So it has been over 7 years since I first moved to Shanghai. I still remember a lot from my first year there. I arrived August 17th at the Pudong International Airport. I immediately turned around as soon as I exited the plane when I felt the stink and humidity cling to my body. Of course, there were a couple of luggages missing. Then there was the wait for the taxi. Horrifying.
It was an unusual experience when I first walked into the school on the first day of class through the side entrance because the cement was still wet in front of the main entrance. I still remember standing in the auditorium for what seemed like a couple of hours in the sweltering heat and humidity because the seats haven't arrived yet to be installed. Then there was the speech given by Fang Xiao Zhang that I fortunately don't really remember. After the hour-long speech, we were then escorted into our respective homerooms.
Mr. Hau was my homeroom teacher and taught life science as well. We had no textbooks. Nobody had any textbooks. I still remember most of my basic biology information from his class though. I remember when he cracked the overhead projector glass just by leaning on it. I remember his egg-drop assignment (and all three of my eggs were safe). I also remember him being really good at basketball. I remember a lot of other things during that first year as well (such as when Mr. Chen still had longish hair).
But anyhow, one of the things that I missed most about the first couple of years in a Shanghai was the little path that cut through a small village that we took to get to Sunday service for church. Back then, it was merely a short cut that we took because it was fun to ride a bike through and it was..well, a short cut. The inhabitants of this small village that we would cut through would usually look at us with a sort of confused look, but sometimes they would also smile and give a small wave. What an odd sight it must have been for them. Back then, I never really put in much thought as to what they were going through as I rode my yellow and black mountain bike with a bunch of friends. I never really cared.
Yet over the course of the next seven years (I still wonder in amazement that it has already been 7 years since I first stepped off of that plane), I have slowly paid more and more attention to other people--observing them and collecting data, so to speak, of what they are going through. No, not like stalker-observing like The Police's Every Breath You Take (props to P. Diddy for making that song into a non-stalkerish version). Because of how much I've learned from observing people at school and church here, I constantly try to think of what those villagers thought when they saw us whizzing through their village every Sunday.
I don't really know for sure as to why I miss this particular instance of my time in Shanghai the most. Maybe it's because it was a true moment when two completely different cultures briefly intertwined with each other that we wouldn't have understood at that time. Or maybe it's because I will never see those villagers ever again because SMIC built a high school and a track right on top of their village. I'm sure the boring last few weeks of summer helped with my thinking about this particular memory, but it has been on the back of my mind for a while.
I don't really know what the exact point I was trying to get at with this post. I guess I didn't really have a point except to just share what I've been thinking about lately with school still two long weeks away. Anyhow, I apologize for wasting a couple minutes of your time for reading something that didn't really have a point. But man, seven years.
