Getting settled

So it has been a long time since I have written, much longer than I would like. August has been a crazy month. I can’t say I’ve been busy with research, but I have been busy with preparing to do my research. My primary focus recently has been to get settled in Harbin and get set up as a visiting foreign graduate student at the Northeast Agricultural University. As a result, I hate to say I have had nothing fun to write about. So rather than bore you with the frustrating details of dealing with the bureaucracy of Chinese, I thought it might be better to just wait until I had a better sense of the direction that my life and research would be taking. And now, complete with a positive attitude, I am ready to start.

To begin, I have a great apartment in Harbin. Finding furniture and decorating it has been a lot of fun. Most of the place was furnished, but I needed a few extra things and I found that delivery on the back of a bike (followed by the back of the deliverer up 6 flights of stairs) is an easy and efficient way to transport a couch. I also found a night market where I asked for (direct translation here) ‘those little metal things used to hold cloth over a window.’ I had no idea what they looked like, but I knew something existed to attach curtains to the built-in track above my window. Sure enough (well, really, after trying five vendors giving my blank stares), I successfully found them and I have a fantastic orange flowered sheet hanging over my window. The sheet matches the orange paw-print decorated couch that I also got (yes, things in China are quite tacky to say the least).

I could go into detail of the process of getting affiliated with a Chinese university for a year of research, but, really, the details are not fun. What is fun is that I am now officially a research student at the Northeast Agricultural University in Harbin, China. As I was filling out the paperwork, they asked for my major, so I wrote ‘geography.’ Well, this actually caused 20 minutes of confusion because this university does not actually have a geography department. I caught the mistake and told them I meant to write ‘agriculture.’ But they were confused about how I could be a PhD student in geography in the US, but studying agriculture in China. I explained and assured them that I knew enough about Chinese agriculture to be a research student here. I’m not sure I believe I know enough, but I was apparently convincing enough.

This week I got an email saying I had been accepted to attend a workshop I had applied to earlier this summer in Tianjin, China in October. The conference is about political and economic ties in the Northeast Asia region. A little over a year ago, I would not have been even considered my research as having connetcions with the region of Northeast Asia (generally including China, Korea, Japan, and Mongolia), but as I am here studying rice and working with Chinese agricultural scientists (many of whom have traveled to Korea and/or Japan), I am fascinated by the technological and economic connections between these countries. China, Korea, and Japan are the three countries in the world where japonica rice is grown, so of course there are connections. My primary professor at the agricultural university here is a Korean minority in China. He is a Chinese citizen, but speaks Korean and just this week hosted a group of 20 Korean farmers who came to Harbin for a day. So, before I go to the conference in October, my goal is to collect information about such connections and present a decent paper about these connections.

I guess I have been doing a lot of reading lately about rice research in China. Its research, but not quite the kind of research where I get to talk to people and ask them what they think about the current situation of rice production. That part will come, it takes time to get people to talk to me. I just have to be patient.

And in the middle of getting all of the details of my life and research here, I got to enjoy the Olympics with the rest of China. Every block outside lined with chairs and tables for eating also had a TV. Each time a Chinese team was playing or an individual athlete was taking his or her turn diving or vaulting, the hustle and bustle that usually fills the streets here would stop, as all heads turned to the TV. After a week and a half, I was bored with the scene, but it was still fun to watch.