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.

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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.

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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

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So, today while I was out idly wandering around, I noticed another guy who looked just as  confused and helpless as I did. I said “Hi” to him and he eagerly responded back in broken English:

“Oh!! You speak the English!!”

—- Right then and there, I knew I had made a new friend.

His name was Vlaad, and he was actually looking for a place to buy laundry detergent so that he could wash his clothes. As it turns out, I was coincidentally looking for a bank and for where the area’s version of Franklin St. was (I know, its the Tarheel in me). So, this was our fair exchange: we would idly wonder around the area together as a tag team until the other accomplished their mission. It sounded fair enough.

As we wandered about we told each other about ourselves. Vlaad shared with me that he was a 20 year old from Russia. He speaks Russian, limited English, and no Mandarin (something we clearly had in common). Vlaad moved to Shanghai to get his undergrad degree at East China because he said schooling in Russia, Moscow in particular, was too expensive and very corrupt. He told me that he had always dreamed of completing college in either China or the United States, and China was cheaper so he came here. He said he narrowed it down to these two places because he was certain that he would get what he paid for at these places (an education) whereas in Moscow or other countries he may be disappointed or tricked out of his money.

I can only imagine how much courage, persistence, and resilience such a decision must have taken. Especially considering the fact that he was a single-child living solely with his mother. I was inspired.

After a few hours of conversation and confusion we found that we had already accomplished all of our goals for the day- so we exchanged contact information, and then went our separate ways.

Expect to hear more about Vlaad in the future.

Here’s some video I captured during the day. They don’t call East Shanghai the “Garden University” for nothing (its beautiful)! Meet Vlad.

Cheers,

Emeka

**SN: I apologize about the quality of the video. I’m currently working on finding different software to use to edit my video content, in order to ensure that the HD quality is maintained throughout web uploading. If you know of any good programs for somebody on a PC please recommend them!  … I’m also working on capturing better video, haha.

…Twelve hours makes a HUGE difference, trust me I know.

Around 4PM on Tuesday I received an e-mail to my cell phone reminding me that my plane was set to depart at 6AM the following day. That was no big deal… … … other than the fact that  I was mistakenly under the impression that  my flight would be leaving at 6PM and NOT 6AM!  So, about 0.2 seconds after reading… and then re-reading the email (still  around 4PM) I jumped into panic mode and rushed to finish up any last minute details that needed to be completed before all of the important places closed. (read: I went to the bank, post office, etc).

Needless to say Tuesday was a sleepless night.  I wasn’t fully able to bid farewell to friends and family the way I would’ve liked to due to the rushed nature of things; however, I was thankful for having the opportunity to stop by NCSU to say bye to my brother. While I was with my brother I figured it would be an opportune time for me to give him my iPod for him to update considering the fact that he DJs on the side; and because I figured I would need some entertainment for 24 hour long trip the next day. (Read: Mistake). Knowing my brother I should have seen this coming, but I didn’t-  so instead of the underground/diverse/different/GOOD music I had grown accustomed to having on my iPod… these artists were all replaced with the latest Waka Flaka/Travis Porter club bangers. Like I said- I should have seen this coming.

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