Early morning with the last of our lectures, an NYU professor teaching at their Shanghai campus, Dr. Greenspan.  She’s been living in Shanghai for a while now, and has made it her mission to find all the nooks and crannies of Shanghai—she even has written for a tourist’s guide book for the city.  Her work has focused mostly on “figuring out” the city and the direction it’s going in, and that’s what her lecture was on.  The lecture was very very interesting, and we went a half hour over the 90 minutes the lecture was supposed to last, just asking questions.

Apparently, the age of modernism missed China—while America, Western Europe, and the rest of the first-world countries were building skyscrapers and developing a credit system, China was struggling to get on its feet.  Now that China has found solid footing, it’s going through a phase Dr. Greenspan calls “neomodernism”—the same stuff that everyone else did a hundred years ago, but with modern technology and a few more people.  I guess I could kind of see it in Beijing, a little bit in Xi’an (which looked like Las Vegas at night!), but apparently Shanghai is where it’s at.  Pudong is a case study for neomodernism—what was once a swamp, even just 15 years ago, is now this bustling urbanopolis that is the ideal set for every futuristic movie made now.  The Oriental Pearl, the new Shanghai World Financial Center (we’ll go there tomorrow!) and the planned Shanghai Tower, along with the Liujizang district and an incredibly futuristic look at night, I can totally see how Shanghai can be called “The City of the Future”.  While I realize that Pudong isn’t a good representation of the entire city (and man—it’s a big city), Dr. Greenspan pointed out how the rest of the city is also finding itself, and not really struggling either.  Like the 798 Art Village in Beijing, there are art communities all over the place, there are districts that are known for something special, there’s a vibrancy to the city that I’m excited to explore a little bit.  This just happened to be the first every gay pride week in Shanghai.

However, we spent the afternoon in one of the less Shanghai-y areas of town—we went to the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Shanghai, which was next to the Plaza 66, featuring at least one of every designer store you could possibly imagine, and some you couldn’t.  Way to upper class for me—I walked around there a bit, gawked, and left.  The AmCham visit was really interesting—we met with one of the company executives, and then had a Q&A session with an AmCham member, the president and CEO of a company that handles risk management for new companies starting in Shanghai.  He had lots of advice to offer, lots of stories to tell, and not much encouragement to throw around.  It was really funny to watch—all the business minor people started really sucking up to this guy, trying to get “in” with him.  I’m probably one of them, I just hope I asked more tasteful questions than some of the others…

Getting to Xi’an was an absolute breeze.  It might have been the shortest 2 hour plane ride I’ve ever taken-Danika and I listened to some music and then we were there.  Crazy.  The 20kg (~45lbs) checked bag weight limit really messed a bunch of people up, as most everyone went crazy buying junk at the Pearl and Silk markets in Beijing.  Fortunately, it’s not too expensive if you go over, but it is a hassle.  One girl had her lighters thrown away, one guy who’s addicted to hand sanitizer had to throw it out, and another girl freaked out because she (edit: thought she) lost her debit card.  I, fortunately, was completely drama free, and was very comfortable on the flight.  They even served dinner on the 2 hour flight.  They’re very nice.

We had lunch with all of our professors (laoshi in Chinese) at a nice restaurant before we left.  I really love the food here, and pretty much anywhere you eat, the food is served family style on a lazy susan.  Of course, all this means is that the gluttons (yours truly) get to stuff themselves silly at every meal.  If it weren’t for such big dinners, I’d probably lose a ton of weight here from all the walking I’ve been doing.

The place we’re staying here in Xi’an, at Shaanxi Normal University (Xi Da for short) are very similar to our international student dorm at Bei Da, except it’s disgusting.  Bei Da wasn’t nice, but it was clean-this place is shoddy and dirty.  It’s ok though, because we’re only here for 3 days, and the Carolina Hotel we’re staying at in Shanghai pulls a glorious 4 stars.  We’re one the 8^th floor though, which makes for some really nice views.

And… last night was absolutely ridiculous.  It took us a while to get going, but once we did we got rolling quickly.  We went back over to Pyro Pizza in Wudaokou-their happy hour is form 10pm to 12am.  5rmb (~$.80) tequila shots and 20rmb (~$3) pitchers got us where we needed to be mentally.   At midnight, we left Pyro-most people went back to the Lion King KTV for karaoke; Summer, Chavon and I went straight to Vic’s again, back at the Worker’s Stadium in Sanlitun.  Unfortunately, we had to pay the 50rmb cover this time, but we stayed there from midnight until 4am, so I guess it was worth it.  Craig, Chelsea, Danika and Yeong met us there around 2am, and we danced the night away.  After about an hour of being there, I needed a break, so I went across the street to the urban mall area.  Knowing me, I found my way onto a roof or two, and spent about a half an hour taking pictures from above.  I love roofs.  And I didn’t have to hop any fences to break in here (though I did squeeze through some bars in order to climb the second ladder).  No incidents here though.  The night ended great, and we got back to campus around 5am, as the sun was rising.  Champions.  We got to sleep until 10:30 the next morning anyways, so it all turned out fine.

Last. Night. Was. Ridiculous.  After the entire group passing out at around 9:30pm on Friday night (I slept from 8pm-8am), we decided that we needed to go out hard last night.  I had heard really great things about a specific area of town called Sanlitun, specifically a bar called Vic’s right in front of the Worker’s Stadium.  Along with everything else in China being absurdly cheap, pre-gaming is like a dream.  No alcohol permit is needed to sell, so every shop possible sells whatever you could need, and domestic drinks are absurdly cheap.  Beers are around $.30/12 oz can, and their liquor (bei jiu!) is about $.50 for a flask-sized bottle.  I’ve found that I like “jing wine”, which tastes like a fiery whiskey (70 proof) and I hate ergoutou (92 proof), which smells like rubbing alcohol and tastes worse, with the consistency of corn syrup.

We made it downtown thanks to Yeong, who wrote down the Chinese name for where we were headed on pieces of paper for each of the 3 cabs we had to take.  We hopped around a bit before meeting up at Vic’s, with new friends in tow—some Germans, some other Germans, some Australians, and a homeless kid.  Somehow, half of us got in free (including yours truly, which was nice for recovering from money stolen), and just danced there until the wee hours of the morning.

Waking up this morning was not the first thing I wanted to be doing, but we had to go to a Chinese village so up I got.  We took a bus to find this place in the mountains, a place which apparently changes so much our driver who was just at this place took a while to find his way there.  We were here to see what it was like for a Beijing village suburb—the government pays to keep them here, farming nuts and just subsisting, pretty much.  They make just about as much as the people we visited in the slums, but lived a much nicer life.  Their houses had two rooms.  They did have exercise equipment, cars, and soon they’ll even have internet.  We had a little Q&A session with one of the members of the village council, which was very informative, and I thoroughly enjoyed the provided massage chair while we all talked.  Lunch was provided by the village, and was delicious—a half a chicken (legs included), green beans, fresh baked bread, and other local delicacies.  We opted not to go hiking in the hot, arid countryside, and now will have a lazy Sunday to enjoy.  It’s much needed—lots of go go go recently, and it’ll pick up soon with a very busy week this week.  I can’t wait. 

Last night we met up with some students from Illinois Wesleyan and went down to Wudaoco to go dancing, and it was RIDICULOUS.  It’s a very Westerinzed part of town, and we met a bunch of other Americans from different parts of the US, as well as English speakers from Europe.  The dance club played mashups of American songs and they had very American drinks (Sex on the Beach, Screwdrivers, and all Western alcohols).  Not as horribly priced as I had been told-a little bit cheaper than American bar prices, in fact, but not nearly as cheap as the domestic alcohol prices.  It was packed, and they made us lifetime members because we were white.  I plan to go back more later.  The girls kept pulling in really funny awkward Chinese dudes who ended up being total pervs-they’d dance funny for a few minutes then start grabbing at the girls.  Made everyone really uncomfortable, until they forgot about how uncomfortable it made them and danced with them some more.

Class this morning was cut short because we went to the morning market, which closes early in the afternoon.  The market was really great-they had more of the same crap that every other market has had, but they had fruit, vegetable, and meat stands that were really great.  I bought a bunch of bananas and grabbed an incredibly cheap (1 yuan =  $.15USD) lunch.  Also plan to go back here.  They have the most badass assortment of tennis shoes and sneakers, but all of them are too small for me and they all have plastic bottoms-incredibly fake, though pretty ballin’.

I’d like to take this moment to talk about the traffic here.  Cars and bikes and buses are absurd, and the most amazing part is that I haven’t seen a wreck yet.  There is no concept of “yield” here, and pedestrians never get the right of way.  Even if we have a green crosswalk sign, we have to be careful that we don’t get hit by people turning.  Bikes are everywhere (including motorcycles and rickshaws) and they’re just as bad because they live on the sidewalks as well as in the streets.  Taxis, fortunately, are ridiculously cheap ($1 to close places, $10 to go across the city) and the buses even cheaper-though that’s an adventure I’m willing to forgo.

To wrap this up, day 5 and I’m having the time of my life.  I haven’t died yet, I haven’t lost anything, and I’m loving the people I’m with.  It’s good times and I can’t wait for what’s coming up soon.