Markets and Media in 21st Century China

So China is amazing!!! Yesterday, a group of us went wandering around Shanghai after we had a scrumptious breakfast in the cafeteria. The traffic here is absolutely amazing! So many cars, so many bicylces, so many mopeds, so many people! We stood at a big intersection for at least 5 minutes trying to figure out when to cross because of the massive amount of people. After we finally crossed we came to an open market where people were selling live animals, such as eels, chickens, ducks, etc as well as fruits and vegetables. It was absolutely amazing to see live chickens right next to fruits and vegetables. Nothing like the US. We hope to go back to buy some of the pastries that people were frying right there in the ally. What an experience!

Melissa

Posted by China Traveller at 7:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday we went to the grocery store, Trust Mart. For about $15 we got an adapter, water, toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner, silly Chinese condoms and weird gum. Things here are insanely cheap, lunch usually costs about 10 yuan, or like $1.50, for a some meat and vegetable dish, rice and there's always soup. Venders on the street sell stuff just like in New York, only it's really Asian, like a lot of Hello Kitty stuff. The shirts with English writing are especially funny; we saw one yesterday that said girl door candy or something weird like that. We also found a market yesterday with a lot of fruit and vegetables and lots of live animals. Sarah got really close to the chickens so we hope she didn't catch the bird flu. Also, I don't know why people said we'd lose so much weight here. A lot of the food is good, but then in the stores you can buy regular stuff: skippy peanut butter, oreos, stuff like that. But they also sell eels a few feet away and that gets smelly and weird.
-Katie Simpson

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We arrive at the Shanghai airport and wait for the bus.

Mr. Wang tells us a bit about Shanghai and East China Normal University.

The cityscape in Shanghai had us looking in every direction.

The spicy noodles were tasty but had a definite afterkick.

We will be learning under the watchful eye of Chairman Mao.

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Our group arrived on a smooth flight this afternoon in Shanghai without incident (except for last night's nearly six hour delay in Roanoke).

Mr. Wang Weiqiang, our contact for East China Normal University, graciously met us at the airport and loaded us onto the bus. From the airport, we went straight to the university while checking out some of Shanghai's daunting cityscape.

We checked into the dorms and scrambled to make a very quick jaunt to the nearby "Trust-Mart" (just outside the university's gate) to purchase necessities like bottled water and snacks and to check out our options for power converters.

We hurried back to the dorm to meet at 6, when our group, along with Professors Pirkle and Luecke, went right next door to a cafeteria to have a light dinner. There were two different dishes, a spicy bowl of ramen with meat, and a tamer, non-spicy noodle dish with greens. The bowls were so huge that almost no one (except Taylor) could finish theirs.

We have forthcoming photos of our arrival at the Shanghai airport and our noodle dinners, which will be up as soon as I can get a power converter for my card reader.

-Alex K.

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