TIFC

You've heard the saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans", well there is a saying with a similar sentiment here in Shanghai. TIFC - "This Is F*ucking China."


I've been here for less than 24 hours and TIFC seems to be just about the only way to sum up my experience so far. I arrived in the Shanghai airport yesterday at around 5:30pm and proceeded to make it through customs in record time, especially considering how long the rest of the travel process took (I'll skip telling all the travel details - it was long and I don't want to re-live it). After heading through customs, me and 3 other kids from my flight made our way towards bag claim and looked for our study abroad representative. It still hadn't hit me that I was in China- the airport looked like any other airport with the exception of Chinese characters alongside English words on all of the bulletin boards. We met our rep and a handful of other kids from our group and soon after loaded on to a bus to head towards East Normal Chinese University or ECNU for short. For the first half of the bus ride everyone went through the standard introductions - name? university? what level Chinese? - I am one of the few zero level Chinese students and the looks of suprise when I told kids this were not exactly reassuring.... apparently it's not a "normal" decision to pack up and move to China when you don't speak the language. Soon enough though the bright lights of the Shanghai skyline drew most of our attention away from getting to know eachother as we sat stupified by the view. As we drove into the city it was dark outside and lightly raining. If you've ever seen Blade Runner, then you've seen my first view of Shanghai. Chinese Characters illuminated in bright neon lights, seemingly endless rows of broken down skyrise apartments , alien looking vehicles speeding along, and slummy people wandering in alleys and pandering food or knockoffs- all of this shrouded in mist and darkness. This was my first impression of Shanghai. This is f*cking China.

Fast forward through an hour or so of paperwork, unloading baggage, and more introductions and i'm in one of the most modern, clean and incredible dorm rooms ever. It freaking awesome- and i'm rooming with Jake another GW student and really cool guy. After unpacking, the two of us, his buddy Evan, and a few other kids we've met so far decide to get dinner. I have never felt so helpless as when we first tried to order at this restaurant (a little dive near campus). The staff spoke literally no English- and though some of the other kids with us have some Chinese under their belts we all soon learned that practical Chinese is way different than what you learn in the classroom. After a lot of sign language and help from some students on the year program we finally ordered. I've heard a lot of talk about how the Chinese food in China is not the same as in the U.S. and that is true- but it's better here. Beef, chicken, duck, noodles, dumplings, rice - you name it and we ordered it (sort of) and then devoured it.

After dinner two of the year course guys gave us no option but to go out drinking with them - which after 24 hours of traveling they didn't really need to do much convincing. We cabbed to a local bar called C's which was essentially over run by kids from our program. We stayed there for the rest of the night making our introductions and drinking cheap beer. I won't go into too much detail here because I promised I would stay pg13 on the blog, but lets just say that I had a blast. The total expenditure of the whole night including dinner, cabs and drinks cost less than 18 dollars American, TIFC!


2 more quick fun facts:
-The chinese do not have toilet paper in the bathrooms, anywhere - and in some cases have squatters which I dont think I need to explain the concept.
- I have Mau Zedong's pretty face on my 10, 20, 50, and 100 dollar bills (excuse me RMB bills)

Vocab word for the day : Beer= 啤酒 pronounced Pee- Joe.