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Published: October 21st 2012
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View From The Steakhouse
We found a steakhouse that gives out unlimited free steak sandwiches every weekday from Monday to Friday and the best part is they have an amazing view of the Shanghai skyline. Jokes, the best part is obviously the free steak. This past January, I turned 20. On my 20th birthday, I had a bit of a mid-life crisis, because I realized I was halfway to age 40. If I had had the means to buy a brand new, shiny red sports car, I probably would have. It was that severe of a mid life crisis.
Well, I find myself again in mid-life crisis mode, only this time I'm calling it a mid-China crisis. Today marks the day where I have now been in China for exactly two months, and coincidentally it is also the day where I have now been in China for the same duration of time that I was in London for this summer. From this point on, I am setting a new self record for how long I have been outside of the United States (until I go to Australia next semester and set a new record). Anyways, the mid-life crisis stems from the fact that besides traveling to three different cities, kissing a panda cub, learning Chinese, and hiking various mountains, I don't think I've done much in China, so I'm vowing to step up my game for these final two months (well, slightly less than
two months because I just passed the halfway point last week--crazy!)
Since today is such a monumental day, I thought I would reflect upon what I have been up to these past two months. This of course has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that all I did this week was study and watch Modern Family so I have nothing exciting to talk about. That being said, I did take the occassional break to go to Gongqing Forest Park (the second biggest park in Shanghai) and to Skype with my littlest sister who is fluent in Mandarin and loves to comment about how bad my accent is. When I told my Chinese teacher what my little sister said, my Chinese teacher said, "yeah I agree. And while we're on the subject, your fourth tone is especially awful." I guess that's the kind of specialized attention you get when you have three hours of Chinese class everyday and you only have two other classmates. We were at a park when my Chinese teacher told me this, and she spent the entire 15 minute walk home trying to improve my fourth tone. I think my Chinese teacher and my little
sister would get along perfectly.
In my defense, Chinese is a difficult language to learn. There are a lot of things that make sense about Chinese, including the grammar patterns, but there are just some things that make no sense. I'm not sure whose idea it was to have tones, but it makes a foreigner's job that much more difficult when depending on the way you say "ma", it can mean horse, mother, something you stick at the end of a sentence to turn it into a question, or something else entirely. It is also very unhelpful that there is not one unified language in China--each province has its own dialect. Most foreigners learn Mandarin, but mostly Beijing people speak Mandarin. Here in Shanghai, they all speak Shanghainese, which is completely different from Mandarin. In Southern China, a lot of people speak Cantonese. When we went to Chengdu, I had issues because they all spoke Mandarin with such thick accents. Basically I think China is conspiring against me.
Other than the fact that it takes a rocket scientist to learn the language, China has been filled with pleasant surprises. I really did not know much about China before
Engagement Pictures
The park was filled with young couples taking their engagement pictures. I counted over 12 couples in one lawn! jumping on a plane over here, so I feel like each moment is a learning experience for me. I think my biggest shock has been learning that Americans have so many misconceptions about the Chinese, and vice versa. Nowadays, the four biggest cities in China (including Shanghai and Beijing) have become so Westernized they almost look like they could be big cities in the United States. The younger generation of Chinese people are very similar to Americans. Everyone here is walking around with their eyes on their iPhones, talking on the phone with their boyfriends, or keeping in touch with their high school friends on "Ren Ren" (their version of Facebook that is literally identical to our Facebook complete with Timeline and all). Even their old traditions are meshing with Western ones--nowadays at Chinese weddings, the bride even wears a white dress and bride and groom exchange rings (something that was never done until very recently--none of our professors wear rings even though they are all married).
That beings said, it is bittersweet that they are so quick to abandon their traditional ways for more Westernized ways. All of their advertisements on billboards and TV commercials use white people,
Just Around The Riverbend
Rowing on the park's giant lake with a dubbed Chinese voice, even for products that are only available in China. They have such a strange desire to be white skinned that all of their skin products, lotion included, have a bleach in them that turns your skin whiter. My roommate has a whole nighttime routine she goes through where she puts on a plethora of skin whitening products. I can understand teeth whitening, but I cannot understand skin whitening. When I asked her why she put on bleaching products every night, she told me "Americans do this every night too!" At which point I broke it to her that most American women go to tanning salons to get skin cancer so that they can be tanner. Only I think most of it was lost in translation because her English and my Chinese are not strong enough to have indepth conversations (I won't even get started on when we tried to have a conversation on religion).
I just checked my calendar, and I essentially only have three more actual weekends left in Shanghai (the rest will be spent traveling and studying). This upcoming Saturday, I am off to Hong Kong, Ghuangzhou Province, and Macau for 10 days. I cannot wait to eat my weight (and then some) in Dim Sum in Hong Kong. We'll be in Hong Kong for Halloween, and there has been some talk of going to Hong Kong's Disneyland for their special Halloween celebrations. I'm not sure what my internet availability will be like while I am traveling, so most likely it'll be two weeks before my next update. All I know is that more people speak English than Mandarin in Hong Kong, so I cannot wait to practice my English! I've been feeling like my brain isn't large enough to handle two languages, and the more Mandarin I learn, the worse my English gets. That could also just be the fact that I don't really use English as much as I do in the states though...
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