Closer

To celebrate the 4th of July, not only did I tell countless people about random historical figures (ROGER SHERMAN!) and facts about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, I also took this patriotic picture of me next to a statue of an eagle on campus.  It was the best way I could celebrate.

Happy Birthday, America!  I ate this expired Happy Birthday frozen treat from China for you!  Please, disregard the Union Flag on my hat. :)

  
I can’t explain this feeling well, but I feel like everything is closer in China.  There are a lot of people, sure, so physical proximity is close.  Once you leave your apartment, people are there.  People are EVERYWHERE, always.  Yet I’m not just talking about the physical closeness.  In relationships, people in China seem closer.  They are not invested in a relationship, or they are all in.  I speculate that some of this comes from being in such a huge city, but families are so invested in each others’ lives (is that the correct place to put the apostrophe?  I’m forgetting…), and so integrated into any decision-making.  Families help decide majors and life plans and everything.  Grandparents take care of grandchildren frequently, so they have a greater say in the rearing of their grandchildren than they do in America.  One thing I greatly admire and love about the Chinese people I’ve encountered is their great devotion to their friends and family.  Perhaps they have the opposite problem that I believe Americans have—they care too much.  Places seem close here as well.  There are stores and apartments and hair salons and bus stops and all of them are within the distance of a short walk.  Places in Shanghai feel close even though I can travel for an hour on the metro to get to church and be in what is considered the city of Shanghai the entire time.  Smells also seem closer here.  It doesn’t matter that they are flush toilets- you still have to put your face two feet above a pipe leading straight down to the sewer.  It’s obviously better than a hole in the ground, but the smell is a lot closer than it is in America.  We don’t like to think about stuff like that, so we separate ourselves from it.  Here, it is just accepted.  On the street, you can tell when you are nearing that one corner that always smells of vomit, and I can certainly tell when puddles are urine.  Yet the close smells are not always a bad thing.  The smell of chuar (delicious-smelling grilled meat) pierces even the worst pollution.  I can smell when I’m arriving at a chicken place, and when I pass by flowers.  You can almost feel the smell of spicy Sichuan food.  Sometimes the rain smells absolutely heavenly.  Sounds also feel closer.  There is constantly someone honking their horn, or ringing a bell, or shouting.  Always.  Sounds are close because the bikes zooming past you are close, and the children running around on the sidewalks are close, and the old people sitting outside their houses chatting late into the night are close.  And those aren’t the only things that feel close.  Even the air feels closer.  I don’t know how to explain it… Some of it is the humidity, and some of it is the heat, but I put my hands in front of my face and I can FEEL the closeness of the air.  It seems to be closer to my body.  I suppose Cache Valley is full of open space, or clear air spreading out on and on.  Here, the air is just full.  Full and close.

A flush squat toilet in the building my classes are in

I love how this sounds like it is going to be a fun rhyming ditty, and it ends up not rhyming at all.  It is also in the bathrooms at CaiDa.  (That's the other way to shorten my school's name.  CaiDa (which means Finance Big) or SUFE.)

Also:  I feel like food is more important in Chinese culture than it is in American culture.  Every region has their own style of food, and it is very important.  When discussing tourist sites, Chinese people always ask about food.  Interesting.  Perhaps Americans just eat the food from the rest of the world, so we don’t put such an emphasis on it.  

We had a cooking workshop on Saturday!  These are supposed to be perfect circles.  They were made by Bart.  Bart was the only one with worse-looking bao zi than me, I think.  But they tasted great!

Really cute bao zi we (and by we, I mean other people who are competent at creating nice-looking bao zi) made

Bart, me, and my roommate Grace

One thing that is really adorable is that like all of the Chinese girls I’ve talked to believe in love.  They believe in hardcore, forever and ever, true love.  They all want adorable love and they all believe in it.  “I sometimes think, find a boy that loves me and live happily… that is enough.” –My roommate Yehong

Yesterday I went to church again, and it was great.  The YSA ate at the Griffths’s house.  Brother Griffiths works for the American Consulate.  Wow, their place was nice.  It was a beautiful apartment overlooking the former French Concession.  It was lovely.  Really nice.  It almost convinced me to work for the American Consulate.  Seriously.  I’ve never really thought seriously about the Foreign Service until now.  It is a sweet deal.  They teach you and your spouse the language, give you a nice place to stay, pay for your kids’ education, and you get to go cool places.  There are all sorts of jobs you can get.  And despite what this blog shows, I think I can write fairly well, and if I studied, I could pass the Foreign Service exam.  It is about history and poli sci and other good stuff I enjoy…  Honestly, if I had a nice, clean apartment in a cute neighborhood with tree-lined streets and a metro stop nearby, I could be very happy here, I think.  Very happy indeed.  

Her face!

This picture actually portrays Larry, Daniel, and Huy rather well.  They are just walking on CaiDa's campus.

Here, the overpasses are many.  That was Chinese grammar.

Last week a waiter gave me a menu, and instead of saying “謝謝” I said  “學習“.  For you English-speakers out there, that means that instead of saying “Thank you,” I said “study”.  Yeah… That was funny.  I think the dude just thought my pronunciation was way off.  Oh man.  My mouth does not always do what I wish it to.

“Ni hen… sweetie pie.”

-Simon

I got a new language partner.  I was sad to say goodbye to my old language partner because she was absolutely wonderful.  An absolute joy to work with.  I hope her life is happy.  But my new language partner is also great.  She likes the BBC “Sherlock”!  Aw yeah.  I think we shall get on quite well.

My dear friend and language partner, Kexing.  She is absolutely amazing.  I love her.

Farewell for now.  See you soon.

"We're torn, torn, torn apart there's nothing we can do.  Just let go- we'll meet again soon."

After going to the silk market, I went to the International Finance Center Mall with Larry, Huy, and Tiffany.  It was INSANE!  It was so beautiful and crazy-classy.  The bathrooms had stalls with their own automatic sinks AND soap AND there was toilet paper!  And mirrors and beautiful lights and bamboo... it was really high class.

We went to a high-class restaurant, and these are the wine prices.  Yes, they are in Chinese RMB, but still.  That's insane.

We had our own couch and 3 velvet pillows.  We felt rather underdressed in cut-offs and flip-flops.

Aw!  Tiffany and Huy both have dimples!

The astounding mall

I love the motto of this mall.

 

美國和中國不一樣

 Just in case you can’t read the title, I’ll repeat myself again, but in that other language- the one we know as English.  The US and China are not the same.  I have come to this conclusion many times over the past week or so.  Some changes are good.  Some are bad.  Most are just changes.  Here is some of the stuff happening in my life that has made me realize that 美國和中國不一樣。

Today I saw something magical.  We were walking as a CLS group, all going to a traditional “bird and flower market".  The market wasn't really magical, but it was really fun to see.  Here are some pictures:

One of many shelves full of caged birds.  There were birds and squirrels and turtles and cats and dogs and little mini hamsters and fish all in the same enclosed big room thing the market was in.

Every little ball has a giant cricket in it.  They were so big!  And rather loud.  And sort of gross.

The magical something I saw was seen by yours truly when we walked by an alley on the way to the market.  This alley was no different that hundreds of other wee alleys in any big city anywhere in the world.  The ground was uneven, and the archway above the skinny part of the alley leading toward the apartments behind was made of plain cement.  It was not clean, and Shanghai was terribly humid and terribly hot today, so it did not seem too comfortable—perhaps even a bit smelly.  Yet attached to the cement wall was a small mirror, and there was a barbershop chair facing it.  And there was a man, smiling, getting his hair cut by what seemed to be a good friend of his.  They were laughing together.  There were two men, sitting in your average alleyway, and yet there was a warm, friendly barbershop consisting of a man, a razor, a mirror, and an ancient chair.  They were just sitting there, living there, right in a random alley in the middle of Shanghai.

On the way back I snapped a photo of the magical place.

I don’t really know why that scene touched me so much.  I just loved the friendship and the randomness, and the beauty of such an extraordinary scene being so ordinary to them.  I think that we just assume that our life is average- that the things we do to survive and the things we do for fun are nothing special.  Yet to an outsider, they may be absolutely extraordinary.  When I tell Chinese people near my age that I have 3 siblings, they all make the same noise.  It’s that noise you make when you’ve just seen something really, really cute, and you sort of want it.  When I tell people that I live in a little town with no taxis, they are absolutely intrigued by the life I lead.  Two days ago I explained jombalaya to my language partner.  To her, jombalaya is a foreign subject.  Many here can’t understand that religion isn’t just a thing I do- it’s the biggest piece of me.  Yes, I do study what I want to study because I love it.  I don’t do it to make money to buy a house to get a mate, dengdeng.  (Oops.  That means etc.)  I’m such an American.  I believe people can study what they love, and that if they really love it and put all of them into it, they can succeed.  I believe it.  I believe that life doesn’t have to be long and hard.  I believe life can be good.  I believe life is good.  And this is a foreign concept to many people, in China and in the rest of the world as well.

And now that musing is over.  Sorry to cut it off short.  I could continue, but I’m really busy.  Sorry.  On a less deep note, Pizza Hut is different.  It is like a nice restaurant here, where you can order dessert and steak and it is classy.  Tiffany and I ate there this week when we were at Wujiaochang.

Our beautiful pizza of ham, pineapple, green peppers, and corn, with a cheese and shrimp ball encrusted crust.

There was a skateboard tournament happening in front of Pizza Hut.  It was hot.

I also went back to the Bund.  It was oodles of fun.  I went with Tiffany, John, Huy, Larry, and Daniel.  Those people are so great.  We hung out for a bit longer on East Nanjing Lu than I did before.  It is so crazy!  It is so other-worldly, and yet it feels really western as well.  We ate at McDonald’s.  It tastes a lot more normal than it does in France, I’ll tell you that much.  We had lots of fun.

I like this picture.  Hey Daniel!  Hey Shanghai!

This is AWESOME.  I DO love Shanghai.  And that taxi almost hit me, so it is very Shanghai-ish.

John loves Starbucks, so we go there a lot.

Huy and a bear and Tiffany.  This is so funny.

Now it is Monday.  Yesterday I found this area really close to my apartment that looks like America.  Seriously.  It is only like a 12 minutes’ walk from my house, and suddenly it looks like you are in an American city.  The cars don’t try to kill you, and there are all of these high-end stores and it looks like America.  It is weird because it is literally up the street just two big intersections from my very Chinese neighborhood.  Today I went to eat burritos with Tiffany and John at Togo Burritos.  I think that is supposed to be “To Go Burritos”.  But whatever.  It was really a cute place, and it was sort of really weird, because it felt like America.  Perhaps I’ll have to take a wee trip there on the 4^th of July to celebrate.  Maybe I’ll celebrate by going to the Converse Factory Outlet store!  :)  I WILL go there.  So sometimes, China and America aren’t that different.

Look!  It's so nice!

They give adorable knot straws with pop at every establishment.

Take 2 because for some reason, I really suck at taking pictures of John.

I love this picture.  Yes, this IS me next to a giant cupcake.  I'm so smug.

Tiffany at the Mexican restaurant

On Saturday after the market, I went to People's Square  with Erin and Jennifer.  It was oodles of fun.  We went to the Shanghai museum (it's FREE), so that was fun.  I like museums.  We also ate an adorable cafe in the mall underneath People's Square.  We got lost in the maze of stores and people.  It was sort of disorienting.  We discussing why people feel the need to make clothing beautiful, and they told me advice about grad school (they are both in grad school right now).  It was really fun and also rather enlightening to hang out with them.  They are both really great.

Jennifer at the adorable RBT (Rabbit) Cafe

The Shanghai Museum.  It looks sort of Doctor Who-ish, no?

Even the bushes at People's Square say, "Welcome!" (歡迎）

I don't know why these photos didn't upload in order.  This is at the adorable cafe.  Awww.

In my favorite museum exhibit, the one with the traditional clothing of all of the minority groups in China.  Holy cow I'm losing my ability to express myself in English.

Yesterday I went to church, and it was AWESOME.  I knew I had to get off of the metro at Longyang Lu.  I did.  I couldn’t find the right exit, so I just went out of a random one.  I knew what the building church is held in looks like because some lady who worked at Tongji Uni last year posted a photo on her blog.  I walked out of the station, and looked to my right, and there it was.  I could see it!  Only problem: there were at least nine lanes of traffic on 3 or 4 different levels (there were overpasses on top of overpasses) in between me and Yongda International Tower.  I had no idea how I was going to get across the road.  But I started walking toward the Tower, hoping I’d find a way across.  I walked past a bus station and began trotting on the sidewalk on the side of the freeway. (Don’t worry- there is a little fence and a bike lane and another fence and then the sidewalk, so there no cars or even motorcycles on the sidewalk like in the rest of the city!)  I only had like 8 minutes until church was going to start.  I was walking along, and I couldn’t help but smile.  How did I get here?  I was walking on the side of a freeway, in CHINA.  I was going to church.  I had no idea how I was going to cross the freeway, but there was no way I could do it without a path.  There were fences that would stop me if the many rows of bushes could not.  I was very, VERY glad to come across a pedestrian walkway that went between two of the overpasses, and conveniently led me straight to Yongda Tower.  I saw some people with scriptures, and I followed them.  Aw yeah.

The branch is great.  There are a lot of families, and I met about half a dozen YSA.  It seems that after church every Sunday, someone feeds the YSA.  I went to Tirzah and Shay Barlow’s.  They were so welcoming, and it was so fun!  I really like the YSA and Tirzah and Shay.  Also, their two kids are hysterical.  I’ve always had a desire to meet my 6 year old self, and now I feel like I have.  Addy didn’t quite know what to do when I too started singing along to Phantom of the Opera.  And I picked up her dance to “Just a Spoonful of Sugar” rather quickly.  :)  They also have a son named Elijah.  He is adorable.  He sort of looks like a little Elijah Wood, actually.  He showed me his Batman outfit, and was going to go get his Spiderman one, too, because I told him I like Spiderman as well.  It was really great to have some American food (spaghetti and cupcakes!), not to mention feel the spirit more fully!  I love church so much. 

America and China are different.  The opening prayer was in Shanghainese, and church was held in the Yongda International Tower conference center.  I met a lady from Nepal, and the 8 year-old girl who had been baptized the day before was baptized by her American father, while the talk at the baptism was given by her Chinese mother.  But as Vaughn said in an episode of “Alias,” “even though everything’s changed, some things don’t.”  The Sunday school teacher sounded like the 1966 Batman (Adam West, I believe) and quoted what he called “a Christian writing that may or may not be legitimate,” and one little boy continuously crawled up to the podium no matter how many times his parents retrieved him.  We sang hymns, and there was testimony borne.  There is a lady who comments on everything, always.  Some things change, but some things don’t.  America and China aren’t the same in everyway- not even close!  Walking into an amazing museum at People’s Square or losing your way in a giant underground mall or finding yourself surrounded by Han Chinese or almost eating at a restaurant with poo on the floor (that’s a story for another time)… these experiences are absolutely, completely foreign.  They are so funny and amazing and insane.  And I love it.  I love this city.  There are just enough similarities between home and Shanghai to make me appreciate the differences even more.  I don’t know if that makes sense to you, but it does from here. 

People have families, and people work, and hurt, and play, and laugh, and yearn for their lives to matter.  That’s what people do.  That’s what we all do.   

This is me and my BFF Wang Leehom, signing off.  How convenient that I was wearing my Hawaiian Punch shirt that day.  Ha.  No.  Seriously.  I'm laughing right now.  That's funny.  And this picture is legit.  Peace out.