Reflecting on 2010

No blog would be complete without a new year’s post and besides it would be a shame to not look back on such an exciting and transformative year.

Around the same time last year, I remember that life was anything but fun.  Winter quarter 2010 was filled with a lot self pity and loneliness . A huge distance had grown between many of my friends from freshman year; at the same time feelings of betrayal stemming from my friends telling Ashley that I liked her were still present.  The result was that I began burying myself in my work and had an overwhelming desire to leave for Shanghai as soon as possible. 

However, not everything gloomy during that quarter.  With a lack of friends, I committed myself to the Undergraduate Investment Society (UIS) where I found a sense of family.  Of course no family would be complete without a mother figure and that part was played by June, who helped me out more times than I can remember.  In addition, Michael the president of the club thought the world of me at the time and because of him that I started to gain confidence in my work.  The finance knowledge that I picked up that quarter continues to serve me well, and has been letting me impress those who look down on my major. 

Despite, my growing involvement in finance, winter quarter saw me fly the white flag and surrender against economics.  The day before my economics midterm, I realized that I passionately hated studying economics and I promptly dropped all my economics courses that quarter.  I now declare myself as a an economics major in name only, just because having it on my transcript as a second major looks so much more impressive.

Spring quarter was spent trying to keep my heart from running away with the amazing Ellie, a girl who seemed to be more dream than reality by the way she would disappear and reappear without warning.  It was the first time I had been swept off my feet and I tried my best to hold on to that feeling.  The more I learned about Ellie, the more I wanted to be like her.  As you can see from my unchanged relationship status, that things were simply not meant to be.  However, till this day I am still trying to be more like Ellie, and I find myself asking what would Ellie do in situations where I am unsure about how to treat people.        

Meeting Ellie, colored my spring quarter pink and it showed through my relationships with friends.  I finally made up with Ashley and started rebuilding our friendship after I had abruptly burned the bridge.  After breaking my mother’s heart by telling her that I did not feel like part of the family, I tried to connect with my family, particularly my sister.  I started to reach out to new UIS members and strengthening relationships with old ones, all the while playing an increasingly larger role in the club.  Unfortunately, work at the TV station started to stagnate and the workplace was no longer a fun place to be.  Spring quarter was also when I got my first SLR and over the course of the year it would suck large amounts of money from my bank account.  Despite the rose colored glasses, my sophomore year ended on a bittersweet note, as I saw Ellie and my UIS friends graduate. 

Summer was the start of a new life with a two month internship in Los Angeles that saw me rubbing elbows the city and state’s elite.  I was a leader for the first time in my life and the nerve wracking challenge crystallized to me how a leader should act.  I fell in love with a city that I hated without ever really knowing why and picked up the pieces of my heart after Ellie dropped off the face of the earth for the billionth time.  After two months, I left LA with a new network, a much more impressive resume and lifelong friends.

Arriving in Shanghai, I once again found myself falling head over heels for an impossible girl.  Jeanni was bold and beautiful but seven years older than me, meaning she saw me as nothing more than a little brother.  When I finally accepted I was chasing an impossible dream, I did something I had never done before and confessed my feelings to her.  Jeanni took everything in stride and comforted me while I contented myself to be her little brother.  Thankfully, Crystal and Varun were there to help me pick up the pieces.  Shanghai gave me a new family in the form of the Asia MBA students.   I always felt more welcomed by these students who ranged from seven years older to over twice my age than with the UC students who were my age.  In addition to family and friends, Shanghai gave me a whole host of new adventures and life changing experiences. 

The city has been exceptionally kind to me with the easiest academic workload I have had in college.  

However, professionally my stay in the city has been a disaster as I rejected one internship in hopes of finding a better one, only to have that better internship fall through.  Four months of bliss ended all too quickly with the departure of most of the Asia MBA students and UC students.  Only Crystal and Jeanni are left from the old guard and they will be leaving in two months.  It is both exciting and heartbreaking to think about making new friends come February.           

In one year, I lived in four cities, got swept off my feet twice, added an uncountable number of new family members across the world and created a host of life changing memories.  2010 brought a whole new level of excitement to my life’s story and I am going to have to try exceptionally hard to make 2011 as dramatic or else readers might get bored of my blog.                     

    

-muffinman

Zaijian my MBA friends

Having sent off Varun and Gift today, and with most of the Asia MBA students gone now, I figure this is the appropriate time to write my farewell to them. 

The Asia MBA crowd has been my family away from family.  I knew their schedules, the drama and inside jokes so much so that I would often be referred to as the partial Asia MBA student.  These older students took me under their wing and fed me their stories and advice, all the while giving me all I could drink.    

By the end of this semester I gained:

A father who drinks so well,

A brother who is so wise,

A sister who cares so much,

And of course so many aunts and uncles!

Thank you for making the first half of my study abroad experience so memorable because without you, these four months would not have been anywhere near as life changing.

Hopefully in the future, we will be able to cross paths again.

-muffinman

BAP Initiation

We had our Beta Alpha Psi initiation ceremony, pledging season ended, and officially added a 135 new members to our organization last week.  Initiation itself was pretty intense; we had some big people come, like the head of US recruiting for Deloitte, so E-board was even more focused on perfection than they usually are.

This just put added pressure on me, because as one of the pledgemasters, I had to give a speech to the new member class in front of everybody.  Typically it's the chairs who do the speech (I'm just a member), but both of them had class that time so Steph and I had to get on stage to do it.  I was pretty worried about how my speech would sound, but I got good responses from everyone once it was over so I must have done pretty well for myself.  Steph talked about our time as pledgemasters overseeing the candidate process while I focused on the future and their involvement in BAP.  It's a pretty short speech, but still something I feel is worth sharing.

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From the beginning to the end, I have been amazed at the level of dedication and initiative you all have shown throughout the semester, from engaging yourself in becoming ready for the professional world to the enthusiasm you have shown doing community service. I am honored to have served as your Candidate Master. However, your involvement in Beta Alpha Psi doesn’t end here. As members, not only are you now representatives of this organization, but you are the heart of this community. An organization is more than just workshops and speaker events; it is a group of people who collectively share one purpose, one goal.


PAUSE


To give back to the community. An organization is only as strong as the dedication of its members, and you now are the future of Beta Alpha Psi. Armed with the knowledge Beta Alpha Psi has given you, I hope that motivates you to give back, as future leaders, mentors, and members, so that future BAP candidate generations will be even stronger going forward; so that they may have the same great experience that you have had.


-Emoinacloset

Martial Arts at People's Park

Another paper for my Shanghai Global City class. This was supposed to be a group paper, but I ended up writing 90% of it, which I was alright with because I just tackled it like a blog post. Hopefully all of you will find it as interesting as I did.

- muffinman

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At the heart of Shanghai lies People’s Park, an oasis of recreation and calm is surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the surrounding People’s square. In the small exercise corner of this park, our group discovered the martial artists that call this park home. Our research group set out to learn as much about these recreational martial artists in People’s park as we could.
On our first day of field work, our group wandered to the exercise equipment area, where we observed various individuals striking the trees repeatedly. Puzzled by what we saw, we approached these individuals, all male and around the age of forty, and asked them what they were doing. The first man that we talked explained that the reason that he was hitting his knuckles against the tree was to strengthen them. When he showed us his knuckles, they were all perfectly aligned presumably from his training. He explained to us that he practiced a “san da” style and that there were masters teaching on Sundays at nine o’clock in the morning. The second man that we talked to was also hitting a tree but was doing it with his forearms rather than his knuckles. Like the first man, he was hitting the tree to strengthen his body. The goal was to hit each of his forearms three hundred times against the tree every day. He went more in depth about the teaching that occurs on Sunday mornings, explaining that there were four main styles being taught at People’s park.

We arrived at People’s park at 9:25AM on a sunny Sunday morning and as soon as we entered the park, we spotted the first group of martial artists. At first we only noticed a small group of six or seven martial artists who were practicing with the master. It was very easy to pinpoint the master out of the group as he was the one leading the routine, as well as correcting the students’ posture and footwork. The group of students were predominantly male and well into their forties or fifties. On the sides watching the students, were other martial artists who were stretching and socializing. Further away, there were a group of younger students who were practicing something that looked like a different style, but we could not spot the master.
We approached one of the individuals on the side, a man in his forties dressed in a white martial arts uniform and asked him about what he was doing in the park today. Needs more info (Max) The man confirmed to us who the master was and named the style that he was teaching.
Next, we approached the only foreigner in the group of students, an Australian male in his forties. The Australian had been practicing with this specific master for three and a half years, though he has practiced martial arts prior to becoming this master’s student. He trains to improve his health and flexibility, claiming that it has helped him find balance and keeps him centered in Shanghai’s fast paced lifestyle. The Australian comes to the park to train with the master four to five times a week in the morning before going to work.

The Australian student gave us good understanding of the structure of this master’s teaching as well as how martial arts are taught in the park in general. The master teaches seven days a week from 6:30AM to 4PM, though these hours are subject to change at the master’s discretion. Saturday and Sunday are the busiest and also the most relaxed and social. Most students who come, stay for about two hours. According to the Australian, the master is world-renowned for his technique. The master travels and teaches around the world at various times of the year. The Australian told us that foreign students will raise funds to have the master come and teach in their home countries, something, which the Australian has done more than once.

As for his own martial arts experience with this master, the Australian explained that the master is very old fashioned. The master’s teaching style is reminiscent of kung fu movies, where students are told repeat a simple move over and over again, only being taught something new when the master has decided that the student had mastered the technique. The Australian told us how he practiced walking around in a circle for two months before being taught a new a technique. The younger students who we initially thought were doing a different style were actually new students who were just practicing one technique repeatedly, most likely for two months, before moving on. The students that we saw doing a routine with the master had at least one year of experience.

In the park, the teaching of martial arts is completely recreational and is often done for the health benefits. There is no application, or sparring, done in the park. Classes are taught in Mandarin, but there are many foreign students who do not speak any Mandarin and learn through mimicking, though according to the Australian, some styles are not as foreign friendly. There are at least half a dozen masters in the park and all of them have some fame. Permission must be granted by an unspecified group before being able to teach in the park. The masters all hang a small banner to show that they have permission to teach. Every year, all the schools come together and perform in the main area of People’s park.

After talking to the Australian, the rest of my group left while I stayed behind at People’s park. I walked around a little and watched the other masters’ teaching. One group particularly drew my interest, because it seemed the most practical. Their strikes and movement were all very direct as well as the master taking great care to explain the theory behind the movements. I saw the heart that the master had for his students, much more so than the first master that I watched, this master had a brand new female student, who was performing horrendously. Nonetheless, he took much care and patience in teaching her, which was very admirable.

Seeing the martial arts in People’s park gave me a whole new perspective about the place. Just when I thought I had seen all there was to offer at this old park, I discover a whole new subculture that I had completely missed.