Caleb's Declassified China Arrival Guide

Gosh, what a month. I don’t even know where to begin, and trust me, that’s definitely not because I only started writing my blog about 2 hours before the deadline.

I guess I should introduce myself, as this is my first blog post. So, hi. My name is Caleb Davidson and I’ll be your blogger for the year. I’ve been in China for just short of a month now, but I suppose I should start from the beginning - the airport.

Truth be told, the thing I was least looking forward to wasn’t the goodbyes, but the flight itself. Of course it was strange saying goodbye to friends and family while knowing full well that you aren’t going to see them again for almost a whole year, but I was confident that with my VPN and an arsenal of different social medias it wouldn’t be too difficult to keep in touch with everyone back home, and that really helped carry me through what I’m sure would otherwise have been one of the most difficult parts of the whole year.

To be honest, the whole story of the flight can be summed up as being far less difficult than I thought it would be. Checking our bags in was super easy, thanks in large part to the wonderful indifference of the check-in assistant who didn’t even bat an eyelid when my suitcase was 5kg over the allowance. The flight itself was super easy as I’d been gearing myself up for a gruelling 14 hour airborne marathon when in reality the flight only took around 10 hours and the only marathon I took part in was a Netflix one. Even the process of getting into China once we got off the plane was super easy. Well, once I managed to explain to the customs official that just because my hair isn’t shoulder-length any more that doesn’t mean I’m a different person than who I am on my passport, and I’d apologised to the man I whacked with my massive suitcase when I was taking it off of the conveyor belt, that is.

After arriving at Tianjin Normal University and finding our rooms, we spent the first week or so exploring the area, learning how to not get run over, and setting up all the different things we’d need to survive in China, such as SIM cards and bank accounts. Did you know that in China you can get a SIM with unlimited data for the equivalent of about £3 per month? If I’d known that I’d have moved to China years ago.

It’s quite a surreal experience living in Tianjin, even 4 weeks on. Living in a city this big is so different to anything I’ve experienced before; there’s always new things to see and new places to discover. Watching the streets come alive in the evening when everyone finishes work is so interesting to me as well. In Scotland it feels like the streets are used almost solely for the purpose of getting from one place to another, but in Tianjin, in the evening, they become meeting places for locals to get together and relax. You’ll see elderly men sitting on a street corner playing Xiangqi, people in the parks doing taichi and dancing, and people flooding to street food vendors to grab a bite to eat after a busy day. It gives this massive city, with its bright lights and skyscrapers, such a sense of community and life, and I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else. That’s not to say you can’t find a sense of community in Scotland of course, obviously you can, it’s just less readily apparent.

Tianjin Normal University has two campuses, and although the other one is much grander and far more impressive, I couldn’t be happier with the location of our campus. It’s quite near the centre of the city, right next to a subway station, very close to some amazing restaurants, and about a 10 minute walk away from a massive seven-storey mall. Almost everything we could ever need is located nearby - and if it’s not you can hop on the subway or have it delivered to your doorstep.

There are quite a few foreign students living in our building as well, and although none of them are in my class it’s still great to speak to them at lunch and practice Chinese with them. In my opinion there’s just as much benefit to practicing your Chinese with other learners as there is with native speakers.

Speaking of classes, they’ve have started quite slowly. All of the scholars are in the same class and because some people have never studied any Chinese before the teachers started with the very basics, but they’re beginning to pick up now and they’re looking to transfer some of the much more advanced students to a higher level class. Despite the relative ease of the classes so far however, it really is amazing how much I’ve learned. I don’t think I could have written more than 5 characters before coming to China, not that I’d studied a whole lot of Chinese in Scotland mind you, but I’m finding myself recognising and being able to write more and more characters every day, at a surprising pace. The fact that many Chinese people don’t speak English is very daunting at first, but it’s actually a huge benefit.

You’re forced to use your Chinese, no matter how little you think you know, to communicate with people on a daily basis, and you really surprise yourself with what you remember and understand. In fact, I was literally interrupted from writing this about 10 minutes ago by a man knocking on my door who turned out to be delivering some water to a few rooms on the floor, but I had to work out what he wanted and then discuss how to pay him using only Chinese. It’s little interactions like that which do so much to improve your knowledge of the language, and one of the reasons I’m so grateful to be learning Chinese in China. Being in the country really is the best place to learn the language. 

Outside of class, when we’ve not been doing homework, we’ve been doing a lot of exploring. This week alone I’ve visited Tianjin’s Ancient Cultural Street which is a throwback to, well, ancient China, the Haihe river which runs through the heart of Tianjin, and the other campus of the university in order to attend the opening ceremony, which to be honest was more of a festival than a ceremony. I also spent the day and had dinner with a Chinese family during the Mid-Autumn Festival and travelled to the other side of the city (by subway, of course) to visit a hot pot restaurant with a couple of new Chinese friends; the food on both days was absolutely amazing, and I think that Chinese hot pot is one of my new favourite things to eat. 

Well, I suppose that’s about it for this month. Overall, I feel like everyone has settled in really well, and Tianjin is beginning to feel like home. There have certainly been far more ups than there have been downs, and I don’t think I could have asked for a better group of people to be sharing a year of my life with.

Next month is going to be a busy one - we have next week off to celebrate Chinese

National Day so myself and a few other scholars are going to Shanghai for a couple of days before travelling to Hangzhou, where we’ll spend the rest of the week. We booked it a bit late however, so we’re standing for 17 hours on the train down to

Shanghai. I’ve no doubt that’ll be absolutely torturous for us, but I’m sure it’ll at least make for some good writing! If we survive it, that is.

Pray for my feet.

Caleb