A Homework Essay Disguised As A Blog

Alexis Allison

Humanities 295

First Impression Paper

September 27, 2011

            The opportunity to live in China elicits several desires within me. I would like to understand street signs. I would like to ride an elephant. I would like to incorporate Asian dresses into my wardrobe. All of these are good and true and noble endeavors, but for now I am going to focus on two specific goals and one general goal that can encourage me to be fully present and active in Shanghai. Primarily, I would like to meet with a native Chinese speaker at least twice a month to practice mandarin conversation. This relationship would give me a truer glimpse into “real” China, as well as into the lives of the people who live here. Secondly, I am interested in investigating Chinese current events. I have insufficient (as in, zero) knowledge on the happenings in Chinese politics, the media, and both foreign and domestic affairs, and I am not satisfied with this lack of information. And finally, I want to plug myself into Shanghai Community Fellowship Church, with special emphasis on the foreign students ministry. I want to know the stories of the international young adults, and I want to be a part of their community of Christ-followers already active in Shanghai.

            The opportunity to live in China has also resulted in fresh discovery and observation of the world. Milk is not necessarily refrigerated here. Waiters and waitresses do not receive tips. Girls wear white hose with white shoes, as opposed to black hose with black shoes. Whitening, instead of tanning, salons abound. Copyright laws and traffic laws and hole punches are nonexistent. The sky seems farther away here.  Girls hold hands with girls and boys hold hands with boys, though not in a romantic way. Everyone seems to mind his or her own business in public, and faces on the street are often expressionless. The Chinese barely open their mouths when they speak. Starbucks has an overwhelmingly Western smell.

            I love it all.

            There may be times in the near future when I experience minor panic attacks due to “culture shock” that will leave me ashamed of my behavior. I am certain that, on a day when I’m not particularly chipper, I will want to throw my chopsticks at an unsuspecting Shanghainese man and demand a fork on pain of death. Or I will desperately need to see the sunrise, or the stars, or the skyline, or the sky, for that matter, and I will seriously consider hopping the next boat to America so I can do so.

            And then I will take a deep breath, calm down, and keep loving it all.

            I am finally navigating a culture unlike my own, a culture with green tea Oreos and rich family loyalties, in a city where universities have 30 floors and hotels have 47. For the first time, I am able to understand the world as a globe, rather than as a snippet of the Americas. I see the unbelievable wealth and comfort available in the United States now, and I marvel at the development of my native country, a country that seems like a toddler in comparison to this ancient place called China. A toddler with an incredibly high standard of living.

            China is old and deep, and I am fascinated by its long memory, and its expansion into the future. It is a mysterious country, both limiting and liberating, and I am gulping it in as if it were a cup of hot chocolate. I look forward to the adventures ahead with relish, and a little anxiety, and certainty that I will never be the same again.