Hello from Shanghai!

Hi! I’m Moa and I’m a student at International Business Program at Umeå University. I’m blogging from Shanghai, China where I am doing an exchange semester at Fudan University’s International MBA program.

When I arrived at my hostel by the Bund in Shanghai, I couldn’t decide what to do first: eat, sleep, shower or cry. I had been traveling for almost 24 hours, hadn’t eaten for the past 12 and just been totally screwed over by a taxi company at the airport. When I finally decided to get food, nobody would serve the foreigner and I felt like turning around and go back to Sweden. I had to read the note hidden in the fortune cookie I received in Stockholm “do not lose heart, things will improve within a month”

Fortunately, things improved within an hour. I bumped into the some of the other students from Umeå University and some other equally confused students staying at the hostel. The most commonly use word among us this past week has been “weird”. Although many of us have previous experiences of Asia I don’t think any of us could imagine any of the bizarre situations we’ve been in since we got here. But we love weird, and we love Shanghai! Here are some of the reasons why..

The view from our hostel, the Captain Hostel…

At night you can get spicy bbq skewers for 2 RMB (2.16 SEK)..

Every wednesday, there’s ladies night at the bar on the 92nd floor of the World Financial Center. This means free entrance and free-flowing champagne for all the ladies while the men has to pay quite expensive prices for their drinks. It’s the one day of the week where men gets to taste the bitterness of gender inequality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first day of school is tomorrow, but I’ve already visited campus twice. We had an orientation day with a dinner gala on thursday where we got together with our chinese buddies, and on friday we all went through a very complicated registration process. Fudan University is quite highly ranked in China, but the quality of the campus buildings vary a lot. In some buildings parts of the walls fall off due to damp, and windows are broken while other buildings (like School of Management, which I’ll be in) are really nice and has free coffee! The surroundings are really nice though, as it consists of beautiful gardens where cats run around and it’s probably the only “quiet” place in Shanghai where you can walk around without honking cars threatening to run over you.

I’ll keep you posted..