Yesterday professor Chen set us up to go on a research cruise with undergraduate Marine Biology students from XMU. We had to be ready to go at seven in the morning but given that I had been cooped up in the lab for the past week I jumped at the opportunity to be outside and see how field work is done in China. The experience was quite amazing. To begin when we get to the port where the boat is docked we see that boats are docked together three deep and we soon learned that our boat was the third boat from the dock. To make matters worse in China safety regulations can be non-existent so of course to get onto the first boat we had to walk a 6 ft X 1ft plank with a nice 25 foot drop if you fell off. On top of that getting over to our boat involved jumping over a series of deck rails to finally get to our boat. O just to add to the fun we were all carrying something, which was just heavy enough to throw our balance off the slightest bit. With all that said we some how all made it over to our boat unharmed and that’s no small feat considering there was over 50 of us!!!!

After that exciting bit we began the cruise, which was in many ways similar to field courses at Eckerd College. They used most of the same equipment for benthic and pelagic sampling and for the first time we worked at an American pace. It was quite interesting and showed me that solid fieldwork is pretty much completed in the same way around the world. We also made plenty of exceptional acquaintances and we had a great time getting to know some undergraduate students at XMU. Well that’s it for this week and I hope you tune in next week to see how my research in Xiamen Concludes!!!!!!

P.S. We did not have to walk the plank on the way back because we were at low tide and could use previously submerged stairs haha!

Well last week proceeded much like the previous two in the lab. We had to do preparations, preparations, and some more preparations thrown on top for good measure. Like the previous week though it provided me with ample time to get to know my lab mates and we figured out many ways to pass the time in a constructive manner, mainly through language classes. They are so eager to learn English and after a couple of weeks their oral skills have improved considerably. They have great knowledge of the language just no confidence what so ever when talking to a native speaker because they feel their pronunciation is “noo guud”. That may be so but unbeknownst to them they speak well enough for us to get the point of what they are saying.

So Lets move on to the real good stuff.

I was originally going to tell a little side story called Xiamen 48, however it seems Brian has beaten me to the punch, literally (If that punch was a guy on a moped getting hit by a bus) haha. Well lucky for me i had more then one exciting moment over the past 10 days albeit are star actor the crazy bus driver wont be making an appearance. On Monday June 28 I got to be the first Westerner to set foot on the Chinese Research vessel the Xue Long (The Snow Dragon). It is the Chinese premier Arctic research vessel and was designed to be a self-contained research vessel/ice breaker. The ship was definitely the largest I have ever been on with a crew of nearly 200!!!! Well that’s it for this weeks edition of Anthony reporting from the orient!

]]> http://www.eckerd.edu/academics/china/2010/06/75/feed/ http://www.eckerd.edu/academics/china/2010/06/the-preparations-continue/ http://www.eckerd.edu/academics/china/2010/06/the-preparations-continue/#comments Mon, 21 Jun 2010 02:23:40 +0000 Anthony Gianotti http://www.eckerd.edu/academics/china/?p=66 Week three turned out to be quite exciting/time consuming. I began the week by receiving two projects for the week from my professor. First i had to prepare 700 sample bottles, and second i had to clean 200 PUF’s (small filters used to remove large particles from seawater) for use on the Arctic cruise i mentioned last week. I bet this all sounds quite boring and lets be honest it was not the most exciting work. However it provided me with a wonderful opportunity to get to know my lab mates (since i was stuck in a small lab room with them for 10 hours a day). This turned out to be great because to pass the time we would do Karaoke, watch sports, and play some fun games to pass the time. In the end i believe my lab mates and i really turned a corner last week and it should definitely make my last few weeks in Xiamen unforgettable.

On top of the bonding experience i had two major scares while working in the lab both involving toxic chemicals. The first occurred Monday morning when I was washing bottles with what i thought was distilled water (that is until some of this mystery liquid spilled on my shirt). Within about 30 seconds the skin on my stomach started to burn and my shirt sprung a few holes. What i thought was water actually turned out to be a seven molar HCl (Hydrochloric Acid) solution. I blame my clogged nose for not allowing me to smell the solution, and my lab mates for not telling me what i was working with haha. As i am writing this blog today you can see that i survived the situation, however my shirt did not haha.

On to scare number two. On Thursday morning i was cleaning some PUF’s in a Soxhlet extractor with toluene, a fairly toxic organic solvent. Out of nowhere one of the beakers holding the toluene broke when i picked it up. Good thing one of my  lab mates was working with me, because the beaker literally shattered in my hands when i picked it up, i have never seen anything like it before and who would have believed me on that one. Well that is not where the fun stops because when i began to clean up the mess i noticed that the toluene had partially dissolved the latex gloves i was wearing. so not only was i cleaning up a broken beaker, but not my hands were now covered with a toxic chemical. I should have known the toluene would dissolve latex since it is often used as a paint thinner to dissolve latex based paints. O well i just washed my hands thoroughly and put on non latex based gloves to finish the cleanup process. I will say that watching your gloves dissolve while your handling a toxic chemical is not the most reassuring sight.

As i said before they experience of working with my lab mates in such close quarters provided me with the best opportunity yet to get to know my lab mates (especially the ones who’s English is not the strongest). By the end of the week i had gotten even my shyest lab mate Lin Jing to say a few words in English. Those few words were her asking me for help in preparing for her big English language exam she and another one of my mates Sunny ( Shi Xianming) has in three weeks. We have done two sessions so far and it is amazing how much they have both improved, i assume it is because they can both write very well in English, it is just that their verbal skills have never received any use prior to my arrival. Well i believe that is it for week three, stay tuned for next weeks edition of Anthony Reporting from the Orient!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well lets move on to the good stuff!! On this past Saturday all the Eckerd students and Professor Duncan went to go see a tǔlóu or 土樓 in simplified Chinese characters. The translation from Chinese is earthen building. They are extraordinary structures constructed from the 15th century up until the 1950’s by the Hakka people of Fujian Province. On July 7, 2008 UNESCO added the Tulou’s of Fujian Province to the World Heritage List under the moniker Hakka Houses. These structures are breathtaking they are basically an entire village enclosed into an area smaller then a football pitch. Some of the larger tulou’s contained 800 or more people at some point during there existence.

We had an amazing tour guide her name was Miss Zhang she took us to many different sites and even took us to her home town, which was a little town which did not pander to tourists like some of the other villages. Her town used the tourism dollars it earned to enhance the experience not hinder it like some of the other Hakka villages. We all sat in her mothers little tea shop drank tea, and talked for about it an hour it was truly a wonderful experience. She was also a wonderful tour guide as she took us to four different Tulou sites and gave us great insight at each location.

The tulou’s were an interesting mix of old and new. We went to one in which no commercialization had occurred and we went to others that were basically tourist traps in old buildings. It definitely shows how China’s rush to modernize has been both good an bad. I hope these communities are able to survive as more then tourist destinations. The Hakka People have a wonderful and unique culture and they should preserve as much of it as they can!!!!!!!

Now the final touch to an amazing weekend occured sunday morning around 4 A.M. Beijing time. THE UNITED STATES TIED ENGLAND IN THEIR FIRST GROUP STAGE MATCH. I stayed up to watch the game and was elated by the result. England has arguable the best team in the world cup, and the US a team full of no names tied them. I bet most Americans can name three players at best (Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey, and Landon Donnovan). Well as a huge football fan (yes football not soccer) i could not be happier i wish the US team my best and hope they can advance far beyond the Group Stages. Well that’s it for this week  keep tuning in for more up dates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Over the past week our group has been slowly acclimating to mainland China. The Chinese culture as a whole is very different from ours, for instance it is taboo for one to eat food with his/her hands and the use of forks and knives is comical to most Chinese. As a westerner in China i have learned much even though I have only been here for a week. I have started to pick up some of the language and even successfully ordered a meal in Chinese yesterday!!!!! (albeit it was in very broken Chinese)  Other then that as a westerner i have been received very warmly by all the people i have met. Everyone is eager to hear stories about America and for many people i am the first westerner they have ever spoken with!!!

Moving on from the societal differences and being a westerner in China, lets dig into the good stuff…the scientific research!!!!!! On this past Monday i began my research which is focused on Organo-chlorine Pesticide (OCP) levels in Arctic Ocean sediments. The work is very tedious and takes a long time to complete because you first have to extract organic materials from the sediment, separate out the OCP’s, then concentrate the sample down so the OCP levels can be accurately measured. Since i am working with organic pollutants the laboratory has to be kept sterile to avoid contaminating the sample. All in all the work should be interesting and will give me valuable lab experience that can only help me in the future.