Journeys of a Long Character: Shanghai – My first taste of reverse culture shock

A park in Shanghai.

We are now currently on the tail end of our journey, and Shanghai was our latest stop. We were only there for 2 days so our time there was really relaxed. When riding into Shanghai from Suzhou, I looked at the passing buildings and wondered where all the Chinese characteristic architecture was. We entered Shanghai and it felt like we were back home in the U.S. Crazy. It felt a little bit like San Francisco.

One thing that I have enjoyed extensively about our trip thus far is the weather. (Look at blue skies above.) It is still really cold (in all of my pictures from the past week and a half I am wearing the same warm jacket), but it is a brisk cold that I am used to! Like Reno weather. I can deal with that. Winter in Chengdu is something different. Our apartment wasn’t the best for holding heat and the classrooms were often not heated as well. With the humidity, it was just this damp cold that kind of penetrated and wouldn’t let up. Brisk cold. Yes. Humidity cold. No. And it is only going to be worse in Chengdu for the next couple months. I get to go home where the cold is a little more manageable. Yay!

So, back to Shanghai. We went up the tallest building in Shanghai, the Shanghai World Financial Center, to its observatory and looked at the city during the night. Overwhelming to say the least. It was spectacular. Parts of the floor of the observatory were glass so you could see all the way down to the street below you. Wild. You could see the Bund across the river and the Pearl Tower, the most famous building in Shanghai, lit up. The city was alive. It was amazing.

Shanghai World Financial Center, observatory at the top!

And this is what you get to see.

Look at the Bund!

Glass floors, not as scary as I thought it would be.

After we left the tower, I walked around, yes, another pedestrian street, and got a small feel of urban Shanghai. I was able to just soak in the experience and people watch and write in my small memory journal. Moments like that are priceless.

Awesome pedestrian street.

The next day was the French Concession and actually walking the Bund. Wow! This is where the reverse culture shock really started to kick in. So many foreigners. And none of them speaking Chinese. The atmosphere, the people, the general feel of Shanghai was not of the China that I have come to know. Each city has its own character but remains essentially Chinese. Shanghai didn’t necessarily have that feeling for me. It might be a little rougher going home than I first thought. But it’s all a part of the experience right?