Back but still more

Now I am back in UAE and AUS started which is keeping me busy.

Interestingly I am daydreaming a lot about China. I am imagining every single day and moment that I passed through. It is just so spectacular how exposure to things, people and places affects our lives. The first day I landed in China it felt so strange and new that I though I would never get attached to it by any means. Just before leaving China, it felt so familiar that until now I remember everything, especially Yantai, street by street and building by building. I remember all the people whom I met, but of course not all their names! And now back in UAE I can actually voluntarily visualize myself walking wherever I have been in China.

It has been long since I have published a post. I still have a few more things to share and will try my best to post them as soon as I can. Beijing was incredible especially that my family joined me there as well as Saeed. I want to also write about Beijing, about FOOOD and some other minor posts then end the blog with a conclusive final post about the overall outcome of going to China.

Let's see how long will AUS keep me on hold!
Best wishes!

60th Day in China

Monday August 8^th 2011. The 60^th day of my 3 months in China. I cannot believe how quick 2 months have passed. Knowing it is two months here, I was triggered by a flashback of everything that happened from the day I left UAE to the moment I reached my room, to when I went to the first day of work and all other incidents. I like how the journey changed from being a totally distinct part of the world, and how now I got accustomed to life here and things seem to be familiar and easy. Communication is not yet easy thought!

Today and yesterday we had a rainy storm. Although it is inconvenience, it's just fun to have rain in summer!

Two days ago, 6^th of August, my brother Ali had his master’s degree ceremony in Illinois, USA. My family and I were supposed to be there celebrating altogether a big leap in our life as a family. But no, visas to the US are something sacred and cannot be given to everyone. Although I got my visa to the US after waiting 5 months, my family did not until now receive any reply. I remember when we applied for the visas they put me on a separate file and all my family on a different file. The interviewer at the counter asked me what is your major? So I said Chemical Engineering. He showed a surprised face expression, with his eyebrows reaching his hair along with a loud and long “hmmm!” which is still stuck in my head, then he added “what are your plans for the future?” I just told him I am interested in renewable energy and recycling. Nothing that has to do with nuclear issues..so not a big deal. At that point I thought that I was put on a separate file because they kind of rejected my visa in advance and would accept my family’s visas. It worked the other way. But still, I wasn’t to go without them, so I continued my stay in China.

Last week the summer semester ended at AUS. It is my first summer that I do not take courses. It is relieving. But still, we felt the ever-lasting stress on everybody!

Six weeks ago on the 30^th of June, Saeed, a colleague from college for whoever doesn’t know, joined me in the same company for internship. Although he got with him a breeze of heat from UAE, he also got with him a feel of home. I was here away from anybody I know and away from any news related to the other side of the world, and as soon as he came I synchronized all the updates going around in UAE. We sat and set plans of how to get use of our time. We actually started seriously learning Chinese by then. Gladly we turned out to be in the same office so we hang around when we are bored. And I think that if I would have stayed alone I would have missed fasting many days of Ramadan. One single person to second you on such issues is more than enough. We are having Iftar at Chief Abdo’s place mostly. It is an Islamic restaurant and the food is so similar to our Arabic home-made food. So fulfilling.

Around five weeks ago I created this blog to stay in touch and connect with family and friends and share the priceless experience of China. Skype and Facebook are great, yet the blog is way better in conveying details and saving memories. I am really glad to hear that the content is of worth. I would also like to hear more if anybody would want to know specifics so I would share. Comment on the blog not on facebook! It would be nice to collect everything related together here.

Next week I will be giving a presentation about myself and my country. I will be talking about both UAE and Lebanon because both are major in my life. Saeed already did his presentation 2 weeks ago and our Chinese colleagues were extremely interested in knowing more about other countries and cultures. Saeed presented for 10 minutes and the attendees asked for around one and a half whole hours! I feel that they want to know more not because of jealousy of others being better than them, but because they want to compare with what they have and know where they stand in life and how to progress. Sometime I might post separately about things that they like to compare since it is a long list.

Now, my family is preparing their documents and visas to come to China, visas can be obtained in 1 day. I hope they make it. We would still be incomplete since Ali cannot make it because of the short period left. Hopefully we’ll meet up all together in Lebanon before we start our universities.

Now, although I am starting to have the feeling of getting back, I can say that I got used to China, it is a nice place to live in even for long, and I would definitely want to return in the future for a visit. We have more things to do, a couple of more trips to go. The internship is now moving steadily and my team is depending more on my work. Yet there is no expected great progress and the job is starting to feel like a routine daily 8-hours job. Still I am trying my best to get involved and do more.

So, there is around a month more to go, almost a third of the stay but it seems so close!

1st Day, 1st Trip, 1st Week

Since I have to speed up publishing posts to synchronize with real-time, I will write about the 1^st Day, 1^st Week and 1^st Trip in China here all together.

When I landed in Yantai Airport, Mr. Liu RuiYang, my direct teammate, who has a Masters in Chemical Engineering, was waiting for me holding a poster that said ‘Chehade’. I felt like a VIP when I saw it! Here, family names are written before given names as I noticed in almost all situations, and the labels are at the end. If written in Chinese you would say RuiYang Liu Mr (but I will be writing their given names first as we are used to). I did not know if I had to call him Mr. or not, but he looked so young like less than 22 years, but turned out to be 28! So I just started calling him Liu without the Mr and it flowed with everyone who appeared to me to be young. Also, the Chinese like to give themselves western names when dealing with foreigners as to ease it on us when we want to call them. Liu named himself Jerry but I told him that I would prefer calling him in his Chinese name. Liu and everyone else have been always helpful anytime, anyhow and anywhere. People here are all selfless and would offer help eagerly. Throughout my coming posts I will be including more about the Chinese people and their lifestyle, habits and so.

On our way from Yantai Airport to the dorm, which took around 40 minutes, I felt like I have landed in Beirut airport and I am going to my village, Insarriyeh, in the South. That was because the weather, nature, scenery and even the taxi felt all so similar. On our way, the sky was cloudy and the temperature was 22C. It was drizzling rain and the breeze coming from the windows of the taxi was so refreshing. There is good deal of greenery and there is a river. The taxi car was old like the taxi’s in Lebanon, but had a counter like the ones in UAE. Instantly, besides recalling Lebanon’s weather, I said to myself “at last I am away from the grilling weather in UAE!! (I thought it in Arabic though :P).” We reached to the dorms and had an hour of napping and went to check out the company where I met our team leader Dr. Chen Haibo who is an organic chemist. In the adjacent lab, I met Lauren (from Scotland) who came two weeks before me also through IAESTE, and works in the same building but with a different team. Later I’ll post more about my work and team, and also about the accommodation.

At LaoHu Shan (Tiger Mountain)

My team had invited me to a trip that had happened the next day, Saturday 11^th June, and I definitely went with them. Our company, Wanhua, takes its employees every 2 months for trips free of charge, so I was lucky to reach exactly on one of those trips, and I would also be joining them in the next one.

This 1^st trip was to LǎoHǔ Shān (Tiger Mountain), which is famous for two things, its history as it was a battlefield in the 1920’s between the Japanese and the Chinese, and more importantly it is known for the plenty Cherries! We picked up lots of juicy red fresh cherries directly from their trees. Moreover, related to the war history, I realized the hatred between China and Japan from the plays they showed and from what the people told me. The plays were surely in Chinese but they were understandable. The outdoors play had real houses and some horses. They actually used fireworks to imitate rockets, mines, and fire. It was so lively and vivid.

Cherries!

Some friends. Liu is directly beside me. Guo is another teammate (Middle, white t-shirt with no hat).

I had my first Chinese lunch during this trip. The food was different but nice. It was all sweet. The tomatoes had sugar on them not salt! It is delicious..try it! It was the first serious time I try eating with chopsticks (the few passive times in UAE do not count, and chopsticks are actually used for ALL the kinds of food you have in a meal like rice, peanuts, noodles, chopped vegetables and even the tiniest beans, and sometimes you pick them peice-by-peice!). It was tough for me. They were teaching me how to hold it and

From UAE to China - When the lag started

Day Zero. Thursday 9^th of June 2011. The last day of exams after the long-lasted breathtaking semester at AUS, and the day of traveling to China. That day was the ‘Separation’ final exam. I had to start the exam at 1pm, 1 hour earlier than scheduled because I had to reach Dubai airport by 4pm. That day, as well as that whole semester, everything was moving rapidly as if time became a tangible object that we are trying to race.

That day, I had to wake up early enough to finish packing my luggage and make sure everything is set for travel. Packing was not a problem.  The problem was that I had to finish what is left of studying for the separation final exam, and what was left was maybe more than half of the semester’s material. I guess that was the case all of us had faced when studying for any exam or quiz that semester. Maybe if the day has like 28 hours instead of 24 hours we can have enough time to keep track of work at AUS, or, another option would be simply not to sleep at all. Eventually, the exam was worse than I expected. I heard that Dr. Taleb got angry and started belittling the whole class when the exam ended. Well, he actually also got angry at me and I got the first shot from him when I left earlier!

When I left earlier, I went into another state of mind. It felt like time-travelling. I just felt that my body was still at AUS but my brain reached China. Maybe that was because of all the preparation and long thorough thinking about how would life be in China. Maybe because I was worried that things might not be as interesting or convenient to be worth the 3 months of travel. I left earlier and all my family was waiting in the car at the Library’s round about to drop me at Dubai Airport. At that time I really wished there are 28 hours in a day so I would have more time to spend and say goodbye to everyone and especially my family since I see them the least of all. Actually, staying at the dorms in AUS makes me see some friends more than I ever saw my parents themselves. On our way to the airport I felt sick and had a bad stomachache. My body was not prepared to this concept of time-travel and to such a chaos of thoughts and overlapped events. I just closed my eyes and cut the stream of thoughts. This was some sort of meditation and I felt cured in few minutes which actually proved to be quicker than a pain-killer. My flights were as follows:

1)   Dubai Airport - Terminal 2 --> Beijing Airport - Terminal 1: (Chinese Southern Airlines) 7:30hours

2)   Beijing Airport - Terminal 3 --> Yantai Laishan Airport, Shandong: (Air China) 1:15 hours

Throughout the travel, everything went perfect. No problems in luggage and no delays. We actually landed in Beijing half an hour earlier. On the plane from Dubai to Beijing, they served 2 full meals which where international, not Chinese as I was expecting.  But the first touch of China was that all the passengers where Chinese and speaking in Chinese which sounded like robot-talk. I was sitting beside a Chinese lady in silence for around an hour. I was having some peanuts so why not offer her some. As soon as I did, she showed a wide smile and started chatting endlessly! Her English was horrible, as with all the Chinese who speak English. She would not understand “I went to Dubai” but would understand “Yesterday, I go to Dubai.” It turned out that the Chinese language does not have tenses for the verbs. They just use the standard form of the verb such as “eat” along with a time-indicating word such as “today, yesterday, tomorrow”.  I got to know some easy Chinese words from her such as:

•   Cola: “ké-lé”     which literally means something like “Can-Music”
•   Coffee: “ka-fei”
•   Thank you: “xiexie”    the x's is pronounced as ‘sh’

When she started conversing and opening up subjects, I wished that the Chinese in China would be this much social. Probably, I will always keep some peanuts with me in China if it would be the secret to trigger socializing!

The plane was flying against the sun. We saw sunset while departing from Dubai and sunrise when landing in Beijing. When the plane was landing, the tv screens started playing some massaging video and every single person started stretching, except for the very few non-Chinese!

In Beijing Airpot - Terminal 1 

When I reached to Beijing Airport terminal 1 I took a shuttle bus to terminal 3 which was convenient and free of charge. At Beijing airport, employees speak English but yet not well enough. At least they can help with travelling Issues. Terminal 3 of Beijing Airport is incredible. It is like a huge shopping mall. Everything is so organized and looks attractive. There are many international shops like Swarovski, Haagen Dazs and many more restaurants of all types of cuisines. There is free WiFi, and there I noticed everything is blocked in China – Facebook, Youtube, blog sites, and many more websites that are so normal such as some regular company websites. I bought my Chinese phone card from there for 150 Yuans (aprrox. 85 AED) which was more expensive than getting it from outside the airport.

Dragons are the iconic creatures of China. In Beijing Airport Terminal 3

Internal Metro System in Beijing Airport

After waiting an hour, I boarded the second plane. In an hour and a half, we reached Yantai at 11:30am Friday morning. Upon arrival to Yantai where I have been residing, I felt like there was a twisted transition in time and place which created a sort of lag in life (as having a typical lag in time when traveling), and then, the 1^st day in China began.

A block in Yantai as it appears from the airplane. It looked exactly like the miniature models that civil engineers and architecs build 

Renewable energy wind mills. In Shandong

Crossing Yantai is HuangHe (Yellow River). The H's are pronounced as 'kh' or 'خ' the arabic letter.