J-term in Shanghai: Kaaren Fehsenfeld’s entries

KAAREN FEHSENFELD (cultural studies) writes:
Even in doing seemingly simple things here the language barrier has been really hard to cross.

A few nights ago, for example, I wanted to have some laundry done. I called the laundry line with a dictionary in my hand, ready to say the word "xiyi" (to launder). Of course, the conversation would invariably be more complicated: What is your room number? What type of laundry service? When do you need your things back? These questions may or may not have come up during our "conversation"; I can't tell you what exactly was said, and I definitely did not have any answers for the clerk. I just kept saying "xiyi" and my room number in English. Eventually I got so embarrassed and flustered that I said "goodbye," "thank you," and hung up the phone. I sat there kind of defeated. I supposed I just wasn't going to get my laundry done after all.

A few minutes later, though, the laundry clerk knocked on our door. She must have had my room number on some type of caller ID! Among many "xie xie's" on my part, I did an inventory of my things and she took them downstairs. A few minutes after she left, however, I remembered that I didn't write down one pair of pants on the inventory. I didn't want anything to get lost, so I ventured downstairs to the front desk, knowing that while I spoke no Mandarin and that my dictionary could only get me so far, I had to try.

I pointed to the characters for "forgot," "write," "one," and "pants," It was totally out of context and the clerk had no idea what I was talking about. I pointed to the character for "launder." I also pointed to the character for "sorry." My inability to communicate was, after all, getting pretty ridiculous. After a fair amount of quizzical looks and some confused laughs, the front clerk called the laundry clerk to the desk. I was able to explain my predicament to the laundry clerk and went upstairs, satisfied to finally be finished with the whole thing and glad that, in the end, the communication barrier wouldn't result in me losing a pair of pants.

We went out to dinner that night, and coming home satisfied and full, we walked back into our rooms, ready to pass out. I stepped around my bed to get to my suitcase, and then I saw them: The pants!

The pants ... I had not—in spite of my strenuous conversation (or, rather, my exercise in pointing to characters) to make sure that they were marked on the laundry inventory—given them to the laundry clerk in the first place. Instead, here they were, right in front of me. "It figures," I said to myself. I washed them in the sink.

Kaaren Fehsenfeld is a junior cultural studies major.

KAAREN FEHSENFELD (cultural studies) writes:
During our trip, we've seen and discussed several different forms of visual arts. But I have also always loved music, and I was really curious to see what the music scene was like in Shanghai.

According to Xhingyu, our guide, and Lonely Planet, Shanghai's music culture is generally lacking. So on Friday, when we went to a concert at Bandu, I was really excited. Bandu is a café/music shop/venue that is located right near BizArt, and we had eaten lunch there before.

We spent Friday visiting a couple different museums, and for dinner we returned to Bandu and watched a live performance of an instrument called a GuZheng. The instrument has several strings and sits on a stand, and is played from above.The performer attaches fake plastic fingernails to pluck the strings. A bar separates the strings into two sections, and while one set of strings is plucked, the other side is manipulated to change the pitch.

The performer we saw, Liu Le, had been playing for 15 years, starting at around age seven. It was amazing to see him play; you could really see his comfort level with the instrument and his technical abilities were phenomenal, all adding to a dramatic and dynamic performance. He played traditional songs, songs from the communist era, and contemporary songs.

In some of the contemporary songs he actually came off of the strings themselves and used the body of the instrument almost as a percussion instrument, which was really cool to see. Liu Le himself represented Shanghai's mixture of tradition and modernity. When I closed my eyes at the concert, I could romanticize a traditional, pastoral Chinese scene. When I opened my eyes, there was Liu Le, dressed in gold cowboy boots and a silver-studded T-shirt, surrounded by an audience of Westerners.

And speaking of contrast, after the traditional music at Bandu, we all went to a hip-hop club. We saw some live hip-hop that was pretty mediocre at first; the volume kept fluctuating and the rappers were kind of off. The music got a lot better as the night went on, though. Eventually, Xhingyu mentioned that one of the rappers who came on was Jin, and that he had the song "Learn Chinese" back in 2003. It was interesting to see a hip-hop aesthetic in Shanghai that I didn't know existed there, and cool to hear hip-hop in Chinese.

Shanghai does have a music scene after all, but it seems like the underground element of American shows isn't there. After all, there were uniformed security (and/or government) guards at the club, standing menacingly in front of the stage watching the crowd dance.

Kaaren Fehsenfeld is a junior cultural studies major.

KAAREN FEHSENFELD (cultural studies) writes:
Coming home was pretty surreal. I noticed a lot of cultural differences while we were over there; just little things, like the fact that there isn't heat in most buildings, despite the 30- to 40-degree weather. Maybe this is based more on economics, but economics don't explain the habit of constantly leaving windows open. We would get back to our hotel at night, and walking down the hallway, several windows would be cracked or almost completely opened. I suppose that if it's already cold, you might as well get some fresh air circulating; this seems pretty logical.

Another thing about the cold—I got used to layering my clothes and wearing my jacket indoors while I was in Shanghai, and this has made the adjustment to Chicago's five-degree weather so much easier. We have strange mental and cultural blocks to a lot of random things; I was always the type of person, for example, who would rather turn up the heat than put on extra clothes. Now, this seems pointless, if not just plain stupid and extravagant.

Another thing I loved about Shanghai was the difference in what is considered rude compared with the United States. The first night we arrived, I asked Xhingyu, our guide, how to say "excuse me" in Mandarin. She gave me a word, but quickly explained that it wasn't a direct translation, and that people don't really excuse themselves if they bump each other on the street. People also hawked loogies at free will, and more than once, as I stood in line, another person simply stepped in front of me. I considered that maybe this was because I looked pretty thoroughly American, but when I started to take note, I realized that it happens constantly, to foreigners and locals alike. While these differences made me a little edgy and uncomfortable at first, after awhile I saw how they made sense. In a city of almost 20 million people, there isn't time to say "excuse me" every time you bump into someone. What is socially important in Shanghai, according to hearsay and Lonely Planet, is never making someone lose face. This might be the sentiment behind big projects like the 2010 World Expo site, which shows off China's architectural and economic prowess to the world.

Kaaren Fehsenfeld is a junior cultural studies major.