Insights into Shanghai's International Community

While abroad in Shanghai, I was exposed to its international community of expats studying abroad at my university. Shanghai is the largest city in the world, and as such, there is an enormous contingent of foreign students looking to tap into its growing business environment. On my hall, about three doors down from me lived an international student from Senegal. Bobo, a Muslim African, had been conducting his graduate studies in Shanghai for eight years, and was going through Ramadan during my first month in Shanghai. As part of his religious tradition, he and his friends could not eat until after 8pm every day. While returning from an early evening on the town, I happened upon Bobo and began to chat with him. Just as I felt the conversation growing a bit awkward, I mentioned that I had homework to do, and needed to retire to my dorm for the night. He insisted that I stay and eat dinner with he and his five friends. I took him up on his offer, and continued to eat a traditional Muslim dish out of a tray on the ground, with our hands. We ate, talked about the Senegalese way of life, their government, and their aspirations. After spending the better part of two hours with them, I finally went to my room and finished the homework I had put off in order to learn about a culture foreign to myself. This encounter is special to me in that I learned about a group of people I had no prior knowledge of, and it was in an especially unique place: Shanghai. The experience proved to me that it is grossly important to learn about other people's experiences, and also gave me an alternative view on my abroad country from somebody other than native Chinese person or an American on my program.