Week 5 - Slowdown and Ancient Town

Foot traffic only

This week was a very welcome slowdown after the whirlwind tour of Qingdao, but it was still pretty busy, as my time here tends to be! What to do when you want a nice slow night? Well, how about watching a Chinese action flick at the movie theatre! “Tik tok”, or something along those lines, was a collaboration between Korean and Chinese actors and producers. It was pretty good! I chose the action movie so I could follow along, as dialogue is usually a secondary thing in the genre. It was a good decision, as I was able to get the gist of what was happening without any major holes. There were some shocking bits of dialogue that were in English, however! Turns out, when Korean and Chinese actors had dialogue with each other, they used English within the movie, which was always startling.

We returned to the Sturgeon facility for one night, in an attempt to do a quick workshop with the scientists there, but I would say that I did nothing and mostly nothing was done. It was an unfortunate use of time, but our party was compensated for our time, and I am sure to be editing some work that will be produced later, so I suppose it was worth it.

Bridge of Lights

I also took a trip to the eastern tip of the peninsula that Dishui Lake and Lingang New City is located on. There is a small park with a whale sculpture that overlooks what remains of the wetland that the French and Chinese built Dishui Lake and Lingang New City on, respectively. Off in the distance, you could see Donghai Bridge, a 6-lane, 20 mile bridge from the mainland to the Yanghsan deep sea port. That’s a long bridge, is what I’m saying. I guess they are building a second bridge, road and rail, to meet transportation demand, so there’s that.

Old style architecture

Later in the week, I was treated to a trip to an Ancient Town. These towns are government preservations of old Chinese architecture and city culture, as the development of China has mostly removed this style from existence. They are fairly touristy, as an older district of any U.S. city might be. They are defined by older architecture, shrines to locally famous Chinese people, narrow streets lined with trinket and street food vendors and in this particular case, a traditional Chinese garden, complete with requisite 9 turns of water and false mountains. The best way I can describe this town would be to imagine China from the traditional U.S. perspective and you pretty much have it right there.

Juxtaposition

After walking around the Ancient Town for a bit, my colleague and host for the day, Xuefang, drove us into the, uh, Shanghai suburb, of Huinan. I don’t really know how to classify it. It is probably 30 minutes from the edge of Shanghai proper, but it is also densely populated. So much so, in fact, that we drove for 20 minutes and were unable to find a parking spot. Full booked up and down every street, parking garages and lots were closed at full capacity. Eventually, we found a garage on the edge of the city, parked and had (another big) lunch before heading home. 

Week 4 (Part 3) - Return to SHOU...the long way home

Bright lights

It was a 0530 wakeup call for the EMU train trip home, which was early enough, I’d say. Too early for drama, I think most would agree, and yet, that is what was waiting for us at the station. For whatever reason, only 1 window was available for the type of processing I required. A 40-minute wait in line, marked by the opening of another window just as I became 3^rd in line, pushed us up against the departure time. I recall running to airport gates to catch planes and the like, but this was the first time I had to run to catch the train. Once we reach the nearest point of our car, we boarded and began walking through the train to our seats. Good thing we did, as the train began to move just before I’d managed to sit down. A truly close call, but at least we were on the correct side of the closeness. We were Shanghai bound.

I mean, it looks fake. 

We decided to walk around Shanghai and grab dinner before heading home. To do this, we needed to unload our baggage. The first establishment we found for this was located in the belly of a parking garage, with luggage just hanging out in piles. We decided to pass. Luckily, there was a more respectable place nearby that had people in uniforms, behind a window, with shelves, at least. Unburdened by packs, we set out on the city. The center of our exploration was People’s Square. I think they meant to name it, Square Full of People.

Grand Theatre

It was a cross of 5^th avenue and Times Square. Mostly closed to vehicle traffic, it was mobbed by humans. Just an overwhelming amount of commerce and humans. We made our way to The Bund, what I believe to be a variation of ‘bend’, as in the bend of a river. Many people lined this river and looked across to another section of the city, marked by the now 2^nd tallest building in the world (maybe?) and other very interesting buildings. The most populous city in the world sure felt like it. Really overstimulating, especially as the sun set and the neon lights shone brightly.

Cattle drive

Eventually, it was time to go home. This is when things became interesting. It was rush hour on Friday night. First, we took the subway back to our luggage. Along with I’m guessing 10M other people. The subways were jammed full; people were left waiting for subsequent trains. I treated it very similar to rebounding in basketball, when the doors opened, I swelled up and boxed out an area 3x my size and collapsed into that area once the doors closed. This strategy was quite effective, I will say, and probably appreciated by my neighbors, who also benefited. After retrieving our luggage, we tried to avoid the packed subway by taking a taxi. Good thought, bad execution. Waiting 1 hour for a taxi to the connecting subway station wasn’t great at all – but it wasn’t…too awful. The cabbie talked Jie’s ear off the entire 30-minute ride – apparently a huge fan of Chairman Mao, but not current int’l affairs – and we arrived at our connecting subway to Lingang New City (where SHOU is located). After the 1.5 hr ride was completed, another 30-minute wait for a 20-minute bus ride was needed. Eventually, we arrived at the hotel. Thankfully, the A/C had been fixed and I was soon resting very comfortably.

Week 4 (Part 2) - City of Sails

What you see is what you get

Our first dinner was at some really popular restaurant. It seemed like your iconic Qingdao eatery. Many patrons, inside and outside, smoking, inside and outside, drinking beer, inside and outside, from mugs or plastic bags, as it is custom. There was also some pretty exotic food. In general, I was exposed to a lot more atypical food items in Qingdao. My list of new foods grew to include, octopus (tasty, but chewy), chicken heart (tasty, but tough – rejected), beef stomach (fine, but not great), pig ear (tasted like you would imagine cartilage might taste), pig foot (apparently prepared poorly, icy, not bad, not much too it), pork liver (not great), whelk (really good, both fileted and whole, depending on species), some crustacean I do not know the name of yet, and yellow croaker, horse mackerel and squid dumplings cooked in squid ink, giving it a black hue (delicious).

Southern Qingdao

The days in Qingdao was spent giving presentations about our work, answering questions and discussing projects with current OUC students and also watching Jie give a couple lectures. We were treated to lunches and dinners. These meals were always included way too much food and at least 1L beer/person. Needless to say, I felt like a stuffed goose my entire time in Qingdao. It should be mentioned that in visiting OUC, we were also visiting our good friend Chongliang, someone who had spent 2 years at UMaine in our lab, who was a newly minted associate professor at OUC. 

Old meets new

He was kind enough to walk us around a good portion of the city (for 4 hours) that took us through cobbled streets, wooded drives and along the coast and the beaches. Really, as you may have seen from the picture posted in the last entry, Qingdao really emits a Mediterranean feel. Adobe houses, climbing the hillsides, open air markets and the densely packed housing really gave me this sense. Maybe I’m wrong – I’ve never been, after all. There was a mix of old, traditional eastern and western architecture and the modern-style building throughout the city. 

View from top of a Laoshan peak

We visited some touristy sites, including a temple built in the middle of a bay, some beaches, fenced in to avoid sharks (I think more for the sharks’ benefit). These beaches were a familiar scene. Umbrellas, tents, volleyball (no nets), laying on the beach. Where it differed was significant. Just outside of the fenced area were piles of seagrass. Maybe a foot tall in places, with waves of green lurching onto the piles. I also noticed an incredible amount of broken glass mixed in with the sand and pebbles. Seemed less than ideal, but nobody else seemed to mind much! Jetskis and motorboats raced around just outside the swimming area. Laps, back and forth, carrying passengers (for money maybe?), it all seemed very pointless. I’ll take Maine beaches every day.

Lots of aquaculture

The last full afternoon in Qingdao saw a group of us hire a car to take us to Laoshan, an ocean city that laid at the foot of a mountain range just north of Qingdao. The drive around this peninsula was really spectacular, with grand views of the cities, terraced agriculture and buildings, the ocean and expansive aquaculture operations on the seaward side of the drive and boulderous, misty mountains to the landward side. Before we embarked, we had an enormous lunch at a famous restaurant in Qingdao, known for their soup.

What you see as you drive into the Laoshan area

Probably 120% too much food (as usual) and 2 pitchers of beer, right before hiking, was not something I would have advised. It was hot and muggy for the hike, which was a cathedral of granite steps straight to the top. The views were stunning all the way up. So were the number of vendors peddling jewelry, fruit and refreshments the entire way. The result was maybe more trash than I was comfortable with littering the trail (and especially the summit). Perhaps the only place I’d seen beyond the reach of the cleaning workers and the difference was noticeable. Luckily, if you kept your gaze above the ground, you were treated to a magnificent view of the villages and cities along the coast, the Yellow Sea and large swaths of the aforementioned seagrass, piled up within bays and along ocean currents. After a farewell dinner, it was time to rest up for the return trip.

Week 4 (Part 1) - Qingdao Bound

Benefits of the first stop

This week, Bai, Jie and I traveled to Qingdao (Tsingtao), a port city famous for its seafood and its beer, which is exported around the world. It is less famous for the Ocean University of China, but that is the most prestigious maritime university in the country. To get there would require a subway trip (incl. transfer) to downtown Shanghai and then a EMU (Electric Multiple Unit) train trip to Qingdao. This was my first real exposure to the Chinese public transit system, which is really something. Anyone may purchase a Transit Card and place any dollar amount on it. 

This card may be used for subway, bus and taxi fares alike, making it tremendously versatile. The subway system is very secure, with all entrances requiring at least a token bag scan and wand scan of your person. It is also incredibly clean. There are dedicated workers in the subway (and around all cities, to be fair) that ensure trash any other messes are clean. 

What you see is 50% of the 3rd floor of this hotbox of a complex

The subways arrive in 3-5 minute intervals and are also much faster compared to their American counterparts, with advertisements on LCDs screens for some portions of the ride. They are also very quiet. It was a pleasant experience, even during the most crowded periods. One issue I do have, is that people have taken to singing portable karaoke in some cars as a means to raise cash, akin to your local street performer. Not a fan and I’m glad this hasn’t caught on in the U.S.After our subway ride, we needed to transfer to the EMU train within the largest transit complex I’d ever been in. It was expansive and it was jammed with people. Hundreds of stores and restaurants for countless people. 

Ready to go fast

Soon enough, we boarded the EMU train. Seating was arranged as a plane might be, with more legroom and carry-on space overhead. Attendants sold snacks etc., collected trash and swept/mopped during the trip. The travelling speed was 305km/hr (~190mph), but felt like driving on a newly paved road and was about as loud. Extremely comfortable for the 7-hour trip. The train ride did a lot to reveal who China is along the way. Resources are exploited, likely areas of forestation have been laid bare, small mountains and hills have been sliced open and taken down. Tremendous amounts of power are generated by clusters of nuclear plants in among coal and gas plants. 

Cities are jammed with housing, with hundreds of apartment skyscrapers erect for every city we passed and at least 20 in progress per city. I really have to believe that China has undersold its population or that they are doing well to plan for future growth. It was staggering. That is the China that I recall thinking about before I came. The China that is developing using methods historically familiar to us.

Never heard of this city, but there are sure a lot of people!

 But China is a two-faced country, with one foot in the past and one foot in the future. It starts with the sheer amount of housing. For the foreseeable future, human populations will grow. Places will begin to look more like China does now. Also, nearly all buildings are outfitted with at least solar power for heating water and most buildings (for example, at SHOU) have greater solar power incorporated, reducing the demand on the clusters of power plants between cities. 

Land use: 100%

In addition, with space being a valuable commodity, all of it is maximized. Residential units don’t have backyards or lawns, they have crops. Feeding so many people requires efficient land use and shorter travel time, both of which are accomplished by this. The public transit system is incredible and continues to grow. Miles of new EMU train track were being laid and new subway systems were being advertised for many cities, including Qingdao, whose metro will be finished by next year. Street lights just north of Qingdao were outfitted with solar panels and wind turbines both for power generation and there are many windmills that populate the landscape without diminishing it any (again, it’s been laid bare, so might as well I say).

Qingdao from my hotel. Uh, the suburbs.

We arrived in Qingdao and checked into our Ocean University of China hotel rooms. These rooms were MUCH better than the ones at SHOU. For starters, there was functional air conditioning. It was time to rest up for the week.

Week 3: Sporting and Sturgeon

People love their badminton

               There is a pretty active sports scene on campus at SHOU, so I decided to give a bit of a go. Aside from the snooker/billiards/table tennis tables in the Laborer’s Lounge on campus, there are basketball courts, the outdoor pool mentioned earlier and a badminton…warehouse? Arena? Well-ventilated aluminum structure? I don’t know what I would call it, but there were MANY courts and it was PACKED at 8pm. It did not take long to translate my tennis skills to this new sport. I felt like I was pretty good at it and holding my own, so I expect that I am actually pretty mediocre. Not bad for a beginner! The basketball was much faster paced than your typical pickup game in America. 4v4, half court, no checking the ball, game to 11 standard. Most people are the same level, so very similar to our games at UMaine. One big difference is that the wooden floor is not waxed, or swept, so it is similar to playing on an ice rink. Though I was sliding everywhere myself, I consider it a great equalizer for those who are quicker than I.

Very clean, very new.

                One evening, Tian took a group of us to a private club to use its indoor pool. There whole experience was very odd. We arrived and the impression I got was that it was 24 yuan/hr for members, and 38 yuan/hr for non-members. This struck me as odd – what is the point of a membership if you still have to pay? (After our swim, Tian disclosed that he bought us all memberships for one month, for which we were allowed to swim whenever, however long, for free. So, I am puzzled about the initial information). The pool was on the ground floor, but the locker rooms were in the B1 floor, so we had to walk downstairs before walking upstairs to the pool. We were given an ID bracelet and a bracelet with a sensor. This sensor bracelet opened an electronic locker for my use. Pretty cool – but what if it breaks, I wonder? Swim caps required in China, no problem there. I was ready to go. I entered the pool area…it was pretty chaotic. Swimmers swimming the full length and cross length, as there were no lane lines. Ok. No problem. The pool is fairly shallow, 6 feet in the deep end, so I figure there is no diving allowed. Remember, I have no idea what the rules are for this pool. So I find an open space and hop in. Nope. Lifeguard comes over, looking displeased and explained that I must ease in. Okay then. Next time, maybe. Then I am told I mustn’t stay underwater for too long. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. What kind of pool is this?! I swim a couple laps before lending some advice to my friends, who are not nearly as comfortable in the water as I. Apparently, this draws a lot of attention and reverence from the lifeguards who chastised me. Must have been a very strange day at work for them, I am sure. After an hour, the lifeguards, who had been announcing numbers via megaphone throughout, finally called our numbers and we were instructed to leave. So we did. Can’t wait to do it again, I guess.

It is too much food. It is also all delicious.

                Something I would also like to talk about is the restaurant eating culture in China. My advisor, who had recently arrived (and then departed), also holds a faculty position at SHOU and so I was included in a few dinners outside the dining halls. These dinners are generally around a circular table with a revolving table taking up most of the center. This is where the dishes are placed. There are MANY dishes that are ordered. Food is relatively cheap in China and a lot of it is ordered. Maybe 8 courses/plates/dishes for 4 people on average. I swear the ratio only increases when there are more attendees.  The result of this week of feasting was incredible discomfort and feeling rotund. I do not think I have been hungry once in China. Cleaning your plate is not the norm in China and I am having a difficult time adjusting to this idea. Hopefully, for my stomach’s sake, I will figure out a way soon.

Really neat, really endangered prehistoric fish.

During the week, I was invited, along with many friends I have made at SHOU, for a tour and a science meeting at the nearby (ish) Chinese Sturgeon Conservation Facility in the Yangtze River delta. We commissioned a bus for the 1.5 hr drive that included passage through an 8km tunnel underneath a branch of the delta and another 8km bridge over another branch. I had expected more people, as we were now much closer to Shanghai, yet I felt like I was being brought to the middle of nowhere.  I was, but when we got there, a beautiful compound was waiting. 

Find the lone cow. Really the middle of nowhere.

Apparently, only 1.5 years earlier, ground was broken on this facility that included live holding tanks, a hatchery, a rehabilitation center and a network of lagoons to approximate optimal Chinese sturgeon habitat. Completion of the compound seemed imminent, with some finishing touched needed over the next 6 months. Chinese sturgeon, mostly through habitat loss resulting from the damming of the Yangtze for power, are now a critically endangered species. Recent studies by many of the scientists in attendance revealed that the spawning habitat, though to be completely blocked to sturgeon passage, had been relocated downstream to the dams, offering hope.

The tank facility and part of the lagoon complex.

So much hope, in fact, that the Chinese government will invest 5bn yuan/year for 4 years just for research on Chinese sturgeon. An astounding number. The science meeting was conducted in Chinese, so I was mostly a spectator for that. They discuss centered around preliminary research and what collaborations among those in attendance might be and whether such collaborations will require formal grant funding from the government. The meeting was productive and it was made clear that we would reconvene in mid-July for a data analysis workshop, which I will participate in while also editing manuscripts meant for English journal submission, so we will see what comes from that.

Why mow the lawn when you can weedwhack
1/3 of it for 9hrs in 90deg heat!

Shortly after my arrival to SHOU, I was to give a talk about possibly studying abroad at the University of Maine with Bai. She would talk about her own experiences and I would describe the Marine Science program as a whole. About 60 students showed up and were pretty attentive, for sophomores in college, I say. There was a lot of applauding – which was very weird to me. Enter the room: applause. Introduced by the host: applause. Describe what the presentation will be about: applause. Then I actually got to speak a bit, until I showed some pictures of Maine that I took. Ooo aaaah. Maine’s beauty is instantly recognized. I was asked if I took the pictures – I did. Applause. Eventually, I finished my part, Bai gave her portion of the talk and we took questions. Well, Bai took general questions at first, before we concluded the session and individuals approached us more informally afterward. Maybe 6 students had further questions – but I can’t say how interested anyone was. Maybe 1 or 2 will formally apply, who can know.

I absolutely could not survive this environment.

The classroom was a room full of rows of fold up chairs (uncushioned, hard wood at 90 deg) attached to wooden tabletop desks. There was no A/C. It was brutally hot, even during the evening – I am unsure whether I would have been an effective student at this university.

Speaking of no A/C, the hotel A/C seems to be broken for the entire building. It is too to sleep effectively. Luckily, we travel to Qingdao for a week starting on Independence Day. It is much cooler there. Hopefully, the problem will be fixed upon return!