I t is a bi tter sweet exper ience tr avell ing home from my exper ience abroad. China was a beauti ful place, I cr eated memor ies that w i l l last a l i fe time. Most of time was spent in the metropolis ci ty of Shanghai. The ci ty is thought to be the most populated ci ty in the wor ld and is a r elatively new ci ty as far as China?s histor y goes. The ci ty?s name tr anslates to into Shang- upon and Hai- sea. When looking outside whi le f lying into Pudong International Air por t this name seems rather f i tting. The ci ty is located on Southeastern border of China, sur rounding the Huangpu r iver delta. Granted, I was br iefed on this information dur ing the pre-depar ture held at the Confucius Insti tute at San Diego State Univer si ty. Chudan, our program guide, provided our group of 13 students w ith essential information as well as tips and tr icks to prepare for our journey abroad. The or ientation included a por tion of the time where each student introduced themselves by talking about what major they were and what they were looking for ward to most whi le in China. Most of the answers were about the new food that they wanted to tr y. However , my answer was unique. The most I knew about Shanghai was what I w i tnessed on google images and Wikipedia. The skyl ine on the Bund looked phenomenal and I was ecstatic to see the ar chi tecture of the ci ty. Spoi ler , i t did not disappoint. Sti l l though, after the or ientation I felt unsure of what to expect tr aveling to China, and although our group al l introduced themselves, we sti l l did not know each other whatsoever.

by Anthony LeluikaShanghai Summer 2018

My ini tial anxiety about tr aveling to China was obvious when attempting to f ind f l ights to Shanghai. Now , I have ventured alone to many destinations l ike France, England, and Brazi l . However , in my mind I had an idea the China was so much more foreign and di f ferent than the US that I could not possibly do i t alone. I r eached out to the group and asked i f any of them would want to get f l ights together. I was pleased to f ind out that two members were feel ing the same looming pressure that I was and were happy to get f l ights together. I felt ten times more comfor table to tr avel w i th str angers than alone. Also, before my depar ture another thing that surpr ised me was getting a Chinese Visa. Compar ing my visa exper iences in the past, I thought i t was going to a long bureaucratic process. However , Chudan only needed our applications about a month away from tr avel and had them ready w ithin a week. This was shocking to me and a l i ttle foreshadow ing to how Chinese culture would surpr ise me once I was there. What I could not pin dow n, however , was why I was anxious. What was I afr aid of? Change is scar y I assumed, but I was no str anger to change.

PREPARING FOR CHINA

I was waiting for the fact that I was tr aveling to the other side of the wor ld to hi t me, but when I ar r ived at the air por t I sti l l felt the same. I met up w ith Maddie and Yizel for the f i r st time at our gate. We discussed what we thought Shanghai was going to be l ike, whi le feel ing out what kind of per son each of us was. Besides almost missing or f l ight in Vancouver , our f l ights were r elatively smooth. We ar r ived in China w ithout missing a day. Well, qui te the opposi te. Crossing the international date l ine caused us to l i teral ly skip the night of June 1st. That fami l iar feel ing of r eal izing that I am in a new place hi t me as soon as I felt the plane touched dow n. I said to myself,

?This is i t. There is no turning back now ,?

as i f there were any possibi l i ty of turning around for the past 16 hours of tr avel. Joy, fear ,

TAKING OFF

exci tement were a few of the countless emotions I was feel ing at that one point in time. I f I could go back in time and tel l myself that ever ything that I know now , I wouldn?t. That was one the most memorable times of my enti r e tr ip and I was overal l r eady for the unknow n.

The f i r st thing anyone can notice in Shanghai are the bui ldings. We had an hour r ide from the air por t to East China Normal Univer si ty and for that enti r e hour you cannot look outside the w indow and not see a single skyscraper. The ci ty is simply massive in area and ver tical ly. I have been to some of the biggest ci ties in the wor ld and nothing even came close to the stature of Shanghai. I t was incredible, and back to or ientation I was there for to w itness the ar chi tecture.

The f i r st day consisted of a campus tour , r ed bus tour of the ci ty, and a r iver boat cruise on the Huangpu r iver. The campus tour and or ientation led by Joy was our groups f i r st oppor tuni ty to get to know each other w ith a game of charades and casual conversation walking around campus. We then headed out to the r ed bus tour and a walk around People?s Square in the middle of the ci ty. At this point something about Shanghai r eal ly jumped out at me. I t was green! Not in the sense that i t par ticular ly eco-fr iendly but that i t f launted grass and tr ees and parks. Additionally, i t was a r elatively clean ci ty. A stereotype of Chinese ci ties is their hor r ible pol lution and garbage. Although there were few w ith cautionar y masks on, i t was per fectly habitable.

These ini tial impressions lasted the enti r e tr ip and have stuck w ith me after r eturning home. This taught me a lot about not bel ieving ever ything you hear , especial ly when i t comes to a foreign area. I t was necessar y for me to see i t for myself , and even though I can share my exper iences w ith other s I bel ieve Shanghai is a place that needs to be seen to be believed. Later in the evening we made i t to the r iver boat tour which was phenomenal. Looking back, i t was this ear ly in the tr ip that group of 13 students were alr eady creating a bond. Although we al l knew each other for less than 48 hours, we had a sense of community amongst our selves alr eady. We knew how each person f i t in and their identi ty of the group. I f we asked the group that f i r st night how ever yone felt about one another , i t would be r elatively close to the answers given today. I t made us al l feel more comfor table that we were not alone in this exper ience, and I bel ieve i t was actually easier to immerse myself in Chinese culture w ith other s attempting i t as well . For example, I would have never attempted to say half of the phrases I did

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

WE?RE ALL HUMAN AFTER ALL

A few days into the tr ip we had a day planned to visi t Disneyland. I had no idea there was a Disneyland in Shanghai pr ior to being involved w ith the program. After wards, I gathered a theme from the day we went to Disney, which was that we are not al l that di f ferent. Up unti l that point I noticed al l the things that were di f ferent about our cultures, but I r eal ized that we are al ike in many other ways. A day at Disney in Shanghai was a day at Disney in Anaheim or Or lando. There are a ton of people who are there w ith no other agenda but to have fun. Besides a few di f ferent fashion choices and better -behaved chi ldren, I felt r ight at home.

This set a precedent for the r est of my time abroad. I star ted to notice, not only our di f ferences, but also our simi lar i ties. This r eal ly cl icked when we went to the star t-up company Avid.ly. I was w itnessing the dai ly l i fe of middle class Chinese ci tizens, which look indistinguishable from an Amer ican l i festyle. One could argue that the tech industr y is just as much a par t of modern Chinese culture as i t is to Amer icans. Now having visi ted China, I would whole hear tedly agree. I t is r efr eshing how much we are al ike, and I think i t is just as impor tant to celebrate our simi lar i ties just as much as our di f ferences. This is not to say that we are exactly the same. There were many of di f ferences in China from a typical Amer ican l i fe style.

(Your typical in front of the castle picture. How I pulled off only having one person and a shoulder is beyond me. It was packed, and it was the hottest day alive. This is a good time for a tip. Bring a maximum of 2 pairs of pants. Shanghai is so hot)

Next, the food was a drastic di f ference. Amer icans must have a di f ferent way of thinking about the di f ferent meals of the day. Just by looking at a dish an Amer ican can tel l i f that food should be ser ved for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. When in China I had foods in the morning that I felt l ike could be eaten for dinner and egg tar t desser ts that tasted l ike breakfast. However , I soon enjoyed having pork in my breakfast bun know n as boazi . Fur thermore,

From day one there were major aspects of Chinese culture that I needed to adjust to. Fir st and foremost, I had to learn to eat. I have only used chopsticks to eat a handful of times before going to China. Although i t was di f f icult for the f i r st few meals, I grew accustomed to them and enjoyed using them. I l iked them so much, that I bought a pair that I plan to use back home. Another big change were the wardrobes of the Chinese. This is especial ly seen in the women. Their outf i ts consisted of long f low ing fabr ics that could almost be considered elegant. Although they were more covered up than the average Amer ican women, they looked to be dressed more appropr iately for the intense heat that Shanghai provides. Even the women in our group noticed the beauti ful ly patterned dresses and were envious. The men were usually dressed in worn out polos and oversized kakis. None of the men in the group were over ly jealous. In fact, they were dressed l ike the tr end of the year was a 90?s adver tisement from Khol?s.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE JUST PLAIN DIFFERENT

once past the timing of par ticular foods, the actual food I was eating was sometimes a myster y. Although, sometimes i t was made obvious by ser ving a dish w ith l imbs and faces attached. I can say w ith confidence that my f i r st time picking the beef I wanted str aight from the face of the bull happened dur ing my tr ip to China. Often times when duck was ser ved, i t was not uncommon to see the duck?s cur ved neck r esting over the plate or ser ving apparatus. This did not stop me from indulging, however i t did give me a di f ferent feel ing whi le eating. To this day I am sti l l f igur ing out what that feel ing is.

One of our excursions was to visi t a Chinese medicine master. I thoroughly enjoyed his teaching, which gave me a di f ferent per spective on medicine in the United States. I am an Athletic Training major at San Diego State Univer si ty, and I work in a spor ts medicine cl inic in San Diego. His techniques such as scraping are implemented in my f ield and often have eastern inf luence. However , our techniques involve dealing w ith injur ies dir ectly at the point of pain. I discussed w ith the master after wards why he uses his scraping in areas that there are no injur ies. He explained that the Chinese believe for the body to be healthy ever y par t must be addressed to achieve a balance of energy throughout the body. I r eal ized that in my practice that an eastern phi losophy l ike this could be useful in western medicine. Treating the person as a whole may result in better outcomes for patients in the long run and make for a healthier population.

HISTORY OF SHANGHAI

Perhaps my favor i te exper ience in Shanghai was learning the incredible histor y of the area. The Shanghai Histor y Museum located underneath the Pear l TV tower exceeded al l expectations. I t star ts the tour from Shanghai?s countless centur ies as a small f ishing vi l lage in southern China. The museum then gradually explains and gives spectacular visuals of the ci ty through time to give insight of how the ci ty became what i t is today. Final ly, I was given proper explanation of why there was so much Br i tish inf luence around the ci ty that I saw up to that point. I was famil iar w i th the histor y of Hong Kong, but I had no idea that half of Shanghai at one point was a Br i tish concession. I was tr uly fascinated and appreciated the ci ty sights exponential ly more after learning of i ts roots. I would have to say that i t was my favor i te par t of the enti r e tr ip. When people ask me about my tr ip, I talk more about the histor y I found out than my person exper iences.

(This picture is deceiving. It is easy to dismiss as a typical picture that is on some sort of tall building and you would not be wrong. However, this is taken from the inside of Shanghai Tower, the second tallest building in the world. My ears popped in the elevator on the way up. See that building on the bottom left? That building is taller than the Empire State Building in New York City, and I am not even on the top.)

One thing that I am sti l l confused about even after visi ting China is how their society works, par ticular ly the government. Through discussions w ith locals I have gathered that there is one poli tical par ty, the communist par ty. In the United States the word communism is nothing less than a bad word. I t is thought to be an unjust system. However , China looked anything but a communist nation. People r eceived individual income, a lower tax on that income, and had no sales tax. I was under the impression that individual income does not exist in communism. Also, the number of malls and shopping there is in China is an extr eme of i ts ow n. There is an obvious social class str ucture ingrained in Chinese society, which is also ver y unlike a communist nation. I just do not know why they are labeled as such, or I have just been i l l -informed on what i t means to be a communist nation. Regardless, this a major factor of modern China that I would l ike to explore more that I am home. I felt an almost gui l ty sensation whi le talking about the government of a foreign countr y I was in. This is a major misconception of China that I held, and I bel ieve most Amer icans do to. This is another r eason I bel ieve China is not a place that can be told about. I t must be visi ted.

CHINESE SOCIETY

Not only do plan on going back to China, I want to take what I have learned there and apply i t to my dai ly l i fe. I want to embrace their ?go w ith the f low ? mental i ty. They seem l ike a content people w ith kindness and w isdom to offer to anyone w i l l ing to accept i t. Also, from a str ictly economical stand point, I want to invest in China. Shanghai is the new New York, and I guarantee i t w i l l surpr ise the enti r e wor ld. When i t does I want to be apar t of i t. China is a for ce to be r eckoned w ith on the global stage, and I hope the US realizes that before i t is too late. I am going to encourage ever yone I know to tr avel to Shanghai and China in general. I t is the only way Amer icans are going to r eal ize the gravi ty of what China is and what i t can become. The integration of a single app l ike We Chat has alone tr ansformed how the Chinese operate. They can obviously adapt in a quick fashion, and I bel ieve the US should do the same.

I SEE CHINA IN MY FUTURE

One of the undeniable aspects of the tr ip was how close our group of students became. I labeled this last por tion of my essay #7 because that was my number in the count off to make sure no one was missing. I l iked our numbers and made me realize that the tr ip would have be dramatical ly di f ferent i f even one person in the group was not apar t of i t. I made great fr iends who other w ise I may have never met. That includes our group leader Mom (Chudan). She made our time abroad exceptional and I cannot thank her enough for doing ever ything that she did for us. She taught us the ins-and-outs of what i t means to be a Chinese ci tizen. I bel ieve that ever yone in the group feels the same way, and I am sure ever yone misses the company of each other alr eady. I w i l l never forget the memor ies I made in China, and I can tr uthful ly say that i t was one of the best times of my enti r e l i fe.

#7

Anthony Lelu i ka/ Author

(Photo taken at Xi tang Water Vi l l age)