Campus Life

I enjoyed observing the men across the street from me who are working construction perform their duties today. What a fascinating moment it was for me to see them dumping their cement onto the ground through the vehicle's hose onto the ground. 

Walking around the campus today was an adventure in being a "celebrity." Every few seconds, I would hear someone yelling, "Hello!" from various corners of the campus, not to mention the literal throngs of students I walked by and waved at, nodded at, or just said, "Hello!" to in passing. My favorite was a group of freshmen walking at the hind end of the Exodus to 2 PM classes, submitting like a line of lemmings, somewhat talking and somewhat observing their behavior. The young girls walked mostly 3- or 4-in a row. As I continued walking behind the girls to make my way to class, I heard them begin to rumble in Chinese. They grewsteadily more rapturous in their walk together, giggling and quickly glancing toward me, if not at me. I was comfortable with this form of adoration, as there is not much I can do until the younger students get used to experiencing a foreigner's presence in their campus. However, just when I felt my thoughts drift back toward my work, one of the girls closest to me swung around in response to the muffled laughter and said, "WHERE?!?," an obvious indication that she'd been told that there was a wai guo ren near her. To her shock, I stared up in confusion at her not two meters away. She laughed an embarassed laugh and fell away from me, her momentum taking her into the arms of her friends, who were likewise overcome with laughter at her folly. I said, "Ni men hao. Ren shi ni men hun gao shin! (Hello, nice to meet all of you!)" and walked on with a grin of successfully (and most inadvertantly) giving this group of students intense fodder for conversation throughout the remainder of the day. 

The newness of the year is apparent in these types of interactions, which are all the more frequent with the arrival of freshmen just two days ago. This is coupled with the campus's peculiar decision to "quarantine" all of the students who currently live on Hebei College of Finance due to the threat of the Swine Flu, meaning that no student can leave campus without written permission from an administrator or teacher. This weekend, our IECS team in Langfang shared some stories about their equally-immobile students who tried to "make a run for it" a tthe front gates of the school. Tim and Cameron, who came to help unpack Jon's belongings for his room (as he's still struggling to get his VISA in America), reported seeing love-sick couples locking fingers at the East gate. The freshmen, facing the challenges of college for the first time, are especially stir-crazy, it would seem, as they face the triple-threat in their first week: homesickness, the shock of seeing a foreigner, and clastrophobia (six people to a room, no leaving the campus, ect.)