. I haven’t poured over every sentence of my travel guide, nor have I made peace with the fact that going to the bathroom will be a challenging and acrobatic affair for the next four months. However, I feel much more prepared this time around then when I went to Europe. An airport is no longer a daunting and terrifying place where I never know what’s coming around the corner. I’m not afraid of the unknown; I’m ready to embrace it.

This post will be a brief one as I must get going now; my plane will be boarding soon. So, goodbye Canada, normalcy, the mundane, pop culture, and familiarity. Farewell my family, friends, pets, and all those I hold close and dear. Don’t be sad, it will only be for four months and I’ll be right back.

And so it begins...

Ready to go.... I think

So I got myself a new camera, netbook (super mini laptop), and windbreaker. Somehow my technological gluttony arms me. I’m unbashfully aware that my materialism has lulled me into a false sense of security. Sure thing... I can take on China. After all, I have a digital camera that has more dials and features than Doc Brown’s time travelling DeLorean. I have a laptop smaller than a standard sheet of paper armed with wireless internet and travel itineraries. I have a jacket engineered in Switzerland capable of keeping me warm and dry during an apocalyptic monsoon. Finally, I have a slightly outdated Lonely Planet guide which I’m sure will soon become my backpacker's bible. Sadly, I have failed to actually connect how these material possessions will actually help me handle what’s coming. But being logical can be so boring.

Speaking of logical, as I have heard for the umpteenth time, why would anybody want to travel halfway around the world to pursue post secondary education in a below standard university, let alone one in a communist, polluted, foreign disease ridden, and repressive country? I’ve heard it all: You’re crazy. Why would anybody want to do that? What’s so wrong with home? And so on. Well, all I can tell you is that it feels right to me; it’s something I want to do for myself. It’s something I need to do. I would always wonder what if. What if I had not taken this opportunity? I’m not one of those people content with the status quo. I know there is so much more out there to see than a few hundred square kilometres from my doorstep.

The truth is, I’m terrified and excited at the same time. I got my feet wet last Fall living in Europe. Although I found it very unique and loved the different cultures I experiences along the way, I’m searching for something a bit further out on the edge. I want to experience something unique, original, humbling, daring, and enlightening. Truth be told, I want to get as far away as possible from McDonald’s, top 40 radio, Hollywood gossip, and all of the other unimportant pop culture that seems to consume everybody’s lives over here. China is home to one of the most ancient and advanced civilizations in the world. I can't wait to learn about their culture as well as long and rich history.

I leave now in under five days...

Lessons Learned

The following is a short list of the painful lessons learned from my last great voyage. The list is nowhere near exhaustive. It represents a very small fraction of the real world practical education I’ve received so far. Although I can reflect back on these experiences with a halo of nostalgia and humour orbiting around my head, I didn’t always feel so complacent about them.

1. Always double and triple check that you have everything you need before a trip. Otherwise you will have to get off a bus at 3am, freeze your butt off waiting for the return leg, and blow another $230 on a different flight because you forgot your passport. -- Valga, Latvia en route Berlin, Germany
   


2. Make sure when entering a new country, you always get your baggage and re-check it through customs. The alternative is running around with nothing but your carryon for three days. The end result of which is feeling like half hygienic notch above a chimpanzee stricken with halitosis and eczema. -- Dusseldorf, Germany
   


3. Be wary of airport taxi drivers. They prey on trusting and naive tourists. This lesson was learned after an $85 dollar cab ride. -- Helsinki, Finland
   


4. Expect to feel like you’ve been living under a rock when you get home. You reside in a vacuum when you live abroad. You will inevitably miss what that summer’s hit song. blockbuster, or news story was. It’s a strange thing, almost like somebody has pushed the delete key on the trivial / pop culture section of your brain. Suddenly you can’t relate to friends reminiscing on such things. You feel left out when they regurgitate all those Hollywood one liners, which all seem to have a shelf life of 3 months. You go to look for one in your memory, but you find the librarian has removed the index card. Nonetheless, it just confirms how much that stuff really doesn’t matter in the big picture. After all, you’re trading it for something so much more substantive and enriching. -- Fall 08, Europe

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

A fare warning to all of those about to read this. This post was not easy to write due to the subject and I caution that it likely will not be easy to read. I don't suggest sensitive people read this.

This is the main entrance gates to the Sachenhausen concentration camp located just outside Berlin. Thousands, if not tens of thousands of prisoners would enter these gates during the Nazi and later Soviet eras never to walk outside of them free men and women.

Seeing this camp was a profound experience for me. We don't know horrible places like these in Canada. One can feel the pain, anguish, horror, evil, and death that still lingers thick in the air, even after 50 years. Coats of paint cannot cover up the atrocities that occurred here, and the German government have made no such efforts to make the place more palatable.

The Sachsenhausen camp was not a death camp where its soul purpose was to facilitate the extermination of prisoners like other more infamous camps like Auschwitz. No, this was a work camp where Nazi political prisoners, homosexuals, Jews and sympathisers, Roma, and Sinti people were held. The ominous slogan welcoming new inmates of the camp read "Work will set you free." This is an oddly coined phrase because nearly the only thing that would set you free from this camp was being worked-to-death.

I believe that a bitterly cold, damp, and windy December afternoon were the ideal conditions to experience the camp in. I couldn't help but think of how uncomfortable I was: standing for long periods, walking, all through the damp cold that seemed to pierce your skin. It was hard for me to image the countess hours of torture and hard labour prisoners had to endure. Those who were too ill to work were forced to stand the entire day in neat rows.

Pictured left is the security fence. It was electrified and covered within the line of sight of machine guns. Those who stepped onto the gravel were effectively in the "dead zone." Soldiers were told to shoot on site, any person who touched foot to the pebbles. They were offered raises and other bonuses if they managed to kill those trying to escape. Often prisoners would make a run for the fence hoping to make it through the layers of barbed wire to reach the electrified portion of it in a desperate effort to end their own lives. Others simply gave up and decided to go out in a blaze of razor wire, bullets, and electricity.

Prisoners were subjected to constant harassment by the Nazi SS and SA soldiers. It was not uncommon for the soldiers to take a prisoner out of the line and beat him to death in-front of the entire camp to set an example. For example, the only language spoken in the camp was German. No concessions were made for other mother tongues. If you didn't understand the orders being barked at you, were were beaten until you "understood," or simply died in the process."

The camp was the flagship camp to set the standard for later camps. Unfortunately for it's inhabitants the occupancy was pushed to over 3x its designed limit, making conditions excruciatingly cramped.

Inmates had 45 minutes to wake, eat, bathe, and relieve themselves in the morning. They only had the opportunity to use the washroom and eat once in the morning and evening. Often in the morning stampede to the shower, the weak, or simply those who had missed a step were trampled to death. It was not uncommon for SS member to pick one out of the crowd and drown him or her in the foot baths pictured in the right of the bath room for sport.





One of the worst punishments was to be condemned to the walking group. This group of prisoners tested new footwear for the Nazi Military. It's absolutely sick how the Nazis subjugated human beings to such treatment. They treated them like animals. The walking group would have to walk for hours-on-end over uneven special surfaces meant to simulate terrain that the boots may encounter in the field -pictured left. To make matters worse, the prisoners were weighed down with heavy packs and wore boots regardless of required size, causing debilitating foot injuries.

The head commander of the camp had a particular "game" he enjoyed. During morning roll call he would speed towards the assembled prisoners on his bicycle screaming like a maniac. The game was to strike the prisoners who tried to dodge the attack with a long stick and or run one of them over. He would do this to a chorus of laughter from his men. This was the morning's entertainment.

This is the trench where many Sachsenhausen prisoners took their last breaths. The execution trench labeled "Station Z" was where mass murders took place. The trench was angled inwards so people whom were executed by gunshot could conveniently fall into the trench for later collection and incineration via bulldozer.


Two other forms of murder included asphyxiation in mobile gas trucks that would channel exhaust fumes into air tight cabs. The other way the Nazis executed was a little more humane if you could call it that. SS members disguised in lab coats, posing as doctors would ask an inmate to disrobe and stand on a scale which would also measure their height. Behind their heads a plate would slide out of the way allowing a hidden SS member in the next room to administer a gunshot to the base of the skull: sudden, quick, painless, and unsuspecting. This was the easiest way to go.

As my friend Joelle commented on her blog, it's difficult to fathom how human beings could do these things to other human beings. As we walked through the camp listening to our audio guides depict the horrors of this camp in the 1930s and 40s we often turned to each other jaws open with looks of complete disbelief and disgust. I think seeing something like this is something everybody should do in their lifetime. History books and Hollywood cannot convey the evil that was Nazism.

It was said that the ideal age of recruitment was 20.7 years of age for the SS. This was because young men were more susceptible to the brainwashing and conditioning required to warp minds. I often ponder however, how did every day people come to commit these horrible acts? Was it really just brainwashing, drugs, self-preservation, peer pressure, or sheer evil that perpetuated it? I don't think anybody can answer this question but it's a perplexing one. One thing is clear however: Nazis did not consider their subject as human. They believed they were super human and they extended no ethic, respect, or significance to the life of others. A non Aryan would be extended less compassion than a domesticated animal.

The reason why everybody should see something like this in their lifetime is to make sure it never happens again. I thought to myself: we have learned from these mistakes. Yet, the more I pondered, the more I realized we have not. Stalin's Siberian work camps, the Bosnian, Rwandan, Sudanese, and now Sri Lanken genocides, Guantanamo Bay, and a whole host of other human rights atrocities still persist. I think the more we learn and take not of the past, the better chance we have to avoid it in the future.