I'm Back with More Tips!

It's been about 6 months since I've come back from Shanghai, and I had an IB student ask me questions about studying abroad at Fudan University. I thought it might be helpful for other future students wanting to go to Fudan if I shared the information I had shared with him.

First, check the blogs I've posted in the beginning of the spring semester for some tips for settling down in Shanghai. This blog will be more about the registration process I went through before and right after I arrived at Fudan.

Here's the address for the Fudan website for exchange students. It has info about housing, registration, classes and more, so I think you'll find it very helpful! http://www.fao.fudan.edu.cn/exchangein/

The registration was stressful because I didn't have enough information from Fudan before registration. I remember being very confused before I went and even after I arrived at Fudan. So, here's a timeline of my registration/preparation process just so you don't panic before you go.

10/25 - submitted the Fudan online application and emailed the application number to Harry Huang, the director(?) of exchange program at Fudan.

12/5 - Fudan international student office emailed me saying they've received my application materials that the USC study abroad office has sent via mail.

1/2 - Fudan acceptence materials received by the USC study abroad office and sent to my address by them.

1/27-1/29 - Registration opened up for on-campus housing. (Received email about it on 1/27 after the regisitration already began)

2/19 - Arrived at Fudan, went through dormitory registration as soon as I got there on the first floor of foreign student dorm. (you need to have Chinese RMB in cash with you, about 400-500 RMB should be enough for dorm registration and taxi from airport)

2/19,20,24,or25 - Had to go to Room 107, Building 10 to make a Fudan student card. (bring your admissions notice package and passport with you)

2/24 - First Day of School. Online class registration started on this day also (why??????). Class drop/add period is open for 2 weeks, so you can try courses during then. I couldn't register for some of the classes I needed to take (Marketing, Chinese, etc.) so I had to email Harry Huang. He sent out another supplementary form for us to fill out if we wanted to be registered in the courses we couldn't register online.

3/4 - A half-day Mandatory Exchange Student Orientation/Workshop


Here are some other Q&A and tips:

1. Do check your junk mailbox, because some of the important emails from Dr. Huang went to my junk mailbox.

2. Any tips for meeting other students?
- Basically if you live in the dorm, you can only live in the foreign student dorm, and you'll meet other exchange students easily at the lobby, in your classes taught in English. You could ask Dr. Huang about getting a Chinese buddy (some of my exchange student friends got them, but I never was assigned one). It's definitely harder to interact with Chinese students, but there are some classes you may take with Chinese students (taught in English) and you could join an organization on campus (there was a student org promotion event near Guanghwa building sometime in the beginning of the semester).

3. How much is electricity? Internet?
- Electricity cost depends on whether you're living in a single or a double. I lived in a double and I think I paid about 100-150 RMB a month/person (I might be wrong, sorry!). You could potentially save the cost by turning off the water heating machine when you're not using the shower, but you'll need to wait about 20-30 mins for the water to heat up after you turn it back on. You get an "electricity card" that you need to put money on, and when it runs out, you need to go to the lobby of the foreign student dorm to recharge it. You also will need to pay and register online for the internet each month (you can pay for the internet at the shop down in the lobby). You don't need to pay for water.

4. Does the price for housing include meals?
- The price for housing doesn't include meals. You'll need to pay for the housing soon after your arrival. It's done in the lobby of the foreign student dorm and you can pay with either cash or credit/debit card (watch out for the tax from the bank if you pay with your card). You can put money on your Fudan student ID downstairs in the cafeteria (need cash). You have to use your student ID when paying for food at school cafeterias and you can also use it at the convenience store on campus.

5. Printing and copying is very cheap on Campus. You can make a copy of someone's textbook (the whole book for cheaper price than the original book sometimes). You can find these copying shops on the way to Guanghwa from foreign student dorm, or out on the street near the dorm.

6. Be careful when eating street foods. They are cheap and delicious but you can get sick from them. (I heard they use really bad cooking oil.)

7. Using cash is much more common in China than using a credit card. Unless you're going to open up a Chinese bank account (I don't know how), withdraw cash from an ATM as you need. There is a Family Mart across from the school's North Gate (right by the foreign student dorm) that has an ATM that you can use to withdraw cash from your American bank. I used my Bank of America card for the first several weeks, then switched to using Citi Bank card because the tax was much lower for Citi Bank (you can find Citi Bank ATM in YouYiCheng mall in Wujiaochang).

8. I used about 3000 RMB per month as my living expenses, but it's possible to live with 1500-2500 RMB a month. 

I hope this blog is helpful for you as you prepare to study in Shanghai! If you have any other questions about studying abroad at Fudan University, you can email me and I'll try my best to answer them. My email address is: yspark105@gmail.com

Family Visit!

In the middle of the routines of busy schoolwork, student organization activities, and church group get-togethers, my family came to visit me from Korea for one weekend. The crew was my grandpa, grandma, mom, and sister, who had already finished her semester at TCU and was back in Korea. Actually there was more to the crew, because they were with a package tourist group. So I joined the group, and all five of us plus six more tourists and one travel guide set off on our trip around Shanghai and nearby cities.

The package tour was for four days, with schedules from early morning to late evening every day. We went around on a tour bus that was too spacious for only 12 people. (If they hadn’t arranged the package tour, we would’ve had a hard time going around the city because we can’t all fit in a taxi.) The first day was visiting touristic places in Shanghai, which was just a recap for me, but my family was surprised at how similar the fashion, downtown, and everything was to Korea. They did find one thing very different and interesting, and that was the Chinese culture of having their laundry out everywhere. Like in Chinese action movies, washed clothes, even underwear, are hanging from every window and even on the streets where you can find any two poles to tie a clothesline to.

In Shanghai we visited Xintiandi, Yuyuan Garden, and Waitan (the Bund). The good mix of new and old, Eastern and Western, and the architecture of all different countries impressed my family. We didn’t get to stay at one place for very long, since we had multiple areas to cover in one day. Although the destinations in Shanghai were not very new to me, getting to share some parts of my life in Shanghai with my family was an exciting experience.

 

After getting a good night’s rest at our hotel at the end of subway line 11, we got good food downstairs in the hotel, and left early for Hangzhou. Hangzhou is a city that takes about 3 hours by bus from Shanghai. It’s a romantic city known for its beautiful lake. It is told that the city was home to one of the most beautiful women in China. We first were dropped off at a market, where small street vendors and shops were lined up selling all kinds of goods ranging from scarfs to Chinese ancient armors to traditionally made rice cake. My sister and I got bracelets from one vendor and looked around the colorful shops. Then we headed to the lake where we took a boat trip. The view around the lake was not very clear because of the foggy and rainy weather (ugh, why is the weather always like this when I travel). However, according to the travel guide, the ancient people of Hangzhou used a phrase that went something like, “Hangzhou is better on a foggy day than on a sunny day, even better when it rains or snows, and even better when it’s dark at night.”
 

At that night, we went to see a famous Shanghainese show. The show had a little bit of everything mixed together: circus, fashion show, Beijing opera, drum performance, and a motorcycle show. We were all fascinated by the great coordination of all performances and the colorfulness of the stage.
 

Throughout the whole trip, the travel guide took us to Chinese restaurants that were mostly filled with tourists. They always had big round tables with big lazy Susans in the middle, so that everyone could share all the food. My sister complained it actually forces you to grab and eat food fast and worry about all the food being gone before you can get to it. It was because all eleven of us in the packaged tour group sat together, and we had to worry about when to turn the lazy Susan. Often, you were trying to scoop some cabbage dish and suddenly someone from another family would spin the lazy Susan without consideration. Some restaurants had better food than others, but the overall quality of restaurants weren’t as good as that of what I had been to in China with friends. No wonder we liked eating at the hotel the most.

The third day was spent in Zhujiajiao (朱家角), which is called “Little Venice of Shanghai” or “the Eastern Venice.” It is the oldest water village in Shanghai and has streets on either side of the waterway filled with Chinese food and snacks, traditional clothes and crafted goods. There is a famous bridge that marks the center of the Zhujiajiao, and where by tradition, you’re only supposed to let go of fish and turtles, and not catch them.
 

On the way back to Shanghai downtown from Zhujiajiao, I had to leave the group to take the subway back to campus because I had an exam in class the next day. My family stayed in Shanghai until the next afternoon and had a safe flight back to Korea. I feel that I didn’t get to show them much of what I liked about Shanghai on this short trip, but at least I had them try Coco milk teas—and they liked it as much as I do!
 

THE TRIP: Last Day

We slept in until about 9:30am, got ready to leave, and went downstairs to the lobby. We asked the ladies at the desk for directions to Tianzi Mountain—our last tour destination. We took a bus to a stop nearby Tianzi Mountain and then walked a bit to reach the entrance at the bottom of the mountain. There we bought the pass to entering the mountain area and took a shuttle up to middle of the mountain.

The entrance to the mountain area



View from the monorail

We were planning on taking the cable car up to Tianzi Mountain, one of the most famous scenic spots there. However, we took the wrong path at one point and ended up having to decide between climbing up the stairs to the top of Tianzi Mountain or paying extra money to get back on the right track. After some debate we finally decided to walk up the stairs, which was a two-and-a-half hour course with about 4000 steps total. Yes. FOUR THOUSAND steps (some people even told me it’s actually almost 8000 steps).




Stunning view of the mountains from the monorail stop

Our journey up...

 

We thought climbing up the stairs would be a great way to actually enjoy being surrounded by nature and seeing it from close up rather than from inside the cable car. Then after walking up for a while we realized it was too foggy to appreciate the view.

 

 

We could only feel that there was something so much more grand and awesome out there than what we could see

 

We came all the way down from that hill in the background all the way up to another hill...kept climbing up...

The stairs were so steep. Although it was drizzling and pretty chilly, we were soon covered in sweat. Quite a few people were coming down the stairs but we were the only ones going up. The people we passed by all asked us how much more they have to go and were all impressed that we chose to climb up.



About half our way up to the top of Tianzi Mountain! Steps and more steps...

We finally reached the top, only to find more fog….. The view itself wasn’t very rewarding so we walked a bit in hopes to find some good food. And guess what was there! A kingdom of McDonald's! So disappointing and exciting at the same time. At least it was better food than what some Chinese street vendors nearby had.

 

We just took pictures of the building that marked the top of the mountain without realizing there was supposed to be an awesome view in the background... ugh the fog.....

 

Learning from the signpost that there is supposed to be an awesome view at the top



...and actually seeing nothing but more fog

Some street food we found at the top of the mountain...and didn't look very appetizing to me

The Chinese kingdom of McDonald's!

 

Anyway, we took the easy way down since it was getting dark and rainy. The view from the cable car was actually more fascinating than we thought. It was a bummer I wasn’t able to get a good picture because of the rain.

We went back to the hotel to pick up our bags and left for the airport. It was a small airport with not much to look at, so we just dozed off until our plane arrived. After a fierce competition to get on the plane first (It was strange, but I guess everyone was so tired and wanted to get on the plane asap), we were happy to find ourselves in the premium economy seats with more space for our legs. We said bittersweet goodbye to Zhangjiajie and flew back to Shanghai.

 

THE TRIP: Day 2

So apparently Zhangjiajie, where I spent two days travelling, is where the movie “Avatar” was filmed in. I would be surprised if the place wasn’t used for a film, because the view there was AWESOME. I highly encourage you to take a trip there if you’re up for seeing nature’s grand piece of art. It’s actually supposed to take about ten days to look around all the scenic areas of Zhangjiajie. However, since our trip was only for three days with one day spent in Changsha, we only got to visit two famous places there—Tianmen Mountain and Tianzi Mountain.

On the second day of our trip, we bought our tickets for the cable car up to Tianmen Mountain. We were able to get a cheaper price by buying the ticket through the hotel we stayed at. We left the hotel and found some local food to eat for breakfast, then walked to the cable car station. We were really excited because it was supposed to be the “longest passenger cableway of high mountains in the world”. Surely, the view from inside the cable car was so awesome we took hundreds of pictures on the way up. It was the most beautiful scenery I had seen in my life.

 

 

 

When we got to the end of the cableway, we got off and toured around the top of the mountain. Several scenic sites were scattered here and there, so we sometimes had to walk, take an elevator, or take another cable car. Even travelling from one spot to another was so nice because we were surrounded by the nature the whole time.

 

 

 

 

One of the most exciting sites was the glass pathway that surrounds part of the mountain. I was so nervous before going up on it, but it was not as scary as I thought. I even thought it was too short so I talked my friends into walking back the way we came. The second time, we took time looking down through the glass floor and taking pictures.

 

 

 

We were planning on stopping to see the Tianmen Cave, which is a natural arch in the mountain, but it started to drizzle and we got too tired, so we took the cable car back down the mountain. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at a restaurant to get the famous local food there for dinner. It was some type of huoguo (hot pot) where you put in the ingredients you want.

 

 

Our next schedule was to go see a famous musical called “Tianmen(Door to Heaven) Fox Fairy” at the Tianmen mountain area. Around 8pm, we rode with some random people in a van—which was arranged by the hotel but was still very sketchy—and passed very rocky roads till we finally arrived at the musical performance ground. I had no idea what kind of musical it was until I walked in, but even in the dark, I soon realized that the scale of this musical was going to be huge. The stage was built like a real village, and the back of the stage was surrounded by huge mountain cliffs.

Although the musical was performed in Chinese, the story was pretty easy to follow and subtitles were provided in three languages—Chinese, English, and Korean. Surprisingly, the technologies they used during the play were very sophisticated. It’s no wonder that so many directors and staffs were needed to arrange the musical. The songs were also really beautiful and addictive.

After seeing the performance, we decided to go to a massage shop and get foot massages for our tired feet and legs. Even though the hotel lady recommended the massage shop to us, we found the place kind of weird and sexual because all the female masseurs were wearing miniskirts. We got good massages anyway and came back to our hotel to get a good night’s rest.