March 2nd 2010

There is a lot I could tell you about my first days here in Changchun. I hope I will mention at least the most important parts.

I had a good flight and slept well from Frankfurt to Beijing. In Beijing I had to go to customs, since there seems to be none at the smaller airports. In Changchun I was welcomed by Professor Yongfeng Men at the airport and brought to my new apartment near the institute. The apartment itself is very nice, 5th floor (here one starts counting with 1 on ground floor), relatively new with a living room, kitchen, small bath and two bedrooms. I don’t know whether I will get a roommate later on, but I don’t think so. After three days I got the internet running in my flat and I have a China Mobile Number for my mobile. By the way: there is a very cheap way to call Chinese phones (even mobile) and other foreign countries from Germany: toolani.de. You just have to pay a German local call and 1,9 ct.. Just remember: I’m 7 hours ahead of you. If you call me in the middle of the night, I will find a way to make you regret it ;-). Nah, my phone is off in the night anyway. Oh, before I forget: I got a huge flat screen TV here (bigger than any TV I ever had in Germany). After a few tours to a local supermarket (Hengkelong supermarket) I have almost all the stuff I need for living here.

After visiting the apartment I was shown the institute. It is less comfortable compared to our situation in Ulm, but I think I will survive ;-). They have nice equipment for polymer stuff, however. I decided to share an office with the students. So they can practice English and I Chinese. We will see how this works out. Some of the Chinese students and even a PostDoc are having a hard time to talk to me in English. But they are all trying to be as helpful as possible. I am told, that school children in China talk better English, since nowadays they start to learn already in kindergarten.

After the tour through the institute we went to a local Thai restaurant. If anyone of you comes to visit we will go there. In general the food is o.k. here, even in the students dining hall. There you pay about 20 – 30 ct. for a meal including some kind of stew/fish/meat with rice or steamed rolls. I am trying something new everytime we go there. Today I’m pretty sure I had hot Tofu ;-). But anyway: I like it so far. You always get a bowl of thin vegetable soup with your meal. By the way: In order to get a dining-card I had to give a Chinese name (there was no possibility to enter a German name in the computer) – good think Fengzhen gave me a proper translation and helped me with my business cards – Thank you very much for that (谢谢)。

I’m trying to learn some new words in Chinese each day. Usually I recognize one or two signs in each sentence I read from our training with Fengzhen. I also already told the story about my fruitless attempts to say chu (初) correctly. It will take some time until I understand what is said to me and even more until I will fearlessly try to talk myself. However, people are very helpful if they find out I don’t speak the language.

Finally a few funny observations I made:
The light in my staircase is activated by noise – especially suited for getting home drunk.
The biggest and newest building around belongs to the tax collectors.
The first two days after arrival there was fireworks all over the city. I attribute this to the Chinese celebrating my arrival and not to the end of the spring festival and the lantern festival ;-).
Working times are from 8 – 11, then lunch and lunch break until 1:30. From 1:30 to 5 p.m. is the second working block. Then dinner and going home. The hours seem to be less than back home, but I’m not sure yet whether they are
working saturdays.
Apparently I’m the first foreign member of the institute. This seems to lead to some confusion in the administration, but everybody is trying to help.
The temperatures are usually under – 10 °C and can even go lower at night. It is freezing cold outside. I hope that spring will come soon.