Homestay in Shanghai

For the last night we spent in Shanghai, we had homestays with local families. I stayed with Cynthia Shen, a fellow classmate at Stanford. Her mother and father cooked dinner for us--it was a ridiculous amount of food for 5 people. We had spicy dried duck (like beef jerky but REALLY spicy), chicken (with the head, though nobody ate it), boiled spinach, soy glazed baked fish (the whole fish, head to tail), prawns (to eat them you rip the head off first), fried bamboo, soy and cilantro soup (same consistency as egg drop soup), BBQ pork, and chicken stir fry. Cynthia told me it took her parents 4 hours to cook dinner, and that spending that much time is pretty normal for dinner! To drink, we had tea, water, wine, and a traditional yellow rice wine that was 103 proof! And for dessert we had rice, and kiwi slices. I couldn't believe how much food we had.

After dinner we walked around the Bundt, which had ridiculous views of Shanghai--this city has an amazing amount of skyscrapers, and they are all lit up with neon colors. Finally I met with Cynthia's friend from AT Kearney, and slept at her place so I could experience a traditional home in Shanghai. It was very modest, but not too different than a house in any other major city.

A couple of my observations from the trip:
-We haven't eaten nearly as much rice as I thought we would--I've only had it for 3 or 4 meals.
-I have been served way more food than I thought I would--it seems like the dishes never stop coming out. Even the lunch boxes served at the Chinese film studio had a lot of food, and that was a normal lunch for them.
-I met a foreign investor relations manager who had a Master's in Economics from Brown, and informed me that only investment vehicle other than saving is houses. People will buy two or more houses as investments.

Next on the trip is Hong Kong--we are taking the Maglev train to the airport. The train can go as fast as 270 mph!! After a couple days in HK, we are flying back to Beijing and then to SF on the 6th. There is a lot of stuff I hope to post in the near future--internet has been available only sparingly but I have a ton of cool pictures to post.