The second week is over. In terms of classes, this was the first week where I’ve learned to read exclusively Chinese characters. Which is surprisingly exhausting to do, having to try to figure out how to recognize, read and understand the meaning of the character all at once. The program also started cultural lectures starting this week, beginning with a presentation on Chinese Philosophy and Religion. While the content was interesting, it was not very engaging to listen to.

The main highlight of this week, however, was the two-day trip to Nanjing. It was an enjoyable but exhausting experience. The bus ride from Shanghai to Nanjing was over 5 hours, but the sights were all worth it. Our group first went to a tomb called Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum. The buildings are quite unique in that they all have navy blue tile roofs. The distance from the foot of the Mausoleum to the peak was quite a distance. It took me around 15-20 minutes just walking on the pathway and staircase to get to the tomb. The sight once at the top, however, is breathtaking. You get a nice view of the city in the distance, surrounded by tall trees, and the grand staircase that took a lot of effort to climb.

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Next, we visited Fuzimiao, a shopping district that gives oriental vibes. Our group took a peaceful boat ride around the district with Chinese narration giving a tour of the district. At least, that’s what I’m assuming the narration is about, as I couldn’t understand any of it. I think it was a bit too peaceful, as I found myself getting sleepy at parts of the ride. An interesting thing to note is that during the boat ride, there were some peculiar pig statues along the canal, along with a sign resembling a bucket of chicken set up presumably by – you guessed it- KFC. Going off on a slight tangent here, but I find that its very interesting to see how much influence KFC has internationally. Did you know that KFC is the largest restaurant chain in China? Not largest foreign restaurant chain, largest chain period. KFC’s are common everywhere I see in China. Wherever there is a large shopping area, there’s a KFC. And of course, there was one in Fuzimiao as well. After the boat ride, I walked around the area and did a bit of shopping. My Chinese improved enough that I was about to independently, but not without a bit of struggling and embarrassment, able to order some bubble tea. I accidentally ordered it hot though, which isn’t exactly compatible with the blistering hot temperatures in Nanjing that day, but its something to improve upon the next time I order bubble tea. I tried to check out the temple in the area, but was unable to since you had to pay to get in and it was about time for the group to travel to the next destination.

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The next location I visited was a World War 2 memorial remembering the victims of the Nanjing Massacre. It was a sobering experience, seeing the impact of the war and what happened to the victims. The area itself was quite beautiful, with the highlight being peace statue located in the center of the memorial. I explored one of the museums in the memorial which detailed the events of the massacre from the start to the end, providing details of the aftermath.

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The trip concluded by visiting a small fort in Nanjing. It was very similar to the fort last week in Suzhou, though.

Overall, I feel this week was very productive and enjoyable. I apologize for the late post. Hopefully I’ll get next week’s post out on time. For now, I’ll see you all next week.

Its been a busy first week, getting adjusted to the new environment and handling logistics to make the rest of the trip easier, like getting a Chinese bank account and phone number. An interesting thing to note is that in China, many people use online paying methods such as WeChat Pay or AliPay instead of money to make transactions. For those thinking about using one of these payment options while in China, a Chinese bank account is needed. Its pretty tedious to set up, but once its set up, its super convenient to use. For example, when I go pay for an item, I can just scan a QR code and input the amount I want to pay and the transaction is complete. I highly recommend setting up WeChat Pay or AliPay for long trips in China.

The classes have been pretty enjoyable, but they go by quickly. I came in to the program with little Chinese experience, and now I can read pinyin and string basic phrases. I can also now order food by myself, which is nice. It’ll be excited to see how much I learn by the end of the program.

Some of the interesting parts of the week was the trip to Songjiang Campus and to Suzhou. Songjiang Campus is SISU’s much larger main campus.
The campus I am studying at is the Hongkou campus meant more for foreign students. The Songjiang Campus is more focused on business and foreign languages. In fact, a lot of the buildings that I saw there were dedicated to either a region of languages or a singular language. They had a whole building dedicated to Japanese, which I was told was the largest major in SISU. Pretty cool.

I also went on my cultural trip of the program to Suzhou. Compared to Shanghai, Suzhou is a smaller and much older city, although size is relative as Suzhou is home to around 10 million people. New York, in comparison, has around 8 million people. While at Suzhou, I toured a home of a noble family, a Chinese garden, and saw the Great Canal, the longest and oldest canal in the world.

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In terms of the city life, I saw downtown Shanghai for the first time and the size of the buildings were mind blowing. There were skyscrapers as far as the eye can see, filled with colorful lights. The mall I checked out there was huge; it had over 10 floors, way to many to get in a single picture. While in downtown Shanghai, me and my friends from the SISU program ate at a xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) resturant. My table just ate nothing but xiaolongbao, and we tried various types. I tried some classic xiaolongbao, open faced xiaolongbao, soup jiaozi, and ended it with some taro xiaolongbao. Overall, it was quite an experience to enjoy.

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Thats all I have to report for this week. Hopefully next week will be more exciting. For now, I’ll see you all next week.

My name is James Nguyen and I am a freshman in Electrical & Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.  From 5/30/19-7/28/19, I will be attending Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) to study Chinese language and culture.  I’m excited to share my experience to the CMU community. My goal, if I still have motivation by the end of the trip, is to post weekly updates sharing my experiences and tips during my trip abroad in Shanghai.

For now, I’ll see you all soon.