Category: Sigur Center Summer Research & Language Fellows

Getting Around

Before coming to Chandigarh, I was very worried about how I would travel from place to place. As an American residing in Washington, D.C. I will say that while I tried to walk as much as I could Chandigarh isn’t a particularly walkable city. As a result, I recommend using rideshare services in metropolitan areas such as Chandigarh instead of public transport. Rickshaws are widely available, but I found InDrive and Uber to be the most reliable ways to travel in Chandigarh. InDrive is essentially the Indian version of Uber, but there are less safety features. On Uber, you are given an OTP verification pin that you must verbally relay to the driver before the driver is able to begin the ride. 

InDrive has much less accountability for its drivers, so the only information you have about the driver is their license plate number and their name. In addition, I’ve noticed that many family members may use the same InDrive account so the profile may not always match, or the license plate does not. In these cases, you must weigh the situation and decide whether to proceed with the ride. However, it is difficult to connect an international credit card to Uber and because there are less Uber drivers than InDrive drivers in the area, it takes much longer to get a confirmed ride. Generally, my rule was to take InDrive during the day and Uber at night. It is safe to use rideshare services alone during the day, but I would plan accordingly to be home before dark if you are alone just to be safe. I never had an Uber or InDrive driver in my time in Chandigarh that made me feel unsafe, but always remain vigilant and aware of your surroundings, especially as a lone female. 

International Credit Cards

While I was under the impression that my United international credit card would work in India, I quickly realized that this was not the case. Due to the security levels of foreign credit cards being lower, you often can’t use them in India. There were exceptions to this, for example, cafes such as Blue Tokai and Nomad in Chandigarh accepted foreign credit cards because foreigners often visited their establishments. In addition, I was also able to use my credit card in McLeod Ganj and Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh because they were tourist destinations that received many foreigners, particularly Israeli tourists. However, as a rule, carry two to three thousand rupees in cash on you when going out for the day because you can never be sure where your credit card will or won’t be accepted. Make sure some of this cash is constituted by smaller bills, such as ten-, twenty-, fifty-, and hundred-rupee bills if a vendor doesn’t have much change. While the most used electronic payment forms in Chandigarh seem to be PhonePe and PayTM, I would try to set up Google Pay because PhonePe and PayTM require an Indian phone number and bank account. 

Getting Sick

Due to the difference in water and food, you will likely often have stomach issues throughout your trip. As a result, I suggest keeping the following remedies to treat yourself as needed. Pour a spoonful of Isabgol (Psyllium) in water and drink a full glass before eating anything for the day or 3-4 hours after eating if you are having constipation or diarrhea, it helps regulate your body’s stool production. If you have a bacterial infection that is causing loose bowel movements, then a three-day course of Azithromycin antibiotic will clear it up. If you are dehydrated, pour a spoonful of Oral Rehydration Salts in your water and drink throughout the day. All these remedies are available over the counter at your local chemist, which is the American equivalent of a pharmacy. 

Phone Plan

While I paid for a Verizon international phone plan, I would also invest in a Jio or Airtel Wi-Fi dongle. These portable dongles provide 24-hour Wi-Fi as long as you carry the palm-sized dongle in your pocket or bag after charging it at night. The combination of the Wi-Fi dongle and phone plan made sure I was never without the ability to call or message others in the case of an emergency phone number. On a slightly less serious note, I suggest getting a temporary Indian phone number if possible. For food or package delivery, an Indian phone number is usually necessary, and if you are used to the convenience of Grubhub and UberEATS or Amazon in the US, then you will most likely make use of apps such as Zomato for food and Flip Kart for packages.

Simran Bhathal, B.A. in International Affairs 2025

Sigur Center 2023 Language Fellow

India

The American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) is an organization focused on promoting American scholarship on India and offers a myriad of language learning programs in South Asian languages. Lucknow, Jaipur, and Kolkata’s AIIS Language Centers are partner institutions of the Critical Language Scholarship offered by the State Department for Urdu, Hindi, and Bangla respectively. In addition to the languages I have mentioned above, AIIS has numerous other language centers across India ranging from Gujarat to Tamil Nadu which are not partner institutions of the CLS program. This past summer, I was studying Punjabi in Chandigarh, Punjab through AIIS from June to August. 

In this blog post, I want to discuss some features of the AIIS program that make them a great choice for American students who are interested in studying abroad in India. The program is extremely structured, with 4 hours of class per day and two one-hour one-on-one tutoring sessions with your instructor per week. On every other weekend, there are cultural trips to local heritage sites. For example, I visited Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, Punjab. For the beginner to intermediate levels, the four hours of class are divided into the several different functions of language learning: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. While the classes and timings are extremely structured, what activities you complete in class vary day to day, so it does not become monotonous. While we work on listening several times a week, our listening materials vary from movie scenes to news segments. Over the course of eight weeks, an extremely detailed syllabus and every single skill needed for learning a new language is thoroughly covered. 

While the classes are rigorous and there is homework every day, there is ample time for exploring your city as well. Class begins at 9 AM and ends at 1 or 3 PM depending on if you have a personal tutoring session that day. As a result, you have many evenings and every other weekend of the program available to explore. In addition, AIIS also has a mid-term break where you have three days off. During my midterm break, I was able to travel to McLeod Ganj and Dharamshala in the neighboring state of Himachal Pradesh. Essentially, your language skills will progress exponentially, but you will also be able to take part in local culture and have opportunities to travel. 

AIIS staff are also incredibly helpful, caring people. From helping you sort issues with your host family to locating laundry services in your new city, they will do everything they can to help you acclimate to life in a completely different country. Towards the beginning of my program, I got stuck at a cafe with an almost dead phone and not enough money to cover the cost of my meal. The next day, my program teachers asked why I hadn’t called them because they’ve in fact helped students get out of similar situations in the past. While AIIS staff are your teachers, they often do much more than what is included in their job description because they want students to reach out to them in sticky situations. 

Through AIIS, my Punjabi skills progressed exponentially because of my in-class learning but I was also able to quickly acclimate to India because of the out-of-class learning as well. I highly recommend studying through the American Institute of Indian Studies if you are looking to study abroad in India because of the efficacy in the classroom and support outside of the classroom offered by the program. 

Simran Bhathal, B.A. in International Affairs

Sigur Center 2023 Language Fellow

India

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China is one of the world’s most prosperous cities. It is a coastal area of 1,106 km² with a population of 7.41 million (World Bank, 2021).  This city has been rated by the Demographia International Housing Affordability report as the most unaffordable housing market in the world for 12 consecutive years.

To cope with the affordable housing challenge, the Government of Hong Kong has adopted mass public housing programs as key solutions since the 1950s. As of 2020, public housing represents 43.3 percent of the total housing stock. And 45 percent of the Hong Kong population live in public housing (Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong, 2021).

Notably, there are two types of public housing, including public rental housing and subsidized sale flats. Public rental housing refers to housing estates that are built for and then rent to low-income residents at a price lower than the market rate. Subsidized sale flats consist of flats sold at a discounted price to middle-income households. Both types of public housing have specific eligibility criteria (e.g., limits on age, residence status, income level, ownership of any domestic property, total years of living in Hong Kong) and application processes that are set and managed by two entities in Hong Kong – the Hong Kong Housing Authority and the Hong Kong Housing Society.

Public housing features tall towers with many compact flat units while subsidized sale flats could be less dense compared to public rental housing. For public rental housing units, nearly half of them have a flat size of 30-39.9 m², 16.5 percent have a flat size larger than 40 m², and more than one-third have a flat size smaller than 30 m². The average monthly rent ranges from HK$66/m² to HK$83/m² (around US$8-11/m²), depending on the location of the public rental housing estate. As a comparison, the average monthly rent of a private housing unit is estimated at HK$261-401/m² (around US$34-52/m²) (Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong, 2021a).

Over the decades of development of public housing in Hong Kong, there have been multiple block designs for public housing, such as slab blocks, harmony blocks, and “H” shape resettlement blocks. The Housing Authority nowadays further emphasizes the integration of green concepts and site-specific considerations into their design features. Some unique designs of public housing have even made them must-check places for photo taking in Hong Kong, such as Choi Hung Estate, which is pained in a striking rainbow palette, and Oi Man Estate, which has a quadrangular arrangement. In more recent decades, the construction of public housing estates also includes children’s playgrounds, car parks, and a shopping center (see the pictures from Tak Long Estate in the Kai Tak Development area below) that make things more convenient for residents.

Nevertheless, we do observe two concerns about these public housing estates. One is that low-income groups living in the public housing estates stay in their community which might not be good for social cohesion. Another way to supply public housing units is to integrate public housing units with market-price housing units in the same building blocks. Such mix-income housing is designed to eliminate concentrated poverty in certain neighborhoods and against residential segregation. Second is that there used to be scandals about the living conditions in public housing estates, such as the contamination of potable water in Kai Chin Estate in 2015. These point to due considerations, such as social cohesion factors and safe drinking water, that the Government should take into account when designing and managing public housing.

References

Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong. 2021. Housing in Figures 2021a. https://www.thb.gov.hk/eng/psp/publications/housing/HIF2021.pdf (Accessed Sept. 10, 2021).

Urban Reform Institute and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. 2022. Demographia International Housing Affordability 2022 Edition. http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf (Accessed Aug. 10, 2022).

World Bank, 2021. Country Profile of Hong Kong SAR, China. https://data.worldbank.org/country/HK (Accessed Aug. 10, 2022).

Jingwen Zheng, Ph.D. in Public Policy Program 2024

Sigur Center 2022 Asian Field Research Fellow

Hong Kong SAR, China

In this video I share 5 relatively small things that I think makes Taiwan a great place to live or visit.

Caleb Darger

MA Candidate, Global Communications