gap year abroad in china for U.S. high school graduates

Located at the confluence of the Yangzi River, the Grand Canal and the Pacific Ocean, Shanghai historically served as a major commercial port, channeling the region's cotton crop to markets in Beijing, the countryside, and Japan.

Former leader Deng Xiaoping once said that if China is a dragon, Shanghai is its head. Known for its economic prowess and long history of foreign influence, Shanghai is the perfect locale from which to observe the interplay of various forces moving China from a planned to a market economy. Whatever happens in China, happens first in Shanghai, its largest city.

Shanghai was traditionally open to Western influence and had the best Western art, architecture and business center in Asia in the 1920’s-1930’s. The city was raided, invaded and finally occupied by the Japanese in 1943, and fighting continued until the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949. In 1972, with the Cultural Revolution still raging, Shanghai hosted the historic meeting between the Chinese premier, Zhou Enlai, and President Nixon that began China's normalized relations with the rest of the world.

Today, the Western architecture along the Bund waterfront area provides visual proof of Shanghai's historic ties to the international community as well as a testament to its colonial past. More recently, there has been massive development in the Pudong Special Economic Zone just across from the Bund along the opposite bank of the Huangpu River, with new skyscrapers being erected on a regular basis. The modernization and economic development that China has been experiencing can easily be witnessed in this great city.

what will your story be in china?

New skyscrapers, bridges, tunnels, and trains are constantly appearing in this economically vibrant and cosmopolitan city, but Shanghai's magnificent past and long history of foreign influence are also abundantly evident, blending new and old in a majestic setting. You'll live and take language classes in China's largest city!

 

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