A Chinese Welcome

Moving In

When we arrived to our university, SJTU, we pulled in through a small gate and drove down some small streets to arrive at the SJTU Faculty Club Hotel. The hotel is pretty small, but we received a warm welcome from the staff and a few students who work in SJTU's international office.

Interestingly, a lot of signs include English below the Chinese characters. It is also common for the bushes to be trimmed to a height that only allows half the English to be read from a distance. 

 Our rooms are pretty standard for a hotel room. Unfortunately, we were not provided a dresser and our closest is barely as wide as my shoulders. As you can see in the picture, my roommate Brian and I decided to use our window ledge for our clothing storage so we could avoid living out of our suitcases for the 6 weeks or so we will be staying here.

 The bathroom situation is much nicer than I imaged it would be. There is a large shower and a standard, "American" toilet. Another bonus is that the hotel staff comes to clean our rooms and bathrooms every day. We will be pretty spoiled by the time we move to the second campus in March.

Our room also has an impressive view of Xujiahui, a large shopping district in Shanghai. This is actually very small compared to some other districts in Shanghai. These skyscrapers pale in comparison to the ones around People's Square and Downtown. 

Our Welcome Dinner

On Saturday night we were invited to a welcome dinner by the university a a nice seafood restaurants. We were each seated at a table with about 4-5 Purdue students and 2-3 Chinese students or teachers. My Co-CEO and I were told by our adviser that we would need to give toasts to thank our hosts for their warm welcome. Luckily, we were not actually called on to speak. 

 Each table had a large, glass lazy Susan in the middle that was continually filled with small plates of Chinese dishes. By the time the meal was over, at least 20 different dishes were served at each table. There were exotic fruit and meat dishes. The most “normal” foods served were plates of broccoli, green beans, and a thin fried egg with vegetables that resembled a flat omelet. Three or four kinds of mushrooms were served both in soup and by themselves. One dish was called a “Chinese hamburger” by one of our hosts which consisted of a miniature bread bowl that you scooped a mixture of vegetables and meat into before eating. This particular dish was very tasty, but was also very spicy! Things like cream puffs and watermelon were served to cleanse your pallet.

The highlight of the dinner for everyone was the presentation of the main course. Before you look at the picture, imagine how you would eat a goose foot that was completely drenched in a brown sauce. If you guessed that you would wear plastic gloves while eating if with your fingers you would have been a better guesser than us. We followed the lead of our hosts and tried to eat the slimy, floppy goose foot without getting the sauce everywhere. The foot didn't have very much meat on it as you would imagine, so it seemed like I was trying to bite of the skin the entire time. It was very delicate, so I was careful not to break any of the bones least I swallow one of them. I ended up skinning two of the three toes, eating the webbing between the toes, and then chewing on about half the leg part before I gave up. I probably managed to eat the more of the foot than anyone else at the table. We later learned that the foot was served with a sea cucumber, but I didn't see anyone attempt to eat that off the plate.

 

 I was in a unique position as the class CEO, or “class monitor” as it is called in China. I am seen as a figure head that is responsible for representing our entire class to our hosts and professors. Because of this, the two hosts sitting at Catriona and I’s table focused their attention directly at me the entire dinner. They watched me attempt to eat the goose foot and every other dish served and would ask me what I thought of everything. They also addressed all questions to me, and the other Purdue students at our table took advantage of this and didn't say much of anything the whole dinner. 

We ended the night with a group picture on a large, marble staircase. This ended up being a poor choice, because as you can see it is very difficult to make everyone out in the picture. At least you can see our adviser, Dianne, at the front right and our Chinese hosts.