Senior Sam Sherraden, an international affairs major and former Hatchet photo editor, spent the summer studying abroad in Beijing, China and is spending the fall semester further north in Harbin, China. Twice a month, he will share his experiences and observations from East Asia as one of GW's many expats.
The joke started when we saw someone just off campus, squatting on the ground, welding without eye protection, but instead using a white dinner plate to shield his eyes from the intense light. He would move the plate occasionally to see what work he had done, cover again and keep on welding.
Because rapid urbanization in China's cities and suburbs has created a vast market for construction, seeing people welding is commonplace. So, after seeing people welding with dinner plates, on the sidewalk, on campus and in quantities that we have never seen before, we have running joke among friends that in China, welding is a hobby. Not necessarily a hazardous or skilled profession, but rather something one does for entertainment in a park with friends or in the 11th story at 3 a.m. on a Saturday night because the blue light and sparks look cool.
One day we were carrying on about welders everywhere, and my neighbor Du Lin, an HIT junior, heard us joking and told us that he was a welding major. We explained the joke, and then he told us among all students at HIT, welding majors have the easiest time finding employment. HIT is the only University in China with an undergraduate welding department, and its graduates are in high demand.
While we make jokes in jest of the haphazard nature of some welding in China, we realized so many people working in construction sites melting steel together is quite a poignant symbol of China's rapid urbanization.
Since I drove in from the Beijing airport last June, I have felt like I was walking through the computer monitor of the classic computer game, SimCity. Buildings are being erected everywhere. In Chaoyang, one of the most modern and developed districts in Beijing, flocks of cranes litter the sky. Migrant workers from the west and central provinces sleep in bunkhouses on site, and during the day work long hours to finish construction before the 2008 Olympic Games.
The joke started when we saw someone just off campus, squatting on the ground, welding without eye protection, but instead using a white dinner plate to shield his eyes from the intense light. He would move the plate occasionally to see what work he had done, cover again and keep on welding.
Because rapid urbanization in China's cities and suburbs has created a vast market for construction, seeing people welding is commonplace. So, after seeing people welding with dinner plates, on the sidewalk, on campus and in quantities that we have never seen before, we have running joke among friends that in China, welding is a hobby. Not necessarily a hazardous or skilled profession, but rather something one does for entertainment in a park with friends or in the 11th story at 3 a.m. on a Saturday night because the blue light and sparks look cool.
One day we were carrying on about welders everywhere, and my neighbor Du Lin, an HIT junior, heard us joking and told us that he was a welding major. We explained the joke, and then he told us among all students at HIT, welding majors have the easiest time finding employment. HIT is the only University in China with an undergraduate welding department, and its graduates are in high demand.
While we make jokes in jest of the haphazard nature of some welding in China, we realized so many people working in construction sites melting steel together is quite a poignant symbol of China's rapid urbanization.
Since I drove in from the Beijing airport last June, I have felt like I was walking through the computer monitor of the classic computer game, SimCity. Buildings are being erected everywhere. In Chaoyang, one of the most modern and developed districts in Beijing, flocks of cranes litter the sky. Migrant workers from the west and central provinces sleep in bunkhouses on site, and during the day work long hours to finish construction before the 2008 Olympic Games.
