Choosing the Corner Office: The First Day at NYU Shanghai

Having not recovered yet from the jet lag as of today (Thursday) when writing this post, my first days in Shanghai are pretty much as expected: rising early long before any coffee shops serve me with the desired brown liquid, getting done some of the essential practicalities (attempt to resurrect my old Chinese phone number or figuring out the best way to receive my grant money in yuan) and draft plans for a research routine starting from next week.

Apart from settling in to my tiny apartment in a not-yet-at all-gentrified xiaoqu (community) of the trendy Xintiandi (新天地) area, I’ve also visited the NYU Shanghai campus in Pudong district, where I’m given office space as graduate fellow. Well, I will see how my archival days turn out, but I’m pretty sure this desk and window (!) are going to convince me to choose this as my working station. After all, my cozy little back door walk-up isn’t quite like my home office in our spacious Jersey City apartment, and so I rather trade half an hour subway commute for a better environment to be productive.

I missed China in the past two years, and now I’m getting it for three months! It’s exciting to be in Shanghai, both familiar and new at the same time. Familiar with its hot and humid late-August days that remind me of returns to university in my former home city Tianjin after summer holidays spent in Hungary. Here, I hear a different dialect on the narrow alleys that is way softer than the pirate language-like Northern erhua (erization) but it is still the country I’m attached to not only by my studies but also with fond memories. I’m sure this metropolis holds plenty of interesting experiences for me, some of them I will be able to share on this blog so that it won’t be only about my academic self-motivation and research reports. Hope you all will keep checking in when a new blogpost arrives!