Here is MFAD faculty member Stephen Doyle’s third and final part of his dispatch from Shanghai:

Another day we watched in awe as the children of immigrants (outer provinces) in a class of about 52 kids recited, sang, volunteered answers and obediently behaved—in unison—every directive that their little six year-old ears heard. We were shooting a health education class supported by J&J, and the kids were enchanting. Make no mistake, these are the world leaders of tomorrow. The school was spotless, and we have 52 very close new friends, even at such a young age anxious to practice their English on us—throngs of adorable little ones thrusting out their hands exclaiming in high voices, “Very nice to meet you! What’s your name?” They were observant enough to point out to my colleague Mark, along with peals of laughter, “You have a very big nose!” This from a nose-challenged country! To add insult to injury, Mark got the chicken head at lunch, but was a good sport about that beak as well.

On Monday night we had one of those enormous Chinese banquets in Xintandie (a new recreation of a French Concession neighborhood that is supposed to be like Shanghai in the 20s and 30s.) At night, it’s abuzz with shops, coffee shops, bars,restaurants, clubs,and it’s like a Las Vegas recreation of Shanghai in the past. Some Chinese group was performing Billy Joel’s “Piano man” in a crowded bar. Jellyfish, hairy crab, pigs ears in jelly, and even sea slug are some of the things I can add to the list of tastes tried—and face saved. The sea slug was the most delicious, if least appealing. Very much like a garden slug, but black, six inches long, two across, with little catepillar feet nodules on both sides of the undercarriage. Best not to turn them over. You don’t want to know.

There is a particle storm in Shanghai, moving in with the cold front. It is the leftover of a dust storm in Beijing, which is the result of a sandstorm in the Mongolian desert. It turns the sky the color of pale cement, and all around in Shanghai new constructions are racing skyward with real cement to meet it. We asked an ex-pat here what she missed about America. Without hesitating, she said, “Blue sky!” On their last visit home to Kentucky, they pulled the car over on the highway and the whole family got out, just to marvel at the bright blue American sky above.

With particles falling from the sky onto the town, and slugs crawling from the sea onto our plates, I realize that China is all about transformation—and at an incredible pace. It is surging forward in construction, but also the people change their habits and routines, reinventing the city itself in a cycle every five years. Shanghai is spotless and modern and efficient. The buildings are enormous billboard-television screens, with ads and messages forty or sixty stories tall. Buildings, overpasses and bridges throb and pulse with artificial color. They have put into their nighttime the color that has been stolen from the day.

Cheers,
Stephen

(Sea slug and other Shanghai photos by Stephen Doyle.)