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Published: September 2nd 2012
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It seemed like it lasted a lifetime, but the first week of classes is finally over. Whew. I thought my one class at the London School of Economics was hard, but it looks like a joke compared to my classes I’m taking here. My class schedule looks like this: Monday through Friday, from 9 am until noon, we have Chinese class. I call it Chinese class, but it’s basically three solid hours of semi private tutoring every day—my class has three people in it and two teachers. I’m pretty sure they’re on to me that I don’t understand 90% of what they say. The second we enter the building, all English must cease, even when we are on our two five minute breaks. The teachers go around and give you a stamp on your hand if you’re found speaking English—or in my case, they move on to your arms if you run out of room on your hands. I think they yell at you when you get stamps, but I can’t really understand what they’re saying when they’re yelling so I’m not too worried. Anyways, after the three hours of Chinese in the morning, we have two afternoons free and three
Mahjong Anyone?
A lot of the time, when you go into shops on the street, you see the employees playing mahjong in the back of the store. afternoons of another three hour class. My brain feels like it is on constant overload. The only nice part is that after the LSE class this summer and what I’m accustomed to at Babson, the business classes I’m taking in the afternoon seem like they are going to be much easier than my morning Chinese classes. A lot of the professors think it’s more important for us to be studying Chinese and going out in Shanghai and using the Chinese we learn than studying business in English. I’m not complaining because in addition to three hours of Chinese class, we are expected to spend three hours a night on our Chinese homework, although it takes me much longer since it’s been so long since I’ve had Chinese. The other two students in my class both have Chinese minors, so they kind of whip through the homework. I have a lot of catching up to do.
That being said, my Chinese is improving so fast because no one speaks English here. At lunch, we can eat in the dining hall for the equivalent of 1 USD (which is all the more fantastic after how expensive London was), and for dinner
Semi Celebrities
The locals line up to get some pictures with our group's Caucasians I can usually get by on 3 USD (much better than the 10 USD it is at Babson). But the catch is that all of the ordering has to be done in Chinese, which is good because my Chinese improves fast but bad because a lot of the time I end up with something that I didn’t mean to order (like pig liver and frog).
There is, however, still room for improvement. I went to the front desk of my residence hall the other day and tried to tell the front desk person that my ceiling was leaking, but I think I said my floor was raining. Needless to say, my ceiling is still leaking.
This weekend, we finally had some time to go exploring in Shanghai. My finance professor broke her leg, so until further notice, class is cancelled. We utilized the free afternoon and went to an instrument “market”. I was picturing an instrument flea market, but it ended up being a very long street with music stores next to each other the entire length of the street. Three people got acoustic guitars, someone got a classical guitar, and I splurged on a $30 ukulele. We
were discouraged at first because the first shops we went to were all very expensive, but one of the guys in our group ended up getting an acoustic guitar for 50 USD, and someone else got their classical guitar also for 50 USD. Shopping for a ukulele was kind of hilarious. I had no idea how big ukuleles were in China. There were millions of shops that only sold ukuleles. I think this one street had more ukuleles than all of the Hawaiian Islands combined. I had to do a lot of haggling, and almost walked out twice, but I negotiated a $75 ukulele down to $30, plus I made him throw in a nice ukulele bag and a free book and DVD so I can learn how to play the thing. I have no idea how much the ukulele is actually worth since I’m pretty sure they hear my American accent and just quadruple the price, but I’m justifying it on me saving so much on food while I’m here. The only problem was I got home and popped the DVD into my computer and learned that the entire DVD is in Mandarin and I can’t understand a word
When In Asia...
When in China, take pictures like the Chinese. That's what I always say. the guy is saying. So it might take me a bit longer to get to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole status than I originally expected.
Yesterday, Wang Lao Shi took us to Yuyuan Garden. It was the first touristy thing we have done this trip. Yu Garden is a 400 year old garden that was built by Pan Yu for his parents, but since it took 20 years to build this garden, Pan's parents passed away before it was completed. Now, it is a huge spot for tourists, most of whom are Chinese. We went as our 26 person group, and I think the Chinese people were more interested of taking pictures of our big group than of seeing the garden itself! They especially love all of the blonde students on our trip, and many will come up and grab a blonde student and scream "picture!" in Chinese. It's pretty funny for all of us non-blondes.
After going to the garden, Wang Lao Shi took us to the financial area of Shanghai. These buildings were the tallest I've ever seen, and they are currently building one that will go even higher! I still can't believe how modern the financial district is,
when driving five minutes leads you to some of the poorest people I have ever seen. I feel like I need a passport going from one street to the next, since it's like a completely different country every block.
Speaking of which, only two more weeks until I have to finalize my study abroad plans for next semester. I'm slightly worried because I currently have no idea where I want to go--they changed the South Africa program I was planning on studying at from business focused to sociology focused. Guess I know what I'm researching this week. Maybe I'll come back to China next semester and work on starting my own business--I'm going to open up a Tex-Mex food chain throughout China. There's definitely an opportunity for it considering I've been here for almost two weeks and haven't seen a single burrito. I'm not sure I'm going to make it four months without a burrito. I tried asking my roommate if she knew where I could find Mexican food but she didn't know what "Mexican" was. Then I tried asking her if she knew where I could get a burrito, but she didn't know what that was either. Finally,
I tried describing what a burrito was, and she started laughing. I'm not sure if she was laughing at my horrible Chinese or at what a burrito was. My only hope is that I'm going to Hong Kong in two months for a week and Hong Kong has a greater Western influence than mainland China. I plan on eating burritos all day every day for seven days straight.
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