I had less really impressive photos in my second semester. I guess I did most of the cool touristy stuff so I didn't have as much good materiel. I remember I had way more food and drink photos.
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While "random photos from around Asia" might not be the greatest blog title this is in essence what these are. I quite like the photo of the Beijing Bird's Nest Stadium and the tourist with the drone from Laos. Overall I think I am most happy with this set of photos. I guess with travel I saw new places so consequently the photos of those places are new. In Shanghai I often did just my daily life or saw the same things several times.
These are just some of my favorite photos arranged in no particular order. Many of my photos in the first semester were from some of Shanghai's more touristy and more famous areas, like Pudong or Thames Town. That doesn't bother me too much, sometimes places are famous for a reason. Still, I do have some great photos from the less famous places, like the subway stop photo. To be honest though, I think the picture of East China Normal's Mao statue overlooking the Global Harbor Mall is the best photo I took all year.
As with all things my adventures in China and Asia are comming to a close. I just found my gate at Shanghai Pudong International Airport for my flight back to Newark, NJ where this whole thing started back in September of last year. Hopefully I will have enough reading meterial for the 14-16 hour flight, if not there is always TV.
After I turned in my final final paper for the year one of my friends and I decided to take a trip to People's Park, the Bund, and Pudong to take some more photos before we leave. To be honest, while it is one of if not the most touristy district in Shanghai I actually quite like the Bund area. There is just something inherently interesting about the mixing of Old Shanghai and New Shanghai in the Bund area. Also, the Shanghai Municipal Government has markers on most of the historic buildings on the Bund telling you, in English and in Chinese, what the building was and why that thing was important. The Royal Canadian Navy apparently agrees with me since they had a very new looking ship docked at the People's Liberation Army Navy base located by the Bund. We then went over to the Pudong side of the river to take some more photos and get some dinner. We went to a Japanese place that, while empty, wasn't bad. They did seat us by the window since I guess they thought that an obvious foreigner (like myself) would drum up customers. We finally took some last pictures of Pudong at night before returning to campus.
One of the delightfully interesting things about tonal languages like Chinese is that you get access to a whole bunch of interesting new forms of word play and puns centered around the tones. While many great scholars in Chinese history have used the tones to write fascinating poetry, modern Chinese netizens just want to say "fuck your mother." In Chinese, a particularly powerful insult to say "fuck your mother," in Chinese characters this is 肏你妈 (mini fun fact: 肏 is considered so offensive that many Chinese don't actually know how to write the proper character since it combines both the characters for enter "入" and meat "肉") and in Chinese Pinyin (the most popular way to romanticize Chinese) cào nǐ mā. Unfortunately for profanity loving Chinese, the government in their efforts to preserve the harmonious internet have made it difficult to find somewhere to curse online. Thankfully, an anonymous user on Baidu Baike discovered the Grass Mud Horse, in Chinese characters 草泥马 and in Pinyin cǎonímǎ. This anonymous user found these mythical creatures in the Mahler Gobi Desert, in characters 马勒戈壁 and in Pinyin Mǎlè Gēbì, resembling the Chinese for "your mother's fucking cunt," in characters 妈了个屄 and in Pinyin māle ge bī. The Grass Mud Horse has really taken off as a Chinese language meme. You can now buy little stuffed Grass Mud Horses, and t-shirts with pictures of Grass Mud Horses underneath the characters "草泥马." Hopefully, the majestic Grass Mud Horse will continue to roam the Mahler Gobi Desert for years to come. |
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
November 2021
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