Shanghai and stuff

This weekend, under the cover of tourism, I went to Shanghai to apply for a new passport at the US Consulate, as my previous one was stolen on a crowded bus here while returning home one day. Shanghai was pretty cool - I really liked the architecture, and it was especially neat to come in during the night on a train to see all of the buildings lit up. I think Shanghai is the largest city I've ever really visited. There were towers everywhere. If it wasn't an all-out skyscraper, it was a 40 story apartment building. And I don't really feel like Nanjing is crowded anymore. I went with some friends from my study abroad program, and we witnessed a true spectacle of crowdedness on the subway. There were about 700 or so people waiting to get onto a train as it pulled up to our stop, and they all tried to push and shove their way onto the already-packed train. At this point the station officers lent a hand... or rather, a foot. One lady was trying to tuck herself onto the train, but the doors were getting stuck on her bottom, so the train couldn't quite go yet. So one of the officers came over and shoved her in with his foot until the doors could close.

Yeah, Shanghai's pretty cool. :)

Also, be cautious about Chinese massages, because they will rearrange the tendons around your spinal cord.

Other than that, classes here are still going well, I'm settling in with my host family, becoming more comfortable in the culture, and so on.

I am a little disconcerted by the treatment that they give to white people here. Especially me, as a young white man - I receive celebrity treatment here. People don't quite stare, but I always draw attention to myself everywhere I go, because I am tall and white. I had three girls approach me together on Friday to ask me if they could take their picture with me, and on subways I am ogled at and giggled at; I can walk through lines to the front and I get first-class treatment everywhere I go.

But I suppose it's not that different from American racism - all I have to do there is dress nicely and be polite to people, because the white man ticket is still working pretty well there, too.

I don't have to try to live well; I don't have to struggle for my livelihood; I don't have to fight for anything. Everything comes to me on a silver platter, and I waltz about as I please.

In my homestay, my host mom makes two meals a day for me. She also brings fruit to me in the afternoons and evenings. My host brother gave me their router and only uses the internet while I'm not here, and he sleeps on a mat in his parent's room because I have his bedroom to myself.

When I went to Shanghai this weekend, I spent around 550 kuai. That included a hotel fee which I ended up not needing, several very expensive dinners, the train fare both ways (and it was the fastest train), a massage, frequent cab fares, and probably some other things I don't remember. To me, this trip was about $60-70. I had a conversation with my language tutor this past week in which I mentioned I was going to Shanghai, so I asked her if she had ever gone. She said she hadn't, which kind of surprised me since Shanghai is two hours away by train. So I asked her why not, and she said "I have no money!" Somehow I keep forgetting that my money is worth 5-7 times as much here.

My life is so privileged.

Here are some pictures from Shanghai (and other places):This is me, with some Chinese people, and behind us is a very dirty river and the Pudong District of Shanghai. The building with the big pink ball things is the Oriental Pearl Tower, which is currently the tallest thingy in China. And the two tall towers just right of center are the Jin Mao tower and behind it, the World Financial Center (still under construction, but already at its maximum height. When it's finished, it will be the tallest completed skyscraper in the world until that crazy thing in Dubai is done). If you want more information about those, you can wiki them. The golden tower to the right... I don't actually know what that is (just called the "Aurora" building, I think), but it's indicative of the love that Chinese people have for buildings with golden windows. I've seen several around here. I kind of like them too, but they do have a bit of a tacky feel.Mom, you are going to love the video version of this. They even played a rendition of "Jingle Bells." This was at the house of 99 1/2 rooms (or something like that - it was a field trip we went on the other day). There was a regulation at the time that no one except the ruling dude could have a house with 100 rooms or more, so these rich people decided to build a house that came as close as possible to breaking the regulation (it actually has more than 100 rooms, but they designed it so that those extra rooms would be counted as like... 1 room). Anyway, it wasn't really that exciting, but this Chinese symphony we ran across was pretty cool.