Ryann is in Shanghai

Over and Out

2008-12-18T21:36:00.000-08:00

Is the semester already over? Really? But, really, seriously? I demand a recount!

In the past few days I have been in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo in Japan. I'm presently in Shanghai waiting to get on a plane that will go to Toronto and then Chicago so that tomorrow I can get in a car with my fam and my bestie and drive to Minneapolis. I might be the luckiest person on the planet. And in 48 hours, I might also be the most jet lagged person on the planet.

This semester has been unbelievable. When I got on the plane in the fall, I could say hello in Chinese. Badly. A few days ago, I was in a bar in Japan with two of my buddies speaking only in Chinese. It was Rachel (who's British), Yue who's Japanese, and me. We all go to Chinese school together so for us, it's the least common denominator language-wise. The waiter came over and asked Yue in Japanese what language we were speaking. She said Chinese. And then his head exploded.

Man. I feel like I've been so far away from home for so long. That part sucked. It's hard when you can't just pick up a phone and say hello. And 13 hours is such a weird time difference. And you can't drink the water. And you don't remember how to say "go left" or "What is this green thing in my food?". And you don't really have any reason to be China in the first place. But it also makes you feel like if you can do this, you can do anything.

Until five minutes later when you realize you're lost and you've miscalculated the bill because your brain doesn't do conversions very well and you've spent the past few months calling taxi drivers "waiter".

Being in China is the weirdest. Everyday, I oscillate between feeling totally empowered, absolutely competent and virtually pre-natal (pre-natal being the dominant state of being). But I wouldn't change it. Living here has truly been one of the most treasured experiences of my life and I'm so glad I got the chance to share it with you all. Thank you. For reading and writing emails and keeping in touch.

Over and Out.

Mr. Roboto

2008-12-13T04:28:00.000-08:00

Ahhh! I am totally in Japan right now.

We were planning on going to Thailand after school let out in China- we bought the tickets, bought a travel guide, couldn't wait to plan it all out- until Thailand went totally batshit crazy and closed all the airports and started a coup d'etats (is that how you spell that? is that what I mean? Im currently typing on a japanese computer so Id spellcheck but I dont know that Id get anywhere).

Luckily, everything was recovered and refunded and rescheduled and we are totally in Japan right now! Ahhh!

Im travelling with my buddy Rachel. We just left Tokyo. Heavens. Tokyo. Wow. I once thought that New York was the coolest city on the planet- a city to rival all others- but I was sorely mistaken. Tokyo is lightyears beyond cool. Everything in Tokyo looks like its from the future. Its amazing. Its like Logans run with Asian people. Also pretty much anything doubles as a stuffed animal. Oh, you thought this was a just cell phone? Boom! It is also a hello kitty doll. And everything is so clean! I think Japanese people must have higher occurances of OCD than just about any other nationality on the planet becuase everything sparkles. I mean, I would gladly eat my dinner off of this hotel lobby floor right now. No question.

And the toilets! First of all, not to go into the specifics, but for all intents and purposes Chinas toilets are not much more than holes in the ground. And those are the good ones! Those ones are far better than the ones where you tinkle into a troft (is that how you spell that? Again, my condolences) Plus, in China, they dont have toilet paper in the bathrooms so you have to buy it at the supermarket and then carry it around with you wherever you go. In Japan, the toilets are like big robo potties. They play music and have seat warmers and give you a back massage. Theyre amazing.

Right now we are in Osaka. We are visiting our buddy Yue, who is from here but studies Chinese Opera with us at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Se was in the movie Battle Royale so shes pretty bigi in Japan- literally. Shes pretty much the greatest. She just took us to one of those sushi restaurants where everything goes around on a little conveyeur belt. Great fun. And soon we are going to Kyoto. Ill write again when I can!!

Chinese Opera

2008-12-03T21:14:00.000-08:00

Last night was our big Chinese Opera performance. It occurs to me that I haven't written much- or anything- about Chinese Opera even though it's the primary focus of my studies in China. I guess I haven't written about it mostly because it's very strange to describe. As I'm sure you can observe, it's not much like the western theater we know.

The singing is often high-pitched, nasal, shrill- frankly, difficult to listen to. The movement- all of it from your eye balls to your toes- is highly controlled and calculated. It's choreographed to the second in time with music.

But the most interesting thing, i think, is the design. Everything is extremely ornate. The make-up takes an hour at least to apply and each piece of hair is applied individually to your head. There's a photograph of it above, I think. Anyhow, they take chunks of hair and soak them in sap and then glue them down to your head. After that, they put on a face tightener. Those are the white straps in the picture. They're excruciatingly tight pieces of tape that are meant to stretch your face. They pain is incredible. Our teacher told us that when she trained as a little girl, the first time they tried on the face tighteners, all of the students began to vomit. It's really, really awful. But it looks pretty cool.

I'm fairly certain that I have no future in Chinese Opera but at the end of the semester, I have a lot to take away from studying it. Telling a simple story can be incredibly complicated, it's often nice to have a right and wrong answer, if you have to, you can assimilate to almost anything, and everywhere you go, people are mostly the same but the subtle differences of mannerisms and language and perspective are the most interesting parts.

THANKSGIVING!!!!

2008-11-30T02:22:00.001-08:00

Last week was Thanksgiving and there was so much to be thankful for!

Everyday, the Korean girls and Japanese girls cook five star meals in our dinky dorm kitchen. The American kids are really good at cooking instant noodles.
But we knew it was Thanksgiving and so we rallied together, invited all the other foreign students to the V.I.P. room and cooked up a thoroughly impressive Thanksgiving dinner. We felt like real grown-ups!

The day before Thanksgiving, I skyped my grandmother to ask her advice about the meal. I told her we didn't have an oven. We only had a hot plate and a microwave and did she have any helpful pointers on how to throw it all together. She furrowed her brow, thought it over for a second and screamed"It's Impossible!"

This is a tradition I took from my cousin Nora. Every year, we make paper chains and write what we're thankful for on them. Then, later in the evening, someone reads them aloud and we all guess who wrote it. This year, it was a little trickier though. With paper chains in Chinese, English, Korean, Japanese, Swedish, and Russian, we had to switch up the readers and add a few translators in the mix.

We did it!!!

And then at about 11 pm someone said, "Hey. Don't we have a Chinese test tomorrow?" There was a brief period of panic followed by the level headed and genius decision to pile up a plate of turkey and take it to our favorite Chinese teacher. We batted our eyelashes like champs and informed her about the sacred, precious American holiday of Thanksgiving and how special and mandatory it was as an American to eat massive amounts of turkey, drink massive amounts of Nouveau Beaujolais and stay far, far away from Chinese textbooks.

The test was postponed until Monday.

Beijing

2008-11-22T21:57:00.000-08:00

So last week we went to Beijing! We'd been warned again and again how disappointing and unbeautiful and industrial it was but I am happy to report the exact opposite. It had all the charm of a sweet, Midwestern city. Tons of families, very clean, fairly quiet for a city, and the bluest skies. Apparently, Beijing is still working hard to keep the skies clear since the Olympics and it shows.

The Great Wall! It's certainly one of the greatest walls I've seen, as far as walls go. The plaque in the middle of the road was put there by Mao Ze Dong and it says whoever climbs the great wall is a hero. So, not to brag or anything but...

We chilled with this guy for a bit although, I think we had a little more fun than he did.

Clout the knockers!

That is the Temple of Heaven. It is awe-inspiring and gargantuan and intricately painted and totally gorgeous. Really breathtaking.

However, there is a limit on the amount of pagodas a person can see and thoroughly appreciate. The limit is a million. And we exceeded it a month ago. Rachel and I agreed that at the beginning of the trip we were totes pagotes but by the time we got to Beijing, we were notes pagotes. So, we went out and had a beer.

At this place. Which was sweet! The dance floor was bouncy moonwalk material and there was a guy who was inexplicably dressed as a pirate! We were all a little sad to leave.

Guilin!

2008-11-17T08:14:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, we went to Guilin in the south of China and I never really said anything about it. Here are some pictures.

So, we got off the airplane and headed to the hotel where we were greeted by this:

Disinfected, eh? Now...it never would have even occurred to me that this toilet had been infected if not for the pageant-style sash it was sporting. And what, one might ask, had the toilet been infected with? We had so many questions.

Below is a picture of my friend Sarah holding some monkeys in kind of adorable, if not Peta-approved, outfits. Some guy handed them to her really quickly so she couldn't disagree. And as I'm sure you know, it's not so easy to escape when you have two outfitted monkeys crawling all over you.

We learned in no time that this was a scam. We learned this because apparently you must pay to take photographs of people with these monkeys and apparently this photograph that you are looking at right now cost 10 yuan I didn't pay. When we managed to wiggle out of this situation and get a little further down the street, the monkey man ran after us screaming all sorts of obscenities and possibly even threatening bodily harm. Although, it's hard to say. My Chinese isn't that good yet.

This is a stalactite.

These are some of the many mountains we saw on our trip. Lovely scenery. And Dylan, if you're reading this, it made me think of you a lot. All over the place were mountains and fresh air and crunchy hippie dreadlock dudes. It made me think that Guilin must be the closest thing China has to Boulder.

And before we left, we even made a few new friends. Like this kid.

My Parents are Very Famous in Hong Kong

2008-11-10T08:51:00.000-08:00

My Rents came to Shanghai this weekend! That's us at a tea shop.

That's us at the M50 Art Galleries.

For our Chinese Culture class this week, we took an excursion to a nearby dance studio. This is a photograph of a rehearsal put on by the very first privately owned dance company in China- which is to say, the very first dance company not controlled and supported by the Communist Party. The company was created by a very famous male to female transsexual contemporary dancer named Jing Xing. I wish I could explain what this afternoon was like in great detail but there's no way I could possibly do it justice.

This guy cleaned out his chamber pot in the street.

And this lady was in a Chinese Opera performance we saw. When we saw her backstage she was kind of a diva but our little battle axe Chinese Opera teacher insisted she was "very famous in Hong Kong". Our teacher then proceeded to describe every subsequent person as being "very famous in Hong Kong.

For who?

2008-11-03T03:58:00.000-08:00

Last week I saw a Chinese guy in a Fubu t-shirt. I'm still wrestling with the cultural significance of this event.

Pictures and Shouzhou and Proof plus a little Breaking and Entering

2008-10-26T08:35:00.000-07:00

It is often said that a picture is worth a hundred words. Or a thousand words...or something. I don't know. I can't really remember. But I do know that some people think the exchange rate of words to pictures is extremely high. And I think that I mostly agree. Except, it has occurred to me that this blog is composed almost entirely of pictures at this point. Which is like...a shitload of words.

And anyway, it has also occurred to me that my blog may or may not be the cyber equivalent of a person who comes home from a trip and suckers their unknowing friends and family members into an agonizing hour-long slide show of all the places they visited.

So yeah...I'm not trying to talk your ear off with photographs. But...I probably am. This is my formal apology. Sorry. Now here are some photos I took of Souzhou!

Souzhou is a canal town which dates back to the 6th century. It may be one of the most breathtaking places I've ever seen.

I know, right?

Sometimes when I go to places like this, I shove my camera into the hands of an unsuspecting Chinese guy or a buddy and force them to take my picture. I feel like I need hard evidence that I was actually in these places.

So...this shot is a little less scenic. But I wish I could explain what was going on when it was taken. First and foremost, it should be noted that Chinese museums and galleries are completely anarchic. People step right up and touch the famous paintings, they take pictures of everything, they climb on the statues. These places have such free reign that often times, people will cross the red velvet rope between themselves and the exhibit. They will stand next to or sometimes on top of the Qing Dynasty era knick knacks and get a better look. Maybe take a load off on an emperor's throne or something.

The picture doesn't show the rope in front of us but Rachel and I are actually in the exhibit. We saw a bunch of little kids climbing on the ancient, hand-carved relics and decided we could do that too! What's more amazing though is that nobody said anything! No alarms went off, no security cameras beeped, no baton-toting security guards tasered us! We left the scene of the crime completely unmarred and a little bit closer to 16th century magistrate, Wang Zianchen.

Hangzhou- Part 1

2008-10-20T07:58:00.000-07:00

The gang and I spent this past weekend in Hangzhou- a Chinese city near Shanghai known for its tea cultivation and sleepy West Lake. It was also, apparently, once of Marco Polo's all-time fav places. We hiked through the tea even though this little old lady kept following us. She wanted us to buy tea from her but we just pretended like we didn't understand what she was saying. It's a fairly helpful tactic. What? I'm not allowed to walk through this more convenient door? What? There's a line? What? This isn't a free sample? Giggle, giggle. Sorry. I don't understand Chinese.

Later that night, we decided to check out Hangzhou's nightlife. And apparently....they had been waiting for us. As soon as we saw the Top Red Prestige Club we knew that it would be a sufficient hangout for V.I.P.'s like us.

So we became besties with the whole wait staff and hung out with them in the Prestigious break room.

Hangzhou- Part 2

2008-10-20T07:15:00.000-07:00

I love this freaking guy. I couldn't not take a picture of him- I mean, look at him...
broin' out...shirtless. Nina- wise up. This is the future of fashion.

This pic was taken on our way up to the pagoda seen below. We don't know the Chinese chick in the middle but apparently she really wanted to take a snapshot with a couple of white ladies.

Fear Factor?

2008-10-19T08:06:00.001-07:00

It seems like every new day in China presents a host of culinary dilemmas. Some end in delicious new flavors...some end in vom. Either way, here are some stand out meals:

I don't know if you can see the sign that my friend Sarah is pointing to but it's a picture of a camel. Yup. Which we ate. Barbequed on skewers. It was actually super dee duper delish.

This kid was so cute. We saw him at a street fair and had to take a picture. It didn't come out super well but he's so little and the octopuses (octopi?) he's eating on a stick are so huge
.

Fish eyeball. Oh, yeah. I Ate it. Whatever, ain't no thang.

Ummm...I should admit, though that I ate the eyes primarily for bragging rights and will not be repeating this any time in the near future. It was a huge mistake.

Finally, the critters pictured above are hairy crabs. And they are hiary. I'm not sure if you can tell but their legs are covered in this very weird coat of hair. It's known as a delicacy in China and is particularly famous in Shanghai in the fall...so we had to do it. They were excellent, if challenging to eat.

The aftermath.

Culture Class Feild Trip!!! Zhang Gardens and Wu Jian Lu

2008-10-17T03:47:00.000-07:00

Wo men de Laoshi Nina hai you wo de peng you Vera. Our teacher Nina and our buddy Vera.

Our Tourguide

Chinese people believe that goldfish are symbols of wealth so there are often ponds outside traditional Chinese homes.

Cont'd

2008-10-17T03:32:00.001-07:00

so many undies

Why does this chicken have a bow and arrow if we are going to be eating him in a pot? Food for thought.

M50 Art Enclave (and other random photos)

2008-10-12T01:08:00.000-07:00

To sign in to this gallery, you had to leave your finger print

I think these are really taxidermied animals- the horror comes in waves

This is toastbox. It's a desert in China and it's exactly what it sounds like.

The Economist

2008-10-10T03:49:00.000-07:00

If someone had told me a year ago that I would find myself in an Economics class in China , I would have laughed. Very loudly. In their face.

Today, I spent three hours today discussing the astronomical growth of China's average gross domestic product. FOR REAL!!! I've spent the past two years of my life memorizing monologues, wearing jazz shoes and talking about "feelings". Pretty soon, I'm gonna start wearing a pant suit and talking on a blue tooth. (I'm being facetious dad, don't get your hopes up).

Despite all odds though, I attended a lecture conducted by Sean Chen, an economics professor at a nearby university. He spent the majority of the class presenting statistics on China's natural resources, labor supply, capital, management and technology.

Here are some of Professor Chen's talking points:

1. Even though China is approximately the same size as America in terms of land mass, only 25% of the land is composed of planes. Most of China's territory is made up of mountains, deserts and basins.
2. America's population is 300 million while China's is a staggering 1.3 BILLION- one fifth of the world's population.
3. In 1978 as China's political climate shifted from Mao-era communism to a so-called "market economy with Chinese characteristics", 20% of China's population was in urban areas. Today, that number has skyrocketed to 45%!
4. China didn't really use cars until after 1978! And during this time, everything was purchased with government allotted coupons- things like furniture, food, matches, soap, rice, cloth to make clothes with etc.
5. Today, only 56% of people have the opportunity to go to college.
6. China is currently tied with Germany as the third largest economy in the world, tailing behind the U.S. and Japan.
7. McCain is the Chinese hopeful for the upcoming American election.

So there you have it. Sort of.

There is no question that in the past thirty years, China has made enormous, almost unfathomable leaps in its economy.

That said, there is still a lot to be done in terms of human rights issues, environmental issues, etc. It's also difficult to gauge the legitimacy of Professor Chen's statistics. China has no census and the government isn't exactly known for making this kind of information widely available. But that might be some red-scare-style paranoia talking. I'm completely aware that whenever I talk art or politics with someone in China, a communist alert begins to beep somewhere inside me. It's hard to know what's what when everyone's access to information is limited.

But with all skepticism aside, it's undeniable that China is getting more and more recognition on the international stage as a truly powerful country.

National Holiday in Hong Kong!!!

2008-10-06T05:44:00.001-07:00

Last week I was in Hong Kong with five buddies from the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Here are some pictures from our trip:

We saw one of the girls from America's Next Top Model on the street and proceeded to pose as super models ourselves.

We celebrated my friend Steven's birthday.

I took candid pictures at the dinner table when people least suspected it.

We went to a bar that looked like the inside of a buddhist temple.

We got caught in a typhoon!

(It's hard to tell but this is an aerial shot of a street filled with frantic, umbrella-clad people.)

It took us several different flight plans, trains, buses, and cabs to get back but we're finally back.

Literally

2008-09-28T06:44:00.000-07:00

Below, are some interesting literal traslations of Chinese words.
1. Kiwi is called "mi hoa tao" which translates to mean "monkey peach".
2. Jealously is called "chi cu" which translates to mean "eat vinegar".
3. A guy who is a playboy is called a "hua hua gong zi" which translates to mean "flower flower fire radish"
4. Hong Kong is called "xiang gang" which translates to mean "good smelling place". The reason for this, is becuase Hong Kong is fairly famous for importing and selling perfume.

Cool, huh?

Anyhow, I am off to this good smelling place (Hong Kong) for the upcoming national holiday. SO, if you are reading this and if you are my parents- I am totally not dead and I will totally try to buy a phone card and call you.

The Blind Leading the Blinder or Chinese is really hard

2008-09-26T01:47:00.000-07:00

So, I'm learning Chinese. Which is extremely difficult.

As you may or may not know, Chinese is a tonal language, which means that the meaning of any given word is not solely determined by the word's phonetic pronunciation but also by a tone. For example, the word "ma" when said at different tones (meaning pitch and inflection), means mom, hemp, horse, curse, or an interrogative particle. This makes learning and speaking extremely difficult as you would not want to ride a curse, smoke your mom, send a Horse's Day card or misuse an interrogative particle.

The challenge, though, is further exacerbated by the fact that none of our Chinese teachers speak English. Fortunately for us, they are all extremely adept at sign language. Most lessons involve our teacher repeating a word like "Hei Se" and then pointing to as many objects as she can until someone from the back screams out "Oh! I think it means black". Everyday, I spend the entire three hours of the class trying to pick out any Chinese word I can understand from the sea of gobbledygook coming from my teacher's mouth. Most days sound like, "Blah, blah, blah, Korean, blah, blah, blah, chicken leg, blah, blah, blah, arm hair." Context clues also help. Luckily, though, each day seems to have less blah's and more intelligible Chinese words- So I got that goin for me. Which is nice.

Yesterday, in our culture class, we received a special lecture from author, professor and public intellectual Laoshi Sun. This woman is incredibly bright. She spent many years in America and can traverse Chinese and English effortlessly- sweet relief! The lecture was about the presence (and often absence) of women in Chinese Theater. Everyone in the class was enthused and mostly awake after the three hour lecture- which is always a good sign. Laoshi Sun summed up the lecture with a brief discussion of white collar theater which prompted a fairly curious question from the class.

The woman who asked the question, a 58 year old American woman from upstate New York, may or may not be taking a shit load of pain killers. Her head is perpetually buried in her dictionary, though she never seems to resurface knowing any more Chinese words.

"Umm...yea....I have a question" she said. "You keep on talking about white collar theater. What about black collar theater?"

The class was silent. Every student working hard to suppress their laughter. Poor Laoshi Sun straining to understand the question. She furrowed her brow- searching through her mental Rolodex for this western art form "black collar theater". Perhaps is was some avant-garde niche genre she hadn't learned about.

"I'm not really sure how to answer your question. What I'm discussing is white collar theater- you know- yuppies, rich people, all these young kids talking on their blueberries"

Lost in Translation Again

2008-09-24T06:28:00.000-07:00

"Shopping Make Fashion Icon Me High"

"I've Always On Your Side"

Chinese Cuisine- (read menu translations below pics)

2008-09-18T08:54:00.005-07:00

Toast Pigeon

Slices flish with sauce

Leshan Fried Spricy Chicken

Fish Taste Pork with Eggplants

The Cantine

2008-09-18T08:54:00.004-07:00

The other day, my fellow Americans and I thought we would be adventurous and try out the campus cantine. It's a convenient 2 minute walk from the dorms and each meal costs somewhere between one and two dollars. We were on our way over when we ran into a Japanese buddy of ours.

This guy is average height and looks but he has this crazy mad-scientist hair that makes him look half cartoon and half uni bomber. He's very, very serious and sort of shy but always tries his hardest to communicate with us through broken English- the guy's a real sweetheart- so, we told him we were on the way to the cantine and would he like to join us.

And he looked at all of us with his crazy wild mane. He took a long pause before responding, opened his eyes wide, shook his head slowly and said in the most earnest way possible,
"No... Is not dericious."

Babyface Club

2008-09-18T08:54:00.003-07:00

The Dorm

2008-09-18T08:54:00.002-07:00

YuYuan Gardens in Old Town Shanghai

2008-09-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

We Shi Pang Mei Guo Ren (I'm a Fat American)

2008-09-16T04:27:00.000-07:00

On the first day we arrived, I received a stained, starchy sheet and covers with a pillow. It appeared to be repackaged. I gave this very little thought and continued to use it- as everything in China seems slightly stained, starchy, repackaged, or a combination thereof. You have to figure, if the Chinese have propagated more than a billion people under these conditions, they're doing something right.

I put everything on my bed and slept soundly for a few nights before I developed a rash. I won't regale you with specifics. Suffice it to say that I developed a rash and identified the blanket as the cause. I bought a new set of blankets and my skin recovered in suit.

Then, tonight I received a letter.

It should be said first that since coming to China, I have tried in every possible way to assimilate, observe and respect cultural differences and above all- not offend. I over-apologize and "please" and "thank you" like I'm breathing. It's what you have to do when you have no idea what's going on.

I have learned a great deal in the way of courtesy in China, though. For example, do not stick your chopsticks in your food- rather, lay them gracefully across the top of your bowl when you are finished eating. Do not laugh uproariously with your mouth agape slapping your knee- especially if you are a lady. Do not step on the bottom of a door frame when entering someones house- this is a sign of disrespect and may or may not let ghosts inside.

ANYWAY- these are things I've learned.

There are many things I still have yet to learn. Tonight I received a letter informing me that bedding had been found in the garbage. The letter was written by the school's Foreign Affairs Office whose stance was a concise but clear, "We feel sorry about that". They also added, "Please treasure facilities and utensils".

Apparently, this was a serious faux pas and enormous offense. And apparently, I am the unveiled culprit. In all fairness, I was never told that the blankets were meant to be returned and I'm fairly certain they made my skin turn into scales. Nevertheless, I may have successfully brought shame to the families and ancestors of every administrator in the Foreign Affairs Office.

the view from my window

2008-09-14T10:11:00.001-07:00

Shanghai Theater Academy is famous for its luxurious, exclusive, opulent VIP Lounge

2008-09-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

This is it-

2008-09-14T09:40:00.001-07:00

Dancing

2008-09-14T09:36:00.001-07:00

Dinner

2008-09-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

Chinese Fashion or Chaos in Clothing

2008-09-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

Since visiting China, a number of things have occurred to me about the city's fashion- Primarily, its absence.

Which is not to say that Chinese people don't have taste or class or a value for aesthetics. On the contrary, the Chinese are very much interested in saving face and looking good in the eyes of others. Although, to look around you might not know it.

And this is because of a universal chaos in their clothes. There are no recurring themes. There are no through lines. no trends. no patterns. Every person on the street is dressed haphazardly. Which is not to say that they're sloppy or unkempt or poorly dressed. It's more to say that the only universal thing about chinese ensembles is their dissimilarities.

Perhaps this observation is superficial. In fact, it is. But it's easy to forget the subtle tools you use every day to figure other people out. Clothes allow you to decode foreign social structures. When travelling in China or Europe or even a few towns over in America, you begin to learn who someone is by the way they present themselves. People in business suits. People in jeans . People in scrubs. A person's threads say a great deal about what they do and who they are. So, in a country where all the clothes say about a person is that they're dressed, you must look elsewhere for expressions of identity.

Week 1

2008-09-08T05:58:00.000-07:00

Things so far have been completely amazing! Everyone here is so kind. All of the Americans are present and accounted for- a really fun bunch of kids. We've made friends with the other foreign exchange students- namely a japanese kid who speaks chinese and english and an italian guy who speaks chinese, japanese and english. I know, right? It can make you feel very American.

Anyhow, the guys took us out to our first Chinese house party. The girls got very dressed up and we were all speculating in the cab ride over about how chinese people have a house party. When the cab stopped, we were at the foot of a towering marble building with spectacular views. The guy who owned the place was actually japanese and most of the people at the party were Korean. ANYWAY- we all had to laugh when we walked in because we were herded around a big table for dinner only to find that the custom food was....KFC. 12 hour time difference, foreign language, different side of the world- KFC.

Ryann IS in Shanghai

2008-09-05T07:08:00.000-07:00

It is so official. I am currently sitting in a dorm room in the center of Shanghai in the center of China in the center of the universe.

Things are very good. Now.

Things were not necessarily always very good until this moment. The plane landed and its passengers began their final cathartic conversations about overhead luggage and the like and all of a sudden I realized. We should not be here. I started to laugh nervously while looking out the window. Listen guys, I think we oughta turn this thing around. What in god's name are we doing? This is no place for us. I wanted to rally these people and show them the error of their ways- confirm with them that we had collectively made a huge mistake. As soon as we left the plane we would be surrounded by a big smog haze of shortish people speaking in tongues and smoking cigarettes.

The guy sitting on my left observed my discomfort and turned to me. "Just don't look lost" he said. And with that, he exited the plane. I felt like Dustin Hoffman in the graduate. "Just don't look lost- and one word- plastics".

When I got off the plane I was greeted by two lovely Chinese students from the academy who speak exceptional (if sometimes lost in translation-esque) English. The girls greeted me with a sign that said my name and informed me of their American names- Vera and Isic. I shook their hands. I have never met any American people in my life with either the name Vera or Isic. But nevertheless, they were incredibly kind and hospitable. They took me out to an authentic Chinese meal and made certain that I had everything I needed before dropping me off at my dorm. Which is gorgeous. I will try to post pictures of the view- which is stupidly spectacular- when I figure out my camera.

Until then, I'm crunked off of jet lag and plan to remedy that immediately. Huitou Jian (See ya)!

Ryann is not in Shanghai

2008-06-04T14:31:00.000-07:00

Ryann is in Illinois. Which is not in Asia at all.

But- tomorrow, at an extremely early time in the morning, I'm leaving!!! I arrive on friday and will be sure to post a picture or line or confirmation that I'm safe and sound. Until then...