So How Am I Doing?

August 29, 2008

Rounding up everything I’ve wanted to say, I just want to quickly mention how I am finding all of this. I’d say rough is probably the most appropriate word.

The standard of living here is obviously lower and therefore less comfortable. My room is fine and I think that this is the important thing. I found a cockroach in my shower last night so I will try and start looking into detergents and cleaning agents. All of the buildings in my street, my shared bathroom and conjoining rooms are all pretty fowl. It all looks very make shift and underdeveloped. I don’t think that I am snobby or anything like that but that’s just how things are, pretty derilict.

Everyone speaks Chinese to you and everything (rules of the dormitery, my mobile phone etc.) is in Chinese. This is fine and what should be expected. This situation is very diffcult to live in though, no doubt I have enough Chinese to survive but I only have one person at the school who can speak english to me (Hua) and we only speak it half the time. This makes everything harder and there is so much Chinese around me that I often want to get away from it.

People on the street always stare at you too. I sometimes catch them talking about me as well. Not everyone seem to be very polite either, it’s probably because of my alien status. I’d probably say that everyone is quite friendly but I am the foreigner after all so at the moment it’s like 40/60 with 40% being friendly. I also consistent catch people doing stupid things, whether it is standing in the middle of the road, throwing rubbish out the window or just honking their car/bike horn everywhere they go.

To conclude, basically I have the weight of being an ‘outsider’ as well as living in a lower standard of living. I’m settling in but so far I don’t feel very optimistic. I don’t think that I’ll return here and my enthusiasm to learn the language has wanned. I feel much more comfortable now that I have almost everything down (money, food..). Once I figure out how to manage internet access, laundry and public transport then I will be all set.

Posted in Life | Comments (2)

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Comment by racketboy — September 2, 2008 at 5:30 pm

“People on the street always stare at you too. I sometimes catch them talking about me as well”

Kinda interesting Thanks for sharing all these little details — and I’m glad you’re doing ok!

Comment by Daniel Primed — September 3, 2008 at 9:45 am

Generally speaking it isn’t always like that in ShangHai but because where I live is by no means upper class (below the poverty line, yet still a district of Shanghai), people aren’t use to the foreigners.

I have some interesting commentaries about the games too which I will post up later too. Thanks for your well wishes.