Day 6: Goodbye Xi'an, Hello Shanghai

Prompt: Initial reaction to Shanghai, describe east meets west in Shanghai, describe the home visit, the market visit, and you favorite acrobat act at the show

My first thoughts of Shanghai were that it looked like a China Town maybe in England because of the English architecture and the dialect our tour guide, Sandy, was telling us about. I also thought that it was a little nicer then Xi'an and on the level of Beijing's cleanliness.

The say East meets West describes Shanghai because it has many European and American influences. These influences are here because these countries imperiled that area of China and while they were there they built many buildings while they were there with their architecture style. Also the English language is found in their dialect of Mandarin, because the English were settled here for so long. The Jewish religion is found here, which is not common in the East. Judaism came to Shanghai during WWII when they were trying to escape.

The home visits were very interesting. It was a shock to see how small an average home is for three people. My family has three people and the whole apartment was the size of our living room and half of our dinning room. It was also amazing how open she was so open to us being there and all our questions. I did not know what to ask at first, but later on I did and the answers were surprising.

The market was not what I expected or was used to. Just seeing what I am going to eat move disturbs me. I like things dead when I am going to but them. But the fruits and vegetables looked very tasty. Some people bought cherries, grapes, and bananas.

The acrobats show was pretty cool. The tumbling I found neat but the choreography in between the stunts was so-so, but maybe that is because I am a dancer. I enjoyed the blue cloth thing most, were the people were spinning in the air with the aid of the blue cloth. The motorcycles were cool but did not really interest me.