The view from my house...

...unfortunately is the only thing I've really been seeing the past few days. Well, to be more specific, it turns out all colleges close before June 20th or so, so I have to get the random survey (read: the bulk of my research) done these first three weeks. Didn't see that coming. I also realized I don't even know how to speak Chinese. It looks like the next month and a half, though, will be much further.

I arrived in Shanghai last Wednesday. My mom's sister and her husband came to pick me up in a brand new car amidst nearly hundreds of identical looking cars at the airport, something they were obviously proud of (both their specific possession and the more general car environment). I wrote tons of notes during my myriad trips in cars, in public buses, and walking around about how cars can destroy communities, how they promote a consumer culture, how they are a secret race of robots from the planet Zernoth bent on enslaving the human race, blah blah blah. Well actually no. I thought I would be unequivocally negative about cars, but actually, my view on cars has somewhat changed. I'll devote a couple of blog posts solely to cars later but do you really want me to rant this early in my blogography? Maybe. I'll go ahead and say no, though.

Meanwhile, I've spent way too much time in this tiny room pretending to do work than I should be (the JE library all over again), but things are really starting to roll now.

For now, some pics of the view from my window (its a neat little district! No annoying foreign hipsters, distinctly Chinese, etc.):