Lesson Three: Don't Eat the Tofu

Class started today at 7:30, bright and early. The director of the Chinese program is still taking our temperature every morning, by the way. They are seriously concerned about swine flu. Everyone else here doesn't seem to worried, but you do see someone every now and then walking around wearing a surgical mask.

The first day of class went pretty well, but I'm realizing now that I probably should have reviewed the last semester a little bit more. I think it will be okay, though, we're learning a lot of useful phrases, especially when it comes to ordering food and generally getting around. I also feel like my spoken Chinese is getting quite a bit better

Lesson Two: Getting Acquainted

It's been pretty crazy since we got here, so I'm posting a few days behind schedule. Hopefully I'll catch back up after this weekend, but until then, I'm going to try and post 'em by day. By the way, if you're tagged on Facebook, it's because you either requested to read this or I thought I could benefit from your constructive criticism when it comes to blogging, as I am no expert. :)

Tuesday May 12, 2009

After a semester's worth of classes starting at 11:00, I don't know how long it is going to take me to adjust to waking up at 7:00; I've slowly but surely stopped being a morning person, but luckily jet lag is still on my side. We'll check back in a week or so to see if that changes. Our first class was today at 8:30 and ended up just being a review of our previous two semesters. At the end of the day we did an oral evaluation to determine which class we would be in; since I had done two semesters of Chinese at UCA I needed to get in the third semester class, so I was kind of worried that my spoken Chinese (which is abysmal, by the way) wouldn't be good enough to get me into the class I wanted. It all worked out though, so tomorrow we're scheduled to start our first day of real class!

We also got to meet some of the Chinese students who are studying to teach English when they finish their degrees. About fourteen ECNUers signed up to be our conversation partners, which means that they will pair up with each of us from UCA to show us around Shanghai and help us work on our Chinese. My partner, Jenny, knows traditional Chinese folk dancing, which is apparently very graceful and smooth. Jenny looks pretty graceful and smooth, so I definitely plan to hit her up for a few dance lessons. Because we all know that graceful and smooth are two words to perfectly describe me.

Tonight we all went out as a group to have dinner with three of the Chinese students, Nancy, Sophie, and Joe. They ordered us some rather delicious Tsechuan food and we got to talk to them about everything from different dialects around the country to popular culture to their feelings on politics and government. It was really interesting to get a Chinese perspective on America and to give them our perspective on China, and I feel like we had a pretty significant cultural exchange going. All in all, it was a pretty good day over here in Shanghai.

Lesson One: Getting There

Sunday May 10, 2009

We’re in Chicago O’Hare, waiting to board our tons-o-fun thirteen hour flight straight to Shanghai, and I still can’t believe that I’m about to spend four weeks halfway around the globe. I’ve been spending the last several hours getting better acquainted with my classmates on the trip. Some I know pretty well, some I’ve talked to once or twice, and there are even a couple that I’ve never actually seen before. Who knew UCA’s Chinese program was so varied? I managed to make an idiot of myself approximately two minutes into boarding our plane from Little Rock to Chicago by asking the guy in the seat next to me his name and if his final destination was Chicago. Turns out his name is Justin, and he’s actually with our group, and everyone else had that tidbit of information but me. Go Julie.

Monday May 11, 2009

Day two of our Shanghai journey is off to a pretty interesting start. We landed at Shanghai Pudong International Airport at around 1:30 this afternoon, but it feels like early morning and the end of the day all at once. I’m completely exhausted but I still feel like I couldn’t possibly sleep. I’ve never traveled over more than one time zone, so I guess this is what jetlag feels like.

As we were descending into Shanghai the flight attendants informed us that because of the swine flu scare, Chinese health officials would be coming aboard to inspect us before we could get off the plane. I expected it to be a little weird, because I didn’t know exactly how detailed this inspection was going to get. Turns out that it wasn’t incredibly intensive, but the whole experience was a little surreal. Take a look at this:

I never thought I would have my temperature taken with a laser by a guy in a full-on clean suit and goggles, but hey, here’s to new experiences. I wasn’t the only one who reacted with a bit of shock and a good deal of amusement, though. A ton of people (me included, of course; I’m shameless) on the plane were unabashedly taking pictures of the inspection process, so I don’t know who was more freaked out, the inspectors or the inspected.

We made it through the airport checking in and whatnot pretty quickly, which kind of surprised me. Everything ran really smoothly, and it was strangely quiet. Even though there were a lot of people around, the airport seemed empty. That too was a little surreal, because if you’ve ever been in an American airport I doubt you’ve experienced it being quiet and running smoothly. We had an hour-long bus ride to our school—East China Normal University—but it didn’t feel like it took that long. Our entire group was pretty excited to be there, so we talked nonstop the whole way into the city.

There are eleven students in our group and I think one of the advantages of taking an entire day to get from the United States to China was the opportunity to get to know everybody. Before we started our trip the only people I knew fairly well were my roommate Melissa, who has also been my conversation partner for two semesters, and the two other girls besides us, Emi and Autumn, who are in my Honors College class. Judging from the past few days I think our crowd is going to be pretty amazing to share this experience with. We all get along really well and everyone is really outgoing and adventurous. I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with one another. Before we left, Adam (one of the professors leading the trip) told us that by the end of the trip we would be pretty tight, and so far I believe him.

I think that pretty much wraps up the journey from the Arkansas to Shanghai, but there’s definitely more to come. Stay tuned!