Visit to the New Campus

This is the library at Shi Da’s new campus, located in the countryside about 45 minutes south of Hohhot. It is a beautiful site, located amidst the open farmland that surrounds Hohhot. It’s also easy to visit from the old campus in the city where I teach, since buses run every couple of hours between the two campuses. Samuel, Grace, and I jumped on a bus last week and finally visited the new campus, which we had yet to see since our arrival in Hohhot.

Whether I’m in China or the Tri-Cities, when the cold weather comes I start to get cabin fever. I need to get outside to hold off the creeping sense of isolation and entrapment. Even though the weather has been pretty chilly lately (highs around freezing and lows around 8 degrees Fahrenheit), I’ve been doing a good job of getting out on my bike and meandering around the city. Sometimes I have a destination, but other times I just explore new streets and districts.

Like a typical westerner (meaning denizen of the American West not “the West” generally—although I’m a typical one of those as well), I get feeling “penned in” if I can’t get out of the city and hit the open road. At home, we usually make a point of busting out of overcrowded Richland, WA (population approx. 45,000) on winter weekends. We go on a hike along the breaks of the Columbia River or head up to the Blue Mountains for sledding and snow-shoeing. All it takes is making lunch and piling into our big American station-wagon (1998 Ford Taurus—about 20 mpg) and buying a forty-dollar tank of gas and we are free from society’s restraints.

Of course, it is impossible for us to hit the open road here. Not only do we not have a car (and if we did we could not read the road signs or navigate the roadways without hitting old ladies on bicycles), but arranging to do something like traveling to the mountains or the grasslands would require making extensive arrangements in advance with our hosts. Not that they would mind—people here have been so good about helping us out. But we don’t feel comfortable always imposing upon others.

And so it was last week that we were feeling hemmed in. It was a sunny day, perfect for escaping Hohhot (population approx. 1.5 million) and taking in the countryside. It occurred to me that we had not yet seen Shi Da’s new campus, located about 45 minutes south of Hohhot.

Looking North. The library (first picture in this post) is behind us. It’s really an impressive campus.

In fact, the first photos I saw of Shi Da—sent to us by Yongsheng in an email—were of the impressive fountains and gleaming red buildings of the new campus. I did not know at the time that there were two campuses and I imagined that I’d be teaching and living in the brick-red buildings that I saw in that email. In the end, I found out I’d be living and teaching on the old campus, located in Hohhot. It did not take long to realize that this was a good thing: instead of living in an isolated rural community, far from the markets, restaurants, and parks of the city, we were right in the center of things, living amidst the bustle of Hohhot. The teachers and students who stay at the new campus have very little to do except work and study—a good thing for studiousness, but not so good for sightseeing and urban exploration. It’s like the difference between the University of Washington and Washington State University: UW is located in the vibrant city of Seattle while WSU is in Pullman, a “cow town” with few sights except miles of rolling wheat fields. I grew up in Seattle and went to Pullman for college. I preferred Pullman as a student. It allowed me to study, ride my bike through the wheat fields, and row on the Snake River. And yet, if I was a Chinese teacher who had seven months to visit America, I would choose to teach at UW rather than WSU. I feel the same way about the difference between Shi Da’s new campus and the old campus, the countryside and the city.

Looking west with the library at our back.

The indoor sports complex.

Dormitories. My students, who live on the old campus in Hohhot, tell me that they would never want to live on the new campus because there is nothing to do there. In fact, the buses from the new campus are packed with students on weekend nights as students stream into Hohhot to meet with friends.

The kids enjoyed getting out of Hohhot for a few hours. They even liked the bus trip. Here they are in a staged action shot, running full speed!

Ice-cream break on the edge of a ravine behind the new campus. Except for the red buildings, the landscape could easily be confused with the Tri-Cities.

Plunging down the gorge after the ice-cream break. Is it Inner Mongolia or the eastern Washington? We even scared a covey of quail. Just like tromping along the banks of the Columbia River.

Maybe you can tell from the tone of this post, but everyone is feeling a little bit homesick right now. It might be the holiday season or it might be the small apartment, which is getting smaller as the weather gets colder, but the kids especially have been pining for home (“I want to go home!” has been a common refrain in our household as of late). Hopefully, when it’s all said and done, they’ll come to look back on their adventures here with fondness (or at least forgiveness). Day-trips like this one to the new campus will help.

Thanks for reading.

Dave