Late at night we finally arrived in Shanghai. There’s nothing that says ‘Welcome to Shanghai’ quite like a group of pelvic-thrusting police officers. After a short walk, with lots of laughs – we arrived at our hotel – the Seventh Heaven Hotel – situated on top of a clothing store (Lanie was the only one that took advantage of the convenient location. Our hotel was interestingly…dark. Quite creepy. We quickly dropped off our things in our rooms (shout out to my roomie Nicole!). Afterwards we headed to late night food (basically dinner) at a local hot pot place with Cleo who works at Uber. Basically, I learned that I’m not a fan of hot pot – if I have to cook my own food I’d rather do it at home.

The next morning we visited the Urban Planning Museum. Crazy impressive/ Basically, American museums could learn a lot from this amazing place. My favorite exhibit was the scaled model of the city – I ended up taking tons of pictures of all the different sections of Shanghai, and then as we’d visit different areas of the city, I would try to find them in the pictures of the model. This was a lot harder than imagined, Shanghai is crazy big.

After the museum, we grabbed lunch in the nearby mall. It was super bougie. I also found out that fish egg rolls are not delicious at all. We all grabbed boba tea afterwards and headed to the Marriage Market. Finally something to do with my project. Ah, the Shanghai Marriage Market: the original Tinder. Basically, parents come out and advertise their unmarried children based on various attributes (it seemed that the most important ones were age, height, weight, education, and income) and talk to other parents looking for a suitable mate.  We should definitely make this a thing in the U.S. Dating would be so much easier, plus my mother has a much better taste in people than me. Later on, we talked to Tiffany told us that without a good job, a good income, a house and a car, you have no chance (also a hukou). However, because of the  of the “Little Emperor Syndrome”, parents and grandparents spend their whole lives pouring everything into this one child, so that they can have a better chance at marriage.

We then spent time at The Bund – you could literally see the pollution in the air – and it wasn’t even considered a “bad day”. Cleo was having a difficult day because one of her Uber drivers got into a car accident, so she didn’t end up going to the Yuyuan Garden and Market with us.

My favorite part of the Shanghai trip came with the visit to Robert Foye. I loved hearing about his experiences in China, and also about the marketing strategies they were putting forth in China. Also, his wife happened to be from Pearland (small world!) Afterwards, Lanie, Mishi and I went back to the Yuyuan Garden (shopping!), and we got a lot better at bargaining – the trick it to walk away.

The next day we met with Rice grad Jerry Del Fierro. I found his discussion of defensive architecture to be very interesting. Basically, all the rules and laws in the Western world go so overboard, they actually stifle artistic freedom – which could happen soon in the East too, but so far there are a lot less laws. We also visited an amazing Buddhist Temple. Touched some jade, made some wishes. Whaat I found most interesting was the contrast of the temple architecture and the commercial architecture that surrounded it.

A group of us headed to century park the next day, and Jeh, Lanie, Mishi and I took a trip on a four person bike, joined by Taylor Swift (basically our trip soundtrack). We loved taking photos in the blossoms, but not as much as the locals did. Suddenly we were being followed by families with cameras – one family  even stopped us and asked our group to take a picture with their son #famous.

Next we headed to NYU to meet with Non (I was in a panda hat, with a suitcase in tow). Non introduced the topic of Leftover Women to us. Basically, this was an idea that was actually started by a woman’s organization in China (irony, right?) to encourage young women to think about marriage. They started the idea of Leftover Women, that basically any  women over 27 left unmarried were basically useless.

My experience in Shanghai was most definitely eye-opening and incredible, to say the least. We arrived at our hotel, the Seventh Heaven, late at night, so my real explorations started in the morning. The Seventh Heaven Hotel was in the People’s Square, a popular area for shopping, tourists, and interactions. My first thought walking outside in the morning was about the plethora of people I was seeing. No matter where I went in Shanghai or at what time, I had never seen so many people in one place at one time. Something else that I noticed fairly quickly was that Shanghai had a lot of fog, and it was rare to see the sun. I soon found out that I wasn’t seeing fog, but, in fact, I was seeing and smelling pollution. I have read about the absurdly high levels of pollution in China, but I was surprised to see that it was so terrible. The pollution was truly overbearing, and it was often hard to breathe.

Nonetheless, the places I visited in Shanghai were absolutely incredible. In Shanghai, we visited the Jing’an Temple, a famous Buddhist temple, Xian Tian Di, a popular tourist shopping plaza, Yuyuan market and Yu Gardens, Dong Lai Market, the American Consulate, Neri & Hu Architecture, Treasury Wine Estates, the Chinese Communist Party Founding Site, the Bund, Pudong, Century Park, the French Concession, and the Urban Planning Museum. I thoroughly enjoyed all of these places, but I specifically enjoyed the Yuyuan market and Yu Gardens because it provided me with a better glimpse of the different facets of Shanghai. While touring the People’s Square, I found it hard to “feel” like I was in China. I was surprised to see how westernized Shanghai looked and felt. Shanghai is urbanized and resembles the fast, busy life of other global cities like New York City. There were many skyscrapers, high rises, Western architecture, Western shopping stores, food, and more. In the Yuyuan market, more of the traditional Chinese architecture was visible, along with more traditional food and “feel.” Something that also surprised me was the the CCP founding site was right next to Xian Tian Di, and the juxtaposition of the two was ironic to say the least.

My research question revolves around what avenues Shanghainese citizens have to political activism and ways they can express content/discontent with local policy, specifically in relation to pollution policy. While visiting the American Consulate, I learned much about political activism from two foreign service officers. They made it very clear that citizens in Shanghai, and across China, cannot organize mass demonstrations or protests. They are allowed to possess their own political opinions; however, they are clever and careful enough to not organize and speak publicly about their opinions. This prompted me to ask if Shanghainese residents were then politically apathetic. The foreign service officers claimed that although citizens cannot organize, they are not politically apathetic and do have opinions on local policy. In relation to pollution policy, Shanghainese citizens are somewhat content as the government has plans to implement many new approaches to lower levels of pollution. We also met with Professor Non A. who was able to tell me about small neighborhood community organizations to which residents can file complaints and talk to. These community organizations work with other neighborhoods in larger organizations and so on and so forth. They report back to the local government often. Unfortunately, most people use these organizations to lodge complaints against neighbors and most, if not all, complaints are about the neighborhood itself, not in relation to policy.

Looking back, Shanghai was fascinating, surprising, and unique. Below are some pictures from my stay in Shanghai.

Shanghai is the largest city in China. It is one of four municipalities, cities that are given their own subnational administration, along with Chongqing, Beijing, and Tianjin. It is also a city that I’ve visited five times now, including this trip.

Again, the question that is constantly in the background during this trip for me is what I hope to gain from it. I want to emphasize that I’ve been to all the cities we’re going to visit. However, I miss Shanghai, and speaking in retrospect, it seems that one of the biggest things I learned (other than the academic stuff, of which there WAS A LOT, MOM AND DAD, I PROMISE) was all the stuff that’s foreign to people. Despite being an unapologetic banana, I still have a lot more knowledge of China than I realize. Little things like accidentally asking your classmate what size cup of boba they want to order in Chinese (sorry Josh) or being completely unfazed by the lack of seat belts and the excess of bad drivers remind you that you’re not quite like the rest of the people in your group–I know China (somewhat), and I’m trying to study it. I imagine this is how religious people feel when they walk into RELI 101 (I am a religious studies major, and controversies over “outsiders” studying local traditions is a huge issue here).

We stayed on Nanjing Rd, the main shopping road in Shanghai, near People’s Square, one of the busiest subway stations in Shanghai. Things were comparatively close. There’s a big park in the middle and a mall nearby, as well as a bunch of different shops just scattered all around, many of which were way too expensive for us to actually patronize. Beyond this, there were the Yu Gardens nearby, where several of my classmates spent their life savings for novelties.

Anyway, my topic of study in this lab is over the development of Pudong. The very start of Pudong’s urban development was closely planned, and it continues to be. By pure virtue of Pudong’s vastness, all the newest, biggest projects are going to be here, including Disney’s sixth resort (after Disney World, Disneyland, Euro Disney, Disney Tokyo, and Disney Hong Kong). This is the first time I had a really good look at Pudong. We were told beforehand that Pudong is a “city for looking” and not a “city for walking in”. That’s a good assessment. The streets are huge. There’s very little that is organic here. It’s extremely clean and planned and technocratic. Yet, I’m not entirely sure that that’s bad.

A photo of Shanghai's three tallest buildings, in Pudong, blocked by some jackass that got into the shot

Of all the little things in which I differed in opinion from my classmates, this might have been the most striking–my classmates seemed to think that Pudong (and Shanghai in general) was less Chinese. I don’t really think that. Pudong still feels quite “Chinese” to me. This is why I would make a terrible leftist–I don’t see globalization being cultural flattening or “Americanization”. Then again, I’ve always been one to look at details and tiny differences. Thus, for instance, America isn’t lawns and suburbs and roads and malls–it’s football jerseys, country music, and barbecues and white porches. China isn’t old pagodas and dragon statues–it’s PSA’s written in terse socialistic prose on every bus stop, wrinkly old guys in the park, and blue license plates with white letters. Japan isn’t kimonos and shamisen music, it’s brown curry, little animal mascots, and futuristic vending machines. Britain isn’t aristocrats and famous Georgian architecture, it’s Simon Pegg films and kebab shops.

You get the point…

A bonus picture, by the way. This is cotton candy. It was part of a seven-course meal that my godparents took me to (each course was really, really small, though, so get the decadent imagery out of your head). Yes, my godparents live here. They are close friends of my parents, and American citizens (thus, they are expatriates). I spent one of the free evenings with them, and we even FaceTimed my mother at 6 in the morning (her time).