Operation Street Cleaning

...Or how China is tricky at suppressing protests.

Of course, you have heard of the protests in Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya. Well it seems as though China might be trying to bring the North African changes over to Asia. A website, Boxun.com, called for China to take up the "Jasmine Protests" and show their distaste for the current situation here. This was last Sunday, where it posted specific locations, including the Peace Cinema in Shanghai. They called for people to continue the protest every Sunday at 2pm. The Peace Cinema happens to be very close to us, in fact if we were on the other side of the hotel we could see it. So we decided to go over there and see if anything was going to happen. Peace Cinema is within a greater mall, called Raffles City, that also has a subway stop underneath it. This entire area is always pretty crowded because of all the shopping and restaurants.

As we were walking over, a mere 5 min walk, we started to see more police officers than usual.  Then there was a large street cleaning truck that sprayed unsuspecting walkers, showing how rare it was that they were there. When we got to the corner across from the mall, the side street was closed. The sidewalk was very crowded with people, more than usual, but they were mostly looking around to see what was going on. The cinema had been closed, again. (Last week, it was shut down for "repairs" as well). There were probably about 150 police officers, all blowing whistles and ushering people along. There really wasn't much that happened, because there were so many police officers that wouldn't allow it. The thing that was most surprising to me, and why I named this post Operation Street Cleaning, was the use of street cleaners.

On top of the large street cleaning truck, there were two motorized sidewalk cleaners that were also stationed right in front of the Cinema. They did an awful good job of making sure that the crowd could not congregate for long. Is it possible that this was a coincidence? No, it was clearly part of the government quelling these "protests" before they could start.

They were certainly not protests, most people were like us, just trying to see what was going on. We saw a few police officers question a Chinese man and take away his camera. While there were many others taking pictures, even a Westerner with a professional camera, that were not confiscated. Later, a few men were taken away from the crowd and two police vans drove off with their sirens going, presumably with those people. Aside from that, it was mostly just whistle-blowing.

I do not know much about Tunisia, Egypt or Libya. I also don't know much about China, but at least I have spent time here. I have not experience any form of oppression, aside from being blocked from certain websites. I don't know if China could actually gain some ground by organizing these kind of protests. I only hope that it can be peaceful and that there won't be more "human rights violations", especially not on the same scale as Libya.

Two videos Ben shot of the scene:





Links:

Vancouver Sun Article

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's Response

China Blocks LinkedIn, It's Last Social Networking Site

Capture vs. Experience

...or the great photo debate.

I wanted to throw this post out there so you might understand why there aren't always a ton of pictures in this blog.

A person is on the beach, when the sun starts to set. This creates a beautiful and breathtaking sunset. They get up and start to run back to their room to grab their camera. Then they stop and think, should I get my camera and hopefully get back in time to not miss the shot? Or should I save it and just experience what life has given me in this moment?

I love photography. I have studied it and it use to be one of my favorite things to do. I truly believe that photos can change lives and spread a message in an entirely different way than words. I think that photos can be so visually appealing that you literally can't take your eyes off them. Don't mistake what I am saying as a bash against photography and all the lovely photographers out there. My perspective changed when I realized I was living my life more through the lens of a camera and less through my own eyes and body. I decided that I wanted to first experience my life and then capture it. And if I wasn't able to capture it, that didn't mean it was any less valuable.

With that said, I am trying to get back in the habit of taking more pictures and re-discovering my love for photography. So, hopefully you will be able to see some of that.

---

In other news, Ben and I are coming home on Monday! I am really excited. Shanghai has been nice, but overall it wasn't our cup of tea as the saying goes. I am sure I will probably change my mind once we hit snow-laden Pittsburgh. But I will take snowy, friend-filled Pittsburgh, over spring-weathered Shanghai!

Code-switching

STAR World is an English language channel providing mostly American television to Asia. It is broadcast to China, Singapore, Indonesia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Middle East, Malaysia, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, Taiwan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Myanmar and Bangladesh. STAR World is owned by News Corp., the same HUGE media conglomerate that is run by Rupert Murdoch and owns others like Disney, Fox and Time Warner¹.

Though neither of us are big TV watchers when we are home, for us, STAR World is a nice break from China.  It has shows that we are familiar with, even if we wouldn't normally watch them in the US, and that are in English. We even get exposed to shows like Junior Masterchef Australia, which I have come to love.  The style of the channel is very different from US television channels. While in the US, usually for an hour show there is 47-53 minutes of show and the rest is taken up with 4-5 commercial breaks sprinkled throughout the show. I always assumed that because STAR World was spread across such a vast geographic area that they were unable to focus advertisements, therefore, the amount of breaks for shows were cut in half. When there were breaks they would usually be 2-3 ads for other shows coming up and then 1-2 that were for Colgate or something and had general Southeast Asian actors.  This was nice because you get more show and fewer commercials. But now things are different.

STAR World was recently named the Highest Rated...Female-Oriented Channel...in the Philippines! ::applause::

When they first started advertising this, on STAR World, we were laughing about it. They have a whole montage of all their shows and they have graphics saying "Thank you" in 25 languages, and even shots from the Philippines winning some big beauty pageant. It started with just this commercial, at least once in every commercial break. Then the shows started being sponsored, something that was never shown before: "Glee Season 2 is brought to you by Greenwich Pizza, the most popular pizza of the Philippines". Okay, that's cool. Then the commercials started changing. No more of the Colgate commercials that I had memorize from seeing them so many times, instead a Dove commercial for whitening deodorant. (Whitening soaps are very common in Southeast Asia, however since we have been mostly in more northern China, they haven't been prevalent).  Then it happened, Ben and I were watching television and a commercial break came. Apparently for some men's cologne or aftershave, it might have even been mouthwash, the man was clearly Southeast Asian and as he was speaking we became very confused. It was as if I could understand him, but I couldn't. I questioned what he was speaking, what I spoke, did I even know English, I just didn't know anymore. When it was over Ben and I looked at each other and asked "Was he speaking English?" This started happening with more and more commercials. We finally were able to piece together that there were certainly English words in the commercials, but they were not in English, they were definitely in another language. That language was Filipino or Tagalog, well kind of, let me explain.  I assume that you have all heard of "Spanglish", hopefully you have seen the film as it is good. Spanglish is an example of code-switching. A speaker who knows two languages, switches in between the two while speaking, most commonly just using the first form of the word that comes to mind, no matter the language. Tagalog is the non-standardized form of Filipino. Filipino and English are both official languages of the Philippines, therefore, Taglish or Englog is very commonly spoken there. Here is an example²:

Magshoshopping kami sa mall. Sino ba ang magdadrive sa shopping center?

We will go shopping at the mall. Who will drive to the shopping center?

See how confusing that can be? Now, all shows are sponsored by companies in the Philippines and the commercials are almost entirely in Filipino/Tagalog or Taglish. It is not that I care about the loss of Colgate commercials, I mean who can like a company that makes Wisps, but it's that Fox has done exactly what a large media corporation should do in this situation. They have been told the Philippines is watching them, so they have decidedly switched entirely over to targeting only them. By doing this I feel they have alienated the entire rest of the market. The Philippines is only one of the countries STAR World broadcasts to. Of course this doesn't affect me all that much, but if I was a resident of any of the other countries I wouldn't give a crap if Greenwich pizza is the best in the Philippines, I'm not there and I am not Filipino. This is obviously one of the lesser of the enumerable evils by News Corp., but it is still something to think about. Thanks Fox, at least now I know more about code-switching than I ever thought. Below is a great example of the commercials with code-switching in the Philippines.

KTV

...or the better version of Karaoke.

Most of us are familiar with Karaoke, there is a bar and a stage. One or two people get up and sing along with a screen telling them the lyrics to a song. Often people either hate or love Karaoke bars. KTV has a microphone that is sung into whilst reading highlighted lyrics off of a screen, but it is also so much more. I was introduced to KTV in Shenyang and blown away by how different it was from Karaoke bars in the States. First of all, you are in your own room.

"Partyworld" KTV room in Shanghai, and Ben

Rooms vary in size depending on how many people you have but the one in the picture was a  "small" one in Shanghai. As you can see the rooms are really nice with comfortable couches and fun decor. This way you don't have to worry about singing to an entire bar full of people, it's just you and the others in the room.

Second, the screen is not some 13" old television with a plain blue background and lyrics. Instead, they are nice quality flat screens with music videos*. 

Another view of the room, and Ben

*The music videos vary in what exactly is on the screen. I am not sure how they get the music or what they pay for it. I am sure it costs more to have the actual music video for the song being sung rather than a random video, or at least I hope that is their excuse. For example, "I Love the Way You Lie" by Eminem ft. Rihanna (yes, I love this song, don't hate just cuz you like Arcadia Fire - this link has explicit content like Eminem's music) had the actual video with Dominic Monaghan and Megan Fox kicking the crap out of each other, along with the real audio. Sometimes you aren't as lucky, like with "All The Small Things" by Blink 182 which was accompanied by an early 90s video of random things including a huge commercial tractor plowing a field. My favorite was "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana with another early 90s video of a woman walking around the Garden Cafe and shots of a crystal duck. What was significantly more annoying then the videos in no way matching the songs was when the background music was a recreation with a Casio 5000 keyboard. It had the habit of ruining them a bit, but thankfully this wasn't for the majority of songs.

The touch screen control

If you ignore the fact that everything is in Chinese, you see how awesome these controls are. It is a touch screen controller in which you can change the sound of the song (volume, speed, pitch), search and view songs, restart the song, pause the song, turn off the recorded vocals, etc. Granted because it was in Chinese it took us a lot of trial and error to figure out what everything did, but when we got there it was highly appreciated.

It is relatively cheap to go to KTV, though Karaoke bars are usually free. For the room we had,  it was ¥138 for 5 hours, roughly $21. Granted we went on a Monday afternoon, not the busiest time, though there were others there. Each person is also required to buy a drink, their mango slush was delicious and cooled my vocal cords. When we first got the reservation for 5 hours, we never thought we would stay for the whole time, but it went by pretty quickly and we were having a good time. Downside, Ben has a pretty good singing voice and I try to tell myself that my voice has gotten better over the years, but do you know what is worse than listening to mediocre singers magnified over a sound system ruining your favorite songs, that's right mediocre singers tired, scratchy voices from singing for 5 hours  magnified over a sound system. We were cracking each other up by the end, it was horribly epic.

The blue and red colored foam covers are disposible, yay hygiene.

When I went in Shenyang, I went with the group of Chinese medical students I had got to know. Though I was becoming friends with them, I wasn't super close to them and they all had really great voices. So, I felt a bit self-conscious at the KTV and didn't sing that many songs. This time it was just Ben and I, so I made a complete fool of myself. I had a lot of fun and it really makes me wish that KTV-style Karaoke was available in our part of the country.

If you have the chance definitely check out a KTV, just be careful if you are in Southeast Asia, especially The Philippines,  and like to sing Frank Sinatra: "The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the 'My Way Killings.'" The entire article is here, quite an interesting cultural phenomenon.

Metro

No, this isn't about China's new "problem" with metrosexuals (though if you are looking for two differing opinions on that, here is an Asian take on it.) This post is about why Ben and I are in China, the Metro or Subway.

Chang Chang (Smooth Traffic) - Shanghai Metro's Mascot

Unlike when we were in Shenyang, where they were putting in the first metro line, Shanghai has 11 lines plus a maglev making it the longest metro system in the world. This makes it incredibly easy to go anywhere using the Metro.  You can buy a single-trip ticket or a public transportation card which can be used for the Metro, the buses or even the taxis! The metro rides are a whopping ¥3, which is less than 50 cents.

Why do I think the Metro succeeds here? First, it doesn't just succeed here, it does everywhere that there is one. But for Shanghai, here are the reasons:

1. The system is entirely user-friendly. There are maps everywhere and even interactive ones on touch screen computers.

2. The system goes everywhere, nothing is a far walk from a Metro station.

3. The system is cheap, to take a taxi it costs ¥12 just to get in and an additional ¥2.4 for each km after the first 3km, not to mention that it is more expensive after 11pm.

Because of these reasons the system is convenient. I have become so use to the Metro, that I am starting to worry about going back to Pittsburgh, where we have a public transportation system that is not only shrinking, but always seems to be on the brink of destruction. There are a significant amount of cars in China, as well as mopeds, bikes and various other bi-pedal wheeled vehicles. When we were in Shenyang, someone said that Chinese had gotten a taste of personal vehicles and they thought the Metros wouldn't be as popular. Sometimes the trains are nice and comfortable like this, where you can even find a seat:

During the afternoon, on our way to lunch.

But it is also, especially during commuting hours or weekends, like this too:

On our way back that Saturday evening

This might seem like a drawback for some people, especially Americans where "person space" is cultural. I like it better, because I feel like a part of something in a weird metaphorical way. Also, you don't have to hold on because the train is so packed with people you all kind of move together and with the train.

I hope that we can adopt some of China's transportation infrastructure and get moving. It took London 120 years to create its 408km of Underground, Shanghai did it in only 15 years, what will it take us?

Links:

8 Things You Didn't Know About the Shanghai Metro

Wiki - Shanghai Metro

Chinese Christian Church - A Study

When I heard that we were going to China, one of the first questions I had: "how will this affect our Christianity?" I have heard about persecution, I've read The Heavenly Man, what does this all mean to me? So, I went online and looked up if we were allowed to bring Bibles and what other rules we needed to keep in mind. Basically, what I found was as long as we weren't going to be smuggling hundreds of Bibles into the country and preaching on the street corner that God wanted the Chinese to rebel against the government, then we would be okay.

Shenyang

The first time I said "I'm a Christian" and the secret police didn't jump out to blindfold me and take me away forever, I thought maybe I have a misconception about this. One of the women at the English wore a cross and later one of those colored bead necklaces (the ones where the color stands for something like blue is for baptism, red is for Christ's blood, etc.) and then a father and daughter talked about going to the Catholic church, Christianity seemed less taboo.  I was told about a fellowship that met in the hotel right next to ours, so we thought we would go check it out. We went in and looked for any signs saying where it was meeting and couldn't find any. So, we asked the hotel staff at the front desk and the word "fellowship" was completely lost in translation. The father and daughter told us to come to the Catholic church where they went. Though neither of us is Catholic, we thought it would be a good experience and at least they would be there so hopefully it wouldn't be a bust like the fellowship. After a rather interesting taxi ride, we finally found the church. It was completely out-of-place, a truly gothic style church with an iron gate, it seemed to be lifted right out of Europe, but it was surrounded by your average modern Chinese buildings.

Yes this is the church

We walked into the church and were greeted by what looked like a wedding going on. But there were contradicting facts, there was a man in a suit and a woman in a white dress in the front, there were nicely dressed people at the very front of the church, then there were regularly dress people in the rest of the church. We sat down thinking, maybe they put a wedding ceremony in the middle of mass, maybe that's how they roll in China. People would walk in and sit down for a while, some would stay, some would leave. Everything was in Chinese so we had no idea what was going on. We finally decided this is definitely a wedding and we are out of our cultural comfortability to come to a wedding uninvited and without even a gift. As we were about to leave, something changed. Everyone started clapping and the couple turned to the audience and started bowing. So we started clapping too, after all they had just got westerners to attend their wedding for free, usually you have to pay them for that. After a lot of bowing and clapping the couple retreated down the aisle and proceeded to take pictures in the courtyard, that's what the car adorned with flowers was for.

As we walked out we saw our friends, they explained to us that the mass was actually in the smaller chapel and they were going to the Japanese lesson the church taught. They would see us afterwards for the cookies and hot drinks the church gave after the service. The "mass" was one of the most interesting I have ever been too.  The priest was American and there were a bunch of others who did various things like sing, read verses, altar boys, etc. They were from all over the world. The attendees were as diverse, there was a French family in front of us and two Africans sitting behind us.

It was okay overall, but Ben's schedule didn't allow us to really go anymore to it. So it was difficult for us to participate in many organized church functions, but because the schedule was a bit hectic, we didn't look that much harder.

Shanghai

Before we left to come back to China this time, I thought ahead. I got the contact information for the local Chinese church in Pittsburgh and asked if they knew of any good church in Shanghai. They gave me the information for Shanghai Community Fellowship. I e-mailed the church about their cell groups and Sunday services. They had a note on their website: "In observance of Chinese government regulations, our English Services are open to foreign passport holders or foreign residence permit holders only. Chinese nationals are welcome to attend a Chinese service at Hengshan Church on Sundays at 7AM, 10AM, or 6:30PM." This made me wonder what exactly the regulations were. I have been researching and trying to understand what the official regulations are.

There are two types of churches in China, state- sanctioned churches and non-sanctioned churches, house churches. For a church to become state sanctioned, it has to follow certain guidelines and be approved by the Religious Affairs Department. Then it must make regular reports to the state and notify them if anything has changed. The two Protestant groups here are Three-Self Patriotic Movement and China Christian Council, they combine to be the only state sanctioned Protestant churches. The Three- Self Patriotic Movement was started to try to take the Christian church back to the Chinese. It "promoted a strategy of 'self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation' in order to remove foreign influences from the Chinese churches and to assure the communist government that the churches would be patriotic to the newly-established People's Republic of China." So any state-sanctioned church in China, that is Protestant, is under the combined TSPM/CCC, and has to follow the regulations the government puts on them. Any Chinese national who is over the age of 18 is allowed to go to any of these churches. But why the separation between Chinese nationals and foreigners? I am still not sure, but when I find the answer I will share it. The one thing I have been able to deduce is that maybe it has to do with the TSPM and making sure the Chinese nationals are still committed to the PRC.

Shanghai Community Fellowship

As for the church, I found out that there was a Saturday cell group that was about 10 minutes walk away from our hotel. We attended the cell group, which had quite a mix of people, including some Chinese which I was surprised at. It was a nice little group and we very much enjoyed it, though they are currently on hiatus because of Spring Festival.  Shanghai Community Fellowship has two Sunday afternoon services, which are huge, maybe 500-750 people at each service and it is the holiday. So it is what I consider a mega-church, but the services haven't been that bad. They try to focus on community, which is right up our alley, last weeks service was on κοινωνία and I felt like I was sitting in HMBFC. I am glad they make it a point for people to join their cell groups, because I am not sure if their Sunday service would quite be enough. Though, I don't ever believe that the point of a service is to be the only part of community in your life.

Links:

Wiki - Christianity in China

Wiki - TSPM

Amity - China Church FAQ or Religious Laws

China Wiki - Christianity

Chinese Lunar New Year

When I first heard that we might be going back to China, I was really excited that we might be here for Chinese New Year. I mean what would be cooler that being in China for the largest party in the world, right?      mmm...naivety strikes again.

Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái!

This is the common greeting (in Mandarin) said, meaning happy new year, congratulations and prosperity. Many children greet their relatives with Gōng xǐ fā cái, hóng bāo ná lái, meaning happy new year, now give me a red envelope (red envelopes are given mostly to children with money in them).

I did not take this picture

Spring Festival - A Brief History

First, some background on Chinese Lunar New Year. It is the biggest holiday in Chinese culture and is actually referred to as Spring Festival. The holiday is officially celebrated for 15 days, though there are also traditions that are celebrated on the days preceding the holiday. On the days preceding the festival, people clean everything. This symbolizes cleaning out the old of the last year, including the bad luck. Each day has specific activities and foods. There are days when you visit specific people, like your oldest relatives, the husband's parents, the wife's parents, etc. The firecrackers that are so common are shot off to send away the old year and welcome new year, the DEAFening sound is also believed to scare away evil spirits. One tradition that particularly peaked my interest was the wearing of red on the first day, especially red underwear. Red is one of the luckiest colors in Chinese tradition, standing for loyalty, success and happiness. It is important to wear red underwear if it is your zodiac year, like this is mine as I am turning 24, because that is believed to be an unlucky year for you and it will ward off this unluckiness. (Unfortunately, China failed to tell me this and I didn't have any red underwear or even any red clothes, so hopefully the gods will be satisfied with the maroon Like Summer T-shirt that I wore). The festival ends on the 15th day with Lantern Festival, everyone walks around with lanterns and candles are lit to guide wayward spirits home. Lastly, due to the visiting of family members, it is also the Chunyun period, know as the largest annual human migration. "The number of passenger journeys during the Chunyun period has exceeded the population of China, hitting 2.26 billion in 2008." I had a "Oh, Oh! There's a line, should I get in it?" moment when we left our hotel one day and saw a rather large line equipped with a security guard. When we reached the front of the line, we realized that it was for a travel agency and people were booking for Spring Festival. For more on the specifics, check out Wikipedia, it is a pretty good article.

Spring Festival - A Reality

I lived in the southwest of the US for a large chunk of my childhood, especially for the majority of my formative years. In case you are unaware the southwest is a vast wasteland of desert where large amounts of people shouldn't try to live, but do anyway. For this reason they are REALLY strict about fireworks. So you don't get a lot of fireworks shows and when you do they are done by the city. Now, like any respectable person, I still love fire and am a slight pyro when it comes down to it, but I have never been much of a fan of fireworks. My husband thinks this might be because I have never actually used fireworks myself, apart from sparklers which are awesome. I just don't really understand why they are so cool, they all just seem the same to me after a while. Now, I knew there were going to be fireworks during the New Year, I mean the US does fireworks and I have seen Chinese movies. But when we started seeing signs a few days before the festival was starting saying No Fireworks!, by stores, inside malls, in the subway tunnels, I started to think maybe I had underestimated the Chinese. I would come to realize that I had underestimated my underestimation.

We have a great hotel room on the 33rd floor of our hotel and therefore a rather nice view of the city. The firecrackers had already been going for a bit on New Years Eve, but once the sun went down, the light show began. I thought I knew what a fireworks show looked like, but I had no idea. For the Pittsburghers, imagine being in the Steel Tower/UPMC building facing away from Ohio River. Then imagine that throughout the Southside 25 different houses are setting off fireworks, then another 15 on North Side, and 50 all over Downtown, Oakland and Squirrel Hill, continuously. I am not talking little fireworks, I mean regular Pirates win fireworks.  The US has nothing on China when it comes to ringing in the New Year, the rest of the world has nothing on China. Every couple of minutes I would think that different sections were finale-ing. But the fireworks continued for hours, slowly increasing in intensity.  At midnight, even through closed windows, all you could smell was the gunpowder, the city was lit up in a way I have never seen. Though I hope to never be in the middle of a war zone during an epic battle, this is what it must look and sound like. It was certainly one of the most incredible sights I have ever seen.

That night certainly won me over for the awesomeness of fireworks... It has been the remaining days of the Spring Festival that have made me loath them more than ever before. In the following days, there is always a firecracker or explosion of some sort going off somewhere. I am so sick and tired of hearing them and being woken up by them, that I can't really take it anymore. We had met two couples, the one both Malaysian and the other the woman is Chinese and the man is a New Zealander. Both couples explained to us that they leave the city during New Year because they can't stand to be here. We were confused, but now we understand.

In conclusion, I wish we had a family to celebrate Spring Festival with, it might make it more bearable. Or maybe not.

Trying Again...

So, I stopped posting because nobody was really reading what I was posting. Which made me feel like I was wasting my time.

But there are two reasons why I have decided to try this again. First, a lot has changed since I last posted and it would be nice to document/update people on it. Second, I have nothing to do with my life right now aside from sleep, eat and exercise. So it won't be a waste of time, since I have so much. :)




What has changed? Well, for one thing, I no longer work at Rock The World. It has definitely been interesting going from having a regular job, even though it was part-time, to not having anything. I decided to leave RTW because it seemed like a good time to transition out of the job, and also because of the second thing that has massively changed my life right now. My husband Ben has been traveling with his job and I have been going with him. And when I say traveling, I mean going to China. We were in Shenyang, China for two months at the end of last year, and we are currently in Shanghai. My very good friend, Jen, suggested I start blogging about our travels and I thought I didn't have anything better to do.

Shenyang or "The Pittsburgh of China" vs. Shanghai or "New York on Crack"

While Ben and I have been here in Shanghai, we've found it really easy to make comparisons to Shenyang. I haven't completely decided if it was a bad thing to have Shenyang be our first introduction to China, but I am definitely leaning that way. We loved Shenyang so much, because it felt like home, that everywhere else has fallen a bit short.

First, why is Shenyang the Pittsburgh of China? Well, it is an old industrial city that is trying to find its new place in the world. It has had huge pushes to reduce pollution and is currently putting in a subway. Though it is a large city for the US, it is a medium size city for  China. This means that there isn't a huge amount of tourism, just a great native Chinese population.  The food was delicious, oh Dongbei, how I miss you! Another thing that was specific to our experience, there was a medical university across the street from our hotel, and most of my Chinese friends were medical students.

Shenyang - Eating Lunch with some of my new friends

Before we came to Shanghai, many people said to us that it was like "New York on Crack". Do I agree with this classification? Maybe. I mean it is a HUGE city in a small place, 19.2 million people in 7,037 km sq(2,717 mi sq) compared to NYC 19.1 million in 17,400 km sq (6,720 mi sq), so there are tons of different people. Though the majority of the population is still Chinese, there are a lot of other influences. Unlike Shenyang, where we had a hard time finding food that wasn't Chinese or Korean, we have only eaten a few Chinese meals here in Shanghai. The city certainly doesn't close down at 10pm, especially because it is Chinese Lunar New Year right now.  I would say that it is very similar to NYC, but I don't know if there is any added stimulant to bring it to an extreme.

Shanghai - Ben's coworker took us to Qibao ancient street

The foodie side of me really loves that we can have many different kinds of food, but it also misses the great Dongbei Chinese cuisine that we grew to love in Shenyang. (We have not found Shanghai Chinese as appealing).  Also, I definitely understand the "feeling alone in a sea of people" better now. While we were in Shenyang, there were many reasons why it was easier to connect with people. Our hotel also had apartments in it which were occupied by long stay guest that we got to know and befriend; Ben was working on a project with many different people who went out together; and there was an English corner and salon were we met many different people, including a great family and a group of female medical students. All of these things combined to give us a community. Our hotel in Shanghai is rather empty right now, Ben is working alone and the only English corner that we know of is currently on hiatus because of the winter/holiday. One positive for Shanghai is that there is an actual church here. We have been going to the service every Sunday and even joined a cell group, which has helped, but the cell group is also on hold for the New Year. It has certainly been hard to not feel like I am living in a world inhabited inside my own mind with the occasional guest appearance of my husband.

With that said, China is a very diverse country, as to be expected with its size and population. We have only been to three cities and they have all been vastly different from one another. Also, you might read this and think that I am hatin', but don't take it like that. We are still having life changing and fun experiences. Life is still life.

I feel like that is more than enough for you to read for now.