Hi!
I have just finished a busy few days, but there are more to come!
Last week, while the undergraduate students were attending the UNDP conference organised by Fudan, I joined up with the cultural exchange group. This entailed partnering up with another post-graduate level American student, by the name of Deep (short for Pradeep), and meeting with a group of four to five Chinese University students each day for a variety of activities.
The morning session were run by us. Fortunately the programme provided suggested topics and activities for the 'lesson', but we met each night beforehand to run through which activities we would use or introduce our own. The topics we covered over the three days were dating, marriage, and non-verbal communication. It was quite interesting to explore the similarities and differences between Chinese, US American, and Australian perspectives.
We would then have lunch together and later do some activities arranged by the Chinese students in the afternoon. These activities included a hospital visit to spend time with elderly and dying patients and a trip into one of the tourist areas. On Friday afternoon we attended some of the UNDP international team presentations.
Having received the brief for the written component of the course, Friday night and Saturday morning I spent reading and preparing for these. I sent a suggested topic to the resident director and await his considered response. I will do some more work tonight.
Also on Saturday I tried to work out, with the help of our Chinese associate, the bus connections required to get to church for the vigil mass. I got the buses alright but unfortunately it put me at the wrong end of a very long walk to the Church. I will have to revise the route for next week.
I met the music team that performed on Saturday night and will practice with them over the next two Saturday's (at 3pm prior to mass). Another group is performing the next two weeks, so my one and only performance at St Peter's Shanghai will be in three weeks. Don't miss it!!
In addition I met with an Australian couple, Robert and Julie Wiseman, who are living in Shanghai for a few years with work. Julie's name was on the noticeboard as the Australian contact for the parish. We went for a drink and a chat and may meet up again before I leave, although Julie is going home to Melbourne for two weeks holiday.
Today we visited the Shanghai urban planning centre. They have a very impressive model of a large part of Shanghai showing all the buildings to scale, as well as exhibits on the subway system that is being built, the new satellite city extensions and other infrastructure projects. It is all very well presented. Perhaps we could do this in Australian cities.
In the afternoon we again visited the international church for the evangelicals (which is the rest of the group) before heading to the same restaurant as last week to meet more ex-pat residents and have dinner. This restaurant is more expensive that the usual Shanghai fare, but that still translates to about $AU10 per head.
Strangely, last night and again at dinner tonight I had someone quiz me on Catholicism and the differences from their brand of Christianity. Perhaps they are trying to save my soul(?) or their own, but I find some of their comments on their own beliefs a little worrying.
Anyway, I have had some opportunities to practice my language skill and seem to be understood more easily now by the locals, which is a plus. I still have a lot of vocabulary to learn, however. I trust the other academic pursuits don't impact the language side.
That's all for now. I have some more photo's to post, but the internet has been unavailable at the hotel for the past day or so and the PC's are only just tonight available. One PC died a couple of morning's ago but is now fixed, so they were down to one public terminal for a while - that got a little difficult. I'll try to get the photo's posted soon. If you haven't already, check out the photo's to date at http://picasaweb.google.com/SMP.Donovan/China
Bye for now!
Sean
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