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So you’ve lived in Shanghai for a while and gotten pretty comfortable here? Or maybe you’re fresh off the boat and ready to take this city by storm? Either way, learning Mandarin Chinese is absolutely essential for surviving and thriving in this booming metropolis.News flash: We live in China! Now, although it is not even close to your native tongue and you can certainly get by without speaking Mandarin Chinese here, learning the national lingo will pay off in many ways.

1. Break down Cultural BarriersChances are that you don’t speak Chinese with your friends here, especially when you share a common or native language like English. But what about making Chinese friends? It truly makes my day when I go get a mani/pedi and I can talk to the manicurist about where she is from and what color is in style (liu xin). When you can speak with street vendors or stylists, living in Shanghai seems less foreign and friendlier in general. On the flip side, when you cannot communicate with taxi drivers or bank tellers, it can be extremely frustrating.

As the Shanghai Dolls aims to be not only be a group who goes out to eat, drink and dance, we often have some events to instill a little culture into our members. One of these events was a painting class at [the studio] in  a sunny May  afternoon. Ok, don’t get me wrong it was an afternoon of painting while enjoying some nice wine, but culture was the main theme of the afternoon!

This kind of event is for a small group of up to 10 Dolls and is usually in high-demand. We started the afternoon with an introduction of what we were going to learn and then jumped right in! I know that all the girls there had an absolute ball and would love to do this type of class again.

If you don’t know about [the studio] it is a small art workshop/gallery that has regular classes for either children or adults. [the studio] has a group of artists utilizing the space, including painters, furniture designers and any other creative’s who mesh well with the group. It holds various activities from art classes, casual exhibitions, parties and anything else they feel is creative enough. [the studio] has a motto of express, inspire, create!

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