Blog post by Summer School participant and third-year Harvard undergraduate student, Alexandre Benoit
Alexandre Benoit
October 16, 2024
Never before have I gone to somewhere I knew so little about assuming so much. As Americans, we are taught to think certain things about China, about Chinese people, even about how China views Americans. My entire worldview was fundamentally altered because of the Harvard Summer School program in Shanghai.
As part of the program, I filmed Shanghai’s public parks—which are unrivaled—its nightclubs and night workers, its bright lights and its bamboo scaffolds. I was told countless times before going to China to beware of what I filmed, who I filmed, what subjects I broached. Nowhere has filming, discussing, and engaging been as easy as Shanghai. Everyone, bar none, was open and excited to be filmed, to learn about us Americans, and more importantly, to teach us about the fantastic city they call home. The world’s largest metro system and metropolitan population can feel daunting at times. Shanghai can feel fast, tall, intimidating. But an afternoon in Huangxing Park listening to folk songs in the forest, an evening in the Senator Saloon speakeasy, and it all slows down.
In Shanghai you’ll find the best Beijing rolls (better than the capital!), the occasional rain, the abundant campus cat at Fudan, the hum of EV’s and neon lights illuminating the most beautiful skyline on this planet. You might buy a new computer like I did—you will find every possible convenience—and you might be invited for a rice wine tasting at a Local Peoples’ Congress member’s house. Up in our campus hotel, through the support of the MCS funding, HSS Shanghai, both students and faculty alike, became a family, eating meals together in the incredible campus cafeteria, taking long bus rides to silk factories, and agreeing that we should all assume less and instead learn more about the city on the water.
To learn more about the Harvard Summer School Program in Shanghai, click here.