A Hen in China

Welcome to A Hen in China. My name is Henrietta Wong and this site is primarily a blog that followed my study abroad trip to Shanghai, China in the summer of 2010. The rest of the site provides information and advice on studying abroad. If you have studied abroad yourself, feel free to leave your own comments and advice in the comment section of each page.

My trip was with CEA and was partially funded by the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship. If you have any questions you would like to as me directly, feel free to email me at: hen.in.china [at] gmail [dot] com

Hen’s Final Reflection:

I felt that my trip was a very good experience. I feel that it was quite different for me compared to the others who were with me. For one thing I am Chinese by blood while the others I were with were not. When people in Shanghai saw me they don’t expect me to be fluent in English and bad in Chinese. I would get very awkward stares when I spoke English with my fellow foreign students. But at the same time, China felt very familiar. It was very much as I would describe it, a giant Chinatown. It’s an odd feeling, familiar yet still considered a foreigner. There seemed to be a pressure to know Chinese as well which made me shy to speak most of the time. It felt almost demeaning to be so unfluent in a language that’s expected of me.

I really enjoyed my trip though and would love to go back one day. As mentioned before, it very familiar and very comfortable. I feel that I could fit into Chinese culture easily if I were to become fluent in Mandarin. I’m happy to know that despite being born and raised in the United States, I can still feel comfortable in my family’s home country. I would love to be able to live there for a year or two doing work or something like that.

Yep, today is my last full day in Shanghai. I’m waiting for Anna to wake up right now so we can get lunch/breakfast. Not sure what we’re gonna do later since we’re both at the end of our funds.

Yesterday we had our “graduation” then a farewell dinner from ICCS. I have to admit that our diploma or whatever is pretty legit for a 1 month course lol. It came in this silky red cover. For only a month I hardly expected a piece of paper. The lunch was at some restaurant on another part of the campus. It was pretty nice actually. One of the guy’s mom was there and sat at our table telling us about every dish so people would be more willing to eat it lol.

Then at 4:10 we went to the school gate to catch the taxi to our farewell dinner with CEA. Now that was a really nice restaurant as well. CEA had gifts for us which were there Chinese stamps with our names carved into it used as signatures/seals. So now I have two because I had bought one myself earlier this week lol. Only the one I got has my name in traditional characters and the one they gave us has it in simplified. So I guess one of each is a good thing?

During the dinner they served this fried fish dish, and being China, the head was still on there. They had put something very green where the eyeballs were supposed to be at and one of the guys from East China University dared another guy from East China to eat whatever it was. The guy turned it over with his chopstick and went, “Oh it’s a ___ cherry (didn’t catch what he said)” and popped it into his mouth. Then right after he made a face and spat it out in his napkin. Everyone was laughing and Yingying asked the waiters what it was. Turns out wasn’t even edible lol.

After dinner we went on the river cruise. It was a pretty nice evening to go since it wasn’t raining nor was it super hot. There was a nice breeze on the water and the it wasn’t super crowded either. It’s too bad my camera takes pretty crappy photos in the dark.

Yep, just finished my test; it was easier than I thought (spent all yesterday studying which is why I didn’t blog). First section had like 10 characters we had to read, 2nd had 6 sentence structures where we picked 2 to make a sentence. The last part was to pick 1 out of 4 topics to talk about. Only it was all really easy because I came in super early (I was 7th and came in 20 minutes earlier than I needed) and she handed out the tests to the people there to look over so I sort of got some good prep time.

I had prepared my dialog beforehand though. I choose shopping and just talked about my experiences shopping here in Shanghai. Its was pretty easy because I could just imitate the shopkeepers here (“Do you like it? I sell to you very cheap. I give you friend price!” But in Chinese of course). I think the teacher was amused.

I totally let my Cantonese slip in the spoken dialog part though. A few times I said the Cantonese word instead of the Mandarin one and had to correct myself. And I even said “ngo” instead of “wo” for “I” once lol. I wonder what the teacher thought of that haha.

At 11 we’re having our “graduation” ceremony then a lunch with the rest of ICCS. Then at 4:10 us Americans are going with CEA to dinner and then the Huangpu river cruise. This is very nice that lunch and dinner are provided for us because I really don’t want to spend anymore on food and the 5 yuan fried rice on campus is getting old real quick lol.

I think I need to wrap up the gift buying since I’m running pretty low on cash. Anna and I went back to the Pearl Market yesterday to get a few things we forgot. I finally got the mini backpack I saw the first time I went there and couldn’t find again until now.

It was weird yesterday though, a lot of people weren’t at their stalls and stuff. I wanted to get a keychain for my friend and while I was digging through this 10-35 yuan basket a lady from the stall across came over (to make sure I didn’t steal I guess) and when I asked her how much it was she panic then gave me a price of 20. I asked what about 15 and she seemed to panic more. Then took the keychain to ask the opinion of the owners of other booths. Then came back and told me ok. Unfortunately I only had a 100 yuan bill and when I tried to pay with she gave me another panic “omg” expression and told me to wait while looking around. Finally the owner of the stall came back though and could do the sale lol. Similar thing happened at another stall where me and Anna wanted to buy earrings. The owner was no where in sight so some other lady came to bargain with us. When Anna wouldn’t go higher on a pair of jade earrings they had to call the stall owner to see if it was ok. Its kind of weird how they all help each other out but at the same time they are competing with each other. I wonder if that whole floor is just owned by one person and the workers just get paid based on the sales they make.

I had wanted to go to Element Fresh with Margaret and Caroline for dinner but after shopping I didn’t really feel like I had enough money for that so Anna and I just got fried rice on campus instead (getting pretty tired of it).

We got a new teacher yesterday as well to replace the one who left.  She has the same last name as my ex (Gu) and is not doing too well on getting the class to like her (like keeping us 15 minutes past the break hour so we can recite our dialogs). I do miss the teacher who left since she was a lot more lively and explained things more and never kept us past the hour.

Today in class they went over some of the test material for the exam on Friday. I’m glad she’s giving stuff for us to study because I doubt I can study 13 chapters worth of vocab before Friday (probably over 400 new words). Then later Anna and I are going back to the fabric market to do final gift shopping and then dinner on the Bund.

Yesterday Yuri wanted to go to the Bund since she hadn’t been there yet and also because most of us are leaving at the end of this week but she isn’t (she’s staying all 4 years – yikes). What we didn’t know was that it was the hottest day in Shanghai (told to me today from Laurel). Whew, we were all drenched in sweat by the time we got there. I resorted to wiping my face off with tissue every few seconds. There was a ton of us though – like 13 people. I feel like its a lot funner with a lot of people though harder to keep us all together.

We ate this Japanese restaurant and at the bottom of the mall they had a life sized claymation of Yao Ming – the super tall Chinese dude. My roommate Anna wanted to take a picture with him and and I went to snap a picture Theo shot in and felt up Yao Ming to see if he actually had balls, and what do you know it – he did. I got a picture of Anna with her mouth open since the shot went off right after he did it. It was so funny.

After dinner we went down to the riverside by the Huangpu river. Boy was it hot. We managed a group picture at least before we decided to head back. We walked all the way back to People’s Square since I knew the metro station before there would be death trying to get on (refer to past post on violent old ladies getting out of the bus). We managed to lose parts of our group during the walk though. Surprising we all unintentionally met up again at Caobao Lu.

When we finally got back to campus we had the unpleasant surprise of finding the gate chained and locked and the guard gone. The two skinny Chinese guys managed to fit between the gap between the doors and the other guys jumped over the gate. Although Anna and I are pretty skinny we couldn’t fit through the gap like the guys and we were wearing skirts so we didn’t want to hop the gate. Yuri didn’t want to either so us girls had to trek back through the dark driveway and walk around to the main entrance and finally back to our rooms to glorious AC and a shower.

Today Zhuge Laoshi went back to her hometown to finally get a cast for her foot. It sucks she can’t stay til the end of our program but we rather her not ruin her foot for keeps. It’s a shame too because we’re going to have a closing dinner and a river cruise this Friday and she won’t be able to attend it.

Margaret and Laurel rushed to get her our going away gift before she left for the bus today (Zhuge sent us an email today while we were in class to inform us she was leaving at 2PM today esh). We got her a gift certificate for a pedicure and manicure and managed to give it her before she left.

Afterwards Anna and I went with Margaret and Caroline back to the Pearl Market to do gift shopping. I got 3 polo shirts for my dad for 100 yuan (around 15 bucks). I also got some earrings and I got one of those Chinese signature stamps with my Chinese name on it. I’m pretty sure I totally got ripped off though. Caroline got a smaller one for 85 with the box and ink and I got a larger one for 100 and paid 15 for the box and ink and the ink dish is too small for the stamp! I really can’t wait to be back in the US where things are just a set price and you buy it or don’t. Bargaining is just tiring and even moreso when the shop keepers are trying to squeeze every cent out of you. Now I have to go to Chinatown when I get back to find an ink dish that fits my stamp.