Second Day

Its 6:30 PM on my second day in Shanghai. This morning after making my first entry, I had a lot of stuff to go and take care of. First was breakfast. After asking two guards and one other person where I could find ‘can’ (pronounced ‘tsan’), I finally found the ‘can ting’ (cafeteria). I watched the cook boil noodles in a very large wok then he added potatoes, which were dark like beef. It was mildly spicy and delicious! And it only cost 3 RMB, about 50 cents USD. By far the cheapest meal I’ve had to date.

From there I headed out to the city streets to find some money. My dormitory cost around 9,000 RMB for the entire semester. And whoever said China is communist is so wrong according to my first impressions. The internet, which to me would be included with semester’s housing fee, costs me 400 RMB with a 200 RMB deposit. To boot, it won’t be activated for another 5 days. I feel like I’m dealing with Time Warner or Comporium with the long wait to have my internet activated!

I found the bank and had to make 3 ATM transactions to pull out the money for my dorm and internet. After all is said and done, I have about 500 RMB left for spending money. I am going to stretch it as long as possible before getting more out. It probably won’t last me very long though. My transactions are averaging around 20RMB, and I’ve had to make a few of them so far.

After taking care of my dorm expenses, I headed over to the “No. 2 Teaching Building.” That’s where the international office is located. It was a bureaucratic mess! I had to go to one room to fill out paperwork, run back to my room to grab a picture, then to another room to pay. This caused problems because Winthrop was supposed to send a money order for me, and I don’t have any confirmation that it was sent nor any way to contact the Winthrop office to confirm it. After getting shuffled around about 3 times, I met Wang Zheng, who is Susan Kress’ counterpart here at SISU. He knew who I was and shortly after meeting him, I had my new student ID and schedule for the next few days. I was elated and relieved to be done with all of that.

Want Zheng aside, I haven’t had a single conversation since arriving in Shanghai. It’s starting to get to me. There are so many people here, and I don’t understand any of them. I hate not knowing what people around me are laughing about. I’m being run into, honked at, and worst yet, nobody makes eye contact with me. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m in a big city and am not used to it, or if I am seen as a ‘foreign devil.’ Either way is ok but I need to remember to keep my cool. I felt frustration coming on earlier, and even a touch of loneliness. I saw a poster earlier advertising for western waiters for a special event coming up next week. I’m going to get the number and see what it’s about. I think that it’s about time to meet others who I can befriend quickly, because I can’t speak to the Chinese well enough to hold a decent conversation.

I’m not homesick at all. That’s probably going to change eventually, but for now there are just too many new things to experience. Tomorrow I don’t have anything going on, so I’m going to make my way downtown to see some of the touristy stuff.

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