Research, Research, Research...

Hello everyone! Now that Chinese New Year celebrations are officially over, the war-zone sounding fireworks are over and everyone has returned to work. And for me that means my first week of school! As part of the Fulbright, I (as a recent grad) am required to audit at least 1 class at my university, 交大. Yesterday I attended my first day of the two classes I am planning to audit. (Auditing, in case you aren't familiar with this term, means just listening and reading for the class. You don't have to do any assignments and are not graded.) The first class is called "Population and Development 人口与发展", which discusses the following aspects/problems of China's Population: aging & elderly welfare, gender ratio imbalance & related marriage/family issues, mobile population, and the one-child policy. While I think it'll be interesting, this class doesn't have anything to do with my actual topic (NGOs & Women's Political Participation) so that's frustrating. My second class is called "Public Policy Analysis 公共政策分析", which also isn't directly related to my topic, although there are some government policies designed to increase women's political participation (not that we'll be studying those necessarily). This class is taught by my sponsoring professor so it'll be good face time with her. And surprisingly,  I understand 70-80% of what the teachers said yesterday! That is, when I was paying attention...Have you ever tried to listen to 4 hours straight of graduate-level, extremely specialized Chinese in lecture format? Ya, I didn't think so...It's EXHAUSTING. But I bet my listening skills will improve a ton. I've already begun a vocab word list of words I hear in class that I don't know. :) I'm such a nerd.

Here's my school, beautiful right? so much grey...

In addition to classes, I have begun making progress on my actual Fulbright project! So now when I say I'm doing "research", I actually know what that means! Well, sort of...My plan as of now is to do a 1-3 case studies of different Chinese NGOs (not including the Women's Federation, because, let's be real, they're not an NGO) who are currently carrying out programs that promote women's participation in rural women's village committee elections. (Yes, China has a little democracy! Woah!). The question is finding these NGOs and getting connected to them. I have made one great connection so far- a woman who runs the biggest women's rights NGO in Xi'an! I went to her office today, and got 11 new books to read all about past NGO programs focusing on women's political participation. All in Chinese of course. So mostly right now, I'm reading, reading, reading. And trying to 攀关系 (use my connections)...

Other than classes and research, I haven't done anything particularly exciting since returning from the US. Most of my friends are back in Xi'an from their Spring Festival travels so I have friends again, yay! I have dealt with a number of apartment issues, including one day where my internet, electricity, and gas were all out (because I didn't pay/didn't understand how to pay my bills, oops!). And today I've had no water all day because of a construction accident that knocked out our water main so that means no dish washing, no laundry, no toilet, no shower...so convenient.

I leave this Friday for a nice long trip full of fun and work! I will spend the weekend in Beijing with friends, then fly to Taiwan on Monday for a Fulbright conference. After 5 days of all-expenses-paid in Taipei, some Fulbright friends and I will travel around the rest of the island of Taiwan (mostly likely to Taroko Gorge and the beach!). Then I fly to Shanghai for a girls weekend and a Vassar networking event! Then back to Xi'an mid-March. Talk to you then!