再见中国

After three months, my journey is almost over. I leave in a few days pulling together the string ends of the trip. I slowly watch the people I have met leave one by one.

The last night Ali and I go to an Italian dinner in East Nanjing. We eat our last Americanized-Chinese meal. Afterwards, I walk alongside the Bund. Seeing the first place I experienced Shanghai nightlife. The river I crossed each morning to get to work. Separating the downtown area and traditional Shanghai.

I look at the city and think how much it has changed. The confusing mess it was the first days, to exploring the city with ease. Knowing an easier way around everything. Each awful moment was accompanied by one that created Shanghai as a dream world. Sometimes it was a nightmare but other times, it didn’t even feel real.

Being back here three months now, I miss the excitement. I miss waking up every morning and gasping for breath, hoping each day brought a new part of China to me. I crave the exotic meal, the fresh conversation, and the struggle to survive in a place I didn't belong. Almost like missing a friend or ex.

My life here is too simple. That leaves too much room for confusion. I want the endless supplies of activities. The lack of a daily schedule. I guess I’ll have to leave that saved for my next time in Shanghai.

周庄

Today is the day of the dragon boat festivals in Shanghai, a national holiday. We decide to take the day and go to Zhōuzhuāng 周庄. Apparently the Venice of China.

I wake Ali up; my hangover from the night before kicks in. We rush to get ready and leave the hotel at 7:45. I get in the taxi and mumble

"人民广场"

Before getting on the bus, we stop for fried street noodles, a breakfast that proves itself to be utterly terrible for our uneasy stomachs.

We finally arrive two hours later. I’m led through a woven maze of people I tower over once again. I lose my group. Walking around the small water town by myself. The smell hits me. It’s known in English as “stinky tofu”; I gag. Here more than ever, it’s obvious I don’t belong.

I’m visiting this rural town admiring its quaintness. The golden-teeth paddlers rowing their boats. The unknown person getting water from the river. Two women weaving thread. The small dogs lying across the river bank. This town is their real life. This is all they know.

The town is used to visitors. Tourists come from all over China to admire their watertown and quaint way of life. They’ve adapted a way of blocking them out and carrying on as if no one was there. Being here, I felt like a voyeur spying on people who didn’t want to be bothered. I was lost. I entered a restaurant and attempted to speak my broken Mandarin but the shopkeeper wouldn’t be bothered. I wrote down “bus stop?” But my strokes were wrong. I thought of the Theory of Text. How is it I’m so far away from what I know?

I walk into a shop of postcards and see other head peer out of the bookshelves. Someone tall. I look over and see another foreign face. He was on my bus. I walk closer to him and smile.

東京 Eastern Capital, Tōkyō

Wesley nudges me awake as our plane lands into Narita airport. We took a few days off work in Shanghai to visit Tokyo.

The train is cleaned before we enter onto it. The softspoken soundsystem seems to whisper in high-pitched voice “Kon'nichiwa, kaigai de kangei shimasu. Ressha wa sugu ni Naritakūkō kara, c e shuppatsu shimasu.”

こんにちは、海外で歓迎します。列車はすぐに成田空港から、東京へ出発します。

I’ve never been in such a labyrinth of confusion. Shanghai was loud and hectic, but Tokyo just had so much. Mass. Expanse. People. Wes flags down and cab. The door opens automatically. As I slide onto the leather seats, the white-gloved driver takes our address card and whisks us into the heart of the confusion. I felt like Marlowe going into the Heart of Darkness.

The receptionist at the hotel Hanabi gestures for us to remove our shoes and place them into lockers. As

we walk in, I see no furniture only a room with bamboo flooring. In the cupboard are little mats for Wes and I to roll out and sleep on.

 At night, we talk the subway into Shibuya and walk the busiest crosswalk in the world. We sit in a tiny sushi restaurant, ordering rolls off of iPads and waiting for it to slide out on wheels out to us.

When we walk the streets, Harajuku girls with large eyes and long eyelashes motion for us to come in. Bows in their hair and tutus on their waist. It was a fantasy world.

Juxtaposition

Two years ago, I spent six weeks of the summer in Paris on an intensive program for Art History majors. My long days were spent in museums absorbing as much art as I could handle. Nights spent in the Tuileries gardens devouring macaroons like candy. I was only 18 and a sponge to Parisian culture.

Being in Shanghai makes that summer seem so far away. The macaroons replaced by street noodles, museums replaced by the congested metro. In Paris, I lived a lavish life; a vacation from normalcy. While now, I was in a developing country unsure of what I was doing and unable to communicate.

...Was I safe? 

In Paris yelling “au secours” was enough to get anyone’s attention, even during a gang fight. Shanghai is so noisy. Scooters whirring past. Elevated highways with cars zooming. Taxis honking. It’s hard to distinguish talking from yelling, it all sounds the same. Everyone demanding to be heard. Would anyone hear me scream? In pain? Terror? How do you pronounce the world help again?

帮助 Bāngzhù

The other day I was walking along Changshu Lu and saw a woman hit by a bicyclist while on the sidewalk. She tumbled off the curb and onto the road. She lay there, groaning in pain, while no one helped. Onlookers did not stop themselves from watching her. She was expected to pick herself up. It shocked me that no one cared to assist her, but looking back I realize I didn’t either.

Maybe I’m assimilating better than I thought.

上海

Shanghai 

 The year of preparation had led up to this. The mandarin I attempted learning, the unfamiliar customs I tried to grasp, and the luxuries I would no longer have. I left for 3 months in China. Working in Shanghai. Immersing myself in a culture I didn’t belong to.

A L I E N    外侨         foreigner           外国人

The first morsel of food left me unsettled. I panicked wondering how I would eat. What was I eating? I could feel the oils in each bite clinging to my esophagus sliding its way down making me slowly gag.

My first day, I walked through Shanghai, my face masked by my umbrella. I hunched over hiding my height; my foreign features attracting too much unwanted attention.

The staring never stopped. Blank faces on me, scanning up and down, looking fixedly at my face. Chinese words being yelled, at who, in every direction. I’ve never seen so many people in one place. Constant shoving. People everywhere and I stand out immediately.

I wave a cab down. Sitting in the backseat, I lean forward to show him my address card. My mangled Chinese can’t even say the place that is supposed to be closest to me, my home. 

At home, I lie in my bed in a daze of confusion. I have no distractions in China. The TV is filled with game shows or period dramas all in Chinese making no sense to me. The Internet moving like molasses with my favorite websites, tumblr, Facebook, even Gmail, all blocked by the China sensors.  I panic wondering how I’ll survive the upcoming months. 

I enter back into center of city once again at night. The dark sky hides people’s stares and it’s easier to blend in. 

Pink, orange, and blue 
neon lights flash. 


The old city filled thousands of years of culture, custom, and tradition disappears. A different side of Shanghai emerges.