JOSH SNIEGOWSKI (film and video major) writes:
Once again, we had to wake up at what seemed to be a very early time due to everyone’s jet lag. Once everyone was ready, we headed out to a Catholic church. This was extremely interesting because I have never seen a statue of Jesus with Chinese characters surrounding it. The entire church was beautiful, and even though I don’t think this trip was planned, I was glad we went here.
Next we went to Old Shanghai, where we first visited a Taoist temple containing the city god. Here, I got to see multiple statues representing different gods and even see rituals of those people within the religion. People held sticks, which were lit on fire in order to create smoke. The reason for this is because the belief is that smoke carries things such as prayers up into the afterlife. Others also did things such as burn special money made for the deceased. I had never heard or seen anything like this and I was very excited to see it all.
In the same area, we left the temple and entered the shopping areas of Old Shanghai. Before we went shopping, however, we went into the Yu Gardens. This was once again beautiful, as we saw gardens that resembled those shown in movies having to do with traditional China. After the gardens we were allowed to shop all throughout Old Shanghai.
While shopping, I got my first chance to barter with a salesman in Shanghai. People may think this is easy, but I assure you that this takes a great amount of skill. Once I bought what I had wanted at a much lower price than originally given, I walked away thinking to myself that I could have gotten the price down further. It felt almost as if I was gambling and I wanted to go out and “save” more money.
After shopping for a while, everyone went out to eat in a group. We had the VIP treatment as we were led up into a room where we ate alone at a huge table. Again, the food was delicious as I tried the many different tastes of dim sum. After this we got lost for a bit, but this led us to many different interesting places. I saw street vendors selling huge fish and full ducks. As we continued to walk we also got the chance to visit another temple, which once again was very interesting. We didn’t get a chance to see it, but we were told that an entire paper house was going to be burnt in order to send it to someone who had passed away. This was a surprise stop, but the next stop was what I thought to be the most exciting of all.
After the temple, we stopped at the bird and insect market. Crickets, birds, turtles, cats, and dogs were being sold as pets. The most surprising of all of these were the crickets. They ranged from being very small to being as big as your finger. I got the opportunity to see the buying of a cricket, which seemed more like an underground dealing of illegal goods. I thought the lucky crickets were awesome, but unfortunately these bugs could not be brought back to the States and therefore not bought by anyone in the group.
Finally, everyone went out to eat together once again as a group. The restaurant was very fancy and the food very good. I finally got the chance to try the Peking Duck, which was much harder to eat that I had imagined due to all the bone left in the meat. My favorite part of the meal, though, was the ground duck meat and vegetables, which were put into a lettuce wrap then dipped in sauce and eaten. It was VERY good and I ate as much as I could before everyone else ate it all.
Once we all got back to the hotel, a group of people decided to go out on our own. We went to a nearby bar in hopes of getting a few drinks. We quickly realized that despite everything else being cheap, alcohol in Shanghai is very expensive. We had a few drinks, some people sang karaoke, and then we went back to the hotel and passed out for the night.
Josh Sniegowski is a sophomore in the film & video department.
