Ice and Exams

The morning after the snow fell was one of the most outrageously scary winter situations I've ever been in -- and North Dakota serves up some scary winters.


I woke up like usual at 6 a.m. and rushed to get ready so I could go out and find breakfast before getting on the bus. The streets and sidewalks were solid ice. I skated my way down the block, almost falling a time or two which delighted people along the street. A chorus of "ohhhh! whoaa!" was sung in my honor as I crossed the street and saved myself from kissing the pavement.


The bus arrived a few minutes past 7 and I got on for the usual commute. At least it was warm. Traffic was inching along and by the time we got to the raised superhighway, our brakes were groaning from being locked up. The highway is four or five stories in the air and within a few minutes I saw three charter buses -- just like the one I was on -- that had spun a 180 on the road and were slammed up the three foot tall concrete barrier. That was all that was stopping them from toppling over off the edge. I finally stopped counting how many accidents I saw and I quit looking out the window onto the road because it was nauseating. 


Two hours later we finally arrived to campus. I was 25 minutes late for class and was relieved when I saw 15 of 40 students still sitting in the class. I thanked them and told them to call or text their friends to see if they could come back to class, and to my relief within 15 minutes the entire class was present. Not a single absence. It was the first time I felt like my students actually respected me.


This week was a whirlwind of proctoring my first final exams and prepping the rest of my classes for their exams. There was paperwork and scheduling problems and more grading than I cared to deal with. I feel a lot of pressure to get the grades right, the university mandates that the final exam is worth 50% of their grade, so I'm really proud that my students are rocking their mock job interviews for their exam -- they've got a lot weighing on that 10 minute conversation with me.


I've enjoyed talking with my students one-on-one, because it's my only chance to see their personality. One student who has been awful (if he comes to class, he sleeps through it and he never ever answers any of my questions) but during his exam he was great. He wants to be a painter, but his parents want him to be a businessman. And in China, parents win. His final exam was outstanding and thoughtful...it's a shame his participation the rest of the semester wasn't as good. 


A lot of my girls were really excited to get to talk to me, many of them wanted to take a picture with me and some of them even brought me snacks or tea. I'm so thankful for my students, they've kept me sane in my first few months here. I'm looking forward to getting to hang out with students in an organizational context as opposed to actually teaching classes. Whenever the bureaucratic nonsense starts getting to me, my students always seem to help me get back on track again. 


At any rate, I don't know which is worse -- final exams from a student perspective or from a teacher's stance... quite frankly, I find them both quite awful.

White Christmas

Never ever did I think that I would find myself enjoying a white Christmas, or pre-Christmas rather, in China. I had heard rumors that it might snow a little bit sometime this week, but everyone said the snow never sticks to the ground and it melts right away.


The first sprinkles started around 8 a.m. -- I was walking from my office to another with a huge smile on my face because my scarf had the subtlest hints of white flakes melting on it. I was savoring every small little frozen speck that was hitting my face. I was like Buddy from Elf.


Within twenty minutes, the snow was no longer subtle. Huge, thick flakes were pouring from the sky and they have yet to cease. I forgot my camera at home today, but I used my cell phone to snap shots of palm trees and green leaves covered in snow. I have never been so thankful and excited to see snow in December in my life. I made it a point to walk off the path to hear the peaceful crunch of snow beneath my feet. While everyone around me was scurrying about with their umbrellas and hats that look like panda bears (complete with little ears), I walked around hatless and without an umbrella, happily encouraging my cheeks to blush pink from the cold. I wanted to stick my tongue out to try catch some flakes, but then I thought that might not be the healthiest thing to do in China...


My friend Jenn, bless her southern heart, has never witnessed snow falling and not melting before. She's seen snow in mountains of course, but her Houston home and Malibu, Calif. university aren't known for their white Christmases. By 10 a.m. she had invited me to go sledding near the river by our campuses.


After swindling some trays from her cafeteria, Jenn met up with me and we ventured off to find some other American friends. I never made it sledding (I had my first round of finals today) but I spent a solid hour outside this afternoon enjoying the scene.


Then a terrifying thought hit me: the bus ride home.


In perfect conditions, Chinese driving can be nauseating and fear-inducing. Today was far from perfect conditions -- this much snow in Hangzhou is like dumping three inches of snow in Miami and watching what happens. But Miami drivers have a more orthodox set of driving rules, it's a bit more free-for-all in this country.


Luckily we made it back unscathed, our ride took more than an hour and a half and we saw countless fender benders and accidents along the way. It makes me sick to think about how many injuries (and probably deaths) will happen tonight with so many bikes, cars and busses acting in their usual chaotic manner.


Now we get to spend the night shivering. Our apartment (and every other building in this city) lacks insulation, so the second that our "heater" (aka, fan that blows hot-ish air) turns off, the temperature drops a few degrees. Our apartment has way too much square footage to heat it all, too. 


Oh well, I can't complain. I got my dose of home today. Seeing the snow sent quite a few pangs of homesickness through my heart, but I'm also grateful that I can set a few snow angels free from my little corner of the planet.


Let it snow! (Now here's to hoping the power doesn't go out...)

Escape to Hong Kong

The Air China stewardess was attempting her best impression of William Shatner in a thick Chinese accent as she announced, with regret, that a woman on the aircraft had lost her cell phone and therefore we would be delayed.

Delayed for a cell phone? Delta or United would have told that woman “tough luck,” in the states.

Within a few moments, the plane erupted into chaos. A small salt-and-pepper haired wannabe business magnate in front of us started screaming at the flight attendant. A few rows back there were more people yelling. All of a sudden two police officers came on the plane (we assumed they would escort the angry Alvin the Chipmunk one row ahead).

Oh no, they were there for one purpose only: to file a report for the missing cell phone. Well thank goodness that got sorted out; we wouldn’t want a stray Nokia floating around on the plane!

Shortly thereafter we were en route to Shenzhen, the Petri dish experiment of the Chinese government to create a flourishing metropolis across the river from Hong Kong. It’s formally known as the “Shenzhen Special Economic Zone,” and its sovereignty within China can be compared to the function of the District of Columbia in the US.

Three months after I was born, Shenzhen was granted its special economic status and went from rice paddies and fishing villages to a boomtown with well over 14 million* people living there. It has been the fastest growing city in China for the past 30 years now.

*(Official numbers are 14 million, but it’s believed there are a lot more people who commute or who live there without a Shenzhen residency card).

From Shenzhen we boarded a bus to Hong Kong, another city with a special relationship to the government. It’s part of China, but not completely part of China. The differences between Shenzhen and its neighbor could not be starker.

We got off the bus wide-eyed with jaws dropped – it was like we were in New York City, a strange exotic New York City where cars drove the same way they do in London and where the signs are neon-blazed Cantonese.

We wandered into a hotel and I went to ask for directions to the subway as Alex checked out the Christmas tree in the lobby.

“Excuse me,” I said very slowly, “could you tell me where the me-tr-o is at?”

“Walk outside take a left and walk four blocks,” he replied in perfect English.

Wow, refreshing!

“Janae! Get over here!” I looked at Alex as she was taking euphoric sniffs of the evergreen tree. “It smells like Christmas!!”

I ran over and joined her in smelling the branches and smiling. “We’ve been on the mainland way too long, my friend,” I said.

We found the metro (MTR as they call it) and were in complete awe of it – the system worked exactly as city planners and developers dream a subway system to work. It was simple, clean, efficient and entirely user-friendly. It made every other public transit system I have ever been on look downright archaic.

In fact, the entire public transit system in Hong Kong was a thing of beauty. We utilized the MTR, busses and cable cars without once getting lost or confused. I guess when a city has very limited and rugged land to work with and seven million people to shuffle around each day, the system had better work!

We visited a theme park Friday afternoon and watched a panda get down on some bamboo. Saturday we drank Chai lattes and ate muffins before meeting up with a friend, a Hong Kong native who went to NDSU. He took us to Victoria Peak, a mountain that overlooks the entire city.

Hong Kong is the most three-dimensional place I have ever been. All of the buildings are tall but they’re not built on a flat plane, so it’s hard to tell which buildings are taller than others. Walking on the street is rarely level – you’re either climbing or descending, and more often than not there is more than one level of walking paths. A quick flight up stairs leads you to yet another level of the city. There is no chance for urban sprawl in Hong Kong, so the city makes the small land area work to their advantage (I think other places around the world should take note).

That night we met up with two other NDSU grads for a fantastic Korean barbeque dinner. We grilled squid, beef, pork, chicken and mushrooms on the grill in the middle of our table and told stories about North Dakota and updated one another on the lives of mutual friends – all from a restaurant on the other side of the globe.

On Sunday we went to the countryside of Hong Kong to check out the world’s largest sitting Buddha. Hong Kong is made up of more than 250 islands. The Buddha is on one of the main islands but it feels remote. There are virtually no signs of the city at the monastery – well I mean, ignoring the Subway and Starbucks in the souvenir area, the place felt lush and peaceful.

We made it back to the city by the time the sun went down and Chris, our NDSU friend, showed us the lights of the Hong Kong skyline along the harbor. Skyscrapers were decked out in Christmas lights and giant Santa Clauses and Christmas ornament fixtures twinkled their reflections onto the harbor.

All weekend we basked in the wonders of Hong Kong – no spitting! No shoving! No children peeing in the street! There were foreigners, which meant we weren’t the center of attention! They had bakeries – I ate a real cinnamon roll! (Which has subsequently left me with an insatiable craving for gluten…) People spoke English! (Meaning Alex and I couldn’t rattle off exactly what we were thinking). Traffic laws were obeyed!

And the most shocking thing – people apologized if they bumped into you! “Oh sorry, excuse me,” they would politely say.

Too quickly we found ourselves back on the charter bus taking us back to Big Red. Within an hour or two we went from western toilets, well-mannered apologies, and fines for spitting to squatty toilets, lung hawking, and elbow-throws in the taxi line.

Our insulation-free apartment was icy when we finally made it back. Though, it felt good to be some place familiar again, even if it meant dealing with all of its un-pleasantries. Hong Kong was a much-needed break, and it’s a break I will probably take again before returning stateside.

Having seen both sides of the border, I’m thankful I didn’t make it to Hong Kong in August. Had that been the first “Chinese” place I visited, I would have grossly misgauged what life on the mainland is like. 

Keeping clean in a very dirty place

When the sky has to work so hard to turn blue, all that smog has to settle somewhere -- and that somewhere is our apartment. Each week Alex and I take turns cleaning the floors and dusting off desks and shelves in our apartment. We sweep, then we use a dust cloth broom, and finally we mop. Every four or five days we do this, and each time wads of dust and dirt are swept up and the mop water is a creepy grey color. 


For being such a dirty country, Chinese people are seemingly very clean. They're obsessed with dusting and keeping floors clean but looking out the window reveals a nondescript sky and endless amounts of traffic. Every few yards on the street, people in bright orange jumpsuits ride three-wheel bicycles equipped with a bin in the back and a little grass broom to sweep up the streets. They sweep leaves, trash and keep storm drains clear. They also only make 1000RMB each month, or around $150 USD. They manage to pay rent, eat, and more often than not send money to their family in a village somewhere in western China on that salary. 


It's easier to not feel guilty about littering here because you know it will be picked up within a matter of minutes, and for every piece of trash that doesn't make it to the receptacle you know it's keeping someone's job. At the same time, is it more harm than help? They're not really making enough money to have any sort of freedom in their life and if I litter, isn't that just reinforcing their less-than-idyllic circumstances? Also, I feel like littering is just not going to help the sky's color out at all.


Regardless, the army of street sweepers are ever-present on each block. Their colleagues, the hedge trimmers, carefully manicure the miles and miles of geometric shrubbery lining medians of highways and major thoroughfares in the city. Not a leaf nor wrapper ever seems to be out of place on the streets of Hangzhou.


Once everything is nicely groomed and swept, the cleaning crews break out the big dogs: the street cleaners. Every day, at least once if not five or six times, every major street (including mine) gets a shower. Water trucks that sound more like the ice cream man cruise up and down the streets each day, wasting Lord knows how much water. The trucks blare children's songs and lullabies, the consistent favorite seems to be "Happy Birthday." It's always a good morning waking up to that song repeatedly blared through the neighborhood. 


The streets here are cleaner than any city of this size I've ever been in. They're much cleaner than Rome (no rogue doggie piles to watch out for here), they lack the filth of my old neighborhood in DC, and they have a pristine quality to them that New York will never be able to achieve. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate some grit to a city -- it gives it character and it feels more authentic. 


I feel like the sparkling streets of Hangzhou are just another effort from the Chinese to save face. As long as they shine like gems on their own, who needs undiluted, pure sunshine to really make them sparkle?

Odd little Manhattan

Today I tackled the Chinese Postal service. And by tackled, I mean feebly managed to mail some really weird gifts back home. I had grand plans of mailing all of my best friends odd little trinkets from here only to realize that mailing something as small as a pair of earrings rendered an awkwardly huge box... sadly those gifts are sitting on my shelf in my room, where they will stay until May when I fly back home.

I couldn't sacrifice mailing goodies to my family though, it is after all my nephew's first Christmas and I had to send him some fantastic Chinese language-learning toys. I also had to keep up the tradition with my brother of giving super strange, unwanted gifts. Typically we "wrap" a gift for each other in something extra special -- like chewed gum or encased in a plaster mold. We've used everything from fish bait to dirt to used hockey tape and jello molds to share holiday cheer. This year, the wrapping for his gift is definitely unoriginal, but the gift is the weirdest it has ever been.

Without giving too much away, only one thing out of the huge variety of things got confiscated: mango pudding pops. I promise you, those mango candies were by far the most normal thing included in the gift. There will certainly be a strange breed of a Christmas feast at the Hagen household as long as the package arrives in time. There is a good chance of course that it won't, it's going half by sea and half by plane. After a quick review of my geography, that must mean that it will have a stop over in either Hawaii or Alaska, I don't think there is much between here and the US besides a lot of ocean.

Tonight, I got a nice little dose of America and went shopping at H&M with Jenn. Lately, Hangzhou has been feeling less like China and more like Manhattan. We flag cabs down with an aggression rarely seen outside of NYC and certain neighborhoods downtown are feeling familiar to me -- like I'm finally making it my territory in a metropolis. My secret desire to know my way around a sky-scraper filled city is finally coming true, I just never imagined it would be in a Chinese city.

Walking down the street in our knee-high boots and winter coats, we browsed Sephora and tried on all sorts of goodies at H&M. It was like a city in the US, minus the Christmas decorations -- with a Chinese twist of course. The US and China share so many of the same stores, brands, and even cultural idols (all hail the consumerism gods). The Chinese are just as obsessed, if not more, with labels as Americans are. Only here it's a lot easier to find believable knockoffs.

It feels like America only on the surface -- the store signs, the bright city lights, the smell of perfume in Sephora or coffee at Starbucks. But sometimes visiting the things that look the same on the outside only remind you how different they are on the inside. It's about impossible to find a basic t-shirt at H&M to fit my body. Starbucks offers odd little jello-ish desserts rather than coffee cake. And Sephora is stocked with only a handful of recognizable labels. It's both comforting and disheartening at the same time....

This blog is seriously lacking wit, so my apologies. I'm running way behind on sleep and have to wake up very early in the morning -- I'm shotgun planning a trip to Hong Kong and am also preparing for my first two final exams. Shopping tonight may not have been the brightest idea I've ever had... at any rate, I'm excited to finally visit Hong Kong, it's been a long time coming!

Two Months

This weekend was the two-month marker from when Alex and I touched down on Big Red. It feels like we just got here on one hand, but on the other it feels like we've been here for an eternity.

I was thinking today about what my day-to-day would be like stateside. I would have my car to drive, I would have any number of friends to call and hang out with, and there would be much more cheese and recognizable meat products in the foods I eat. How novel and strange that life sounds…

It’s alarming that my days and weeks have a rhythm to them now. Mine and Alex’s teaching schedules are near perfect opposites, so we each spend most days navigating China by ourselves, which always leaves plenty to recap about in the evenings.

Our weekends have had distinct patterns to them for the past three weeks too. We go out with more or less the same group of people to the same handful of bars and just enjoy the fact that we have found some kin – sort of.

Making friends here is incredibly difficult. In a city the size of New York, I’m trying to seek out potential friends from a population pool equal to half of my hometown. At least people here seem far less judgmental about me being from North Dakota than they were in DC and Rome.

Once the people are spotted, becoming friends poses an entirely new challenge. We all work in very different parts of the city and we all came to China for very different reasons. Without context of people’s past, it’s hard to tell who is here to develop their career from those who are running away from the mess of their personal life back at home, while mixing in the people like Alex and I who came here on a whim wanting travel and work experience.

All of the people I hang out with are all 20-somethings, navigating their first job outside of college adjusting to a full-time professional life in a very strange place and trying to reacquire the social comforts they had back home – myself included.

Two months. In two months my social circle is much smaller than I had anticipated it being, but it’s growing. Friendships take time. The past eight weeks have brought monumental changes within myself as well, which may not become evident until I return back to former definition of normalcy – cars, shopping malls, multiple stars in the sky, and readable billboards.

Already I’m writing my final exams. I will be finished with half of my courses before Christmas. Two months is all it took to get to this point. Where will the next two months bring me?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... sort of.

Tonight China showed us its Christmas spirit -- of course it was its own unique brand of the holiday.


Alex, Jenn and I went out to eat at what's becoming our favorite Italian place with three other girls. We ate bread, pasta and pizza while we chatted about all sorts of things girls like to talk about. The lights were dim, the food was great, the olive oil was flowing, and there was a foggy mist outside. It finally felt like winter.


After dinner we caught cabs to the Hyatt for their tree lighting event. We rolled up just as the tree was being lit -- we had missed the show. Santa was there and the place was crawling with little Western toddlers and their parents. I haven't seen so many non-Chinese people gathered in one place since I left the States. We sat on Santa's lap. He giggled. We threw up peace signs and were on the verge of tears from laughing so hard.


Ten minutes later we had assembled our quaint little group of friends. Thanks to Jenn's mass text she sent out earlier in the week, our little Hangzhou community gathered and hung out in the Hyatt lobby even though we all missed the event and the crowd had all gone home. Oh well, the lights were still twinkling and Christmas music was playing from the speakers. It was an eclectic mix of A Michael Bolton Holiday, Elvis, Bing Crosby and of course, Mariah Carey. 


We drank mulled red wine (my favorite) from Christmas mugs and talked about jobs, weekend plans, and complained about the lack of snow on the ground. There was nothing extraordinarily special about it, but it was the first time since I've arrived that I felt like I had a comfortable set of friends beyond Alex and Jenn. 


I've been on a mission the past couple of weeks to try my best to etch out a life here. The honeymoon period (or rather, the hellish inferno period) is over now, I'm settled into my job, I've accepted our apartment's pitfalls and I'm ready to try figure out my own brand of "normal" in China. Of course, "normal" in China is a bit odd, but I need to make it as stable as I can. After all, I haven't lived somewhere for more than a three week interval since I graduated in May, I'm craving a home base. And for the next few months, my nondescript concrete apartment on Wen Yi Lu is going to have to become my comfort zone. Now if only I could find some Christmas decorations... then this place would really feel like home.