Tour de Shanghai.

Well, it was a tour of my neighborhood at least.  

The great traveling circus of us gappers and all of our families hit the streets to get our residence permits, cell phones, and a greater misunderstanding of how to navigate ourselves.  I think I shall forever be in one state: lost.  But that is okay. 

Its quite frustrating to listen to Chinese speak to eachother, because they speak with such conviction and such passion, that everything they say seems like a major argument, when in fact, it is just a simple discussion.  When we were all working on our residence paperwork I was so tempted to jump into the conversation and say, "Don't worry!! Its all right! Stop fighting, it will work out."  Of course that would never work.  I think eventually I will adjust to the sounds of fighting.  It is seems odd, maybe not odd, but fascinating that is a society where it is valued to save face and be non-confrontational, people always sound and act like they are fighting.

One other important topic to address: electronics.  The store where we bought our new cell phones today had the most incredible devices known to man.  Cell phones appear to be ages ahead of what is available in the States.  And they had really high technology kitchen appliances and hairdriers and stranger looking vacuums.  And while I was looking at everything, the employees gathered in corners to stare at me.  I am well adjusted to the looks I get on the street and in the elevator, but I always take particular notice when people have conversations about me.  I am curious about their curiousity.

Right now my littliest brother, Willy, is in my room and we are playing games on my cell phone, so I had better get back to that.

Ta chien!

Initialness.

So, I arrived in Shanghai.  My family picked me up at CIEE along with two other people on my flight.  There are five total of us gap year people.

I came home (to my new home!) and started unpacking and met my whole family. 

They are really quite lovely and friendly and really nice.  My oldest brother speaks the most English, and thus is my primary means of communication, excluding charades. My mom speaks quite a bit of English as well, and is really helpful because when she teaches me a new word she will say it to the kids so I can pick it up.  I just might get a handle on this Mandarin thing.

The two boys love watching Dora the Explorer, its actually some sort of Shanghainese (or maybe even national) infatuation.  They were excited to here that I speak Spanish, just like Dora.

Both of the boys are also very intrigued by all of my stuff.  They like taking pictures on my camera and pushing the buttons on my phone.  They are enamored with Photo booth-I think we have taken at least 70 hen cho (very ugly) photos of ourselves.  I think they are also very fascinated by me.  The first night the youngest (Willy) would run in and out of the room, looking at me, then run back away.  Now they are a bit more adjusted.  Its interesting to note how people will look at you.  Especially in elevators.  The first ride was completely full and all eyes were on me.  When I am in the back and someone walks in, they catch a glance of me, then face away, then turn back and start to stare.  Walking around Shanghai, I saw a Westerner and they looked so foreign that I started to stare at them,  so I can’t blame anyone for looking at me.  I mean, I certainly do stick out.

Today I got my schedule, I have four hours of language class everyday Monday through Friday, then on Mondays and Thursdays I meet with a language tutor.  I also take a core class about China, which I think might be for every day as well.  On Wednesdays we volunteer teaching English and activites at a center for people with cerebral paulsy.  Then on Friday we go on little adventures in Shanghai with the delightful Bryan (an grad student who interns at CIEE with the biggest smile and most passionate personaltiy ever).  On weekends, the host families organize activities for all of us. 

 

PS Blogging might be the slightest bit difficult, I don’t have internet yet where I live, so I am borrowing a weak signal from the very generous Zhuang residence.