True Facts: Communism is more important than Harry Potter... sadly

(Delicious dinner: would love to tell you what it all is but I don't speak Chinese. I can tell you it was some kind of boiled vegetable, rice, beef, potato, and egg. At the top of the picture is a classic Shanghainese dish eggs and tomatoes in kind of broth. Also the big pot on the left, that's just giant chunks of straight pork fat. I mean giant, about an inch or so thick, about the size of a hamburger. Yes, I did eat it. It's starting to grow on me, which sickens me at the same time)

Hello all! It's been a while since I posted for several reasons.

1) I have to study a lot.

2) I'm really tired, see above.

3) I wanted to do a post on food but I never remember my camera or, if I do, I forget to take photos.

So now you know...

So I think I'll start with some interesting things I've learned or discovered since I've been here.

It's great to be a foreigner here, or at least an American. The Chinese people love us. All you need to do to meet someone and strike up a wonderful friendship is just say "hello (nihao)", sometimes it doesn't even take that much effort. Sitting down in the city for an hour, My friend and I were asked to have our photos taken four times, purely because we're foreigners. So we slung our arms around the friendly Shanghai resident or Chinese tourist and smiled for the camera.

This struck me as odd given the level of fear in the US about China. That fear doesn't exist here or if it does I haven't seen it yet. The Chinese people are actually grateful to the US for saving them from Japan during WWII. That's at least one of the reasons they like America. Wish I could go more in depth about that but hey, I'm just a student.

Other interesting things I've learned. The Chinese people love Mao. They regard the cultural revolution as being horrible and in general don't like to talk about it, think about it, or discuss it. Those were bad times. But Mao himself, yes that was bad, but he meant well.

With the growing gap beween rich and poor many locals, particularly those who are poor look back on those years with nostalgia, "we suffered, but at least we suffered together." It's a very common sentiment.

(Silk Factory)

--

This past weekend we took a little trip to Suzhou, China. Several hours *North, West, or South of Shanghai.* For the so called "Venice of China" it was a bit of a let down. But this was more due to how the trip was planned

then the city itself.

We spent most of our day driving than actually seeing stuff. We stopped off at a silk factory, took a little boat trip in the canals, then had two hours for lunch and finally stopped at a famous

garden before returning to Shanghai. We only spent maybe an hour at each of these locations with the exception of lunch, which was two hours.

I also took a little time off to go clubbing this

weekend which was a blast. Cheaper drinks, good music, good vibes, good people. Ultimately

a great time.

--

This week, like previous weeks, has mostly consisted of studying. However, my media class took a trip to a private collection of Chinese Propaganda Art today. It was pretty incredible. Most of the posters were made by art students from the 50's - 60's. They were absolutely gorgeous. However, after Mao passed on the party moved away from great leaps forward and cultural revolutions and focused on actual modernization. During this process they destroyed much of the propaganda from the period. The collection is the biggest and possibly only collection of it's kind in China.

This Thursday I have my midterm exam, which I'm not too worried about actually haha. Still have to study a lot. Luckily though this is a long weekend. So Friday morning I'm going to take the bullet train to Hangzhou, which is supposed to be a very cool city.

Other small side notes:

- Martial arts has been a great class despite only being once a week. So much fun. I think we're learning a mix of Kung Fu and Shaolin style something.

- Erhu is also a blast haha. I can now play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Frère Jaques.

Now on to the main point of this post...

I CAN'T SEE THE NEW HARRY POTTER MOVIE!!

"But Why!?!" I hear you all cry in shock and dismay. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and then were suddenly silenced.

It's actually a simple explanation. It's not because China doesn't like Western films. Nor is it because they've decided there is something they don't like in the Harry Potter film. The reason is in fact a little more fun then that.

(This is in fact not entirely true. The Chinese government only allows about 20 foreign films into the country per year. These films are subject to strict censoring.)

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party. About a month ago the government released a state-sponsored propaganda film titled The Beginning of the Great Revival. Sadly the Chinese have decided that this is more important than watching Harry and his two best friends search for the deathly hollows, which will enable them to win the second war and defeat Voldemort forever.....

Anyway...

They put a hold on releasing all new blockbusters for the next month to encourage people to go see their film.... rude...

Moving on...

This is a photo of my favorite breakfast it's like a dumpling soup.

It also usually has whatever leftover meat we had the night before.

And this is a photo across the street from the front gate of campus where I frequently buy lunch.