Shanghai Summer

Greetings from Shanghai! I’ve just finished my second week of classes with the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) program at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE). The CLS is a scholarship sponsored by the US State Department that pays for eight weeks of intensive language study in countries that speak “critical languages”（the State Department wants me to clarify that this is not an official Department of State Web sites and the views and information presented are my own, not those of the CLS Program, the Department of State, American Councils, or of the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics). Chinese is probably the least exotic of the languages offered: other critical languages include Azerbaijani, Bengali, Indonesian, Punjabi, Urdu, and Turkish. After pre-orientation in DC, four days of orientation in Shanghai, and a hectic first weeks of classes things are finally starting to settle down. I’m in Chinese class five hours of the day, after which I have meetings with my language partner, a student from SUFE, tea culture classes, and plenty of homework. They are putting us up in the Tonghe International Student Apartments - probably some of the nicest student housing in China (I think I might have said the same thing about my program in Beijing too...guess I got lucky). I’m living with two other foreigners and a SUFE student from Yunnan. 

Obligatory black and white room photo (couldn't be bothered to make the bed...)

I have lots of photos to share but first two quick stories. 

One day I was walking around an area with a lot of government buildings and was struck by the incredibly drab architecture. I stopped next to a security guard booth, put down my backpack, and pulled out my camera. As I started to take a picture of a building the guard in the booth rapped on the window and waved his hands frantically. No photos allowed. 

Another day, some friends and I decided to visit a nearby Mexican restaurant we hadn’t tried before on College Ave. On the way there we passed a New Balance Store, a Converse Store, an Italian Restaurant, and ate our burritos outside next to a wine shop. After our meal the owner of the store came out and chatted with us, and I found out that the owner was also from the Bay Area. 

Which story do you think took place in the US and which one took place in China?

As it turns out, the second story took place on 大学路, (College Ave), a new high-end commercial street near my apartment in Shanghai. It is very clean, has wide sidewalks, lots of foreign stores and restaurants, and, as my resident director put it “feels like America”. We ate at Togo Taco where my friend asked for a chicken burrito in uncertain Chinese (chicken burrito isn’t in the Chinese textbooks), and the man behind the counter responded in perfect English, “Large or small?”. Turns out he visited Shanghai a few years ago and liked it so much that he moved here permanently to open his own Mexican place. Who would have thought I could get Bay Area burritos just blocks away from my apartment in Shanghai?

The first story took place in Washington DC as I was walking towards the Mall from my hotel. South of the Mall there is full of government buildings with possible some of the most uninspired architecture known to man. Definitely a must-see for fans of brutalist architecture (after the Regenstein Library at UChicago). In any case, the architecture was so bad I thought it was worth documenting. I was trying to take a photo from the sidewalk outside the FAA building when I was told to stop by the security guard (who had no right to stop me from taking photos, for the record).  I guess of all the federal agencies, I'm not surprised that the FAA is telling its security guards to chase away photographers. In the end it was a non-issue because the building across the street was literally identical to the building I was trying to photograph, so I just took a few steps away from the security booth and shot across the street. 

Anyways, I thought I'd share these two stories because I was surprised they occurred where they did. Usually I would have expected to encounter the paranoid government agency in China and the chicken burrito in the US. Just food for though.

Below are some photos from my pre-orientation in Washington DC and from my first few weeks in Shanghai. 

The glorious FAA building in Washington DC. 

The L'Enfant Plaza subway station in Washington DC.

The L'Enfant Plaza subway station in Washington DC.

People waiting in the terminal in Dulles National Airport, Washington DC.

Visitors to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum look over the atrium from the second floor.

A few weeks ago I flew from Chicago to Oakland, then from Oakland to DC (with a stopover in Salt Lake City), and then from DC to Chicago, and then from Chicago to Shanghai. Needless to say I've had enough airplanes for a few months.

A taxi on the highway in Shanghai. Taken from the window of a bus I was riding on.

Some friends and I went to a Hunan restaurant in Shanghai and ate a delicious meal. Afterwards we asked to the bathroom, which required that we pass through the kitchen. This was a lower-middle end restaurant - it had AC, a nice menu, clean shrink wrapped dishes, etc. Not quite a hole in the wall but nothing fancy either. There are many restaurants like this in China and I am fond of them because they are are cheap and usually have excellent food. I have never seen the kitchen in a place like this so I thought I'd take a photo and share with the world. Not the cleanest but probably a lot better than other places in China.

An alleyway in Shanghai near an antique market.

The air conditioner in my room broke and the exterior unit had to be replaced. This required one of the servicemen to climb out my window and switch the old out out. As a safety precaution, they tied a rope around my flimsy door. I don't think the hinges would have held the 180+ pounds this guy was packing, but perhaps it the door would have gotten stuck on the window still before he fell. Thankfully I didn't have to find out and the repairs went very smoothly.

A bird for sale in a pet market in Shanghai.

An alleyway near an "antique" (replica) market in Shanghai.

The front of an apartment complex near an antique market in Shanghai China.

The back of a covered moped in Shanghai, China.

This shot is actually from last summer in Beijing, but I was going through my photos and realized I hadn't published this one. The chuan'er are incredibly cheap compared to the place outside my current apartment (1RMB for a lamb kabob vs 3RMB where I am now).

The Oriental Light sculpture on Century Ave in Shanghai.

The Oriental Light sculpture on Century Ave in Shanghai.

Couples dance under the light of a giant LCD screen at the Wujiaochang shopping center in Shanghai.

A man stands on a bus at night in Shanghai, China.

A thunder storm over Shanghai. Summer is pretty wet and rainy here.

A man bikes down Wudong Rd. after sunset in China.

A man rests outside of a restaurant after sunset in Shanghai.

a quickr pickr post