Life At 厦门大学

I often have the tendency to post very philosophical "musings" -- rambling about my thoughts, feelings, and the meaning of life. However entertaining or disconcerting this may be, I realize that it may fail to give an accurate picture of my daily life and experiences here in China by focusing too heavily on just the dark recesses of my psyche...

So, I have decided to pepper my deeper meditations with descriptions and information about the actual day-to-day life here at Xiamen Daxue.

This campus is absolutely beautiful. This only makes sense due to the great reputation Xiamen has as "China's Garden City" --annually rated as one of the most beautiful and most livable of all Chinese cities. I am technically on an island off the coast of the South China sea. Although Xiamen stretches onto the mainland, the majority of the city covers the island. I am living in the southwestern part of the island, about a five minute walk from the coast. Xia-Da has about 20,000 students (including graduate levels) most of whom live in and around the main campus area. Although the school is only 80 years old (very young here), the architecture of most of the main buildings is designed to look like ancient China. In the main part of the campus, there is a huge and very modern 12-story building over-looking a beautiful lake that many students congregate around. I would compare Xia-Da to a state school in America in that there are many restaurants, stores, art galleries, museums, and banks actually on campus to serve the large student population. There are 4 gates that get you in/out of Xia-Da and they are very important landmarks. The most famous gate is the Western gate which opens out into a large area of town where there is many restaurants, a supermarket, bus-stops, an internet cafe, bakery, shopping mall, McDonalds, ect. (pretty much everything you need.) Two of my favorite restaurants are down these roads where you can get some pretty legit and real Chinese food. *Many people have asked if I am getting tired of Chinese food, but I am beginning to realize that there is as much variety in the food here as we have in ours at home! What you think of at the local buffet is only a smidgen of the delicacies offered here. (ex. Squid head on a stick! Yeah Mayne!)

The North gate is associated with the famous Nanputuo Temple that basically borders the campus. This important Buddhist monastery was originally built in the Tang dynasty (618-907). We haven't had the opportunity to go yet, but I am planning on it soon. Apparently you can tour it, hike some mountain trails, and hang out with some monks at the in-house vegetarian restaurant there!

I live closest to the South gate which is literally at the beach. The views are beautiful and the breeze is nice... it might get nicer as of tomorrow (there is a typhoon supposed to touch down in the morning!) The beach board-walk is probably the nicest I have ever seen the world. The militant upkeep and beautification efforts are only outdone by the amount and quality of public art all along the coast! (This goes for all of Xiamen-- it is the most artistic city I have ever seen!)

*Why yes, that is MY sweet workspace and asian poster pictured above... i know you were wondering
My dorm is the second tallest building on campus and is designated for international students only! This hodgepodge includes Ethiopians, Germans, Indians, Canadians, Japanese, Nigerians, and even a whole group from UNC Chapel Hill! These dorms are very nice and are actually the ONLY air-conditioned dorms in the whole campus! There is a restaurant on the second floor that delivers to your room (if you can communicate it correctly in Chinese) and a store that sells everything from electric converters to snickers bars and cigarettes! The majority of my classes take place next door in the OEC- Overseas Education College. It would be hard to identify my favorite classes because they are all awesome and feel like I am learning so much! My mandarin is coming along...barely. I have been studying very hard and this effort is rewarded when I have an actual basic conversation or I can read a sign in (gasp) CHINESE CHARACTERS! These ventures are not without their flaws of course. Earlier tonight, I tried to ask the lady working at the tea-bar what her name was. Apparently this wasn't understood, so I repeated the question. AFTER everyone started laughing, it was communicated to me that I had asked her out on a date! I still don't really know what happened...

Walking across streets is a daily near-death experience. It makes me laugh because they have the painted pedestrian "walk sections," but they don't seem to mean anything. There are no walk signs. There are no read lights. Simply getting across the street often includes running across one lane of traffic standing in the middle of the road, dodging a taxi/and/or/bus, and then running across the other lane. This has turned a once mundane experience into an exhilarating test of the whits...

There are many cultural differences and similarities and much reflection to be shared very soon...

Next Post: Same Kind Of Different As Ni

P.S. I will take some more pictures of the campus when i have time--today it was rainy and dreary!


No dryers=innovative hanging in my room!


So many choices for cup noodles! Oh yeah, its big deal here!


Above: At present my favorite chinese dish-- 饺子 (Jiaozi)
Chinese Dumplings Brett! 20 for $1.00

My city for the semester...