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!