#fudan library

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Fudan, Monday Sept. 9 - Library | Ballin' | Po-po shut the vendors down

Library

I was sitting in the Humanities and Social Sciences library on the south part of Fudan's main campus.  I had been sitting here for nearly an hour and was still pleasantly surprised by the number of students in the library and the intensity of their study. The reading room is very long, about 3/4 of the length of North Reading Room but only a quarter of the width. It can't compare to the beauty of NRR but it is a very nice facility. There is another identical reading room downstairs (photo in previous post).

My first reaction when I walked in to the reading room was to smile -- while I didn't know these students or the study culture here, I could try to understood them. They needed to be in this environment to work. And even if it was just the first day of classes, their noses were already buried in their books. It is necessary.

Now, don't misunderstand -- these are still your average college students. Placed in the middle of some of their opened books are cell phones, shining bright with text messages and games. The guy across from me, for example, hadn't stopped smiling at his cell phone for almost the entire hour and a half I was there. While they may distract themselves just like Cal students at Stacks, we do know one thing: they sure as heck aren't on Facebook.

Ballin'

The other day when Joseph, Herman, and I were playing basketball at the indoor gym, it dawned on me just how many Chinese there were at Berkeley and how that has influenced my perception of what college students look like. At the RSF, more than half the people who ball are Asian and the majority of those are Chinese -- that's just probability theory in practice.

There were a few guys at the gym here who were really good and I was immediately taken back to the RSF. Without thinking, I asked him in English what the teams were and if we were going to start soon. It was strangely jarring when his response was a shaky few English words. It's cool that a commonality like basketball can make you believe that you've broken down cultural and language barriers.

Po-po Shut the Vendors Down

I'm sure that what I am about to describe will be a scene that many have heard of, read about, or even witnessed. A drug bust, for example, would be a similar scene. Students streaming out of crazy house party after the neighbors called the cops. Here, I describe the outdoor sidewalk vendor scene at the north gate of Fudan. 

As seen in the photo, about 15 to 20 vendors congregate on the side walk selling various food, including jianbing (煎饼), fresh fruit, fried pancakes, fried rice and fried noodles, wonton soup -- all the great street foods. About five of us were returning from class, which got out at 9 PM and a few of the girls were looking to buy some grapes. All of a sudden, we heard a shout.

The fruit vendor we were standing at immediately turned off his light bulb, pulled out the foam ice cooler box from underneath the cart, placed it on top of his oranges and shoved the cart away from us, through the north gate nearby, and onto the Fudan campus. Around us, the other vendors' lights went dark one by one. They began yelling and packing up in a hurry. The commotion was incredible -- like a scene out of a movie. They yelled at people to get out of their way and then began running their carts onto the campus whether or not the people had gotten out of their way. One of us almost got hit by the jianbing cart. The five of us hurriedly crossed the street at the crosswalk nearby. By the time we got to the other side of the street, the vendors were gone, leaving nothing behind. It took them less than 3 minutes to scatter completely.

So the stories are true: these vendors who illegally set up camp at a busy area such as the exit gate of a university are subject to police arrest should they be caught. They have lookouts who give them a warning that policemen may be approaching and the vendors have apparently perfected the 3 minute getaway. This north gate of Fudan is about a block from our apartment complex on Wudong Lu. Later that night, a few of us went out to get some ice cream at the supermarket nearby. When we stepped onto Wudong Lu, I looked right up the block toward the north gate entrance and sure enough, there they were. A sprinkling of bright yellow lights -- the vendors were back and all was well again.