A Few Days in the Life

The last few days have been a blur of everything Chinese. Thursday morning we had our second Chinese class. We learned phrases enough to have a slight conversation with vendors or other people, our butchered pronunciation aside. Some of them have definitely come in handy, especially with the cab drivers who speak little to no English. We learned how to say "panda" as well, so we could talk about pandas if we wanted to.

Thursday afternoon we took a field trip to the Environmental Farm at Daxing. It's the oldest and biggest environmental farm in China, and it's quite impressive. There are a number of families who live there permanently and more workers who come in for the day. We took a tour of the energy plant, which consists of a room filled with chicken scat which is heated til it produces methane, which is then collected to use on the farm, and the heat energy produced is recycled to produce more methane. Very smelly, but very interesting. The farm uses methane stoves that are specially adapted for some purpose, although I didn't quite understand WHAT purpose. The farm produces 5 TONS - 10,000 lbs. - of fresh eggs every day, which are taken to market and arrive there less than an hour later - a feat considering the traffic on the way to the farm. We asked how many chickens it takes to produce 5 tons of eggs, and were informed that the farm houses 20,000 chickens. I can't imagine housing and feeding that many, let alone the smell around the coop. We got to see some of the animals the farm owns, like ducks, peacocks, horses, and ostriches, and were shown around the produce farm to see greenhouses upon greenhouses full of organic tomatoes, carrots, radishes, etc. The whole compound was amazing, and really important people like Kofi Anaan have visited that particular farm for the purpose of promoting awareness about the concept of environmental farms. Later that night, Vivian took us to her favorite bar on a strip in the city, where we had dinner and hung out most of the night.

Friday was mostly a class day. In the morning, we had a tour of the Department of Precision Instrument and Mechanology at the university. Under the umbrella of mechanical engineering, the lab houses most of the research done in mechE. We were able to see how certain machines worked and what they accomplished, as well as the work of some of the students, including one student who was working on a robot that plays soccer in competitions among the universities in China. It was cool as an engineering student to see the work that students at other schools are doing, and how they contribute to the work world, as well as how my school fits into that spectrum. It was also interesting thinking that the students that are here now are the ones I'll be working with in the future, whether onsite or via computer/telephone. It really drove home how import global awareness is, and what an opportunity it is to get to experience that so early in my career. Getting a head start on the competition is always a good thing. :) Our afternoon consisted of another lecture on the history of China followed by frisbee and dinner, and a wonderful night just chilling out around campus.