Week 5: 第五周
I'm rich!
I love how rich I feel. I got my hair washed, cut, and blow dried for 3 US Dollars. Every meal I eat on campus is between $0.50 and $2.50. Off-campus is around $3 to $5. My teacher said our textbooks were expensive, but we literally got 4 books for 200RMB which is $30, and I almost laughed. My teacher said it's pretty expensive for China. I said that textbooks can cost anywhere from $30 to $300 per book in America and she was horrified. Not as horrified as American students, but still. There are some things that are expensive in China though. Imported items are crazy expensive so I stay away from them. American brands of clothes can cost double what it costs in the states.
Here I am holding the only decorative item I brought with me. It's a Chinese gourd that my cousin gave me and I drew a face on it and it goes on my nightstand. I included this picture because females of the world have a tendency to ask to see the final look after a haircut. I wanted to be bald, so I compromised and cut off 15cm (6 in). It's still long, but now I want super long hair again. I barely know hair terminology in English, so I didn't know what the dude was saying in Chinese as he was cutting my hair. In my brain, it sounded like he was saying something along the lines of, "Do you want to have one floor then one floor? Do you want the building floors to have high stairs or less high stairs? If they're high your hair will be short." but I figured out that he was actually asking me if I wanted my hair layered. Stressful.
Also, here is my gourd friend with its gourd friends. Transfixing.
It's a small world after all
I have four things that fit with this title
1) Back when my aunt was in school, my mom still lived in China and would visit her and would sometimes see my aunt's friends. My mom then moved to Pennsylvania, then Virginia, then Ohio. When she was in Ohio, she ran into my aunt's old classmate who remembered and recognized my mom. Apparently my aunt's old classmate lives very close to one of my best friends.
2) I wasn't expecting to meet any Danes in China, but I overheard a girl say she was Danish, so I wanted to be friends with her. We ended up having lunch together, and it turns out she is from Aarhus University, the place I just my summer learning about viking archaeology. She was an anthropology student, so she told me about the adorable anthropology vs. archaeology rivalry.
3) I walked into class and saw this student that didn't look familiar so I said to him, "你是新的学生吗?" and he said, "What?" so I repeated myself in English. I said, "Are you a new student?" He said, "Yes. I know you." I was scared and it was my turn to say, "What?" He said, "I've seen you before. Where have I seen you? I think I saw you on the subway. Yes, I sat right next to you." I feel like I would've remembered sitting next to a random tall blonde German dude in a sea of short Asians, but he says he remembers. He might be telling the truth because I do love riding the subway and I do love sitting. He and I are friends now, so I felt it was okay to tell him that next time he should instead say "You seem familiar" because "I know you" is a bit unsettling when you're new to a foreign country.
4) This last anecdote relates to the above title because of the actual song. Apparently some of the street cleaning cars play adorable music like ice cream trucks do. The one I heard from my dorm was playing "It's a small world after all, it's a small world after all, it's a small small world." My roommate thought it was the garbage truck, and she didn't know the words but was singing along to the tune, "Take your garbage out right now, take your garbage out right now, take your garbage out."
Happy Friend Circle
Last week, I successfully infiltrated a lunch squad that is 4 Italian girls, 1 French girl, 2 Filipino guys, and 1 Japanese guy. I love being the only American in my class and the only American in my lunch group. Our group is called "快乐朋友圈", or "Happy Friend Circle" followed by food emojis.
I knew I would like hanging with these cool cats when I took out my water bottle and I heard my friend go, "That's my cat!" And then a phone was shoved in my face with the proof that my bottle indeed had a cat in the likeness of her cat. As if that wasn't a good enough reason to stay in this friend group, the Filipino guys have a bromance going on. I've missed that. They have gone to school together since elementary and are rooming together here in Shanghai. I introduced them to the Bromance song, and one of them liked it and that's good enough for me.
The Happy Friend Circle went shopping together and when we hit the imported goods section, other people were showing off foods native to their home countries. Fancy cream from France, pretentious biscuits from Italy, blah blah blah. I looked for the USA section and found peanut butter, jelly, and MEGA marshmallows. I was the only one sharing a TRULY amazing culture. I was met with some confused looks my poor uncultured friends. "You guys roast those?" "Is this the chubby bunny competition?" Yes, and yes, sort of.
It's kind of strange being in a group of people where my Chinese is considered good. I'm normally struggling compared to my roommate and my family. But I was actually helpful to the Happy Friend Circle. I helped them buy public transport cards because they all had just been buying single use tickets and didn't know that the public transport cards existed, let alone how or where to buy them.
Italy sounds amazing and I want to go there to see their pigeons and movies. Apparently they say "may may" instead of "meme." My friend told me, "In Italy we have this saying, life is like chocolate box, you don't know what you get." I felt it was my American duty to explain to her the wonders of Forrest Gump.
Air drying
My bed is on the left. I think that some people here make their beds different than I'm used to. I keep seeing people just fold their entire comforter every morning so I guess I am copying them. I don't know why. Also, the dorm building apparently gives you clean sheets every month if you want. You just go downstairs with your old sheet and ask for new ones.
Pretty much everyone hangs their clothes up to dry, even the people who use a washing machine. I've been hand washing in these little wash basins like the one on my desk on the right. So my room is always decorated with my damp socks and such. So lovely. In the far right of the picture, you can see a stick that I use to hang up my clothes without having to stand on a chair. I think it's funny I got to China to find everyone air drying their clothes because that's how I did it when I moved away to college freshman year. I guess my inner Chinese was coming out.
Oh yeah, and my room number is 419. So close.
People leave their bedding out to dry. I always feel like these would be stolen, but I guess there are people and cameras everywhere so probably not.
The hallways of my dorm also have people's clothes and shoes drying. I still feel like they would be stolen at OU.
Learning to communicate
I love my classmates. I thought French accents were adorable in English, but French accents in Chinese are ten times more adorable. I always want to be paired with the French dude in my class just to hear his hilarious and lovable accent, but it hasn't happened yet.
I also adore this Japanese girl in my class that I often get paired with for exercises, but I couldn't communicate with her. I don't speak Japanese and she can't really understand me in Chinese or English, even if I slowly say something simple like, "My phone is not too big." I told my roommate I didn't know how to talk to her, and she told me to just use English but to "make it slower and fatter". My roommate said Japanese often sounds like English just broken down in more syllables.
It had been more than a week of us just smiling at each other, folding our hands and bowing our heads, and trying to communicate, then laughing because we couldn't understand each other. Then I said, "Hi. My. Room. Mate. Said. That. If. I. Spoke. Like. This. Then. You. Could. Under. Stand. Me. Can. You. Under. Stand. Me?" Her eyes lit up and she smiled from ear to ear. She said she could finally understand me and grabbed my hands and shook them happily. I was overwhelmed with joy and shook her hands as well. I said, "I. Guess. If. I. Speak. This. Slow. Then. We. Can. Talk." She nodded enthusiastically and it was adorable. I honestly have a genius for a roommate. I reported the good news to my roommate and she said I sounded retarded and laughed at me.
Speaking of my roommate, I told her she was a good boyfriend because she gives me chocolate and says I love you, but she also says weird things like, "I'm serious. I don't know where babies come from, you need to teach me" and "My bottom is very itchy. Only likable people have itchy bottoms. Everyone likes me. I don't know why. No, I'm serious." She doesn't seem very serious.
Safety
There is a huge wall surrounding campus and there are only 3 gates to get into the school campus: west, north, and east. Each gate has a guard station. I personally like the west and north gates because I can nod hello to the guard and I usually receive a nod back. The guard at the main gate seems too busy to nod and say hi.
Shanghai is a pretty safe place. There are a lot of police stations and police officers, cameras, improvements in vehicle safety laws, and no guns. Okay, but I did see these two men asleep in a small police post and took a creeper picture.
That bright blue roof is a police post as well. I totally get why they put one on the Suzhou River. Those Suzhou River fish are sketchy. It's about time the Chinese government kept a close eye on them.
There are cameras everywhere, so somewhere there is footage of me taking creeper pictures. The government knows where you are at all times, so I guess technically someone could stalk you by either being in the government or hiring someone in the government to stalk you. Who knows. I felt weird being on CCTV security cameras basically all the time when I'm not sleeping or using the bathroom, but I think it's okay now. I feel like people won't do anything crazy because they're always being watched. That's probably why people leave their nice comforters out to dry and no one steals them. That's my theory, but who knows.
The ubiquitous cameras explain why no one flinches when I take pictures. I used to always want to ask permission to take pictures, but there's not really a sense of privacy in China, so I kept being told, "it's not like the US. No one cares. Just take pictures."
I love my campus
I feel this is the perfect school for me. It has the best food out of the universities in Shanghai, I have a lot of family members close to campus, and the campus absolutely gorgeous. I feel like my campus is a giant park sometimes. I love that this is my school for the next 4 months.
Street art
I remember when I first got here 2 weeks ago, I had to get over my fear of leaving my dorm, then my fear of leaving campus, then my fear of using the subway. This week I conquered my fear of using the bus. I'm still afraid of taxis, but I have no intention of fixing this. I feel I can already easily get around to see this beautiful city. This week, I went to class in the morning, had lunch with my Happy Friend Circle, then hopped on a bus by myself and walked around the streets of Shanghai until dinner. I love being alone, because I can just tune into my curiosity and follow it wherever I want for however long I want. I feel so free. I like to pick a random place to go, look at my map, try to memorize how to get there, and hope I end up there. I'm forgetful, spatially unintelligent, and can't read a lot of Chinese characters. So I inevitably miss my bus stop, head the wrong direction, or end up walking in circles. But getting lost is part of the fun of being in a big city. This week I experienced one my of my favorite things about big cities: street art.
Thanks for reading!
I love getting hearing from you guys. One of my favorites was "I read all your blogs and I can pretty much hear you in my head based on your word choices!" I hope you all can hear me in your head because I want to invade your brain all the way from Shanghai. See you next Thursday!
"Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out." -Randall Munroe
(Also please wish me luck on my first vocabulary dictation exam tomorrow!)