China, I'm still sweating.

So my internet has become painfully slow in the last day, hopefully it’ll go back to normal soon but for now it’s killing me….and my proxy server isn’t connecting so that blocks me from  my blog (and everybody elses) and facebook=very tragic.

But anyways, life here is pretty awesome overall. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s been going on (probably not going to be quick, haha)

Friday I had an interview with my internship company, which is PIUSE (Pudong Institute for the US Economy). They are basically a think tank on Sino-US Relations, focusing originally on economic relations, but they have expanded to politics as well. I met with the director and assistant director and I also have a internship “partner” who will help me with my week to week stuff. I think my job will be just a big research project. They said they want me to use my “American connections”, makes me feel like a spy against my motherland (btw did you know the word for the United States in Chinese, 美国,actually means “beautiful imperialist”, haha, thanks china). But I think what they want me to do is pick a topic that I’m interested in that relates to one of their projects (it would be helpful for them to tell me what they are…) and research using different sources (American sources) to give them a different perspective. So that’s a pretty legit project, like awesomeeeeee!!!!! And I get to go to special meetings with them and events and such, which is super cool, except for the fact that I am only committed to work for them on Tuesdays so that means I have to come in on my “days off” when I have class or not do the extra stuff. Sad. We’ll see. But the interview itself was so awkward. Chinese people don’t really have awkwardness like we do so they were probably fine. But the director guy, Dr. Cheng, asked me what my religion was- how do you explain agnostic to a Chinese guy? It failed, haha. And he wanted to hear about my life and university back home, so I tried to explain “liberal arts” to him, since that’s all I could think of to say to describe Vassar (I didn’t want to freak him out with the real description of how crazy/amazing we are). But they liked me I think. They were amused that I tried to speak Chinese since I’m white (so it’s funny, great) and because Dr. Cheng went to law school for International Law (and that’s kinda what I wanna do) he was very excited. And I had some pretty baller (that means good for you parents out there) answers to his “What are your opinions on Sino-US economic relations?” type questions. He was impressed I knew who the president and prime minister of china are. (Hu Jintao and Wen Jiaobao respectively). Anyways, enough about that…

Friday night we went out to a local bar called Hard Rock (absolutely no relation to the American chain). We played fun games and got to know each other. Beers were buy 2 get one free, so it was 13 kuai per beer, which is a little less than $2. I love china.

Saturday we had a scavenger hunt orientation thing, which could have been really awesome, but they tried to force a lot of meaning out of stuff and it was really impossible cuz there was a lot of places/things that we’d never heard of and neither had shanghainese people, so whatever. But it was still a really fun day to just hang out and get to know a smaller group of people. We went to the people’s square, took pictures with old Chinese people, rode the subway a lot (it’s soooo amazing in shanghai- you could (maybe) eat off the floor, and the directions are so clear, and its air-conditioned, and they have English, ah…so great), went to a western mall where I ate subway (not by choice) and delicious xiao long bao (literally little dragon balls) which are dumplings with soup and (mystery- but it's always a mystery here so you just don't worry about it) meat inside. My group won (don't ask me how or why) and I got a "multifunctional pen holder", which is actually pretty cool, haha. That night we went to a chinese acrobats show, which was cool, but the one I saw last time was better. This one had some really awkward chinese comedians, contortionists (always cool), and lots of people doing weird stuff- this one women balanced like 50 wine glasses on her nose, weirdo. haha. but still fun. Then we went to a western bar with a great view of shanghai (called windows) and a bar called M2 and danced for awhile, really fun. 

Sunday I chilled mostly and tried to catch up on stuff (aka facebook, blogging- obviously i failed at that one-, chinese hw). We also had a mixer with "young shanghai people", who were a bunch of college and grad students from the area. I was dreading it but it actually turned out to be pretty cool. We chatted about politics, religion, horoscopes, studying, china, america, hiking, music, etc. I also got to talk with my language partner more. All of us have language partners, which are chinese students who practice chinese with us, take us around, and are our "chinese friends". Mine is named Xu Jiao, or Jessica. She's a grad student so she's super busy but really nice and we have lots to talk about. 

(told you this was going to be long...)

Today was our first day of classes, very exciting. In total, I am taking Chinese language class, Chinese Diplomacy, Shanghai Studies (required), and an Internship that has a seminar to go with it. I had Chinese class this morning. It was pretty easy except for the tingxie (dication), which were 2 “sentences” (aka paragraphs). We played a game and it was fun. Then I had some lunch, then my Shanghai Studies class. The teacher is really nice and funny, but I’m not sure if we’re going to learn anything in the class, it seems really shallow and abstract, not actual concrete info to learn, which would be fine if it was a discussion based class, but this isn’t. (unless you count the teacher asking me if I was rich as a discussion) But we lots of field trip type things so that should be fun. This evening I had Chinese Diplomacy, which was pretty cool. We talked about schools of foreign policy thought, which I learned about at Vassar so that was cool to hear that. Looks like really interesting/the driest thing ever readings. But barely any work besides reading so yay!

Biking is getting less scary, kind of. I biked to and from class and the bank today, so a lot of biking. My butt hurts. They should make bike seats in sizes, cuz there’s no way my butt is ever going to fit on any bike seat I’ve ever seen. I mean really, who’s butt is that small? Let’s get real here. Anyways, my bike handle bars broke this weekend, as in they turn and move up down and left right. Awesome. So I had it fixed a couple of times today but it kept doing it again. On the way back from the bank, I had my first traffic accident! I hit a motor-bike taxi/rickshaw thing cuz he pulled in front of me and I couldn’t brake in time cuz my hand brakes (no pedal breaks) had shifted above my hands. Fail. So I hit the back and he just turned around and stared at me, noticed I was white, and then turned around to pick up his customers. Then this really nice bike lady (there a rando bike vendors everywhere who sell/repair bikes on the street) gave me a new screw so hopefully this won’t happen anymore.

So ya, that’s what’s going on. I’ll try in the future to reduce my posts from epic novel to short story size. It probably won’t work, just warning you.