J-term in Shanghai: Hadley Vogel’s entries

HADLEY VOGEL (art history) writes:
When we are without the luxury of having Elena or Xhingyu translating for us, we all instinctively end up playing charades, waving our arms around and speaking louder. But after a few days of this approach, Sara and I discovered an English phrase that seemed to work very well when we were in a pinch without a phrase book.

The other night there were six of us trying to squeeze into a cab after dinner to go to a bar in an area we hadn’t been to before. We showed the driver an article in a magazine about the place we wanted to go to, and the cab driver appeared to understand. Unfortunately, not all six of us could fit into this cab and two of us had to take a different cab.

We hopped into the next cab we saw and frantically gestured to the cab in front of us and jokingly said, “Follow that cab!” It actually worked, and we successfully ended up at the shadiest bar in all of Shanghai. Needless to say it was an experience, and we danced to music we hadn’t heard since junior high, played pool, and I surprised myself by getting a few bull's eyes on the dartboard.

Getting dinner is also an interesting time to be without a translator. A couple of us ate at a restaurant around the corner from our motel and somehow ended up being seated with a Chinese woman named Terry who could speak English. After getting a few suspicious-looking dishes she had ordered for us, we regretted not ordering what she had.

So, in addition to “Follow that cab,” we have also added “We’ll have what they’re having” when out to dinner.

Hadley Vogel is a junior majoring in art history.

HADLEY VOGEL (art history) writes:
Today was our last hurrah in Shanghai.

I woke up later than I would have liked to because I thought that we were meeting a half an hour later than we really were. Once we had all congregated in the lobby we took off on an architectural tour that commenced at the Children’s Palace. It was unreal how decadent it was, and seemed a little cold to have been built for a father and his two sons.

Upstairs they were having workshops for children, and outside of the classrooms there were some of their projects on display. There were robots and cars and a sculpture of a man playing a saxophone, as well as a very crude representation of African culture. After leaving the palace we had a long and grueling walk through a very cold and wet Jewish ghetto. Dvir, our guide, was extremely informative and was able to bring us into one of the homes. I felt like I was entering a film noir set with a single fluorescent light hanging over an old kitchen table.

After warming up and getting some lunch, a nap, and a hot shower we met up with everyone at an Uighur restaurant, a cuisine from the northwestern region of China. The waiters were all dressed in traditional garb and danced through the restaurant pulling diners onto the stage. The music sounded Turkish with an energetic beat and the waiters were very enthusiastic and tried their hardest to keep as many people on stage as possible at all times. It was definitely the most fun dinner we had as a group, and I was glad that Davide from BizArt was able to join us.

I’m going to miss BizArt and ripping into half of a lamb with my hands, as well as the unapologetic mannerisms I’ve grown accustomed to.

Hadley Vogel is a junior art history major.

HADLEY VOGEL (art history) writes:
Coming home was the hardest part of the trip.

It was only after I came home that the jet lag hit, and the culture shock set in. I was still processing things that we had seen and done days after we had done them. It was such a whirlwind of events that I needed space from Shanghai to collect my thoughts and formulate my own understanding of everything that had been introduced to us. I needed to step back and take a breath.

Prior to the trip I thought that the culture shock would most likely be something I would experience when I first arrived in Shanghai, but this was not the case. Everything felt so surreal and foreign to me that it was as if I were in an amusement park. We had at least one translator around, always, and when we would go to a garden or a temple I was not familiar with the Buddhist customs they practiced so I would stand back and observe. The old city felt especially surreal because it had been refurbished in a traditional architectural style and layout.

Somewhere along the way I got used to not being able to read the signs immediately and instinctively searching for the English subtext, being in a crowded street and not being able to hear what people were shouting at one another (but Xhingyu assured us that all they were shouting was “HI, WHAT CAN I GET FOR YOU?” or some other equally ordinary street-vendor chat), or overhearing gossip in a cafe, not having any clue who was in the popular media, and being totally detached from any form of immediate communication for the better part of the day, and being able to easily afford a cab across town. The list goes on too, but somehow I got used to these things, and now that I’m home I really miss them.

Hadley Vogel is a junior art history major.