Flickr Photostream

Here is a link to my flickr photo stream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61647900@N05/sets/

Just an fyi...

I've never attended a St. Pat's parade in Atlanta...

Just thought I'd clear that up.

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.

So much xiezì!!

(A side street off of West Nanjing Road, this giant shopping area and then these side streets are just full of stuff. they go on forever. And tons of people trying to take you to fake markets.)

Alright new update:

I had attempted to use my video camera to record a video so I didn’t have to write another post. And it did work BUT… I uploaded the video to my computer and it was a little under 1.5 gb and I could save it as a smaller file but that would take forever and I’m too sleepy to sit and wait and do that. Some other time…

So I’m writing a new post and it’s sans cool photos, womp, sorry y’all.

So to start. I cannot explain how nice my host family is. Just so nice. Super supportive. They always try and involve me in conversation they’ll both come sit in my room and talk to me and tell me I’m “very smart.” That alone earns major brownie points in my book haha.

So the food. I might have mentioned the food before an how good it is. I’ve slowly encountered a couple things I’m not so much a fan of. One, shrimp… but I don’t like shrimp anyway so that’s okay. Two, they serve a lot of meat with fat on it. And I don’t mean like, “oh the piece of meat has fat on it so I’ll cut it off.” I mean like its chunk of fat with teeny bit of meat attached. I keep eating it, but it’s a little off putting. It’s funny how I’m willing to eat it and it doesn’t make me queasy like it would in the States. I had some chicken this evening and it was just straight fat with little bits of meat attached. An acquired taste I’m sure ^_.^ (that’s my new smiling Marilyn Monroe face). And the third thing is something I’ve had for breakfast twice. It’s a sticky brown rice. No seasoning really very little flavor and in the center of this giant mound of rice is a little piece of pork. It would probably be fine but they serve so much of it to me that I just kind of feel ill after I eat it.

They also feed me soooooo much. I’m so full all the time. To the point that I end up not eating much on my own cause I just can’t. None of you can understand THEY FEED ME ALL THE TIME. Constantly refilling my bowl and saying “eat’a more.”

I was so bummed because on Friday night the school paid for this really nice meal at a really nice restaurant. And I just couldn’t eat. I had a little bite of maybe half the dishes served and that was all I could stomach. And this was JUST from breakfast. I didn’t even eat lunch that day. So much food.

But it’s also kind of sweet. She always has snacks for me when I’m studying, fruit or bread or something. And she’s always bringing me water. This goes back to the first point that they’re so freaking nice.

Change of topic...

The mosquitos here don’t bite me. At all. I’m in heaven. They’re everywhere and people who usually don’t get many mosquito bites get eaten alive and I just stroll jaunty jolly around without a care in the world. I did get four bites but I received them while I was in my room sleeping with the door shut so there were no other options for the little bug. But they didn’t itch that bad and are pretty much gone already.

Homework. I already talked about this too… I’m going to have so much and so much studying. I studied five hours today plus an hour long tutoring session with me tutor Lin—who’s awesome btw— and about six hours yesterday. And I still haven’t memorized how to write the 50 characters I was trying to learn… I recognize them on sight and know the English definition. But I also have to be able to write the character, correctly I’ll add. There is a specific order you have to write each of the lines and stuff in a character. And I have to be able to write the pinyin which is simple enough but you have to be able to write the tones in correctly which isn’t. So that’s gonna be a struggle for while yet. Hopefully my quiz tomorrow won’t be too hard pwahhh.

Another topic change.

I GOT HIT BY A MOTOR CYCLE!!!

Not really… but kind of.

We went to this acrobatic show. Pretty cool, fairly generic. There were some interesting cultural things in it. It was in a round but only really faced one way, and that was where important people sat. I know at least one fairly important dignitary was there cause they pulled up with a police escort in four black cars. But it was all facing them. There were other things that were interesting but not enough to spend 300 more words explaining… the fun bit was when I got hit by motorbike. Or a moto itza (I think that’s how you would spell it, don’t know the tones.)

The finale of the show involved 5 motorcycles driving around this big globe (maybe 50 feet high and across) just big enough they could drive around it with maybe three feet apart but small enough you were still terrified to watch them. Well, they introduced it by driving the motorcycles into the audience, slowly I’ll add. Well when going up a ramp into the audience the bike slipped as it was two rows behind me and slid down into me. No bruises or anything haha but scared the living crap out of me. So that was fun trying to explain to my host mom. I think I explained it correctly and she understood but didn’t think she understood and so just laughed at me.

So tomorrow, Monday will now be my longest day of the week for the next seven weeks. I have Chinese from 10:00 – 12:00, a lunch break, then Understanding China from 1:00 – 3:00, then Martial arts from 3:00 to five, then a dinner break, and then I’m taking erhu lessons from 7:00 to 8:00.

I’m pretty excited about erhu lessons that’ll be super fun. I wish the lessons were a little longer and I’m hoping that we’ll somehow get to be able to take an erhu back to our homes to practice or something but probs not.

Anyway there is tons more I could write about but I just broke a thousand words so I’m going to call it quits for now.

I’ll write more / take a video / post/take more photos later.

-C

Nihao!

(The View from my room)

Hello, hello from Shanghai!

I don’t even know where to start. There is just so much. I think, for now, I’ll mostly just write about the places and stuff and get into otherthings in a later post. —— Writing this whole thing was such a pain because for every little thing there is just so much I could say. Not to mention stupid bloggers formatting issues... ten times worse than word.

I arrived here late Sunday night, after a bit of a shaky start with United and then continued shakiness with Delta. I somehow got lucky and got here without too much hassle.

It’s just entirely unreal being here. It’s so different and yet not at all. It’s odd because China to me was not a real place. It was a location I would read about or hear about, not an actual physical place that people live… surprise surprise, it is a real place.

My host family is beyond nice. It’s a wife and husband, and I think a son but he’s not here right now. They don’t speak any English, which has made for some interesting times. Meaning, lots of gesturing and repeating what they say, followed by them laughing at me. But I’ve already learned so much. That can’t be helped given that they quiz me constantly. Every time I eat they make me repeat the names of the food, times of the day, numbers, the words for today, tomorrow and yesterday and I don't know how many others.

My host mom put her head in her hands when I came in the first night when her husband obviously told her I don’t speak any Mandarin haha. I think it's the dads mission to teach me Mandarin. (I don't know they're names thanks to the language barrier.) I’ve also since learned that I am the only homestay student who has never taken Chinese.

I live in a fairly large room in an apartment building on the seventh floor right off of campus. It’s fantastic because my walk is just long enough for me to enjoy the city a little before walking onto campus (It’s a 5-10 minute walk to the buildings where I go to class).

The campus is completely separate from the city, which is amazing. It’s so quiet and pretty compared to the constant honking and throngs of people outside of campus.

The traffic is also insane, everyone honks. Everyone drives like there are no rules, which from what I can tell, there aren’t.

At the back gate of campus is the oldest surviving neighborhood in Shanghai, built in the 1930’s I believe. It’s full of people walking in the streets and tons of stalls selling everything you can’t imagine. And I say that seriously cause I don’t know what half of it is. There are places selling dvd’s and software. Giant barrels of crawfish. IP cards (still don’t know what those are, some type of phone card I think). All kinds of food, most of it unrecognizable, some of it apparently is rat meat and the like… we’re told to avoid those places. Though I know people who have eaten at them, have been fine, and loved it.

Everyone is so nice. I’m excited to be able to speak a little Chinese so I’m more able to just walk around explore and buy stuff. It’s difficult to explore when you literally don’t speak anything. It’s even more difficult than that, because there are no lines. Period. Just not in the culture. You just have to get the cashiers attention to buy anything. Other wise you could actually stand a foot away from the cashier for hours while people jump in front of you to do their own business.

You can drink the water despite what I’d been told. But there are specific taps. Like in my apartment there are two taps you can drink from and two you can’t. But you can still use the undrinkable taps to brush your teeth.

What's funny is that the things I have the most difficulty with aren’t the gesturing or speaking but the smaller things like money. I really have no concept of how much stuff is. Everything is really cheap. I know that. But I don’t really understand it if that makes sense haha. It’s 6.5 yuan for 1 American dollar. BUT… haha yeah. I’ll figure it out. My other issue is that because of the language barrier I somehow miss little things said in English. I’m still not sure how it keeps happening. Luckily I’ve made friends with two people who are essentially fluent in Mandarin and one who is fluent in Shanghainese (completely different language), which has been super helpful. Without them I would be that really obnoxious student who is permanently lost and not where they’re supposed to be.

The program mostly consists of business majors because it is actually a business program. Though there is a small group of people who are not business but they’re a part of a different CIEE program for advanced language students. It’s been nice that they’ve sort of combined our programs.

This is one of those weird language gaps. I’m not sure if it’s a completely separate program or if it's a sub-section of the program I’m in.

Speaking of, I’m actually one of only two students from the Business program that got to be in a homestay. Not sure how that happened but I feel pretty lucky.

Finally…

Today it poured. The heaviest rain I think I’ve ever experienced. It just bucketed for a good two hours and just like that it was over.

We received our textbooks today and took a small tour around campus that ended up at this HUGE mall to let kids buy cellphones and plans there. I didn't because I already bought one while I was home.

The mall was HUGE, I think I said that. At least seven stories maybe eight or nine. And was just… so big. Every store you can think of and every other store. It pretty much had every mall store, designer store and brand store I’ve ever seen and that was not even half of all the stores. What scares me is that I'm quite sure it was a regular old mall not some hugely famous Chinese mall haha.

So that’s it for now. I’ll write more later!

Zàijiàn!

(Statue of Chairman Mao at the Center of Campus. Not a guy you make fun of, at all. Apparently a student was almost arrested for seeming to mock the statue. He raised his arm to stop another student from taking the photo they were going to take and the police jumped on it.)

Canvas: Not 4chan but perhaps the new tumblr?

Canvas


Could be interesting. For now it just seems like a new version of tumblr. A newer, perhaps quicker, way to deface your friend's news feeds with 'lol cats' and size 40 Helvetica fonts. I'm still in the queue for an invite unfortunately. The Creators Project offers a fairly positive vision of the idea, so we shall see.


Link: http://canv.as/

This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award.

Interesting and entertaining discussion on what's wrong with our education system...

Just what america needs

I know what America doesn't need... I can safely say that it's not a new rap single produced by Jersey Shores very own Angelina Pivarnick...

"I'm hot, so hot, I'm like an ice cream cone with a cherry on top. And I got, a lot, no I wont stop till I pop to the top. I take a shot it hits the spot then dance a lot until I drop. I shop and shop and just can't stop."

Straight poetry.