Shanghai Nice...
We have been in Shanghai for two days now. This is the eve of our flight home. We are all pretty tired and ready to go home. I wish I were jumping on the plane right now, rather than in 13 hours. Yesterday, we visited the Shanghai Museum and a shopping mall. We took the subway between the two. Throughout this one month adventure, I have been extremely impressed with the fashion in which China moves people. Rarely during our excursions is there a long wait. There are always people everywhere, but the infrastructure is designed and built to handle a very large sum of people quickly and efficiently. Katie and I decided to leave the mall early and take the subway back to the museum and get an early start because we are usually the last ones out of these types of places. While walking from the subway to the museum, we encountered two groups of young, female Chinese students. We stick out in a crowd of Chinese people; in addition, I had my t-shirt on with all of our names printed on the back. They were really drawn to my shirt. They had many questions for us as we had roughly a fifteen minute conversation with each group. They were very interested in hearing about us and why we were in China. Both groups went so far as to invite us with them to their destination. One group was going to a nearby tea house and wanted us to come with, offering multiple times. Katie and I both said if we had more time, we would be happy to join them. One made a comment that she thought the USA was “strong and mighty” but then suggested that “we were so nice.” I wanted to say that “well, we are strong and mighty,” but figured she might take it literally and that we were arrogant. I wondered if this would ever happen in the United States (people coming up for casual conversation). Katie and I both decided that this would be a rare occasion in the US. However, it has happened countless times in China during our trip. I have thoroughly enjoyed and cherished every moment of this great opportunity (even the morning after the big night out in Beijing!) and am very excited to have built some friendships with both my American counterparts and Chinese as well.