#VivienLin

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Week 11: Explore！

"Is Shanghai fun?", my uncle had asked me in the first week during May. My first impression of Shanghai had been its sheer size, so big I didn't know how to start exploring. Now, with less than two weeks left here, my answer to that question is a confident YES! To recollect my memories of the fleeting moments, I dug into my photo album and saw familiar faces and recognizable landmarks belonging to the different cities I've traveled to. For this week's blog, I want to share some of my experiences here (and tempt you to come to China). Now let's get to it!

May

The first month was all about exploring Shanghai, before classes started to hit and the electric fan started to blow warm air. It was about overcoming unfamiliarity with a new environment and making new friends as walls came down, revealing lively personalities. There were times when conversations dropped, replaced with awkward silence. Later, I became comfortable with the group's silence at times like when we crammed and stressed over our approaching midterms, or when we're so tired we collapsed on the hotel's beds and napped the day away, or when everyone scrolled on their phones as we stood, squatted, and inched forward on the super long line for one short and bumpy ride. With the new friends I made here, and my cousin who's doing the same program, and my other uncle who was vacationing in China and joined me for a bit, I explored a lot of places and got to know them all better. I experienced the magical air of Shanghai Disney, witnessed the frantic bike rush after class, got good canteen food with my buddy and classmates, explored the other SJTU campus at XuHui district, and held a concert glow stick for the first time at a meetup with a Shanghainese friend.

Between studying for classes and enjoying the summer, I have chosen my priority. I went from taking the ambitious 12 credits to doing the bare minimum 6 credits. My mindset changed as I realized I can take classes anywhere anytime, but I only plan to study abroad this one time in my undergrad years. I am not good at multitasking to handle both classes and traveling, so I made my choice. I'll have fun in China and lock in when I'm back in Ann Arbor. With my classes down to Calculus 3 and a Chinese culture class, I'm aiming to get A++ for both classes!

June

June was the rainy season. Shanghai became wet and humid, unfavorable weather conditions for biking, so I rode on cabs a lot. My traveling outside of Shanghai peaked this month, and my photo album overloaded from all the picture spamming during the weekend trips. I wrote three travel blogs during this time. Over the Dragon Boat Festival weekend, I traveled to Qingdao and Yantai and saw a memorable sunset over the bay. I came back on Monday and had the holiday food ZongZi (glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves that can have sweet red bean paste or salty pork belly for fillings) for dinner.

Scrolling down my June album as I write, on the following week, I took an hour long subway to Qipu Lu (七浦路) to shop for Qipao. I have something to share about the marketing and sales here. At one of the first stores we visited, we decided to look around more and compare our options before paying hundreds of RMB on a traditional Chinese dress. However, the owner was not chill about it and began to persuade us to buy the Qipao by offering more discounts. Despite our assurances that we would come back, she insisted we were her first customers and that it would bring bad luck for the day's business if we left without purchasing. Sellers can't force customers into buying, so she eventually had to see us go. That was my first time in Shanghai watching and experiencing such direct sales tactics. Anyways, we ended up getting our Qipaos at another store and dressed up for Suzhou :)

Later in June, I went to Hangzhou twice, once on a program trip to the water-town Wuzhen (乌镇), and the other time I visited the West Lake (西湖) with my roommate. Here are some pictures, some of which I'm stealing from my previous blogs.

Shanghai

Yantai

Suzhou

Hangzhou

July

July was when I brainstormed indoor activities to avoid the heat. I wanted the rain back. I would gladly welcome the dull cloudy sky, the humid weather, and even the puddle splashes that stained my shoes, anything but the glaring sun. Despite the heat, I traveled every weekend. In the following order, I went to Changzhou (常州), Changsha (长沙), Nanjing (南京) & Yangzhou (扬州), and Fuzhou (福州).

This is Changzhou, where I went up the tallest pagoda in the world.

2. Changsha really surprised me.

It's even more crowded than Shanghai and has a vibrant night life. We arrived in the morning and checked into a cute family room that has a rocking horse seat, mini teepee, and astronaut themed decorations on the wall. We napped for hours and came out at around 5pm to see the city.

Changsha is known for their good food. I missed their 果呀呀 fruit teas and 茶颜悦色 milk teas topped with whipping cream. I also had the authentic ChangSha stinky tofu, and it didn't smell as strong as the ones in other cities.

We waited for the DuFu River Pavilion to light up at 7:30pm. It was built to remember the famous poet DuFu from the Tang dynasty, and here's a screenshot from the video as we counted down.

We saw the gigantic sculpture of Chairman Mao below.

3. Nanjing and Yangzhou

Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall and Museum

4. Fuzhou was to see family, bring luggage to make moving out easier, and rest at home.

Okay, that's all on traveling. I've been exploring China for almost three months now, and there are still so many places I want to visit. Seeing giant pandas before I leave is one of my wishes, and I'll be able to fulfill that soon at Chengdu next week!! I had hoped to give helpful tips for planning weekend trips and crafting itineraries, but my writing power is faltering, so I think I'll save them for another time :) 拜拜!

Vivien Lin

Computer Engineering

UM-Shanghai Jiaotong University Joint Institute

[umichenginabroad]

Week 10: Impressions of China

Hello hello! For this week’s blog, I wanted to talk about my before and after impressions of China. I’ve been to China a couple of times over the past summer breaks and mostly stayed in my family's hometown in Fuzhou which is at the country's southeast corner. It's very nostalgic to think about the town where neighbors invite each other to their house and everyone seems to know each other. The locals would see my new face and instantly recognize I'm a stranger. If news hadn't spread to them that a family from one block had returned and brought their grand-daughters on summer vacation, then they could easily tell I'm a foreigner from my denim shorts and tennis shoes. Because of my familiarity with Fuzhou, I experienced less cultural shock this summer but I’ll try my best to be helpful and break down some observations and differences between life here and back in the US. 

People Everywhere

Whether it's the home I stayed in Tennessee or the home I moved to during middle school in Michigan, both have huge green lawns with a wide space separating the neighbors. China, however, is more compressed and densely populated. The local park where kids played badminton while older aunties blasted loud music and gathered for square dance (广场舞) as a form of exercise, the ice cream shop that had the most flavors, and the food market where my grandma searched for the freshest produce and seafood for the day's menu— they're all walkable distances within the town. When I'm too lazy to walk, I would beg my grandpa to take me on his motorcycle or wave over one of those cycle rickshaws on the street. Ironically, my first impression of Shanghai is how everywhere is most definitely not a friendly walkable distance from my dorm, especially with the summer heat. The locals warned, "it gets worse in July and August!" The suburban area of Shanghai where I live and study is more peaceful compared to the bustling downtown which always seems to be awake with fancy city lights.

Dorm vs. Downtown Shanghai

Regardless if it’s in the small corner of suburbs or in the less developed towns, there’s always people. This is one of China’s main qualities. In my grandparents' town, the people sleep early and get up early to start business and catch the early morning market. Here, the students are night owls and frequently pull off all-nighters to catch deadlines. SJTU is a top-notch university, so classes are intense and the students have to be very academically-driven to meet the expectations.

Spread of Tourism

Many places have been turned into developed cities adapted for tourism, and it’s become a great challenge to take pictures of sites without getting anyone in the frame. I had to angle my phone toward the sky to avoid the crowds at the bottom. To prove my point,

Most of these tourist places are clean and well-managed, but there are some night markets that are littered with empty takeout containers and napkins and I can smell the public restrooms before I see them. The restrooms in China are not comparable to those in the US, except the ones in expensive shopping malls. They usually have squat toilets and don’t provide toilet paper in the stall, so packing travel-size tissue packs is a must. Last touch on tourism, I feel like as China becomes fancier, it’s simultaneously losing its authenticity. Tourism helps speed up the city development and brings profit to the regional government that can be distributed to further renovation projects. It’s inevitable that things are going to look and feel different than the past. But because of city remodeling, there are more things to do and more fun to have :) I do think each city I've seen is unique with their special tourist attractions and city landscape.

I just realized I never really talked about my outings in Shanghai, so I'm going to drop some pictures here!

Above you can see Pearl Tower, which is basically proof you've been to Shanghai. I lowered the brightness to make the color contrast stand out.

More Shanghai's landmarks!

International Students' Perspective of China

I am taking a Chinese Cultural class along with other Umich wolverines and international students. It's very interesting to listen to the international students' impressions of China. Cultural shock hits most to them who came from other countries without a Chinese family background. They described the Chinese people as calm and emotionless, to which the teacher responded the locals will get full of emotions if the subject is on tests and GPA. Real. The calm part was emphasized with multiple examples of traffic accidents, where two bikers crashed and asked if each is okay and then parted in separate ways, like nothing had happened.

My observations:

Chinese people are generally more reserved and minded less on the polite thank you's and how are you's (how are you's are often replaced with "have you eaten")

People don't hold doors for others

People don't always follow the first-come-first-serve rule. My grandpa had laughed at me for trying to line up to buy pan fried meat-bun when people squeezed in and yelled their order

It's intimidating almost to step into the clothing stores at the shopping malls because the salespeople can be overly enthusiastic to sell their items

Prices are not always set, even when there is a price tag!! It's sometimes possible to negotiate for more discounts if you try hard enough! (not that I have the skill)

Sun protection is a big thing! People invest in sunscreen and sun protection jackets/umbrellas/hats.

Cigarette smell is pervasive

Foreigner Disadvantage

Despite English is being taught as a second language since first grade and being tested on the important standardized test (高考) that determines what universities students can get in, people don't use English in daily lives. Speaking English attracts attention and curiosity and can make foreigners an easy target for the greedy minds. Those people can tell you're unfamiliar with the market price and charge extra. There may be other sketchy deals that they will try to drag you into, so it's best to keep information confidential. When cab drivers and shop employees are curious and ask where I'm from, I just tell them I study in Shanghai. It's safer to reveal less when it's not necessary.

I realized that the more I see, the less I grow to appreciate the sites. Maybe it's the glaring sun combined with my failing vision that made me squint at the scenes or maybe there's another very likely possibility. Maybe I've seen too much of the same things that I've gotten tired of the repetitive content. Below is the Slender West Lake (瘦西湖) in Yangzhou that looks similar to the West Lake (西湖) I've seen in Hangzhou. I didn't find the views to be particularly striking until I sent them to friends and family and their comments reminded me of how pretty the scenes are. I won't be able to see them back in the US, but they will stay in my photo album forever.

This summer has been very productive in terms of exploring, and traveling to cities has helped expand my mental map of China. I hope my blogging has helped you see some parts of China and make you feel excited to explore it if you plan to come!

Until next time!

Vivien Lin

Computer Engineering

UM-Shanghai Jiaotong University Joint Institute

[umichenginabroad]

Week 8: Thoughts...

Time flew by so fast. We’re already into July, the super hot summer month the locals warned of, and this means I’m two thirds into my program. My previous blogs had focused on traveling around and describing the cities I’ve visited. This time, I think I’ll write in the moment, opening up a little more about myself and sharing some thoughts and reflections I’ve had since coming here. 

Having the shy and slow at opening up personality combo, it can take months to get to know me underneath my calm mask. The before and after impressions of me can seem like a drastic change, but I promise I wasn’t purposefully pretending to be the shy, nice girl at the very beginning :)) Being nice seems to be the safest option with people I just met because it’s unclear to me what jokes can be passed off as jokes that make sound laughters and not something that cross the boundary and trigger the sensitive spots. 

I consider myself to be easily see-through, but at the same time personalities are hard to read. It's simple and also complicated that sometimes I feel like I don’t even know myself so I have no expectations for others to read me thoroughly. Regardless, I have gotten to know groups of people with a variety of personalities this summer. There are the assertive ones who have a strong sense of direction in pursuing their interests, unbothered by the outside world, and there are the followers who would sacrifice their interests and preferences to go with the group consensus. I, without a doubt, have always been a follower. I’m okay with this, as long as I'm not yielding too much to do something I’m not comfortable with.  Usually, I spend more money on a group outing than solo traveling. The expenses go up but the experience makes up for it. However, don’t always be so ready to satisfy other people’s wants. Also consider yours and say no when you have to. When interests conflict within a group, it's okay to split up. After-all, the most important part is that you’re enjoying the moment. This is one of my main takeaways from going on group outings.

With plans unfolding and adjusting to different schedules, I’ve become much more flexible than I used to be. I can sacrifice sleep for late night talks and get up at my first alarm for an early flight. You have to understand that I followed a strict sleep schedule before coming to college and this inner clock system demanded when I needed to go to bed. Anyways, I got better at staying awake late past midnight. Other than sacrificing sleep, I’ve become more flexible on trying out new things and tagging along with the group. Many of us are eager to optimize our study abroad experience, so we’ve been traveling to new places and expanding our mental map of China. The weekend trips can be particularly draining for me and I would come back and rest in my dorm, not going out for the whole day. As an introvert, I have a relatively low battery and I think I'm also innately lazy (I like to stay home and rest). I love to hang out with the friends I make here and traveling with them has been fun, but I do have an energy limit. Last time I came back from a trip with a heat stroke, I called a cab to a shopping mall nearby and grabbed a massage chair in the middle row and watched Inside Out 2 on the next day. Movie after a good nap :) I should've gotten popcorn. It smelled so SWEET, but I didn't think I could finish it all by myself.

I'm gonna squeeze in some pics of ChangZhou (常州), which I visited last weekend, starting here.

I paid 50 rmb to take the elevator to the top observatory floor of Tianning Pagoda (天宁宝塔), the tallest pagoda in the world, and got somewhat of a birds eye view of the city.

We also went to a white rabbit candy store in this shopping mall and there I spotted the most bizarre flavor that I could ever imagine.

It's green but not the matcha kind of green! IT'S WASABI GREEN!! I took one home out of curiosity but it remained untouched. Maybe I'll do a lucky draw and whoever grabs it out of the candy bag gets to try it ;)

This summer I learned I do fear heights. When our tiny car stopped at the peak of the ferris wheel, I was so still in my seat my shoulder and back ached a little.

From my weekend trips, I improved on planning itineraries and navigating around to places. I think it's important to do some research pre-traveling to know what options there are. In China, I rely on RED for that. It is also fine to do in the moment planning which can be easily done with this app call 大众点评 (DianPing) that shows the local restaurants, hotels, entertainment activities, and basically the potential places I could go within my vicinity. Traveling has helped me become familiar with the transportation systems and their general procedure. Some cities are so close to Shanghai that I took the subway for an hour and a half to get to the train station and the train ride was only 20 minutes long (that was to Suzhou).

From time to time, when I'm back at my dorm, I miss my family. They've always been supporting me unconditionally, making sure everything's going good and worrying about me running out of money to spend here. I've been FaceTiming them, sharing stories happening here and listening to how they've been. I'll be able to see my grandparents soon after this program ends, and then I'll be bringing out gifts and souvenirs for my friends and family in the US.

This is one of the rare blogs where I use more first-person and write openly and honestly about myself. It’s been two months since I arrived in Shanghai, and I have learned so much I don’t think I could wait and save all of my takeaways for the final, end-of-the-program reflection post. That's a future problem to worry about. I do have to go back to studying for Calc now, so goodbye! 

Vivien Lin

Computer Engineering

UM - Shanghai Jiaotong University Joint Institute

[umichenginabroad]

Week 7: Rainy Day in Hangzhou

Rain droplets trickled down the lotus leaves and splashed on the lily pads. I watched closely at the lively activities happening at the lotus pond, where the duck families swam under the umbrella leaves and occasionally stepped out of the water to trudge on the lily pads. A classic Chinese story, Legend of the White Snake, takes place at this famous lake. The West Lake (西湖) has a unique calming scenery on a rainy day. As Shanghai embraces its rainy season, with everyday making me want to sleep and keep sleeping, so does its neighboring city Hangzhou. 

Last week I promised to cover Suzhou but I decided it’s better to talk about Hangzhou instead :) I’ve been there twice already and the trips are more recent so I have more to talk about!

Before I leave Shanghai, I would do some pre-planning on the RED app which has lots of useful posts on where to tour and what to do. I found one titled "How to tour 西湖 without breaking a leg", and it provided a detailed map of the lake with the recommended route about its sceneries. The romance between a kind-hearted man named Xu Xian (许仙) and the female snake spirit Bai Suzhen (白素贞) unfolds here.

In the image below, you could see the peak of the new Leifeng Tower (雷峰塔). The story ends with the white snake being imprisoned here by the Buddhist monk Fahai, and in the aftermath, her husband Xu Xian became a monk at the temple to stay close to her.

Too lazy to walk under the showering sky, we hopped on a tourist bus that took us to the biggest lotus pond at the lake, the place where I saw the little black furry balls tagging close to their mother. The ride was very comfortable with the cool breeze and peaceful scenery, and there's helpful commentaries on the sites as we rode along the perimeter of the lake.

After some walking around and taking pictures, we headed to a boat deck and took a boat ride around West Lake. Here's another view of the Leifeng Tower overlooking the lake.

We got to see the site on the Chinese banknote 1 Yuan!! These are the final product from us rushing out of our seats to get the clearest view and zooming in and out to get the best focus.

三潭映月 (Three Pools Mirroring the Moon) is the biggest island on the lake, and it's guarded by three small pagodas. During the Song Dynasty, a poet and governor of Hangzhou named Su Shi ordered the construction of three pagodas which became the borders where no lotus planting is allowed. It was Su Shi's solution to prevent silt accumulation that caused the lake's irrigation ducts to clog. On the night of the full moon, people would light candles in the pagodas and there's a saying that 33 moons will show. Each pagoda has 5 hollow holes—when they're all illuminated—makes 15 moons. The candlelight reflecting on the water makes another 15. The full moon shining in the sky and its reflection on the lake makes 2. 15+15+2 = 32 and the last one is in your heart, totaling to 33 moons. This spot is extra special during the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the full moon symbolizes family union. The pagodas were built for practical purposes and continued to be remembered through cultural celebration.

On our cab ride to get lunch, I saw the Broken Bridge (断桥) and it was packed with tourists. The legend says Bai Suzhen fell in love with Xu Xian at first sight on the bridge, also on a rainy day. So that was the end of the West Lake tour. The rest of the day was eating and shopping at a big commercial center northeast of the lake.

Hangzhou grew Longjing tea (龙井茶), so I was on a look out for this tea flavored sweets. Both the Longjing ice cream and pastry I've tried tasted like matcha and later I found out it's basically green tea.

Here's some more pictures I got on the next day at 河坊街 which is on the east side of the West Lake. The big shopping malls had no Hangzhou-specific souvenirs so I went to this street to search for fridge magnets. The two characters on the left picture were the couple, Xu Xian and Bai Suzhen.

The other trip was organized by my program, and the location was at an ancient water town called Wuzhen (乌镇).  After two hours of shuttle bus ride, the group arrived in the evening. Down below are the night views of the canals and bridges I passed by when I was searching for food. The pervasive smell of Changsha's stinky tofu can be detected even before I finish crossing the bridge. I'm pretty sure they taste better than the smell suggested but every time I was discouraged by the strong smell to have any appetite to try them. Wuzhen felt so hot and stuffy even at night. The town is mapped by canal networks, which gave nice views but they also made the heat more insufferable with the humidity.

Given the place is pretty small and contained in itself, we were entrusted to do solo exploration and complete the cultural activities pre-arranged for us in our free time.

After the hotel breakfast, I made lacquer fans in a giant water tank mixed with a few droplets of lacquer. We get to choose the colors and watch the shop owner swirl the different colors into a nice blend on the water's surface. Then she let us dip the fan into the tank, slowly twirling it to absorb the lacquer into a beautiful pattern. The products all turned out very nice. If I were to describe the fans, one resembles HeyTea's best sold grape fruit tea and another is cherry red and green like a watermelon. Some look like vast mountains masked by clouds and the fan I showed in the picture below using the colors purple, pink, and gold looked like taro ice cream. Yum!

Next came the pottery session, where I desperately tried to save my misshapen bowl into a stable state. I was trying to do layers with it, but the whole thing looked like it's on the brink of falling apart as it spun and spun. The professional eventually came over and remodeled it into a smooth round bowl. Here's what became of my panda themed bowl and everyone's masterpieces.

It rained unexpectedly, and while we were rushing back to the hotel to fetch umbrellas, I stopped to take in the special scenery on top of the bridge.

The last cultural activity covered by the Joint Institute was tie-dye, and after that, we went on a boat ride along the canal before leaving Wuzhen. It rained shortly after we boarded, cooling off the air and giving the scenery a different feel.

That's all for Hangzhou :)

Vivien Lin

Computer Engineering

UM - Shanghai Jiaotong University Joint Institute

[umichenginabroad]

Week 6: Holiday Travel Part 2 at Yantai

"Vivien". Rooming with Christine guarantees the impossibility of oversleeping as my first alarm goes off at 6:30 AM. I snuggled in my cozy bed, missing Qingdao already and wishing we could spend another day there. Shaking off the thought, I summoned the energy to get up and shivered from the cool AC as soon as I left the comfort of the hotel bed behind. To dress for Yantai's afternoon that spikes up to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, I went for a light skirt and put on a sun protection jacket. After applying sunscreen and taking appropriate sun protection measures, Christine and I headed down to the lobby. We were the first, followed by Ramona and lastly Kelvin. As soon as we had everyone in our small travel group, we checked out the hotel, leaving Qingdao behind for Yantai, another coastal city in the Shandong province.

After one and a half hour on the train, we arrived around 10AM. Compared to Qingdao, Yantai looks more like an industrial city. From the 27th floor of our hotel's family room, I can see stacks of uniformly colored apartments and buildings that looked like Monopoly houses in the distance. It's my first time staying that high up, and the window view is a stark contrast to where I had stayed at Qingdao—absent of street commotions and food vendors' amplified speakers—just a prevailing quiet peace and a zoomed out image of Yantai's widespread infrastructure.

We were finally going to see the beaches!! 金沙滩 (directly translated to Golden Beach) is our first stop. We were dropped off at one side of the beach that's about a 40 minute walk to the Lonely Whale (孤独的鲸), an iconic landmark on the beach. After half an hour of walking under the unbearable heat, minimally cooling myself with a small electric fan, we hopped on a quadricycle and pedaled along the sidewalk. Listening to music while occasionally feeling a light breeze at the beach would've been romantic if it wasn't so hot. :(

The Lonely Whale is not so lonely with many tourists visiting it and taking pictures. Behind the giant sculpture is a mini playground occupied by little kids going down the slides and people using the shade for cover.

None of us brought swimsuits or an extra pair of slippers to trail on the sand, so we left the beach fully dry to get Korean barbecue for lunch. We called a car through Gaode Map to get back to the city since metro is not an option at Yantai. I was shocked to discover the city doesn't have a subway system, unlike all the other cities I've been to. Shanghai, Qingdao, Fuzhou, and Suzhou all have this convenient transportation. Thanks to China's convenient infrastructure, I have been traveling around easily and going out on fun weekend trips.

We were dropped off at 朝阳街, a lively pedestrian street at the foot of Yantai Mountain that blends historical relics with modern elements. The European style architecture was preserved after renovation, exhibiting the street's past as a culturally mixed commercial center vibrant with foreign businesses. I lingered a few seconds by the vendors selling local cherries and lemonade, refraining from getting a cold refreshing drink at the promise of a fulfilling lunch. :)

Platters after platters of vegetables and raw meat were brought onto the table. At first, we were entrusted with cooking our food, equipped with metal tongs to flip the meat and scissors to cut them into bite-sized pieces. That is, until we burned their signature meat dish, and the waiter was kind enough to offer a new platter for free and took over the cooking for us. We let the camera eats first before we dived in. The meat was soft and tender and wrapping them in mint leaf, the combo tasted interesting.

After we got our fill of proteins, we headed into the mountain and spent an hour getting a decent number of steps in. The scene along the path was very pretty so I got productive at taking pictures! There's us having fun posing in front of the YANTAI letter blocks.

Credits to Kelvin for being our group's selfie tripod stick.

At the peak was a beautiful view of Yantai's coast!

On our way down walking under the shades, I missed the peaceful ambience that has become so rare in the big crowded cities.

The weather forecast predicted the sun will set at 6:40 PM, and that's when we wanted to be at the Moon Bay (月亮湾). So before then, we tried to kill time trying out the local food and riding back to the hotel for a few rounds of Chinese Poker with my newly bought card pack from Qingdao. The left picture below was a Yantai specialty called 烟台焖子 that I have seen on the Chinese social media app RED when I was researching the local specialties. I had imagined it to be a sweet and chewy dish made with glutinous rice flour but the soup-base was salty. The whole thing had tasted interesting, and the fun was in trying out. On point, I finally had the Osmanthus Cake (桂花糕), and it was so good it exceeded my expectations. I love everything made with glutinous rice flour, and the pastry had a magic touch from the sugar coat of osmanthus honey.

Leaving the hotel AC behind, we headed to the Moon Bay to watch the sunset over the Yellow Sea. It was stunning to see the cotton candy hues in the clear blue sky changing to a vibrant orange as the red glowing star gracefully sank into the horizon. Never have I ever seen such a beautiful sunset.

The moon sculpture is a holy landmark of the Moon Bay, symbolizing the Chinese version of Cupid. It stands at the center of a ring encompassed by red placards tied to chains, each one engraved with the wishes of past visitors.

Credits to Christine for noticing these red placards that bear the hopes and wishes of the anonymous.

After the mesmerizing sunset, I proposed to go down there and pick pretty seashells to take home as souvenirs. There were many shells that looked like remnants of oysters and abandoned hermit crab homes. Putting aside that uncomfortable thought, I collected one to take home. Long after the sun settled and while we waited for a cab, I spotted a tiny glowing moon crescent hanging up in the pastel sky. Zoom in on the picture right below to see.

That one hour was totally breathtaking.

Credits to Ramona for finding the perfect angle and capturing the phenomenal view of the bay in the left picture.

Last on our list is Yantai's night market, where I began the food patrolling era.

When I say food, I mostly mean sweets. It's like my system is coded specifically to crave for them. As a taro fan, I have been wanting to try out the taro cream cheese brick. I got it at the first stop, debating on the flavors as I lined up and eventually decided on oreo, the crunch of it complementing the taro paste. As a matcha lover, I came across a video on RED that summed up the must-try matcha desserts, and I had laid eyes on the matcha crepe that I nearly passed but was fortunately spotted by Ramona and Christine. Surrounded by food vendors and restaurants on both sides, amidst the flowing crowd, I really need to check my blindspot or I might miss something important. I was so occupied with exploring the sweets that I forgot about getting a proper salty, nutritious meal.

There's the classic 我在烟台很想你 meaning "I miss you from Yantai". The phrase "I miss you from somewhere" is commonly found plastered onto signs and labels at popular tourist places in many cities. I discovered there's such a sign in Ann Arbor that I plan to check out when I get back.

So that's the end of my trip over the Dragon Boat Festival weekend. I had a lot of fun, and I hope you had fun reading!

See ya next week for the ancient China ambience at Suzhou!!

Vivien Lin

Computer Engineering

UM - Shanghai Jiaotong University Joint Institute

[umichenginabroad]

Week 5: Holiday Travel Part 1 at Qingdao

On the Friday night before an early flight to Qingdao, I stayed up filled with excitement for the many things we can do there, worried about what to wear for the crazy 90 degrees Fahrenheit at Yantai, anxious for the upcoming EECS216 midterm, and busied myself in an ongoing battle with an unyielding mosquito. There is no way I'm letting the mosquito get to me when my left eye is still swelling from its previous bite. Being so occupied, I didn't sleep all the way to 3AM, when the alarm finally sounded and signaled me to get ready. Half an hour later, I was waiting at the east gate outside of the dorm with Ramona and my cousin Christine. We were waiting for one last person in our traveling group— my uncle Kelvin, who I need to emphasize is very young and having just graduated, this summer in China is his last vacation before he begins working. Imagine setting up countless 5 minute interval alarms on 3 different devices and oversleeping all of them. Thankfully, he did not mute WeChat text notifications. Cutting close, Kelvin arrived at the same time as the car did and the four of us took off.

The weekend's theme places are two coastal cities in the Shandong province north of Shanghai. The plan was to spend Saturday at Qingdao and save Yantai on Sunday and come back on Monday, which we have off because of the Dragon Boat Festival. I will cover the full day at Qingdao in this blog and save Yantai for next week as there's a lot of content.

After flying for one and a half hour, we arrived at Qingdao's airport at 8:30 AM and spent another hour on the metro, where I got really excited to finally see the city. Qingdao is a super popular tourist vacation city, and there have been many shows filmed there, including a Chinese pop idol show that got me into c-pop back then. Following Plan A of Ramona's detailed itinerary, (she was up at 1AM crafting three potential itineraries, respect), we dropped off our stuff at an airbnb conveniently located at the city center and headed out for lunch.

Qingdao looks like an anime world— there's the uniformly painted peach and orange colored apartments on the main road, cute street decorations and cartoon graphics along clean alleys, and big comic fonts on the restaurants' signs. Our hotel is a walkable distance to the anime street so after lunch, we trudged uphill and I found myself marveling again at the cute aesthetics. The anime street is a popular place to take pictures and with each block of stores we passed, I would see people claiming a spot at both sides of the streets giving their best poses. We had to line up a bit for the popular Totoro wall and there's us roasting under Qingdao's welcoming sun.

And of course, nothing's more exciting than trying out new food. For lunch, we had dumplings color coded with different fillings inside and underneath the dumpling picture is a simple dessert made out of yam coated with blueberry sauce (tasted minimal in sugar like most sweets in China) . The restaurant also kindly served us free Zongzi, which is the holiday food for the Dragon Boat Festival. Zongzi is glutinous rice that can have sweet or salty fillings tightly wrapped in leaves. They are in the picture at the top right of this mini food album. After lunch, we visited a coffee shop at the anime street where I got a rose flavored latte, and it was good good.

Next up on our itinerary is the beer museum, where we were about to have a sip of the local Tsingtao Beer. I should mention that the legal drinking age in China is 18. Although I'm not an alcoholic, I'm willing to give Qingdao's local specialty a try. We bought the tickets in advance in the museum's official mini program available on WeChat and off we went.

Taking shelter at the museum during the hottest time in the afternoon, we scanned over the beer's history, watched the assembly line factory where bottles and caps move around at fast speed and came out as packaged products on the conveyor belt, and experienced the loss of balance inside a drunk house designed for recreating the feel of getting drunk. When I finally get to try the beer, I have to say it did not taste very appealing. I'm better off drinking my mixed drink that is half fruit mix, half sprite, and a few droplets of alcohol. None of us had the courage to finish the drink, so we all dumped it and returned our glasses.

After we got done with the museum, we lost some time taking the metro to Laoshan, only to be dropped off at some ticket gate far away from the mountain trails and eventually decided we're not up for hiking so we took an hour subway to May Fourth Square instead.

Quoted from wikipedia, May Fourth Square is a public square in Qingdao's central business district that borders the Yellow Sea. The red spiral sculpture is called May Wind. Its color being Chinese red, the sculpture commemorates the patriotic spirit of the May Fourth Movement during World War One. One of the proposals in the Treaty of Versailles had involved transferring German concessions of the Shandong province including Qingdao to Japan. In response, mass student organizations gathered in Beijing on May 4th, 1919 and protested against the treaty. Their determination influenced the Chinese delegation to refuse to sign. Hence, a separate treaty was signed to return Shandong back to China. That's the history of the May Fourth Square. The May Wind stood as proof of the people's collaborative effort in a patriotic movement to get back the coastal province.

Credits to Ramona for taking the beautiful picture of the tall straight rose at the right.

After May Fourth Square, we headed back to our hotel and I fell asleep soon after settling into the comfy bed. The mattress was softer than my dorm's bed and the pillow was plumper. Most of all, I need to make up for the lack of sleep last night and replenish my energy for Yantai the next day. I needed rest so much I managed to block off the sound of the speaker down the street that repeatedly called out soufflé for sale. Goodnight to Qingdao.

That's it for Qingdao.

See you all next week for the upcoming Yantai, which embraced us with 90 degrees Fahrenheit but the fun of pedaling across the beach, the view of the glowing sun settling in the beautiful dusk, and the food patrol is so worth it.

Vivien Lin

Computer Engineering

UM - Shanghai Jiaotong University Joint Institute

[umichenginabroad]

Week 2: School Life at SJTU

Welcome back to this week’s blog on school life in Shanghai!! Before I reveal SJTU’s beautiful campus to you, I want to introduce a puzzle game called Flow Free. The rules are quite simple; the goal is to find a path that connects the same colored dots until all dots on the grid are successfully linked. The key is to employ a strategy that ensures no paths criss-cross. Now let’s get more applicable; imagine that the grid is a school campus and the colored dots are the students’ starting points and final destinations. When the school bell rang and dismissed the students, everyone hurried off in a disorganized scramble. As I was surrounded by a swarm of bikes, mopeds, and pedestrians, with my left hand ready on the brakes and right hand holding onto my phone, I steered carefully on a clear path and followed the map’s highlighted route to the nearest canteen.

Slow and Steady.

In this photo, I did not fully capture the bizarre traffic shortly after the school bell rang, when the road became, amazingly, a uniform bike line.

I am now in my second week of classes, and I have picked up my photography skills to show you around our campus. Get ready to immerse in Shanghai's school life :))

Biking to campus 🌤 : My earliest class is at 10AM, and I count myself very lucky to avoid the 8AMs. It gives me sufficient time to apply my sunscreen, grab my backpack and fully charged devices, and walk to the cafeteria downstairs for a steamed pork bun. I refuse to start reviewing convolution integrals on an empty stomach. With my 0.5 USD breakfast paid through WeChat Pay, I exited the main gate, scanned a blue bike parked on the sidewalk, and took off.

The newly constructed bridge from above is the shortcut path I take to save almost 10 minutes of my daily commute. I pedaled past canals where I sometimes see people practice rowing for the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival. A steady drum beat always announces the boat’s presence before it steers into clear view, the oars collaboratively moving in unison to glide the boat smoothly through.

You can kind of see a sneak-peek of the rowing practice on the canal above.

Here is where I attend my EECS216 lectures every Tuesday and Thursday mornings. With Calculus 3 meeting online, my Chinese Culture class starting next week, and after dropping Math471, this building is where I have been attending classes regularly. Using direct translation, the building is named Bottom Courtyard. The two neighboring classroom buildings are Top Courtyard and Middle Courtyard. I like the naming system here; it’s simple without needing much effort on memorization. The classroom buildings are also very pretty with modern Chinese drama’s high school/college life vibes. On the first floor, there’s a big screen that shows each classroom’s availability and the rooms that are colored green are open for students to go in and study. I usually arrive to class early and wander leisurely for half an hour. The room always feels stuffy when I first get there (maybe because of the 15 minute bike ride from my dorm); it felt less hot during class. Sipping my takeout soy milk, I prepared myself for the beginning of Chapter Two as the room began filling up.

An hour later, the most calming school bell announced our 10 minute break. In another hour, we got dismissed and braced ourselves for the road traffic that’s about to come.

The SJTU campus is HUGE; oftentimes, I find class to class or class to canteen needing a 10 minute bike ride. There are not many cars on the campus, which is expected. I imagine it’d be very inconvenient to inch forward slowly and squeeze past bikers and moped riders who dominate the main road. 

I hope you're not too hungry because we're about to check out delicious canteen food!

Each canteen offers a wide variety of food—anything that I can imagine for a satisfying meal— beef noodle soup, sizzling claypot, Korean bibimbap, and self-fixed Malatang. Some stations are cafeteria style where students pick up a tray and grab platters along the counter. But most food stations are self-order, which means I need to read the Chinese characters on the menu and decide on what sounds the best. Usually, pictures of the dishes are provided, and they help me a LOT on my decision making. I'm grateful whenever there's a line that gives me time to make up my mind. When there's so many options, it becomes unbelievably hard to choose. After I finally decided on something, I paid for the meal with the Siyuan Code on the My SJTU app, which I also use to enter the campus gates. The wait-time is not bad, with the food usually ready in less than five minutes. Then we picked up our chopsticks and dive in (there are no forks offered in the canteens).

As I've mentioned in my previous blog, there are a total of seven canteens. I have gone to Canteens 1,2, and 5 and that leaves 3,4,6, and 7 to check out. The exploration of all canteens is diverted by the fact that there are many food options called Waimai to explore on takeout apps that do convenient delivery. When I don't have in-person classes, I usually rely on Waimai and as I'm writing this blog, I'm going to order Beijing Duck for lunch.

This is mei fun noodles and wonton soup I had for Waimai a few days ago.

Back to school... For on campus studying spots, I prefer open classrooms over libraries because most seats in libraries require reservations and they can also be pretty crowded. Besides the triple Courtyards I mentioned above, there are three newer classroom buildings that are conveniently named East Top Courtyard, East Middle Courtyard, and East Bottom Courtyard. The triple East Courtyards were constructed in recent years, and the rooms are much nicer. I asked my buddy before about SJTU school color and she said it's red, as you can probably tell from the color of the campus buildings.

Here are some on-campus scenery I want to share with you all :)

I happened to pass by the botanical garden when the roses were still in blooming season. That's me with my all time scissor hand ✌️

Passed by a loquat tree.

It is not too far into the summer yet, and there are a couple of loquat trees on our campus ready for harvesting. Loquats are mildly sweet fruits that look like apricots but in my opinion, taste way better. Sadly, I rarely see them in the U.S.

This is all for this week's content. I hope you had fun reading, see you all next week!

But not before the Beijing Duck arrived :) Bye bye!

Vivien Lin

Computer Engineering

UM-Shanghai Jiaotong University Joint Institute

[umichenginabroad]

Week 1: Navigating Around

Hello! Welcome to this week's blog on adapting to Shanghai and navigating around SJTU campus. With my terrible navigation skills and flawed adaptability to new environments, the first week feels like a rollercoaster ride. Defeated feelings of loneliness and self-doubt eventually vanished as I got more comfortable with new friends and learned my way around campus. That’s when the excitement of exploring Shanghai picked up and took over the trill. For this week’s blog, I’m aiming to be more detailed and informative on how I settled into my new home here. 

Day 1: I hugged tight onto three packages of bedding sets at the lobby of the international student dormitory, my sole wish at the moment was a much-needed nap. With the help of JI student volunteers, I filled out forms, set up my face ID, and downloaded a very important app called My SJTU. It has a QR code called Siyuan Code with si translated to miss and yuan meaning origin. We use it to enter our dorm, campus gates, and libraries. The app contains many services, including dorm electricity billing, library seats and shuttle bus reservations, dining dollars, etc. Interestingly, half of the app is in Mandarin and the other half is translated to English. I quickly overlooked the details when I finally entered my room on the 11th floor.

The suite was way better than any housing I could hope for at Ann Arbor, prettier than South Quad and more furnished than my apartment on Central Campus. We were lucky to get our own private bedroom with a huge sitting deck in front of the window that captures the sunrise every morning. Hungry and exhausted from the flight to unpack, I joined my cousin Christine in the search for food. We looked up restaurants near us on Gaode Map and found that the nearest restaurant and literally everything is at least a thirty minute walk from our dorm. So I gave up on dinner, headed straight to bed on an empty stomach, and got a full 12 hours of sleep. My body requested a replenishing sleep, and I was still deep in sleep when my suitemate Gracie arrived. Oopsy.

At first, I was overwhelmed by the prospect of walking long distances to eat or go to classes. It is as if I’m stranded on an island, and the thought of isolation discouraged me. The next morning, I finally met Gracie and discovered the conveniences of our dorm. Fortunately, there is a cafeteria on the basement floor and I had steamed meat buns and hard boiled eggs for breakfast. Next to the parking garage, there is also a convenience store, package room, laundry room, and a gym. All the basic amenities except the kitchen are provided. If I wanted to explore more food options, I need to find a way to go outside of this neighborhood. 

This is a typical breakfast from the cafeteria in the basement downstairs. 

The blue Hellobikes are my solution for cutting the time to campus down to a 20 minute bike ride. They are commonly found on the sidewalks and can be scanned through the Hello app. I purchased the unlimited monthly plan using Alipay with my grandpa’s Chinese bank card. Without family connection, Alipay can also be set up with foreign bank cards, with additional foreign charge for every transaction.

The first weekend’s schedule was dominated by buddy group events. With my buddy’s help, we began checkmarking our to-do list, completing student registrations and applications for bank cards. On Saturday, we had a campus tour and visited the main libraries, a souvenir store, and popular campus sites. We also had lunch at Canteen Two. It’s bigger than South Quad’s dining hall and has more food stations with three floors to explore. There’s a total of seven canteens on campus and I plan to try out all of them. Yay, we’re back to the dining hall exploration era! The meal I had was very cheap after converting it to USD. With the ratio of USD to Chinese Yuan being 7 to 1, I was satiated at a little over $2 USD. 

A tiny peek of our beautiful campus.

This is one of the two libraries that we visited. After we entered the building using the student Siyuan Code, we entered the quiet zone. The library vibes clearly didn’t match ours as we walked around leisurely and took pictures of the pretty spiral staircase. With the weekend almost over and classes starting on Monday, I would be joining the students in the quiet study tables soon but I was relieved to be just a tourist that day.

Here's the second library on the SJTU campus, and the front yard is home to a flock of pigeons. I haven’t seen any squirrels in Shanghai, but there are very well-fed pigeons and we were lucky to see two elegant black swans!

My first coffee with my buddy group at Manner’s Coffee. I wanted to try something US doesn't have, so I got the osmanthus (guihua) flavored latte. It was very delicious with a strong flower fragrance.  

My first boba tea at HeyTea. 

After our buddy events ended, many of us couldn't wait to explore Shanghai. Within the first week, I visited several shopping malls, took the subway to the city and walked around Nanjing Road (a famous shopping district), and had a fun adventure at Shanghai Disney. There are many methods of transportation here, and many are accessible with mobile phones. The must have app is WeChat which I associate as the equivalent of iMessage, Instagram, Uber, and ApplePay combined, with many more useful services offered. Mobile pay have taken over cash and physical credit cards as the dominant payment method in China, so I used WeChat pay for most of my purchases. To navigate around, I use Gaode Map, and it conveniently lists the car hailing services and their prices. After getting to know my way around here, the sprawling city no longer intimidates me and Shanghai becomes so much funner.

As a poor navigator and adaptor to new places, I'm lucky to find groups who are welcoming and equally excited, if not more, enthusiastic to explore the city together. The journey is gaining momentum as classes begin and next week's content will touch on school life in Shanghai. See you all next week!

Vivien Lin

Computer Engineering

UM- Shanghai Jiaotong University Joint Institute

[umichenginabroad]

Week 0: Hello, Shanghai

In the quiet night hours of Shanghai, perched on a deck inside my dorm, I'm crafting my first blog post for the beginning of a new journey. My name is Vivien, and I'm a rising junior studying Computer Engineering and doing a math minor. For the next three months, I will be studying at UM-Shanghai Jiaotong University Joint Institute and sharing my experiences to the end of the summer. Classes officially starts tomorrow, but I'm not ready to exit break mode and put aside exploration of the city, knowing that there are so many exciting discoveries in Shanghai.

It began when I was scrolling through the IPE webpage, mind set on a study abroad experience. After serious consideration of the programs listed, I decided on Shanghai, thinking that my Mandarin proficiency is enough to make small talks with the locals and navigate around a new and unfamiliar city. I was very optimistic, so I got here deprived of sleep after 28 hours of flight from Michigan, with layovers at Los Angeles and Taipei. At each stop, I had a lot of time to shop around the airport, mainly for comforting food that made the long flight more enjoyable. The first authentic Asian food was at Taipei airport, and that beef noodle soup reassured me that Shanghai is within my vicinity!

After two more hours of flight from Taipei to Pudong airport, I finally arrived at Shanghai and met up with the local JI student volunteers and other Umich students arriving around the same time. We got our student cards and checked into the international student dormitory.

This is my favorite spot in my private bedroom in a suite on the 11th floor. I woke up at 6AM and saw the beautiful sunrise after a long and replenishing 12 hours of sleep. Here is where I Facetimed my family to fight homesickness, watched the preparation for the Dragon Boat Festival on the river, and worked on my blog writing. It offers a tiny peek of the suburban area of Shanghai and shows a slower pace of the city compared to the bustling downtown.

It's very tempting to want to go into the city center and try out Shanghai's delicious cuisines, shop around huge malls, and explore the vibrant night market. While I'm excited to see more of the city, I'm also anxious about meeting new people, encountering potential cultural differences, and managing high workload expectations for my classes. As I'm finally wrapping up this blog, there is a mixture of self-doubts and optimism. No matter how much I miss home, with a 12 hours time zone difference from my friends and family, I have the hope that I can enjoy my time here, learning and growing into a more confident person.

Vivien Lin

Computer Engineering

UM- Shanghai Jiaotong University Joint Institute, China