Every morning I wake up not realizing where I am. For some reason I keep forgetting about the fact that I am in CHINA. I am in a foreign country, I am studying abroad, I am doing the thing that most people would say is the experience of a life time. And yet...I don't feel that it's any different than waking up in my little bedroom in the states. Every morning I wake up to a gray haze or a bright penetrating sun~the same as if I were to wake up in Boston or Los Angeles. I get a little taste of New York as I listen to the morning songs of honking car horns from a distance. My view consists of the miniature landscape design of the SUFE quad and the freeway across the way. Never fails, it's always bumper to bumper traffic and every Chinese driver is angrily honking the horn, no matter what time of the day it is. I would say China's most defining characteristic is....the constant risk of getting hit by a man driving a tricycle bike whilst carrying a huge load of bamboo, cardboard, and other miscellaneous things. This may not hold true for some of the other students in my program or I could very well just be ignorant. I guess I was expecting more of a culture-shock - I think I wanted to be somewhere that would blow my mind away into cultural smithereens. Perhaps the only wall that stands between me being Chinese and a foreigner is the language barrier. It seems that this is a very thin frail wall (Made in China) and I am actually more Chinese than I thought I was. I did grow up around a huge Chinese family.
My question(s) of the day....what makes a city great? Is it having the most famous landmark? The best nightlife culture? The best set of people? The scale of aesthetic beauty in the surrounding environment? What is the #1 reason that a person would want to see your city?
I ask these questions because I have been in Shanghai for two months~and I can't answer these questions. I can't find the music scene, nobody cares about the Shanghai sports teams, I can't recall any landmarks except for the huge strip of buildings on the Bund that doesn't seem have any historical backing except for the price tag, etc. etc. So far the only reasons that people would specifically come to Shanghai is for business. Come here and be smothered by the concrete metropolis of a Sim City game gone bad.
Last night I went to a jazz gig in a hidden art gallery in the hidden art district in Shanghai. To further my research on my capstone project, I spoke to one of the women who worked at the gallery. I asked her what is Shanghai's most defining characteristic? No words came to mind except "very empty." This notion is stuck to me now. Despite every street & sidewalk being amassed with sprawling Shanghai citizens, there is no soul or flair that every booming metropolitan city should have.
What makes a city great?
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i think after a while, sights/sounds become trees and bricks. the real life and power of a city are the people and history and soul of the people. Most of which are hurting and dry and dying, but i see the beautiful in all of us because God made us precious. i think from the poor kid happily playing on the street to the businessman who doesn't know his purpose, it is in each of these souls that we need to look and interact with in a city. jesus walked among the peeps. =) hi ally!
ReplyDeletewow, i guess i'm not going to shanghai.
ReplyDeleteTalias thoughts: huge personal expectations, on top of the message that study abroad is an 'unlike anything else kind-of-experience' has always worried me,..."if i go, am i going to be let down??" I've asked myself. (Like what you're describing!!) I don't have any advice, except fuck what people have done to feed your expectations, that some land mass has to be beautiful and with a seemingly visible heartbeat. Your presence in Shanghai, (although I'm not talking butterfly effect here,) is unique in itself. Your body's there, that's where you are, and it might be something so little as sitting on the concrete and thinking about when that concrete was put there and all the years that people have walked on it before you did that could give you a 'this is a cool experience' kind of feeling. Maybe, I have no clue. When you're little and you want to see the world, you want to just "see" it all. Then as you grow you want to take something from it. (I swear this stems from one wanting to find a soul mate..haha)Before you know it there's an expectation thats not being met and you wonder if you'd be better off without it. Like if someone blindfolded you and put you there without questions leading up to it...would you take more from the experience? Basically do expectations set one up for failure? I remember being on vacation when i was little and wondering why I'd gotten so excited to be there. Then i think about Spain and how it blew me away. Was it because i'd never been out of the states? Was it because I happened to visit the right city at the right time? I have no clue what I'm saying, this might be my most desperate attempt at reiterating the idea of relishing in simple pleasures. Your stories sound really cool though Allison. I'm sorry Shanghai isn't rocking you. I hope that you find whatever youre looking for. Big irish italian french american HUG.
ReplyDeletehave you found what you've seen of the countryside to be less 'empty'? Its odd to me too, that such a crowded and constructually developed city lacks the 'awe'some element that other big cities all around the globe might have. (Ex: 'omg paris is so beautiful and mindblowingly...new to me') Shanghai perhaps simply lacks the CHARACTER that a small empty grassy field in Xinchang Valley could be OVERFLOWING with. All I know is I want to see what you're seeing.
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