The Top of the World

I've just begun my second week back at Wison and things are going well. Of course, the first weekend was a lot of fun. Getting to know all of the other interns has definitely made the transition to life in China and working at this company a lot easier.  On Saturday for instance, many of the interns chose to go to Lujiazui which is located in the center of the city and home to the iconic Oriental Pearl Tower. At one time, the Oriental Pearl Tower may have towered over the other buildings in Lujiazui but today, there are several skyscrapers that are far taller. We chose to go to the Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC), which was completed in 2007 with a height of 492 meters. It was built directly next to the Jin Mao Tower which is just slightly shorter at  420.5 meters. Of course, the Chinese have already begun construction on an even taller building located right next to the SWFC. It seems that there is a never ending competition to build taller and taller towers in the center of Shanghai.

Other than the tower, my main highlights for the weekend were meeting up with some old classmates and Chinese friends. I actually saw Men in Black 3 in 3D at a theatre. I had originally thought that tickets were about the same price since I had always seen them priced around 70 RMB, but I guess you can purchase them online for 30RMB. Seems like a good deal to me. I was definitely the only native English speaker in the theatre though since I was the only one laughing at points that subtitles really can't capture. While the movie wasn't amazing, it was definitely enjoyable and really made me think more about American culture. Many aspects of the movie really cannot be understood by those unfamiliar with American culture. For instance, Will Smith goes back in time to around 1960 and faces a bit of racism. I think much of the humor was completely lost on the Chinese audience. Since I can read a fair bit of Chinese, I often found myself glancing over the subtitles, which of course are completely unable to convey play-on-words and full meanings. The suffix "ish" was used several times and was translated as "chabuduo," which means about or around. While this is an accurate depiction of meaning, it completely ignores the connotations of informality and playfulness. Regardless, the movie was enjoyable and my Chinese friend, who I would consider to be nearly fluent in English (some of her essays I've edited for her GRE prep are incredible for a non-native English speaker) seemed to understand the whole movie. Undoubtedly however, much of the humor was completely lost.