(Also, putting a comment like "yawn" on one of my posts is neither constructive nor particularly mature. If you don't like what I am saying, or find it boring, either engage in some kind of criticism to improve it, or keep quiet.)
Thursday 12 June 2008
Issues
For some reason the formatting changes I am trying to make on each post (bold, italics, etc) are not working, and the whole text looks quite blocky. I'll try and fix this shortly. I am new to blogspot so be patient while I work it all out. Cheers.
Travel Preparations (Part One)
Before you get anywhere near jetting off, you'll have a couple of meetings to sort out what you need - you'll probably get a handbook with some useful information in it as well. There's heaps to sort out, and this post is only going to cover the following:
* Vaccinations
* Getting to China
* Accommodation
I am constantly reminding the girl who is travelling with me to Urumqi that "China is not like anywhere else". Whether this is in respect of people coughing their lungs up in the streets, the fact that a "Chinese" toilet is little more than a hole in the ground, or that mentioning you have a religion on a visa application can land you in hot water, it holds true - China is different, and you cannot be too careful. For this reason your handbook from SML will probably advise you to get a variety of vaccinations (or at least be up to date with most of them). The most common ones are:
- Hepatitis A - quite a high risk in China, where it can be found in plenty of foods.
- Hepatitis B - less of a risk (usually bloodborne), but if you end up in hospital and they don't have clean equipment, well you're just asking for trouble.
- Meningitis C - most people have this before even coming to university. I think it lasts for about 10 years.
- MMR - Measles, Mumps, Rubella - usually people receive one as a kid and one later on in life. According to my travel nurse, if I've had the second shot, I should be good for life.
- Tetanus, Diptheria, Polio - none of these are nice, get vaccinated. Chances are, if you've been abroad any other time in the last decade you will have had these vaccinations.
- Typhoid - waterborne, which in China means quite a lot of places (the tap water is not potable by any means).
Most, if not all, of the above can be obtained free of charge. With the exception of Hepatitis B (and possibly HepA), the above are all one-shot vaccinations (as far as I remember). Where HepB is concerned, a full course consists of 3 injections, followed by a blood test to ensure your body is sufficiently immune. If you are anything like me, your body will for some reason or other refuse to produce antibodies; if this is the case, a booster shot (or sometimes second course) may be prescribed, followed by another blood test. Not being immune to HepB isn't a massive deal, as above I said it is mainly bloodborne, so unless you plan to be shagging around or shooting up with people you should be okay ... But there is always the chance you will end up in a less-than-hygienic hospital, and if you're clever you'll remember the title of my blog. :)
However there are more serious diseases common in certain parts of China, and it is up to you to find out about them. Use a travel clinic, books, go online, and ask around. Of the more common serious illnesses that may be contracted in China, the following three are probably the ones you will hear about the most:
- Rabies - "mad dog disease", carried by just about any mammal, and almost unstoppably lethal once symptoms develop. It is entirely acceptable to enter China (where the disease is prevalent) without any form of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), but there are certain advantages to taking precautionary vaccinations. Number one, if you are bitten / scratched / otherwise come into contact with a rabid animal, a pre-exposure course gives you a little extra time to get to medical help (somewhere in the region of 36 - 72 hours I believe). Number two, it reduces the number of shots you require having come into contact with the virus. A normal course of Rabies injections is 5 shots given over a number of weeks. The pre-exposure course is 3 shots given in a 4-week period. Following this, should you be exposed, the post-exposure course is just 2 shots (instead of all 5). Cover lasts between 2 and 3 years, after which a booster shot is needed to keep the protection of the original pre-exposure course. From personal experience, doctors at the "Dog Bite Clinics" (yes they have them) in the large cities like Shanghai will have heard of PEP and know the correct procedure is to receive 2 additional shots only. Other locations, in smaller towns for example, may never have heard of PEP and will insist on giving all 5 injections. Fortunately vaccines like this are very cheap in most areas.
- Japanese (B) Encephalitis - normally transmitted in tropical regions (find a regional danger map online), the chance of getting the disease even if bitten by an infected insect is quite low, but as I said above, you cannot be too careful. The first course is almost the same as the Rabies PEP, 3 shots given sometime over a 4-week period, and then a booster shot every 2 or 3 years. Side effects can be worse with this shot (my experience anyway), but severe reactions are incredibly rare. Unlike Rabies, no post-exposure course is needed in the event you get bitten by a mosquito or whatnot.
- Malaria - tropical regions only, and I think the majority of people takes pills (if they take anything at all - I know people going to Haikou who are more "at risk" but will not be taking anti-malarial medication because of the side effects of prolonged usage).
Apparently a vaccine for Cholera exists. Apparently it is kind of useless as well - take it at your own risk (and your wallet's risk too I am informed). From what I've been told, if you are going to get cholera, you are going to get it. Lovely.
A word on costs - your GP can charge whatever the hell they want. In some cases you will have a wonderful practice where the logic goes something like "you are going to be at risk, therefore you need to be protected, therefore we will keep the cost as low as possible so you can be vaccinated and be safe". If this is the case, consider yourself lucky. A 3-shot course (Rabies or JapB Encephalitis for example) could cost as little as £6.50 (per 3-shot course). When I went to China on my GAP year I paid just £13.00 for those 6 shots.
Other practices take the "you are travelling, you are having some odd vaccination, it is your choice, so we will charge you a heap of money for inconveniencing us" - right now, I am registered with one such practice. I knew two people on my GAP year who were forced to choose between getting a vaccine or not simply because the full course ran into triple figures - if possible, change practice! I do not like the idea of not being protected against something just because I can't afford it. Fortunately I only need boosters for Rabies and JapB Encephalitis (one shot each), but both of those shots still costs £60 here. That's approximately 30x more expensive than at my last practice. You've been warned.
Remember to start having injections long before you intend to travel. Remember some vaccinations need blood tests and / or several weeks to be completed. Remember it is not very nice to have six or seven different vaccines running around your body all at once just because you left it a bit late. And remember to set aside a load of money for it all (if your GP is of the second variety especially).
Accommodation will vary from location to location - you'll be informed of what's on offer when you get your handbook. As for Urumqi, supposedly there is university accommodation (dorms / halls) for just £250/year. Yes, that's right, £250 for the whole year. The downside is that this year's students discovered the accommodation was that cheap because it was that bad. So bad they moved out as soon as they could. From what I have heard, there are plenty of refurbishments going on and the price has stayed the same, but I am reserving my judgement for when I arrive and see it with my own eyes. In the meantime I am seriously considering living out of the uni accommodation, not least because I enjoy my own freedoms and my own space. Yes, it will be more expensive, but it will still be a lot cheaper than the UK! And I can have a place to call my own. Be aware that if you go stay anywhere (hostels, hotels, even overnighting at some places) you may be required to register with the local police office (PSB - Public Security Bureau), and that not registering is something kind of serious. More on accommodation once I am out in China I imagine!
Part Two will probably cover things like Visas, Packing Extras and Money - but of course I've not written it yet ... so we'll see.
Choosing A University
The first post in what I hope will be a year-long blog of my Year Abroad experience - here I answer the question I get asked not most, but quite a lot ... "Why on earth are you choosing to study in Urumqi???"
Choosing was based on personal preference versus available spaces at the host universities. Where this process was concerned, the main problem was its speed (or relevant lack thereof) and the onus on students as a group to sort out themselves and their destinations. If you have no prior knowledge of China, then the choice of 6 different universities could seem quite daunting. Information and Year Abroad (YAB) meetings came quite late into the year, as did finalising choices; with hindsight I can now say that everything has worked out okay, everyone knows where they are going and most people have received paperwork from the host institutions. But be prepared to feel like the SML is taking their time! As for how to choose, your opinions, personal experience, likes (and dislikes!), and ability to handle interesting / new / different situations will all affect your final decision, but here's how I came to mine (the six institutions are Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Chengdu, Haikou and Urumqi):
* I lived in Shanghai for a month on my GAP year, and found that while it is in China it is not terribly Chinese. No one really stared at you (something Chinese will do when something / someone is interesting or strange to them) which is a good measure of how urban the place is! Not to mention the pollution and size of the city (circa 20 million people) - I quickly grew to dislike Shanghai, so that was automatically ruled out.
* As the capital, Beijing is heralded as a political and cultural hub, and the quality of the Chinese spoken there is second to none. Indeed, 北京话 (beijinghua, or Beijing Dialect) is standard across China, in a fashion similar to Queen's English - or what it would be if everyone in England was taught to speak "correctly" rather than in their regional accents / dialects. For a linguist, studying at the Beijing Cultural and Language University (BCLU) would be a dream. However, I have been to Beijing, and my opinion was quite jaded by the dreary weather (it was February), the smog and pollution, the masses of concrete (Tiananmen Square is just a large concrete plaza), not to mention its proximity (as with Shanghai) to the sea, giving its summers a propensity for humidity - all these lined up to rule out Beijing.
* Haikou is based on the island of Hainan, south of the Chinese mainland. It is like Florida in terms of climate, but with (I think) more monsoons. It is humid in the extreme - and yes, your accommodation might come with internet included, and air conditioning units, but it is likely I would never want to leave my room, and that both of these things would become a necessity rather than a luxury.
* Moving away from the sea, the cities of Chongqing and Chengdu are both located in Sichuan province. The main problem I have with Sichuan province is not the geology (it was recently the centre of a whopping earthquake), but the food. People belittle my reasoning here, but Sichuan food is spicy. I cannot handle more than a korma, and certainly not any chilli dishes - a recent excursion to a well-known Japanese restaurant proved this when my girlfriend offered me a slice of chilli and I foolishly accepted. It is likely that I would be eating three times a day (minimum), which amounts to approximately 1000 meals during my time in China. To feel upset and discomfort one thousand times in the course of a year is not something I want to remember from my YAB.
* Finally, we are left with Urumqi (Wulumuqi) - a landlocked city, 2000km from the nearest sea, where the summers are hot and dry, and the winters are exceedingly cold (average of -15C). A city which, though heavily industrialised, is only a short journey from stunning views (the Tianshan mountain range runs south of the city, and Heavenly Lake is so close that when it freezes over in winter I am told people go en masse to skate on it). A city where the options for local travel are not to the traditional Asian destinations of South Korea, Vietnam or Japan, but the more untouched countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and parts of Siberia (Russia). Yes, I am biased. But the city seems perfect for me, given the aforementioned choices - it is only 2 million people in size, it has a national ethnic minority (more on them in a later post), an ethnic language by default, and I will be forced to use my Chinese to communicate because English speakers are few and far between. Oh, and it's cheap as chips.
So, my advice to students who are given a range of options, but not much information, and are forced to make a relatively fast decision - get together quickly (use Facebook, set up a group to discuss issues), and then get your heads into some books or pick the brains of people who have either been to China and returned (fourth year students) or those of us out there. Read as much as you can, and ask as many questions as you can, because nothing is a stupid question - if you arrived in Chongqing and didn't like chilli but had neglected to ask, you might find yourself in for a horrible year.
(If anyone wants to contact me regarding Urumqi, please feel free. Either leave a comment on my blog or email me at h.l.joseph@ncl.ac.uk)
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