Breaking Into the American Dream

So, a few weeks ago, my former roommate Jillian Corey came to visit for a weekend. She was one of my three roommates from the first semester; although she went home for the Chinese holiday break during the month of February, she came back to China in March, but this time to Beijing, to pursue another semester of study. Finally she came down to visit, and amongst other things, we had one particular goal, which was to go break into the American Dream.

SMP, Shanghai's Barren Skatepark

So, you'll scarcely be able to find any information online about this place, although it does have its own website. Shanghai is home to the world's biggest skatepark, supposedly. Considering how there's no information on it on wikipedia, and its own website seems to have been updated last a couple years ago, I wouldn't be surprised if the record has since been broken.

Into the Expo

Its taken long enough, I know, but at last I bring you the expo post. I finally went to the Expo 2010 in Shanghai this week, and here I’ll share with you my impressions of the site and the event.

Some of you reading this definitely know of the expo, a few might actually know what it really is, and maybe one or two of you have actually been there. For pretty much everyone else, here’s some background information:

Also known as “World’s Fair”, these expos have their roots in the London Great Exhibition of 1851.

Everyone Loves a Model

Or at least, everyone in China loves BEING a model.

In truth, I should have quite a few more pictures to support this story, but I've since discovered that a good number of the ones that were relevant were way too washed out; also, if anyone can tip me on how to embed video into these blog posts, I can put up a couple of those also.

Anyway, so, roaming around Shanghai, if you go to any of the "nice" parts of the city, you have a better chance than you could ever expect of stumbling across a modeling photo shoot. Recently, a good friend of mine from San Diego, a guy named Nathan, came to visit for two weeks, and despite the fact that I've already been experiencing this phenomenon for about a full year, it was nevertheless amazing just how many models we came across. Almost every day, we saw at least one photo shoot.

Not Exactly Chingrish, but...

So, here's another simple picture story.

China is also a land of many stores that feature English names, for reasons that escape any notion of logic. I find them in places where the number of English-speaking Chinese people is almost nil, but even in a place like Shanghai, there aren't that many. Nevertheless, they probably think it helps branding somehow, making it seem classier or more international. Whatever.A lot of the time it just ends up sounding weird. On with the pictures!

Finally, an episode of Chingrish

This has been a long time coming. It won't be the last entry I do about funny signs in Asia, that's for sure. Most everyone knows, or at least has heard of, the suspicious translations to be found in Asia, so here I am to show you some of the gems I've come across!

A New Era Continued (featuring the impossible)

As I'm sure many of you know, China is a place of remarkably fast-paced progress and development. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the place was close to a barren wasteland a few decades ago. Double digit growth, toppling Japan for #2 GDP in the world, blah blah blah.

The truly important story here is that thanks to their disregard for reality, China can pull off the impossible. You know the old Douglas Adam adage about throwing yourself at the ground and missing? Think along those lines. If you don't know something can't happen, then who says it won't?