Photos taken by Yaseen Bhatti (Union College), Student Correspondent for CET Shanghai, Fall2026
Cat Spottings
Campus cats are part of daily life here, and this one claimed the sunniest manhole cover on the block. Students keep them well fed, so most are friendly enough to let you walk right up, though they make it clear they’re doing you a favor.
The campus cat crew also clocks in after dark, when students come by with food and the whole gang shows up. This orange one clearly thought I was the one intruding, and honestly, it had seniority.
This restaurant’s resident cat had the best seat in the house and slept through our entire meal. Honestly, goals.
Lion Grove Garden, Suzhou
Looking out through the colored glass windows of Lion Grove Garden in Suzhou. The garden is famous for its maze of rockeries, but my favorite view ended up being from indoors, framed like a painting.
Malls: Glass Dome and 1,000 Trees
Just your average Shanghai mall: glass dome, gold-trimmed columns, and murals of sailing ships. Malls here don’t do anything halfway.
1,000 Trees mall along Suzhou Creek, where every column is topped with a real tree. Shanghai architecture keeps finding new ways to surprise me.
Rose Latte at Shanghai Brand Coffee
For Management and Organizational Behavior, our class visited Shanghai Brand Coffee to learn about their business model and how government policy shapes the way companies operate in China. Case studies hit differently when you’re sipping a rose latte in the actual business.
Lu Xun’s Former Residence
The combined bedroom and study at Lu Xun’s former residence, preserved down to the wicker chairs and the desk he used for nearly ten years. Standing in a writer’s actual room makes history feel a lot less like a textbook chapter.
Phone Market
A phone market near the train station, where every stall sells, repairs, trades in, or appraises phones. My roommate and his friend came along as my guides, because some sellers swap in cheaper parts, and you could walk out with a Samsung wearing an iPhone costume. Lesson learned: bring a local.
The Bund
The Lujiazui skyline from the Bund on a cloudy night. No matter how many times I walk along the Huangpu River, this view still stops me mid-step.
Rafting in Anji
Rafting in Anji on a day trip with my CET roommates and classmates, where every boat gets a water scoop and nobody stays dry. Nothing breaks the ice like an all-out water fight.
Jiangliang Mountain
Early morning view of Jiangliang Mountain and its towering rock pillars. After weeks of Shanghai skyscrapers, it was a good reset to see something tall that nobody built.
Nanjing Excursion
During the CET trip to Nanjing, I went on my own to visit the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. The silence of the grounds, with the dates carved into stone, stayed with me long after I left.
Nanjing’s train station on a regular weekend was somehow the most packed station I’ve seen outside of a national holiday. In China, “normal weekend” and “light crowd” are not the same thing.
Xuanwu Lake with Nanjing’s Ming dynasty city wall running right along the water. Few places let you see six centuries of history and a modern city in one frame.
A quiet evening walk through Nanjing, where the city feels much calmer once the crowds head home.
Pagoda Rooftop, Shanghai
A glowing pagoda perched on top of a Shanghai high-rise. Here, old and new don’t just sit side by side; sometimes one sits right on top of the other.
Mid-Autumn Drone Show
A Mid-Autumn Festival drone show lighting up the sky over a small city. Proof that you don’t need a big city for a big celebration.
Acupuncture
Trying acupuncture at the Traditional Chinese Medicine department of a local hospital. Seeing TCM offered under the same roof as Western medicine was a firsthand look at how differently health systems can be built.