Living In China…Seriously
When describing how my first week in Shanghai is going, friends and family ask me: “Have you been to (insert tourist attraction here)?!?!” In short, yes, I have, but only for a few hours. The majority of my time is spent living in Shanghai for real. I am staying at a University that is on the outskirts of the city. There is no tourism in this part, which I find out everytime I try to ask someone for something because no one understands me. I have made several chinese friends (all encounters begin with “Do you speak English?”) here who take me to places where locals go. Usually these places involve eating (a lot) but the best is when we play basketball. It’s not the fact that I like to play basketball a lot (which I do) but it’s an experience that tourists simply don’t get. I am the only non-chinese person on the basketball court complex – consisting of 9 courts. It is evident that tourists don’t usually play here when I step foot on the court and 150 pair of eyes stare at me (not exaggerating). But as soon as the ball is checked in and we start playing, I become one of them. I was surprised that all of the people I was playing with knew the basketball vocabulary in English (shoot, dribble, foul, out of bounds). Even if they didn’t know the vocab, it wouldn’t have mattered, because it seems that the rules of pick-up basketball extend beyond language and culture because they didn’t need to tell me how to play, i knew.
So while I haven’t spent that much time at the Bund, Nanjing Rd, the Shanghai museum, Old town (etc..) – the places all of the travel books and websites say are so important to go see – “you haven’t been to shanghai if you haven’t visited (insert tourist attraction here)” I am pretty confident in saying that even if I never go to the “must see” places, I have definitely experienced and been to Shanghai.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
His father is so proud! — and he’ll be upset with me for saying so.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Hey David, I”m in Prague on my own adventure. yours sounds awesome!! and I felt the same way about Prague the firs time I came here. Keep having fun and blazing your own trails!!