Tianjin University

A former student of mine emailed me offering a tour of China's oldest higher education facility, Tianjin University. I accepted. We established earlier that we both had a love for photography so she encouraged me to bring my cameras. We met a few days later at ACES. The plan was to walk but there was a light drizzle in the city. We found a cab that would take her bike and a mile later we were there.

We grabbed dinner and I embarrassed myself by spilling hot and sour soup all over my khaki's. I told her the story of my sister and I visiting my grandmother and her friends for lunch a few months back and the two of us spilling and dropping everything all over the table. I introduced her to a new English vocabulary word: "clumsy."

"We can dress 'em up and make 'em look nice, but we still can't take 'em out."

Best grandmother quote ever.

My host was very nice. She was studying for her masters in chemistry. Against my expectations, she told me it was harder getting jobs like that as a women in China. I figured one of the better lasting effects of communism would be a reduction in sexism, especially at work. She wanted my company primarily to practice conversational English which is a component of the very competitive interviews in China. My roommate warned me that it's disappointing getting to know students and watching them graduate and try to find employment in the extremely dense Asian job market.

We walked around quite a bit. Three hours, actually. There are two main lakes at Tianjin University offering the most beautiful scenery I've witnessed in this fair city yet.

My cab driver back home was thrilled to see an American escorted to a cab by a young coed. I was confronted with a series of disbeliefs. He held the door open for her for a full minute before conceding she was not getting in with me. He refused, the entire ride, to admit to himself that I wasn't the least bit cognizant of his boy-to-boy joking and nudging concerning my host. This turned to him pulling my arm up to his, good naturedly, and then grabbing at my arm hair with a deep belly laugh. A minute later he was rubbing my belly. He pointed at McDonald's and gave it a thumbs up. "Bu, bu" I said and thumbed down. I acted out expanding my gut with my hands using International Hand Gestures (IHG) to say "high saturated fat content". The gesture was misread as a Non-Standardized Silly Foreigner [NSSF] invitation to jiggle a laowai gut. He laughed and pretended to steal my wallet on my way out of the cab.



Future People's Liberation Army officers drilling at the center of campus. More PLA cadet photos here.


Young People's Lake and the Tianjin skyline



Dorms and crepuscular rays at the second lake at the edge of campus. If I were to name it, I think I'd call it the Necking Pond. No no, not for anything I did. China is a crowded place. Eight students to a dorm. They take it outside.

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