Day Three

Day 3 was a little bit slower. This morning I worked on a power point I am going to present here at CAU and then I will modify it some for AP ventilation on Monday. I had Belinda (the woman who is helping me at MAFIC) look through it. This made me realize how I need to choose my words more carefully for ease of understanding and translation processes. This afternoon we went for a bike ride to the bank to exchange my money. I have never waited in a line at a bank for so long. We had to pick a number when we entered the bank. While walking to our seats a woman gave us a different slip because she had two. This moved us up nine places. We waited for 2.5 hours for 10 people to do their banking with four tellers and an ATM. It was very slow but she said that is how it always is. After that, we rode past a park that we stopped and walked through for a while. She said it was for growing medicine plants. It had some cool architecture also. We then headed to the “market” or I would say a grocery store. This was absolutely packed with people. I spent 80 RB (not sure how they spell it but that is how they say it) this translates to about $12. I bought some of their food and some good old standards that I recognized such as Oreos :D. Everything was in Chinese. When we checked out, she had to go grab something so I just waited in line. There were about 10 people after me so she just went to a different line. When I got to the register the woman said, what I assume was that the apple I was trying to buy was not weighted and priced. I found out that even though it was wrapped individually it still needed to be weighted buy the fruit. So I motioned to her to forget it. Then she told me how much it was….on Chinese…there was not price screen. My confused look got her to write it down. So in some sense I managed to buy food semi successfully. Tonight I was able to get together a rough plan for my travels for the next two weeks. I will be traveling a lot. Tomorrow and Sunday the English teacher is going to take me site seeing! I am adjusting fairly well to the food, but I think I will be craving a bunch of meat off the grill when I get home, as there is hardly any meat in their diet. I also played ping pong with some of the kids tonight. They took me to the cleaners. :)

Ethan Spronk

Day Two

Day two of my adventure was a great one! I spent the day with Zhichun Yan (Jason) from the US Grain Counsel. During the day, we visited two sites that BBSC, Beijing Breeding Swine Center, plan to build a new sow unit and wean to finish facilities. These sites were about a two-hour drive to the north west of Beijing. I was very surprised how smooth the roads are here. I also learned how much different our city driving is compared to here. I have never felt that I was in a bumper-to-bumper NASCAR race as I did here. I have decided that if you enjoy weaving in and out of traffic this is the place to come as we passed several police cars as if they were not moving. I do not think they ever make traffic stops. (sounds like a fitting place for me) Today we ate dinner in a village whose American translation meant peace eternal but it was historically a military base. At dinner, I once again was able to experience the Chinese cuisine first hand. We ate in a Tofu restaurant. I never knew there were so many different kinds of tofu. We had 12 different dishes; most of them had some tofu in them. I like the frozen tofu the best; however, the fish head soup was probably the best! (Never thought the phrase would come out of my mouth) I also had another first that I never thought I would have. I officially have eaten donkey. We also had Chinese burgers, which consisted of tofu and vegetables on a bun. It was pretty good actually. One of the individuals that traveled with us was an architect. He had good English and at dinner, he expanded a lot about the culture. He said that there are four main points that the Chinese look for in food. First, is the color, second the smell, third the taste, and fourth is the environment that you are eating it in. Most of the food has a lot of green with some yellow or red in it. I really wish the internet here was fast enough to post the pictures of the food. It is all set one a “turn table” that is in the center of the table and you spin it to the dish you want to take food out of. It is very handy. There is no distraction of passing the food you can just chow down. :P  The architect also explained that the Forbidden City was built on an axis. It included all of the important buildings. The second ring of the city goes out from there 2 km, and the 3^rd ring is 3km and so on until the 6^th ring. He explained that in ancient days Beijing was built in a good spot as it has mountains and the Great wall to the north for easy defense, water to the east and a flat plain and dessert to the south. He said that there were two manmade channels to the south to bring in supplies and food from southern china.

 

Ethan Spronk

Day One in China

All,

 My first day here was good. I woke up early as my body is still trying to adjust from the 13 hour time difference from Minnesota and South Dakota. My day started out by talking to a professor here from Austrailia. It was very interesting that I would meet and assuie for the first time in China. It was extremely interesting to hear his insight on China as he has been here for a about 6 years teaching and doing some consulting at cattle feed lots and dairies. I am Traveling with Zhichun Yan tomorrow to visit a new swine site and an existing one where we will meet with the 2 managers. I am realizing what it is like to be on the minority side of the language barrier. It makes things a lot harder and I have a new sympathy for those who are minorities in our area. Things are definitely a lot different than at home. I am already eating things that I never thought I would have just because it is what I have for an option. I had supper with Dr. Li (one of the head individuals at MAFIC (a segment of China Ag University)) tonight which was good had some clam, lobster, fish and a few different dishes of vegetables and meat, this was  very spicy. I also had a “dessert” soup, he explained it as wood mushrooms (tasted exactly like pairs to me lol) it was very sweet. I had some of their local beer and "wine" more like whisky in my book.  They do ALOT of toasts here. The breakfast is pretty bland compared to the sweet foods we eat at home. Also they serve warm milk instead of other drinks at breakfast. The room is great, it has ac. J The Beds are really hard though, Geoff, the professor here from Australia told me to put the comforters under me when I slept to make them softer. It is hot here it still is 33 c here which is like 91F at 9 30 at night.

Overall it was a good day with a few translation hiccups but I was given a tour of the campus and learned a lot about how they set up the universities over here.

Ethan Spronk

Traveling

I am currently on a 19 hour layover in Seattle WA. It finally sunk in last night at the hotel that this was different from every other trip I have taken in my life. One I am by myself and two I am going to a country where English is not the primary language. I am very interested how well I am going to handle the language barrier. I have had experience communicating with individuals whose first language is not English and I have made it through that but I was not the minority.

I have had a few requests on some back ground information on why I am taking this trip. In simple terms the trip fell into my lap. I was talking to a recent professor (Dr. Thaler) about traveling internationally and how my study a broad trips had been cancelled. He mentioned the times he spent in China. This lead us into talking about the many changes that were happening so quickly over there in agriculture. I had heard several stories through the individuals at Pipestone Vet clinic. Through the multitude of connections Dr Thaler had developed in China we began to plan a 6 week trip to Beijing and the surrounding areas for me to learn about how agriculture is operated in China. I am going to be riding around with several different industry professionals. Including Gordon Spronk from Pipestone Vet Clinic, Wendell Burge of GSI and AP ventilation, Cao Zhijun (visiting dairies), Jason Yan, and the US Grains Counsel. I will be staying at China Ag University and spending time with several of there professors and researchers when I am not on the road. China Ag University (CAU) is the top agriculture school in China and in the top 5 overall.

China Prep

Hi all,
As the time nears my departure for China my anticipation and excitement increases greatly. It has been very exciting for me to watch all of my plans fall into place and watch my six weeks in China fill up with several individuals who are willing to show me around. I am extremely excited to start my journey! I will try to keep all of you updated on this blog. I plan on posting as often as I can however I am not sure what kind of time I will have while there! I hope to be able to share some pictures on here also. This is my first time blogging so I ask that you all bare with me.
Ethan