Tiger's mom spoke to him in English, but to little effect. The two and a half year old, as we later learned, was a barrel of a child. At no less than 50 lbs his stout mother could barely contain him let alone pick him up. His nearly shaved head and 6 inch tail of hair in the back added to his young sumo wrestler image. Mom's inability to handle him physically gave Tiger free reign within the confines of his window seat. This included climbing the curtains, temper tantrums ameliorated with a one liter Nalgene sized bottle, and frequent tugging matches with the handle on the back of Ben's seat.

One a couple occasions I made polite conversation with Tiger's mom, yes that is his real name. I even tried talking to him, but he met my attempt with an stone faced stare that proclaimed his indifference for my existence. Determined not to be intimidated by a two year old, I held his stare. Soon he bored of the effort, glanced at his mom long enough to smile and went back to reefing on Ben's seat.

His antics were briefly interrupted by our first stop. He leaned over his mom to watch the departing passengers. As 5-7 year old boy came by with his parents Tiger struck with his first startling the boy and provoking apologies from Tiger's mom.

Ben took the opportunity to change seats rather than endure the wrath of young Tiger for the remainder of the ride. Despite wining the staring contest, I must admit that the boy was intimidating. I hope he doesn't grow up into as big a bully as he appeared to be on our 90 minute bus ride.

Tiger remains copyright of the author towangle, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

All the while the bus continued making stops, quickly filling up the remaining seats. As older passengers got on, younger passengers were quick to give up their seats. At the next stop I took my chance and let an older gentleman take my seat and removed the backpack so as not to club any of the other standing passengers. My new guardian would have nothing of this. She climbed out of her seat and in no uncertain terms ordered me to take her seat. Using my lone Korean phrase said, "thank you", and sheepishly sat down. For the remainder of the trip her five foot minus frame stood guard over me and my assigned seat. Soon we arrived at the bus station. I quickly thanked her again and escaped off the bus.

My Korean Mother remains copyright of the author towangle, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We had small side dishes of corn, greens, lotus root and a bowl of rice. The main dish was a large steel bowl of tender fish in oil with peppers and other seasonings. Though the meal could have fed 3-4 people we did our best to finish it off.

My Chinese was and is still far from conversational. She would teach me a few words and phrases here and there, but for the most part we relied on here significant English capabilities to learn about each other's background and culture.

Born in 1977, she is a year younger than me, but in China you are considered 1-year old when you are born, making us both 31. She is just old enough to be born before the advent of the One Child Policy and has a younger brother. The mother of a 23-month old son, she dislikes the One Child Policy, though she is not interested in having a second child any time soon. She and her husband live with his parents, allowing them both to work full time and rarely have to prepare meals. Her husband works as an IT manager and she is the assistant manager of a steel import/export company. Eventually she would like to open her own import export business.

In college Judy studied English, but she never had a chance to travel abroad and immerse herself in the language. As such she can read and write quite well, but there were times when our spoken communication broke down. That said we had lively conversations and I enjoyed hearing her perceptions of and opinions on the US and the world.

Whether it is the media, Bush, Clinton or Hollywood, big names and big institutions get much credit and much blame. For all the positive social changes popularized by Hollywood, movies and television have also exaggerated many negative stereotypes about people in the US. At one point Judy asked me about social interactions between men and women in the US, essentially questioning the impression that in the US people are very promiscuous. Is it true that people people meet, kiss and have sex on the first date? While this may be true for some people, it is far from the norm. Still this perception is common in many countries around the world, which can create awkward situations when romantic interests Americans do not progress as quickly as they do in the movies.

Judy was also curious why people in the United States are still prejudiced against women and blacks. That was a challenging question to field given language limitations and the significant variability in prejudices among people within the United States. In a nut shell, I tried to clarify that we all have prejudices and while the US has a long way to go as far to eliminate racial and sexual bigotry, we have also made a lot of progress, particularly in the past 60 years.

For me prejudice usually connotes racial bigotry, but feelings of prejudice or pre-judgement can easily apply to other groups as well. To be able to address prejudice on a societal level one first must be able to recognize it in one's self. I won't air my laundry list here, but I know that I harbor my fair share of negative opinions about some segments of American society. My opinions are part belief, part past experience and part lack of understanding for some points of view. As such I am inclined to pre-judge some people based on their political leanings or religious affiliation.

Interestingly Judy made no secret of disliking Indians and Japanese. She recalled an experience where she replied to a language exchange post similar to mine. The English speaker was a business man from India who was really looking for a Chinese girlfriend. This was not Judy's interest at all, and tarnished her view of Indians. As for Japan, the Chinese frequently protest Japan's unwillingness to apologize for atrocities committed against the Chinese and others during the World War II and Judy is no exception. Half teasing, I tried to give her a hard time for being prejudice, but she denied that it was prejudice at all. Unfortunately our language skills were not broad enough to explore the semantics of her assertions. While the prejudice in her remarks was blatant, I am sure her opinions and dislikes are more nuanced than she was able to communicate.

Since we did not connect until the very end of my time in Shanghai, we only met once. Since then we have exchanged a couple emails. I am in the middle of trying to explain the stereotype that Americans begin and end friendships as is convenient. In Asian countries and places where people tend to stay in the same place all their lives, friendships take a long time to build and are not lightly discarded. Examining the sources of American stereotypes is one of my favorite parts of these cultural exchanges.

Chinese Business Woman remains copyright of the author towangle, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

At this point there are fifty different projects to choose from - all of them worthy causes. It costs nothing to register.

My vote was for
Micro Loans for Mothers in 3rd World Countries

Do you have American Express? remains copyright of the author towangle, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Passportsandvisas.com was perhaps the most helpful in terms of addressing Frequently Asked Questions...

After the fact I found the Lonely Planet forums to be a good place to look for a wide range of visa scenarios.

While the visa extension process reportedly varies from place to place, the procedure below is based on my experience in Shanghai (July 2007).

Where to go...
The Public Security Bureau (PSB) handles visa, passport and other registration issues. The Shanghai PSB is in Pudong, very close to the Science and Technology Museum which conveniently has a Metro stop along Line 2.

When to go...
Early. The PSB is open from 9:00 – 17:00, but most workers take a lunch between 11:30 and 13:30. I arrived at 11:00 and had to wait for over an hour – this turned out to be a good thing, because I needed to get a passport photo, fill out the visa form and make copies of my paperwork.

What to take...
1) Valid Passport and Visa
2) Original and copy of the certificate of check-in in Shanghai (this could be from your hotel or the police substation for the area in which you are staying)
3) Passport photo (available on the 1st floor of the PSB building)
4) Travel itinerary showing when you plan to leave China

What to do when you arrive...
Visa applications are handled on the third floor. On the first floor you can get a sheet of six (6) passport photos for $30 RMB. There are copy stations on each floor. One photo copy was $1 RMB. All signs inside the building are in English and Chinese, so it is not difficult to find your way around.

1) Take a Number
At the top of the escalator to the third floor is an attendant who will hand you a printed ticket showing your number in the queue.

2) Get an information sheet for your visa type
To the right of the ascending escalator is a counter with informational sheets describing the application process for each visa type. The sheets are printed in Chinese on the front and English on the back. (see below)

3) Fill out a Visa and Residence Permit Application Form
To the left of the ascending escalator is a waiting area and a counter to fill out forms. Fill in as much information as you can on the front. Sign, date and fill in your phone number on the back. For a visa extension, I did not have to complete items 6 through 10 on the back side of the form (see blank form below).

4) Attach your passport photo to the form
Glue is provided at the form counter to affix your passport picture to the visa form.

5) Wait
Keep an eye on the reader boards above the waiting area that show which desk to go to when it is your turn. If you miss your turn, you have to start at the end of the queue. Double check that you have filled out the form correctly.

6) It’s your turn...
Give your paperwork to the attendant. Assuming everything is in order, he/she will take your passport and paperwork and give you a receipt. The processing time for my visa extension was one (1) week. For more money I probably could have had it expedited.

7) Pick up your passport
Return to the PSB, take a number and pick up your passport (I haven’t done this part yet). My receipt indicates that I will have to pay $160 RMB for the extension.

Other Notes
Don’t let your visa expire. It is much more difficult to get a new visa than to get an extension of an existing one. There are usually fees involved for those who over-stay their visa.

Many suggest avoiding large cities, like Shanghai or Beijing, and small cities when dealing with the PSB. Mid sized cities tend to be much for friendly and helpful.

Another common warning is to not apply for an extension until the end of your current visa. Your extension begins from the date of application. Any remaining days on your original visa are lost. see lonely planet forum thread

For students, here is the Visa Instructions sheet...

Extending a Chinese Tourist Visa remains copyright of the author towangle, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Over the years I have picked up bits and pieces about China’s One Child Policy (OCP), but until this week really didn't know much about it. While there are still many unknowns, Professor Binfords classes opened a window into Chinese society.

First promulgated around 1980, the goal of the OCP was to achieve zero population growth by the year 2000 and government statistics declare it a success. The policy stemmed the traditionally high birth rates (5.81 births/woman in 1970) encouraged in the 1960’s and 70’s by Mao Zedong, and brought China to near zero population growth.

While addressing overpopulation was viewed by many as a positive step for China, the country has been criticized for how the OCP has been and continues to be implemented. Local governments are responsibile for ensuring compliance with the OCP. The result has been inconsistent enforcement and abusive tactics due to national pressure on local officials.

To understand the means of enforcement as well as consequences of the OCP, it is important to grasp the nature of China’s registration system. As a Chinese citizen you are required to register at birth, marriage and death. A person must be registered to attend school, receive social welfare benefits, get married, attain legal employment, and to have a child. Registration also costs money, frequently more than many rural families can afford.

Registered married couples in cities are allowed one child. Rural and minority families may have two if the first is a girl. There are a few exceptions to these rules, but the permits cost money. In one province a person who qualifies to have second child must pay $500 for the permit. This is half the average annual income in China and 10 times the average annual income in rural areas.

For families desiring multiple children and for those that cannot afford the registration process or permits, the only option is to have a child “out of plan.” Violations of the OCP are punished harshly. The offending couple are usually strongly “encouraged” to have the pregnancy aborted. Methods of encouragement may include disqualification of social welfare benefits, administrative demotion, deprivation of farmland, withholding of family food rations, beatings, forced late-term abortions, and forced sterilization. One village razed the homes of six pregnant women with out of plan children and forbade local residents from sheltering the now homeless women.

While such treatment is egregious, perhaps more devastating in the long term repercussions for children born out of plan. Such children are ineligible to register with the government. This is the equivalent in the U.S. of being denied the ability to ever have a birth certificate or social security number. Out of plan child are disqualified from all state subsidized services including education and health care. In the eyes of the government, they do not exist.

But the unregistered do exist and in large numbers. Studies suggest that well over half the rural population of China is unregistered. A statistical analysis indicated a 40% error for a census conducted in a rural province due to the exclusion of the unregistered. It is unknown how many of the unregistered are children, but some estimates are in the 100’s of millions.

While the Chinese government has acknowledged that there are problems with the policy, there is little indication that there will be a significant shift in tactics any time soon. One problem is that the country’s weak social welfare system is struggling just to support its registered population, let alone handle the millions of unregistered. Additionally, the frenetic growth in the last 20+ years has only been possible with China’s abundant supply of cheap labor.

Since the late 1970’s the Chinese economy has been shifting away from state run work units responsible for providing employment, housing, food and health care for its workers, to a market driven economy that allows an increasing number of private enterprises who are only responsible for providing employment. Given the pace of the shift, the transition has been remarkably smooth, though not without cost. To avoid punishment by the government millions of unregistered workers must settle for low paying and often dangerous jobs. Shanghai is nearly finished constructing the world’s tallest building. The 24/7 construction schedules for this and other projects often rely on the cheap labor available from unregistered workers who have illegally migrated to Shanghai so they can eek out $1/day working 12 hours a day 7 days a week.

The unregistered population issue in China has more than a few parallels with the United States’ struggle to address illegal immigration. In the political sphere, there are those who argue that the unregistered/illegal immigrants should be given an opportunity to be full members of society. Since the vast majority of non-citizens are hard working and would chose to be lawful participants in society, why not give them that opportunity. Others maintain that non-citizens chose to disobey establish rules and should not be rewarded for doing so.

A significant difference between China’s and U.S.’s scenarios is that children born in the U.S. have a right to a birth certificate, whereas out of plan children in China are forever relegated to the status of unregistered. As such they are more susceptible to trafficking and enslavement for work and/or more licentious purposes.

This Washington Post article is a good follow-up read if you are interested.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/23/AR2007012300398.html

In response to some foreign critics, China has published an interview discussing its general strategy for population control. http://www.china.org.cn/english/2002/Oct/46138.htm

Wikipedia provides a fairly comprehensive overview as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy

One Child Policy remains copyright of the author towangle, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Ryan is 21 and in his last year of university. He lives with his mom and grandmother on the Puxi side of town, just north of the East China University of Politics and Law (ECUPL) where Stacy has classes. Though he is an only child he has a few cousins close by who he refers to as sisters. Dad hasn’t been in the picture for a while. Fortunately for me Ryan has been studying English for nearly 10-years and was more than able to negotiate a time and place to meet in English. Through a series of cell phone text messages we were able to connect on the ECUPL campus early Monday morning.

We met up three times last week for a few hours each time in the afternoon. While I got some much needed language practice, my interest in learning more about the culture and politics of China and Shanghai tended to trump my language practice. When my brain tired of trying to hear and repeat the different tones, I fell back to English and explored the details of Chinese life through his eyes.

joe
Often we were joined by Stacy or one of her classmates on break (or skipping class to avoid an uninteresting lecture). We hit on topics like food, health care, news coverage, standard of living, minimum wage, pollution of waterways, using roundabouts instead of signalized intersections, credit cards, saving money, houses vs. apartments, pirated software, earthquakes, the apparent rudeness of Chinese people, and frequently his dissatisfaction with life in Shanghai / China.

Like many people in their early 20’s in both China and the US, Ryan is disillusioned with government and media. Coming of age in a world filled with hypocrisies and injustice is enough to make anyone wish for the greener grass that must exist outside.

Surely more equitable places to live than Shanghai exist, but the discouragement I sense in Ryan could be found anywhere in the world. As a future mechanical engineer, he will be better off than most. Still, the idea of joining the rat race and being stuck in a position in which he has little control over the political and economic systems in which he must subsist is understandably disheartening.

I am curious to see how our relationship develops over my remaining two weeks here in Shanghai. As time allows, I will explore some of the conversations mentioned above in future posts.

Cultural / Language Exchange remains copyright of the author stacyacy, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Also, some of our favorite sayings/ mistranslations, etc:

When asked a question by a student, one professor asked if the student was Canadian. When the student said yes, the professor responded that he could not answer questions from Canadians. We finally figured out he could not understand the Canadian accent! After the next student asked a question, the professor responded, "This is a very good question... because I understand it."

One rather large foreigner kept getting approached by Chinese people asking his wife how many bowls of rice does he eat each day? The wife's favorite comment was: "His parents must own a rice factory. There's no other explanation." (Luckily the husband did not speak Mandarin.)

And my favorite ancient Chinese philosophy about marriage (at least for women who were not allowed to apply for divorce): "If you marry a chicken, you must follow a chicken forever."

After today I will be half done with my program!

Quick Notes Before Class remains copyright of the author stacyacy, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Even though my first pass-through occurs at about 7 am, the park is crowded with people of all ages flying kites and exercising in many forms from badminton and tai chi to hacky-sack and dancing. Tai chi is a form of slow moving shadow boxing which seems to be done almost exclusively by those over 60. There are so many practitioners, I find myself winding my way in-between to get past. Everyone seems to know the value of movement.

The subway rides are still novel, too. Each stop sports about 8 entrances and the underground portion is at least two large city blocks long (Chicago blocks, not Portland blocks). Shops line the walkways, making a whole underground mall at each subway stop. It gives me something to look at while I walk –the pastries in particular are so beautiful Pix Patisserie in Portland could learn some things (sorry, Tom) ...but I’ve yet to try any to compare the content. Most desserts here contain red beans which I enjoy, but they’re not quite the Queen of Sheeba (a wonderful chocolate dessert from Pix). For coffee fans, there’s even a red bean frappucino.

Traffic - cars, bicycles and pedestrian - seems to have a philosophy rather than rules. Everyone seems to go where there is space to go and toot their horn to let you know they are there. The number of bikes on the road would put the critical mass movements in San Francisco or Portland to shame, though about half are motorized. The refreshing part is that no one seems to feel entitled to a right of way and therefore no one seems to get upset about anything like getting cut off, passed or bumped (pedestrian for the last one). I doubt road rage is a phrase here. The downside, for lack of a better word, is a statistic a professor noted - the reported 370,000 accidents and 89,000 traffic deaths in a recent year. Maybe the system is best suited for pedestrians.

The construction happening is amazing. Erin and Nick told us builders often work 2 – 12 hour shifts so you can literally see significant changes overnight. If you left for five years, you may not recognize the city when you return. I pass the construction of what rumors say will be the new world’s tallest building on my way to school and have already seen notable progress.

I still get frequent stares everywhere I go. They are hard to define – not threatening, nor flattering, nor even do they really seem curious. It seems perhaps a bit as if I’m an animal in a zoo and maybe an uninteresting one at that. This surprised me a lot in such a large metropolitan area but looking around Puxi there are not many Caucasians. Today I laughed because I realized I was surprised to still be getting stares – as if I expected the city to get used to me as I was getting used to it.

Classes are very interesting, though perhaps a bit more lecture than I would like (entirely, that is). I know I should count my blessings - I remember praying for lecture at times during the past year of Socratic method. The lectures are more interesting than most as we have different professors coming each day to discuss their expertises. Also the daily change in topics to differing aspects of Chinese Law helps shake things up. I already have a short exam Monday morning for part of my grade and then in the afternoon we will observe a trial. Joe will hopefully be able to tag along for the field trip.

That is about all for now... I hope everyone is well! Happy Birthday, Grandma!

One Week Complete! remains copyright of the author stacyacy, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs