Life at Soochow University

The answer…?

Make it yourself!

I have since been perfecting my recipe for simple American style burritos that can be made with cheap ingredients that can be abundantly found in China. I can now make a big meal of burritos for about 15 RMB, enough to serve about 2-3 people, and it taste just the same as it did back in America, and that, my friend is a big accomplishment.

The biggest problem for some people will be the tortillas. Yes, sometimes you can find them at a Carrefour or other rip off expensive import grocery store, but they will cost 30 RMB and you will get 8 of them. That’s already double what my entire meal that I make costs, just for the bread! So, my solution is to make my own tortillas. They are not hard to make, and require no special ingredients for basic flour tortillas.

To make torillas, I add – 3 cups of flour, 1 cup warm water, one spoon of salt, and about 1/4 cup of cooking oil. Mix all these together, add extra flour as needed so it’s not sticky, seperate it into about 7-8 balls, and with a rolling pin, do your best to roll them flat and roundish. Cook them in a standard wok or pot until they turn color a little bit and dry out. It takes a little practice, but aim for about 2 minutes each one. Flour and oil cost basically nothing, so the total price for the tortillas I say is about 0.50 rmb. You can also add seasonings, tomato sauce, or anything else into the dough to get custom flavored tortillas.

For the meat, I usually end up buying ground pork instead of beef. For the seasonings, I have found that the standard el paso burrito seasoning pack is easy to find, about 4.50 RMB each. Either that or go online for a taco seasoning recipe. You just need some basic spices all of which can be found here (except onion powder… my kingdom for onion powder!)

Now for refried beans… These are EXPENSIVE! 25 RMB for a can. So to keep my price down, I instead make so called “spanish rice”. It is made with tomato sauce (you can buy small cans for 1.5-2 rmb each, often mislabled as “tomato paste” just shake the can and if it sounds watery, you got sauce!) and basic spices. I used the recipe for allrecipes.com. make it in a rice cooker, easy and delicious.

I usually skip adding cheese because again, expensive and hard to find good cheese for less than 50 RMB.

So if you make it my way: Tortillas – 0.50, meat – 8.00-10.00, rice, 3.00, seasoning, 4.50 – total, around 15rmb

If you use all premade ingredients: torillas – 30.00, meat -8.00-10.00, beans, 25.00, seasoning 4.50 – total, a lot.

To Food Loft Management,

Yesterday, I dined for the first time at your restaurant inside of In-City mall. I and my companion ordered the following:

2 bowls of rice
1 Teh Tarik
1 Milo
1 Assam Curry fish head
1 Chicken stay

First I will start with the positive feedback. I found the curry fish head was well above my expectations in terms of flavor and I very much enjoyed it, the price was also reasonable. The rice was also cooked properly (which it is often not the case in other restaurants, especially with Thai rice).

However, I have quite a few points of negative feedback which I feel are very important and should be paid close attention to. First, both of the drinks we ordered did not at all taste like true Singaporean beverages. I have lived in Singapore for more than 5 years and ate at a hawker centre or food court several times a day, every day during that time. I was very disappointed in this. While it was drinkable, it was absolutely not authentic. My “teh tarik” showed no evidence of “tarik” and just tasted like weak milk tea. The Milo was just as weak and lacking anything remarkable or enjoyable.

The curry fish head bowl was only filled about 40% of the way with gravy, instead of the normal 80% full, I actually ran out of gravy, and having only two people share, I found this was not enough. A normal fish head curry should have more than enough gravy for four people, not an insufficient amount for two. The dish was also severely lacking in vegetables. I only found 5 or 6 pieces of long bean, and about 4 pieces of brinjal, and that is all.

The biggest problem I had was with the satay. When I ordered it, I specifically told the waiter (in very clear Mandarin) that I did not want any cucumber on the plate. I then repeated this, stressing it was very important. When the waiter repeated our order, she did not say ‘chicken satay, no cucumber’, so I politely reminded her yet again, no cucumber, but she was already walking away before even asking me if our order was correct. After waiting for more than 20 minutes and having finished all of our other food, the satay finally arrived, with cucumber on the plate. I promptly told the wait staff that this was wrong. They took the plate away, and brought back another plate with no cucumber, however, all of the satay had cucumber flavor and stench on them already. The wait staff told me they would bring me a new order, but clearly this was a lie. I tried to tolerate it, until I bit into a piece of chicken that was completely raw in the middle. I stopped eating. I told the wait staff about my problem, and the female waiter simply looked at me with a blank stare and said, “So what is your point?” in Chinese. I said I want to speak to the manager. The “manager” came and said he would make us another plate of Satay. So another 20+ minutes later, another plate came, and it finally didn’t have cucumber, as I very fiercely stressed that I didn’t want cucumber and that I had made that abundantly clear with the waiter while placing the original order.

I am telling you this because I like there being a Singaporean restaurant near to me, and honestly I would love to be a regular customer. I want to feel like I can go down to Food loft anytime and know that I’m going to get what I ordered, and it’s going to be at least very close to authentic Singapore food. I sincerely hope that both your wait staff and your kitchen staff will focus on better customer relations, courtesy, quality control, and that your kitchen staff not be so stingy with ingredients. I will try to go to your restaurant again in the near future in hopes of having a better experience, but if that also fails to impress me, then I will not be returning anymore.

_____________

Dear ____,

I am sorry to hear of your unpleasant dining experience in my restaurant on 4-Sept-2011.

I make no excuses for the bad service and food quality for last Sunday. It is simply

the lack of good customer training and QC that lead to our sub-standard service.

We take all feedback seriously and will strive to improve on our shortcomings in terms of service and food quality.

As a token of our appreciation for your valuable comments, I have 2 X Rmb50 food vouchers for you which you can pick up in the restaurant’s cashier counter from today. Simply look for the manager and tell him that you are there to pick up the vouchers.

Thank you for your feedback and hope to see you again at Food Loft @ InCity.

If you encounter any problems in the future, please feel free to call me directly at

xxx. Thank you and have a good day.

Best Regards,

xxx

(I got the vouchers, tried to eat there again. The service from the staff was a lot better, but the food quality was still just so-so. It didn’t taste like real Singaporean food, it was more like Chinese people trying to make Singapore food with Chinese ingredients, which I guess is exactly what is was. They don’t seem to have any Singaporeans actually working at the restaurant. The second time I went I also ordered the fish head curry and asked for extra gravy. Apparently this meant to them ‘add water’, which resulted in a basically flavorless dish. Nice. I gave them a second chance and I’ve considered them as having failed it. I appreciate the sincerity of the owner though. Their prices aren’t that expensive so you might want to give them a chance yourself.)

To Casa Zoe Restaurant:

I just wanted to say that I had a very disappointing experience at your Xinghan location on Saturday the 29th. To start with, the tortilla chips were stale, cold, and tasteless, the salsa was also tasteless, cold, and flat. When the food we ordered arrived, it was luke-warm at best, and the meat was dry and had the consistency and appearance of canned cat food. The menu promised a side of “refried beans and spanish rice”, to which there was only about ONE TEASPOON of each on the plate.

Immediately after eating at your restaurant, my stomach started to get very uncomfortable, and for the next two days I have found myself suffering from gas, indigestion, and diarrhea.

I am absolutely appalled to be given such poor quality food, and I feel even more insulted when I read on your website, “Serving the highest quality Tex–Mex in a cozy, friendly atmosphere has become a Zoe family tradition.”. Yes, so cat food like dishes that give you indigestion and diarrhea and cost 65 RMB, all with teaspoon sized side dish portions and stale flavorless appetizers qualifies as “the highest quality”, then clearly the definition of “highest quality” has changed to mean something else entirely.

I can assure you that unless I am given a very clear explanation as to why this unbelievable lapse in quality control was allowed to pass, I will not only be informing all of my expat friends and co workers to steer clear of your restaurant, but I will also be posting this on my Suzhou expat blog.

I sincerely hope you will take my comments seriously to at least stop others from getting sick like I did.

No response after 2 weeks

This post is going to teach you hopefully everything you need to know about choosing, buying, registering, and the basics of driving an electric motorcycle, e-bike, electric bicycle, 电动车，电品车，电动自行车, or any of the other wacky names that may refer to what I simply refer to as ‘dian dongs’. I do not recommend using this word with Chinese people as they simply will not understand what the hell you are talking about.

Type:
There are three basic types of dian dongs that I will describe here. These terms I use are all of my own creation, so don’t expect them to be universally understood.

Motorcycle type: These come in a few different sizes, but they basically look like little motorcycles or mopeds or vespas or whatever. They often (but not always) have a rear storage compartment, headlights, rear view mirrors, no pedals, alarm, anti-lock breaks, cruise control, speedometer, steering lock, rear wheel lock, turn signals, horn, and can (legally) seat two adults, but are often seen with as many as four people on them at once. They have a range of up to 40-60km depending on battery, and top speed is controlled by a built in speed regulator which is often illegally removed. Legal speed regulators allow up to about 37kmph in my experience. Advantage is their many features, disadvantage is they are the most expensive, and they are the largest and can be harder to find parking space for. The bikes voltage rating controls how fast is can accelerate and how much it can handle weight. I’ve seen voltages go from the 30′s to the 70′s, the most common being 48 volts.

Hybrid type: These look like a cross between a bicycle and a motorcycle. They typically have a special, separate seat in the back with a second pair of handles for the back seat person to hold, have much less of a physical profile (not as wide) and sometimes have a storage basket in front. Pedals are also optional. These types cost slightly less than the motorcycle type, but often lack features, and can only seat 2, legally or otherwise. 3 out of 4 times you see these on the road, it’s a woman or girl driving, and they often have children sitting on the back seat. Men tend to avoid these, must be a fashion thing.

Bicycle type: These are bicycles. If you look closely however they do have a very simple battery and motor. These are becoming quite unusual on the road, and the ones you see tend to be very old and in bad shape. I suspect that these have gone out of style in general. They will often not have headlights, mirrors, horns, storage, alarms, or any other features besides being a bike with a battery. Advantage is their low weight (Just the battery and frame) and profile makes them easy to park in small spaces.

Brands:
There are a billion brands of bikes out there, most of them are total crap however. I was personally recommended by several people and numerous Chinese language websites to buy Xinri brand, as they are of the highest reputation for quality. They are also the most expensive. Other brands I see a lot on the road are heping, emmelle, and yadea. There is a brand I saw called LDSAMSUNG but honestly I don’t think they are related to Samsung, the Korean electronics company. I saw one bike that was labeled in English as “OFFROAD 4×4″. Obviously, they don’t know that 4×4 = four wheel drive.

Prices:
Prices range from the mid 1500′s to 3000 and up. For a good bike, you should expect to pay at least 2800. I personally paid 2899 and apparently mine is the low end configuration of my model. The high end version (different battery and supposedly better shocks, was around 3300). For reference, a good non electric bike is around 800 RMB.

Batteries:
There are two numbers to pay attention to. Voltage and Amp Hours. A pretty standard basic battery will be 48v 12Ah. A slightly higher capacity will be 48v 16Ah. Basically, Volts is the power, how fast it accelerates, handles multiple passengers, handles steep hills, etc. No matter the voltage, it will still stop accelerating once it hits the speed regulators top allowed speed. The amp hours affects how long it can run for, and is essentially distance. Typically, 12Ah = 40km, 16Ah = 60km. I personally have found this to be fairly accurate, as I can drive to work and back twice on one charge of a 12Ah battery, and the distance is 9km each time. All batteries on the market are lead-acid based, and as such you should avoid fully discharging them, leaving them empty for long periods of time, and when charging give them a full 12 hour charge. After market batteries can be bought at lots of different shops, but beware of cheap knockoffs and batteries that lack overcharge protection circuits. You can buy a battery with a large amp hours rating, but always use the same voltage as your original battery. To charge your battery, your bike will have an outlet, and the battery can also be removed and brought indoors to charge. These things weigh a ton (mine feels like about 3 bowling balls). Some bikes may also use two smaller batteries, instead of one big battery.

How to drive:
This is a complicated subject, but I will do my best to simplify it. Basically speaking, there are no official rules. Dian dongs are almost completely unregulated. People break the rules constantly and suffer no consequences, even when the police are standing next to their bike as they zip off through a red light. Regardless, for your own safety, I suggest you follow the below rules:

1. Stay in the bike lane unless there is no bike lane, or there is something blocking it. If you can’t ride in the bike lane, you can go onto the street, but stay as absolutely far to the right as possible and go slowly. Watch for cars when outside of the bike lane.

2. Stop at red lights! And even when its green, be wary of cars that will try to turn in front of you. You technically have the right of way, but be careful as people here can be selfish assholes. Some intersections have a special traffic light just for bikes. Give that top priority. You can also look for a pedestrian crossing light as a reference for when you can cross. Legally, you are just a pedestrian on wheels.

3. Drive in a straight line as much as possible. If you want to move to the other side of the bike lane for whatever reason, check your mirrors/behind you first. Someone may be trying to pass you, often someone with no speed regulator and that is wearing headphones and generally isn’t paying attention.

4. When passing someone, if it looks like they aren’t paying attention or are swerving, honk first. This isn’t considered rude, and even if it was, you should do it for safety reasons. Two quick honks is usually a good method.

5. Be ready for anything. Anything and everything can and will happen in the bike lane. It is completely unregulated and uncontrolled. Pedestrians will often walk down the center of the bike lane despite there being a wide open sidewalk next to it. Cars will park and drive into/out of the bike lane. Be especially weary of parked car doors that can suddenly swing open. If possible, stay away from parked cars.

6. Let people pass you. Especially men, they tend to be the worst drivers. Just let them go around you and zip off, don’t let them bother you. At a busy intersection, don’t get caught up in a wad of other bikes, let them all pass you first, then you can go and pass the slow movers. Wads of bikes are very dangerous. Women drivers tend to drive slower and safer, but at the same time they do not make any effort to actually watch where they are going. Sexist as it may seem, let men pass you, but try to get ahead of women so they don’t suddenly swerve in front of you and make you crash.

7. When stopped at a red light, stay to the left, people will want to turn to the right on a red (legal) so give them space.

8. Don’t flap your arms and legs everywhere when stopped or in motion, people will zip past you within inches of your bike, don’t let them hit your arms or legs. This happens and people can get seriously injured.

9. Watch for people driving in the wrong direction, for some reason they will stick to one side and expect you to move if you are on the same side as they are.

10. Always use your headlight when it’s even a little bit dark. It’s not about helping you see, it’s about making you more visible to cars and other bikes, especially bikes going the wrong way.
Maintenance issues:
1. Check your tires for proper air pressure. Add air when needed.
2. Adjust your mirrors each time you ride, they get bumped around a lot when they are parked.
3. Pay attention to your brakes. If they start to squeal, get them fixed/replaced.
4. Battery life will decline over time, if the bike no longer holds a charge long enough for you, get a new battery. Recycle your old battery!
5. If your bike is just a useless piece of garbage held together by duct tape, sell it for a few hundred RMB and get a new one! They aren’t that unbearably expensive.

Last but not least…

Licensing:
In Suzhou, you need to get a little license plate. The shop that sells your bike can probably do this for you on the spot. It costs 8 yuan, and you need to have your ID, and know your address and phone number. They can help you put the plate on (I had to ask them directly, only then did they help). They also might have different hours for the registration office than sales. When I bought my bike, the registration office was closed (I got mine at RT mart, the office closes at 5, but sales are open until 10pm). So I had to come back a day later to get the plate. Keep the receipts and such that you get when you buy and register your bike. If you want to sell your bike, you need this stuff to transfer it legally to a new owner. Expect the price of your bike to drop at least 40-50% when you resell it. You might also consider buying a second hand bike from another expat, check on the wanted or for sale ads in the local expat boards. Sometimes other students who are leaving Suda will sell theirs to you, but it seems like you need to have connections for this.

My Bike

A long time ago, there used to be an area on campus near the bridge that connects between the north and east campus that would sell all kinds of wacky snack-type food for low prices, and they were open for much more flexible hours than the cafeteria (which has 3 strict open and close phases, one for each meal). When I came to visit here in 2010, I noticed that they were building a new dormitory structure where snack street used to be. Well, snack street is just a memory now, and seems like only I remember it. So what exactly happened to it? Well, I don’t know how smooth this transition was since I wasn’t here, but the 4 cafeterias (2 buildings, 2 levels each) have been modified to such an extent that now everything you used to be able to get on snack street can be bought at the cafeteria’s sub-stores. They are open for very flexible hours, often as late as 11pm, and you can pay using cash OR your student lunch cash card. Here is what I have personally found to be available:

ma la tang (2 shops)

fried rice (2 shops)

gai jiao fan (lit. served on top of rice, i.e. gong bao ji ding gai jiao fan = kung pao chicken with/on rice)

chao mian

fen si (duck blood noodle soup? something “ya xue fen si”)

shui jiao

hun dun

mian tiao tang

sha xian delicacies (like a fujian version of lan zhou la mian)

taiwan shou zhua bing (with mayonnaise? They put mayonnaise on mine and I didn’t ask for it, sucked.)

fried chicken

beef/chicken hamburgers – china street stall style, still pretty good though

and even some 30 RMB+ restaurant style dishes

Here is the menu for my personal favorite shui jiao shop on the second floor

A small bowl is 6RMB, and a big bowl is 8RMB. This shop also sells noodle soup, as seen on the right hand of the menu.

Looks good right?

There is just ONE thing missing that I haven’t been able to find. After discussing this and trying desperately to explain this to other people, I have never been able to figure out exactly what it’s called… there used to be a kind of flat bread you could buy at the old snack street. The shop had this big, very old oven, and they would make this flat bread in rectangular shapes, and when you ordered it, it cost 1.5 yuan, and you had a choice of either spicy or sweet sauce, or neither. I used to eat this almost daily… and for the life of me I have never since found anything like that anywhere in China, nor have I found any special name for it besides just ‘bread’. The other flat breads I’ve found are either too oily and soft, i.e. tai wan shou zhua bing, or way too crunchy and covered in a honey-sesame flavoring. I really wish I would have taken a picture of that shop.

Here is my non-exhaustive list of nearby or relatively nearby (to Suda) American or other Western shops and restaurants that I consider to be useful to know about. There will be plenty of holes in this list, so if you have any suggestions to add please leave a comment and I will keep this post up to date. Seems like McDonalds is only at the very inconvenient and overcrowded Guan Qian Jie, however there are usually lots of places to sit inside unlike the over crowded KFCs.

Pizza Hut:

1. Auchan shopping complex – Jin Ji Hu Lu – 15 minutes walk, 5 minutes by bus

2. Guan Qian Jie – Gan Jiang Road – 30 minutes walk, 15 minutes by bus

3. RT Mart – Dong Huan Lu/Xian Dai Dadao – 20 minutes walk, 8 minutes by bus

4. Times Square – Xian Dai Dadao – 20 minutes by bus 204, too far to walk

5. Tian Hong Plaza – Xing du Road/Xian Dai Da Dao – 25 minutes walk

McDonalds

1. Guan Qian Jie – Gan Jiang Road – 30 minutes walk, 15 minutes by bus (2 shops at this location

KFC

1. Auchan shopping complex – Jin Ji Hu Lu – 15 minutes walk, 5 minutes by bus

2. Carrefour shopping complex – dong huan lu – 25 minutes walk, bus routes unknown

3. Guan Qian Jie – Gan Jiang Road – 30 minutes walk, 15 minutes by bus (2+ shops at this location)

4. RT Mart – Dong Huan Lu/Xian Dai Dadao – 20 minutes walk, 8 minutes by bus

5. (Somewhere between Shi Quan Jie and Shi zi jie – locating in progress)

6. In-City Mall(Walmart) – Xian Dai Dadao – 25 minutes walk, 10 minutes by bus + 5 minutes walk

7. Times Square – Xian Dai Dadao – 20 minutes by bus 204, too far to walk

8. Another shopping complex on Xian Dai Dadao, locating in progress – between In-City and Times Square

Dairy Queen (DQ)

1. Auchan shopping complex – Jin Ji Hu Lu – 15 minutes walk, 5 minutes by bus

2. RT Mart – Dong Huan Lu/Xian Dai Dadao – 20 minutes walk, 8 minutes by bus (Newly opened)

3. Guan Qian Jie – Gan Jiang Road – 30 minutes walk, 15 minutes by bus (Inside a shopping mall – location unconfirmed)

4. Times Square – Xian Dai Dadao – 20 minutes by bus 204, too far to walk

5. Tian Hong Plaza – Xing du Road/Xian Dai Da Dao – 25 minutes walk

Burger King (BK)

1. In-City Mall(Walmart) – Xian Dai Dadao – 25 minutes walk, 10 minutes by bus + 5 minutes walk

2. Times Square – Xian Dai Dadao – 20 minutes by bus 204, too far to walk

Starbucks

1. In-City Mall(Walmart) – Xian Dai Dadao – 25 minutes walk, 10 minutes by bus + 5 minutes walk

2. Guan Qian Jie – Ren Min Road – 30 minutes walk, 15 minutes by bus (Inside a shopping mall – location unconfirmed)

3. Xin Du Square – Jin Ji Hu Road – 30 minutes walk, 15 minutes by bus

Cold Stone Ice Cream

1. Near Xin Du Square – Jin Ji Hu Road – 30 minutes walk, 15 minutes by bus

2. Somewhere on the lakeside of Jin Ji Hu lake near Zapatas mexican bar

Subway

1. In-City Mall(Walmart) – Xian Dai Dadao – 25 minutes walk, 10 minutes by bus + 5 minutes walk

2. SISPARK – Jin Ji Hu Da Dao – 20 minutes walk, bus routes unknown

3. Tian Hong Plaza – Xing du Road/Xian Dai Da Dao – 25 minutes walk

Last update on 09-Nov-2011

I nearly fainted (again) when I discovered that Suzhou has both a Walmart(wa er ma) and a Burger King. And to top things off, they are actually in the same complex, which isn’t that unbelievably far from the university. I believe you can either take a bus, or just walk there if you don’t mind. I suspect the walk would take between 30-60 minutes depending on both road conditions (i.e. construction blocking walkways) and your personal walking speed. A taxi ride would, I imagine, be no more than 10-12 yuan depending on driver and traffic.

So here is the details:

It’s located on Xiandai da dao (sometimes it’s written as “Modern avenue” on street signs, instead of pin yin). Xiandai da dao is located just off of donghuan lu after gan jiang (guan qian jie) on the right hand side if you are walking north (toward guan jian jie).

The shopping complex itself is called ‘In-City’ or yin xiang cheng shi, and has quite a few shops. What’s interesting about this mall, is that I highly suspect it was a Singapore-China cooperation. This is clearly evident in the fact that there are Singapore restaurants, as well as a few outlet shops that are almost exclusive to Singapore, i.e. Beard Papa, and some other milk tea kind of shops. Other than that, the mall just feels Singaporean, and I mean that in a good way.

The burger king is on the first floor, and unlike Burger King’s Singapore counterpart, it is not halal, meaning  I can finally get some damn bacon on my burger instead of that turkey-bacon stuff they sell in Singapore. So yes, hurray for real bacon. It is expensive though, expect to spend more than you would at KFC/McDonald’s as Burger King (han bao wang, lit. “Hamburger King”) is newer and has a more high-class image. A combo meal starts at around 30 and up, compared to McDonald’s 20 and up. But seriously, it’s worth it if you are craving some good upper-class fast food. I haven’t been to America in almost 3 years so I can’t say how the menu compares, but I found it quite similar to the Singapore menu with the exception of no rendang burger (which I think is being phased out in SG anyway, as I couldn’t order one last time I was there a couple months ago) and of course, real bacon instead of turkey bacon.

In closing, I would like to mention that while others may not find this as equally exciting, I as a Seattleite, whom did not ever see a Starbucks in China until I went to Wuxi in 2010, was sort of excited. Thus far I have found 2 Starbucks in Suzhou. One is on ren min lu near guan qian jie, the other is on jin ji hu lu (same road as auchan). It should be noted that the jin ji hu lu location is a VERY long walk from Suda, I suggest you take a bus, specifically you can take numbers 28 and 207 from Suda to the stop called xin du guang chang (馨都广场)

In this photo you can see xin du guang chang is 6 stops from “su da dong xiao qu” AKA Suda on dong huan lu, and later continuing on to feng men, the area behind/beside the school.

This took me forever to figure out last time and caused a ton of hassle, so this time I got it right.

Let me begin my saying that the water in China sucks. I mean, it flat out sucks. It tastes awful, and drinking it will make you sick so I’m told, and frankly I believe it due to it’s awful taste and smell. The only way you can drink it is by boiling it, but it still tastes awful and probably has some negative side effect. Last time, my solution was to just buy copious amounts of Tang to try and cover the nasty flavor of the boiled nastiness. Well, there is a better solution, and it costs practically nothing.

The trick is to buy a water dispenser (maybe known to you as a water cooler), the kind they have at office buildings and car dealerships back in the states. You can pick up a small one at Auchan or Carrefour for 100RMB. However, they are kind of reverse water coolers because they don’t have any refridgeration equipment, but they have water heating equipment inside. You flip a switch on the back to turn it on, and when the ‘jia re’ 加热 light goes off, you have boiling water! Pour out your water, then turn it off.

This solves a few problems. For one, you don’t need to use the school provided water boiler (kettle) which is usually nasty and stinky and needs some serious cleaning, and secondly, the water is completely tasteless, due to it being distilled. So how on earth do you get the water into your dorm? It’s easy!

Call this number: 0512-65112709 Or ask the front desk a-yi to do it for you. They close at 5pm, so call before that. If you can do it yourself, tell them you would like tong zhuang shui delivered to your room. You will be asked to provide your dorm room number (all four digits). Within 15 minutes, a man will knock on your door with the bottle of water.

You need to give him 110 RMB. This pays for:

40 RMB Refundable bottle deposit

12 pre-paid 17 liter bottles of water, and a coupon book with 12 coupons, 1 for each bottle.

So after that, the delivery man will take one coupon away for the bottle he has now. And that’s it. Next time you need a bottle replaced, call again, they will bring it up within 10 minutes, and take away the empty bottle. And now you have perfect drinking water for the entire semester… for about 170 RMB in total. Can’t beat that!

Water bottle coupon

My only word of caution is that when you get the first bottle, you need to remove the plastic wrapper around the nozzle, but DO NOT remove the blue rubber-plastic cover, that will be punctured and popped open once you place the water bottle on the dispenser. I almost pulled this off and got myself in a really bad spot, lucky I didn’t get it off all the way before I figured out what it was for. Finally, if you would like to buy an actual water-cooler, in that it makes the water cold AND hot, you need to spend a lot more, probably around 800+. Not really worth it if you ask me… just put some water in a bottle in the fridge!

Wow… It’s been exactly 4 years since I first arrived in Suzhou, had a panic attacked and cried myself to sleep the first night, then woke up a new man.

Things have changed here to such a degree that at sometimes I feel a little lost, but honestly I’m glad to say that deep down it’s still the same suzhou, with most of the core elements still in place. The biggest changes by far are:

1. The buses now talk, they say “The bus is turning, caution” in Chinese. I noticed that when I was staying in Hangzhou in 2010, I guess they deployed that talking bus feature here as well.

2. “Snack street” as I called it, the area by the west gate where you could buy malatang and other snacks is completely gone and replaced by a new dorm structure. I noticed this when I visited here in 2010, back then they were still building it. As I recall, snack street was destroyed on my last day in Suzhou, back in 2008. I guess I had just hoped it was being rebuilt, not totally wiped out.

3. Feng men street seems to have changed a lot, lots of new shops and old ones gone. There was a lanzhou la mian there but it seems to be gone now. (Still there! It’s closer to dong huan lu than I had previously remembered.)

4. The brothels seem to be gone. Nobody shouting at me from pink colored “hair salons” when I went out walking last night. Guess the police finally woke up and did their job.

5. Plastic shopping bags cost money. They are now priced at 0.17 cents, 0.30 cents, and 1.00 rmb for the different sizes. Frankly I think this is a great choice as I hope it will make people think twice before going crazy on the plastic. Those are Auchan prices by the way, seems most small and mid size shops charge 0.20 cents for a standard size bag.

6. Prices at lan zhou la mian have gone up, no big surprise there. I paid 6 RMB for beef fried rice last night, used to be only 4 last time I checked.

7. All the dorm rooms have been equipped with this weird, seemingly useless array of network jacks. My room has 4 jacks labeled ‘AMP network’, and are all completely useless, must be a future deployment thing, maybe a 10,000Gbps Cat6/fiber network? That would be cool, but for now it’s just wasted space and weird dangling wires that I can’t remove since they are embedded into the wall.

8. The dorm no longer provides a mattress! This is really weird. I bought one at Auchan for 155RMB that is essentially the same as the dorm used to provide. Weird.

9. The washing machines are now coin operated. They used to be you paid a flat 25 RMB per semester and then had unlimited use. It now appears to be 3-4 RMB per wash cycle to use.

And the biggest change of all…

10. Auchan has been completely rebuilt, and has almost tripled in size. It is now essentially a shopping mall, complete with Jack Jones, Pizza hut, and even a Dairy Queen for heavens sake! It’s completely awesome, and a great shopping resource. But same as before, if it’s at all possible, don’t go on the weekends, it’s a mad house! I would suggest you go to Carrefour further down dong huan lu on the weekends as it doesn’t get so crowded.

There are other changes, but these were the ones that really jumped out at me the most. Pictures to come later.

I’m back in Suzhou, please wait for some more updates and details. Seems like a number of things have changed since my last semester here back in 2007, so I will let you all know the changes once I’ve worked them out. Thanks and stay tuned!