Seasons Abroad in China: Life of a Graduate Student

May 21, 2021
3 min read

When you come from a tropical African country like Uganda, the rain, the red, red soil, and dust are all you know. Life is consistent, uninterrupted and it pulses with the rain and the sun, the two seasons. On Makerere hill where I finished my bachelor's degree, life was like gentle breezy mornings, gentle rains made gentler by canopies of jacaranda and muvule trees, sleepy afternoons, and cool, cool nights.

In the south of China, in Xiangtan particularly, summer rolls into winter; springs and autumns are so brief, like the blooming of spring blossoms in April and like the dead yellow leaves that cover the avenues in October.

Autumn

The first semester, the beginning. Most academic years in China begin in September. It is a gentle introduction into the new environment for a foreigner, born and raised in the African tropics, to live now in the South of China. The weather is cool and forgiving, the human traffic muted. Although the skies are often bleak, the sun is the warmest in autumn when it does appear. The ginkgo tree, a romantic and poetic tree in Southeastern Asian autumns, whose delicate almost buttery leaves float down from rain-darkened trunks, creating a contrast, incredibly difficult to forget, in the neat rows that line the driveways at my campus. They mirror the youthfulness and excitement of new Chinese sophomores, present in their cheer even as they make mandatory military drills, matching or jogging along behind a senior student in army garb.

not a gingko leaf, but perhaps a cousin of the maple yet not quite

Winter

I cannot decide if I've disliked myself more during this period than at any other time. For the most part, the temperatures in Hunan Province rarely fall below the zero mark, specifically in the heavily forested regions of Xiangtan. When they do, it is with a frosty vengeance that snow falls, beautiful yet unforgiving in its cold bite, the rain that follows on its heels slips under your skin and chills to the bone. For whatever inane reason, someone decided that the weather in the South was not cold enough to warrant mandatory internal heating in most houses of residence. All I have is a broken air conditioner, an electric heater shoved under my desk to warm the feet as I study, and a heated blanket should I abandon all pretenses of studiousness to cozy up with a warm cup of instant coffee in my bed binge-watching Korean dramas to my heart's content. Nothing really happens, but violent homesickness with a dose of the flu season.

Spring

Promises of new beginnings. Perhaps my favorite time of the year. On the rare occasion that I had decided to run home to escape the winter, I am always returning to the campus in Spring. And the sights of flowers in bloom are well worth it. It will rain a little and the chill will linger but life vigorously returning provides no excuse to stay indoors. I often miss the Spring Festival, deafening clap of firecrackers. It is strangely rare that I would miss home during Spring when there's so much beauty around that begs to be noticed and to think of nothing else.

Summer

A reckoning. Summers are for traveling, should it occur to me that I have no need to leave the comforts and safety of my room, the heat is a reminder that there is more of the world to see than imminent death by heatstroke. Sometimes it is a day trip around the town, taking a bus route or several, that I've never taken before to some village or city, planned backpacking for a week or two, or a daily bucket list that reads of all the places I should visit and things I should do this summer. I will eat my weight in sweet custard-filled bread and Macau custard tarts, or walk my feet sore in the city.

IF I cannot go anywhere, then my days are spent in my tiny kitchen or sitting in a basin filled with iced water, out on the balcony, shoveling spoonfuls of the innards of a large watermelon into my mouth, pretending I'm on vacation in Hainan or some coastal getaway in the Mediterranean.

At this time the university looks more like an abandoned post-apocalyptic town. A few old retired resident staff sit on the stoops under the shade of their apartment blocks, holding up a small battery power fan to their faces. I would start up a conversation but I feel too anxious to embarrass with my poor grasp of their language. I smile at them and pass on, hunting down a convenience store that has not been shut down, to ride their supply of sugary iced lollies.