Shanghai: The End

The Walking Tour, the Bund, and a Magical Dinner


After morning classes, we essentially had the afternoon off. The official event was a self-guided walking tour through the Art District. I joined a break-off group to explore the Bund. I had my first bit of street food in Shanghai (a fried pancake-like thing), wandered around a lot, encountered a modeling shoot thingy, and watched the sun rise over Mao Zedong.







The strangest part about this trip?
People kept on staring at us.
Well... not quite at me. People were staring at the white Americans around me and, specifically, at one of the CIEEers who happened to have red hair.

After witnessing this a couple of times, I decided to step away from the group, blend into the crowd, and ready my camera. Watch this:

*whistle whistle* I'm walking along...


DUDE! Look at the laowai (aka white foreigners)! I wanna take a picture with them!



CHEEZE!!



I've gotten a lot more used to this kind of attention by now. And, unlike the other foreigners, I can actually blend in to a certain degree. When I'm out alone or with non-foreigners, I can relax into comfortable anonymity (as long as I'm not on the street that I live on). But... that's a story for another time.

Right now, let's finish up orientation in Shanghai.

After that tour, we grabbed a cab back to the Faculty Club, rested up, then met for dinner at the hotel. There was some magic at dinner. Then I packed and prepared to wake up early in the morning for the flight from Shanghai to Shijiazhuang....

And THERE! Orientation done!
Next to come: The Flight Experience.
Then, at last: Life in Baoding.

Orientation in Shanghai Part III: Old Shanghai Quarter & a River Cruise

Day 3!

Morning: Survival Chinese lessons, followed by a lesson on cultural differences and adapting to life in China.

Lunch.

Afternoon: Free time/casual frisbee throwing in the afternoon. Wandered out to KFC for some egg tarts.

We walked through this really neat area - the Old Shanghai Quarter - on our way to dinner. It would have been nice if we had more time to explore it a little... but, still, I managed to get a few pictures in. By this point, some people in our group had started a little game of "I spy a Starbucks!"

Loads and loads of 'em... sometimes within viewing distance of each other, I think. I might be exaggerating some, but there are definitely more Starbucks in Beijing than I expected.







After dinner, we went on a little river cruise. Pretty pictures. Lots of rain. And gratitude for my raincoat:







After the cruise, we got the chance to explore Shanghai a little bit on our own before returning back to the Faculty Club. Went out with a group of people to a club (took the subway).

If you know me... you know how out of my element I am in a club.
But there I was. The bar manager approached me, wondering about all these foreigners... and I did my best to communicate with him.

Ah- a side note:

Wandering on our own, I got the first taste of something that would happen over and over again in my time here:

People hoping to communicate with the other foreigners would approach me first - despite the fact that a lot of the other CIEE teachers speak better Chinese than I do. When they realize that I'm having difficulty communicating, this conversation would ensue:

"Your Chinese is a little weird... Where are you from?"
"I am American."
"WHAT? Really? How can you be American? You look Chinese."
"I.. uh, well - see, my parents are Chinese, so I am Chinese."
"Ah, I see. What are you doing here?"
"Teaching English."

And so on. If a taxi driver is asking me questions, then.. he (or she) would take this moment to ask me about my salary here. That kind of information is culturally not considered to be private... so it's not considered rude to talk about your salary here. I knew this, growing up as a first generation Chinese American.

More about those little experiences to come.
Let's try and get orientation out of the way first, yeah?

Anyway, after all that... and while some people were dancing, a Chinese guy came up to me. He asked me... to ask another foreign teacher to dance with him.

Think about that for a moment.

"Excuse me, miss. Eh.. can you ask her to dance with me... for me?"
I stared back.
Pointed at the other teacher, who looked at me confused...ly. And shook my head.
"You can ask her yourself. She can speak Chinese."

I thought it was funny, so onto my blog it goes!

After that, of course, back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.

Day 4, here we come!

Orientation in Shanghai Part II: Museums, Vegetarian Cuisine, and Chinese Acrobats

Shanghai orientation: Day 2!

No worries. I’m not giving up on this blog. Not yet, at least. Let’s try and finish up orientation today, yeah?

On the second day of orientation, after early morning Chinese survival lessons, we had a lecture on teaching issues in China. We broke up into groups and proceeded to present our lessons to a “class.” With this one exercise, the four day orientation in Shanghai gave me more “teacher training” than the one month’s worth of training I had at the charter elementary school where I worked last year.

Yeah…
I’m not bitter at all.

That said, my experience last year has helped me loads this year, and I do think that I’m a much better teacher because of it. Anyway – we’re jumping too far ahead into the future. Let’s take a step back to this second day of orientation… because, right after lunch at the Faculty Club, we hopped on a bus to the Shanghai Museum.

The Shanghai Museum had a special Maori exhibit (Think… the indigenous people of New Zealand). I was PSYCHED to see that. All ready to nerd out, and explain all the Maori exhibits to my fellow teachers. The only problem? I couldn’t find it.

Why?

For the first time in my life – first time ever – I walked straight to the stairs and climbed up to the second floor without being coerced to. I didn’t need to go up there. It didn’t even make sense to go up there first. But, still, up I went… missing the Maori exhibit and all the other displays on the first floor.

See? Goes to show you that stairs are bad luck. Simple logic means that I should avoid all stairs in the future.

Anyway - here are some pictures from the Shanghai Museum, from the 2nd floor up.

Pottery: Archaeology isn't archaeology without some good old-fashioned pottery.





The monkey king! I think. Probably not. He's a mythological creature of some sort... but he's in the pottery section too.



And.. a kirin. Definitely mythological. I think it's a part deer/dragon/lion thing. Not quite sure.



A model of a pottery workshop:





Calligraphy. Look at the writing on the rock below... They basically stamped it onto paper so that it'd be easier to see and read the writing.





I loved these stamps. They're really small but very intricate.






Paintings (Or rather, one. One painting.)



Another exhibit that I really liked: Ethnic costumes, with a giant kirin hanging over the displays.







Some neat masks:







And... here's my favorite bit: A Mongolian chess set. I mean - woah! The kings are little Buddhas!






I went down to the Maori exhibit after that and managed to look through all of it. Got really into explaining everything that I remembered from my time in New Zealand... and completely forgot to take pictures. It's probably for the better though. If you're interested in New Zealand, check out my New Zealand blog.

I... will fully update that sometime.
Sometime.
Yep.

When we were done looking through all the exhibits, I headed to the tea room to wait out the last few minutes at the museum. I was waiting so... naturally, I started doing magic.

But, honestly - this time, I was asked!
Really!

I performed for the CIEE crew until the tea shop closed (it was near that time anyway), and it was time for us to meet up with the rest of the crew. From the Shanghai Museum, we took a bus to one of Shanghai's most famous vegetarian restaurants.

I didn't take any pictures here either. I was too busy eating...

After that - exhausted, jet lagged, and ready for bed, CIEE brought us to watch some acrobats perform. When I wasn't asleep (and I was, I think, for a couple of minutes during the show), I was enjoying their performances. It was... really... quite stunning. How so?

Observe:

Two Chinese acrobats swinging on a stick-



One of them jumps!-



And then he grabs the rope!-



But he doesn't just grab it. Zoom in. Look carefully... He's catching the rope with his LEGS!



Ouch, I think...

And here's a taste of the rest of that show:






And yes. That last one? The giant ball? That is... indeed, one-two-three-four motorcyclists in that ball, going at full speed.

And finally - after all that - sleep.