Long Time No See

---

is an English phrase that must have come directly from the Chinese, because it is probably the only Chinese sentence that translates directly and literally into English. Also four words, "好久不见 (hao jiu bu jian)" is a fairly common phrase in this language, and is commonly used as a greeting for old friends.

In the two months since I've last written a post, I got and subsequently lost a tan, saw the Three Gorges Dam, enrolled in school (again), moved in with my girlfriend, looked for and then stopped looking for an apartment, etc. Too much to fit in this post, so most of it will probably never be recorded for posterity. A shame for those of you who follow my travails, but for me a proud and romantic reclamation of the privacy of my memories. Anyways, below I will do my best to fill you in.

I am now living in Shanghai. I am taking a part-time Mandarin course at Jiao Tong University, which from what I hear is like the Harvard of China (Deng Xiaoping went here), but from what I experience is like any other part-time Mandarin program. I have one teacher who is great; she is an old Shanghai lady who lived through the Cultural Revolution. That's not that amazing; what is unique is that she is willing not only to talk about it, but to criticize it, albeit her criticism is Chinese in that it is indirect and veiled (such as when discussing how to use the Chinese verb "collect", she mentioned that some people collect Mao Zedong propaganda posters, and that now they are worth a lot of money, but stupid her, she threw all hers away. And that the posters were very beautiful, because they were made from imported materials, which in her humble opinion was something of a waste of resources.). She also talks about the problems with modern Chinese society, which is something that as a rule Chinese people just don't do with foreigners, but she says is important because "If we complain to each other, no one will listen, but as soon as a foreigner complains, things change right away."

So class is good, I am definitely learning a lot, but not as much as I had expected. Part of that is my fault, because I have also been spending most of my free time not studying but scrambling to find a job here. I am tutoring English at a number of schools all over the city, which is a bit of a drag in terms of transportation, but thankfully I am just starting to make money and get a concrete schedule. I'm definitely not working as much as I was in Dalian, a fact of which my wallet is acutely aware.

So I am doing the daily grind again, but this time with a little more variety. I am also definitely coming back to the States, probably around July 10th, and I am going to UCSD for physics in September. So my life here now is kind of ephemeral, as I already know what my long-term plans are. But I am still trying to get a Chinese experience. Shanghai is a very unique and strange city; the combination of Western influence and Eastern culture is blatant everywhere you go. Although it's pretty modern, it's definitely Chinese, despite what I previously thought and what most people say.

But more on Shanghai later. I hope you feel sufficiently updated.

---