Yesterday, the Global Business Project and I went to Shanghai Oriental Land, kind of a park/resort hotel/military training grounds type of thing to do team building with our project groups. I do not believe that Shanghai Oriental Land could exist in modern America. Wishing no offence both sets of my grandparents, who all read my blog, I think this is what a resort hotel must have been like in their day. First thing we did after getting to Oriental Land was making a flag to follow around, that I ended up carrying, because the Chinese love to follow around flags. The first set of activities we were given were kind of field day type things, a bit too complicated and fun the first time but get kind of annoying the third time you have to do it. We could also watch the High School Military Training Exercises, basically in China all high school students have to go through a super abridged boot camp type thing in preparation for the inevitable American/Soviet invasion of China. One of my Chinese group members whole heartedly believed the High School Paramilitary was a good thing and remembers her few days quite fondly, it seems to be more fun now anyways rather then a serious preparation for foreign invasion but you do have to wear a camo uniform. After lunch we, which was nothing special, we got to race Dragon Boats, which was kind of cool actually, and do a scavenger hunt type thing through the park. The scavenger hunt is where it became obvious that Shanghai Oriental Land could only exist in America if it was 1952. They had a lot of jungle gym type things that were universally made of wood and metal: no plastic, helmets, padding, or frankly much safety equipment at all were in sight. These were not just things they built in the 1960s and left, they were building this new hamster wheel bridge type thing that looked like you would ether have a lot of fun on or severally hurt yourself. Our last stop on the scavenger hunt was their sculpture garden containing statues of important historical figures from world and Chinese history. I feel like I need to mention that this is a sculpture garden with a bust of Adam Smith and Mao Zedong; like Wealth of Nations, inventor of Capitalism Adam Smith and Little Red Book, father of Communist China Mao Zedong. The Chinese students seemed to know who both people were and why they are important, although they treated Mao with far more reverence and could recite a poem about Mao's Long March from memory (to be far though, you would have to be a real economics dweeb to write a poem about Adam Smith). They also had this military exhibit thing that I only saw form the bus going back to campus, to be honest it looked kind of fun. Finally, they had a resort portion that we did not spend much time in but I could see being very popular in the summer among middle class Shanghaiese trying to get out of the city center for a few days. Overall, it was actually kind of fun, although my legs still feel a bit sore from all the running around the park. If I was little Jared however I would have had a great time, they had cool slides and model jets!
4 Comments
Dad
11/13/2016 10:58:42 am
I remember both the little Jared and the older, almost (in 1 month) adult Jared and I have to say it sounds hokey but a lot of fun for either one. In fact, very old Dad would have a great time in Oriental Land as well, esp. with those model jets.
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Sharon
11/13/2016 10:05:47 pm
did u get to keep the flag?
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Jared Paul Miller
11/13/2016 10:06:26 pm
No actually. ECNU took it, I really don't know where it is now.
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Gramma M
11/15/2016 12:27:41 am
In my day, a resort hotel looked just like the Fontanbleu. At its best, it looked like the Concord with famous entertainers, fantastic food and not a flag in sight. Running around was optional--staying in the dining room was preferred. Have your legs healed> Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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