I have been going pretty faithfully to the Historiography class, but that's as much to foster my connection with my classmate Crystal as anything else. Also because there's nothing else to do at that time. On this occasion, the topic was the Spring and Autumn Annals which is in some ways connected with my research, so I did my best to understand. Somehow this professor has an especially difficult voice, but I think I'm getting a little better at understanding him. After class, Crystal asked me, "Do you have class now?" But unfortunately I did. On my way there, I was thinking about it and thinking that I should be more friendly and social toward her. So I sent her a little text message asking if she wanted to have dinner with me?Then I went to the second class. At first I didn't have much hope because the classroom seemed really unoccupied. But as I was standing there someone passed by and said "It's been moved to such-and-such place, didn't you know?" So I went to that place and sure enough, there was a class there. It was a foreign exchange student classical Chinese class, and I was just dropping in to see what it would be like. What it was like was: the professor wrote the name of essay on the board and said we should translate it into modern Chinese. This would depend on having the textbook, which I didn't, so after about 10 minutes I left. I'm sure other things were going to go on, but I suppose they would depend on having the textbook too. Actually, I like a class that makes you do stuff like that, and I think I'll try going back again next session, on Thursday, with the textbook.
To that end, I wandered down to the nearest bookstore. They had not only that textbook but also the textbook for another class I was going to later that day. Textbooks, though, relative to ordinary books, are quite pricey! So I didn't quite have the cash on me for all of them. A rare event. Then I did some running around related to changing departments. I myself don't much care if I am affiliated with the history or the Chinese department, but my Professor YHz's grad student seems to care, and maybe YHz cares as well. What's more important than anything is to give YHz a sense of responsibility for me, so if that means changing departments, that's what I'll do. It turns out to be a tremendous messy lot of paperwork. I have to write an application explaining my situation, have it signed by my history department advisor and the history department chair, then take it back to the foreign students' office, who will do some mysterious processing of it, and the other step would be to have the advisor in the Chinese department write a letter which then has to be approved by the head of the Chinese department. "You know it doesn't really matter which department you're in," the foreign students' office woman said, echoing my sentiments as well. Indeed, I would have dropped the whole thing, except for that the grad student SXb had said he would be happy to help me with any procedures that might be involved. So very bravely, I called him up and explained the situation. He said it was no problem--documents like this were very commonly drawn up and weren't much trouble. We agreed that I would write him e-mail regarding the circumstances and he would change it into such a document. I also had a quick lunch. Then I decided, since I had some time still, that I'd run home and get my bike (I'd walked in because it was raining lightly in the morning) as well as some cash for the textbooks. I did that. It was a near thing, and only the fact that it is so much faster riding a bike through campus than walking allowed me to get there in time for YHz's class. This is a course for foreign students on "Chinese Research Tools," which you'd think would be pretty boring, but she's a good teacher and enlivens the lesson plan with stories and facts I hadn't known, and it comes out like an easier version of Professor BE's bibliography course back in the States, but with all different stories. I like it. And more crucially, it gives me an excuse to see YHz every week. This is especially good because, for example, she'd said she would call me and I could have dinner with her and her grad students over the weekend, but then I didn't hear from her at all. I didn't mention it and neither did she, but she had brought for me a relevant dissertation on Qing dynasty Shiji studies, which she said I could borrow for as long as I wanted to look at it. I mentioned to her that SXb had suggested I switch departments, and she said to have him help me and also to have him explain to her what she would need to do. I hope SXb doesn't mind having been appointed my academic baby-sitter.
After the Research Tools class, I had a free hour, so I ran over and bought the books and then sat and ate a mung bean popsicle. Crystal had texted back and said we were on for dinner. I relaxed some, and then went off to find the next class and make sure I would be on time. It was in a different and much less ghetto building. Still really really crowded, of course. But this one had microphones for the professors, which was very good for me, and no construction going right outside the window. There was even an air-conditioner, though it only turned on for a short time at the beginning. And the class was great. It was part three of their two-year history of Chinese literature sequence, which meant it was focused on the Song and Yuan dynasties, very relevant to the research I'm going to be working on. It was very detailed, much more so than our analogous one-year sequence, and also very interesting, enlivened with little stories and poems and anecdotes. I didn't understand everything, but definitely understood enough that it was useful. The above picture is my "tea flower," which I nursed all day, adding hot water periodically.I met Crystal at the library at 7, which was the least confusing place I could think of. We biked out the Eastern gate and she showed me quite a number of restaurants between campus and Wudaokou. We decided on Yunan food. A feast! We had a whole fish fried very crispy and wonderful; a little pot of chicken soup and a big pot of another type of soup that they mixed at the table with vegetables and noodles and meat strips and little tiny eggs; also sugared oily crackers (I don't know what they're actually called) and small dishes of spicy cabbage and peanuts. We chattered on. It was really fun, although Crystal--being from Hong Kong--has quite an accent and I understood only about 60% of what she was saying. I also sneakily managed to pay the bill. We compared living conditions--she lives in a dorm room with three other people from her native place, and they have no AC, no electricity at night, live on the sixth floor without an elevator, and have to shower in a communal bathhouse between 4 and 9 PM. I have AC, a washing machines, an elevator, 24 hour hot water and electricity, pet turtles and a room of my own. But I pay probably ten times as much. She's never lonely, and I have my privacy. It's just a trade-off I guess.
By the time I got home I was very tired. But I also felt very proud of myself. A social event actually initiated by me. A sense of what it might be like to be friends with a classmate. That is a good accomplishment even if it doesn't go any farther than that.
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