Week 7: "Rhapsody in Blue"

Travel Log:

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved dioramas. A little vertical slice of a larger world filled with facsimiles of people living imaginary lives. It allows your mind to race with possibilities as you take in the miniature scenery. Maybe it was the speed of the train, the height it was at, or some combination of both to generate the illusion. Regardless, as the train to Shanghai zoomed through the countryside towards our destination, the scenery outside the window felt just like a diorama. Wind-Up Cars zipped around on roads, gears ticking and whirring. Stop-Motion People were only made visible by their most exaggerated motions. Even cities seemed to be the handiwork of a particularly passionate hobbyist, shrunk down and moved within arm’s length. It was surreal, a whole country passed by in the blink of an eye. 

When the train finally pulled into Shanghai Station, my perspective snapped like a rubber band. What was previously microscopic became gargantuan as the cityscape swelled until it towered far above me. The view of the skyline as Alex and I wound inwards towards the city center was unbelievable. The tops of trees and smaller houses acted like waves washing over each other, swelling up, and eventually crashing against this singular urban island, which seemed to be an ocean apart from where we were located. I felt a familiar, strange realization hit me: “I’m in China.” Isn’t that bizarre? After all these months, there’s still some sort of disconnect. Why? At the time, I chose to ignore it as my focus turned to the skyscrapers slowly rising around me. 

We eventually stopped by the home of Alex’s aunt and uncle, and they were the absolute friendliest and loveliest people I’ve met on this trip. Even though I was just a tagalong, they welcomed me into their home and allowed me to try the Shanghai cuisine they had laid out on the table. What an incredible meal it was. I’ve had the opportunity to eat at a lot of pretty amazing places over the course of my life, but nothing has ever beaten the taste of home cooking. It filled me with a sense of nostalgia for the visits I’ve had to my relatives and left a smile on my face; it was easily my favorite highlight of this summer yet. After a while, we eventually headed out again, and one thought stayed on my mind: “I wish I could properly thank them.” Sure, I was able to say the phrase “Thank you.” in Chinese and hastily stitch together a couple of phrases, but that did little to convey how much I truly appreciated their hospitality.

Back on the road for a while, we eventually crossed a colossal suspension bridge into the city center. Now that I could get a closer look at things, what immediately struck me was that the architecture wore far clearer Western influences than Beijing. It was also far easier to communicate in English at the various places I visited. To make a gross oversimplification of it all, it reminded me of being in New York vs. being in Washington, D.C., A high-density bustling tradeport city with a very active nightlife in comparison to the more buttoned-up spacious government city with a focus on historical sites. Every city has a pulse, a heartbeat that you can actively feel without needing to be told. In cities like Shanghai, that feeling is electric; it gives you a sense of motion, of liveliness, and the potential that anything could happen. That’s why I’ve always loved NYC, so having that distinct feeling return in a place so far removed geographically was a nice surprise. 

After a quick moment to rest, we headed out towards a traditional restaurant where our coworker Roleen and some of his friends were waiting. As we were all sitting around the table and eating dinner, I felt so out of place. Not in the usual sense of simply sticking out, which was something I had stopped noticing weeks ago, no, it was that deeper feeling of disconnection swelling up again. A communion of friendly faces, good food, and conversation was right in front of me, but I was a million miles away. 

My inability to speak or understand Chinese has created a barrier between me and everyone else around me. It’s not that they don’t understand what I’m saying in English, but I’m always desperately scrounging for any crumb of context. So I can never truly engage in the conversation. Even when I can, it feels like I’m being a burden to everyone else. A distinctly sour note in an otherwise harmonious melody. As an example, this week, a professor from Yale visited the firm, and of course, someone as smart as him could speak Chinese perfectly. However, because I was there, he spoke English, and that was to accommodate me. I appreciated it, of course, but there’s something so particularly mortifying about events like those because they emphasize the disruption that I cause by simply being present. So I’ve come to prefer to just sit back, listen, and observe to the best of my ability.

It's perhaps fitting, then, that our next destination that night was the Museum of Art Pudong, which had an exhibit featuring a variety of original works by famous artists, including Vincent Van Gogh. Walking around, quietly taking in all that art, gave me time to think a lot of things over. I’ve come to realize that perception is not understanding. You could stare at a painting 24/7, take in every beautiful brush stroke,  and divine no meaning from it at all. When I first began this trip, I believed that by being here for 3 months, I would gain a deeper understanding than somebody who had just vacationed for a week or two, but the more people I meet, the more I see, the more that reminds me of home, the more I realize that the gap was far wider than I could have possibly imagined. Not because of a specific large list of differences, but because of the simple and obvious one that is language. 

There is this bittersweet sensation that, with each passing day, has begun to swell within me. I’ve seen so many amazing sights, felt the life and culture that surrounds me, but I know that distance will always be present. I can’t properly communicate my thoughts and feelings to most of the people here, and in turn, I can’t come to properly understand theirs. I’ve had so many fantastic interactions with people who were helpful, kind, patient, funny, who shared similar interests, career paths, etc. In another life, I would have had so many wonderful conversations with and maybe even made some lifelong friends. Yet here and now it just was not meant to be. I get to take a single glance out the window, grab the view from 100 feet up, and then just as quickly, I am dragged back home. It doesn’t diminish how incredible this trip has been. In fact, I’d argue it adds to it, but I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t left me yearning for something more, something deeper than simply skimming across the surface like I am now. 

Writing A Research Paper:

Ever since I finished up my seminar a couple of weeks back, the firm has had me working on turning all that research into a solidified paper that they are then going to post on their website. Of course, that led to me asking myself one simple question: “What was my point?” I mean, don’t get me wrong. I had a lot of individual findings, various concerns, etc., but when you jam them all together, it ends up looking more like a grocery list or a conspiracy board than an actual professional piece of research. I needed to find that connective tissue. For me, that process can only occur as I am actively writing, and then I fix it up retroactively. If you’re ever struggling to write something, just actually start the process of writing it. Don’t worry about that first draft being some kind of masterpiece or even if any of it will actually make the final cut. I have had drafts of this blog, which, as previously mentioned, got axed because they were just bad; however, they taught me what I did and did not want to write about and how I wanted to go about it. 

Anyway, that got me thinking that since I’ve spent so much time actively describing my research to you all in such a distinctly different way that it would offer some insights I was unable to find in more long-form rough drafts. My main takeaway was that I realized that all of the writing was a lot of clarification and specification on AI. There was an amount of build-up that needed to happen before I could get into the meat of whatever specific X or Y topic was, and that’s a pretty big problem. If an extremely common topic needs this much explanation, then the chances of the average person being uninformed about it skyrocket, and that has some pretty concerning knock-on effects because best best-case scenario, our legislative bodies are about as aware of it as the average person, which is unfortunate considering they need to be writing laws to wrangle it. I’m not just saying this to complain or blame them; it is not reasonable to expect people who have other obligations or duties to become savants on every single topic that comes before them, so an alternative approach needs to be found.

Basically, there needs to be a way to easily understand these topics, whether that be a legal database, improving what common definitions are used, or getting more experts in front of the right people to cut through the noise. By going so in-depth with my blog, my hope was that I could contribute to this effort in some small form, and in turn, I decided to emphasize that point in my research paper. This summer has been interesting because I have likely written more in this short period of time than I have in a very long while, and in two very different formats, which has allowed me to gain a better grasp of my own personal thought process, stylistic choices, and helped me improve my writing skills as a whole. I have to imagine it would have taken me far longer to put all my research together if I lacked this secondary format. Unfortunately, despite all my progress, I’m still working on my ability to write good conclusions.

As always, thanks for reading,

Logan Smith