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So im sitting in the airport in Shanghai waiting to go meet my Dad and Pari in Beijing for the weekend. This is the first time that i’ve really been on my own in Shanghai, whenever we go out to explore the city I’ve always been with one other person if not a huge group. I know you’re probably thinking, wow lets give Aryn a pat on the back for getting to the airport all by herself but it was a freeing feeling that I was totally on my own, there was no one to translate or help guide me. Its so easy to get caught up in just getting by this semester, practicing Chinese, getting homework done, getting dinner and keeping in touch with people that having this time that I felt free and on my own was special. It’s the same sort of feeling when you take your first plane by yourself, or you go away to college, the people that you are used to taking care of you can’t so you get to make your own decisions. Ok now these are extreme comparisons but I know can all relate to that feeling.
I remember this same sort of feeling them I went away to college which I’m sure you all can relate to the feeling that you can stay out till 4am if you want to and your parents can’t do anything about it (I mean I was clearly always home from the parties by midnight cause I had a long day at the library on Saturday, but from what I heard from the other kids that’s what they did.)
While I like to pretend I’m partly a city girl when I go to New York City, lets be real, as many times as my dad will ask us which highway were on or which river we’re looking at I will still mix those up. This semester is the first time I’ve gotten to experience a city life on my own. After too many episodes of Sex and the City it just has always seemed so romantic living in the city and at time I do get swept up in all the excitement of it opportunities at my fingertips. Especially in Shanghai, while the city is no Beijing when it comes to culture but it does have so much to it. Just walking down he street you get to see the street vendors, the tubs of frogs that are about to be someone’s dinner, the cleaners who are using leaves to sweep, the underwear hanging above your head to dry, the babies peeing on the side of the road, the old men relieving themselves on the side of the road, I could keep going on and on. When we’re driving in on the highways you’re surrounded by giant buildings on both sides. Ever after living in the city for 4 months I won’t have seen all of it. Now don’t get me wrong, there is also nothing like the feeling when your driving west in Colorado and the sight of the mountains doesn’t look real and you get that feeling of being alive. Both of these places have such beauty in the opportunities. Yes this sounds corny but for any of you that have ever lived in a city you know what I’m talking about. I keep going back and forth about living here after school. While I know I have so much time and this semester is only half over I feel that this semester has really sparked something in me. I don’t know if I’ll be able to really understand it until I get home but as everyone told me before I left, a semester abroad is something that you’ll never forget. Traveling is such a unique experience. This book that I’m reading The Alchemist, is about a Shepard who is trying to find his personal treasure and at one point he decided he wants to go back to his old life a Shepard but then realizes how much he is missing out on by staying in his comfort zone. Im sure everyone has had this debate, should you stay were things are easy and you know them because maybe if you go outside of it and decide to pursue your dreams they won’t end up being as good in reality. This semester has for sure hit me with moments where I wanted to be back in Colorado or Ohio but I keep reminding myself about how im going to look back on this semester.
Now that I’m half way through this semester I have become accustom to a lot of things about being in China and living in a city that I don’t think I even realize. In China people aren’t polite by western standards, there is a lot of pushing, shoving, spitting, invading personal space etc, so have learned if you want to survive the subway at rush hour you better get ready to throw some bows and fight for your spot on the train, even if you were first in line to get on the train that holds no bearings if you can’t stand your ground. I’ve gotten in the habit here of pushing and not apologizing and I find it coming second nature, so when I get back home im going to have to brush up on my Emily Post book! Also, since conversational English isn’t very common around the city, except in expat areas, like at subway in Xintiandi, they could understand “half turkey on wheat”, but beyond that we can have conversations on trains and no one except us knows what were talking about, or when were bartering we can talk about price and quality and they don’t know what were saying. So basically, we can talk about people right in front of them and they have no idea! In the US when you’re around a group of people that are speaking in a language you don’t understand they’re probably talking about you! While getting around in the city is somewhat convenient with taxi’s and rickshaws, your putting your life at risk whenever you get in (Think Tim O’Donnell driving to the next level); lanes don’t matter, and horns are used instead of review mirrors.
In China bartering is a way of life, you can bargain for almost anything you want, even at a nicer restaurant, which has changed my concept of money. Everything here is so much cheaper than in the US, for example I bought a pair of ipod head phones for $10 and the newest releases on DVD are no more than $3, my common breakfast, a baozi (bread dumpling thing) is .1 cents, the most expensive things we do are tourist things and even that is cheaper than in the United States.
Since the World Expo is starting in about 2 months there is a crazy amount of development going on around the city. One of the famous street markets that have some of our favorite fried xiaolongbao was closed for renovation for the Expo, bu hao. There are so many little things that the city has done in preparation for the Expo like in the cabs there is a phone number you can call if you are having trouble communicating. Also the mascot, haibao is everywhere. When you’re in the city you can’t turn a corner without seeing construction walls with him or a garden display of him. Even over New Years at Yuyuan Gardens there is always a lantern festival and Haibao was the star of it, it looked like “It’s a Small World: Shanghai Expo style”
So one the reasons Chinese sounds so funny to westerns is because it is a tonal language so the same word can mean different things depending on out it is pronounced. When your first learning tones they teach you how the world “ma” can mean mom or horse so you don’t want to call you’re mom a horse. Our apartments are a little outside the city which is an area full of college students, so not many tourists head up north. So when we try and tell a cab where to go they don’t necessarly recognize where the street is and out mispronouciation of tones doesn’t help!
Hope you all are doing well as always! Keep in touch

Xoxo
Aryn