Post 5

As a participant in my Chinese High school Jiao Da Fu Zhong's Model United Nations, on Monday I went to an all day United Nations Development Program conference with two other Shanghai high schools. I was chosen to represent China in the English-speaking delegation (a huge honor and responsibility)! The topic was "utilization of oil-gas resources in the Arctic". Because I was at my host family's house in Pudong all last week and thus had very limited access to the Internet for research, I was pretty nervous. But it turned out to be an amazing (albeit grueling 11 hours of) experience. 

Although the official working language was English, no one was particularly interested in speaking English (or able for that matter...I actually must commend everyone participating in the English section for their bravery). Much of the conference and discussion was thus conducted in Chinese, which was difficult but actually beneficial for me, being a language student. Additionally, because I was the only fluent English speaker in the room, I ended up writing all the summarizing "working papers", "draft directives", and "draft resolutions" for my BLOC in terms of actual U.N. protocol, so I learned loads about that process. Although we didn't pass a final resolution by the end of the day, we addressed solutions for crises in dwindling resources, land sovereignty, fragile natural environments, and sustainable technology. At the very end, I was so honored to win an "Outstanding Delegate" award with a couple other delegates.

I also got a chance that day to exercise my urban transport skills (which I think are some of the most important and exciting about living in any new place). I successfully navigated the Shanghai bus system all by myself for the first time. I also rode a taxi back that night with some schoolmates, but we had to battle a typhoon and I ended up arriving drenched and breathless at Monday's night study. All said and done, I'm always up for exhausting rainy days. 

On Tuesday, I went with Jiao Da Fu Zhong's international department to a military training camp outside of Shanghai. Let me just say now: it wasn't really a military training. Even though it was held at the site where Chinese high school students do their requisite military training, the area is also a resort of sorts and our trip was more like a fun team-building retreat to bond with all the other international students (from countries as diverse as Japan, North/South Korea, Indonesia, Myanmar, Estonia, Germany, Russia, Norway, and Kazakstan). It was cool to get to spend some time with the class three students (who are are studying all subjects in Chinese, and a lot of whom are preparing to attend University in Shanghai next year).

The first day it was still pouring rain from the typhoon and the streets were flooded so we didn't get to the camp (really a nice hotel with canteen, gift shop and activity centers in addition to navy and air force equipment randomly stored around the grounds) until the afternoon, but we still had time to do some activities.

First we all were blind-folded and had to make a boy-girl-boy-girl triangle with eleven people on each side holding a climbing rope that was tied up in the middle of the floor. This was an extraordinarily hard task, seeing as everyone speaks different languages, but we ended up working it out after 40 minutes and it turned out to be a lot of fun. We then broke into three teams. My team consisted of Paris and Carmen from the U.S.; Koki, Yasu and Leo from Japan; Meru from Kazakstan; Tianfu from Myanmar; Sora, Yejing and Donghuan from Korea). We first had to come up with a team name (ours was the Lao hu or tiger team), team song (liang zhi Lao hu: a child nursery rhyme about strange fast-running tigers) and a team slogan ("Lao hu jia you, Lao hu jia you, hen ke ai, hen qi guai, hen li hai" which basically means "go tigers, go tigers, very cute, very strange, very rad". Yes, I know I know but it sounds better shouted in Chinese and like I said before: it's hard coming up with these things when the group members speak 5 different languages). We did a "poison river" type competition between the teams where all 11 had to get across on 9 little mats without touching the ground or letting go of any of the mats. We all finished (our group was second) but we lost a lot of our mats to the poison river and in the end the coach scolded us all for not putting the three groups' remaining mats together to get back across (honestly I think it's silly when people try to teach cooperation lessons this way because the framing of the task is so important!) but I got the point. 

After dinner, we hung out until we got the lesson on how to fold our blankets / tidy our rooms in the morning (they check and we have to do push ups if anything is out of order or we are late). We also learned that each team had to do a performance the third day so we set about preparing for that until curfew at 10. 

The second day, we did actually do some military training: marching and saluting up and down the (strangely New-England-esque tree-lined) drive for three hours. I've never done any military training in my life and being the resident pacifist hippie, I surprisingly enjoyed it more than most people. But it was mostly because it was such a bizarre experience and that the military coach was really funny and sweet and let us take lots of breaks before ending and having lunch, during which Noah (from Germany) and my two American roommates (Megan and Sarah) went exploring and found a lake with an enormous navy carrier that was turned into a tank/plane museum. It was super rad. Unfortunately I forgot to take my phone/camera so I didn't really get any photos...

But after midday break, our teams met up to do some more cooperation activities. First we had to walk about half a mile with all our group members legs attached. My team actually won and it was cool but I got one of the biggest burns of my life (compared to some of the climbing fall burns I have had, that's saying something) on my lower leg from the Velcro attaching our legs.  

Once we got to the activity area, we had to get our teams through an "electric fence" with holes in it and over a 10 foot wall in as short a time as possible (our team won again with a two minute time!) 

Later, we explored the base a little more, finding some interesting log cabin/Russian castle architectural blends and some beautiful pine forests. That night, we continued preparing for our performances and at the end of that practice session, broke out into a mini dance party.

The third day we marched around again in the morning and I took this picture with our military coach, Tilden (American) and Johanna (Estonian): 

In the afternoon we climbed a high rope course (where you can only use the wooden planks and not the climbing or side ropes). Paris (American) and I were successfully 1st! Here's our NSLI-Y resident director Sarah/Shasha tackling the course with our culture teacher Ms. Zhou: 

AND THEN WE GOT TO ROCK CLIMB!!! Although there are a couple climbing gyms in Shanghai that I have yet to check out, climbing is definitely not something that is big here and is most definitely something I can't wait to get back to when I get home (and head to Northern California in the fall). Although no one else got to the top, it was an easy route, but there was some nice texture and overhangs! Regardless, I was so happy to get a little vertical time.

That evening was our performances and BBQ.

(From left to right: Me, Meru, Carmen, Yejing, Donghuan, Sora, Tian fu, Paris, Koki... Leo and Yas are unfortunately not pictured!) 

My team did two singing numbers: one Japanese song sung by Yasu and Leo. Yasu is one of the most high-spirited dancing-obsessed people I have ever met and so that was a total blast. I also sang a Chinese pop song a cappella with Tian fu. We also had a willowy Kazakh dance and a Kung fu / yoga number. The other teams had some really talented numbers as well! After the performance we had a HUGE dance party around a bonfire. It was such a splendid experience. I love being reminded how much I love dancing and how much of a bonding experience it really is. 

The last day at the camp, we played around on a bunch of different "bridges": lines, ladders, mouse wheels, etc that crossed a little river. We then rowed together around a lake on a dragon boat and played around on some rope playground courses. I love canoeing and the playground brought me back to my jungle-gym-obsessed childhood :) We finished up at the camp (I won an MVP certificate!) and headed back to the school for a Saturday school day, Sunday break and return to the normal weekly schedule.