SMU Update 4/24/10

Sarkis, Rob, and Jonathan accompanied one of the Chinese students who spent last Spring at MMA to their home in the city of Lin Hai, Zhejiang Province. They took a 5 hour bus from downtown Shanghai. Upon arrival in Lin Hai they enjoyed a dinner of typical Lin Hainese dishes primary of seafood. An early morning wake up led to a two hour drive to Kuocang Mountain for a hike to the top and back down.

After completing the 1,000 meter ascent to the top the group enjoyed a meal with food that was caught, raised, or grown on the mountain top. After returning to Lin Hai in the evening the group shared a meal with the Chinese students family while trying to learn the Lin Hainese dialect and teaching the father how to read his English version of Chinese Rules of the Road book. The next day the group traveled with the family to witness the Chinese Tomb Sweeping ceremony. This annual tradition includes visiting the graves of your ancestors bringing food, wine, and paper money!

Fireworks are lit off symbolizing the abolishing of evil spirits from the tomb. Following the ceremony the group walked the Great Southern Wall of China. Built thousands of years ago its purpose was to protect the city from flooding and enemy ethnicities from attacking. Every large city in Ancient China built a wall to protect its people but an ancient dynasty required many of them to be demolished once the country was unified. Lin Hai was allowed to keep theirs due to the flood protection it provided. The Lin Hai trip was a very adventurous and an enjoyable trip for the students as they traveled far from the city streets of Shanghai.

Submitted by 2/c Jonathan White

SMU Update 4/21/10

On Friday morning we took a bus to the old campus in the city to meet our Marketing professor. We held our lecture at the College of Chinese Studies and then went to Century Park after the class. Today he planned to take us to the underground market. This is a market that primarily sells counterfeit goods for very cheap prices. It was interesting to see how real many of the products were and how the negotiating works. It is very acceptable to bargain in China and you can pretty much bargain anywhere you go. This on the other hand was an experience on its own and really represented the purest form of a free market. It is kind of enjoyable to bargain on something that you have no interest in buying because you can really get them to drop their prices. This is definitely something that you can't see in America

On Saturday, we made plans to visit Chongming island just off the coast of Shanghai. We took about a 1 hour bus ride to meet a “fast ferry” that took us over to the island. When I think of a fast ferry I pictured the Hy-line cruise to the vineyard but this definitely wasn't the same. We may have reached a top speed of 10 knots per hour. When we arrived at the island we had to take another small van for about a 45 minute ride to the park where we were headed. The park was nice and looked similar to the salt flats in sandwich near Scorton creek. The whole park is set up on a boardwalk because everything is tidal so the ground is soft. It was a nice day to walk around and enjoy the scenary.

On Sunday, we made plans to travel to Deng Xiaoping's birthplace. This was yet another great chance to see a famous site that I may not visit again. Deng Xiaoping was a famous leader of the communist party who led major reform in China. The people of China held him in very high regard and there were thousands of people that visited his hometown for the Qingming festival. They credit him with making China wealthy and starting the market economy that it is now. I took many pictures of the scenery and I took a picture of his statue that was decorated in traditional Chinese items and flowers. This was quite an interesting day and I didn't see any other westerners in this town or at his former home. We got quite a few looks from the Chinese people that were there.

On Monday, we traveled to the mountain range that surrounds Dan's hometown of Linshui. We drove up some very narrow roads and hitch backs for a long time to reach the top. We parked and continued for another 2 or 3 miles in a vehicle owned by the park. Once we reached the top we continued with a hike through some of the trails. The landscape at the top of the mountain was all karstland and I got some great pictures. It is interesting but there was a nice waterfall at the top of the mountain near the cave that we also got to visit. The cave goes through the top of the mountain and was once used during their civil war by the guerrilla soldiers. I'm not sure of the elevation of the mountain but it was amazing looking out over the valleys below. I really enjoyed the trip and I would certainly like the opportunity to return to this province again in the future.

I really couldn't get over how outgoing Dan's family was and all they did for us. This was a perfect example of a traditional Chinese family and they treated us like one of their own. I really found some differences in family values compared to that of most American families. I think Chinese families rely on each other a lot more and there is a greater sense of dependence. This is certainly different from some American families and our culture overall.

SMU Update 4/18/10

The Qingming festival (清明节) is a celebration for the remembrance of deceased family members. We were given a holiday for this occasion so many of us decided to travel to some other towns in the area. Vinnie and I were invited by my former roommate to travel with him to Chongqing for the weekend. We booked some flights last minute for the trip and made the 2 ½ hour flight to the mountain city in the west. This was a really great opportunity for us because Chongqing is a far more traditional city compared with Shanghai.

We were treated to a day at the hot springs on Friday because this is a natural occurrence in Chongqing. The water at the springs is considered very healthy to the Chinese and they often put additional medicines in the water. One of his family friends took us out for lunch at a very nice restaurant where we were treated to some amazing food. We were told the chef at the restaurant is the same chef that cooks for our US Presidents when they visit China.

For dinner we ate a traditional Sichuan “hotpot” at a restaurant. The hotpot found in Chongqing is famous across China and is known for its extreme spiciness. This was an interesting meal because the pot is boiling hot grease at the center of the table and you drop your food into the cooking pot while you eat. We had duck intestine, cow stomach, and some other interesting dishes in our hotpot that night.

On Saturday, we met Dan's family and joined them for lunch in his hometown just outside of Chongqing. They had plans to visit his family memorial in the rural area outside of Chongqing for the day. We had an entire caravan of vehicles that we took to the countryside. It was really interesting to see the living environment of the locals to this area. There were rice fields and farmers plowing the fields with oxen. They build their fields in a step up ladder system and then flood them with water for growing rice. They literally plow their fields in mud up to their waste while they follow a oxen and plow. When we arrived at the area we had to hike up through some small homes on the way to the top of the mountain that his family owns for the memorial. I asked about the significance of this area and why his family chose to place the cement memorial at this mountain. They use an interesting method to plot the land with a gps and then pick a spot at random. His family then purchased the top of the mountain for this site.

This day was definitely a once in a lifetime experience and I doubt that I ever get to experience it again. We hiked to the top and began to lay out the site for the ceremony. In Chinese culture, they lay out a bunch of paper money to burn. They believe that burning the money will send it to their ancestors so that they can spend it. They even burn currency from other countries in the case that their ancestors would like to travel. I found this entire ceremony to be very interesting and I asked a lot of questions out of curiosity. The ceremony is rather lengthy and the entire family participates. They burn the money and then leave food and alcohol at the memorial site. The next portion of the ceremony came as a surprise to me. They laid out enough fireworks for a small town fourth of July and ended the ceremony with quite a show. The surrounding valley was echoing with all the noise and I made sure to take some pictures with the families permission.

MMA Update 04/16/10

About our rooms...
Actually I like the environment in my room very much. The room is a little bigger than mine in SMU, which means that I can enjoy more space which makes me feel more relaxed. Because there are three beds in my room, so when friends come we never worry about bed problems, almost every night we could enjoy a happy chat with our friends which is everyday’s good time. Generally speaking, I love my room, my roommate and all our friends.
Cui Yongjie (Jay)

About the trip to Chinatown...
We had a very enjoyable trip to the City of Boston with Mr. and Mrs. Ragu last week and they were kind enough to treat us to lunch at a Chinese restaurant in China Town. The food was very delicious and was much like Chinese food at home. We then visited the Boston Commons. Said to be the oldest park in American, the scenery was very nice there. Many people were sunbathing there and we had a great time walking around taking pictures. It was a really wonderful day and we appreciated Mr. And Mrs. Ragu's company and kindness very much.
Liu Qi (Yuki)

What we expect next…
I am very happy that I have had a wonderful time since I came here. Before I leave here, I want to go to Washington DC, to see the White House and the Washington Monument. Another place I want to go is New York City, which is called the Big Apple; I want to see the statue of liberty, the symbol of freedom, which is very impressive to me. When the weather gets warmer, if I have more time, I think I will go to the beach with my friends, I’m sure that we will have a lot of fun there. Thanks for Mr. Deegan arranging us a lot of trips, and thanks for Michael and Jon giving us a lot of help. We really appreciate what you have done for us.
Wang Chen Yu(Brian)

Just as Capt. Rozak said, you are not guests, you are part of MMA.

Edited by Yang Hanzhao "Hank" SMU Exchange Student

MMA Update 04/14/10

We have lived in MMA for more than 1 month already. We want to experience everything here and we really enjoy the new life with our new friends. If you want to know our feelings in details, please follow us.

About our classes...
One thing impressing me a lot is the different ways of teaching at MMA. In SMU, we don’t need to read more than 40 pages of textbook within a week, but we have to here because a regular quiz is always waiting for us before the lecture. Honestly, I couldn’t adapt myself to the new teaching environment at first and it was really tough. Sometimes, I had to read the textbooks again and again for fear that I may miss something important and fail the quiz. After taking several quizzes, I think I can get the hang of it now. Another point arouses my curiosity is that students here are very active in class here and they may ask any questions at any time, while we Chinese students would just like to listen and make notes of the lecture. Among all the lectures, I prefer Vessel Chartering and Brokerage most which is provided by Prof. Norz. I find it gives me a brand new angle on the shipping market and the analytical reports often make me feel excited. I think I’m a real challenge junkie!
Wang Yiqug (Jeffrey)

We prefer the educational methods here and get the feeling that students have a strong passion for learning. They ask questions and interact with teachers actively, which provides a pretty good learning environment. The curriculum here is not that hard but contains the most basic and important knowledge, so that great stress of study won’t be made for students.
Qian Chenjia (Annabelle)

About the food...
We are facing a new world, a new environment. There are many foods which we can choose in the mess deck. Everybody is curious about the different food in US such as the cheeseburger, the different sauce, the ham and sandwiches. At the beginning, the difference food in mess deck isn't to our taste. But with the passing time, we have all adapted to the food containing much nutrition. We all spend a good amount of time in the mess deck. Xiao Ding (Jax)

Edited by Yang Hanzhao "Hank" SMU Exchange Student

This entry was co-written by SMU exchange students.

SMU Update 04/11/10

After walking around the city for the day we decided to get some dinner and walk around near the “Bund”. This is the area next to the river and today was the re-opening of the park. It has been closed for about 1 ½ years for construction and this re-opening was a really big event for a lot of the locals. The Bund really looks nice with all the city lights and activity at night. We decided to take a boat on the river and go to the other side of the “Bund” to the most expensive real estate in all of Shanghai. The city is really alive at night and they light up all the buildings and boats.

On Sunday I went with Dan and Renee to the Shanghai Aquarium. I had been wanting to go there since we got to Shanghai because it is a very well known aquarium. The inside has exhibitions for every region in the world and some of the rarest fish are kept at the aquarium. It took us several hours to get through the entire thing so after I got back to the old campus I headed back to school. Most of us had some homework to do for our classes and a paper that we needed to write for our Logistics Class. The weather has still been a little cold but there has been several nice sunny days where we wore shorts.

SMU Update 04/10/10

SMU planned for us to have dinner or lunch with one of the professors from school in their home. We were split into several groups and assigned a professors home to attend and the plans were set. My group had lunch on Saturday afternoon at a professors home in the city. I was at the old campus with my former roommate so I headed over to meet the rest of the group. The meal was prepared in front of us for several hours while we visited and enjoyed some snacks. The professor had very limited English but we had our friend Sarah with us to translate. The meal was excellent and they went to great measures to make sure we were satisfied.

I continually say I but I just can't get over the outward friendliness of this culture. We have really been treated like family. After the lunch we made our way to the old campus because several of us had yet to see it. It was a gorgeous day out so the rest of the group decided to go to century park. I had been wanting to go visit Fudan University so I got a taxi with Dan and made the 30 minute drive to the campus. Fudan University is one of the best University's in Shanghai and it has an excellent MBA program. The campus was very nice and I stopped to gather some information on the program.

Adam Silvis is a 2/C cadet and Student Trustee at Massachusetts Maritime Academy

SMU Update 04/09/10

Last Thursday I celebrated my 22nd birthday. Renee, my SMU roommate from last spring, bought me a birthday cake to celebrate on Wenesday night. Thursday night, members of the student service center on campus thru us a welcome party and I was lucky enough to be given a huge birthday cake at that event as well. Friday night followed with a welcome party from the Marine Transportation program. That week seemed to be one party after another.

This last weekend we had another scheduled trip by SMU to a private garden called Jingsi Garden, about 2 hours from the New Campus. We left early in the morning on Saturday and spent most of the day there. It was a typical Chinese garden, although construction began in 1996 and was finished in 2003. The pictures below are from Jingsi Garden.

Following our trip to Jingsi Garden we were dropped off in the city again and spent another night with our old roommates seeing downtown Shanghai and staying in a youth hostel near the Bund. We returned to campus later on Sunday afternoon and yesterday started yet another school week.

Myra Shannon is a 1/c cadet and 6th Company Adjutant majoring in the IMBU program

SMU Update 04/07/10

The first weekend that we were on campus we left the campus early to go to an old water city about 1.5 hours from campus. In the morning we had to go to the Chinese Quarinteen and Inspection Facility because several of the student needed to change their visas so they can be granted further residency in the country. We spent almost 3 hours at the facility before driving another 2 hours to the old water city. Our tour guide for the trip got us lost once and our coach bus driver ended up driving down a one lane road between fishing ponds. When we got the end of the one lane road we discovered that there were cement blocks at the end preventing us from driving any further. We ended up having to back our way down almost 2 miles of road, with water on either side, in on-coming traffic. It took us a very long time to make it to the city.
This picture is of the all the exchange stuents at the water city. In the undergraduate program with those of us from Mass Maritime, we have exchange students from Australia, The Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, Camereon, and Ghana. In total I think there are 21 of us (including the 11 of us from MMA).

On our return trip from the water city several of us were dropped off downtown to spend the night in the city. I went with some of the guys from MMA and we met our old roommates in the French Concession district. We spent the rest of the day Sunday catching up on laundry and preparing for the next weeks classes once we returned from downtown.

The following week continued much like the first one had, except for the fact that I caught a pretty good cold. The combination of having been on a plane with 200 strangers on the way over, with the very cold and rainy weather (and inproper clothing to deal with it), the sanitary conditions of China being less than that back home, and the style of eating in China made it easy to get sick. In China most the meals that you will eat are shared plates that everyone eats off of, so there are lot of germs going around. I’m feeling 100% better now, almost 2 weeks later.

Myra Shannon is a 1/c cadet and 6th Company Adjutant majoring in the IMBU program

SMU Update 04/05/10

I am taking courses in Chinese Business Law, Port Terminal Operations, Marketing, Electronic Commerce, and a Chinese Culture course. Our classes run for 3 hours a day, once a week. They are somehwhat interesting. Each class is taught in English and from the way that the teachers are describing the courses at this time, we will not be taking exams, but rather projects or papers will be due at the end of the semester. Our teachers’ spoken english is pretty good, some obviously better than others, but overall we are able to understand them most of the time.

During the first week of classes we had one day off, as our teacher was out of the country. We took this opportunity to travel into the city and visit one of the famous gardens in Shanghai on the well known Nanjing Road. This was the first time that we traveled via public transit into the city. From the New Campus to the downtown bus station it’s about a 40 minute ride, costing 17 RMB- which is about $2.40. Comparing the ride from the Bourne Bride into Boston it’s MUCH cheaper. The subway system in the city is quite easy to navigate and it costs about $.50 to ride!

Myra Shannon is a 1/c cadet and 6th Company Adjutant majoring in the IMBU program

SMU Update 04/04/10

We are all into a regular routine with all of our classes and daily living. We are now pretty much able to order our own food and go around the campus without a problem. With some different classes, we are all pretty much on our own schedule. The majority of us do some sports in the afternoon and then go to the gym at our 1800-2000 allotted time. We are now getting some regular homework and papers for classes so that has consumed some time. I have been spending some free time in the evenings trying to learn more Chinese but it continues to be difficult. I think everyone has increased their vocabulary at least in some fashion. There are plenty of students around that want to practice their English so we may have to barter to learn some Chinese. I think the store clerks and waitresses laugh almost every time we order something or say thank you in Chinese. It is quite humorous to try to pronounce a lot of their words. I think the most important part of this is the cultural knowledge that we are gaining and the language skills comes second.

Adam Silvis is a 2/C cadet and Student Trustee at Massachusetts Maritime Academy

MMA Update 04/02/10

Last week the annual Connecticut Maritime Association Conference was held in Stamford, CT and, as in years past, Massachusetts Maritime Academy was in attendance. The majority of the juniors and seniors in the International Maritime Business program were joined by the five IMB host cadets and their Chinese roommates for the four hour bus ride to Stamford.

We were entertained on the bus watching Wedding Crashers, Role Models, and Heavyweights. In the blink of an eye, were had arrived at CMA and were inside the Hilton hotel mingling with industry executives. Most of us were able to catch the last part of a presentation on China’s growing role in the shipping industry and the expected role they will play in the future. Subsequently, the Chinese students and a few of the cadets from MMA wound up in the delegates luncheon dining on clam chowder, chicken and vegetables, and a delectable chocolate cake. The Plimsoll award was given to industry members who made an impact on the shipping market in usual ways such as reducing the environmental impact of their fleet or providing better industry transparency.

After lunch the five exchange students joined Jon and I for a presentation on the impact of newly built ships entering the market fleet and the expected role that the gargantuan orderbook will play on market rates. After this presentation we all had the opportunity to walk around and speak to company representative about career opportunities. The primary focus of the conference is for companies to offer their services to other companies rather than to hire cadets but this provided a valuable networking opportunity for the cadets to get business cards of employers to contact in the future. The ride back included a stop at Uno’s Restaurant somewhere in Connecticut and I think we were all eager to hit the racks after such a long, exciting day!


2/c Mike Doren and 2/c Jon Foley are cadet hosts for the SMU students at MMA and will be documenting their semester experience.

SMU Update 04/01/10

Our first full days at SMU were spent doing a tour of campus and the surrounding area, including the new city being built nearby, Lingang. The different colleges’ buildings are located on one side of campus and the dorms and cafeterias are located on the other side of campus. There is a man-made river though the middle of the campus and it divides the areas. The school gymnasium is about a 10 minute walk from our dorms and is very nice. We have been given access to the weight room and the pool during the week. The library on campus is unbelievable. COSCO (China Overseas Shipping Company) sponsored 7 million dollars to the building of the campus library and their logo is on the roof. We have a pretty good view of the library from my bedroom balcony and a good view of the auditorium and the remainder of the dorms on campus from my study’s balcony. We also went to the Lingang City to see what is under construction there. China will be having a World Expo while we are here (in May) and it is expected that 70 million people will be in attendance. They are doing a lot of construction all over the city in preparation for the Expo.

This picture is from the 7th floor balcony of the library. It is overlooking some of the dormitories; on the left of the building that looks like a ship (which is actually the student service center) on the right side are classroom buildings. The water that you see from the balcony is the man made river that runs through the campus.

Myra Shannon is a 1/c cadet and 6th Company Adjutant majoring in the IMBU program