A couple weeks ago, a Chinese friend from my school, Jim, invited some teachers and I to have dinner at his university with him and some of his fellow classmates. I accepted without a second thought. He invites us often out to dinner, and a lot of the time, I’m one of the only ones who accepts. I really appreciate his willingness to show us his culture and things about his city and university that I’d never see otherwise. This time, he invited us straight to his university and took us to a place he had previously told us about known as “Rubbish Street”. This is a small, dirty street on his campus that has small food shops and fast food for all the students when they’re bored with their cafeteria food. Walking down the street, I looked around as much as I was getting looked us. Yes! White girl on campus! Oh lord. It had also been raining most of the day, so when you add the rain and mud to this already rubbish-like street, you can imagine the end result. The further we walked down the street toward our destination, the more and more it smelled; and by smelled, I mean it was almost unbearable. At one point, I really thought I had somehow been transported to a manure farm and had been locked in the vacant pig stall. Yes, the Iowa girl, the one who grew up driving by cows and pigs, smelling them, and thinking nothing of it, because, yes, this is Iowa, is on the verge of vomit induced by nostril overload. We continued on our way and arrived at our little, dirty, Chinese restaurant. While waiting for a table to be cleaned off for us, I had ample time to take a gander around attempting to not let my face, or worse, my eyes, show what was going on in my head. (In Whitney’s head: Oh god this is filthy. There are bones and napkins all over the floor. Poor Jim, he just wanted to invite us to a nice, Chinese dinner. Even he is embarrassed. It’s okay. Don’t step there..or there….oooor there. I’ll just hold my purse on my lap, thanks. And I’m not taking my coat off. Nowhere to put it. I hope the food’s good. Oh, the door’s open. Oh, that’s the kitchen. Damnit, shouldn’t have looked in there…). This is part of the experience, right? This is China. No tourists. No ticket vendors. No cameras. This is a Chinese university in all its glory.
The food was great. The Chinese have their own version of fondue, but its more like a soup with vegetables rather than cheese and bread or fruit and chocolate. They have a large bowl split right down the middle with two soup broths on either side filled with spices and herbs. One side is usually much spicier than the other. Then, you order all the vegetables and meat you want with the accompanying sauces. Throw the vegetables and meat in the boiling liquid for a couple minutes, remove the produce, dip it in your sauce of choice, and Enjoy! It really is fantastic and I’ve already taken to finding out how I can make this myself! As we kept ordering more and more vegetables and meat, I just kept eating; regardless of what my stomach was telling me. This is an absolutely delicious meal and impossible to stop unless someone physically removes the food from the table. Some of Jim’s friends had also shown up at the restaurant, one of them being a friend we’d previously met. The Chinese are so hospitable at times, I often feel I can’t say ‘thank you’ enough. After finishing this Chinese fondue, Benny decides there are other things on Rubbish street we need to try. He hands us each a cup of rice wine and takes off out of the restaurant. I like alcohol, and I like wine, but this was undrinkable. He nonchalantly warned us that it was stronger than normal wine, but this was worse than any whiskey shot I ever got forced into at the OP …without a chaser. I kindly sipped it once and set it down, hoping they wouldn’t notice. Benny returned only a few minutes later with a type of rice cake and “smelly tofu”. I volunteered to try this smelly tofu. Nothing can be that bad right? Now, why is it called smelly tofu? Oh, lets just say they didn’t use any creativity in naming this food item. He handed it to me, and me being all confident, said “hmm..it doesn’t smell that bad”. I open the bag and stuck my face right in it. “Not bad at all! I expected much worse!” All the Chinese then begin laughing at me, telling me that I was smelling the sauce, not the tofu. Oh. So I opened the bag of tofu and stuck my face right in it. Oh dear baby Jesus. Senior Physics and Mr. Clark came rushing back to me faster than you can imagine. In this particular course, on that particular day, he was teaching us how we should never stick our face/nose directly in something if we have no idea what the consequences might be. We must, instead, put our nose rather close, but not too close, while simultaneously “waving” the air toward our nose with our hand. I always thought this was the most ridiculous thing I ever learned and just did what I was told, because, well, it was Mr. Clark. I should have taken his advice more to heart.
Now, if you recall, about a paragraph or so ago, I was describing the smell that made me think of an empty pig stall? That was the smelly tofu I was smelling, and now that I was eating. I had been smelling this randomly all over the city for weeks and was just then able to put a name to it. Before, I’m not really sure, but I think I just thought it was China smelling like crap. Now, instead of “crap” popping into my mind, I still make the ‘man that smells like shit’ face while walking around the city, but am able to more accurately identify this odor as smelly tofu. Now, you are surely wondering, ‘what does this smelly tofu taste like?’ …Just like it smells.
A few of Jim’s friends also came to dinner with us, and after dinner, invited us to take a walk around their campus. Although it was pitch black, considering it was getting rather late, it was interesting to walk around the campus. The school is only 4 years old and is as big as UNI. I’m sure it was all constructed in a matter of months and the quality, without a doubt, is absolute crap. As is all construction in China, but that’s for another day. 8,000+ students currently attend this university and it’s growing larger every year. Jim offered to show us his dorm and we had no reason not to accept. At the point in which we needed to turn down a walking path toward his dorm, we hit a small crossroads. Were the girls allowed to enter? Yes, but do they want to? One of Jim’s friends had never been in the men’s dormitory. We entered, checked in with the building supervisor, let her know there were 3 girls entering with us just to check out the building. Okay, no problem. Upon entering the room, all 3 of Jim’s roommates who happened to be there were glued to their computer screens deeply involved in some odd computer game. They didn’t even notice that there were 5-6 random people entering their tiny dorm just to check it out. It only took me a few seconds to scan what was in front of me to see that there were 6 beds in a room roughly the size of my college dorm room, just longer and skinnier. The room had 6 beds and 4 desks, with a space just big enough to walk through to get from one end to the other. On the other side of the room, you’d then find a balcony, open to the outdoor air, with one shower, toilet, and sink, where they hand washed all their laundry. This is not the rural, poor, non-educated part of China. These are the richest kids of the country who have parents who are able to afford to send them to university. And this is how they live everyday. This is normality.
Then, in all fairness, we decided to check out the girls’ dormitory. This is where things got interesting, because Jim, our friend, was borderline terrified of going over to the girls’ building. And by terrified, I mean taking your dog/house pet into the vet to be “fixed” when he knows damn well what is happening. Jim’s friend, Benny, was pushing him from behind in the general direction of the girls’ dorm, and he was leaning half backwards in protest like a 14 year old girl who is pushed over to the boys’ side of the dance floor at the middle school homecoming dance. He had never been there and didn’t especially want to go. “Why haven’t you been there?” I ask. “Are you not allowed?” “Oh yes, I’m allowed. I just…haven’t,” he replied. The girls’ dormitory looked much the same, with 6 girls in each room and the same balcony with a sink, a shower, and a toilet. In case you’re wondering, Jim did survive his first visit to the girls’ dormitory, but I don’t expect he’ll be returning any time soon.
These students are required to enter their rooms by 10pm, or else they are locked out. With no keys. It amazed me how this was normal for them, and was in no way a problem or an inconvenience. For me, the most shocking part of meeting these students was the lack of want or interest in the other gender. We’re talking about 20 year olds who can go to the other sex’s dorm, and just don’t. We’re talking about 20 year olds who can drink, and just don’t. China doesn’t have a legal drinking age. It’s basically a free for all. But they don’t drink. Now, I understand the Chinese culture is vastly different from Western cultures, and maybe this explains some of the differences in the sex and drinking. But, more than 60 seconds of contemplation will make you realize that, although I grew up in a pretty sex and alcohol crazed culture, there’s another thing called hormones that play a large role in all of this. Even if we hadn’t grown up in the culture that we did, there are a lot of other things going on there that peak the curiosity regardless.
These students don’t seem to have a sense of curiosity or rebellion. They don’t even have a sense of adventure. All of the Chinese I’ve met are from within this region (roughly the size of Iowa, if not smaller), and have chosen a university in the same region, if not the same city in which they grew up. For the students who have traveled a couple hours for university, upon asking them what they’d like to do afterwards, they all reply that they want to return to their hometown to find a job. It’s even more rare to find a student who’s traveled outside their region; if they have, it was to Beijing or Shanghai. China might have the biggest population of any single country in the world, but I’m basically living in a city full of small town Iowans that never want to leave.
Undiscovered Sunsets 