Life at the Shanghai Business School

Hello Family and Friends,

After Suzhou and Hangzhou, which took place on September 1st and 2nd, I arrived at SBS. Sunday night, we arrived at the main campus of the Shanghai Business School. Since then I have been living on campus. I must say that our accommodations at SBS have been exceedingly good. The dormitory that we have been staying was recently built for teachers. Each room suits two people. Where as the students on campus live in much closer proximity. In each dorm, there are four people to a room. In addition, each dorm doesn't have air conditioning, or a bathroom. They must walk to the cafeteria where there is a public showering facility. Where as in the teacher dorm, there is both bathroom, shower, and air conditioning. We are very fortunate.

To give you a perspective about the first week at SBS, I spent most of my time in Chinese class. For the first two days, class was from 8:20 to 11:20 AM. During the morning, our Chinese teacher covered one lesson a day that included two dialogues and new vocabulary. In each written dialogue, we covered new grammar. In addition, since I had such a relatively more experience in the language compared to the other two students, I would introduce new words to the lesson. As a result, the teacher would side track with my questions making the three hour class more painful and difficult for the other two students. They constantly told me I should be in the 200 level class. Afterwards, I had lunch outside of the campus because in the cafeteria they served peanuts side by side all the other dishes. That was the first time on this trip, I felt really insecure about my food allergies. Then from 1:00 to 5:00 PM we continued to study with the student helpers. My day mainly consisted within one classroom. I felt mostly isolated and burned out by dinner.

I remember last Monday, and the awkwardness I felt. It was our first day of class on the SBS main campus. As we left our dorm and went to the cafeteria to eat breakfast and then to the room, I could tell that we were being stared at. We had foreigners written all over our faces. I began to get a glimpse of what a minority in America might feel like. At the same time, I was excited to meet new people, but I also felt out of place at first. That quickly changed. I learned that SBS has 71 percent girls and 29 percent boys. I was told that since SBS is liberal arts school, there is a higher percentage of girls. I remember James saying he walked into Heaven. Since I spent so much of my time in the class, I really enjoyed any time I had on the campus and on the streets to experience Chinese college life.

For example, I got to see my student helpers dorm. The boys and girls dorm are completely separated. This school has given me another impression of what school life can be like for someone my age in another part of the world. The students here are all extremely motivation and determination in their studies . In addition, many of my friend including Homer, Er Hu, Wang Cheng, John: MaMoRen, and more have been very friendly and generous. In the last week and a half, I have gained about 100 friends on campus. These friends has made this experience truly memorable.

On Tuesday afternoon, we did ceramics. Instead of have tutoring in the afternoon, we created masks. I must say I have little experience in this art. I constructed my mask based off of shapes: circles, lines, dots, triangles, etc. Then I sliced it to make it into a puzzle. On the other hand, others blossomed and showed their true colors in the creation of the their masks. Many of students and teachers created mater pieces. Some were abstract, while others were designed with great attention to detail and were very life-like. They looked extremely professional.

However, we had to make up the time we missed from study time. That night, we were given tutors in our room to study.

You may ask, why is there so much time devoted to this class. It seems a little excessive.

The reason for this is a five credit class at Bellevue Community College requires 54 hours of class. Since our first week of class was only three days from Sept 26 to 28th, there was a rush to fill the required class time that I felt was overly excessive. On Wednesday and Thursday of last week, class basically went from 8:20 AM to 10 PM. It was a sprint to the finish.

On Thursday afternoon, Leslie Lum and Weihong Geiger presented to a class of freshman. When I walked in the classroom to listen to their presentation, the audience, which was mostly girls abruptly looked at me at the entrance. There I heard giggles echo across the wall. Their eyes followed me as a took my seat. All attention was on me. Then Geiger introduced me and attention resumed on the presentation. Lum talked about career paths with a strong sustainability focus. My major is Environmental Studies, which fits perfectly with her topic. When she asked for feedback, I gave brief speech articulating to the students the importance of the natural environment and their role in creating a sustainable China. Afterwards, I was swarmed with about 3 dozen girls asking for my email, phone number, and of course wanting to take my picture. I told them I wouldn't give my phone number. I said it was too expensive. I felt like I was Pierce Morgan on the red carpet. I became a sensation in a matter of seconds. I was told by one voice after another, "You're very very handsome."

On Friday morning, I took my 100 level Chinese test. I passes it with flying colors. I earned a 96 out of 99. I was glad to have that out of my way. The mornings before, I felt were the most effective with the teacher who only spoke to us in Chinese. That was when I felt I learned the most. Where as the tutors spoke both English and Chinese. If I could have it my way, I would have like to have spent the entire day practicing with the teacher.

On Friday afternoon, the president of the school, Mr. Feng, and his staff along side our faculty and students had a closing ceremony to celebrate the success of the two weeks study abroad journey. There we received our certificates for completing our courses. I felt like I was at a mini graduation. The reason it was help a week early is because Eva and Leslie Lum's daughter Kyra were scheduled to fly back home the following day on Saturday.

Over the weekend, all of us students took the bus, then the subway to downtown Shanghai. There were went shopping and site seeing. One of the locations we went to was a popular tourist section of the city. It was first time I had seen so many Caucasian foreigners. As expected in a tourist location, there was a Cold Stone. There we grabbed a bit of ice cream to eat. Everybody loved Cold Stone.

On Sunday, I meet Alan and his friend Wang Cheng aka Jack. Both who are majoring in English. We spent the entire afternoon practicing Chinese together, downloading Chinese movies for me to watch and practice my language skills. In addition, I purchased a 8 GB thumb drive to store the videos. Later that night at dinner on the third floor of the cafeteria, I had Lou Sang Tang, a very famous Shanghai soup. In it had meat, potatoes, spinach, and a whole list of other delicious ingredients. I must say it was one of the best soups I have had on the trip.

On Monday, I went to a student's class. She is another student helper. She is a freshman and I joined her in her philosophy class. The class sessions were quite long, about 2 hours. I mainly practiced writing characters, and took pictures before and after class with her friends. After class,
I put on my sunglasses, and I immediately became the "Ku" guy, the cool guy. "Kevin, you are so cool!!" I think I should wear my sunglasses more often.

In the afternoon, there was a badminton competition hosted by the school. It was the America BCC students against the student helpers. I will say this, we were no match. But it was great fun.

This morning, at 6:00 AM, I jogged to the track and ran 12 laps around the field. It felt great. It was the first time I have ran in China. However, I had to stop every mile. Even early in the morning, it is still very humid and hot. In addition, the air quality is not great, which makes it difficult to breathe due to pollutants. Looking across the track, there is a soft visible haze that covers the field and into the morning sky.

After breakfast, I attended Homer's class. He was taking an Intro to Japanese. There I mostly reviewed and practiced new lessons in my Chinese textbook. The last two days have been mainly attending class of other students and listening in on their lectures. It has been very fascinating.


This is all for now,

Goodnight,

Kevin