Jerry Slocum & Michelle Truong

Today was the last day of class in LA, and we leave to China tomorrow…it really went by fast! Almost every day we’ve gotten delicious snacks brought by latecomers. Today, Jerry brought vanilla wafer cookies, and Jeremy brought donut holes from Dunkin’ Donuts (Yum!). Professor started off the class with a #papasheehan lecture about not getting too involved with the expat bubble at bars and clubs. Basically, be aware of your surroundings and what comes out of your mouth (that’s what I got from that)! We also talked about our roommate situation, in which the boys are getting randomly assigned for all four hotels, and the girls (except for Mikaella and Michelle) are too, with Marissa, Wendy, Michele, and Emma switching off in the single room (thank you for taking one for the team, gals!).

Professor Sheehan and the GEA scholars in their last class before their travels!

After, we began our discussion of the readings for the day. We had two readings: one about hostessing as a type of consumption to make a public claim and the other about disco as a place of expression to “be consumed” as well as consume. It was a quick discussion about something different from what we’ve discussed before, but quite fitting to warn us about sketchy karaoke in China. Hostessing will most likely be present at karaoke centers offering services including singing and dancing. After discussion, we tried checking in, but some of us were notified that we would need to check in tomorrow with an agent so that they can double check that we have our visas and passports. This won’t be a problem since we will all be at the airport bright and early three hours before our flight.

Professor Sheehan in discussion with research group – Team Tampon

I’m sure I speak for all of us in saying that excitement is high as we approach our flight time. To conclude, the readings we have done have given us some basic tools to commence our research and some historical background to provide context to our experiences in China. We have all selected some very interesting research topics that will surely lead us into interesting discoveries in the next few days. Reminder to keep in mind “LONG AND CLUNKY, over short and vague” for our thesis! And remember, 119 (the opposite of America’s 911) in case of emergencies!!!