Shanghai, China
I have been in Shanghai since Feb. 12th. It has been a wonderful
experience. I have another three weeks left in China before heading home to
spend the summer in St. Louis.
One of the best experiences I have had so far was going to Tibet
for Spring Break. I went with a tour group (foreigners are not allowed to
travel in Tibet without a guide and they are also not allowed to travel alone)
and had a fake name next to mine in the Visa.
I spent 8 days in Tibet. We traveled all around and spent the night in four different places (Lhasa, Shigatse, Shigar, and Mt. Everest Bast Camp.) My favorite was Lhasa and the Basecamp. It was amazing. I didn’t realize how much I missed mountains while living in Shanghai.
The Potala Palace, where the Dali Lama used to live.
It was really interesting to learn about the history of Tibet and
how conditions are now with the Chinese. I got a pretty good feel for how many
Tibetans feel about the Chinese presensense in Tibet. Our guide warned us
several times not to
speak about the Cultural Revolution or other sensitive subjects because there
are many people that act as spies and will report you to the police. In Lhasa
there were military walking around in groups with shin and knee guards and
bullet proof vests on. It was crazy.
This is me at Mt. Everest again. It was so hard to breathe. I
struggled climbing to the top of this small hill to take
this picture. The base camp on the Tibetan side is at 5,200 meters so around
17,500 feet.
Here are a few stories:
On the flight back to Shanghai from Lhasa I met a girl from
Colorado. It was very strange. As I was putting my backpack under the seat in
front of me I noticed that someone walking down the aisle had the same tennis
shoes as me. I was not going to say anything at first because I mean really,
why would she care, but I ended up saying “hey! we have the same shoes!” She
reacted the way I would have and was like ohhh haha weird... She then sat down
a few seats from me and we talked until the plane took off. (We introduced
ourselves, her name is Ellie.) I told her that I was from Boulder and learned
she was from Highland Ranch. While in Tibet, I didn’t meet anyone who was
around my age, most people were in their late 30s and 40s so it was nice being
able to talk to another college student. We landed in Xi’an and had to take
another flight to Shanghai. On the plane we sat next to each other and talked
for much of the flight. It turns out that she had just graduated from Gonzaga
University and was now teaching English to college students in a small town
outside of Shanghai. We also discovered that we both play soccer. She played
soccer for her college team and started as a center back! After talking for a
while I asked if she wanted to hangout with some friends and I that night. She
agreed and we shared a cab from the airport to ECNU.
Then today we decided to play soccer at the field on campus. On
Sundays there are always games (9v9). We asked (in Chinese) if we could join a
team. They said yes and told us that we would be playing left and right
forward. It was really fun and a pretty good game. It was the first time that I
have played soccer with another girl in China and she was really good! After
the game the team’s captain asked us if we would like to join the team and play
with them every Sunday. I said yes! But Ellie couldn’t because she lived too
far away.
It ended up being a a really good day and the first time I have
every met someone on a plane and then ended up spending the next few days with
them! I just think that it was an interesting/funny story and cool that we had
so much in common!
Shanghai is a really fun town. It is so huge that even after
being here for three months, it is hard to really understand where everything
is. Twenty three million people live within the city limits of Shanghai; there
are 13 “downtowns.” There are people everywhere. Everyone pushes and shoves to
get through crowds on the Metro and bus. The school that I go to is called East
China Normal University. I don’t take classes with any chinese students though,
just with the other American College Students who are on the CIEE program.
There is no one else from Earlham, but quite a few from the midwest. And
actually a polish guy who knows Sepi (from Earlham VB!) I take Chinese 4 times
a week for 2 hours each time and have to meet with a tutor twice a week for an
hour each time. Then I get home and speak Chinese with my host family-- so in
all it is a lot of Chinese. I am also taking 3 other classes, which are all in english.
China’s Macroeconomic Impact, China’s IR, and Chinese Film and Society. These
classes are all once a week for 3 hours. I have no class on Fridays!
We have traveled with CIEE program a bit. We went to Ancient City
Pengyao, Xi’an, Huangzhou, and Xi’tang. I really enjoyed going to Xi’an and
Pengyao. It was very interesting and we learned a lot about Chinese History.
Huangzhou and Xi’tang were also both interesting and beautiful, but very
crowded. Xi’tang has become very touristy after Tom Cruise filmed a few scenes
from the most recent Mission Impossible movie there.
This is a picture from ECNU campus. I walk past this huge statue
of Chairman Mao everyday on the way to class.
This is Pludong, the financial district of Shanghai. All of these
buildings have been built in the past 10 years. In 1992 it was mostly farm
land.
The Terracotta warriors which we
saw while in Xi’an.
The bell tower in Xi’an
Yuyuan Gardens in Shanghai. My host family took me!
I have been doing KT fitness with one friend here! (I started out
with two friends... but one of them dropped out. Joanie (who is from Denver) and
I are now on week 10! We are going
to do day 1 tomorrow! It has been a little difficult trying to do KT here
because the gym we go to doesn’t have a bosu ball, and other equipment, so we
have to be creative! After we are done with KT she is going to do some of last
years summer packet with me!
