Nostalgic For Shanghai

Exactly two years ago, I was preparing to go back to Shanghai for my second semester there. The magic of the first semester had gotten to me. Four months, I’d decided, was nowhere near enough. From August to October, my love affair with the city had grown increasingly more intense, and by November I was in a miserable pit of depression. I didn’t want to leave. At the last minute, just two weeks before the end of December, I spontaneously decided to extend the experience through the spring. It was one of the best decisions of my life. A full school year was the perfect dose, and by the end of the spring, I was ready to temporarily wave goodbye.

It was so long ago, yet it still feels so close to the present. Everyone, it seems, has been going back to visit. Everyone but me. Every once in a while another friend says, “Hey, did I tell you? I’m going back to Shanghai for a couple of months!” The jealousy churns in the bottom of my stomach.

People used to ask me what was so amazing about Shanghai. Why did I need to spend a second semester there? I always told them the same thing: “I’ve moved seven times in my life, and never have I ever connected enough with a place to really call it home. But Shanghai? Shanghai feels like home to me. It’s where I belong.”

I miss Shanghai. I long to go back, to walk through Zhongshan Park again, to visit my favorite restaurants and fake markets. I look forward to the day when I can fly back–hopefully to live there for some period of time. But simultaneously, I’m terrified. How will Shanghai have changed when I finally see it again? How much of it will I still recognize? For a city so international, so fast-paced, so quickly influenced by the trends of the world, change is practically a habit. Change is how it breathes, how it grows. When your home has changed so dramatically, is it really even home anymore? When I finally make it back, I’ll have to brace myself for the change that will slap me in the face the moment I step off the plane.

Another thing is certain: the experience will be nothing like when I was there as a student. Being a student abroad means a lot of things. It means that you have peers who have thrown themselves into the same situation as you, and you connect and form fast friendships. It means you have the resources provided by your university: people who you can turn to for help, rules and regulations that protect you and guarantee a lot of important things. Your school is one of your lifelines, your friends are your comfort zone. Once you’re no longer a student, those resources goes away. You’re basically on your own.

I think subconsciously I already knew things would be different. While I was in China, I religiously wrote in my paper journals, documenting every moment, every experience. I saved every ticket stub, every brochure, every business card. I took thousands upon thousands of photographs. I worked so hard to try to preserve every tiny piece of the experience. It seemed so necessary at the time.

Now, two years later, I’ve realized that the nature of the study abroad experience creates something of a snow globe effect. In a snow globe, everything is frozen in place, frozen in time; the buildings and structures and little figurines are never-changing, forever fixed in their places. Similarly, a period of time spent studying abroad preserves that experience in your mind with very specific ideas and memories of people and places. I’ll always associate Shanghai with Coffeelox on Dingxi Lu, even though by the time Chinese New Year had come and gone, Coffeelox had already been torn down to be replaced by a Taiwanese chain bakery. My best friends from Shanghai are still my best friends, even though I see them only occasionally now that we’re back in the states. But each reunion brings back the same spark and chemistry that first drew us together, and we know those relationships will be preserved more permanently in our lives than any tangible photo album.

I used to be sad when I thought about how going back would never be the same. I used to worry that I could never again love Shanghai the way I did during that one year. It would be too different, I told myself. The city would be unrecognizable when I saw it again. But I guess to live in a city and really be a part of it, you have to swim with the current, not against it. Shanghai might change and grow, but so will I. Shanghai is the economic center of China for a reason. It’s international and young and trendy. Chances are, even though I’m on the other side of the world for the time being, Shanghai and I will move in the same direction.

Maybe the experience will be different. Maybe by the time I go back the city will reflect nothing of the memories I’m so fond of. But the snow globe of my year in Shanghai has already been sealed off. Those places and people and memories are stuck forever inside the glass, and I’ll never be in danger of losing them. Julia will always provide her creative curse words, Peter his drunken stories. Sanyo will always be obsessed with tea, Chen will always have his distinctive laugh. I’ll never forget those weird casseroles that Coffeelox served, or our crazed bargaining at the fabric market. The thought of Huang Shan will always bring to mind the ridiculous games we played, the jokes we shared. And even though I know that at this very moment, my favorite parts of Shanghai are probably being torn down and rebuilt, it is the memory of that time, and not just the city itself, that makes it so special.

When I finally make it back, I’ll bring with me my courage and my memories. I’ll go and unearth the pieces of the Shanghai I remember, and I’ll build a new home to love.