First Few Days in Xiamen
- Nov 15, 2023
- 11 min read
Journal entry #1
Reasons
The last time I was in China, I was on the verge of tipping into clinical depression. At the time of my last journey back home, I was about the weight of an average Chinese woman. This wouldn’t be shocking to anyone but my family, when they set eyes on what could only be described as bones under a thin layer of skin, on that December of 2019 at Entebbe.
I had brought back home with me one piece of luggage, but also severe insomnia, heightened anxiety, and the sort of migraines that at their peak, gave me such spectacular pain, I sometimes saw kaleidoscopic visions in the daytime and haunted the house at night for lack of sleep. I had been encouraged to leave China by my supervisor to take a break from writing my master’s thesis.
I had no idea that I wouldn’t be able to return to China for the next 3 and a half years. I defended my thesis online and was emailed my diploma. The pandemic, ironically, probably saved my life.
And then I decided to go back. Insane? Maybe. At this point in my life, I think, if what I’m doing isn’t insane enough I don’t really care for it.
I don’t yet have all the reasons why I chose to return but distantly I’ve always felt that there was some unfinished business in China, mysteries left uncovered, stories left unwritten, path untrodden. Maybe I needed to know why I hadn’t truly learned to love the country.
The agony of pre-travel
I applied to Xiamen University in 2021 with the encouragement of a Professor from my previous university, who at the time was visiting Stellenbosch University as a scholar at the law school. Traveling back to China to complete my doctorate had at the time seemed like a far-off possibility, I had almost expected I would finish my degree entirely online.
Frequently, I experienced some excitement in the course of the few online lectures and academic conferences I participated in. I liked my few classmates, with whom I shared interesting often intellectual debates about our countries and the situations we were living through.
Much was shared between the Ugandan living in Stellenbosch, a girl in the middle of a civil war in Myanmar, a Russian student teaching at a university in Moscow, aspiring to add Arabic under her linguistic belt, and a Pakistani girl already living in Xiamen, but very passionate about the current politics of her country and her faith.
We were encouraged to speak frankly by our supervisor who often invited her Chinese PhD students to join in. She was patient and often open-minded and I was relieved to have finally found a mentor who seemed genuinely interested in what I could amount to. Perhaps even encourage my madness.
When the Chinese border opened, the ghost of previous anxieties manifested with such viciousness I was nearly breathless with it. Of course, I exacerbated this by looking up reviews from previous foreign students at the University and it wasn’t painting a pretty picture of the student life for foreigners, despite plenty of praise for the beautiful campus. Studying abroad in China for many foreigners can often seem like a game of chance. You never know what you're getting until you've crossed the border.
I had done some research on the campus and the city of Xiamen enough to know that it was one of the top in China with a very strong international law program. The city itself is painted as a beautiful vacation destination and the university often features as a top tourist attraction on travel sites.
On the chance that I was to go to China, I expected that at the very least I would not want for beautiful environs to distract from my anxiety, academic or otherwise.
Despite the fact that I knew Xiamen would be leagues above where I lived previously in terms of scale and development, I was never unaware of the challenges living in China poses for foreigners, no matter the city you live in, especially a foreigner with my skin tone. Or for that matter how challenging research can be when you are essentially blocked off from a majority of academic databases both within and outside China, by a firewall, in the technological and metaphorical sense. If nothing else, I had the wisdom of experience this time round.
Packing, goodbyes, and travel plans were rushed and chaotic. It was not how I expected to leave home. The most essential packing was going on in my brain. Along with masses of important information, I compartmentalized my fears and anxieties. I do this often. Sometimes I will come back to them after the fact and examine them, sometimes I will entirely forget them and move on, sometimes they throb beneath my skull demanding escape. In the past two weeks, I have tried both consciously and unconsciously to unravel the knots and, in quiet moments even allowed myself to examine their patterns.
Guangzhou before Xiamen
The one comfort I experienced upon arrival at the Guangzhou airport was that it was exactly as I expected it to be and therefore there was none of the disappointment I was prepared for.
My sole gratitude is that I had had the presence of mind to check in my luggage directly to Xiamen. If I could just survive the tedious bureaucracy of immigration and the many, MANY security checks, I could distract myself momentarily from the aches of long-distance travel, and drown out the throb as I filled out paperwork.
Xiamen was not what I expected.
Arrival at Gaoqi Airport, Xiamen, went smoother than I expected. Well, besides the fact that I had arrived before my luggage, I was determined that my spirits could not be further trounced by anything other than perhaps numbing fatigue. I reasoned that it was just as well not to have the burden of massive luggage to deal with so late at night. I had packed my small carry-on bag well enough for 10 days (thank you 1000 hours of YouTube).
On auto-pilot, I jumped into a taxi I was helpfully escorted to by security, had the usual small talk with the driver, and made it to my hotel, where the staff loaded my information onto the system, and handed me my card and a bottle of water. The bottle of water aided down enough paracetamol to take the edge off the pain and I was lost to the world perhaps for an entire day.
Tip: For anyone traveling to China for the first time for a long stay either for school or work, I highly recommend staying the first few days or week at a hotel and treating yourself to a mini vacation, if you can afford it. In China, there are many options for hotels at every budget price, the one perk about the locals traveling so much.
Be a tourist first in whichever city you’re visiting, get a feel for it, and fall a little in love with it before living in it. Do the things you would do in any other travel destination that leaves you feeling like extending your stay. This feeling will be integral to your mental condition at least in the first few weeks or the first month. For me at least it allowed my body to unravel from the fight or flight state I had compacted it into and allowed some of the stress of travel to ebb.
New friend and Xiamen University
The following day I met up with a Chinese classmate from my university who had probably been given strict instructions by our mutual supervisor to treat me like a frightened kitten.
QianLi is the sporty type of Chinese girl who seems to have endless reserves of energy. I, on the other hand, was carrying around months of anxiety-induced weight gain. Her guided tour of Xiamen was painfully thorough. We bonded over our shared love for coffee, and bless her soul like she knew I needed it, she kept me caffeinated throughout her tour, which included;
Getting a SIM card (invaluable)
Checking out on-campus accommodation (which I immediately rejected on grounds that I would be made to share a non-partitioned room with an undergrad student and I was not prepared for that particular hazard on a good day)
Grabbing lunch and killing two hours of time wandering the campus before I could be presented to the student counselor at the law school to note my arrival.
They were now officially responsible for this woman-child.
When I wasn't fighting fatigue, I slowly became aware of a few facts about my new home, Xiamen University;
1. For a university located on a tiny island in the South China Sea, it is one massive institution covering several square miles of land, with two lakes, a forest, and a vast botanical garden spanning one face of a mountainside. Most students typically cycle between lecture buildings or take the bus to their dorms. The university is so massive, it has one of its campuses on the mainland and another in Malaysia.
2. Despite arriving at the tail end of summer, the temperatures were swelteringly high, and given the typical monsoonal humidity, with so much water and greenery, the mosquitoes were out for blood and mine was an all-you-can-eat buffet. It had been the end of a long winter when I left Stellenbosch and then a sudden change in climate was overwhelming.
3. Xiamen is indeed beautiful, with the Pacific Ocean sprawled out before it like a gleaming blue gem and several emerald mountains rushing down to meet it. The university is nestled in between, while massive, its spaces and buildings are interrupted by trees, gardens, walkways, water features, and parks. The buildings are a mix of traditional Chinese architecture and the modern.
4. I was not enthused by the flavors of the food. While still on par with the typical Chinese fare at most universities in the country, it hardly compares to the party-your-mouth fare of Hunan cuisine. I was underwhelmed.
Contemplating life choices in immigration
Now I understand the security concerns associated with modern-day international travel even before COVID-19 chose to join the party like the creepy uninvited guest he was. It does not mean I have to like the countless hours I spent in waiting rooms, sometimes literally seated on cold tiles waiting for a number to be called. My visa required that I apply for a temporary residence permit upon arrival at the city’s immigration department. It’s a typical requirement for most student and work visas. Ideally, this is how it should go;
1. Acquire a Chinese phone number (surprisingly easy)
2. Procure a health certificate at an internationally oriented hospital (very thorough examination)
3. Secure suitable approved accommodation or place of residence (easy, depending on who you know)
4. Register said residence at the police station closest to said residence (also easy)
5. Register the above details with Student Affairs at the University, procuring stamps of approval for a resident permit from both the registrar and the department. They will also let you know what documents to take to immigration.
6. Present documents at the immigration department, at which point you may have lost at least a few lives, or at the very least your patience.
If you have some patience left prepare to lose some more while you are asked to have your passport photographs taken and then wait another 3-5 hours before your application can be accepted, depending on the crowd that day. I chose Friday and the regret I felt was humbling.
The highlight of this particular day was the astonished look on the officer’s face as she attempted to discern a human being from the splash of black that claimed to be a passport photograph of me. I suppose it was just as well that the lighting in that photo booth was so bad or the camera buckled at the murderous glint in my eyes.
At the end of the interview process, you are parted with your passport and provided a receipt with pick-up dates, typically 3 weeks. Since my luck was shining so brightly, I had to wait 4 weeks on account of the mid-autumn festival and National Day double festival.
After a long long wait, I can present my shiny new legal personality to a Chinese bank to become financially mobile within China.
For the great majority of this to-do list, I had asked my Chinese friend to let me go it alone, as I knew how tedious these things get. Besides I could use the opportunity to flex my navigation skills, tour some of the city while I was out and about, and kickstart my survival Mandarin speaking skills. The learning curve is steep.
Settling in with dire consequences
Every day I thanked the glorious foresight of booking myself into a hotel close to the centre of the city and not by the university. The hotel was located in downtown Xiamen and during the cool nights, I could escape my room and roam the streets.
I discovered that Xiamen is definitely on the more upscale side with a host of pretty boutique shops, restaurants, and cafes. Even at the small department store by the hotel, one could find foreign brands like Calvin Klein, Levi, Dior, Gucci, and Massimo Dutti. I often took a stroll up the famous Zhong Shan road and ended up at the largest mall in Siming district, Zhong Hua Cheng, marveling at the buildings, while I got stared at like a specimen.
At the end of my brief hotel stay, finally reunited with my luggage, I moved into my small rooms. QianLi, my new friend was on hand to graciously assist with the nitty-gritty of move-in day as a conduit between my new landlord and me. I settled the rent, the internet, electricity, and door security and figured out what needed fixing.
In the hour between midday and dinner at 5:30 pm, I had purchased a few groceries, picked up some beddings QianLi had ordered online, and gave the room its first superficial cleaning, enough that it was liveable.
As I unpacked and cleaned, Qian Li found a clean spot in the room and went to work on assignments while I loaded her with gift upon gift from my suitcase. When I couldn’t find anything more to give her, I made mental notes for the next time I would be traveling home in the distant future. At this point, I’m contemplating naming my firstborn child after her.
The room was short of a kitchen but I figured, as my supervisor had so generously pointed out, cooking my own meals would be too much of a waste of time and a distraction from the real work- studying. For now, I would do without.
I am conveniently located near a library and cafeteria thus killing two birds with one stone. The room is small enough that l don't need to expend too much effort in maintaining it and entertaining more than one or two people at a time. It would serve the purposes of privacy, sleep, and study well. Basically, I was set for life as a hermit.
All I needed now was a functioning toilet. The landlady sent someone to fix it nearly a week too late.
Then my body gave up.
The week thereafter I experienced bouts of illness, insomnia, migraines, disassociation, lethargy, and delayed jet lag. I could barely focus long enough to read a journal abstract. I slept away most afternoons with the air conditioning on the lowest setting, to hell with my electricity bill (me in the future did not appreciate this). I maintained a diet of tea and bread until Qianli decided it would be better to supplement this diet with vegetables and fruit at which point she made it so that I could go to the cafeteria at least once a day for the vegetables.
In the meantime, I was in a row with Express VPN, perhaps the greatest regret I have had since coming to China. It is actually rubbish at this point and I paid a one-year subscription for it. Know that this post is absolutely not made possible by that product.
Takeaways
In short, if you made it this far (i love you), the hero of this story is Qian Li. Make good Chinese friends, they will literally save your life. Book a hotel stay before settling in in China. Never go to immigration on a Friday. Choice words for Express VPN, it can go to hell. And, I think I'll be OK. I don't know. We'll see.
Until then, goodbye from China,
Pat.
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