Xintiandi fashion district

more Xintiandi

Xintiandi

fountain in Xintiandi

Alley in Xintiandi

Kids playing in the park-needless to say I was very jealous!

Me at the park

more park

gazebo at park

Tianzifang

Panda shop at Tianzifang

Site of first congress of CCP

Sorry about the lack of recent posts!  I have been very busy with classes and trip planning for this weekend.  Last Saturday, I participated in a scavenger hunt organized by our program.  The hunt took us to the former French Concession Area, where we visited the Shikumen Open House Museum, the site of the first congress of the CCP, a popular park, Sun Yat Sen's former residence, and Zhou Enlai's former residence.  We took our time and we were still the first group back because other groups decided to do other things when they got downtown.  Our prize?  Cool three piece tea cups.  On Sunday, my Culture and Society class went to do our field observation in Xintiandi and Tianzifang, both of which are in the French Concession area, so I had some familiarity with the area.  Our assignment was to observe the differences between the two areas and their successes as cultural preserves.  We all enjoyed Tianzifang more than Xintiandi.  Tianzifang is an art/shopping district that consists of a maze of narrow alleys.  It attempts to maintain the essence of "old shanghai" and in our opinion does so rather successfully.  The shops were unique and fun to look at and there were also many international restaurants.  Xintiandi is more of a fashion district and largely elicits the feeling that you are in Europe.  Both locations seek to preserve the historic Shikumen architecture: alley houses that Shanghainese lived in during the 20th century.  In the second week, classes are getting intense, especially my culture and society class.  We have long reading assignments with difficult quizzes given at the start of each class as well as weekly field visits and presentations.  We also have our 15-20 page capstone project to worry about.  For the capstone, we have to take advantage of being in China and conduct interviews and surveys.  For my topic, I am leaning towards covering the allure of American universities to Chinese students.  I hope to survey Fudan students, asking their opinions of American universities, perceptions of differences between Chinese and American universities, whether or not they applied to American Universities, if so which ones, and whether they are considering attending graduate school in the U.S.  I have been spending a lot of time finding suitable journal articles to use in my paper as well.  I had my first Chinese test this morning and it was very short and relatively easy.  This afternoon we have a cooking workshop where we will learn to make several Chinese dishes, including Xiaolongbao.  I have also planned a day trip for tomorrow to Xitang: a canal town outside of Shanghai.  So far, six of us are going and we have to leave at 5:00 a.m. to ride the subway to the train station and then board our high speed train to Jiashan where we will catch a bus for a short ride into the town.  In the town, we will take a boat ride, see some historic sites and museums, and do some shopping.  The pictures look so beautiful, so I am very excited! 

Traditional Markets and Yu Yuan Bazaar

Bird, fish, insect market

Turtles at Bird, fish, insect market

Inside the bird, fish, and insect market

Really hot rabbit at bird, fish, insect market

Mao badges

Large crickets

Crickets in bamboo cages

Dongtai Road Antique Market

Tea market

Daoist Monastery

Another view of Daoist Monastery

Dajing Pavilion

Busy street by Yu Yuan

Exercise area-couldn't resist!

Yu Yuan Bazar

More Yu Yuan

Zig Zag bridge at Yu Yuan-meant to keep ghosts from crossing

Yesterday was a very busy and exciting day.  After Chinese class in the morning, we took a trip as a group to visit three traditional markets: the flower, bird, fish, and insect market, the Dongtai Road "Antique" Market, and a tea market.  The flower, bird, fish, and insect market had a wide variety of small animals, fish, and crickets for sale.  The crickets came in small bamboo cages and many of them were very large.  Some of the crickets are used for fighting and others are singing crickets.  There were also kittens, puppies, and rabbits.  We then walked over to the Dongtai Road market which sells souvenirs, fake antiques, and some items from the Mao era.  At this market, I bargained for some items: a necklace of blue and white porcelain beads (popular Shanghai item), a Mao t-shirt for Thomas at his request, and a Mao badge from 1953.  Before coming to China, I read a book entitled Streetlife China that contained an article on the history of the Mao badges.  In the 1950s, there were thousands of different designs of Mao badges circulating throughout China that people would collect and wear on their clothing.  There were several types of badges including porcelain, bronze, plastic, and fabric.  There is a museum in Chengdu that houses the world's largest collection of Mao badges.  Anyway, after the antique market we went to a tea market, which was neat, but not really of interest to me since I do not drink tea.  I still tried a few varieties though including a fruit tea.  After seeing these markets, most of the group returned back home but I decided to stay out and see some more.  We read that there was a Daoist monastery nearby, so we decided to check it out.  When we got there, we realized it was closed for the day, but we still got some cool pictures of the buildings.  Since we were close to Yu Yuan Bazaar, we decided to walk there and check it out.  It was a beautiful area that really catered to tourists.  There were many souvenirs for sale and also many Western eateries including Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, McDonalds, Starbucks, and Hagan Daazs.  We did some looking around and picture taking and then I had McDonalds for dinner.  Its funny how places where you would not normally eat at home become very appealing in a foreign country.  After dinner, we rode the metro back to Wujiaochang, stopped at Walmart for a few things, and then walked home.  All in all a great day!

First Week of Classes

Xiaolongbao-filled with soup and pork

Wujiaochang area-about 20 min walk from our apartment.  It is a very commercial and busy area

Wujiaochang again

More Wujaochiang

Shanghai subway-very clean!  You can also kind of see our reflections

Amusing shop name

Mask from Shanghai Museum

Ancient coins from Shanghai Museum

Bronze Ding (bronze cooking vessel)

Noodles from my favorite Chinese restaurant

Fried Rice!!

Fried banana

Adorable kitten!

After the first few days of classes, I can tell that they are definitely going to pretty intense.  Chinese especially requires a lot of daily work.  I am finding characters very difficult to write and memorize, so hopefully it gets somewhat easier.  I have also started learning sentence structures.  I think that I am really going to enjoy my culture and society class.  We watched a movie during our first class.  It is called To Live.  The film follows a family through the civil war of the 1940s and all of the subsequent movements (Hundred Flowers, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution).  Our professor told us that the film is banned in China.  Later this summer, we also get to watch some documentaries that should be interesting.  The class also has interesting reading assignments and "field observation" assignments.  Our first assignment is to observe people this weekend in two contrasting settings: Tian Ze Fang and Xin Tian Di.  The class is definitely very interesting and provides a nice contrast with the Chinese class.  Other than classes, I have not done many interesting things over the past few days.  I am looking forward to Friday afternoon when we will venture into the city again!  I am attaching some pictures from the museum and of some local food as well as the cutest kitten we saw on Fudan's campus.