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I must admit that the location is a bit of a lie - I've been home for more than a week already. But sitting at home in my apartment that I share with my very good friend Johanna after a long day of school and work I just felt I wanted to do something else. Something that isn't sleeping, reading the very interesting but quite massive books for my class or just mindlessly surfing the internet. That's what I do these days instead of flipping through TV-channels (we've both decided against television). Both activities are quite equal in meaninglessness...

Greeting Götheborg

Elin Thyr
2006-10-05 21:24:15

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What was so striking to me was that all these amazing (mostly amazingly ugly) buildings had been built as if to show the world that China no longer is a prisoner of a communist regime, to show the world China's economical growth - as China wants the world to see it.What happened to all the areas and houses where all these scy scrapers have been built? And above all, what happened to all the people living there? They are obviously not a good example in showing the world how much better China has become. So they just had to move. It is amazing how a place now so driven by capitalism just 50 years ago was a strict communist regime.

It was also quite strange returning to China after having lived in Beijing for four years, eight years ago. When I was about 11 I went on an exchange trip to Shanghai with my school orchestra and I have a hard time remembering anything of the city. But a lot of the Chinese things came back to me. The Chinese fascination for Westerners (although no one asked us to be in a picture with them as I remember rather vividly from our time in Beijing...), the spitting, the millions of bicycles, all the little stores that all have their own niche (such as lace and ribbon, cord and wire or just a shop full of safes) and even some Chinese came back to me (such as one, two, three and thank you, that tasted very nice and good bye :P).

One of our reasons for going to Shanghai, and especially for the time we went, was of course to greet the replica of an 18th-century East Indiaman, Götheborg SOIC. She set sail from Göteborg in August last year and reached Shanghai, her final destination, the 29th of August this year. So we thought that we'd stand on the shore and wave to our friends that were on board. It turned out quite differently... It basically started with us going to the harbour where she was due to arrive later that afternoon and us being denied access to the dock. ...

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