Cherry, Crosby (center) and Kevin

I certainly have to agree with those who have written thus far in that the way we have bonded with these fantastic students so deeply in such a short amount of time has left me somewhat dumbfounded. I have never in my life felt as warmly welcomed by complete strangers as I did the first day of class here. Since then my relationships with several of the students has grown exponentially.

Every morning when I walk into class I hear Jamie’s voice asking me how my night was. Not too far behind is Kevin’s quiet hello. While being much more shy than Jamie, he always has a fair amount to either ask or tell me. Today in class was no different. Immediately after sitting down he asked if I would join him and his girlfriend for lunch. After an eventful class of attempting to explain some American slang to the Chinese students, we ventured off to a restaurant for apparently the best duck in Nanjing.

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(Anthony, center; with Popo, right, and another student, photo AG)

As a quick intro, I’m the economics student among the group, so coming to China has been especially fascinating for me, given that its economy has experienced so many changes (and so much growth) over the past century. My research topics, and what I’d like to post in most of my blogs, revolve around my perceptions of China’s urban economies. Hopefully these can give some interesting insight to our blog readers of the differences between China and the United States!

This blog is about the Chinese marketplace. First, here’s some Econ 101: China considers itself to be a “socialist market system,” which is sort of an oxymoron. The Communist Party rose to power in 1949, but theoretical communism was never practiced in China. Theoretical communism implies an absence of government, and can only be achieved after the success of a ’socialist’ system. Socialism implies collective ownership by the people, for the people. When socialism has been used in governments (e.g. Soviet Union, Cuba, China, etc.), it has often turned into a situation where a dictatorship controls all modes of production (i.e. all companies), and one despot has unlimited power over the people.

So why is this important in China?

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My biggest concern about meeting the students from Nanjing was that our relationship would be one sided. That we American students would act as teachers who would “help” the Chinese students practice their English without gaining insight into Chinese culture. I knew from past service learning experiences that this rarely happens—that learning is never one-sided because relationships are created through give and take and striving to understand the other. If anything, I knew that I would probably gain more from the experience than the Chinese students. But still, I feared that I would take on a teacher role rather than a friend role. After meeting the students, I quickly learned that our relationships would not be one-sided. They have easily become our friends and exclusive Nanjing tour guides. I am going to back track to the day before yesterday (Tuesday) to explain how our relationships have developed.

(Emily (blue shirt) and Joanna (black shirt) photo by Ann Green)

After our first class on Tuesday, the Chinese students took us through Nanjing. Since we were such a large group, it was difficult to find a nearby place that could seat all of us. We decided to take the subway in order to find a bigger restaurant. The Chinese subway is unlike any American subway that I have ever seen. The stations are clean with shiny tiles and bright fluorescent bulbs. It looks more like a hospital than a subway station. The Chinese students guided us through the process of purchasing tokens, something that we would have had difficulty doing on our own because of our language barrier. We purchased our tokens in a machine and proceeded to the subway. We rode to the next stop and found ourselves in a mall where the Chinese students lead us to a dumpling restaurant. They ordered for all of us making it easy, and painless, to receive a meal. Usually it takes much patience and effort to communicate through means other than spoken language to waiters and waitresses in restaurants. With the few Chinese words that I know (although some people in our group can understand and speak Chinese more than others) it is sometimes extremely difficult, and often awkward and frustrating, to do something as simple as ordering a meal. If we are lucky, the restaurants that we go to will have an English menu or a menu with pictures. But still, we often don’t understand the exact contents of the dishes. We usually have no idea what we are ordering and whether or not we will like it. The students explained the contents of each dumpling (some had pork, spinach, and beef) and for a change we actually knew what we were eating.

They then took a group of us through the Nanjing mall. There were small stores cramped into each corner of the corridors. The neon lights looked flashy and loud trying to entice customers to peruse their selection of clothing, pursues, bags, shoes, sunglasses, and hair products. When I thought I might buy something, Nancy and Joanna (two of the Chinese students) helped me try to bargain a lower price with the sales person. They told me when the sales people were trying to cheat me, something I’ve realized that happens often when you’re a tourist in China.

(Connie, facing camera, Emily in blue, Abigail in black profile, photo by AG)

During our trip, I had a chance to learn about some of the students lives. I learned that most of them live at least an hour away from the Nanjing University campus that we Americans were staying on on another of the University’s campuses. Most of them share their dorm rooms with three other people. Their home towns are from all over China including parts of the Mongolia region and the Sichuan Province.

Lunch with students!

Greetings everyone from Nanjing! Dr. Green’s class has been working with the Chinese students for two days now but it feels like much longer. There are about twelve students who we talk to and get to know as a part of the service learning component of the course. The students are mostly our age or older about 22-24 so we have a lot in common even though we grew up on opposite ends of the earth. In class, we went over English names and Chinese names The set up and titles of English names are as confusing to them as Chinese names are to me! The Chinese students all have English names either given to them by previous English teachers or made up by themselves or they got one yesterday. Since the Chinese students have English names they gave us Chinese names. My name is Ma Li. Ma is a popular family name and they picked that name from my middle name Marie. They picked the name Li because it’s short for Liz and means “Jasmine.” Yesterday was also a big day because it was the birthday of one of the Chinese students, Nancy. We brought a cake to the class and taught the students how to sing the “Happy Birthday” song. The Chinese cake was delicious although it was hard to eat it with chopsticks.

After class we met a bunch of the students for lunch. After the bill came the Chinese students argued with the waiter until they gave us a 12% discount. At most of the shopping centers we’ve gone to haggling was necessary with the final prices coming out to 1/2 of the original price or more.

The Nanjing Museum we went to for our field trip in the afternoon was incredible. My favorite piece was a giant vase with 10,000 different characters for the word “longevity.” There was a smaller vase with ONLY 100 different characters for longevity but it didn’t look nearly as cool when compared to the giant vase. There were many artifacts left over from palaces. There was a set of porcelain bowls from the concubines of an emperor. The more yellow in the piece the more status the concubine had. We learned many different tidbits in the museum such as although bats are a symbol of night or scariness, in China the bat means luck.

The President of the Museum took us to a giant dinner after our trip. The food seemed to never stop coming with some of it being delicious such as the “grass” and other things I was afraid to try such as the jellyfish. Almost all of the drinks are served room temperature so drinking warm beer, water and everything else with dinner has taken some getting used to. Dinners are very extravagant and I feel so guilty wasting so much food. I learned later that during fancy dinners such as the one we had, it is expected to have many leftovers.

In answer to my mom’s question bubble tea is a smoothie (I prefer mango) with tapioca balls in the bottom. You drink it out of a big straw so that you drink the the tapioca balls with the smoothie at the same time. This has become a favorite of the group because it’s always served cold so it’s a refreshing beverage

L.iz Lynch

I didn’t know what to expect from Nanjing. I knew that it was formerly the capitol of China, and holds much historical importance. I knew that it’s a major economic center for the country. I also knew about its dark history during World War II, when the Japanese military slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Chinese (numbers are estimated to be as high as 350,000). In a country where family precedes the individual, I couldn’t help but wonder what differences we’d find in a city of families that have lost generations of members in unimaginable ways.

Downtown Nanjing can be attributed with giving a warm first impression. Salespeople aren’t as pushy. There’s not as much commercial flash. And we’re stationed in the middle of Nanjing University’s campus, in a beautiful hotel with modern rooms. I got my first taste of local friendliness on my first evening in Nanjing, when the owner of a local bubble tea shop gave me a free drink after chatting with him. Since then our group has given the shop a decent amount of business.

There’s one special thing I’ve noticed about Nanjing. When our group has walked along the streets, touring malls and boutique shops and little marketplaces in dimly-lit alleyways, I’ve noticed that there’s something missing. We’ve seen dessert shops, dvd/cd stores, restaurants & cafes, salons, clothing shops, and boutiques dedicated entirely to sunglasses or makeup. What we haven’t seen are law firms, offices for dentists and doctors, accounting offices, and a host of other services operations that would be deemed ‘professional.’ Where is the professional community in Nanjing?

In a place like Philadelphia, one can’t walk along Market or Walnut streets without seeing a townhouse that has been converted into a law firm. Even my hometown of Media, PA, is ripe in its downtown area with professional services firms, which sandwich the retail boutiques, restaurants, and salons.  It seems odd that a city of 5 million people wouldn’t have an established and sustainable professional services community.  Shouldn’t our host university be a local harbinger of professional services for its hometown?  Or could the generations who should be building this local economy be among those lost in the tragedies of war that happened a long time ago, but maybe not long ago enough?

For whatever the reason, one has to look very hard to find the woes of beautiful Nanjing, hidden within the economics of development.

All it takes in Shanghai to realize you’re no longer in the west is a late night cab ride. Tearing down the streets, through red lights and cutting across the oncoming lane at speeds that make you thankful you can’t immediately convert the speedometer from KM/H, one might realize this isn’t New York. Much like its cab drivers, this is a city emanating impatience.

Its a city of transition, with old traits clashing with the outside world that seems to slowly be creeping in. Even for someone who would be uncomfortable outside the west, this city has plenty to offer with many of the creature comforts such as fast food and designer goods popping up in the most unlikely places. This is a city still deciding just how westernized it will become.

All is certainly not lost in terms of tradition and culture. Even in a single day one can glimpse its heritage. With Buddhist temples, museums and sprawling gardens, it is clear that the people here have many things they want to hold on to. Thankfully, it would seem that this city will never be a carbon copy of the western one’s that it is racing to catch up with.

The very layout of the city itself seems sporadic, with clumps of high rise apartment buildings and sky scrapers climbing above older and poorer housing. While it has grown the achieve the status as one of the world’s fastest developing cities, it would seem that large chunks are simply left behind in its race to develop.

As the city has developed, so it would seem, has the wealth gap. Driving through Shanghai, it feels as if many parts are being pushed aside. In about 10 minutes one can go from an area filled with tiny shops and disconcerting massage parlors to lavish stores and restaurants pulled right out of a western city. The laundry on the sides of all apartment buildings, old and small or big and new, is a clear sign that this city has not fully become the Tokyo, New York, or London that it seems to long to be, but this seems like more an eventually inevitability than a possibility.