Major and Minor Characters

With less than a month left for this semester, this entry about the characters in my Shanghai life cannot wait any longer. Now you can put a face to a name when you read it!

Major Characters


Jeanni

The angel during my first 48 hours in Shanghai and now my big sister, hopefully for life, Jeanni is the closest thing I have to family here in China. Our shared interest in all things out of the ordinary, along with her daring and heart always makes her a welcome addition to anything I do, but you already knew that if you have been reading my blog posts because she sure shows up in a lot of them. Even though she never seems to have time for me anymore (or as much time as I want) Jeanni still manages to take care of me, which I am thankful for. Looking forward to starting a chapter of a nonprofit with her in the coming months and, of course, going to try hard to keep in touch with this amazing girl once she leaves Shanghai.



Crystal

My go to girl for whenever I need company for an adventure, Crystal always seems to have free time and the willingness to do something,. There were a couple of weeks when I spent nearly every day with her because she was always available to explore. As a person, Crystal manages to be a walking contradiction. She is openly opinionated yet frustratingly secretive, often quite bold but other times very shy, and most intriguingly, shamelessly brash while having a huge heart. As a friend, Crystal is one that can always be counted on, as evidenced by her willingness let me pass out drunk in her bed with a broken heart. With this in mind, it looks like I have another good friend in New York, watch out Emoinacloset you have some competition now.



Linda

Hands down my favorite person out of the whole UC program, Linda is the down to earth architect from Berkeley who I always feel comfortable talking to. It is actually a shame that I did not start getting close to her till so late in the semester. She has some great insight and I wish I had more time to dig out more of it. At times Linda has been known to be very direct, but whenever I seem upset by something she said, she quickly takes it back and passes it off as a joke, a sign of her soft heartedness. If fortune allows, I hope to run into her again once I get back to the states.


Minor Characters


Varun

The big brother in the apartment, Varun cooks, cleans and keeps me on the level. In many ways Varun is Jeanni’s foil and has kept me firmly grounded during my stay in Shanghai. It was him who knocked some sense into me when I hit rock bottom in Shanghai. Despite being a fairly safe guy, Varun does have some mischief in him, which makes him a willing participant to some of the dumb things that I do. With the addition of Varun, it looks like I am fast building an international family.



Elena

Innocent, shy and sweet are the words that come to mind when I think of Elena, coincidentally those are also the words that least describe me. So it is no small wonder that I am able to have hours long conversations with this foil of mine. Elena’s youth (just a sophomore!) hides much wisdom and in many ways she reminds me of Ellie, just younger and less experienced. Look for Elena to start showing up in blog posts when I get back to San Diego.



Nick

I am not quite sure how to describe Nick other than constantly shifting. Nick acts very differently depending on who he is around so my experience with him ranges from annoyance to appreciation. A self proclaimed follower, Nick is wherever the action is, which surprisingly means that I am around him a lot.

-muffinman

Meeting with Uncle Edward

While on a class tour of the French concession, I received an unexpected call.  It was the man who lent me his driver when I arrived in Shanghai, and who was supposed to have met up with me two months earlier.  Not holding any grudges and very curious as to why he was calling me, I picked up the phone.  Turns out Uncle Edward, wanted to have dinner with me that night!  Despite being a bit annoyed at the last minuteness of the invitation, I nonetheless accepted because I was curious to meet this man who has helped me so much and who claims a close connection with my family.  Uncle Edward picked me up at the end of my French concession tour at Tianzifeng, where I was contemplating what to talk to him about.  The dinner conversation went off without a hitch and I actually learned quite a great deal from him.

Uncle Edward took me to a Hong Kong style café/restaurant which I was extremely grateful for.  Shanghai food just does not compare to Hong Kong food and my attempts at getting decent Cantonese food have all ended in expensive disasters.  That night was the first night in Shanghai where I had a proper pineapple bun, none of that Taiwanese imitation garbage that is 85 Degrees.  The meal itself is worth writing about because it was just such a great break from the meat heavy and vegetable-less food I had gotten accustomed to.  By Hong Kong standards, the meal itself was just mediocre and the price was astronomically high for the type of food that we ordered, which could be had in Hong Kong for half the price.  Thankfully, Uncle Edward picked up the tab adding another thing to the list of things that I was grateful for that night. 

It turns out that Uncle Edward has an extremely long relationship to my Dad’s side of the family.  In fact, my grandma had specifically told him on the phone to take care of me while I was in Shanghai and to make sure nothing happened to me.   Starting all the way from elementary school, he was friends with my aunt.  As a child, he was invited to a lot of family outings as friend of my aunt’s and he has many memories of spending time with my grandparents, aunts and uncles.  He recalled times of visiting and playing at the old family home in Hong Kong and taking part in barbeques by the beach.  Uncle Edward also told me that on two occasions after college, he had stayed over at the family home while visiting Hong Kong.  As a result of this long standing relationship, my grandma was very close with his parents as well.  The most interesting part of hearing all these stories was not the fact that there was this significant family friend lurking just around the corner, but hearing that my dad’s family actually acted like a family.  Looking at the present state of my dad’s side of the family now, I cannot have imagined that they had these fun family outings that Uncle Edward was telling me about.  It gives me hope that things can be reversed. 

While asking Uncle Edward what exactly it was that he did for a living, I gained some insight into how Singapore society works.   As a Singapore national and an employee of a state owned company, Uncle Edward had a unique insight to share.  In the US, state owned companies are often vilified to be badly run and doomed to failure, however, in Singapore’s case the opposite is true.  Singaporean state owned companies are models of efficiency and industry leaders.  Uncle Edward tells me that the firm that he works for runs a tight ship and that being state owned actually gives the firm an advantage in the field.  Especially in China, honesty in business dealings is very important and an honest reputation is something that many Chinese companies.  However, as a Singaporean state owned company, Uncle Edward’s firm has that reputation for honest dealings that is so in demand.  He says that often times his firm gets projects not because they necessarily have the most talented people, but because clients can trust the company.

Uncle Edward also went on to explain why state owned companies are so excellently run and how the executives of these companies are groomed from birth by the state.  It starts in the schools, where the most brilliant children are separated from the rest into elite institutions.  The Singaporean government invests heavily in their education system.  After grade school, young men are conscripted into the military where they are further separated.  The ones who show the most promise are chosen to be officers and given leadership training.  The most brilliant minds are kept in the military for national security purposes, while the rest are released from the military to continue their education.  The Singaporean government covers all the expenses of its students and actively pays for its citizens to study abroad.  Those brilliant minds that were kept in the military are further groomed for high posts in the military.  High ranking members of the military are forced to retire at a relatively young age at forty something and then are shuffled to either state owned corporations or other high government posts, which ensures that their talents are well utilized and at the same time allowing a new generation of leaders and new ideas.  This whole system of taking care of its citizens and providing opportunities for them breeds loyalty to the state, allowing the authoritarian Singapore government to maintain its power.  All in all, it is a very interesting system that seems to be working wonders for this small island nation.

The most fascinating thing that Uncle Edward said that night had to do with his Malthusian explanation of Chinese people’s behavior.  When I said that I found Chinese people to be a bit more rude than Hong Kong people, Uncle Edward said that this was due to their past, where they had to be rude to survive.  He explained that with so many people in China and such limited resources, the Chinese are always competing to survive and that being civilized meant you missed out on resources.  Continuing, he said that even during this time of plenty in China, the rudeness is still present because it is left over of an era of scarcity.  This tied directly into my observations of how Hong Kong was a lot more efficient than China in almost all aspects.  Uncle Edward contends that China’s inefficiency is state created through the need to keep unemployment low in order to maintain power.  He says that the Chinese government over hires the amount of workers needed for the job and at the same time resists mechanization. Though I do not necessarily agree with his explanation, it certainly opened my eyes to a different perspective.  Also I can see some merit to his argument that the Chinese government demands the hiring of more workers than is efficient in order to keep its populace employed and happy. 

Thanks Uncle Edward for the great dinner conversation.  I look forward to meeting you again, whenever that might be.  Please keep dropping that knowledge.    

-muffinman

Qi Li’s Freshman Performance

In the morning I boarded the bullet train back to Shanghai and when the city came into view I felt a great sense of relief to be back. Never have I been so glad to get back to a city. I did not think that I was going to be able to make Qi Li’s performance but a last minute correction on the time of the performance meant that I would make it back to Shanghai with time to spare.

When I got back to my apartment, I took a shower, packed my camera bag and headed off to the Fudan freshman dorms. As I approached the commons building, I was not sure what to expect, feeling that the whole event would be a bit awkward for me due to the fact that I would be surrounded by freshmen and not be able to communicate to boot. I spotted Qi Li as soon I entered the building and he promptly showed me to the seat that he had saved for me and introduced me to his classmates, some of whom spoke Cantonese and all of which knew some English.

Qi Li explained to me the nature of the performance. The performance, which is more accurately described as a variety show, was similar to the silly ice breaking activities that all freshman in the US and probably around the world are forced to do. Freshmen were separated by the buildings that they lived in and then further separated into groups by their room numbers. This show comprised of all the freshmen in Qi Li’s dorm. A graduate student was in charge of organizing the show and helping the freshmen. The acts performed included skits, singing, dances and even a Taekwondo demonstration.

What struck me about the show the most were not the quality of the performances themselves but rather how they demonstrated the maturity level of the Fudan freshman. To be frank, I felt like I was watching a bunch of middle school kids rather than freshman in college. Almost every student was shy and awkward up on stage. Their innocence could be seen in their interactions with the opposite sex. Whenever the boys and girls had to touch each other, it could be seen that they tried to maximize the distance between their bodies. Coming from the states, where middle school students grind on each other during school dances, this awkward distance was quite hilariously endearing.


Notice the distance

I experienced this awkwardness first hand when Winter invited me up on stage for a game. For the game, one female and one male student were paired up and they had to carry a cup full of water back and forth across the stage. The catch was that it had to be done with a student biting down on opposite sides of the cup. The girl that I was paired up with was so shy and embarrassed that we could barely play the game. She just kept laughing, blushing and looking towards Qi Li with a menacing glare for pairing her up with me. Interestingly Qi Li, won that game in a very convincing fashion.


That cup game

Winter and three other students were the MCs for the show. I was very impressed with Winter because he single handedly carried the show with another girl. He exuded confidence and charm throughout the show. During the show, I saw that Winter was quite the hit with the girl. Whenever he went up on the stage to give the girl performers balloons, representative of flowers, the girls would blush and giggle as he approached them; and then blush and giggle even more once he hugged them. The girls’ innocence were on full display whenever Winter was on stage, and it was quite the cute sight.


Winter MCing with three other students


Before


During


After

Qi Li’s dance performance was hilarious and quite impressive. He showed the most confidence out of the whole group and genuinely seemed to enjoy it. Qi Li’s performance ended with him pretending to kiss another male student on the lips. Talk about confidence.


Qi Li dancing


A second before the "kiss"

At the end of the show, I walked away satisfied with my choice to come back to Shanghai. I had met a lot new freshmen, some of whom spoke excellent English, and got a sense of what a typical Fudan student was like. My psychological anthropology professor was right, a lot can be teased out through the observation of expressive culture.

-muffinman

Fudan Freshman Performance Album

Suzhou and almost Wuxi

Over the moon festival weekend, I joined some of my UC friends on what was supposed to be a two day vacation, but I got so fed up with the poor planning that I simply returned to Shanghai after the first day.

The day began early as we made our way to the Shanghai railway station at some ungodly hour that I do not quite remember. Half of the group for some reason had decided to stay up most of the night and only got around three hours of sleep. We took the bullet train to Suzhou, cut the trip down to just thirty minutes and for just 41RMB ($6) it was quite a deal.

When we arrived in Suzhou, we took taxis as close as we could to the hostel. On the way to the hostel we got sidetracked buying Suzhou style moon cakes at a bakery that was famous for them and it had quite the line to back up that reputation. Initially, I was going to pass on the moon cakes because I had tried them back in Shanghai, but I figured I am in Suzhou and these are Suzhou style moon cakes so I should probably try them. This of course turned out to be the correct decision, because those moon cakes were pretty amazing and much better than the ones I had in Shanghai.


Suzhou style moon cakes

The walk to our hostel was quite beautiful. We made our way through narrow alleys that ran alongside canals. I had imagined Suzhou to be a sleepy canal town, which is what I saw while walking, but the crumbling buildings and murky water took away from the beauty I had heard from my parents and tour books. From the outside, our hostel did not look like much but once I entered, I was struck by the place. The antiquated look and layout of the hostel made me fall in love with it. I felt like I had walked into one of those ancient Chinese drama sets. In addition, it was extremely clean and cheap as well. However, while checking in, I fell asleep sitting down which marked my energy level for the rest of the day.


Walk to the hostel


Our hostel

The next stop was the tourist center of Suzhou, because we needed a map and a destination since unbeknownst to me, we had nothing planned. After some wrangling, we settled on visiting one of those ancient Chinese gardens that Suzhou was so famous for. The garden itself was somewhat dull. Some parts of the garden were pretty but there was nothing that really took my breath away. Except for the behavior of the Chinese tourists who seemed to have free reign over the entire garden. In the states, I am used to there being designated walkways and clearly marked paths for tourists visiting a historical site. This was simply not the case at the Suzhou garden as tourists wandered everywhere and climbed every rock and crevice imaginable. I wonder how long the garden will last if tourists keep treading everywhere.


Garden

After the garden, we spent another long while deciding where to go. Eventually it was decided to visit the largest pagoda in Suzhou. This sounded intriguing at the time but once I arrived and scaled the pagoda, I realized that there was nothing to it but a great view of the city. Climbing down from the pagoda, I was starting to get frustrated with the huge crowds of tourists everywhere, and I expressed to Linda about my wish to find a place that has a traditional Chinese feel to it without being touristy. I wanted to find a place in China similar to those small European towns which still had their traditional feel. Linda told me such places have most likely all disappeared, but I still have hope.


Largest pagoda in Suzhou


Great view of the city

The last attraction we went to was a site where the last remnant of the city wall and gate were preserved. When we arrived, we discovered that it was much more than just a wall but also a whole section of preserved and rebuilt ancient buildings. We arrived about half an hour before it closed, meaning we had the place all to ourselves, which was a welcome change from all the crowds. The wall and gate themselves were nothing to write home about it, and it was only once the sun went down that the place’s beauty began to show. As the whole place was lit up with lights, everything just seemed magical. I do not understand why they close so early because things look a lot better at night than during the day. This last attraction was by far my favorite and a good way to end an exhausting day of sightseeing.


A beautiful sight with the sunset



The gate and wall were the least interesting part of the attraction


Everything gets better when lit up with Christmas lights

Finding a restaurant for dinner took forever to get to due to even more indecisiveness and this was when my patience finally wore out. When we finally decided and found a restaurant, the meal itself was good. We ordered a fish that Suzhou was famous for, which was good but nowhere near as good as Cantonese seafood. After dinner, my attitude towards the whole trip just got worse and everybody noticed it. Nick found it all quite hilarious, telling how he saw my attitude progress from tolerant, to annoyed and then finally to fuck everybody and everything.

At the end of the night, as the trip “planners” talked to the hostel owner about Wuxi, the lack of planning became more apparent. I predicted a disastrous day so I made up my mind to leave and go back to Shanghai the next day.

Thankfully I had a backup plan which was to watch Qi Li’s freshman performance.

-muffinman

Suzhou Album

Moon Festival with new Friends

Winter invited me out to lunch for the moon festival, little did I know that I was going to be spending the whole day with him and his friends.

Nick, a UC Irvine student, and I met up with Winter at nearby restaurant. Winter arrived with a group of his high school friends and interestingly, two of the girls that came with him were dressed in military uniforms. Nick commented that meeting girls in military uniforms in the middle of Shanghai could only happen when he hung out with me.


Uniforms?!

The uniforms intrigued me as well because I had seen students at Fudan wear military uniforms and I had heard from a Fudan MBA student that students were required to undergo military training at some point during their college years. The two girls in uniform attended Jiatong University, which is also in Shanghai, and they told me that freshman have to go through mandatory military training for two weeks. “Military training” was explained to me as a lot of running and marching, which all the students apparently hated. This was far from the strict military training I had imagined, though after a second thought, I cannot imagine Fudan students doing any sort of hard military training.

The girls Winter brought with him were fascinated with me and Nick, which led to some pretty interesting moments. At first everybody was a bit shy, but as I began to ask questions, the conversation started flowing. I learned their strange English names of which Beryl and Shining were the two names that stood out. It seems that some family member chose their English names and I believe they had no idea what they were doing. Lunch conversation veered onto the topic of dating and relationships as they always seem to. Winter and his friend spoke of having multiple ex-girlfriends, which was extremely surprising and made me out to be the inexperienced one at the table.


Group picture

After lunch, there was talk about going to karaoke (KTV). I had never gone KTVing before and was actually quite nervous about it. I have an irrational fear of singing and dancing, which has carried over from god knows when. To make matters worse, Nick left me as soon as we arrived at the KTV place because he had only slept a measly three hours and suddenly felt sick. The whole KTV was embarrassing, as expected, with me singing terribly off key, and not knowing the words to many of the English songs I selected. It was still good fun and the other people were very encouraging and kind, easing the blow to my pride a little. I am not sure why, but it seems that Chinese students are all quite decent at KTV. Maybe they practice a lot? Especially the girls, they were extremely impressive in all the songs that they sang. After my first KTV experience, I swear I am never going go through such an ordeal again sober.


She was the best out everybody, if only I remembered her name


Not quite sure how this happened because I can barely understand mandarin

After KTV, we went back to their dorms, and I got see firsthand the normal student dormitories. Their dorms were about the size of my room, except that they crammed four people into them. Suddenly my dorm room in San Diego seemed luxurious. After KTV, I also began to notice that Beryl was a little bit too interested in me. I could never escape from her for too long and at times it got awkward. Nick later agreed that she did seem far too interested.

We ended the night with dinner at Ajisen, a Japanese ramen chain, after meeting up with Nick again, and some other UC students. What I thought was going to be a lonely moon festival, turned out to be one of the most interesting and hospitable days I have had in Shanghai.
I think I can check off meeting and befriending local students off my Shanghai to do list after today. Who knew I would accomplish that goal so quickly?

Moon Festival Album

-muffinman

Spinning Plates

It's hard to find time to blog when you have to make sure your spinning plates don't fall to the ground.

That being said, it's a bad excuse to say the reason I haven't been blogging for the past three months is because I've been too busy. But one thing leads to another -- you get caught up in one thing, and then another and another and pretty soon time goes by just like that. After not blogging for so long, it's hard to get back into the habit. It's a shame because there's so much that's happened so long ago, I can't possibly remember every detail that's happened, every moment that's impacted me. Even during the times I was busy, stressed, or going through some dilemma I should have been using this blog to get my thoughts and feelings out, not just for the sole purpose of updating this thing, but more for myself.

I sometimes wonder if I've taken on much more than I can chew this semester. I haven't been able to take a break since the semester began.  Thankfully, this weekend I had the chance to sit down and write but it only feels like I'm passing through the eye of the storm. I know once this weekend pasts I'm going to have to rev it up in high gear again, like it has been up till now. Once Thursday, the date of my last midterm, ended I felt a huge surge of relief and passed out on my bed. Do you know the feeling you get when you hold your breathe underwater for the longest time, and make it out into fresh air just as your lungs feel like their going to explode? Yeah, it felt that good.

This semester I've had to juggle responsibilities and manage my time more than I ever thought I would. If you were from the future and told me in freshman year that my semester now would be like this, I would have laughed right in your face. In short, I've been dealing with school and classes, a part-time job, being a pledgemaster for Beta Alpha Psi (but we have to call ourselves "candidatemasters"), networking and recruiting for upcoming summer internships, and managing my friendships.

With school and classes, I know everyone has them, but I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to do well in order to boost my GPA for internship applications in the spring.  It's been stressing me out because I have to do ridiculously well in order to raise my GPA a decimal point -- as in near 4.0 status -- after which I'll feel a lot more stable in getting interview offers in the coming spring.  At the moment I feel like if I don't make this level my chances in getting an internship -- and by extension a job -- are going to slim down a lot.

A good friend of mine who worked over the summer at the company I'm at now recommended me for the position.  I'm very grateful to him, but damn it takes a lot of energy out of me.  It's 16 hours a week, and for those of you who have had a part-time job during the semester I hope you can appreciate that number.  I just never realized how long 16 hours a week is and how valuable that time is.  What makes it worse is the fact that my times are every Monday through Thursday afternoons, and with classes every morning before lunch, lunchtime events with Beta Alpha Psi (basically everyday), and work all I want to do at the end of the day is go to sleep and wind down.  But then there's homework, and studying, and all that extra after school work that you have to do just to keep up with everyone else.

Being a leader of Beta Alpha Psi as a pledgemaster is a huge time commitment, but it's not just the meetings or the straight work you put into it.  When you have classes at 8:00 AM, pulled an all-nighter to study for a midterm, and have work in the afternoon, the only thing you want to do is crawl into a hole and go to sleep.  To be honest, being social and putting myself out there outside of my close-knit group of friends takes a lot of energy for me.  It's why after corporate presentations and networking events I always feel exhausted.  It's not to say I don't enjoy talking to my pledges -- I love it and they're such good kids!  It's just in between everything else that's been going on, some days can get really rough but I still have to force a smile on my face.

It doesn't help that in the back of my mind I wonder when the apartment we're living in is going to get sold.  We don't have an official lease contract. We're living there on a month-by-month basis with an addendum that if she sells the place then we have three months to find a new apartment, which isn't bad.  However, depending on when the apartment gets sold things could be really hard for me and my two roommates to look for places, because it's just one thing after another.  Finals are in December, internship applications and interview preparations are in January, and interviews run all the way from February through early March.

It's the combination of all these things that makes me feel exhausted most of the time.  I feel overworked a lot. Coffee runs through my blood and sustains me.  I must drink at least 4-5 cups during the weekdays if not more on bad days.  Sometimes I feel like I'm being pulled on by all these obligations and responsibilities.  The worst part in all this is because I've been getting slammed every week, I've been neglecting my old freshman year floormates.  I haven't seen them in weeks and I miss the good times we used to have when I could just hop over a couple of doors to just hang out with them.  But now, they live in Chinatown while I'm all the up either in my apartment in 32nd street or at school, working or studying.  There are other relationships I haven't been giving my fullest attention to as well, and the only thing I can say now is I'm sorry.

Each of these paragraphs in themselves could have been a blog post and unfortunately I've had to cram all of them in one.  Hopefully I can get around to writing more often and go into more detail on all these things.  It felt good to write something -- it's been too long.

-Emoinacloset

Night out alone

There might be some explaining to do after tonight. Friends might be wondering how I ended up at a Celine Dion playing bar by myself sipping an overly expensive whiskey sour while writing this. Especially, since I had come to the French Concession with these friends with the intention of going clubbing and sticking together.

I had never planned to go clubbing tonight. I had originally turned down the invitation, like I always do, and intended on spending the night celebrating Diwali with the Indians. However, Diwali celebrations were cut short when Varun no longer wanted to go to Helen’s, a bar. My UC friends, offered a plan B, which was to go clubbing, without really having to go clubbing. Nick told me that the venue that they were going to had a lounge element to it, which sounded like a great idea. However, while waiting for everyone to get ready, cracks in the plan B started to show. It began with the talk of going to a different venue that was entirely a club. Then, Nick started to get very fuzzy over his description of the original venue, not being entirely sure how much of a lounge it really was.

No surprise then that throughout the time that I was waiting for everyone to gather, I was expressing doubts about going. Each time, however, I was talked into going by either Linda or Nick and for awhile I thought I would actually be able to go. The venue was changed at the last minute to Soho and when I arrived and heard the bass of the club, familiar feelings of dread began to arise. I felt myself begin to shut down again like I had at senior ball, so I asked Linda to walk with me and help me find some liquid courage. Unfortunately, there was no bar in sight and when Linda suggested we walk back, I took a few steps back towards the club and realized that there really was no way I could go back. Linda tried her best to convince me to walk back, but I told her that everybody has something that they just cannot do, and clubbing was that thing for me. I followed up by telling her that I did not want to ruin her night and that she should not worry about me and with that Linda gave up and walked back towards the club.

After Linda left, I ended up walking around the area and exploring a little. At one point, I noticed a bar and restaurant playing soft music, which was a sharp contrast to the loud bass heavy music coming from all the other venues. It also helped that it was on a quiet street away from everything else. I took note of it the first time I passed it and continued my exploring. When I got tired of being accosted by black taxi drivers and men pushing what I thought were prostitutes, I made my way back to the Van Gogh bar. I must have been a curious sight to the wait staff, sitting at a table alone drinking a whiskey sour while scribbling in my notebook. The atmosphere at the bar was extremely relaxing and I would have stayed longer and ordered a glass of wine had the waiter not told me that they closed at 1am and when I asked it was 2am.
I left the bar and once again wondered what now? Deciding it was still way too early to go back and determined not to waste my taxi fare coming here, I began walking to Xintiandi, another night life area. The only problem was that I did not have a map but I managed to find a subway station and by using my subway map, I determined that I needed to walk North-East to get to Xintiandi. In my mind, I half doubted that I would succeed in getting there and I figured that I would just hail a cab home once I got tired of being lost.

The hour long walk to Xintiandi was an experience in of itself. The French concession is an extremely old neighborhood with rows of trees lining the streets, which meant that often times I found myself walking in very dimly lit streets. Thankfully, I had my Emerson on me at the time to give me confidence and I was able to make it all the way to Xintiandi with no trouble at all. Many times, I wished I had brought my camera because I just wanted to capture the creepy feeling of being alone on a dark and deserted street surrounded by old and sometimes crumbling buildings.

Xintiandi was closed by the time I got there and my hopes of grabbing another drink were dashed at 3am. Finally deciding that I had done enough exploring, I grabbed a cab and headed home.
With that story, there are some apologies and one thank you to be said. Sorry to everyone for walking away without any warning, though I know at the end of the night you all had fun and I was the last thing on your mind. Sorry to Linda for putting you on the spot and making you walk back to the club by yourself. Sorry to Lu for not wishing you a happy birthday and leaving your event without saying goodbye.

Thank you Crystal for caring enough to call and text to see if I was doing alright and then checking up on me at the end of the night, even if it was out of annoyance that I had left without telling you. Sorry for not telling you that I was leaving, I know you expected me to at least say something to you if I was to tell anybody at all. Also sorry for not being able to promise that I will not do this again, you must understand, I am just difficult like that.

-muffinman

Visiting an elite Shanghai High School

Last Friday my Shanghai Global City class took a field trip to an elite Shanghai High School with a tour led by a local communist party official who also happens to be a teacher at the school.

I had to write a paper about my experiences visiting the high school and talking to the students.  Just like the expo paper, this one also sounds like a blog post and though it is not as good as the expo one, I think people will find it interesting.

Complete set of pictures of the high school

-muffinman

--------------------------------------------------------------------

                The field trip to the local Shanghai high school revealed a student body that was much more homogenous than any American school that I had encountered. 

This high school was definitely better looking than my high school

                Examining the pictures I had taken of students during the tour, I was struck by how similar all the students looked in their school uniforms.  With their light blue jackets and dark blue pants, these students were indistinguishable from each other from afar.  The goal of the uniforms as stated during the question and answer session was to eliminate differences in social class, promoting equality through homogeneity.  However, after having the chance to talk to some of the students, it was clear that the level of homogeneity extended far beyond dress.

                The three students, one male and two female, that I was talking to were extremely similar, in both their behavior and lives that they described to me.  All three of their lives revolved around school, and they spoke of spending most of their time on doing homework and trying to go to sleep before ten o’clock.  They all complained of having too little free time and when asked what they did with the little free time that they had, they all responded with an activity that involved the computer.  Only after some pressing did they answer with activities that were more distinct.  One of the female students said she swam, another stated that she drew, while the male student said he played basketball.  All of the three students said that these secondary activities were rarely done.  There was a stated preference towards science and mathematics among the three students.  Biology, chemistry and physics were the majors that the three students wanted to pursue in university.  It was no surprise that all three said that they were going to choose science over humanities for their area of focus during their final year in high school. 

Homogeneous all the way through

                Their reactions to many things that I revealed about myself were quite similar as well.  When the three students heard that I boxed, there was an air of disapproval expressed across the board.  The male student explained that many Chinese people thought boxing was a “rude” sport and the female students echoed his sentiments.  When I told them that my major was Anthropology, there was a sense of confusion among the three students.  One of the female students asked me why I was majoring in Anthropology, to which I replied that I found it interesting.  This was met with general surprise and when pressed to explain themselves, they all revealed that they had a disdain for the humanities.  The male student told me that he found humanities to be boring, and his statement was accompanied by nods of agreement among the female students. 

                After the interview session, I compared my experience with my classmates.  My interview experience was far from unique and many of my classmates reported similar conversation topics, the most prominent of which was the complaining of too much studying and not enough leisure time.  Another topic that everybody seemed to touch upon was dating, it seemed that all my classmates were asked if they had a boyfriend or girlfriend.  Talking with my classmates revealed that there was very little variation in opinions and questions among the Shanghai high school students, further adding to the impression of homogeneity that I had received. 

My interview subjects

                I interviewed Qi Li, a Fudan freshman and Shenzhen native, about his high school experience.  Qi Li attended and boarded at an elite high school in Shenzhen. He described his life as being centered around school.  There were school scheduled study times and skipping dinner was the only way to get enough free time to play basketball.  By Qi Li’s account, life at an elite school sounded very similar across China. 

The interview session with the Shanghai high school students and Qi Li reinforced my idea of homogeneity among Chinese high school students, at least at the elite level.  Perhaps this will change as Chinese universities increasingly look for more in applicants than a good Gao Kao score, driving students to differentiate themselves from their classmates by pursuing extracurricular activities and interests, creating a more heterogeneous student body more similar to those found in the United States.