Shopping Trip & Learning More About Student Life

Today some of my students took me to an area of Hefei called Cheng Huang Miao. It has a lot of inexpensive shops and my students were a little reluctant to take me there because they said the quality of the products were not so good. But as long as you know that you get what you are paying for, you can find some good deals. And bargain for better ones! There were knock-off's of brands such as Kappa (an Italian brand popular in China), Nike, and Adidas. They told me they are not the "real" brands, but they looked real to me. I asked, "How do you know?" And they said because you are buying them HERE and they are AS CHEAP AS THEY ARE, so they CAN'T BE REAL. Makes sense...

There was a shop that had t-shirts for lovers. T-shirts are sold in pairs, one for each person of a couple. Ones with funny characters and cartoons, words that say "Our love will" on one shirt and "go on forever" on its matching pair, chinese characters for "wife" on one and "husband" on the other, one with a superman on one and a superwoman on the other.

We also shopped at a bookstore and I FINALLY found some English books (but still not an English MAP of Hefei, which is slowing me down a bit!) My students showed me a bunch of Chinese films on DVD that I may be interested in seeing, including Painted Skin, The Forbidden Kingdom (with Jackie Chan, that depicts a different image of China's traditional character The Monkey King that some Chinese people do not agree with), Dragon (The Bruce Lee Story), Red Cliff (the highest grossing movie in China in 2008), and Fit Lover (a comedy). They also showed me the CD of a Chinese singer, Faye Wang.

I checked out some gyms too. It was amazing the difference in quality and price from 200 RMB a year to 2000 RMB a year. The 2000 RMB club was very high class. They finesse you in leather chairs at the end of the tour to try to hard sell you a membership, and then when you say you'd like to think about it and come back another time, they ask "What is it that concerns you?" and then continue to emphasize all you get for this great price. Reminds me of the sales techniques in gyms in America.

My students also told me more about life in their dorms. It seems like they have four or so people per dorm room. Their showers are in another building that is shared with all the other dorms on campus. It is only open certain days and times, and costs 3 RMB to use. Sometimes the lines are very long. There is a washing machine, one per floor in their dorm, that also has a cost.

On another occassion I asked a student if she got along with her other roommates and she said they come from different cities so they have different customs but they learn to get along with each other. This was surprising since they are all mostly from Anhui province, so generally are from the same area. It just shows how different customs can be in even a small part of China.

One of my students Betty just got a job as an English tutor for 20 RMB per hour on Saturday's for a 12-year old girl near campus. The family also offered for Betty to live with them over the summer to continue tutoring the girl. Betty is still deciding on whether to do this since she doesn't feel entirely comfortable living in another family's home. I teach all English majors, and it seems pretty common for them to get jobs like these or as English teachers at nearby primary schools for part-time jobs.

I asked more about the class monitors that are assigned to classes. These students help me out if I need supplies or help with the computer, or calming the class down (which hasn't yet been an issue). The monitor also makes announcements to their classmates on anything important they may need to know. The students are part of a set of students (about 50) with all the same major and all the same classes (for the most part, except for classes such as P.E.). So through their four years they are with the same students for their classes and get to know each other quite well. At the beginning of each year, there are class monitor elections, where students who would like to take on the extra responsibility of class monitor give speeches of why they would be good in this role. Then the students vote on who they would like. My student Betty said it was very democratic.

*1RMB = about 0.15 US$