April 30, 2013

Today we were escorted by another member of the International Cooperation Office, Crystal.  This morning we had breakfast around 8:30 and were in our Chinese language class by 9:30.  Here Professor Jean taught us simple words and phrases such as money, mother, father and child.  After class we had another great meal followed by a little downtime.  We then had a continuation of Chinese language that ended with activities in making Chinese Lucky Knots and Double Happiness cut outs.  This followed by a very interesting class by Professor on Chinese Culture to include such things as the significance of numbers, animals, religion, colors, zodiac, etc. .

Our evening agenda was free so we decided to venture out into the “city” to get our first real taste of Asia.  Sanda is somewhat of a suburb of Shanghai (about 40 minutes out) but we wondered into the surrounding city and found many interesting things.  Right after we exited the campus we ran into a former exchange student, Yoquin (Wing), and she walked around with us helping us to bargain and to keep us out of trouble  J I think what surprised us the most was not only the amount of street food vendors but also how many of them put up tents and provided patio type furniture for their patrons. It was also interesting to see they just pile their trash, bagged and un-bagged, along the curb for someone to retrieve in the middle of the night.