When I initially arrived in Shanghai, it was the night before the New
Year’s festival, 2:30am, and I do not want to be dramatic but I was more or less knocking on
Death’s door, I was STARVING. In my memory it took about four or five days to get to
China (I later realized it was only about 15 hours but when you’re as hungry as
I was the hours turned into days). Exhausted and starving I mindlessly made my
way through customs and into my new life as an immigrant living in the biggest
city in the world. As someone born and raised in a small Kansas suburb Shanghai
was a far cry from the yellow brick road I knew and, against my will, loved. So
without further ado let me tell you a bit of what I wished I had known before I
had come that would have made the transition infinitely easier.
People ogled at me like I was the second coming of Christ moon-walking on water. What I came to understand was that this was completely normal. To the Chinese, foreigners might as well be a B-list celebrities
here. People stare, point, and shove cameras in your face to get a snap of you
like you’re 2007 Brittany shaving her head and they’re TMZ. Yes, even though Shanghai is an international city, people will still do this. You can’t prevent or stop
it so you might as well convince yourself you are a celebrity in the Far East. I am not sure if the Chinese do Christmas cards but if they did I would be in a lot of their family cards this year.
Hey there y'all! My name is Alexa Styers and I'm from Kansas City, Kansas. I will be a senior this fall at the University of Arkansas. I am an International Business Management major with a focus in Mandarin. I was not at the UofA for this past spring semester, instead I was studying at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics in China. There's a lot I can say about my experience in China but I won't bore you with the details. All I will say is that you really do not know what you're capable of until you move across the globe with minimal language skills and an affinity to misfortune. Right now I need a break but in the future I would like to work as a liaison between a company and their branch office/distribution centers based in China. One day I would like to be paid to travel throughout Indonesia, the Philippines, and southeast Asia. Traveling is always better when it is on someone else's tab. I would also like to study more languages, I have always ha...
My main passion in life is to travel. When I was young I lived in Surrey, England for several years. Afterwards my family moved to Kansas City, where we have lived since. When I was 10, my parents took my brothers and I on a trip to the Galapagos islands in South America. We traveled through Ecuador first, then took a boat to the islands. My senior year of high school my mother and I went to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. A month later we took a cruise around the Caribbean. In two weeks, my family will be off to Berlin, Germany to visit my brother who moved there after his graduation. As you can see, travel has been a large part of my life since I was born. After graduation, I hope to travel throughout Indonesia, the Philippines, and more. I find that staying in one place for too long makes me restless so I try to travel every chance I get. I feel that American culture does not allow for people to travel internationally as often as people living Europe and Asia can. The world is enormous, ...
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