This week I began to try and introduce myself to Shanghai's classic establishment, the bar. I started on Wednesday (seriously.) with a visit to my corner Irish Pub (seriously.) Oscar's. I chose this night because it was open mic night and there were free cocktails for the ladies. Being a lady, I thought to try a free cocktail. So I went in, after cutting a path through the cigarette smoke with a chisel, took a seat in a comfy wicker chair with a good view of the band. First, all the bands were actually quite good, and that judgment was made before imbibing anything, and the cocktail only mediocre. However, after nursing my drink for a few songs, a waiter came over bearing a bailey's and cream and placed it in front of me, telling me that someone at the bar had sent it my way, just like in the movies.
I looked around and nobody disclosed themselves as the sender of my drink, but I thought it was the African guy playing the hand drum who might have sent it as he gave me a smile when I walked in the door. Note that he was probably twice my age, but he seemed nice enough, so I took a seat at the bar next to him when it opened up, at which point he made me put the drum between my legs and try to play along with the music. We ended up disagreeing about proper drum technique. I did everything he did, but lefty style. He told me that I couldn't do the main beat with my left hand, that it had to be my right hand, but as his French was better than his English and my French essentially nonexistent, I had to try and go completely against my instincts to lead with my right hand. Happy when the song was over and I could stop being under his scrutiny, I discovered that it was not he who sent me the drink.
Across the bar was a reasonably good-looking, somewhat scruffy guy who had sent me my drink. His hair was back in a ponytail (but short), and I would say that in terms of a scale between Pirate Steve and Captain Jack Sparrow, he was slightly on the Captain's side (sorry MS! You can still be the pirate queen ;) and so moved next to him to try and chat. Try being the operative word, as he was sitting right by the speakers. I learned that he is from London and either teaches or does something with computers, and that he sings heavy metal. Other than that the entire conversation was me more or less pretending I could hear. But he seemed nice enough.
Friday I was planning to go out with friends for a night on the town, but when they canceled on me I began to go home, then remembered one place I could always go to find people. So I looked up the address and told the cab driver where I wanted to go, and he drove, and drove, and then we passed the place without seeing it, and then we turned around and realized that it was hidden behind construction, but eventually I ended up at Chabad, walking in awkwardly as everyone was just about to sit down to eat. I sat with a bunch of frenchmen who were nice, made friends with some other people, ate well, went for a walk afterwards, got invited to a party at an organic farm, had some wine, it was nice.
Yesterday (Saturday), I went out to a bar called Mural which has salsa and other latin dancing on Saturday nights. So I got there early and had a chat with Giuseppe, a nice Italian guy who was way older than me (a theme, I know....) and I tried one of their on the house drinks, which was supposed to be something like a mojito, I think, but tasted almost identical to mouthwash. Anyway, Giuseppe turned out to be a really good dancer (way better than me!) and it was fun to dance with him, though I couldn't dance the whole night with him, sadly. Apparently yesterday was a Peruvian national holiday, so the bar was crowded and full of singing South Americans. Actually a pretty fun situation. So eventually this Chinese guy attached himself to me, asked me to Cha-cha, he did nothing but basic step, I was about to yawn myself to death, he and I chatted some, he has a really odd cha-cha, he sort of slips/locksteps across the floor, it is more ballet like than anything else, very odd, and he got my number (a fake) and introduced me to his Uighur friends (one of them was the bellydancer who performed during the band's breaks). He was a little odd, and it turned out later that he danced to every song as if it were a cha, no matter the beat, and so eventually I tried to avoid him a little, which was difficult, and lets just say I was pleased when he left (he asked if I wanted to join him and his friends for food afterwards, I declined). He had been wearing a Washington DC shirt he bought when he was there, it was one of those that looks a little like a kid drew it with a crayon and had the capitol building on it. That paired with athletic shorts proved that he was a guy with class. So it turned out that not many people at salsa night actually knew salsa, but it was enjoyable anyway.
Today I went out on a limb and sent Captain Jack a text message asking if he wanted to grab dinner with me. He wrote back saying he was sick and didn't really want to go out, etc, etc. So I went to dinner by myself, but to get most anywhere have to pass the corner pub. I peeked in the window, and who did I see sitting at the bar but he himself? :( <-- So not funny.
(btw, Schaffe in Mir just came up on my playlist, oh schmertz!)
A strong woman, I walked by to the restaurant around the corner which I had never tried. I followed some silent waitress in and picked a table, and she handed me a menu. This is unusual, I thought, usually the Chinese comes first and English second. And this is a flimsy selection for a restaurant like this. But I figured they just weren't that good and so ordered a standard, boring dish and sat and waited for it to arrive. It came, it was well-done, even if it was boring, and I ate it. When I was about 2/3 of the way through a couple came and sat down next to us. They were handed completely different menus. That were about five times as long, including having cheaper options and a much more interesting variety. Well, lets say I lost my appetite. I asked the waitress for a menu as she was collecting them from that table, and she was about to hand me a chinese one, but then realized her mistake and went back to get an English one. I asked her specifically for a Chinese one at that point and she looked at me with a little fear, like when the crazy talking man sits down next to you on the bus. The couple at the table had to repeat to her that I said Chinese edition before she came back and timidly handed me a menu. I looked through it to discover some dishes I would have appreciated ordering much more, folded the menu and placed it on the table.
So at this point I'm sitting there, looking like I want to order more. At first I'm too angry at the waitresses to even look at them, but eventually I wanted someone to come over and ask me if I wanted to order anything else. So I looked at waitresses as they passed by. I put my arm out along the top of the booth and tapped my fingers to signal my impatience as they passed by. I crossed my arms and looked at them, hoping one might feel so inclined to stop by and check up on me. I held the menu out, I put the menu open on the table, on my lap, I crossed the menu in my arms, I looked at it again, I turned my head, I looked at the waitress as she dealt with the two tables on either side of me, and eventually I raised my eyebrows after making contact with one of them. She looked at me confusedly, as if I had just been sitting around bored for the past twenty minutes rather than waiting for one of the people I was looking at to even take notice of me. (By the way, I think I scared the busboys. One of them almost mentioned to a waitress that maybe I wanted something, and one of them timidly filled my glass of water, like a lowly Lord trying to serve the angry lioness without her biting his head off)
But eventually after making contact with her, raising my eyebrows, nodding my head, and using my hand to motion her over, she came and stood silently sort of near my table. I was at a slight loss for words after that, but she took that as me meaning I summoned her over for no reason and so began to walk away, silently. Eventually I stammered out that I had been waiting twenty minutes for a waitress to come over and ask if I was just using that menu as a table decoration or to contemplate the meaning of life, and she continued to stand there silently. As well, I told her that I was embarrassed because she either thought that I wasn't intelligent enough to read Chinese characters or not cultured enough to enjoy real Chinese food, and hence she didn't even ask if I wanted a proper menu. I then just told her to get me the check, totally fuming, and she silently brought it back to me. I paid, and told her on the way out that there is the phrase "Is there anything else I can help you with?" and also explained that just because I'm a foreigner doesn't mean I'm stupid or need to be handled only from the other end of a twenty foot pole. Silently I stalked towards the door, and everyone who worked near the door smiled like they do at every other restaurant and told me they hope I'll come back.
No way in hell.
Yes, I was quite rude at the end, and I understand that maybe they can't read minds. I might have calmed down had someone apologized. Had someone realized that I was speaking Chinese with them since walking in the door. Had someone come over and treated me like a real human being. I've experienced discrimination in China before, but never anything like this. It has usually been positive discrimination, or discrimination until I began to speak Chinese. This time it didn't matter how many nice vocabulary words I used, and I threw in a few lovely flowers of poetry just to try and get some reaction, it didn't matter what I did. I probably could have stood on the table naked and they would have remained just as unwilling to communicate with me, unwilling to ask me what I might like, and just unpleasant. One thing I've always appreciated is how polite the Chinese are everywhere but on the roads (public transit included). I have had innumerable courteous experiences, but never have I been ignored in this manner. Never. Hundreds of meals in restaurants, and although sometimes service has been slow, they have never so entirely forgotten about me (at the least they come and ask if I want the bill to kindly suggest I get the hell out of there). It really left a sour taste in my mouth, and I just have the feeling that that was one of the most unpleasant experiences I've had in China. I have handled bad living conditions, I have handled people who don't understand me, but never people who won't understand me.
I know that it seems that I'm making mountains out of molehills, and that I probably wasn't being communicative enough, and maybe I'm hoping for too much, but that was not a cheap restaurant and in my entire time here I have never seen something like it. I remember I was close to just walking out of the place, and maybe I should have just done so. But I wanted to see what would happen, how bad it would be. Of course I've never walked out of a restaurant before either. Its odd to have that 'the worst' experience, and wonder at the same time if there aren't frustrated emotions coming out, or if this situation is unique to me in this restaurant, or if a different me would have brushed the same experience off as being just the way China is and dismissing it with a laugh. But at the same time I can't get it out of my head and feel like maybe I have a right to be angry about it, and maybe this is real discrimination. Of course, this is capitalism now, and I have as much right as anyone else to put my dollar where my mouth is: that restaurant will not see me or my money again.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
China in Photos
Tonight I feel that photos will speak louder than words (or at least photos accompanied by captions) so enjoy! Also, you can click on any of these photos to see them larger/in higher resolution.
Lets start with my favorite category, misprinted signs:
I'm so glad that since they're on sale they would like me to come in and sweep the floors! I also like how they really took the theme all the way by making the sign in the shape of a door marker that you might find in a hotel asking the maid to take care of things. This really really made me want to go in and check out what they've got...to see if it needs washing.
So for this one I went to a Beijing roast duck place, and they had these guys tiled all over the floor. Look at him, step on him, eat him. Nothing like a baby donald duck for dinner. And in marble!
So here Anne is kind enough to point out this restaurant's lovely 'Drink and Mine list'. Brings sake bombing to a whole new level.
This one I made extra big to make sure you could see it. It is the inside of the 'Mine list'. Hopefully you can read it. It is a drink menu, and has so many misspellings I just had to include it. Like champage and teguilla.
From China photos">
This one is special because it not only has 'crona beer' and 'budwei beer', but if you look at 'tea' (in the middle by the teapots) it has one special tea that would like to suck your blood. If you translate the Chinese, it is still a nobleman's tea, but he happens to usually be considered an earl, not a count. Or court.
This one is a sign in cabs which discusses who may and may not ride in cabs. Apparently psychos are not allowed. Especially dumping psychos.
So the other day I went out to dinner with some friends of my mother's (thank you again for a marvelous meal!) and after dinner they took me to their favorite movie purchasing joint. It was not the place across the street, Movie world:
No no, this place was even better than movie world:
For real. I put myself in this photo just to prove that it really was real and not photoshopped or anything (if you knew my photoshop skills you would know I couldn't do anything this complicated).
That's all for now, enjoy!
Lets start with my favorite category, misprinted signs:
I'm so glad that since they're on sale they would like me to come in and sweep the floors! I also like how they really took the theme all the way by making the sign in the shape of a door marker that you might find in a hotel asking the maid to take care of things. This really really made me want to go in and check out what they've got...to see if it needs washing.
So for this one I went to a Beijing roast duck place, and they had these guys tiled all over the floor. Look at him, step on him, eat him. Nothing like a baby donald duck for dinner. And in marble!
So here Anne is kind enough to point out this restaurant's lovely 'Drink and Mine list'. Brings sake bombing to a whole new level.
This one I made extra big to make sure you could see it. It is the inside of the 'Mine list'. Hopefully you can read it. It is a drink menu, and has so many misspellings I just had to include it. Like champage and teguilla.
From China photos">This one is special because it not only has 'crona beer' and 'budwei beer', but if you look at 'tea' (in the middle by the teapots) it has one special tea that would like to suck your blood. If you translate the Chinese, it is still a nobleman's tea, but he happens to usually be considered an earl, not a count. Or court.
This one is a sign in cabs which discusses who may and may not ride in cabs. Apparently psychos are not allowed. Especially dumping psychos.
So the other day I went out to dinner with some friends of my mother's (thank you again for a marvelous meal!) and after dinner they took me to their favorite movie purchasing joint. It was not the place across the street, Movie world:
No no, this place was even better than movie world:
For real. I put myself in this photo just to prove that it really was real and not photoshopped or anything (if you knew my photoshop skills you would know I couldn't do anything this complicated).
That's all for now, enjoy!
Saturday, July 21, 2007
The end of Xiamen and Toilet Wars
So, I was going to use this post to write about serious matters, and I will start with the rest of my Xiamen visit before down-spiraling into dirty jokes.
Wed. morning in Xiamen we went to a professor's house to do an interview. He lives on the campus of Xiamen University and is an Urban Anthropologist. Who loves to talk. Really really loves to talk. He went more than half an hour over the allotted time we had given him, and when we told him we had to go he started to show us his photos. As well he had this super strong accent, so I'm not quite sure what happened during that hour and a half of my life.
Afterwards we went to the Industrial sector of the city for an interview with some developers, and it was an interesting one as not only could I follow some of the conversation, but they were young, polite, and it gave me a chance to see what is being constructed in the city at this point in time. That area had a very different feel to it, just less crowded I suppose...
We had lunch with them, and went to this cafe place where the waitress kept trying to explain to me that I probably wouldn't like the Chinese food and so should probably just get the western-style steak. I ordered beef over rice wrapped in lotus leaf. It was okay, but not spectacular. An interesting part was that our hosts, the two young people from the other company, both ordered some cool coffee-ice-drinks, but we didn't order any drinks, wanting to be polite, and I thought it odd that they didn't invite us to order drinks, but oh well.
I was totally unsure of how to conduct myself at this meal. It was sort of a semi-business lunch, but I didn't think that really formal Chinese manners would be appropriate, however the one joke I tried to crack was either so not funny that I should be ashamed, or it was just not at a good time. It wasn't even much of a joke, just a little quip, but I didn't even get half a smile from them. Stupid corporate world...
So after lunch we went back to the hotel for a rest before heading out to Gulangyu, the scenic, touristy island right off of Xiamen island. We took a ferry over that circled the island first before docking, and the instant we were off the dock we were accosted by people interested in being our tour guides. Eventually we got some guy from Anhui province to be our tour guide for a discount (as he was unofficial) and he helped us find our way to the various sites of the island. I thought the island as a whole was quite pretty, the aviary nice (I'll upload a few cute photos/one video clip from that later), and the rocky peak at the highest point of the island really great, but as with many Chinese tourist places, I found the actual tourist sites quite grating.
A little on Gulangyu, though. This island is also known as 'the Piano island' because apparently at its height some disproportionate amount of people owned pianos. Now in its garden one of the major attractions is the Piano museum, which I went to and did like a lot. This was a spectacular collection, including a mid-19th century Steinway, several harpsichords, roll pianos, uprights, grands, baby grands, tabletop, and some others I don't know the names of. We took the tour there, and there was a little mini-performance by the tour guide at the end, but she just played a re-arrangement of the island's theme song which is apparently famous throughout China. I thought with that much respect towards pianos she should have at least played Debbusy or Bach or something, to respect the spectacular instrument she was playing on. But that's me being a snob.
For dinner we went to a place that our guide recommended, and it was fresh seafood which we picked out from the bucket again. When we went upstairs to the table our waitress was this little middle schooler who said she was sorry for us because we ordered too much. Well, she was right. The food was mediocre and very overpriced (the same price as the amazing meal from the day before, but less food of worse quality!) and we were not pleased about that, to say the least.
Our waitress had just finished what we would consider seventh grade, and worked at this restaurant during her summer vacation. She got to the restaurant at eight every morning and worked until at least ten-thirty or eleven every night. Her boss didn't feed her much, and for all that work she made about 650 RMB a month or so. Apparently she had siblings and didn't expect that her family would be able to afford to send her to college, and the money she made went to supplement her family as paying for her schooling was already a stretch. She was pretty smart and very outgoing, and really kind. She kept saying she felt sorry for us, but we probably felt sorry for her. However it was nice conversing with her anyway, and I hope that she manages to go to college in the end, as she would enjoy it.
So our tour guide got 15% commission for bringing us to that restaurant, and as it was such a flop and he made so much money off of it we didn't pay him for his services. He agreed that was fair and didn't care much because that fee was a very small part of what he made off of our meal. The rest of the evening is just us going home and then we flew out the next morning.
In other news, Anne is over, I bought the new Harry Potter today (at the Shanghai museum gift store, of all places!) and my toilet is clogged. Well, neither Anne nor I were particularly phased, because we have two plungers here and figured that would do the trick. However, we've plunged for about 45 minutes to no avail. We watched an online video advising us on what to do, we've tried some home tricks like putting dishwashing detergent down the toilet to help, and still it sits there quite clogged. So we're going out tonight, but if we can't get it fixed I plan to call a plumber tomorrow, provided I can even figure out how one goes about finding a plumber. Anyway, if anyone has any advice on how we can fix this issue, please tell me ASAP. Until then, I would just like to remind the world that shit happens and that there are so many more jokes that could be made here and I'm going to show restraint because I've got to go, but feel free to leave any jokes you'd like in the comments section. I've got so much more to share, but for now I will leave it here.
Hope everyone in America is doing well, and a shout out to Mer who I owe one. Until next time!
Wed. morning in Xiamen we went to a professor's house to do an interview. He lives on the campus of Xiamen University and is an Urban Anthropologist. Who loves to talk. Really really loves to talk. He went more than half an hour over the allotted time we had given him, and when we told him we had to go he started to show us his photos. As well he had this super strong accent, so I'm not quite sure what happened during that hour and a half of my life.
Afterwards we went to the Industrial sector of the city for an interview with some developers, and it was an interesting one as not only could I follow some of the conversation, but they were young, polite, and it gave me a chance to see what is being constructed in the city at this point in time. That area had a very different feel to it, just less crowded I suppose...
We had lunch with them, and went to this cafe place where the waitress kept trying to explain to me that I probably wouldn't like the Chinese food and so should probably just get the western-style steak. I ordered beef over rice wrapped in lotus leaf. It was okay, but not spectacular. An interesting part was that our hosts, the two young people from the other company, both ordered some cool coffee-ice-drinks, but we didn't order any drinks, wanting to be polite, and I thought it odd that they didn't invite us to order drinks, but oh well.
I was totally unsure of how to conduct myself at this meal. It was sort of a semi-business lunch, but I didn't think that really formal Chinese manners would be appropriate, however the one joke I tried to crack was either so not funny that I should be ashamed, or it was just not at a good time. It wasn't even much of a joke, just a little quip, but I didn't even get half a smile from them. Stupid corporate world...
So after lunch we went back to the hotel for a rest before heading out to Gulangyu, the scenic, touristy island right off of Xiamen island. We took a ferry over that circled the island first before docking, and the instant we were off the dock we were accosted by people interested in being our tour guides. Eventually we got some guy from Anhui province to be our tour guide for a discount (as he was unofficial) and he helped us find our way to the various sites of the island. I thought the island as a whole was quite pretty, the aviary nice (I'll upload a few cute photos/one video clip from that later), and the rocky peak at the highest point of the island really great, but as with many Chinese tourist places, I found the actual tourist sites quite grating.
A little on Gulangyu, though. This island is also known as 'the Piano island' because apparently at its height some disproportionate amount of people owned pianos. Now in its garden one of the major attractions is the Piano museum, which I went to and did like a lot. This was a spectacular collection, including a mid-19th century Steinway, several harpsichords, roll pianos, uprights, grands, baby grands, tabletop, and some others I don't know the names of. We took the tour there, and there was a little mini-performance by the tour guide at the end, but she just played a re-arrangement of the island's theme song which is apparently famous throughout China. I thought with that much respect towards pianos she should have at least played Debbusy or Bach or something, to respect the spectacular instrument she was playing on. But that's me being a snob.
For dinner we went to a place that our guide recommended, and it was fresh seafood which we picked out from the bucket again. When we went upstairs to the table our waitress was this little middle schooler who said she was sorry for us because we ordered too much. Well, she was right. The food was mediocre and very overpriced (the same price as the amazing meal from the day before, but less food of worse quality!) and we were not pleased about that, to say the least.
Our waitress had just finished what we would consider seventh grade, and worked at this restaurant during her summer vacation. She got to the restaurant at eight every morning and worked until at least ten-thirty or eleven every night. Her boss didn't feed her much, and for all that work she made about 650 RMB a month or so. Apparently she had siblings and didn't expect that her family would be able to afford to send her to college, and the money she made went to supplement her family as paying for her schooling was already a stretch. She was pretty smart and very outgoing, and really kind. She kept saying she felt sorry for us, but we probably felt sorry for her. However it was nice conversing with her anyway, and I hope that she manages to go to college in the end, as she would enjoy it.
So our tour guide got 15% commission for bringing us to that restaurant, and as it was such a flop and he made so much money off of it we didn't pay him for his services. He agreed that was fair and didn't care much because that fee was a very small part of what he made off of our meal. The rest of the evening is just us going home and then we flew out the next morning.
In other news, Anne is over, I bought the new Harry Potter today (at the Shanghai museum gift store, of all places!) and my toilet is clogged. Well, neither Anne nor I were particularly phased, because we have two plungers here and figured that would do the trick. However, we've plunged for about 45 minutes to no avail. We watched an online video advising us on what to do, we've tried some home tricks like putting dishwashing detergent down the toilet to help, and still it sits there quite clogged. So we're going out tonight, but if we can't get it fixed I plan to call a plumber tomorrow, provided I can even figure out how one goes about finding a plumber. Anyway, if anyone has any advice on how we can fix this issue, please tell me ASAP. Until then, I would just like to remind the world that shit happens and that there are so many more jokes that could be made here and I'm going to show restraint because I've got to go, but feel free to leave any jokes you'd like in the comments section. I've got so much more to share, but for now I will leave it here.
Hope everyone in America is doing well, and a shout out to Mer who I owe one. Until next time!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Xiamen
Well I feel bad leaving people where I did yesterday, as it makes the whole world seem a lot more bleak than it actually is.
Yesterday midday a car came to the office to pick me up and drive me to the airport, which it did, and I eventually figured out how to check in. You see, this was a challenge because the airport only has single screens to display flight information, such as whether it is on time, whether you can check in, which counter to check in at, etc. Because they only display it on one screen, they then will show one page at a time, with about ten flights, for about twenty seconds, then flip to the next screen, and do this for the entire day's flights. Never mind that some of those flights weren't leaving for at least another six hours, they still showed them, and so if you overlooked your flight the first time around you had to wait a few minutes before your information went back up. I, of course, needed to check twice to figure everything out, and so this took time. I checked in and went to a restauarant to get food. I ordered beef noodles and they asked me if I wanted tea. I indicated that yes, tea would be nice, and so they brought that. I got the bill and it was about half again as much as I had expected. I asked them why this was, and apparently they charge 10 yuan for a cup of tea. This is at the place that charges 20 for the beef noodles. It was more than a little ridiculous. Most of the nicer restaurants in Shanghai wouldn't even charge that much for tea, or if they did it at least wouldn't taste like hay.
For the flight I had no pillow, and the armrest was a little low for the way I like to sleep, so I managed what I considered a triumphant improvization involving placing my book on my shoulder and leaning against that. Thank you Barbara Kingsolver, and if anyone wondered whether or not Harvard students are really bibliophiles, this should confirm it.
The hotel had a car to meet me and the other person on this trip, Alexandra (she was coming in from Beijing, hence meeting her in Xiamen rather than earlier), and we soon arrived at the Sofitel Xiamen. We discovered that the company has special status, so we're part of the 'Sofitel Club', which means small, intimate breakfast room with a full buffet (they've got doughnuts, and yogurt, and bacon, and baozi, and congee, and danishes, and bread [real bread!], and jam, and marmalade, and.... ~BP) the top floors of the hotel, ocean-view rooms, free internet, and a couple other perks which don't hurt. I've got a large and fluffy king size bed, and I took a bath with hot water yesterday, and today got to shower, also with hot water. (Have I mentioned that I've yet to get the hot water running in the apartment?) They gave me a scrubby thing and bath salts, and the point is I am being spoiled, she says as she sits in a pristine white robe. The only thing is that I can't figure out what you're supposed to do with the other kind of robe, maybe it is for wearing down to the spa? It is sort of a Japanese-style one, just some plain cotton, no special textures. I can't figure it out. If you know the answer, send it my way and get 10 points!
So enough about how nice the hotel is (jealous yet?) after settling in we went out, first to dinner at a place that does 'classic Xiamen cuisine'. I ate jellied bugs. They tasted like bugs jellied with salt water and tobasco. It was not one of those 'weird but works' sort of dishes that sometimes happen in China (like the preserved egg with tofu and vinegar) this was one of those 'just plain weird' dishes, that I found totally unappetizing. However I did have noodles made out of eel that were really yummy as well as shrimp which we picked out from the tank and they cooked for us, and some other great dishes.
One of the things we needed to do this week was street interviews asking people who migrated to the city about their experience. So we got our first one done in the restaurant with one of the guys who tended the live fish before they got cooked. Our next field interviews we did with some guys across the street from the restaurant. It turns out that these guys are all marketers for herbalife, a weight loss dietary supplement. So while my partner did an interview with one of them, another one babbled on and on in fast Chinese about what I can only presume was about how wonderful this product was, and about the leader, and how I must have heard about this giant American company, and had I seen their headquarters, right next to Coca-cola's in LA. So the only association I have with that brand is on Ugly Betty where her sister is an Herbaluxe vendor, which is a parody on Herbalife, and that's all I knew about it, so I smiled and nodded until we had finished our interviews with that group. We then went to this big pedestrian mall that is one of Xiamen's major attractions and gathered more interviews there along with just seeing what there was to be seen. Back to the hotel, sleep.
This morning I got to sleep in until the lovely hour of 8 AM (almost an hour later than usual!) and eat breakfast and get dressed all professional for our interviews. We had four formal interviews today, and the entire time I felt like my Chinese was pretty much crap. The first interview I could follow only a little (it helped that there were slides), the second interview was almost completely lost on me. The third interview I actually didn't have too much trouble with, and the fourth interview I just hope she didn't notice my flagging attention. Part of the problem with the fourth interview was that we did it in a non-aircon area while i was in a full suit. It must have been 85 or 90 inside, add the suit to that, and I was just really really really uncomfortably hot. If you are out there, the person who was interviewed, accept my humble apology! That was an embarassing moment. I tried to write random things in my notebook, no matter what they were, just to make it look like I knew what was going on and was paying attention, but most of those fifty minutes are just a blur in my head. And we won't even talk about how many times our taxi driver dropped us off in the wrong place or we went to the wrong site for the interview. ;)
Dinner we did fresh seafood, and I had the best baby clams in black bean sauce in the world. Sorry Evergreen, but we picked these clams out fresh from the tank by hand, not to mention the shrimp, large bivalves, and crabs that we had for dinner. It was soooo good. You just go to the tank, pick out your victims, and they take them back, cook them in a manner that they like, and bring out to you your dishes. So we weren't quite sure what we could expect, but it ended up being so great. We sat outside and watched dusk turn to night on the ocean and had a sea breeze to keep us cool. It was super messy--crab is not an easy food to eat in the best of conditions--but it was so good!
So Xiamen has so far been great, I've got one more day here tomorrow and then I head back to Shanghai on Thursday morning. Big shoutout to that guy who emailed me, sounds like you should play more softball, and a shoutout to that girl who is visiting me this weekend. Also Celia and Marcela get shoutouts for posting comments, I miss both of you a ton! It is easy to win my love and affection through communication :) Until next time!
Yesterday midday a car came to the office to pick me up and drive me to the airport, which it did, and I eventually figured out how to check in. You see, this was a challenge because the airport only has single screens to display flight information, such as whether it is on time, whether you can check in, which counter to check in at, etc. Because they only display it on one screen, they then will show one page at a time, with about ten flights, for about twenty seconds, then flip to the next screen, and do this for the entire day's flights. Never mind that some of those flights weren't leaving for at least another six hours, they still showed them, and so if you overlooked your flight the first time around you had to wait a few minutes before your information went back up. I, of course, needed to check twice to figure everything out, and so this took time. I checked in and went to a restauarant to get food. I ordered beef noodles and they asked me if I wanted tea. I indicated that yes, tea would be nice, and so they brought that. I got the bill and it was about half again as much as I had expected. I asked them why this was, and apparently they charge 10 yuan for a cup of tea. This is at the place that charges 20 for the beef noodles. It was more than a little ridiculous. Most of the nicer restaurants in Shanghai wouldn't even charge that much for tea, or if they did it at least wouldn't taste like hay.
For the flight I had no pillow, and the armrest was a little low for the way I like to sleep, so I managed what I considered a triumphant improvization involving placing my book on my shoulder and leaning against that. Thank you Barbara Kingsolver, and if anyone wondered whether or not Harvard students are really bibliophiles, this should confirm it.
The hotel had a car to meet me and the other person on this trip, Alexandra (she was coming in from Beijing, hence meeting her in Xiamen rather than earlier), and we soon arrived at the Sofitel Xiamen. We discovered that the company has special status, so we're part of the 'Sofitel Club', which means small, intimate breakfast room with a full buffet (they've got doughnuts, and yogurt, and bacon, and baozi, and congee, and danishes, and bread [real bread!], and jam, and marmalade, and.... ~BP) the top floors of the hotel, ocean-view rooms, free internet, and a couple other perks which don't hurt. I've got a large and fluffy king size bed, and I took a bath with hot water yesterday, and today got to shower, also with hot water. (Have I mentioned that I've yet to get the hot water running in the apartment?) They gave me a scrubby thing and bath salts, and the point is I am being spoiled, she says as she sits in a pristine white robe. The only thing is that I can't figure out what you're supposed to do with the other kind of robe, maybe it is for wearing down to the spa? It is sort of a Japanese-style one, just some plain cotton, no special textures. I can't figure it out. If you know the answer, send it my way and get 10 points!
So enough about how nice the hotel is (jealous yet?) after settling in we went out, first to dinner at a place that does 'classic Xiamen cuisine'. I ate jellied bugs. They tasted like bugs jellied with salt water and tobasco. It was not one of those 'weird but works' sort of dishes that sometimes happen in China (like the preserved egg with tofu and vinegar) this was one of those 'just plain weird' dishes, that I found totally unappetizing. However I did have noodles made out of eel that were really yummy as well as shrimp which we picked out from the tank and they cooked for us, and some other great dishes.
One of the things we needed to do this week was street interviews asking people who migrated to the city about their experience. So we got our first one done in the restaurant with one of the guys who tended the live fish before they got cooked. Our next field interviews we did with some guys across the street from the restaurant. It turns out that these guys are all marketers for herbalife, a weight loss dietary supplement. So while my partner did an interview with one of them, another one babbled on and on in fast Chinese about what I can only presume was about how wonderful this product was, and about the leader, and how I must have heard about this giant American company, and had I seen their headquarters, right next to Coca-cola's in LA. So the only association I have with that brand is on Ugly Betty where her sister is an Herbaluxe vendor, which is a parody on Herbalife, and that's all I knew about it, so I smiled and nodded until we had finished our interviews with that group. We then went to this big pedestrian mall that is one of Xiamen's major attractions and gathered more interviews there along with just seeing what there was to be seen. Back to the hotel, sleep.
This morning I got to sleep in until the lovely hour of 8 AM (almost an hour later than usual!) and eat breakfast and get dressed all professional for our interviews. We had four formal interviews today, and the entire time I felt like my Chinese was pretty much crap. The first interview I could follow only a little (it helped that there were slides), the second interview was almost completely lost on me. The third interview I actually didn't have too much trouble with, and the fourth interview I just hope she didn't notice my flagging attention. Part of the problem with the fourth interview was that we did it in a non-aircon area while i was in a full suit. It must have been 85 or 90 inside, add the suit to that, and I was just really really really uncomfortably hot. If you are out there, the person who was interviewed, accept my humble apology! That was an embarassing moment. I tried to write random things in my notebook, no matter what they were, just to make it look like I knew what was going on and was paying attention, but most of those fifty minutes are just a blur in my head. And we won't even talk about how many times our taxi driver dropped us off in the wrong place or we went to the wrong site for the interview. ;)
Dinner we did fresh seafood, and I had the best baby clams in black bean sauce in the world. Sorry Evergreen, but we picked these clams out fresh from the tank by hand, not to mention the shrimp, large bivalves, and crabs that we had for dinner. It was soooo good. You just go to the tank, pick out your victims, and they take them back, cook them in a manner that they like, and bring out to you your dishes. So we weren't quite sure what we could expect, but it ended up being so great. We sat outside and watched dusk turn to night on the ocean and had a sea breeze to keep us cool. It was super messy--crab is not an easy food to eat in the best of conditions--but it was so good!
So Xiamen has so far been great, I've got one more day here tomorrow and then I head back to Shanghai on Thursday morning. Big shoutout to that guy who emailed me, sounds like you should play more softball, and a shoutout to that girl who is visiting me this weekend. Also Celia and Marcela get shoutouts for posting comments, I miss both of you a ton! It is easy to win my love and affection through communication :) Until next time!
Monday, July 16, 2007
Walking through Shanghai
I'm sitting in a five-star hotel room overlooking the ocean in a southern Chinese city called Xiamen, but I'm not going to talk about Xiamen for now. I'll save that for the end of the week when I'm on my way back to Shanghai. Just giving you a tantalizing tidbit for later, to keep you tuned in ;) Since I'm on this business trip away from home, it is a great time to call and see what I'm up to. Hint hint. My evenings work best, aka American mornings.
Today I feel like talking a little bit about China in general, because I feel that I've spent enough time here now to be able to muse on the country, if you will. And if you won't, just close the browser window and don't tell me about it.
Saturday I went into downtown Shanghai to have a look and see how the city has changed from when I was last there in 2003. I took the subway to People's Square and after getting lost going back and forth underground trying to cross the street, finally emerged where I wanted to be, at the head of Nanjing Rd. pedestrian mall, where I began my walk for the day. I was wearing my 49 RMB Birkin Sticks, a play (or 'play-garism') on Birkenstocks, on what might just be the most crowded street in China. (To follow my walking tour you can direct your browser to www.exploreshanghai.com) Every few seconds I was approached by someone who wanted to sell me bags and watches. The first person to do so said 'bag, watch', and I actually thought he might have been reminding me to keep my belongings close, I wasn't sure and could barely hear him. Eventually I figured that they were trying to sell me things (the first guy didn't have a little magazine with all his goods in it) and soon enough I got annoyed. It was difficult enough dodging the pedestrian trains that sped down the center of the way without running into others, nevermind the heat, without needing to also be approached by street hawkers peddling imitation Prada.
One girl came up to me and started speaking English, but it was so stilted I sincerely couldn't understand her. Sher repeated herself and I discovered she was actually saying "I'm student. Make art, come see my paintings." but it wasn't a simple task. I still told her I couldn't understand (in my best Chinese) and explained that I came from some country (I switch around randomly between all sorts of non-English speaking countries) that wasn't America and so had absolutely no idea what she was trying to say to me. She seemed to not understand my Chinese and continue ploughing forward using English.
By the time I had gotten 2/3 of the way to the river I was really annoyed at these people. None of the Chinese were being followed for several feet by people who were trying to rip them off! I started to be very brisk with these people, asking them to go annoy someone else, telling them I really didn't want anything, and just generally getting more and more upset. It probably didn't help that I was getting dehydrated and tired of walking, but the people I was supposed to hang out with were being unresponsive.
Having a foreign face here is such a double-sided coin. On one hand you are constantly harassed like that when walking down the street, and although all you might want to do is wander lost in your own thoughts, everyone feels that you're the perfect target for whatever plans they have brewing. On the other hand you have a get out of jail free card. If you ever get into trouble, all of a sudden you don't speak Chinese. If you want to get something done, then you do speak Chinese and it is just so amazing to see you speak that you can get your way. When I go shopping, with the clothes I sometimes wear certain nicer stores really wouldn't be so happy with my trying certain items of clothing on, but because of my face I can still get good treatment. It is really a different sort of paradox to be in, simultaneously respected and harassed.
I got to the river and from there headed south down the Bund. This is one of the oddest parts of China to me because it is all western architecture, but at the same time most of it is dirty and a little run-down. With the modern-built Pudong right across the way, (for a picture click here.)
you really do get a feeling of how much Shanghai has changed in the last century. The contrast is really striking, and if a way you get a sense of nostalgia for how Shanghai must have been back then. I have the feeling that there was more a feeling of culture than there is now. Shanghai is unique in that most of the restaurants in downtown Shanghai aren't 'Shanghaiese' or even general Chinese. You can get tons of Western, Thai, Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Japanese, but to find a place that does the classic Chinese dishes is quite difficult in the affluent part of town. The most popular show here is currently 'Mama Mia', and I just feel that I don't really understand what 'Shanghai culture' is. It may be I just have yet to get to the parts of Shanghai that haven't westernized, but I feel like there's something I'm missing yet.
I guess sometimes in China you have up days and sometimes you have down days. Today, for the most part, was actually an up, but Saturday wandering through the streets of Shanghai searching for Shanghai was sort of a down. I ended the day in Xintiandi, right by work, at a Haagen Dazs having a caramel latte (it was a normal latte but they then put dolce de leche ice cream in it--yum) and listening to jazz standards played over the speaker system in the restaurant, then heading home and watching Shrek the Third (I tried to watch Memoirs of a Geisha but either the movie itself was filmed too dark or the quality of my DVD wasn't good enough--I'll guess the latter) before bed. I imagine that as I get more familiar with the city I will find different things, and I can't wait for that day, but at the moment I feel that either Shanghai has changed a lot since I was last here, or I have. Maybe both, but the energy and liveliness that I remember Shanghai having when I was here in 2003 doesn't seem to be capturing me in the same way anymore.
Today I feel like talking a little bit about China in general, because I feel that I've spent enough time here now to be able to muse on the country, if you will. And if you won't, just close the browser window and don't tell me about it.
Saturday I went into downtown Shanghai to have a look and see how the city has changed from when I was last there in 2003. I took the subway to People's Square and after getting lost going back and forth underground trying to cross the street, finally emerged where I wanted to be, at the head of Nanjing Rd. pedestrian mall, where I began my walk for the day. I was wearing my 49 RMB Birkin Sticks, a play (or 'play-garism') on Birkenstocks, on what might just be the most crowded street in China. (To follow my walking tour you can direct your browser to www.exploreshanghai.com) Every few seconds I was approached by someone who wanted to sell me bags and watches. The first person to do so said 'bag, watch', and I actually thought he might have been reminding me to keep my belongings close, I wasn't sure and could barely hear him. Eventually I figured that they were trying to sell me things (the first guy didn't have a little magazine with all his goods in it) and soon enough I got annoyed. It was difficult enough dodging the pedestrian trains that sped down the center of the way without running into others, nevermind the heat, without needing to also be approached by street hawkers peddling imitation Prada.
One girl came up to me and started speaking English, but it was so stilted I sincerely couldn't understand her. Sher repeated herself and I discovered she was actually saying "I'm student. Make art, come see my paintings." but it wasn't a simple task. I still told her I couldn't understand (in my best Chinese) and explained that I came from some country (I switch around randomly between all sorts of non-English speaking countries) that wasn't America and so had absolutely no idea what she was trying to say to me. She seemed to not understand my Chinese and continue ploughing forward using English.
By the time I had gotten 2/3 of the way to the river I was really annoyed at these people. None of the Chinese were being followed for several feet by people who were trying to rip them off! I started to be very brisk with these people, asking them to go annoy someone else, telling them I really didn't want anything, and just generally getting more and more upset. It probably didn't help that I was getting dehydrated and tired of walking, but the people I was supposed to hang out with were being unresponsive.
Having a foreign face here is such a double-sided coin. On one hand you are constantly harassed like that when walking down the street, and although all you might want to do is wander lost in your own thoughts, everyone feels that you're the perfect target for whatever plans they have brewing. On the other hand you have a get out of jail free card. If you ever get into trouble, all of a sudden you don't speak Chinese. If you want to get something done, then you do speak Chinese and it is just so amazing to see you speak that you can get your way. When I go shopping, with the clothes I sometimes wear certain nicer stores really wouldn't be so happy with my trying certain items of clothing on, but because of my face I can still get good treatment. It is really a different sort of paradox to be in, simultaneously respected and harassed.
I got to the river and from there headed south down the Bund. This is one of the oddest parts of China to me because it is all western architecture, but at the same time most of it is dirty and a little run-down. With the modern-built Pudong right across the way, (for a picture click here.)
you really do get a feeling of how much Shanghai has changed in the last century. The contrast is really striking, and if a way you get a sense of nostalgia for how Shanghai must have been back then. I have the feeling that there was more a feeling of culture than there is now. Shanghai is unique in that most of the restaurants in downtown Shanghai aren't 'Shanghaiese' or even general Chinese. You can get tons of Western, Thai, Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Japanese, but to find a place that does the classic Chinese dishes is quite difficult in the affluent part of town. The most popular show here is currently 'Mama Mia', and I just feel that I don't really understand what 'Shanghai culture' is. It may be I just have yet to get to the parts of Shanghai that haven't westernized, but I feel like there's something I'm missing yet.
I guess sometimes in China you have up days and sometimes you have down days. Today, for the most part, was actually an up, but Saturday wandering through the streets of Shanghai searching for Shanghai was sort of a down. I ended the day in Xintiandi, right by work, at a Haagen Dazs having a caramel latte (it was a normal latte but they then put dolce de leche ice cream in it--yum) and listening to jazz standards played over the speaker system in the restaurant, then heading home and watching Shrek the Third (I tried to watch Memoirs of a Geisha but either the movie itself was filmed too dark or the quality of my DVD wasn't good enough--I'll guess the latter) before bed. I imagine that as I get more familiar with the city I will find different things, and I can't wait for that day, but at the moment I feel that either Shanghai has changed a lot since I was last here, or I have. Maybe both, but the energy and liveliness that I remember Shanghai having when I was here in 2003 doesn't seem to be capturing me in the same way anymore.
Friday, July 13, 2007
The Corporate World
I don't think I'm made out for the corporate world. I think I smile too often, and make sarcastic comments too often. I don't think that those sorts of things are appreciated in the corporate world. Or Monty Python references.
For example, yesterday I was attending a workshop on corporate finance. This is essentially how to read an end-of-year report from a company. So at first I thought this was interesting, but by the time we got to liabilities and the differences between those and just regular debt and expense and another fancy word I can't remember, I was somewhat bored. And as I drifted off to daydream-land, what did I think of but that I was in a large vessel, maybe a galleon, floating out of the window of the office building into a bright new world...as I drew said ship in the margins of my notebook, I began to hear a humming behind me, and then lyrics came unbidden: It's fun to charter an accountant, and sail the wide accountancy... I included these lovely and famous words in with my doodle and showed it to a neighboring intern. He didn't get it, despite his being British. I thought that a pity and told him as such, and demanded he come watch Meaning of Life at some point in time to redeem himself. He agreed to do so. And let's just say the person giving the talk on accounting was not particularly amused. I felt bad for being rude and felt that perhaps I have difficulty staying focused whenever the word 'finance' shows up, and thus one might be able to comprehend my feelings of inadequacy regarding the corporate world.
"But how is work?" you might ask. This week was the first official week of work, and I found myself in three very different situations. One was that I had to help call companies in Xiamen, Fujian in Southern China to schedule interviews. I prepared my script, I said things very clearly, and then the receptionist replied very quickly with things I couldn't understand because of their speed and her accent. I had to give that front up. In addition I tried to do reading put out by the Xiamen government on various aspects of the city and its development, and discovered that I didn't know half the words used. So, in short, situation one is my Chinese is inadequate.
Right now my supervisor is out of town, and so I have been delegated to another team to do work, hence calling people. When that didn't work, they ran out of things for me to do. So I didn't have any work, and sat around wasting time or helping my friends on projects they were assigned in a completely different department. Situation two: boredom.
Today I encountered situation three. Upon emailing my supervisor and asking for work, he told me that there was some confusion about a certain turnout of one of the models, and so told me to figure out what reasoning might be behind that. Essentially I had to find jobs for 2-5 million migrants to Shanghai within the next few years. Unofficially I figured out that half of them would need to be construction workers to build houses for themselves and the other half would be sex workers because that's what happens sometimes, but since I couldn't tell my boss that half of them would be whores I made some pretty charts and wrote up a page on how there would likely be jobs and some logical reasonings that rural GDP wouldn't change. It's all related, though not obviously so from my short explanation. And I think it might be classified, so to disclose more information than this non-information might cost me and anyone who reads this blog their life. So the only real way to solve the question is modelling, which is exactly how we got to the question in the first place, and yet I was supposed to work out a solution. I think this was a test to see what I could get done on a near-impossible task and see how good my problem-solving skills are. Generally speaking, however, I enjoyed thinking in work today, no matter how difficult the task, and think that if this will constitute my summer (rather than either of the other situations) I will be most pleased.
In other work-related news I go to Xiamen on Monday for a business trip. A car is going to pick me up at the office to drive me to the airport and they're putting me up in a 5* hotel. I'm sure I'll have all sorts of news about that next week.
Otherwise to close up I'm putting the permalinks to all my Australia photos for those of you without facebook access:
Sydney
Manly
Katoomba
Canberra and Melbourne
Fraser Island
Brisbane
I'll be putting pictures from Shanghai up soon enough! Hopefully I will post again before the weekend is up, because I've got lots to share! Also, please tell me if something isn't working well in the blog, as though I can post no problem, the Chinese government has blocked my access to view the blog, and so I have to go through a proxy and it is a pain in the neck, so I won't check that things are working very often.
For example, yesterday I was attending a workshop on corporate finance. This is essentially how to read an end-of-year report from a company. So at first I thought this was interesting, but by the time we got to liabilities and the differences between those and just regular debt and expense and another fancy word I can't remember, I was somewhat bored. And as I drifted off to daydream-land, what did I think of but that I was in a large vessel, maybe a galleon, floating out of the window of the office building into a bright new world...as I drew said ship in the margins of my notebook, I began to hear a humming behind me, and then lyrics came unbidden: It's fun to charter an accountant, and sail the wide accountancy... I included these lovely and famous words in with my doodle and showed it to a neighboring intern. He didn't get it, despite his being British. I thought that a pity and told him as such, and demanded he come watch Meaning of Life at some point in time to redeem himself. He agreed to do so. And let's just say the person giving the talk on accounting was not particularly amused. I felt bad for being rude and felt that perhaps I have difficulty staying focused whenever the word 'finance' shows up, and thus one might be able to comprehend my feelings of inadequacy regarding the corporate world.
"But how is work?" you might ask. This week was the first official week of work, and I found myself in three very different situations. One was that I had to help call companies in Xiamen, Fujian in Southern China to schedule interviews. I prepared my script, I said things very clearly, and then the receptionist replied very quickly with things I couldn't understand because of their speed and her accent. I had to give that front up. In addition I tried to do reading put out by the Xiamen government on various aspects of the city and its development, and discovered that I didn't know half the words used. So, in short, situation one is my Chinese is inadequate.
Right now my supervisor is out of town, and so I have been delegated to another team to do work, hence calling people. When that didn't work, they ran out of things for me to do. So I didn't have any work, and sat around wasting time or helping my friends on projects they were assigned in a completely different department. Situation two: boredom.
Today I encountered situation three. Upon emailing my supervisor and asking for work, he told me that there was some confusion about a certain turnout of one of the models, and so told me to figure out what reasoning might be behind that. Essentially I had to find jobs for 2-5 million migrants to Shanghai within the next few years. Unofficially I figured out that half of them would need to be construction workers to build houses for themselves and the other half would be sex workers because that's what happens sometimes, but since I couldn't tell my boss that half of them would be whores I made some pretty charts and wrote up a page on how there would likely be jobs and some logical reasonings that rural GDP wouldn't change. It's all related, though not obviously so from my short explanation. And I think it might be classified, so to disclose more information than this non-information might cost me and anyone who reads this blog their life. So the only real way to solve the question is modelling, which is exactly how we got to the question in the first place, and yet I was supposed to work out a solution. I think this was a test to see what I could get done on a near-impossible task and see how good my problem-solving skills are. Generally speaking, however, I enjoyed thinking in work today, no matter how difficult the task, and think that if this will constitute my summer (rather than either of the other situations) I will be most pleased.
In other work-related news I go to Xiamen on Monday for a business trip. A car is going to pick me up at the office to drive me to the airport and they're putting me up in a 5* hotel. I'm sure I'll have all sorts of news about that next week.
Otherwise to close up I'm putting the permalinks to all my Australia photos for those of you without facebook access:
Sydney
Manly
Katoomba
Canberra and Melbourne
Fraser Island
Brisbane
I'll be putting pictures from Shanghai up soon enough! Hopefully I will post again before the weekend is up, because I've got lots to share! Also, please tell me if something isn't working well in the blog, as though I can post no problem, the Chinese government has blocked my access to view the blog, and so I have to go through a proxy and it is a pain in the neck, so I won't check that things are working very often.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Discovering 'the old' China
As some of you know, I have been sad because I have felt that Shanghai is much more expensive than I remembered the rest of China being, and felt that China has just been too clean, the people too well-dressed, and just generally classier than Beijing. Now, I admit that the class is nice and all, and I'm getting used to seeing other foreigners, but today I made an exciting discovery.
I discovered my old China again.
Friday I went shopping with a friend at a mall, and she told me it was cheaper than the places by work. Relieved to have a local guide, I joined her and her mother at this other shopping venue, only to discover that yes, this stuff was cheaper than by work (work has Bally, Coach, and other big-name brands), but it was still priced similarly to that in America. I still found a skirt I liked a lot and so shelled out the cash for it, but missed my cheap hole-in-the-wall shopping places where I could get crappy clothing for good prices. This stuff was just too good!
Well I asked this co-worker to recommend a cheap place for me to go, and she gladly provided the name of a place for me. I looked it up on a map and though it was accessible by subway, it was not too close to me. Perfect, I decided, and perfect it almost was.
I set out this morning and got there about 45 minutes later, to find shopping galore! Most places I haggled a fair bit, and though things were still not as dirt cheap as they were in Beijing two years ago, things were fair-priced, and I also admit I wasn't trying too hard. I came back home with a slightly lighter wallet ($60 USD or so), and 2 pairs of shoes, two shirts, two pretty purses (more on those in a minute), a pair of earrings, a new wallet (my old one is falling apart), an umbrella with a pretty pattern on it, a nightgown, and I had lunch. I now feel much better outfitted for work and life in general.
Now this area had much less class, which I appreciated. I was on the train on the way over there and when we stopped at a station, I noted a woman holding her son towards a supporting column in an odd manner. He must of been about three, and she was holding him with his back to her, also holding his legs up, so he was in a little ball, more or less. I curiously continued watching and then he started to urinate into the trash can by the column. All of a sudden I could better understand why she was holding him in an odd position facing a pillar. This is the class I better remember China with.
When I was bag shopping I went into this store and was surrounded by cute bags. I found one that was the right size and a dark purple and really cute, and asked her how much. She gave me an answer of something like 380, I stopped listening after that. I told her not to cheat me, and per custom she asked me how much I thought it should be. I said 100, remembering that by my house something similar had been about 150, and thinking that would be reasonable. She said yes way too quickly, and so I realized my mistake. Panicked, not wanting to overspend, I went to a bag that was the same style but different color and shape (cute green bag). I asked her how much for two, and she said 200. I told her I wouldn't pay the same for two as I would for one, and countered with 150. She said 180, I said 160 and that's that. She relented, I felt better about buying them, and thus got two really cute and colorful, big purses for a good deal.
At lunch I went to a little noodle shop and got a bowl, then someone else sat at my table, and what was he wearing but a shirt with aboriginal Australian art on it. I asked if he had been to Australia, and he said he hadn't, but apparently his daughter had. So we talked for a while, about America and China and studying abroad and all sorts of things, and it was fun, the noodles were good, and he was nice.
Perhaps I'll post about work later this week, but for now I should probably go and do my work. Until the next post,
Jenny
I discovered my old China again.
Friday I went shopping with a friend at a mall, and she told me it was cheaper than the places by work. Relieved to have a local guide, I joined her and her mother at this other shopping venue, only to discover that yes, this stuff was cheaper than by work (work has Bally, Coach, and other big-name brands), but it was still priced similarly to that in America. I still found a skirt I liked a lot and so shelled out the cash for it, but missed my cheap hole-in-the-wall shopping places where I could get crappy clothing for good prices. This stuff was just too good!
Well I asked this co-worker to recommend a cheap place for me to go, and she gladly provided the name of a place for me. I looked it up on a map and though it was accessible by subway, it was not too close to me. Perfect, I decided, and perfect it almost was.
I set out this morning and got there about 45 minutes later, to find shopping galore! Most places I haggled a fair bit, and though things were still not as dirt cheap as they were in Beijing two years ago, things were fair-priced, and I also admit I wasn't trying too hard. I came back home with a slightly lighter wallet ($60 USD or so), and 2 pairs of shoes, two shirts, two pretty purses (more on those in a minute), a pair of earrings, a new wallet (my old one is falling apart), an umbrella with a pretty pattern on it, a nightgown, and I had lunch. I now feel much better outfitted for work and life in general.
Now this area had much less class, which I appreciated. I was on the train on the way over there and when we stopped at a station, I noted a woman holding her son towards a supporting column in an odd manner. He must of been about three, and she was holding him with his back to her, also holding his legs up, so he was in a little ball, more or less. I curiously continued watching and then he started to urinate into the trash can by the column. All of a sudden I could better understand why she was holding him in an odd position facing a pillar. This is the class I better remember China with.
When I was bag shopping I went into this store and was surrounded by cute bags. I found one that was the right size and a dark purple and really cute, and asked her how much. She gave me an answer of something like 380, I stopped listening after that. I told her not to cheat me, and per custom she asked me how much I thought it should be. I said 100, remembering that by my house something similar had been about 150, and thinking that would be reasonable. She said yes way too quickly, and so I realized my mistake. Panicked, not wanting to overspend, I went to a bag that was the same style but different color and shape (cute green bag). I asked her how much for two, and she said 200. I told her I wouldn't pay the same for two as I would for one, and countered with 150. She said 180, I said 160 and that's that. She relented, I felt better about buying them, and thus got two really cute and colorful, big purses for a good deal.
At lunch I went to a little noodle shop and got a bowl, then someone else sat at my table, and what was he wearing but a shirt with aboriginal Australian art on it. I asked if he had been to Australia, and he said he hadn't, but apparently his daughter had. So we talked for a while, about America and China and studying abroad and all sorts of things, and it was fun, the noodles were good, and he was nice.
Perhaps I'll post about work later this week, but for now I should probably go and do my work. Until the next post,
Jenny
Just Arrived
So I have made it to Shanghai!
To get here I flew Brisbane to Sydney (about 1 hr) and then Sydney to Shanghai (about 10 hours). I made friends with the flight attendant, and the guy next to me flirted with her and got her number. She gave us fruit and we talked a lot. I will probably hang out with her when she's in Shanghai next. I landed about 8:30 PM and Tian Jing (host sister from SYA) was there to meet me, angel that she is. She helped me get my things to my apartment.
My apartment is really nice, it has a study, which must be about 7'x10', a kitchen, an entryway/dining room/hallway which is about 8'x10', and a largeish bedroom which must be about 16' square, and the classic Chinese sunporch/closet for drying clothes. Why they couldn't have made the bedroom smaller and the bathroom larger, I don't know....it is a lot of space for just me, but hopefully I will have people over often enough to be able to make good use of it.
I've learned a lot about the guy who lives here from the things he has left behind. From his DVD collection I have learned that he is gay (he has Will and Grace, Scrubs, Queer as Folk, and a large collection of musicals and art films), from his sunporch I have learned that he is tall (I need to buy a stool to be able to reach the hanging wires semi-comfortably), from the drawer in the kitchen I have learned that he smokes, and from the kitchen itself I have learned that he doesn't cook much (he has a knife still in its casing on his counter, his wok looks completely unused, and he had no mixing bowls nor any sort of cooking spoon). He also is not a tea person, as he has no teapot. I feel like Nancy Drew.
Shanghai is HOT. Shanghai is HUMID. I am so thankful for the air-con in my house. I wish I never had to go outside while here. I have been sweating like a pig and it is disgusting. According to weather.com, right now (10:30 PM) it is 90 F, but with 66% humidity feels like 102. It actually isn't any different from what it was during the day. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, which will cool things down during the day, but not exactly keep the humidity down. Small comfort is that the average temperature stays around this for the rest of the summer, so at least it shouldn't get much worse. And the subway is air-conditioned.
In other news I got a new cell phone number (one of the many things I did today). It's +86 136 3655 9611, and if you get the sudden urge to call just please make sure that you've got the time zones right. Some of the other things I did today were to go and buy things for the apartment, like paper towels, frozen dumplings, sugar, rice, oil, vinegar, laundry items, a good knife, a mixing bowl for the kitchen, etc. I did a load of laundry, very exciting as I had no clean clothes left after tour, I figured out how to say 'bleach' in Chinese, I had lunch with the other interns at McKinsey, which was really fun. They're a great group of people, very international mix with everyone having lived in at least two countries at some point in time, and everyone is just as confused about what's actually going on in terms of the internship. We're all really confused about what we're actually up to at this job, but we hope to find out tomorrow on the first day of work. So we spent about four hours hanging out and chatting and that was good. Otherwise I spent the day going around shopping and searching for a grocery store. I have everything I need in the kitchen except for fresh vegetables, which I hope to remedy tomorrow, as since I got internet hooked up (harder than I thought it would be, I needed to configure a PPPoE or something like that, which wasn't obvious), I looked up where some good supermarkets are and discovered that had I walked one more block yesterday I would have gotten to one, but what can you do...nobody would tell me where one was, I asked around a lot. Did I mention that Shanghai is a fair bit more expensive than the rest of China? I am totally thrown off in haggling because i no longer have a clue as to how much I should be paying for things.
So that's what is happening in my life. I'm working on getting pictures of Australia up on Facebook, I just redid the Sydney album so that it has all my sydney photos instead of just some of them. Here's the link.
So that's a pretty good summary of my life in Shanghai, feel free to forward this on to anyone you think might care.
And last, a little information on contacting me. I'm getting some heavy-duty skype stuff so that I can contact people in America and you guys can contact me. So I can call out whenever I feel like it or you can call me at (312)235-2009. It will go to my computer and if i'm around I'll answer, if I'm not you can leave me a voicemail. Or if you have skype you can find me under the screen name brightwinds. Pretty cool, huh? So give it a try since I'll be around a lot without company.
Best,
Jenny
To get here I flew Brisbane to Sydney (about 1 hr) and then Sydney to Shanghai (about 10 hours). I made friends with the flight attendant, and the guy next to me flirted with her and got her number. She gave us fruit and we talked a lot. I will probably hang out with her when she's in Shanghai next. I landed about 8:30 PM and Tian Jing (host sister from SYA) was there to meet me, angel that she is. She helped me get my things to my apartment.
My apartment is really nice, it has a study, which must be about 7'x10', a kitchen, an entryway/dining room/hallway which is about 8'x10', and a largeish bedroom which must be about 16' square, and the classic Chinese sunporch/closet for drying clothes. Why they couldn't have made the bedroom smaller and the bathroom larger, I don't know....it is a lot of space for just me, but hopefully I will have people over often enough to be able to make good use of it.
I've learned a lot about the guy who lives here from the things he has left behind. From his DVD collection I have learned that he is gay (he has Will and Grace, Scrubs, Queer as Folk, and a large collection of musicals and art films), from his sunporch I have learned that he is tall (I need to buy a stool to be able to reach the hanging wires semi-comfortably), from the drawer in the kitchen I have learned that he smokes, and from the kitchen itself I have learned that he doesn't cook much (he has a knife still in its casing on his counter, his wok looks completely unused, and he had no mixing bowls nor any sort of cooking spoon). He also is not a tea person, as he has no teapot. I feel like Nancy Drew.
Shanghai is HOT. Shanghai is HUMID. I am so thankful for the air-con in my house. I wish I never had to go outside while here. I have been sweating like a pig and it is disgusting. According to weather.com, right now (10:30 PM) it is 90 F, but with 66% humidity feels like 102. It actually isn't any different from what it was during the day. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, which will cool things down during the day, but not exactly keep the humidity down. Small comfort is that the average temperature stays around this for the rest of the summer, so at least it shouldn't get much worse. And the subway is air-conditioned.
In other news I got a new cell phone number (one of the many things I did today). It's +86 136 3655 9611, and if you get the sudden urge to call just please make sure that you've got the time zones right. Some of the other things I did today were to go and buy things for the apartment, like paper towels, frozen dumplings, sugar, rice, oil, vinegar, laundry items, a good knife, a mixing bowl for the kitchen, etc. I did a load of laundry, very exciting as I had no clean clothes left after tour, I figured out how to say 'bleach' in Chinese, I had lunch with the other interns at McKinsey, which was really fun. They're a great group of people, very international mix with everyone having lived in at least two countries at some point in time, and everyone is just as confused about what's actually going on in terms of the internship. We're all really confused about what we're actually up to at this job, but we hope to find out tomorrow on the first day of work. So we spent about four hours hanging out and chatting and that was good. Otherwise I spent the day going around shopping and searching for a grocery store. I have everything I need in the kitchen except for fresh vegetables, which I hope to remedy tomorrow, as since I got internet hooked up (harder than I thought it would be, I needed to configure a PPPoE or something like that, which wasn't obvious), I looked up where some good supermarkets are and discovered that had I walked one more block yesterday I would have gotten to one, but what can you do...nobody would tell me where one was, I asked around a lot. Did I mention that Shanghai is a fair bit more expensive than the rest of China? I am totally thrown off in haggling because i no longer have a clue as to how much I should be paying for things.
So that's what is happening in my life. I'm working on getting pictures of Australia up on Facebook, I just redid the Sydney album so that it has all my sydney photos instead of just some of them. Here's the link.
So that's a pretty good summary of my life in Shanghai, feel free to forward this on to anyone you think might care.
And last, a little information on contacting me. I'm getting some heavy-duty skype stuff so that I can contact people in America and you guys can contact me. So I can call out whenever I feel like it or you can call me at (312)235-2009. It will go to my computer and if i'm around I'll answer, if I'm not you can leave me a voicemail. Or if you have skype you can find me under the screen name brightwinds. Pretty cool, huh? So give it a try since I'll be around a lot without company.
Best,
Jenny
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