First Five Days

Greetings from Zhangjiagang! It’s been a wild week. We apologize for not writing sooner, but our days have been LONG and filled with errand after errand from waking to falling asleep; fun, but tiring. We hope we can write with enough detail to fully describe how amazing everything has been so far. While words like “amazing” are over-used these days, there is no word more appropriate for our experiences in these 5 days. So bear with us – this should be our longest post.

Our plane trips were far more relaxed than we had expected. Brett actually managed to sleep for a good half of the 15-hour flight from Chicago to Shanghai. Pudong International Airport in Shanghai was a breeze; getting through customs there was far easier than American airports. The only difficult part of the journey was the time difference. We stayed up the night before our flight and watched the sun rise on the tarmac, but then did not see the sun set for another 25 hours. Needless to say, it has taken all of these 5 days for our bodies to get over the deadening fatigue. Well worth it though.

When we arrived in Shanghai on Thursday afternoon, we were picked up by a Chinese student of our liaison and taken to Shanghai Jiao Tong University. We immediately napped for 3 hours, and then went out exploring. We were too tired to go far, but found a great restaurant for some noodles and beers near the school. We called it an early night after calling family.

Jiao Tong University

(click on pictures for larger view)

Our first day in Shanghai, Friday, began with breakfast at the school’s cafeteria. We ate spinach and green onion dumplings, purple potatoes, steamed broccoli, watermelon, tea eggs, and coffee. We could write a whole post on the food in China alone (soon…). Afterwards, we ventured out on our own for a 3-hour walk around the surrounding neighborhood, which proved interesting.

Modern Art Center around the corner 

Shanghai, like much of China that we’ve seen so far, contains multitudes. Just blocks from Westernized shopping districts with Louis Vuitton, Apple, and H&M stores are what could not be called anything other than slums. Street front markets and overflowing stores line all of these back streets, with open sewers, men bathing on the street, and broken bicycles lining filthy alleys. Interestingly enough, although we were the only non-Chinese people in sight, Shanghai is cosmopolitan enough that we did not draw too many stares.

A few blocks behind Jiao Tong

After our morning walk, we met our group back at our school to be taken to lunch. We took taxis into the very touristy old Shanghai. This was really the only super-crowded area we’ve been to thus far, and it was mostly tourists. Merchants hawking all sorts of knick-knacks, clothes, watches, laser pointers, and cheap souvenirs are omnipresent underneath pagoda-style buildings that are hundreds of years old.

Old Shanghai - with Sarah, another CIEE teacher

Street markets in Old Shanghai

Our orientation group

We ate lunch at an historic restaurant (we never got the English name) that has been visited by the likes of the Clintons, Fidel Castro, and many Hollywood celebrities. The food was a real delight. Probably close to 30 dishes were served, family style, as is the norm in China. We tried tripe (ox stomach) in garlic sauce, four or five different dumplings (Brett’s favorite), many different types of bean and rice curds, a variety of noodle dishes, and sweet pastries.

The restaurant is on the right

Next, we visited Yuyuan Gardens. These are roughly 350 years old, and were built by a wealthy family to entertain guests. While overrun with tourists, they were nonetheless breathtaking. After the gardens, we had tea at a traditional Chinese teahouse and discussed some teaching-related issues with our liaison. Many – make that all – of the things discussed were clearly for those participants who had no teaching experience, but we were happy to share our experiences and ideas and enjoy the delicious Chinese tea.

The gardens

Every building was ornate

A meeting room

They were right about the mildness.

Old Shanghai vs. New Shanghai

(behind is the World Financial Center)

We left the teahouse and took a harrowing taxi ride into Pudong (the riverfront district of Shanghai – also quite historic) for dinner. Like lunch, this was a multi-dish family style meal. We had spicy and sour soup, eggplant in garlic, steamed jellyfish (surprisingly good), fried peanuts, tofu in sesame sauce, an omelet-like egg dish with pickled vegetables and clams, and quite a few other dishes. We wish we had taken food pictures, but we were so hungry and tired that it slipped our minds entirely.

We ended our adventures in Shanghai with a visit to the 100^th floor of the World Financial Center - the 4th tallest building in the world. It is a glass-floored and walled suspended walkway that allows for breathtaking 360-degree views of Pudong. As far as the eye can see are lights; the sheer size of Shanghai cannot be described in words. (“What really can?” a semiotician might ask…quiet, Brett). Another death defying taxi ride (more on Chinese driving to come) brought us home for a much-welcomed night’s rest.

The Oriental Pearl Tower

Pudong

Very high

Quite dizzying

The next day, Saturday, we were picked up by our school’s bus driver and driven to Zhangjiagang. The entire two-hour ride is through nothing but urban sprawl; it’s hard to tell exactly where Shanghai ends and other cities begin, at least to our laowai eyes.

Shanghai sprawl, as far as can be seen

Zhangjiagang is described as a “small town” by all of our Chinese friends. It is larger than Charlotte. Across China it is known as a very clean city, and we can attest to having not seen a single piece of trash anywhere. 

Zhangjiagang "walking street" - 

a pedestrian only shopping district

Our soon-to-be busking spot

There are no fewer than 4 KFC's on this street

We’ve only been here a few days, but the city seems very welcoming and lively. Like Shanghai, shops and restaurants line every street, with flats above them. Saturday night, we were taken out our first night in town by Jesse, a second-year teacher at our school.

Zhangjiagang canals at night

Neon is everywhere here

This night, Jesse took us to a few local bars. Everywhere we went, locals would approach us and ask us where we are from, bar owners would sit with us and keep our drinks full, and we were invited over to many tables. A fun night, needless to say.

My best friends that night

Chinese women eat their spinach

Late night - the owner of this bar very much

treated us like royalty

This was our first experience being treated like celebrities. We say this as humbly as possible, but there is no other way to describe the attention we got, and are still getting, in town. Everyone – old, young, men and women – stare at us everywhere we go, which is not considered rude in Chinese culture. In a town of roughly 1,300,000 people, there are probably less than 100 foreigners. In department stores, the locals all seem to enjoy looking in our cart to see what we are buying.

We’ll describe teaching in more detail later (this is already a novel), but we’ll say this: the students LOVE Brett. While Elizabeth is called beautiful by all and attracts stares everywhere she goes, the students seem to find Brett absolutely captivating. Many of our classes are large (50 students), so we go in to class together and then divide the students into two rooms. Every time we’ve done this so far, the students who stay behind with Elizabeth – boys and girls alike – wail in despair that they can’t go with Brett. American men seem to be more of a novelty, coupled with the fact that Brett’s style of plaid Western wear and sideburns is completely alien here. Both the girls and boys routinely tell Brett how handsome he is every class.

Our new home - the "Foreign Experts Building"

One of Brett's 8th grade classes

Ok, it’s late and this post has gotten quite long. We’ll write another post later in the week with more about teaching and our city.

We can't thank our family and friends enough for all of the love, help, and support in getting us here. We could not have gotten here alone. Expect many gift packages!