When I left off in my last post I was taking a bullet train from the rapidly developing city of Tianjin to the historical capitol of Beijing. While I promise I will give Beijing its due, I thought I’d write a post today instead about my typical life here in China. I’ve been asked by some friends what my life is like here, so let me take everyone through a typical day.
I’m choosing to write this post now as I feel particularly inspired. As I write I am sitting out on the flagstone walkway of Lujiazui overlooking the Bund across the Huangpu River. As the breeze ruffles my ever-growing hair and sends a slight chill through me (thankfully the heat has broken and been replaced with moderate temperatures and nice breezes that keep the skies clear) an interesting thought struck an inspired me to write—this feels totally normal. Perhaps it is the Starbucks behind me that makes me feel at home in what should be a strange country. Or maybe the proximity of the Super Brand mall with its McDonald’s, Toys ‘R’ Us, Best Buy, and KFC puts my mind at ease and provides me with a degree of comfort. But I don’t think it’s these Western comforts. Sure Shanghai is about as international as you can get—across from me are world-class examples of French, British, German, Russian, and American classical architecture, and a ferry reminiscent of the Mark Twain is slowly shuttling passengers on a sightseeing tour of old and new Shanghai. If I hop across the water I can walk through the glittering aisles of Gucci, Prada, Armani, Coach, and all the rest. With such material comforts reminiscent of the San Fernando Valley, Santa Monica, and Hollywood, you could easily roll your eyes and say of course I feel at home.
The counterpoint to all of this was the side of Shanghai I described in my first “Shades of Shanghai” post. Just the other night I took a stroll through some of these areas in search of good, cheap food. Popping into a restaurant littered with plastic stools and foldable tables (a sign that it’s probably good), I ordered some soup (not knowing what it was when I ordered). I can’t tell you what was in it, but it was definitely a part of an animal I’m not used to eating, perhaps even the brain. And yet aside from perhaps a small flash of surprise on my face when the meal arrived, I was content and showed no sign of discomfort or being out of place. Later, I wandered farther up this particular street to find a street vendor making fried rice for just 5 RMB (less than $1). That’s certainly not the Valley, and yet I felt at home here too.
I’ve come to appreciate Shanghai and China as being, well, home at least for the time being. Aside from my first day, never have I had the thought of “what am I doing in this strange place?” I settled in quickly to life in the bustling metropolis, and even when I’ve ventured out to sightsee or explore other cities in China, I’ve felt comfortable even though I can’t speak the language. Perhaps it’s because I’m under the ever-watchful eyes of the pedestrians here (okay, they are flat out staring at me—tall pale guys with red hair and beards are not exactly the norm in China) that makes me feel secure, or perhaps it’s just that I am able to adapt quickly to new surroundings. After all, Ngomano, Kenya, felt almost like a second home to me, so friendly are the people and relaxing the atmosphere (yes, relaxing even when you are dropping pumps in wells and nearly losing your left hand doing so). Either way, the point of this rambling is to say that my life here settled quickly into a nice, relaxing pattern that has allowed me to truly enjoy China, learn to appreciate it, and really experience at least a small part of the country to the point where I know I will come back—I’m not done learning from China and it will never run out of lessons to teach me.
My average day has evolved over the time I’ve been here from wandering aimlessly around the city to learn my way—after all the best way to learn a city is to get lost in it—to a much more routine life, though still full of little surprises and spontaneous trips. I’ve moved past the stage of what some might call culture shock where things like spitting and smoking annoyed me at every turn to accept these as part of life here. I still don’t like them personally, but it is what it is—you don’t have to like everything about a culture to enjoy it and feel comfortable. I certainly don’t like everything about LA, but it is home. I’ve also come to accept that “packed like sardines” doesn’t begin to describe rush hour on the Shanghai subway. The first time I had never quite felt so violated, but now my bubble of personal space has shrunk to, well, non-existence—the typical size in China—and it’s almost exhilarating to fight your way through crowds, barely escaping the closing doors of the train at your stop. I’ve lost the wide-eyed look of the tourist and come to feel as though I belong here, navigating the streets with an internal map instead of a guidebook.
So now that I’ve attained this state of comfort here in China, what, you may ask, is my life like. Well, at Harvey Mudd there is a saying: “Sleep, study, social life: pick two.” As a freshman you hear this maxim, chuckle at the joke, and then pause wondering to yourself if it is actually true. The smile fades from your face, replaced by a worry and a small confidence that you’ll be the one capable of balancing all three. Then the first round of midterms hits, pass-fail ends, and you realize that the maxim has a reason for being. Then you graduate four years later and you feel like finally you can have your cake and eat it too, but after HMC you never lose the sense of feeling that you should always be busy. At least that is what I have heard from alums. For me, I would say this is true in China, but busy has a whole new meaning here. I think the best way to describe it is with a modified version of the HMC maxim (call it a post-graduate corollary): “Sleep, work, explore: choose two.” Luckily, the last two are not quite mutually exclusive, so I get some sleep too, though of late it’s been intentionally minimal as I am realizing how little time I have left and how much there is to explore!
I’ve settled into a pattern now where I wake myself up early, run through a quick e-mail check to set my schedule for the day and internalize any bus routes, metro transfers, or walking routes Google maps provides me with for the day’s activities, and then set out for the day. Usually this happens between 6 and 9 am, but on the days of Expo it has been earlier—on one day I felt especially ambitious, I set out at 3:30 and arrived at Expo Park at 5 to ensure a reservation for the China Pavilion! Once I leave the hostel, I take with me everything I will need for the day—laptop, reading book, notebook, and materials to read for the Fellowship research. I never plan to return until well after the sun has set. I then embark on a day-long adventure of meetings, exploration, and work in between, often with stops at Starbucks, Coffee Bean, or Costa Coffee not for a recharge (though it would be nice coffee here is very expensive relative to both other food and my budget!) but rather for use of their free wi-fi to check e-mail and make sure no scheduling changes have arisen.
My adventures often include one or two sights, perhaps a stop at a temple or museum, and then some time to sit and work on my project. The sightseeing is fun, but also provides useful information about the culture of China. To understand where the country is today you have to know where it came from. Even with the tumultuous recent history of the country, there is still significant influence on practices and policies from older periods, and understanding these can help unlock insights about today’s China. I find this useful for my research and for my own knowledge and pleasure. For the work, I typically find a park or other outdoor space to sit, work, and enjoy the atmosphere and pulse of the city. Especially when considering issues of sustainable city life as my research does, I find it is helpful to actually get out into the city and watch how people interact with public spaces and each other. You can learn a lot about good and bad design simply by seeing how people move through spaces.
With all of this adventuring, I spend a lot of time in transit, typically about half on foot and half on buses and subways. For the former, there is not much to do other than enjoy what you walk past and gain insights about the space around you as you walk. I learn about little places to eat and drink, shops that are popular, and where locals like to hang out or avoid. I’ve found some good little restaurants that I stop at here. It’s usually the small places that have the best food in my opinion, and I like popping into holes in the wall and grabbing food or eating from street vendors. Just don’t question the sanitation too much. For the latter transit, I typically read or annotate materials for the Fellowship. It makes me feel like I’m making otherwise dead time productive. However this becomes challenging when packed on a subway, so there are times you just have to sit and let yourself relax while the trains whisk you to your destination.
Of late, this otherwise perfect scheduling has been complicated by the need to write fellowship applications and graduate school applications for next year which is part of the reason my recent posts have been so few and far between (that and the lack of good internet at my hostels in Beijing and Shanghai). But at least Mudd trained me to be very productive even late into the night and then to get up early and do it all again.
If I have one complaint about this schedule, it is simply that there is just not enough time, even with the limited sleep I have been getting! I love to learn—I never stop trying to learn—and visiting temples, museums, and other areas of China has really excited me and made me want to learn more about the history and culture of the country. I want to seek out books and articles about China’s history and achievements, but have no time to do so. I would say that perhaps later in life I can, but I know that once I have time there will be new educational pursuits that tickle my fancy and something will have to fall by the wayside.
Overall, I’ve really enjoyed my time in China, and though I feel comfortable and like Shanghai is in a way “my city” (a notion that will be put to the test this weekend when I lead some new friends and one old friend from Beijing around), it is precisely this comfort that tells me it is an appropriate time to move on to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. One of the materials I was given for the Watson Fellowship said that a principle for Fellows to live by is “Eschew the known for the unknown.” Well, at this time perhaps Shanghai has become too “known” for me and it’s time to go somewhere new. Though I wish I had more time to explore Western China, I guess that will just have to wait until my next trip. In my time here I feel as though I’ve been able, as one interviewee of mine (an HMC alum too) said, to learn about 80% of the reality of green building and city design here. He said that 3 months was perfect for that, and if I really wanted to learn the other 20% I’d have to come back and work. I’ve learned more than I have had time to process, and now have to figure out how to present all of the material coherently in a good story. I think that too is a sign that it is time to move on—when you start hearing the same things over and over in interviews with little new information, it is time to go. But don’t worry—I’ll still finish writing about China (I have a few more posts left to go) even if that happens in Dubai before I give accounts of my own Arabian Nights. All I hope is that I settle just as easily into a good routine, balanced life, and comfort in Dubai that I have here. Keep reading to hear how I do there!
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