My first entry!

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It's about time I start writing, now that I have just about survived my first week in Shanghai! Almost every day I've been here, I've had a few weird and certainly memorable experiences, and from now on I'll try to get them all down so I won't forget them.
As this is our orientation week, yesterday we had a workshop in the morning on Culture Shock as Americans immersing ourselves in China, and I already feel like this is one of the hardest, but will ultimately be one of the most rewarding places on the Earth for an American to go and plan to stay for a long time. We talked about our expectations of China before we got here, and whether or not they have been true. One thing we all agreed on is that we thought that in Shanghai at least, we expected more people to speak English, especially at some restaurants or major hotels or maybe even a few cab drivers. But basically,, no one here speaks English other than "hello." Which means that we basically have no other choice but to come here and be forced to use whatever communciation skills we have. But it's also pretty exciting because I can already see that by the end of the semester, there's no way my Chinese won't have improved, and in a big way. Another thing that matched, or surpassed my expectations, are how polluted China is. On the day we arrived, the city was really smoggy or foggy or something, but after the sky didn't really change much after 3 days, it was pretty obvious that all of the smog was because Shanghai, and China in general, is so polluted. Apparently Shanghai is pretty clean for China though, and everybody says that if you think Shanghai is polluted, wait until you see Beijing. I'm pretty sure that because of my asthma, I won't be running outside here. One thing that I'm going to find hard to get used to is the traffic in this city. In other cities, especially European ones, they say the drivers are crazy, etc. But here, I think the drivers actually ARE crazy. In Europe, they may be pretty aggressive, but when it comes down to it, they will stop for pedestrians because they have to. I'm not entirely sure that's the case here. And they told us a story about someone on our program getting hit by a bus a semseter or two ago, and that's not hard to believe. They also told us that the traffic lights and signs here are more "suggestions," which means that red lights don't mean they will neccessarily stop. Even the bicycle traffic here is intimidating. When crossing the street, you have to avoid car traffic coming from one way, and hordes of bikers coming from another, and I think it must be a miracle every time I make it to the other side of the street. I keep thinking, "I'm a New Yorker, I know how to cross streets," but this is something completely different.

Ok, the absolute hardest thing to get used to so far is how much we stand out here. In all of the guidebooks I read, they warned Americans that Chinese people would constantly stop and stare at us on the street, but it's because they are just curious. Although I knew this before I came here, there's a big difference between knowing it, and experiencing it. It's not so bad when we all walk around in a big group, but I have already wandered around by myself a few times, and I am extremely, extremely conscious of the fact that everybody is staring at me. It is honestly the weirdest feeling. On the first day, a few of us were out buying sheets for our beds (it is unbelievably cold indoors here, often colder inside than outside, and it's because the Chinese skimp on paying for heating or air conditioning) and a few things to brighten up our rooms. On the walk back, I was carrying two huge pillows, one bright blue and one bright yellow, and I felt like I was making a huge scene. Not only was it strange enough that I was a white American walking down the street, but I was drawing even more attention to myself by carrying these enormous, neon colored pillows. I felt like I was wearing a big, neon sign saying "look at me!" A few days later, I was doing the same walk home from the shopping center, and was by myself because I'd had a headache and wanted to try to rest before going out at night. As I was walking back, an older woman grabbed my arm, smiled at me and then started laughing. I mean, what are you supposed to do in that situation? Smile back? During our culture workshop, we were discussing what to do and some people smile back, others avert their eyes and some glare. It's still kind of a novelty at the beginning, but I can tell it's going to start to get annoying. This may be the only time in my life though that I am going to feel like, and seriously be, such a minority.

Lots more to write, yesterday was the first day that we actually got to get out and see some of this huge city, and my pictures should be up soon. We went to the top of the tallest building in China, Jin Mao Tower. Right next to it, we could see what is soon going to become the tallest building in the world, which they are building as we speak. It's funny that they are trying to keep this kind of a secret, so they aren't revealing how many stories this building will be, because they don't want another city to outcompete them. Everything is being built so fast here, mostly because there is NO politics involved in construction here, which is something that paralyzes us in the US. That's because the government owns all of the land, so if they want to build something somewhere, no one is in a place to oppose them. Yesterday we also went to a major attraction in Shanghai, my first classical Chinese garden, called Yu Yuan Gardens. On the way there we stopped at a KFC to use the bathroom, which was my second squatting experience. Holy God. Thank god our apartments have American style toilets. For dinner, they took the entire group of us to a Buddhist Vegetarian restuarant! I think I may have been the only one who liked it, but I was so thankful that for the first time I've been here, I could finally eat everything at the table. It was really weird because all of the food was made to look and taste like meat. I took pictures of me eating a "hot dog" and there was a huge assortment of fake beef, chicken, duck and even oyster soup.

Now I'm off to do a scavenger hunt of the city. Every orientation week has to have its scavenger hunt, right? Except this one lasts for 3 days....

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