I love Shanghai!

So, after two unnecessarily difficult weeks in Shanghai, I finally have access to the internet and am able to post… There is so much to write about but I will try to keep it somewhat short! I’ll even try to maintain some type of chronological order:

Traveling to China was just as anyone would expect 21 hours of traveling to go…Frustrating, boring, and tiresome. On the plane though, I was lucky enough to be seated next to a student at Washington University who is originally from Shanghai and will be here for a month. So we chatted about normal things and China and will probably get together at some point while I’m here, which is sort of neat. Then my plane landed almost an hour early in Beijing, which was nice. After a long taxi ride, I finally arrived at the hotel, checked in, met my roommate, and crashed.

Photo Taken by Jessica

Our group did and saw a lot in Beijing, and I’m not going to go into much detail because we just did the typical tourist thing. We went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, which was interesting but everything sort of looked the same and since we didn’t have a tour guide it was kind of hard to appreciate everything. We did see some pretty sweet Emperor’s thrones though. The next day we went to the Great Wall and I hiked up probably about a mile stretch of it. It is so steep! It’s a lot worse than it looks in photos, let me tell you....I think we climbed about 3-4 towers higher than the tallest one you see here. It was really amazing and definitely the highlight of my time in Beijing. The same day we went to the Ming Tombs, which was an interesting site but I was not too terribly impressed. That night we went to a really exciting acrobatics show, which I guess was similar to Cirque du Soleil. They did some crazy stuff! I almost had a heart attack at one point because I swear I thought this one performer was going to fall to his death. But he was okay. The next day we went to the Summer Palace which was really beautiful. We walked around for a few hours but we were all so sore from the Great Wall and all the stairs and hills at the Summer Palace just seemed so daunting. But we all survived. Our last day in Beijing was a free day so my friends Maggie and Jessica and I just sort of hung out, walked around and explored a little bit. Overall, I liked Beijing and am glad that I went but I am definitely glad I am studying in Shanghai instead.

Which brings me to where I am now—and I love it here! Even though the first two weeks have been just a tad bit confusing and complicated (and a little strange), I am finally settled in and ready for the semester. Way too much has been going on here for me to even begin to write about, but I’ll fill you in on some general things about Shanghai:

First and foremost, the humidity is ridiculous! Just walking 1/2 mile to the convenient store results in me being drenched in sweat. And because here we mostly get around just by walking, it gets a little bit miserable, but I’m adjusting well. As I’m sure you assumed, there is tons of air pollution and smog. In general, Shanghai is not exactly the cleanest city, so that combined with the poor air quality means it can be pretty stinky here! One of my first days here, I woke up early to go running, and I almost threw up twice just because of the smells I came across. Ick! So now I go running on the on-campus track, a much cleaner environment. (On a side note, I also go running in the evening now too because it is much cooler and less humid than it is in the early morning… Usually about ten people from USAC are there when I go running so it’s almost like we have running parties! We stand out so much from all the Chinese people.)

The water is very contaminated and very obviously unsafe to drink. Luckily I knew this when I got to China, so never drank any faucet water, but I must say I was still very surprised on my second day in Shanghai when I was brushing my teeth and dark brownish red water came out of the faucet… not a very nice welcome to the city, for sure. They sell 5L jugs of water in the stores here for very cheap, and there is a dispenser thing in my room, so I just use that and fill up water bottles to take around. It’s definitely better than having to buy bottled water every time.

Everything here is so cheap!!! 100 RMB is about equal to 15 USD so I’ll just list some of the prices of things here and you can do the math…. (Y = Chinese Yuan sign… I can’t find it on Character Map) 5L jug of water: Y5.50; my cell phone: Y200; T-Shirt: Y10; Dinner (depending on where you go, but my favorite thing so far): Y4; Chinese textbook: Y30. You get the picture. The only expensive things are American products (and other imports… but most notably American brands). For example, the iPhone here costs $900. So if I need anything American, it will be a lot cheaper to just have it sent to me from there. We need to work out some kind of trade agreement with China aside from ASEAN, for real.

THERE ARE NO CLOTHES DRYERS. Because of the humidity here, hang drying clothes takes 3-4 days. I worked out a trick though and have been hang drying them in my room with the AC on. But I have to be careful because we only get 60 free kwh of electricity per month. My AC is usually set to about 26 degrees Celsius, which is nearly 79 degrees Fahrenheit! But trust me, it is definitely an improvement from the outdoor conditions. Luckily I’m not a very hot-natured person because if I were I would either be constantly miserable, or poor by the end of my trip. (Electricity here is pretty expensive!)

One more random but strange thing here is that babies here don’t really wear diapers, and instead wear shorts without a butt, then just go to the bathroom wherever they please throughout the city. Kind of gross, but the city spends a lot of time keeping the streets and sidewalks clean, so to date I have not stepped in any baby poo, which I’m very thankful for!!

I’ll post more general observations throughout the blog (a food one is coming soon), but for now that is it! I’ll fill you in on my program a little bit and my friends here, but then I am going to bed. I spend most of my time with my two very good girl friends Maggie and Jessica. Maggie goes to Wisconsin Whitewater and is originally from Fuzhou (in China), so she can speak Fuzhounese fluently. Their language is different from Mandarin, though, but she is still very good at communicating with the Chinese people here. Luckily I have her, because she’s the only reason we’ve been able to avoid ordering weird foods at restaurants like pig stomach and chicken feet. Jessica is from California but now is living in Shanghai with her family because her mom works for Apple. They will be here for two years. They are both really fun and we get along very well. There are a lot of other great people here from all over, and I love everyone! All of us have spent so much time together, and it feels like I have known them for way longer than 3 weeks.

My classes are actually very boring except for Advanced Chinese and China Phenomenon. In Chinese, she only speaks Mandarin to us, so sometimes it is hard to understand, but luckily I have Maggie to help me! I think I am going to pick it up much more quickly this way though because it forces me to really pay attention and try to understand what she is saying. China Phenomenon is interesting because it kind of gives an overview of everything China. I struggle to sit through my other classes, though. Each class is once a week for 3 hours (except Chinese… 3 times per week for 4 hours) and for the most part, the teachers don’t speak English very well. I almost feel bad for them because it is really hard for everyone to pay attention because we usually have no idea what the teachers are talking about, or why they are talking about it. But it’s ok! I think just being in China is going to teach me the most valuable and important things, so I’m not too worried about the bad classes.

And that’s it for now, because I have class at 8 in the morning and it’s after 1:00 AM here! Sorry for the super long post, but now that I’ve caught you up, the rest will be much shorter. Many more posts to come! :)

Photo Taken by Nick