Culture Shock

I was pleased to make it to Shanghai on the red-eye and have zero hassle with customs despite the somewhat hectic visa situation. Shanghai International Airport puts LAX to shame. (That's not saying a whole lot, but...) Everything was extremely clean and well-marked in English, so finding my way to the taxis and hotel was easy.

I wanted culture shock, and as soon as I left the airport I got it. I thought the pollution was supposedly worse in Beijing than Shanghai so I wasn't expecting to feel it that much, but the 45 minute drive to my hotel made me feel ill. It brought me back to my Vegas business trips, when I left the airport and stood in the winding line for the rental car shuttle bus, inhaling a combination of bus exhaust and everyone else's cigarettes that they lit up as soon as they were in Vegas, baby.

Since I had a day to kill on my own before meeting my Gap Adventures tour, I decided to do the most obvious thing: internet. After emailing my mom to tell her I made it safe and solidifying my friendships with my new Oz friends by making them my Facebook friends, I decided to leave because everyone in the internet cafe was smoking and between that and a night on a red-eye, I was feeling really nauseous and decided I needed food.

Lunch was fun, since I mistakenly ordered two meals much to my embarrassment and the amusement of everyone else in the restaurant. One young guy asked me where I'm from and if I'm traveling alone, and started laughing and said "Uh Oh."

BUT, after the first rough day, I'm pleased to report that things have gone up and I believe China will be the highlight of my entire trip.

As the tour guide said, China isn't just another country, it's another world. And it's a hugely important one. The U.S. and most of the Western World are extremely dependent on China. Most of the people quietly grumbling about China's pollution or human rights record are likely wearing something "Made in China." China's GDP is expected to be equal to or surpass the United States in the next 15-20 years. I believe this is the first country I've ever been to that hasn't been (truly) colonized by Europeans (and also my first Asian country).

China has 6000 years of fascinating history and there is so much to absorb - differences in religions, a Communist government and modern entrepreneurial culture, collectivism instead of our Western individualism, obviously the very different language, different food (hot meat and rice for breakfast), and all the sub-cultures within China. The culture is at a crossroads even within generations; for example, the younger generation born under China's "one child" policy is having trouble affording to take care of their elderly parents completely on their own (instead of splitting cost and responsibility with siblings) and are looking to nursing homes - a huge conflict within an important Chinese tradition.

Today has been sensory overload and I'm just in Shanghai - the most Western city in mainland China.

My tour guide is from Xi'an and studied Chinese History in university. My group - a small one with only 7 people - immediately began to bombard him with questions at our first (delicious!) dinner together. It's a good group. I got paired with a roommate from Southern California who is a teacher, well-read and very knowledgeable and a lot of fun so far.

We walked around the Bund, Yu Garden, Shanghai Museum, and the very cosmopolitan Nanjing Zi Lu. Tonight we're going to see the famous Shanghai Acrobat show.

I'm extremely excited to be here am hoping to emerge from this trip understanding and appreciating a bit more about this amazing and important country.