Land of my Ancestors

I've never saw myself as a blogger, but since this is the best way to update my friends about my life, here goes:

I've been here in Shanghai, China for a little over a week; for those of you don't know, my Pops gave me an opportunity to work for him. It's been a while since I've lived close to my Pops and Mom, and I was very hesitant of doing so. After many months of indecision I finally decided to take the chance and move across the world.

Shanghai is an eye-opening city; the best way of describing it would be to call it the "New York City of the East". Hundreds and hundreds of modern skyscrapers overlooking homes with Chinese architectural details; BMW and Lexus automobiles stopped at a red light while an woman peddles across the street in a old Chinese bicycle made in the 60's; Men dressed in thousand-dollar suits hurrying to work at 7am while an old man dressed in his Mao suit on his morning walk. What a dichotomy...

Although my first week has been an amazing experience, I did get homesick. Of all the things I missed about the US, the most I missed was the diversity. Having grown up in Los Angeles and lived in various parts of America, I was always truly amazed at how multi-ethnic our country is (except Utah...sorry my friends in Utah, but it's true). Walking down the street, taking the bus, the subway, going to the store, all you see is a homogeneous group. I miss seeing blonde hair, brown hair, curly hair; fair skin, chocolate skin, brown skin; blue eyes, green eyes, red eyes (ha, j/k). I miss hearing a different language every time I cross the street or go into a restaurant. I never truly, fully appreciated our diverse country until now. Sure, racism still exists in the US, but the pros definitely outweigh the cons.

That is why for the first few days, when I saw someone that was not Chinese, I would run up to them and started to talk to them. Some people freaked out, some people looked at me weirdly and probably thought "what is wrong with this Chinese guy?", but most were nice enough to humor me and chat with me. My two favorite experiences happened these past few days. A few days ago I was taking the subway to work and I happened to be standing next to a Caucasian man with his Chinese girlfriend. They were making out and touching each other everywhere at 7AM in the morning on a subway that was packed. The Chinese society is still very socially conservative, and you can see how uncomfortable most people felt looking at this couple. I couldn't stop laughing at the situation. When his girlfriend got off the train, I asked him where he was from (thinking he was probably French or Italian because of his love of PDA) but it turned out he was from Spain. I got so excited when I heard that and I started to speak Spanish to him. He was surprised when I started to speak in Spanish, but not as surprised as the other passengers on the train. "What the heck is a Chinese man on the subway in China busting out Spanish?" Our conversation only lasted for a few minutes because he had to get off at his stop.

The second experience was similar and it happened tonight. I was coming home from work, and I saw a man on the subway that looked like he was Latino. I wasn't sure, because most of the people with brown skin here are from Southeast Asia. Again, tired of just speaking Chinese all day, I went to him and started to talk to him in English. He told me he was from Venezuela. Since we got off at the same stop, we just chatted the whole time on the subway in Spanish, cracking jokes, making fun of Chinese people and their driving (there's a reason why they're crazy and insane drivers, but more on that in a later post), talking about our experiences. Again, the whole time all these Chinese people were looking at us in a weird manner and probably thinking "What the heck is going on?" Who would have ever thought I would get to speak Spanish in China?

Well, I apologize for such a long entry; I promise in the future I will keep them shorter, and I will post pictures. I've seen some funky, weird, gross, and hilarious stuff.

Hope everyone is well!