shanghai at last

My beautiful hardwood-floored, 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom, fully kitchened, track-lit apartment!


















Even the bathrooms are stylish.












The only strange thing about the apartment is the orange chairs, pictured here on the left. It looks as if someone couldn't figure out what to do with the back wall, so they just stole 3 chairs out of a movie theater and stuck them here.

So... yes. My standard of living in Shanghai has been quite cushy. I moved in this past Sunday and I was amazed at how nice the apartments were! I'd heard good things about them, but frankly they are a little ridiculous. Nicer than anything at Penn, by far. I had originally requested to live with one Chinese local and one American in some other apartments, but apparently they didn't have enough Chinese locals to go around. I can't complain about what I got instead though!

Aside from the rooming situation, my time in Shanghai has been interesting so far. Coming back to China has made me very nostalgic for last summer, which I spent at Peking University in Beijing. This program hasn't exactly been what I expected. It's not nearly as language-intensive as I would have liked, and the people here aren't as academically focused as I am used to at Penn or even last summer at PKU. My first few days were kind of a throwback to New Student Orientation of freshman year... meeting lots of people but forgetting most of their names, going out and being shepherded around in massive groups, seeing some people inevitably abusing their newfound freedoms. (China has no drinking age) Not exactly my cup of tea, but it's been getting better. One encouraging thing is that I met someone from Remnant West in NYC - I'm so grateful to have a fellow AMI-er out here in Shanghai! I'll also be starting classes on Monday, so I should be able to get settled in soon.

On a random note, I went to Carrefour today (the French equivalent of Walmart) and met a Scottish expat. Helped translate so that he could exchange a wok he had bought. One thing I love about China is that it really brings expats together. People who would never ordinarily meet or talk to each other just bond. We've all been cut while waiting in line, or nearly hit by a motorbike, or completely misunderstood because of language difficulties - so we can empathize with each other. It's a wonderful thing.