Guess where I went today? Best Buy! Haha!! The biggest Best Buy in the world is also the only store in China. I talked to a few people that work there and they were all very excited to meet me once I told them I work at Best Buy. Their store manager is also from the US, so I talked to him and got a picture with him and a Geek Squad guy in front of the big Geek Squad sign with Chinese under it. I also took a picture in front of the building. Shanghai seems to be much richer than the other parts of China we've been too. It was really fun going today. My friend Steven and I set out from the hotel having only seen the location on Google Maps, but with no way of printing it out... We had a partial map of Shanghai from the hotel room and I grabbed an envelope with our hotel's address on it. So worse case, we could probably find our way back. I knew where a metro stop was, and we knew we had to head in the general direction of Southwest. We set a goal of finding the store within 3 hours, and we went on our way.
We got to the metro stop and had no idea which line or stop we needed to take, but we picked one that looked like it was headed in the southwest direction and got on. We rode until we got to a stop that we guessed felt like about the right area and asked someone to point on the map where we were. Fortunately, we had gotten off just around the bottom corner of the map, which was better than the next stop that was not on the map at all. Like I said...partial map. Even the legend was cut off on the other corner. So we decided as long as we knew where we were we weren't lost, and for right now we were in the bottom left corner of the map. Great! That's southwest relative to where we started, so we considered this our first success of the trip.
As we left the metro station we decided we'd try to find a Starbucks for Steven to get a better idea of where we were on his iPhone. We couldn't see a Starbucks from where we were standing, so we asked ourselves, "If I were a Starbucks where would I be?" and headed off in the direction of KFC and Ikea. For anyone looking to go to a Starbucks in the future near the Shanghai Stadium, the direction of Starbucks is opposite from both KFC and Ikea. But Ikea is a very large store that has found a way to trick anyone that walks in the doors into walking through every single department. We finally stopped to ask someone where to find a Starbucks and they told us which bus to take. Since we were close to the bus stop we decided we'd save our $1yuan and just watch which direction that bus goes and follow it. Luckily we stumbled across one and the guy working knew where Best Buy was! We were so close!! Unfortunately, he did not speak English, so his three line map, gestures and Chinese directions only got us started in the right direction. One Häagen-Dazs and six miles (walking) later, we found the place we had set out only 2.5 hours earlier to find. Given we had 30 minutes to spare from our goal of 3 hours, we considered this our second success of the night.
We stuck around there checking out their 6 floors of electronic awesomeness for about 30 minutes then decided to check out the surrounding area. It was a really nice part of town and we figured that with as long as it took to get there we were going to darn well enjoy where we were. We took some cool pictures and went all through a mall there complete with a Magic school where a guy did a few card tricks for us and tried to get us to enroll in their school. While we were tempted in the moment to drop OC and go to Magic school in Shanghai, we decided against it and headed to McDonald's for dinner after which we made our way back into the metro station. We had taken a picture of the stop we started at so we just showed the service desk the picture and asked for 2 tickets. The guy smiled and we took it one extra stop to see some different scenery on our walk back to the hotel. All in all, today was a very fun adventure and we got to see many sides of Shanghai.
Tomorrow we will head to Japan early, so for now that's all! I hope I can post my pictures soon but until we get to our host family's house I'm not sure when I'll be back online.
Email me! I love hearing from everyone back home!! Love you all!!
Amy
Friday, September 26
Life, the Universe, and Everything
I'm in the middle of reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, so excuse the title reference...it just seemed like a fitting heading.
This trip has been opening my eyes to shape and change how I view the world. In some ways it's exciting, in some it's almost frightening. I expected this to some extent, but I guess you never really know what to expect until you're right there in the mix. And now, for a very clear understatement: Asia is a whole different world.
The thing that impresses me most about the culture here is not the cold, everyone-mind-their-own-business way that I had half expected after visiting places like DC and NYC. I have been completely caught off guard by the openness and inviting nature of every person I have met. Ever since the English Corner night I have been so much more aware of how open the Chinese are to new people and new ideas. They are not narrow minded in their ways as I feel I often am. They are ready for new ideas and yearn for learning new languages, religions, and ideas. They are also very hard workers and will study on their own to reach their goals. I wish I had that kind of drive. I live in a country that promises opportunity and the chance to be whatever you want to be, but I feel that many times I don't reach my potential and the only thing in my way is myself. Here, they live under so many limitations by government, resources, and tradition yet they find ways and have the extreme desire to do so much more. To those that look at us, a group of Americans and wish that they could be us, I have to say that there are certain aspects of their lives that I wish I had as well.
Many people have been talking to us about coming to China after graduation to teach English. The Chinese government will actually pay Americans to come and do that, and for some it seems to be a great opportunity to spread the name of God. But I have done a lot of thinking about what it would take, and the sacrifices I would have to make, and I think I am still too selfish of a person to be able to do that.
One thing I have learned though, through talking to Gary Jackson, was when he talked about my uncle's work as an accountant as a ministry, it made me realize what the Bible is talking about when it says that the body is made up of many parts. Each part has it's function and without that part, the rest could not work properly. I have talents that others do not, and it is my mission to find how I can use the talent I have been given to help those that have been given other talents that I do not have.
In America we are taught to think as individuals, whereas in China they are taught to think in terms of the group. This experience living in their culture and seeing how they work together for "the greater good" helps me to understand God's purpose for me.
This trip has been opening my eyes to shape and change how I view the world. In some ways it's exciting, in some it's almost frightening. I expected this to some extent, but I guess you never really know what to expect until you're right there in the mix. And now, for a very clear understatement: Asia is a whole different world.
The thing that impresses me most about the culture here is not the cold, everyone-mind-their-own-business way that I had half expected after visiting places like DC and NYC. I have been completely caught off guard by the openness and inviting nature of every person I have met. Ever since the English Corner night I have been so much more aware of how open the Chinese are to new people and new ideas. They are not narrow minded in their ways as I feel I often am. They are ready for new ideas and yearn for learning new languages, religions, and ideas. They are also very hard workers and will study on their own to reach their goals. I wish I had that kind of drive. I live in a country that promises opportunity and the chance to be whatever you want to be, but I feel that many times I don't reach my potential and the only thing in my way is myself. Here, they live under so many limitations by government, resources, and tradition yet they find ways and have the extreme desire to do so much more. To those that look at us, a group of Americans and wish that they could be us, I have to say that there are certain aspects of their lives that I wish I had as well.
Many people have been talking to us about coming to China after graduation to teach English. The Chinese government will actually pay Americans to come and do that, and for some it seems to be a great opportunity to spread the name of God. But I have done a lot of thinking about what it would take, and the sacrifices I would have to make, and I think I am still too selfish of a person to be able to do that.
One thing I have learned though, through talking to Gary Jackson, was when he talked about my uncle's work as an accountant as a ministry, it made me realize what the Bible is talking about when it says that the body is made up of many parts. Each part has it's function and without that part, the rest could not work properly. I have talents that others do not, and it is my mission to find how I can use the talent I have been given to help those that have been given other talents that I do not have.
In America we are taught to think as individuals, whereas in China they are taught to think in terms of the group. This experience living in their culture and seeing how they work together for "the greater good" helps me to understand God's purpose for me.
My New Friend Simon
After eating dinner with Aleisha at KFC our first night in Shanghai, we were headed out the door when a guy waved at me to come back in. I let Aleisha know what I was doing and decided that as long as I was going back into the restaurant instead of out into the dark, the least I could do was see what he wanted. He slid a note across his table to me that he had obviously been spending the last several minutes writing out. It said:
"Hello. My name is Simon. Are you students in China? I am interested in learning English. Say English. Do you have any ideas?"
The next 30-45 minutes we spent explaining that we were leaving Shanghai in only 4 days, but if he would like to keep in touch by email we were happy to help him practice his English. He was very excited about this and taught us some Chinese! They were all very random words, but in Chinese have similar sounds. He said he used to be a teacher at a university for 4 years, but now he owns his own small computer networking company. I hope I can keep in touch with him as well as Amy in Beijing and slowly build a friendship in which I can share my faith. I also plan to contact Gary to see if he knows of any contacts that are in Shanghai long-term that I could connect Simon with.
"Hello. My name is Simon. Are you students in China? I am interested in learning English. Say English. Do you have any ideas?"
The next 30-45 minutes we spent explaining that we were leaving Shanghai in only 4 days, but if he would like to keep in touch by email we were happy to help him practice his English. He was very excited about this and taught us some Chinese! They were all very random words, but in Chinese have similar sounds. He said he used to be a teacher at a university for 4 years, but now he owns his own small computer networking company. I hope I can keep in touch with him as well as Amy in Beijing and slowly build a friendship in which I can share my faith. I also plan to contact Gary to see if he knows of any contacts that are in Shanghai long-term that I could connect Simon with.
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