CHINA TRIP Day 5: Entering Communist Territory

Saturday, 5/22 Beijing

I was totally out of commission because of last night. We were flying and everything and I was just miserable. If it wasn’t for Catherine and Colleen I’d totally not be functioning.

When we landed, the first thing I noticed was the difference in the quality of air. Almost immediately I felt stuffy and found it a little difficult to breathe properly. Since I was wearing contacts as well, I felt my eyes burn a little in the sunlight. I’m not sure what expectations I had for Beijing, or China, in general. I tried not to let stereotypical thoughts about what a Communist country would be like fill my head, or I knew I would have a biased perspective from the beginning. Despite this, however, I was still surprised at how modern China was and how normal it seemed. By normal, I meant that I didn’t feel like there was a big difference between our country and China; I couldn’t tell right off the bat that China was a Communist country.

I think I was probably under the impression that as a Communist country China would be poor and its people would be discontent with their living environment. I thought maybe that there would be military personnel everywhere. It never really occurred to me that while China may be Communist, it’s not exactly totalitarian like North Korea. A country like that wouldn’t be able to host an international event such as the Olympics and the World Expo given all the media attention focused on those events.

As we approached campus one thing I noticed was that many big buildings in the area were gated and there were security guards in multiple places. Even the gate that was later shown to us had a guard at all hours. The campus itself didn’t feel very much like a university at all. Our student guide pointed out several buildings to us as we pulled into the faculty apartments we were staying in, but those buildings seemed to be dormitories. They were either female or male dormitories and housed over 1,000 students each. I could never fathom going to a school with that many people, and consequently perhaps the campus was large enough that the area we were staying in was purely for housing purposes and classroom buildings were elsewhere.

The apartments were very spacious and accommodating. Jasmine and I were each able to have our own room, closet, and desk (even though mine was separated from the living room with a curtain) and we had a kitchen and living area to share. Each room had air conditioning and a television. The only inconvenience was in the beginning when we had to drag our suitcases up the stairs because there were no elevators (thankfully I was on the second floor). Once we were generally settled in, we realized there was no Internet access in our rooms and I went out to ask about Internet and laundry as well as to explore the campus a little.

From my experience in Korea last summer and our brief stay in Taiwan, I expected China as well to have a hot summer. I’m sure in other parts of China the weather would be similar to what I experienced in Korea at least, but for now Beijing surprised me. It was relatively cool when we got off the plane and got a little cooler after the sun had set. Even with the lower temperature, some places remain humid and stuffy but Beijing was very comfortable. If anything, I was a little chilly and made a mental note to have a jacket with me just in case.

We were told about a few free wireless Internet cafes/restaurants across the street from campus but as it was getting dark I didn’t quite want to wander around yet. I also figured that as a University there had to be ways the students accessed the Internet on campus. Back at Notre Dame, during one of our pre-departure meetings, Hong encouraged us to download ND’s VPN so that we’d be able to access Internet in China the same as we would at school. I wasn’t sure as to what extent the Great Firewall restricted Internet access; all I knew was that at least Facebook and YouTube were blocked. The front desk directed me to the computer cluster on campus, a few buildings down from where we were staying.

We had to pay to use the computers, though it didn’t cost too much, and of course, I had to check for myself if Facebook and YouTube really were blocked. Even though Google no longer had a presence in China, I could still use Google through its Hong Kong network. I found it odd, however, that I couldn’t access my ND Gmail account. I was able to log in and use my regular Gmail account fine, but Notre Dame’s one for some reason was blocked. I hoped this would be fixed by the VPN I installed while at school, but of course, it would only be of use if I could somehow get Internet on my computer. After emailing my parents and checking up on a few things, we headed back to our apartments.

We were surprised at how dark and empty campus was at night. Even though the campus was gated and was supposed to be safe, I felt nervous walking around. It could partly have been due to the fact that we didn’t know the campus at all and it didn’t help that there were basically almost no lights and no one around. I was still glad that I wasn’t alone. We walked for a while before we realized we had gone way too far in the wrong direction. We backtracked and looked around carefully before we finally found the right way to the faculty apartments. I made a mental note not to walk around at night by myself until I knew the campus better before I went to bed.