the end is nigh

photos of the gifts from our bookstore friend:



i am disappointed they are so blurry. i think you can just make out the eyes, nose and ears of the tiny weasel. i realized when looking at these photos and talking to lis that her ocean bottle was actually tied with a rubber band at the top and that maybe, just maybe, our friend had no eyebrows. we were going to "forget" these items in our hotel lobby (the scene of the photos) as a sort of parting gift to our crappy hotel, but the doorman was watching:



i think lis eventually abandoned them in the door of the cab who took us to the airport.

___

for those of you who are wondering, i leave shanghai sunday. it's very bittersweet, as i miss chris and my pets terribly, but i will also miss china and my adventures here. i will strangely miss the regal international hotel, laundry service and turn down service (which has allowed me to accumulate about 10 individually wrapped chocolates, which are placed on my bed at random). i will miss sharing "monopoly money," the fabric market and all its unrealized potential, and shopping for gifts for my family and friends. i will miss the office (though not the bathrooms) and molly, the traffic head—a small malaysian woman who dresses like she's 15 and just come from the gym. i will miss jason, whose energy fuels this office and every meeting he's in, and who has a knack for making me laugh and helping me spend all my money on fancy dinners and booze. i will miss the studio folks, none of whom speak much english. i will miss helen, the adorable but utterly clueless traffic girl. i will miss the house "auntie" who prepares breakfast for the office and shoves new and peculiar food at me with a sly grin. mostly, i will miss angel, the studio manager who has been a wonderful hostess and friend. i will miss warm wine and street dumplings. and last BUT NOT AT ALL LEAST, i will miss cab rides, standing my ground in the face of oncoming traffic and the look on lis's face when a full bus stops just short of her side of the cab.

is it right to say...?

since beijing, not much has happened; work has been very busy this week. I'm not sure I've made it to bed before 2am, and I haven't been sleeping incredibly well due to bee sting discomfort. we haven't had time to do much besides be tired, not work out, take taxis and occasionally eat outside the office. however, tonight my replacement arrived. and I have never seen him so talkative. he's chinese and fairly quiet in the states where he only speaks english at work. the funny part is that tonight he was chatty in english. anyway, we’re giving him tomorrow to relax because well, tomorrow the office is closed. they are shutting off the power to the entire street for the construction project I so dutifully keep tabs on. but of course we have so much going on, lis and I have to work from the hotel. hopefully we can sleep in a little first.

I forgot to mention one thing from our adventure in beijing. the bookstore: we were looking for some chinese cookbooks (lis and I are both addicted to dumplings) and were approached by a very flamboyant chinese man with a shaved head and a baseball cap. he asked us if we were native english speakers and if he could ask us some questions. we said he could and then were trapped for 10-15 minutes correcting or affirming english phrases he had written all over tiny pieces of yellow paper, much to the amusement of the westerners behind us.

"so is it right that I say: 'the national product increased by three folds'?"

"or is it right to say: 'the national product increased by three times'?"

"is also right to say: 'the national product increased by three times that of last year'?"

"which is right to say: 'I will work for you from 2 colon 10 until 5 colon 10'? or is it better to say: 'I will work for you from 2 to 10 until 5 to 10'?"

there were about 10 more questions, all concerning business transactions, each punctuated with dramatic inhalations and facial contortions, until he finished off with this:

"is it right to say: 'the more beautiful, the more slender, the more attractive, the more passion I have for her. this is correct? commas, or no commas'?"

he then proceeded to explain the concept of good karma to us and tell us that we were as beautiful as movie stars and that he would never forget us. and he gave us GIFTS which he pulled from his black leather fanny pack; lis got a small jar filled with water, sand and shells, topped with a pink ribbon. I was lucky enough to receive a small, black bit of fur which was apparently supposed to be a weasel. i think.

I also think it's right to say this one was both a HIGH and a LOW.

beijing

thanks to angel and a few well placed phone calls from our receptionist, lis and I just spent a little time in beijing. it was fantastic. I’ll have to pretty much just list the highs and lows, as we did SO much.

HIGH: fancy car to take us to the airport.
HIGH: china air’s animae flight safety video, complete with a Swallow on a Plane.
LOW: cabin pressure. literally. my ears were screaming for about 20 minutes of our descent.
HIGH: our cab getting lost on the way to the hotel. the driver kept getting out of the car to read the address in the headlights of the cab. he finally asked some guys loitering on a corner where to go.
LOW: our hotel. the elevator smelled like feet. housekeeping refused to come help us with the air unit until we went down to the front desk to ask for help. the beds were crammed into the room, and the bathroom was, well, nothing either of us relished walking in barefoot. thank god for crocs; lis and I both used mine as shower shoes. (the shower was also just a dingy corner of the bathroom with a curtain. no tub. no walls. nada.)
HIGH: shopping nearby.
HIGH: the forbidden city.
HIGH: hou hai, the lake area. we found a ton of little bars and entertainment (some filipino bands as well; our boston pervert friend would be proud).
LOW: being accosted by three (drunk?) chinese men who approached our cab, kept opening the door and having to try to close the door on them. we got NO help from the cab driver and were unsure of they were going for my purse, trying to steal our cab, JOIN us in our cab, or just fuck with us. any way you looked at it, they knew we weren’t amused as I was waving my arms, shaking my head, saying “NO” and trying to close the door over and over. I finally used my leg to clear the area around the door to shut it without actually kicking anyone. the main guy was shocked and kicked back, but fully going for contact. the REAL kicker? our ever so helpful cab driver kicked us out of the cab. (he was nice enough to take us around the corner first, but somehow in that exchange I ended up looking like a violent, crazy foreigner. whatever. better safe than sorry, I guess.)
LOW: the next cab refusing to take us anywhere too.
HIGH: the very nice third cab driver. he actually waved BYEBYE.
HIGH: finding an adapter for my laptop so we could watch nip/tuck.
HIGH: the great wall of china. we went on a tour which took us up into the hills outside of town and allowed us to hike up to the wall, and along the unrestored part of the wall.
LOW: using the back-water stink-hole of a toilet in a farmhouse near the start of our trip.
HIGH: not being the slowest hiker.
LOW: lis getting stung by a bee. I stopped to help her. then we both got attacked.
HIGH: not dying on the great wall of china from bee stings. there was a chance I was allergic and I have never been stung. excuse me, HAD never been stung. (grand total of bee stings between the two of us: 6.)
HIGH: discovering that when hiking the great wall of china, it's much more satsfying to call it by it's full name. you can't just say "the wall" or even "the great wall". it's really "the great wall of china."
LOW: our van breaking down on the way back to town. (lis and I managed to use it as an opportunity to nap though.)
HIGH: terribly cheesy boy band music and videos played in the van ride home.
HIGH: finding the restaurant we had been looking for after we had given up. not only was it good, but none of it made us sick.
HIGH: meeting jay and george, the nice middle-aged gentlemen who we had to share a table with at the weird australian bar down the street from the restaurant. they gave us chinese lessons, explained what the deal is with mao, and weren’t too creepy.
HIGH: learning to embrace the chinese way through the liberal use of our bells on our bike tour through town.
HIGH: unknowingly being in tianamen square on the 30th anniversay of mao’s death.
HIGH: the 798 area of town. it’s warehouses converted to galleries. some very cool stuff there, including a few art openings we unwittingly wandered into.
LOW: low blood sugar and ordering a pizza bagel at mini café. apparently cinnamon raisin bagels are not excluded from becoming pizza here.
HIGH: finding some good shopping at hou hai which we had missed before.
HIGH: finding that our search for “no name bar” could finally end, as the cute bar on the corner we were going to if we couldn’t find it was actually the same bar.
LOW: bee stings becoming problematic and acting like my mosquito bites from the weeks before. except worse.
LOW: low energy for the summer palace.
HIGH: the jade store. it’s the beijing version of the fabric market.
HIGH: street food in snack alley.
HIGH: all the photos we took.
LOW: will be figuring out where to post them.

singular aim

I forgot to mention about the rest of the night of the BBQ. now I knew lis was toying with the idea of watching the notre dame/georgia tech football game and that's how we ended up meeting SACH to begin with. but I had no idea lis was so intent on watching. she spent the rest of the night finagling a way to see the game sunday morning, calling bars, enlisting the other alums and our hotel conceirge to call bars, and surfing chat rooms for signs of fans who might know where to go. her diligence paid off though; we found ourselves FLYING across town on sunday in the best cab ride I have ever taken. there’s really no way to give this guy his due credit, but I have a feeling that he might be training for nascar. anyway, lis had managed to find a guy showing all sorts of slingboxed recordings of college football games at bubba’s texas style BBQ. bizarre. but it had surprisingly good pulled pork. and we were surprised too when SACH showed up with his WHOLE FAMILY to watch the game. how cute was that?

not so cute was the warm beer, the manager who proceeded to get blotto’ed and demand we high five him, nor the self-proclaimed pervert from boston who kept alternately thanking us for talking to him and trying to set us up with his embarrassed friend. the one thing of worth he did tell us though, is that if we had time, to head to guanzhou and hold a baby panda. “fuck the grerat wall” he said. “once you get one of those little buggers in your arms, nothing else matters.” it was he said, the best experience he has had in his 12 years in china, hands down. of course he also said that filipinos were the best entertainers but the ugliest people on the planet, so we had to take his advice with more than just a grain of salt. poor SACH had to leave early so he could get his youngest home to bed. we thought, oh no, he’ll miss the end of the game, but little did we know we would too; the recording cut off the last 10 or so minutes of the game and we had to accept the outcome from the lips of the drunk manager, as well as hug him goodbye.



the cab ride.




what makes this good is that we were going about 50-60 miles an hour in these photos.




bubba's.




yup.

off we go

saturday lis and I slept in. we had all sorts of grand plans for the weekend, so on empty stomachs we had a difficult time deciding what to do on which day. to give us time to decide and the get our heads on straight, we tried a new place for brunch: azul. it was delicious, but the trade off was having to endure the exuberant young french host who was clearly and loudly doing his best to flirt with us. anyway, we knew we had to drop by the fabric market and pick up our purchases from last week. we debated going to the museum, the antiques market, yu gardens, and "cheapa loo," which is supposed to be a good place for buying gifts and trinkets. the problem with "cheapa loo" however, is that we don't know how it's actually spelled to even look it up or try to get there in a cab. x-i-a-p-u l-u? who knows. we were told to go early, as it gets very busy in the afternoons, though I haven't decided if that might be more interesting.

after some unfocused pondering, we both agreed we were in the mood to shop. so off to the fabric market we went, to pick up our stuff and to then find a few more places around that area. well, what we forgot is that the fabric market is an all day affair for us. that place is full of potential. the only problem is fulfilling it. I wish I had a book of patterns here... anyway, our orders from last week turned out fantastic—even lis's pants which she had to try on behind a blue sheet tacked up across the corner of the busy hallway. (I'd be lying if I said she didn't walk in on another woman doing the same.) this time we were on a mission to find winter coats, and boy did we; we each bought TWO. lis's second coat was a process to order, as she wanted to merge two patterns: the collar from one and the rest from another, with a beautiful green material. apparently this was "very good" fabric, "from japan." they demonstrated (much to our surprise) by pulling out a lighter and burning the edge of it (which only slightly blackened.) the curious part was how afterward, the woman made lis SMELL it. I suppose the whole demonstration was a good bargaining chip on their behalf, as you can't really argue against safety, can you?

our last stop at the fabric market was a little shop in the front which sold touristy items: luggage, backpacks, mao bags and t-shirts. lis was interested in getting a couple of t-shirts and was quoted a price of 180 RMB each. (that's about $23 US.) no way. we told the little gal as much and since lis wasn't totally committed to the shirts, we were going to just leave. but the girl dropped the price. 100. still, no. lis was trying to pull herself away, but the calculator followed, dropping the price more and more. she followed us out of the store. at one point a woman came with the two t-shirts and a plastic bag. "okay, okay." 100 for both. lis hesitated, considering. "should I?" we were on the street corner and at this point I knew Little Miss Calculator was not going to let us leave without those damn t-shirts. no. I think we can get better. and we did. final sale was 80 RMB for both. we checked with a local later and found out we were right on target. t-shirts should be about 35-40 RMB each. it IS the end of summer, you know.

by the time were were done at the fabric market, it was time to head back to the hotel and grab our swimsuits. we had been invited to a poolside BBQ by the Notre Dame Shanghai Alumni Chapter Head (SACH). how could we pass? so we snuck some towels out of the hotel and headed over around 5pm. the cab ride was a long one. we got stuck in traffic and our driver was the only one in shanghai unwilling to switch lanes. he just continued to sit there and take his road rage out on his emergency brake every ten feet or so; he'd yank it up like he was parallel parking, dukes of hazard style. throughout, we were privileged to be able to listen to some sweet chinese pop ballads. (lis took a short movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9rE2ht0lQ0 make sure your volume is up.)

we finally arrived at SACH's place, a complex of 10-20 high rise apartments, scattered around a park-like setting, pool and children's playground. the cab driver pretended to know where to drop us off and after an almost complete circle, decided that the nearest high rise would do. so we went in search of a manned guard station, but eventually found the pool instead. upon entering, we didn't see SACH. as we rounded the pool, however, his wife introduced herself and told us to help ourselves in the food tent. we started to, and SACH quickly found us, awkwardly pulling us away from a conversation with his colleague. he seemed a little frantic, trying to make sure that we—and everyone else—had a good time. we hadn't planned on staying too long, but eventually more of SACH's friends showed, and he pulled us over to sit with them. one was another notre dame alum, and the rest seemed to be friends of his girlfriend. that is until Kid Club showed up. Kid Club was about the same age as lis and his father had gone to notre dame with SACH. he himself had gone to school in wisconsin and his english was perfect. in fact, I didn't even clue in on the fact that he was half vietnamese or that he had grown up in taipei until he brought it up. he was a really nice guy and full of info, but most of that info was about the shanghai club scene. I guess that is good though; he is very passionate about his profession (he's creative director for one of the older and evidently more pure clubs here). it was funny to see him punch it in with SACH, and really sweet that he and his beautiful trendy girlfriend took time out to come to the BBQ. we shared a cab home with the two of them (this one less eventful and with native speakers to guide the way) and we got their cards and the tip to check out his club friday night. i'd consider it if we weren't going to beijing this weekend. i can't imagine what the club scene here is like. according to Kid Club people don't dance. they'd rather "shake dice" and eat watermelon. apparently the dice thing is some sort of game, and Kid Club's beautiful girlfriend explained that watermelon is used for everything: good customer? have some watermelon. sorry we messed up your order. have some watermelon. "appeasement fruit," we named it.

there was slightly more to the weekend, but that's another story altogether...

picture time

the office crew ordering lunch.




didn't you know? the ozone layer is no longer a problem.




update on the construction site next door. i'm not sure why i'm so obsessed with it. maybe it's the process and how different it is here. and the amount of rubble... anway, lis and i decided to make a break for it the other day and run through, which is why there's this photo:



it's hard to run through construction and take photos. but this will give you a good idea of the air quality here. this was a sunny day.

new communication

thursday the entire office went out to lunch. we weren’t sure what the occasion was, and no one mentioned anything, so we just followed orders and let our chinese coworkers lead us to the cabs and order the food. the food was shanghainese, and in my opinion, not as good as the stuff we had before. that could have been the whole fishes that kept showing up on the table, the anise flavored tofu (anus, anyone?), the mushroom medley placed before me, the cross sections of chicken, or the melon and apples covered in mayonnaise that tainted my view. but this time the meal was more of an effort than I had hoped. we did manage to talk to one of the australian creative teams for a bit and get some inside scoop on things to do, which was nice. later that day, we realized that the whole purpose of the lunch was to celebrate their last day in the office, as well as another team’s. evidently, we aren’t on the shanghai office email list (an item of business that has since been rectified).

thursday night was ladies' night at barbarossa (http://www.smartshanghai.com/venue/860/Barbarossa_Lounge). barbarossa is a hip and happening place, especially for expats. I strangely kept thinking I should run into someone I know. anyway, the place has pretty good food, albeit a bit expensive. (so much for my dumpling dinner plan.) the new plan was for lis and I to make up for it by taking advantage of the free drinks. we told jason, our co-worker, that he could use the change from our bill to buy his, since he’s not easily mistaken as a lady. unfortunately, both drinks offered for ladies’ night were bailey’s irish cream drinks. who wants to drink bailey’s when it’s 100 degrees outside? so a few rounds, silly photos and sob stories later, we closed down the bar. and friday morning, well, we took a taxi to work.

lis and I hit “stabucks” on the way home from the office. they are incredibly friendly to us at the one near the office and this time proved no different; a smallish girl who looked like she was being bossed around by the other two baristas marched up to us while we waited for lis's drink. “so, where you from?” as she crossed her arms. lis's drink came shortly after our answer was repeated back to us, but not before we could wonder if the next question might have been “where you going?” followed by “can I come?” I think she decided to hell with the bossy barista gang, I’m going to show off my english and make me some new friends. ordinarily, the entire crew at “stabucks” bids us goodbye individually, loudly and repeatedly. this time lis started the whole chorus. “BYE BYE!!!” I had to laugh, and she admitted that she had done it without thinking, though she might just start doing it every time, just for fun.

we had been invited to go out and meet the austrailians to see some famous canadian DJ spin at a club here, but we felt like perhaps we should lay low after thursday’s excursion. so dinner was dumplings and nip/tuck. about 5 or 6 episodes. we’re so lame.

manners and meals

feeling at a loss, I’ve read up a (very) little about recent chinese history. I know the country has the capability to be a superpower, but now that I have a glimmer of understanding about its political past, I wonder if they’ll ever get there. I wonder if the leadership here will ever be stable enough, or humble enough to really achieve world domination. not that I think humility is what got the US where it is today... well, today I think the US is declining, but that’s another conversation altogether.

insight from mom:

Did you ever read "Wild Swans"? It gave a very vivid picture of what went on in China during and after their revolution. What wasn't destroyed during the fighting, was pretty much dismantled during the years that Mao was in power. The Old ways were considered subversive and anything old was either destroyed, cannibalized and recycled into something else or disappeared who knows where. Not too many old things survived and those that did were not maintained so are now being demolished to make way for something usable. Space is limited in Shanghai and millions of people live there so utility is the benchmark.

this just goes to prove it: moms know everything. (but who knew that mine knew stuff about CHINA???)

the other day a friend here pointed out a curious chinese manner. he has noticed that the chinese use the word “maybe” to console or diffuse situations that could otherwise be volatile. here was his story: his friend (no really, it was actually a friend) had gotten in a fight with a chinese man who was pushing him on an airplane. to the chinese man, he was just doing what is customary, pushing past someone who was blocking his way. no big deal. to the american, his personal space was being invaded and he was being given a clear—and rude—message. so in american custom, he punched him. and of course things devolved from there: the chinese man was taken completely off-guard and was knocked flat on his back. he was completely shocked and offended. they were both removed from the airplane and seated next to one another in an interrogation room in the basement of pudong airport. the chinese officials acted as interpreters:

“maybe he didn’t mean to make you angry.”

“maybe you overreacted and you are sorry.”

“maybe you will forgive each other and we can all go home.”

and so on.


__________


the past few days have been fairly mellow in terms of work. I keep waiting for the big one(s) to hit. but still nothing too involved. so far.

there’s sad news, however; my manager's father died suddenly sunday night. heart attack. so she's out for at least a week, maybe more, as she probably has to deal with the government and being able to get him home (he was visiting a relative, I think outside guangzhou, and it's my impression that he doesn't live in mainland china). I feel awful for her. she was just telling lis that she was hoping to get her father to come stay with her for a month after he visited his other relative.

last night we got out of work fairly early, but not early enough to make it to the museum or the famous yu gardens. we were a bit indecisive on what to do, and after a ridiculously expensive dinner monday night (40 RMB, or 5.14$ US for a HALF bottle of evian), we decided that we didn’t feel like manicures or pedicures. plus, our fancy meal habit needed to stop. so we ventured out to a street vendor, and after 5 minutes of needless talk between ourselves (the lady just patiently waited for us to give her the money), got some pork dumplings for all of 3 RMB (39 cents). (yes, I am sure they were pork). we topped off the meal with some warm wine and cookies from the convenience store. as we waited to pay, the tall westerner in front of us said “okay, you guys have to say something; I haven’t heard english in two weeks!” the poor guy! we realized when we got back to our hotel that he’s actually staying there too, so I have vowed to speak to him whenever I see him. he’s there for a good while.

as it turns out, the pork dumplings were great. they probably aren’t the best in town, but for being a random street find, I am very pleased. you have to understand how just ordering food from a meal cart—or anywhere here—is intimidating and well, a little scary, as you never know quite what you are getting. even if you think you know, you don’t know. and, you never know what kind of health standards you could be facing. so far, neither beth or I have gotten sick, so this one looks like a winner. maybe not so much on the cookies: they seemed to be unsalted ritz crackers with cookie filling sandwiched in between. oh well.

we had another great find with lunch today: we asked our chinese officemates what they had ordered for lunch the other day. it looked like noodles and broth and since quite a few of them were eating it, I figured it must be good. turns out it’s a local place and they speak only chinese, so we had to have one of our office-mates order for us. I was a little concerned, as the one ordering on our behalf speaks no english, but in the end it was really quite good, and came packaged with tiny plastic baggies filled with hot sauce and tied in clever little knots at the end. lis tried it first, and eventually added all of hers. I added about 4 drops and it was perfect. just a the right amount of heat on the end. at one point I looked over at lis and her eyes were watering and she was sniffling. she claims something went down the wrong pipe, but I suspect that *maybe* there was actually a blazing inferno in her mouth.

i’m not even close to being hungry yet, but I might just be up for dumplings again tonight. it’ll make me feel better about my incessant desire to go to spin, the pottery store.