Entry Level

Sept – 17th – 2010

I recently got involved with an opportunity that allows me to volunteer once a week at a local migrant school, “Fenfa Migrant School” here in Shanghai’s Putuo District.

Migrant Schools are schools that provide education to the children of the underprivileged families who migrate to Shanghai from within the country to make their living by providing cheap labor. They’re a critical element of China’s “education equalization” policy and the government is hoping to ensure that 100% of all migrant workers’ children become enrolled in some sort of school. Generally speaking- these schools are a new and mildly controversial concept. Some Shanghainese are unhappy with the fact that their “taxes” are helping to support the education of migrants when they feel as though their own children are not receiving good/as good of an education as the migrant workers’ children are.

I haven’t received a class placement yet, but I am extremely excited to begin working with these children. Our initial visit went really well , and I’m hoping that we’ll be able to help each other to simultaneously develop our language skills over the course of their academic year.

Check out a little bit of footage from the volunteer group’s greeting from the school’s principal and an afternoon English class.

(continue reading…)

Sept – 11th – 2010

If the people of Shanghai ever needed an experience to validate their stereotypes of all Americans being “loud and obnoxious” we certainly validated that when we competed in Shanghai International Citizen version of “The Amazing Race.”

Just like the show “The Amazing Race” our goal was to make it from Point A, to some unknown destination as quickly as possible by piecing together clues and accomplishing missions in order to get the hint for where the next destination would be. We sprinted through Metro stations, ran up escalators the wrong way, asked strangers for directions in broken Mandarin, and foot raced to the finish… all in the rain!

According to the rules we were only allowed to use our feet or public forms of transportation (i.e. buses and metros). Also, because the entire race took about roughly two hours to complete by the time we were actually done we were all pretty wet but also pretty well affiliated with the area.

But anyways, as usual- I can show you much better than I can tell you. So check out the video below to find out how well my team did and where we finished…

**Disclaimer due to the intense nature of the competition the footage is EXTREMELY shaky. Haha, bear with me [superemotions file="icon_razz.gif" title="Razzberry"].

Sept – 10 -2010

Since May 1, 2010 Shanghai has been hosting this year’s World Expo. Thus far this is a fact that has overall worked in my favor, simply because the government has gone to great lengths to significantly clean up the city in order to make it a more appealing/suitable setting for the World Expo 2010. For example- in the months prior to Expo the government placed roughly 4,000 more taxis on the road and even shut down a lot of the older factories that were greatly contributing to the air pollution and smog that one typically encounters while in Shanghai.

Needless to say China’s hosting of the World Expo has been a pretty big deal for all of Asia and China specifically. This is the first time a “developing” country has ever had the opportunity to host the World Expo and the Chinese are NOT taking it likely. With expectations of attendance ranging from 70 -80 million visitors and over 100 foreign leaders the Chinese have gone to great lengths to ensure that the Expo is as enjoyable and safe as possible- they’ve even employed the same security measures used during the Beijing Olympics.

Check out some multimedia after the jump.

(continue reading…)

Sept – 9th – 2010

From the very moment I landed in Shanghai and began making friends with some of the local Shanghainese people, everybody had been immediately asking me whether or not I had already gone to the materials markets. My response was always an apathetic “No”, simply because I had already seen materials/fabric markets while in Singapore and Thailand and I had never been that impressed- either the prices were too expensive or the craftsmanship was less than desirable.

However, one weekend, I did decide to allow a few friends to convince me to accompany them to one local market, and the experience was certainly unlike anything else that I had ever encountered while in any other Asian country. Not only were the prices remarkable but the craftsmanship and the amount of variety were incomparable to anywhere I’ve ever been- even in the states.   (continue reading…)

Sept – 8th – 2010

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of dining at arguably Shanghai’s best Sichuanese restaurant: Ba Guo Bu Yi. This was definitely an experience.

Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China that is another one of the major industrial centers in Shanghai along with Beijing or Shanghai. However, unlike these other centers Sichuan is a bit more traditional and maintains a bit more of their own unique identity (read: less international/globalized).  The Sichuanese pride themselves on maintaining their culture and as a result they have become extremely well known for their own type of cuisine- “Sichuan Cuisine”. Sichuanese Restaurants are characterized by their prominent use of spices, garlics, and peppers… but mainly spices. As a fan of spicy food, needless to say, I was very pleased with my meal that night.

The meal, like most meals in the nicer Chinese restaurants based on my experience, was served community Lazy Susan style. So essentially, the 8-10 of us seated at my table decided what we each preferred to eat the most, made sure that we had a good balance and no overlaps, and then proceeded to rotate the tray and share each other’s orders… as tacitly as

(continue reading…)