It's been three years since I was last in China, and while I've only been to Shanghai once for a couple of days, I can already feel that China is (to borrow my favorite Thai phrase) "same same, but different." I can't pin it just yet, but it does seem to be the effects of the lurching economic boom. So many of the cars leaving the airport were Audis, VWs, and big Buick SUVs. It's still the same place - dirt and soot tainted buildings, ladies on rickety wooden chairs selling phone cards, street vendors grilling all things on sticks and littering the gutters with the skins of pineapples. But there's an air all about that things are happening here. For one, the corner grocery store I'd been to before is now a Walmart...
Me and my three enormous pieces of luggage toting live animal traps are checked into a hotel with my friend Zhe near the campus of East China Normal University. I finally got an answer for what the "Normal" means. Seems so weird to a native English speaker that "Normal" would be chosen as part of a University's name. What's considered an "Abnormal" university? Apparently it means that it's a teaching college. Still not sure exactly where the "Normal" arises out of "teaching college", but I'm satisfied enough with that answer.
We went to dinner with Zhe's advisor here who is an outrageously outgoing with a huge personality. He hugs me whenever he sees me. That's the first and biggest thing that makes him stand out. He's traveled extensively and says he has to get out of China every couple of years. I can completely identify with that, however I can't even wait two years between trips. So he's seen a lot of the world and explained to me last time I was here that he hugs me because "Americans like to hug". He's extremely, and rightfully, proud of his lab. He has a magnetic board with all of the lab publications, and across the top of each in red marker he's written "I.F.=" and a number indicating the impact factor of the journal. He was a little bit distressed that some of his best papers are missing, but that's apparently because there are 8 new fresh faced prospective masters students who are on the Chinese university equivalent of "Survivor." I guess they're brushing up on what the lab does and trying to out compete each other to make a good impression since only 5 can stay. He had them all come over and introduce themselves to me so that I could assess their English and tell him who he should take. They were all so cute and enthusiastic and impressed on me how much they REALLY REALLY want to be chosen for "Mr. Zhang's" lab. As if they thought my opinion could make or break their future. I couldn't give an opinion and crush any single one of them, so when Shuyi went one by one asking of a few "what do you think of this one? and this one?" I just kept saying "very good". So he pointed at himself and said "What about me?" to which I responded with a half cocked brow, "Ehhhhh..." and he burst into laughter and hugged me again. I think we get each other.
But truthfully, his surged to near the top of my favorite labs when I had the sudden realization looking at his publication wall of fame that *THIS* is the lab that published the bat fellatio paper last year!! I told him I thought that was cool because it got so many people in the general public interested in the oddness of it, and he told me they got an IgNobel prize for that work. Also hilarious.
One more day in Shanghai, and I travel onward to Urumqi on Thursday. Incidentally, I forgot that blogspot was also banned in China in 2009, and it apparently hasn't come back online. As such I'm posting this via an email submission so if anyone gets a chance to let me know if this posts okay, I'd greatly appreciate it.
2 comments:
Do you have access to comments left on your blog? Hope the next leg of your trip goes as smoothly as the first!
Kim, It was nice and clear. Best, Pedro.
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