So I've officially made it to the the Middle Kingdom, 中国, the "motherland" and most importantly, the rising superpower in this quickly shrinking world. It's only been a few days but I'm definitely enjoying the place, the people, the food and the program. Of course it's still early but I can see this being just the experience I needed right now.
First of all my language skills are pretty much nonexistent aside from basics not even worth noting. But as my mom pointed out, now I know how millions of immigrants feel every day. But then again, I'm living in a relatively comfortable situation, I mean if I need to find something or get confused with the language or whatever I have access to people who can help me out. Tons of immigrants don't have that. All I can say is I have so much respect for people coming new to a place with no understanding of the language, no contacts, and only the ambitions and dreams for opportunity. My grandmother came to Shanghai, only 15 years old, during the war and managed to survive. She worked in a small restaurant doing bookkeeping and other small jobs and managed to support herself for 7 years. Hell I was still being driven to the mall by my parents at 15. And as if one culture leap wasn't enough, my grandma married my grandpa and went to America with two children, one barely of school age, again not knowing the language and yet managed to create a home. That's guts. But this is her story and I'm not even going to try and pretend like anything I've ever done even comes close to her experiences. So about Shanghai...
Some myths and truths!
Myth: The place is not hygienic and people spit, pee and shit all over the street.
Fact: While spitting happens, it's not as endemic as people make it out to be. And I only saw one little boy about 4ish pee on a corner in one of the more outlying neighborhoods. Have yet to see sidewalk defecation, though I'm not complaining.
Myth: The air is apocalyptic.
Fact: Pretty damn close. Entering the city on the bus ride from the airport, we all looked out into the haze blanketing the city and wondered when the fog would lift up. And then realized that the sun had been blazing for a while and this actually would not burn off. At times it's so bad you can look directly at the sun without fear of retinal damage due to the thick shield of pollution. Breathing's been pretty ok though.
Myth: China is ancient, backward and unsafe.
Fact: Haven't been around China so I know this is true in some parts but Shanghai is so unbelievably modern! Take one look at a Shanghai subway station or mall or office building and you'll feel like you've been transported 10 years into the future. Architecturally Shanghai is in constant progression towards bigger, brighter, better. The subway platforms have sliding glass doors between the train and the platform so track diving doesn't seem like it'd be much of a problem there. Weirdly though the stations are pretty immaculate (at least by my NYC standards) littering in cars doesn't seem to be a concern. We were heading out on the 4 line and this woman sitting by us proceeded to peel an orange and dropped the rind on the floor. And left it there. Hmm. The Cloud Nine mall? The most incredible most indulgent most overwhelming display of capitalism I've ever seen. 9+ floors of high end shopping, bargain stores, restaurants, electronics x 100000, a hotel, a gym, you name it they've got it. No wonder this program is full (70%) of Sternies.
And while Shanghai isn't 100% I'm-gonna-leave-my-bag-at-the-table safe (what city is?), it's at least as-long-as-I'm-not-a-careless-idiot-I'm-ok comfortable. The traffic however is another story. There are no rules. Crossing a street unscathed for a foreigner in Shanghai is a medal worthy accomplishment. If you can imagine that scene in the Lion King with the stampede but replace the wildebeest with buses, trucks, cars, mopeds, bicycles and other pedestrians and Simba with an American student then you can kind of get an idea of what a typical street in Shanghai is like.
Again, it's only been two days but some highlights so far:
- Having dim sum with the whole group including some Chinese students from Jiao Tong University and staff members.
- exploring the back gate area.
- fireworks every night celebrating the New Year/Spring Festival.
- going to Cloud Nine and all buying the same cell phone in the chaos.
- getting Sichuan style hotpot soup for about 5RMB (6.8RMB=1USD, you do the math)
- karaoke and cheap beer with tons of Britney and Chinese songs
- one of the coolest activities today: visiting a neighborhood in Old Shanghai. It was a little bit like a township walk, at least from the exterior. We went through a "free market" where people set up their stalls all along the narrow road beneath a canopy of clean laundry hanging between all of the houses. They sold everything from steamed buns to fresh vegetables to crab. We saw live everything soon to be food: fish, squid, eel, frog, turtle, chicken, etc. All of the houses were pretty small, stacked a few floors up and were home to full families. I feel like this is the type of place my grandma would've stayed in while she was here.
We followed one of our hosts to his home and climbed a bunch of steep, red, rickety wooden steps up a narrow hallway to the living room which was actually really nice despite the decrepit exterior. The room was well furnished with a really nice quality mahjong table, flush toilet, and hardwood floors. We actually ended up heading to a smoke filled mahjong den and learned to play with these two older men who didn't speak a word of English. But now I know some mahjong terms (which are actually pretty similar to the Canto ones I learned way back when, when my grandma taught me - I'm still getting the Canto/Mandarin numbers confused though). Plus their mahjong tables were intense and automated. We all took videos of that because it was so ridiculously awesome.
Afterwards, our group headed back to the house where we made dumplings with the grandma. Some of our dumpling skills were better (Drew) than others (mine). But it was a whole lot of fun. And we worked on whatever Chinese we knew, definitely helped that our guide only spoke Chinese, one of our group was Lillian from Jiao Tong and a few had a number of semesters of Mandarin under their belts. But the grandma was adorable helping everyone fold their dumplings, congratulating us on the successes and pointing out the flaws. The dumplings and all of the other food was delicious - extremely fresh, flavorful and healthy. I'm beginning to think that this whole preservatives/artificial flavoring thing is strictly for American food (the food in South Africa was so fresh and seasoned too). Who knows? After eating, we thanked our hosts and headed back through the tiny, cramped neighborhood to take the bus then train back to the dorms/apts.
Definitely a memorable experience. Need some time to meditate before fully writing about it. So much more to do today, this week and for the next 4 months.
Reflections later. This is going to be a TRIP!
Zai jian!
