It is unfathomable that we were on our way here last Friday, and yet, here it is the end of the first week of teaching. Our sleep schedule is still unusual – falling asleep early, waking in the early morning for a while and then returning to sleep until between 6-7AM. This morning Rob got up at 1AM and worked on images for his public lecture until 3 AM when he returned to bed. I’ve always thought it a good idea to go ahead and get up if there is something on your mind, as it is likely you will rest easier after doing whatever it is than you will if you lie there resisting it. That seemed to be the case this morning, anyway. We are finding ways to access internet sites that are not readily accessible here and it goes much more smoothly at 2 AM than it does at 6 PM. It could be the amount of internet traffic that slows things down, but we tend to get dropped a lot here. In fact we are having a technology dilemma with our ChinaUnicom SIM card. After the first couple of days, it has now stopped giving us 3G access, and when we are not on the wifi from the school or the hotel, we are hopelessly cut off. Our verbal translator doesn’t work without these connections, and we cannot even imessage each other. So we are just hoping that plans go as they ought to, and no one needs to be in touch once we leave campus. Of course that is exactly when we might need to be able to reach one of our local contacts. Oh well. Perhaps tomorrow we can figure this one out.
Today’s lunch was much better than the surprise we had yesterday. We have started eating in the faculty cafeteria and our first day we ended up with a tofu dish mixed with dark cubes. Rob was guessing that perhaps it was some kind of black bean tofu but no, it turned out to be blood in a congealed format. Ugh! We were a little leary today, but there were lots of good veggies – cabbage, a carrot/lettuce sauté, an obviously tofu dish, yams, and a bean sprout dish. All in all, a decent lunch. The tables are large enough for 6 people to easily sit in large heavy chairs that no one really moves. Everyone perches on the front edge of the chairs and just leaves them pushed out enough to get into them. An odd thing, but that’s how it is.
The temperature today was much warmer, and the sun appeared! For some reason the place was flooded with groups of very young school children and their teachers. It seemed they were having some sort of celebration, taking class pictures on the steps of the railroad car across from us, and even had a few fireworks go off – the loud bang type. Rob and I explored more of the hotel, finding ways to wander up to the very top level of roof, and get views of the angles of the various sections of the building. It is a marvelously convoluted and interesting place, with many small nooks and platforms with intimate table settings that have walkie-talkies so that you can potentially sit anywhere and order a drink! I can’t help but wonder if they actually work. It’s definitely a cool idea, unless you are the wait staff and have to climb all over this building with a soda to deliver.
Rob went off to steer his students into the meat of the assignment: the actual formation of several different configurations of rectilinear relationships and I headed back to the tea market to deliver a subway map of NYC and a USA stamp first day issue of the Lunar New Year stamp. It ended up with a delightful visit, and an invitation to come to their home and go next door to a restaurant for dinner, since it is their busiest time of year and Momma isn’t cooking! So perhaps next Monday we will try this. I met one of the young man’s friends, who speaks fairly good English, and all went along nicely. Then I failed to find the entrance to the “old market” and ended up skipping a second effort at buying wool, taking instead an opportunity to meet a couple people who make mala beads, and wound up buying some
Rob came back from class exhausted, but with 10 more sheets of drawing paper. He could see that the students didn’t really get the assignment clearly, as they failed to keep within the constraints of the assignment. He has no idea if the translated assignment is at all true to his original concept, or if the translator was able to clarify anything or just continue the muddle. It is disheartening for him since he wants them to really experience these relationships and the missing language is building barriers to that. They did enjoy the cookies, though.
We’ve also learned that we are to visit an artist’s studio tomorrow, our first venture by bus into the ‘downtown” area around West Lake. The weather ought to be warm and lovely. What a nice change! So it is just about a week since we first arrived in Hangzhou, for that initial dinner and first attempt to sleep and start our adventure. Each day so far has presented opportunities for contemplation, revelation, and growth.
