The Shanghai Cafe

The Shanghai Diaries - Goodbye

2008-09-17T04:29:00.001+08:00

Well, I finally wrote my last diary. I really did mean to keep up with it more, but I simply didn't. I think I shall tell some of those stories in various ways. This will be my last post to this blog. So goodbye.

The Shanghai Diaries - A Trip to Earthquake torn Sichuan

2008-08-14T02:00:00.000+08:00

The little girl, all of ten years old, fidgets in her bed like all little girls her age made to sit still for too long. She smiles shyly as her mother proudly tells her story — of how she was trapped in a collapsed building, unable to move, for days until the army finally was able to dig her out. As they are speaking Chinese I understand nothing, but stand politely and try give a look of concern, and hope. The girl smiles at me and laughs like all little girls should laugh. It is a good ten minutes we are standing there before I notice a bandage on her left leg, just below the knee. Below the bandage is nothing, for her leg was amputated but days before.

On May 12, 2008 an 8.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Sichuan Province in western China. It was felt as far away as Beijing and Tokyo. It killed over 69,000 people, injured as many as 370,000 and left approximately 5 million homeless. The effects were devastating and it will be lifetimes before China recovers. Recently I was able to visit some of the affected areas and meet with some of the people there. I will never be the same.

I traveled with my newfound friend, and instigator of the trip, Vivian. She is native Chinese and had the entire trip planned. There were three goals of the trip: to meet people affected by the earthquake and help them in any way we could, to act as reporters and deliver first hand accounts to various groups in the US who would like to help, and to meet with Chinese government officials about building an orphanage.

We arrived in Chengdu, the capitol of Sichuan Province, and our base of operations on Monday afternoon. After dropping off our bags we met with one of Vivian's friends and headed straight towards the local hospital where many survivors were receiving treatment.

Zhi is probably in her early 50s, about medium height and plump from happier times. Her knees and hands are scarred and scabbed over. She is sleeping when we first come in but her husband quickly wakes her up and immediately she smiles at us, not knowing who we are but seeing we come as friends. She sits up tall, fusses with her hair and tries to look her best while her husband tells her story.

Like so many others her home was destroyed by the earthquake. She got out relatively unscathed, just a bump on her head and the fear that gripped them all. The army was quick to mobilize and sent out scores of convoys to pick up the survivors and take them to hospital. As she walked towards one such convoy, her head swam with dizziness from her wound and she fell, knocking herself unconscious. By the time she awoke, the convoy was long gone. So she walked.

For over twenty days and nights she walked – and crawled – her way to the city and help. She ate what she could find, a few wild berries, and some animals left dead in the grass. For nearly three weeks she teetered on the edge of death hoping for someone, anyone, to find her. No one did. With unfailing persistence she helped herself – eventually crawling her way to the city where there was a hospital and doctors. She can no longer walk as her legs are almost assuredly permanently damaged, and she will remain in hospital for quite some time. But she is alive, and thankful for that.

We met her, and so many others, at the hospital in Chengdu where many of survivors with urgent needs were taken along with hundreds in need of amputation. We talked with several, and observed many more trying to get a feel for what the people had experienced. I was struck by the strength of character seen in almost all of the patients. These people have come to know what suffering really means. They have lost family and friends and nearly their lives and yet are still grateful for what they do have. Everywhere we went people were smiling and laughing, happy to tell their stories. Happy to have survived.

We chatted with them, took pictures with them, and obtained their addresses and phone numbers. Later we brought them the developed pictures – now the only pictures they have of themselves since all others were lost in the quake. We chatted some more, or I should say the people and Vivian chatted as all I could do was smile and (hopefully) look encouraging.

A week later, when we returned home I gave the contact information to some of my Chinese friends. They have all promised to call those whom we visited and help them in any way they can. The government has done a good job of ensuring the people have shelter and food, but with so many affected it is impossible for them to hear every need. Though we may not be able to help with all of their problems, we hope we can at least be a listening ear and a shoulder to cry upon.

We had hoped to visit some of the worst hit areas but unfortunately this proved impossible. The government would not allow me to go anywhere near the epicenter and surrounding places. It seems they found out many of the Americans who had come to help were also secretly preaching religion (cults they called them) and as such foreigners were now banned. Vivian did get to go farther and reported back that alongside the rubble were rows and rows of temporary housing (mostly tents stuffed deep with people) and plenty of food.

Later in the week we traveled to Leshan to meet with the local government. Vivian is well connected and works as a volunteer for the Agape organization, which wants to build an orphanage in the area. Surprising, as Agape is openly a Christian organization, the government has agreed to give them some land upon which to build this orphanage. It is easily assumed that with so many orphans in the area after the earthquake and with not a single orphanage in the city, the government has decided to overlook this religious affiliation.

We first had a meeting with the local officials and it was my first chance to see the Chinese people in a more formal setting. We were served steaming hot tea in little glasses while a few young men waited in the wings ready to serve us more tea, or ashtrays as there was need.

The big boss (who I learned later was basically the governor of the entire area and a very big deal) introduced his coworkers who all stood up and bowed to us. Then Vivian made a show of thankfulness and introduced me and a young man from Agape. I wasn't really sure when she introduced me, so whenever everyone looked my way I sort of half way stood up and nodded.

An hour of formal and stilted conversation ensued. Once again I understood approximately nothing, but sat quietly with my now permanent smile. Eventually the meeting was concluded with another round of appreciation and we were escorted to lunch. I quickly realized that the meeting had nothing on lunch in terms of formality. It was held in a private dining room of a four star hotel. We were served all sorts of delicacies from the region (including, I am told, frog legs, squid tentacles, and whale fin soup).

On formal dining occasions it is apparently appropriate to spend a lot of time making toasts, and that's just what everyone did. The boss stood up first, making a big show and we all clinked our champagne glasses. A few moments later someone rose and toasted a single individual in my group. Then one from my group made a toast to someone else. And so on. Throughout the entire meal people were constantly getting up and down to toast someone else, including me.

Every meal we had with them was like that. Eat a little, toast a lot. I finally decided that you made a toast whenever you wanted a sip of your wine. We always had water as well and everyone drank heartily from those glasses, but when it was time to sip (or gulp) from something stronger it became toast time.

Throughout the meal everyone kept staring at me – to see what the silly foreigner thought of the outlandish Chinese food. For my part I smiled and ate graciously even if I didn't always know what I was eating. I clinked my glass whenever it was needed and drank and hoped it would all end soon.

Besides the champagne and the wine we were also served some very strong vodka. For some reason it was assumed that I wasn't much of a drinker (and in truth I am not) so all eyes were upon me when I took my sip of the hot stuff. I made a show of it with a big “whoa daddy” and watery eyes after my sip. After being made fun of, the rest of the meal I made sure to prove my manhood in the end by toasting one of the bigger men and swigging my shot down in one gulp.

Formal meals and meetings aside, we visited several potential sites and the government seemed very excited to be giving us some land in which to build the orphanage. Each site had its pros and cons and we all discussed their merits. Afterward we went to a swanky tea house and drank lots of Chinese tea — for three long, excruciating hours. At this point I had sat through the formal meeting, through a two hour lunch where I was the amusement, trucking about town looking at properties, all while feeling the outsider and understanding very, very little. I was ready to go home. Yet there we sat in the heat, drinking the tea — and if you have never had Chinese tea it is a very different thing than Southern style sweet tea. They throw the rather bitter tea leaves right into the glass then fill it up with steaming hot water. I spent my time sipping slowly, trying to look like I actually enjoyed the taste and looking around to see how you were supposed to drink without gulping down a mouthful of leaves.

The day finally ended and proved to be very productive as we were on our way to securing the property for the orphans. The next two days were filled with excursions to local tourist sites (including the world's largest Buddha). We were accompanied by some of the local officials and I inwardly smiled at being a capitalist American being wined and dined by hard-core Chinese communists. The times, as the poet says, are a-changing.

Before we left we visited an already existing orphanage just outside Chengdu. It is small (housing at most about 30 orphans) and not exactly swank, but it had a lot of heart. We brought the kids some books and toys and I got to play with them a long time while Vivian talked to the workers about conditions. Most of the children have one disability or another. Many are blind or deaf and most have mental health issues. Yet they were all very kind and sweet. I've left pieces of my heart in many places in China, and that little orphanage got a big chunk.

There are thousands of stories about the earthquake and many more that I was able to see and could tell. I have spent almost a year to the day in China and while it has all fascinated and captivated me nothing has meant more to me than those few days in Sichuan. It truly captured the beauty and heart of the Chinese people. To see so many who had suffered so much and yet still retained their dignity and their spirit – to see that when times are at their worst, the people are at their best is something I will always treasure. There simply isn't enough time or pages on the Internet to tell all of their stories, so I will leave you with this one, my favorite.

I do not know her name, so we will simply call her Ping. She is about eight years old and like so many children she was in school when the earthquake hit. As the first tremors shook, Ping's teacher told all of the children to leave the building and to walk across a small field so they would be safe in case of collapse.

All of the children minded except for little Ping. Her teacher had always told her to tuck her chair up under her desk before she left the classroom, and she had always minded her teacher. She minded again on this day, though she was nearly shaken to the ground.

The teacher hurried her along but by the time they had left the building the rest of the children were already across the field. As Ping and her teacher crossed over to meet with the rest of the class the ground shook mightily and brought a landslide down from the nearby mountains. The world came tumbling and with it the rocks, trees, and whatever else was in its path. As Ping and her teacher watched, the earth swallowed all of her classmates, killing every one. The teacher, seeing the landslide heading their way, pulled her arms around Ping sheltering her from the oncoming onslaught. The ground quickly buried them several feet deep, killing the teacher, but thanks to her quick thinking little Ping was saved.

Her teacher's hands were pressed so firmly into her cheeks that nearly a month later they were still bruised. Her shoes dug deep into Ping's calves causing immense pain. There was no room to move, and precious little air to breath.

Like this she lay – buried in her earthen tomb, beneath the rocks, the dirt and the corpse of her teacher/savior. For two days she lay there with no food nor water, not knowing if she would ever see the light again.

In time rescue workers did come and began to search for survivors and find the dead. Little Ping heard the workers come and she sang them a song.

She sang.

Later, when asked why she had sung she replied that she knew they must be tired and weary from working so hard and so she sang them a song to lift their spirits.

This little girl who had suffered more than I can begin to imagine used what precious little breath she had to sing, because others might be a little tired.

Such is the spirit of the Chinese people.

Such are the people who need your help.

If you would like to help in our effort to build the orphanage or with our campaign to help those I visited on this trip please send me an e-mail.

I've Packed My Bags, I'm Ready to Go

2008-07-23T13:25:00.002+08:00

We fly to Vancouver tomorrow at 3:30 in the afternoon. Interestingly enough we will arrive in Vancouver at about 11:00 in the AM. For those keep score that's 4 and a half hours before we left. Gotta love the international date line. To try to keep jet lag down my goal is to stay up until 9 PM that day. That is an insane amount of hours to stay up for a person my age, but I'm gonna try. What it really means is I'm gonna try to sleep on the plane. I've never slept on a plane, and I'm not sure if I'm going to this time, but I will try.

This week has been very hectic, what with the packing, the shipping, the cleaning and the stress. We came to China with four suitcases and two carry-ons. Plus we shipped one box full of winter clothes. Leaving China we have the same bags, but they are more full and we have now shipped three boxes. One box was souvenirs, but the others are mainly clothes. Man, clothes were cheap here so we bought lots.

The suitcases are now packed except for a few things I just washed. Once they dry we'll pack them and then do the weighing again. We weighed yesterday and got everything to the right amount, but we'll do it again today just to double check. What stinks is that if we wind up paying for extra weight here, we'll have to do the same in Vancouver.

Oh well, it is only money, I guess.

The Shanghai Diaries: Beijing and the Great Wall

2008-07-04T07:59:00.000+08:00

I finally got around to writing another Shanghai Diaries. This time it is about our trip to Beijing. The Internet has been acting screwy so I'm just gonna link to it over at blogcritics. I hope you like it.

We're leaving for Bangkok in a few hours and we will be traveling in Cambodia and Thailand for about two weeks. I'm fairly certain some of the places will have Internet access, but I can't say that I'll be doing any writing.

Until then...

A General Itenerary

2008-07-03T12:58:00.003+08:00

I wanted to give everyone our general plans for the next few weeks.

Tomorrow (Friday) we will be flying to Bangkok where we will stay the night. Saturday we will fly from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We will stay there about two days to look at the Angkor Watt ruins. These are supposed to be absolutely phenomenal and we are very excited about it. Then we are taking a boat trip to Phenom Phen where we will stay a couple of more days. While there we will visit one of the "Killing Fields" where so many Cambodians were massacred during Pol Pot's reign. After that we are flying to Thailand for some relaxing on the beach. We will stay there until the 17th.

We might travel Thailand a bit besides the beach, but we're playing that by ear. We fly to Vancouver on the 24th and we will celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary there. On the 27th we will be flying to Tulsa.

A busy last few weeks, but they should be fun.

In Exactly One Month, I Will Be In Oklahoma

2008-06-27T09:29:00.002+08:00

How crazy is that? We'll actually be leaving Shanghai a few days before then to stay in Vancouver, but it is one month to the day that we'll be home. I'm excited, and sad, and a little nervous.

Anybody got a job for me?

Pictures of Beijing and the Great Wall

2008-06-15T19:17:00.000+08:00

Beijing and the Great Wall of China

I'm Too Young for this...

2008-06-11T16:18:00.000+08:00

We went to Beijing this weekend and while there are many stories to tell and pictures to share, I wanted to say this now, as I am terribly busy this week and those other things won't see light for a while.

Not once, not twice, but three times I was asked if Sara, our friend and companion on the trip who is in her mid-twenties, was my daughter! I would have had to have her when I was like 6!

And she doesn't look that young either. I mean she looks like she's in her twenties, not in her early teens like some girls. Twice these horrid, terrible things happenned in taxi cabs. Normally cab drivers don't speak english, but for whatever reason this weekend we found two who spoke fairly well and both times they pointed to my wife and Sara asking if they were family. Then the specifically pointed out Sara and asked if she was my daughter.

I know I'm balding. I know my beard has lots of gray. I know I am not young anymore. But that....that accusation...that was just painful.

Beijing Bound, Plus our Future Plans

2008-06-02T14:25:00.002+08:00

We're headed to Beijing on Thursday and then will return home on Monday night. I'd say please excuse my absence to this blog, but as I write so rarely, I doubt anyone will notice.

We also bought our tickets home. We will be flying out of Shanghai on July 24. We'll actually be staying in Vancouver a couple of days for our anniversary and will be back in Oklahoma on July 28. Yeah.

We still aren't sure where we're going for our last trip. I really wanted to go to Cambodia/Vietnam but I think it will be too hot for us. Right now things are looking like Mongolia and maybe South Korea. But we'll see.

Gross...Just Groww

2008-06-02T14:20:00.002+08:00

The other day I walk out of my apartment and into the stairwell. Immediately I can hear a mother and daughter-child talking. That's the thing about our stairwell it is like a giant beacon and that amplified every sound...very obnoxious when you are in the living room, though thank goodness it gets drowned out by the time you reach our bedroom.

Anyway, I slow my walk down as I hate to run into people in the stairwell, especially people with kids as it makes for an awkward movement as I try to pass. I slow down enough that they are outside when I make it to the door. I then open the door and realize I should have hurried up.

The kid, who is maybe 5 years old is just below the stairs, right in the middle of the sidewalk where I'll have to walk, taking a squat...literally.

I don't know how much I've mentioned the Chinese love of the squat, but it is how they tend to use the rest room, and most assuredly how the kids are trained. So there the girl is squatting where I need to walk with a big puddle below her and a stream still flowing.

Dang it.

I know I've been in China for too long because my first thought it not why this little girl didn't go to her apartment where I know she has a real toilet, but why she couldn't just take a squat a few feet over where their is grass and no walking path.

The mom paid no mind, just got her keys out for the car.

This is why I always take my shoes off when I come into my house.

Shanghai Diaries - Olympic Fever

2008-05-30T07:53:00.001+08:00

I have written another diaries. This time it is all about the olympics.

The Shanghai Diaries - Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

2008-05-21T08:20:00.001+08:00

When my wife and I moved to Shanghai some nine months ago, we knew we would eventually move back to the States. The plan was to stay for one, maybe two years with the possibility of extending that for another year or two. After that we knew we would have to come home.

As anyone who has spent an extended time in a foreign land can tell you, there are good days and bad. The good days are clear and beautiful. They make like home. The bad days roll up on you like rain and make me wish I was anywhere but this strange land where everything is different and nobody understands.

Having lived on foreign soil before, I knew all about both types of days before we left and as such promised myself not to make any final decisions on how long we would stay for at least six months. Even so there days when I was sure I wanted to live in China, and days when I wanted nothing more than to catch the next plane out.

We have been thinking it over these last couple of months and we have now decided to head back home and start fresh. It was a hard decision, but this seems like the best option for now.

There are a great many things I love about China and those things make me want to stay. Shanghai is an interesting and incredible city. We have seen and visited many fascinating places and it will be hard to go back to what will surely feel like the terribly mundane back in the States.

Money is a great pull as well. We now make far less money than we did in the States, and yet it goes a lot farther. Half of my wife’s check (and she is assuredly the breadwinner in China) goes to an account in Hong Kong which we do not touch. Yet we still live quite large.

We dine out nearly every night, we travel primarily by taxi everywhere, and we continue to buy all sorts of crap from DVDs to fabric to footwear without giving it a second thought. We travel all the time and we are still saving thousands of dollars.

That’s a hard thing to walk away from.

I also really love the people here. I’ve mentioned before that we live in something of an ex-pat compound, and it is something like summer camp, if not paradise. Culture shock is eased by the familiarity of western faces. Friends abound. I can’t leave my home and walk to the corner store without seeing someone I know and having a friendly chat. I have made many friends among the Chinese as well and everyone is always exceedingly friendly.

Like I said, it was a hard decision to make.

I am not a man of great ambitions, but I do hold a few small dreams. For as long as I can remember I have longed to own a modest house on a small piece of land. I want to grow flowers and potatoes. I want to sit on my front porch, sipping freshly made iced tea, while I watch my kids grow old. I want to sit there with my wife, whom I love more than life and watch the sun set over the horizon. It isn’t much of a dream, but it is mine.

Truth is I continue to get older, but the dream seems to get farther away. I simply can’t see how China gets me any closer to it. So, we’re going home on July 28. We’re not sure what we’ll do once we get there, I can only hope. And dream.
Fear not, gentle readers. I still have just over two months left in Shanghai and there are still many stories to tell. The diaries will continue on for that time and I hope you will continue to read.

Night of the Living Mosquitoes

2008-05-20T12:31:00.003+08:00

We live on the third floor and are generally pretty bug free. Alas, last night was not ours. I hit the sack about 11:30 and within a few minutes my wife was groaning and yelling about mosquitoes. A moment later I could hear one.

BZZZZZZ.

In my sleepy state my mind imagined it way over by my wife (even though of course my ears would never be able to pick up their sound from feet away.) Then I imagine that it must have flown in front of me and I swat above my mid-section. Why I think this I don't know but as soon as I swat I realize how dumb my swat was.

Nothing. Quiet. I try to sleep. The wife groans again and swats.

BZZZZZ.

This time thinking clearly I swat against my face. It must be near my ear for I can hear it and I'm not in the position to clap so I must squish him against my face.

Gross. Maybe I'm not thinking so clearly.

More trying to sleep. More buzzing. More swatting.

Nothing works. After a good swat they stay quiet for a bit. Just long enough to get comfortable really then it starts up again.

Eventually I turn on the light and find the sucker on the wall. Swat. Squish. Dead.

At last, now we can sleep.

BZZZZZ.

Dang, another one. I turn on the light, find two on the wall and they go squish.

Lights out. Almost sleep. Buzz, lights, squish.

On this goes for an hour. I search the house looking for an entry point. The windows have been open all day but we have screens. I check them searching for small openings and find none. The bathroom screen had been up but Amy shut it yesterday afternoon.

I turn on a light in the kitchen hoping to move them in there. Then I shut the door. Then I shut out window and turn on the air.

We had been in sheets, but with the air conditioning we need a cover. Turn on the air and have to cover up. How's that for efficiency?

More buzzing. This last one is sneaky. He buzzes but when I get the light on he's not on the wall like the rest. I don't believe I ever got him, but about 1:30 I found sleep.

I woke up with several bug bits on my arm.

Dancing the Night Away

2008-05-20T10:52:00.002+08:00

The other night we went to a little Korean place down the way for supper. As we rode down the road in the taxi, a couple of blocks before we hit the restaurant we noticed a large group of Chinese folks doing something that looked like Tai Chi in a large square. Curious we decided to take a better look after supper.

If you go to any large open spaces in the mornings just about anywhere in China you will see people out doing some variation of yoga. When I spent the night at the aquarium we found scores of people doing these little exercises all over the grounds when we awoke. It is just something you do.

Well, apparently they do something a little different of an evening. What appeared from a distance to be more of the same sort of morning stretches, turned out to be more like a Chinese version of a country line dance. They were located in what appeared to be some sort of outdoor community space. There was a large concrete slab in the middle where one could hold a variety of events from concerts to a small fair. There were a smattering of small stands located at the edges for people to sit, and to one side was a gazebo, with a smaller slab of concrete next to it.

Inside both slabs were gobs of people. At the gazebo they were playing fast-ish music with a slinky sort of swing beat. Couples were gathered and while not exactly swinging they were twirling and two-stepping with all their might. Interestingly most of the couples were women with their men gathered about the floor watching curiously.

In the main square a different sort of music was being played. It was slower, and more rhythmic. The people were all lined up in a grid and doing these fancy step moves. It really was very line dance-esque and completely fascinating to me. The wife, my friend, and I moved to the edges and tried a few moves. Most of the steps weren't too complicated so we picked up some of it pretty quick.

The problem was that each song only lasted a couple of minutes and with each new song there was a new dance. Just as I would learn one step, a new one would appear. A kindly older man eventually came over to us and began teaching us the steps.

It was so much fun I gathered up more friends a few nights later and we tried it again.

I've mentioned before how we live sort of a sheltered life. Shanghai is a very westernized city and our little compound feels like a little expat oasis. It has been such a joy to go out these few times and experience a little real China.

I can't wait to go back.

Drip, Drip

2008-05-14T22:34:00.002+08:00

Since living here we have had at least three different leaks. The pipes leading to the water heater leaked, the pipes under the sink leaked, and the pipes behind the toilet leaked. Now we have another one. This time it is the big PVC pipe in the ceiling above our bathroom.

The good news: the drip falls directly into our toilet, leaving no mess.

The bad news: the drip falls directly into our toilet, and thus my ownself when I'm using said toilet. I don't even want to think about where this water is coming from, like where it has been or what it contains.

I talked to maintenance yesterday. This morning they sent one guy up who looked confused. Normally maintenance puts little plastic booties on over their shoes when they enter. This guy seemed to have none and looked at me sheepishly when he knocked like he wasn't gonna come in. I told him to anyways and showed him the problem. He had a bag full of metal pipes which were worthless on the PVC. Then he showed me two work orders. One was for the floor above me, and one was us. He showed me both and said something I couldn't understand then split.

Later two men came in and took a look. They stayed a minute then motioned upstairs. I assume they went up to the floor above to investigate the leak. Moments later they came back down and said something or other. I assume the people weren't home.

They don't seem to be willing to go into others apartments when the owners aren't there, here. I guess we'll wait until tomorrow. Or something.

Until then if you see me with a wet back, don't ask.

Earthquake

2008-05-12T22:14:00.002+08:00

I've already gotten some questions about it, so I wanted to update my readers. We are fine. I didn't know there even was an earthquake until well after it happened.

I tutor a couple of kids every afternoon and as I was leaving I ran into their mom as she was coming home for work. She speaks a little English, but not a lot and so our conversations are always a little funny. Today was no different.

"Hello, are you ok from the RQ?"

"The what?"

"The RQ...RQ...today?

"I'm sorry, what is that?"

She yells at her boy and he says that yes, RQ is right. I still haven't the slightest idea what she is talking about, but her girl finally comes down and explains it was an earthquake. She then tells me her office all went to the streets where everyone was out walking about looking scared. It was an odd feeling to hear of a quake like that. Like I wasn't sure if I was understanding correctly, and wondering if everyone was OK.

Turns out it was a big quake, but way south of here. Though they say some people felt it here, and the big skyscrapers were evacuated. I didn't feel a darn thing. the death toll keeps rising so keep everyone in your thoughts.

--

This has been a weird week for disasters. Mom tells me over the weekend the little town where I used to work was wiped out by a tornado. There wasn't much left of the town anyways as it was mostly cleared out after the mining left, but man its weird to see pictures of places I used to hang out at everyday destroyed.

Keep all that in your thoughts, too.

Pictures of Yangshuo

2008-04-21T13:04:00.000+08:00

Yangshuo

2008-04-19T11:32:00.002+08:00

Massages are all the rage here in Shanghai. There are parlors just about everywhere. You can get a massage in your motels, theres a place here in our compound and you can even get a masseuse delivered to your home. Everybody loves them, or so it seems.

Amy is a long time massage fan so she often goes and gets them. I've never really had a desire for one and have up until last night declined all offers for them. Last night our friends Laura and Thomas called wanting to get one. Amy agreed immediately, but I said no. Then Thomas brow-beated me and I reluctantly said "yes."

We went to a little shop down the road and contemplated which kind to get. They had full body massages, full body with oil, foot massages, head massages and all sorts of other things. I decided I would go all out and get a full body with oil.

It was a little weird at first stripping down to some little shorts they gave me and getting rubbed by a stranger, but it was ultimately nice. Very relaxing and invigorating even if the ladies thumbs were a little harsh.

Today though my back aches, and there are big bruises running up and down my shoulders.

Ouch.

The Things You See On the Road

2008-04-18T10:54:00.002+08:00

Most mornings I take a walk around our big apartment complex. It isn't a marathon, but it is a nice little walk. Along the way I often see some odd little things, and I thought I'd do a little writing about it.

Parking, must like the general traffic is a bit of a mess around here. I'm sure somewhere there are like big parking lots, and suchlike, but I've ever seen them. Mostly you just see cars parked about everywhere. Shanghai actually does a great job of making bike lanes for the legions of two-wheeled people, but of course lots of the cars wind up parking there. Sidewalks too for that matter.

Anyways, the other day I am out on my walk and as usual there is a bit van parked on the sidewalk and I do the walk-around away from the street. On the sidewalk, next to the van is a big puddle of liquid. I look for a second to see what it is...no, it's not that...yep it is.

Urine.

Gross. You can tell by where it is that they van guy parked it, then stood next to the van to hide himself from traffic and let it flow. Now on my walks I often see public urinators. It isn't all that uncommon to see a taxi driver pull of the side of the road and go in the bushes. Their cab drivers so they spend their days in a car not near a bathroom, so I figure 'whatever' and never pay them much mind. But they go in the bushes. Not on the sidewalk.

Everyday I see the same group of workers messing with the sidewalks. The sidewalks are not straight concrete, but made up of these little 10 inch x 10 inch bricks. Next to the sidewalk, away from the road and in between the walls to our complex are various shrubs and flowers and grasses. Periodically around the sidewalk are trees too.

These workers are always doing something around there. Sometimes they are pulling weeds. Once they dug a little trench around the shrubs. Most often they are taking a little puddy knives and cleaning out the gunk between the individual bricks.

I have the most manicured sidewalks I have ever seen. None of the work they do really needs to be done, but there they are ever single day. That's actually slightly common in China. Whenever you go to a market or a restaurant or any store really it will always be over staffed. I've seen small kiosks in the mall filled with half a dozen workers.

At the corner market there are always 6 or more people working even though there really isn't much to do. Half of them sit around yacking to each other. I always assume it is some sort of government thing to make companies over hire. Like the population is so enormous that companies are asked to hire more people than they need so the unemployment rates won't be so high. Sometimes it is annoying because there are too many workers and they get in the way, but I think I'll take that over having the stores under staffed like you see so often in the States.

A few weeks ago on my walk I nearly saw an accident. I was next to a two lane highway that is quite heavily trafficked. The road has a very large shoulder where the buses pull off to make their pick ups, and on this road where bikers ride.

One of the buses pulled over to make a stop and then jammed itself back into traffic. Like I said it is a busy road and there were a couple of taxis speeding down the road just behind the bus. This bus, full of people and assuredly not a fast vehicle pulls right out in front of the taxis nearly taking them out. The first taxi instead of jamming his breaks, pulls to the left into oncoming traffic. Cars coming that way have to fling to the side of the road to not get hit.

Taxi #1 realizes the oncoming traffic is going to hit him so he then jams his breaks and slings behind the bus. Taxi #2 takes this moment to pass the first taxi and the bus, caring not that the oncoming traffic is there because they had moved out of the way of taxi #1.

The bus, taxis and oncoming traffic then all kept moving like nothing happened. All of this happened in about 5 seconds. It is such a typical thing that I don't think anyone else noticed. That's the way it is around here. People do crazy/stupid things so often that it is common place. Cab drivers are freaking race car drivers. They speed, they move in and out of traffic like mad, they jam the break and rev the engine simultaneously.

They make it work because everyone is used to it. I think if a Shanghai taxi driver moved to the States he'd either rule the world or immediately die from an accident. We just wouldn't know what to do with them.

The Shanghai Diaries - The Madness of Crowds

2008-04-15T14:30:00.001+08:00

My wife and I have decided to move back to the States for good in July. There are many reasons for this decision ranging from my lack of real career options to my wife's need to be somewhere where she'll actually finish her dissertation. It was a hard decision in some ways, but I must admit I'm really rather thrilled to be headed back. As we've now made the decision, I find myself looking forward to many of the conveniences that we'll have in the US, and being more irritated with things here in Shanghai.

One of these annoyances is with the people. No, not the individual people. I've found most of the Chinese to be pleasant, friendly, and kind. I've made many Chinese friends and I will miss them dearly. The people themselves are as interesting and varied as any people you'll find. It is not the individual people that bother me, but the collective – the en masse that proves bothersome. There are just so darn many of them.

I grew up in rural Oklahoma, in a town with fewer than 20,00 people. Since moving out I have lived in larger cities such as Joplin, Missouri; Montgomery, Alabama; and the whopping metropolis of Strasbourg, France (population 500,000.) That's a far cry from the 18 million odd people who live in Shanghai. Maybe those who live in places like New York or Chicago can grasp just how many people that is, but for this poor boy from Oklahoma it has been nothing less than eye-opening.

The masses are a bit like ants in a colony just after some kid has blown it to bits with an M-60. People are constantly moving in every direction. There might be some order buried in the chaos, but to an outsider it looks like crazed madness.

I live in the relative peace and quiet of the suburbs. The outer limits of the suburbs actually, and it is still overwhelming. There is never a time when there aren't hoards of people about. Shopping is the worst. We frequent Carefour a French-owned grocery store not too far from here and it is always "busting at the seams" crowded. Think about Wal-Mart on a Saturday or your favorite mall around the holidays, then triple it, and you have some idea - and that's during the off hours.

Shopping is a nightmare to me in the best of scenarios, and here it is always just shy of completely awful. Carefour has two main aisles running perpendicular to each other through the middle of the store. There is plenty of room in these aisles for loads of people. Still I always find myself behind some lolly-gaggers doing the Chinese stroll. They have a particular knack for slow, meandering walks that never fail to get in my way.

In the big aisles I'll get behind one of these strollers walking so slow grass is growing up under the feet. I try to pass but am thwarted on both sides – to the left, cart after cart of people going the other way rush by cutting off my every movie. To the right, people behind me rush to make a pass and zip in ahead of me. When I finally get a free space and make my move, the mad stroller inevitably performs a wobbly turn in that same direction and keeps me from moving. Eventually I get serious and butt my cart in and pass only to be quickly blocked by some other meanderer.

In small aisles there is always someone with a cart parked right in the middle blocking the other side with their bodies as they look over whatever consumer goods are on display. While there, some friend or acquaintance or talkative stranger stops by to chat, completely blocking the entire aisle, oblivious to the forming line behind them.

Speaking of lines, the Chinese don't seem to believe or at least understand them. In the States if there is a counter, or some need for people to be serviced a queue will almost assuredly be formed. They may not always be neat, but there is always some semblance of order. Here, unless forced to by an authority or by structure, the Chinese form what can only be called a chaotic crowd for the same need

There is no queue, only a mass of people trying to edge their way to the front. Recently we took a mini vacation and in the airport for our flight back we stood in a long line for the security check point. I call it a “line” but really it was more like a gelatinous goo of people slowly merging into one, with various other folks standing about. Even under the tightest of securities, we were all still pushing about trying to get closer. As we moved forward , the elbows came out and the strategic positioning began as we all tried to get slightly closer to the end.

Everywhere it is the same. At KFC there is the same mass of people trying to get their order in edgewise. Don't move fast enough, or allow an inch of space between you and the person in front of you, and someone will squeeze in front. Even at the front of the line, my order being taken, I have been edged out, by someone behind me shouting out their order while I'm looking at the English menu making my decision.

The subway is probably the best example of the craziness. As a juxtaposition, I'll first speak about my experience on the Tokyo subway. Tokyo has an enormous population and a gargantuan subway system. As you wait for the subway there are marks on the floor detailing exactly where the doors of the train will be once it stops. The people all line up in two queues on each side of each door in an orderly fashion. There are security guards directing people where to go and ensuring no one gets to close to the edge.

When the train stops, all the people politely wait until every passenger getting off steps off the train before they proceed to get on in an orderly fashion. Sometimes the trains do get crowded and I've seen the security guards give a great big push to the masses to get everyone on board (giving a bow before they push) but everything is done is a polite and courteous manner.

In Shanghai they have similar marks on the floor and there are always congregations of people standing about those marks, but there are also legions of others standing about everywhere. When the train does stop, those not near the marks all try to push their way into the groups standing near the doors. You have to position yourself decisively in a sports stance with elbows out if you are to keep your place. Once the doors open, there is no polite waiting for passengers to get off, but a mass push to get on and possibly find a seat. If you happen to be on board trying to get off at a busy station it is best to wear some football pads and get a running start if you expect to get off.

It isn't that the Chinese don't have any courtesy. In fact I have seen guys punch their way on board so they could get a seat, only to give up that seat when an elderly person, or someone with a small child gets on at the next stop. Fighting crowds seems to be in their genes. While I face the madness with a grimace and a curse, the Chinese seem to consider fighting for some small place in the chaos business as usual and take it all in course.

I'm sure when I go home I'll find all sorts of frustrating situations where I'm behind some slow person, or I'll find myself in some long line that seems to never end. I do love the Chinese and have enjoyed my time in Shanghai. Yet I can't say I'm not looking forward to moving back to rural Oklahoma where I can sit gazing on a long stretch of green, and not see a single person for miles around.

The Shanghai Diaries - Field Trips

2008-04-15T08:17:00.001+08:00

It has been five weeks since my last diary. Five. Freaking. Weeks. When I started this column my intentions were to write a post every week. That rarely ever happened but I was knocking out about 3 a month. Yet here I am with more than a month between now and my last word on my experiences in China. What happened? As usual, it was several things. A lot of it is what I'll call the French equation.

My wife and I lived in Strasbourg, France for about 10 months in 2003-4. Blogging came into existence for me in the form of journaling my daily life there. For many months I was writing everyday about the differences in culture, food, and lifestyles between the French and the United States, as well as chronicling my every day experiences. As with all things, though, what was once interesting became mundane. What was exciting was then boring. In France I then turned to movie reviews and my life as something of a “real” writer began.

We're now in the boring stage of my Shanghai adventure. I've written about most of the things that effect my life at this point, and the day to day just isn't exciting enough to merit articles. Thus a lull.

That and I'm lazy. Seriously, there are things I have to write. There are stories to tell, and everyday I tell myself to write them, but first I have to check my e-mail and wash the dishes and do a little reading and watch another movie. Then the wife comes home and the night washes on, and no words have been written.

I'd like to say I'll do better. I'd like to say I'll write more and the diaries will shine on. I'd like to say those things, but I won't. I know better than that.

As my life as a tutor and substitute don't keep me exactly full-scheduled and busy, and as my wife is a teacher, and my sister is a teacher, and everyone I know is a teacher, I am often called upon to help out with school activities. Sometimes this entails chaperoning field trips.

A few weeks ago I accompanied my sister's 10th grade history class to the Shanghai Museum. As with pretty much everything in Shanghai, the museum was a good ride away. The school my sister works for does not own their own school buses - there are no big yellow behemoths around these parts. Instead they rent buses from a local company. These look a bit like run-down Greyhounds, but they do the job. More or less.

We loaded into two of these buses and headed off for our destination. The streets of Shanghai are a terrifying experience in the best of vehicles, but in a large, dilapidated bus it quickly becomes close your eyes and pray time. The big beasts lunged to and fro through traffic, horns a-blazing, weaving between taxis and scooters all the while narrowly missing pedestrians.

After about 4 kilometers the bus pulled over to the side of the road, stopped and cut its engine. We were no where near the museum. There was no explanation of what we were doing. The bus driver exited and went to talk to the driver of the second bus. Phone calls were made and still no explanation. After several long minutes we were finally told that the bus we were on had broken down.

Four kilometers from home, after 10 minutes of driving, the bus was dead. You would think they might do a little maintenance checking before they started lugging a large group of kids through the streets of one of the worlds biggest cities, but no. You would be wrong for thinking such things. Another, much smaller bus was nearby and it quickly came to pick up our kids. All but about ten kids were loaded and the two working busses took off, leaving me, my sister and those ten kids standing on the side of the road.

The road was a major city highway with massive amounts of speeding traffic zooming by at every moment. We had no idea where we were and we had no other instructions but to wait there and try not to get run over.. Visions of one of my kids running away, or being picked up, or being smashed into little bits ran through my head. None of those terrible things did happen and a new bus did indeed pick us up.

The museum was of the historical and not the art variety. It was big, interesting and very educational for the kids. They of course hated it and spent most of the day trying to sit in corners where they could play their PSPs and their Nintendo DSs.

For lunch it was decided we would go to a mall but a few blocks away. We again took our kids out into the streets of Shanghai. It was the lunch rush and thousands of people were out, moving about. Fear like I've never had rose up through my skin as I imagined myself losing one of my kids. Good grief there was no way to keep track of them. It is hard enough just to manage the streets alone, much less keep up with half a dozen tenth graders. We crossed a couple of major intersections, went down through a tunnel and finally came to the mall. Downstairs was the food court and the kids were essentially told to do what they want but to meet us back in an hour.

I questioned my sister about the madness of all of this, but she shrugged and said that's the way it is always done here. I took a deep breath and tried not to imagine the terrible things that could happen. Lunch was good and the kids all came back on time. The ride home went without a hitch and I learned that Chinese field trips are certainly different than their American counterparts, but the results seem to be about the same.

On another occasion my friend Sara asked me to accompany her fourth grade class to the Shanghai Aquarium – overnight. I again said yes and it was away we went. Fourth graders naturally behave differently then those in the tenth grade and this time our bus trip was filled not with broken down busses but a little game of “who should the teacher marry?”

This time there was no letting the kids loose on the streets either. The aquarium, though located on some sizable acreage, including a nice large lake was totally enclosed from the rest of the city, and thus much more safe, relatively speaking.

The day was filled with dolphin shows, a Chinese version of an American meal (fried chicken wings, french fries, sticky rice, and stir fried vegetables all eaten with chop sticks of course) and a virtual-reality ride through Antarctica and a race-course. The night found us in the aquarium proper with tanks full of every kind of fish imaginable along with turtles, eels, sting rays and the shark tank.

The shark tank was huge and contained a couple of those glass tunnels where you could see the sharks from every sort of angle. This is where we would be sleeping and it is fair to say I was just as excited as the kids. I've never been to an aquarium. I've never seen a shark in the flesh. I'm a little boy glued to the Nature Channel at heart and I was mesmerized.

We played chase and tag and turned out the lights and silently wandered through the fake jungle scene like explorers. We fed the sharks cut up fish and squid. We fed the sharks! With my bare hands I threw in some fresh meat and watched the killers of the deep tear it to pieces. Awesome is the word.

Eventually we bunked down for the night. Like I said we slept in the glass tunnels underneath the tank. There were no beds, save for our own blankets and small mats provided by the aquarium which weren't much more than cardboard. This is where my own age crept back in. Sleeping on what amounts to concrete and a thin sheet of cardboard isn't exactly something I can do well anymore. Sleeping with a bunch of fourth graders at a glorified slumber party when they are full of sugar and adrenaline underneath hundreds of pounds of water full of swimming death machines is near impossible.

The night was full of laughter, shouting, shhh-ing and a lecture on why it isn't appropriate to shine your flashlight on and discuss the merits of various shark butt-holes. I actually did manage to get a little sleep and despite it all it was quite an amazing experience to lie on my back in my make-shift bed watching sharks swim past sting rays and giant turtles. With a few nights rest in a soft warm bed, I can't wait for my next adventure as a field trip chaperon.

Crooked Rain

2008-04-09T15:10:00.002+08:00

Here's a run down of what I've been doing since my last post.

The weekend before last we went to Hangzhou with our friends Laura and Thomas. Hangzhou is something of a sister city to Suzhou which is the city we went to a couple of months back. Both cities are highly recommended and are supposedly some of the most beautiful country in this country. Both were a bit of a let down.

For Suzhou we arrived to early, like in the winter, and none of the fine scenery had blossomed or bloomed. In Hangzhou the flowers had somewhat bloomed, but it rained the entire time.

We went to Hangzhou kind of spur of the moment as Thomas had to be there during the week for work, and Laura asked if we wanted to make a weekend of it. We did and we went. The focus of the city is a large man-made lake and several islands that float about in it. It was very beautiful, though quite soggy.

We took a boat tour of the island and the trees had blossomed and it was nice. Raining pretty solidly on Sunday we went to KTV (karaoke) and made an afternoon of it. Karaoke is much different in Asia than in the States to say the least. It is quite the ordeal here. An entire building was decked out for our pleasure. I consisted of dozens of small private rooms for which to sing and a large central room full of buffet style food. They had plenty of American songs and we had lots of fun.

This past weekend we went to Yangshuo. This is a little village that my sister has been to many times and absolutely adores. It is basically a tourist trap, but the views are so spectacular it is worth it. It is located right on a river, and the mountains look like some crazy prehistoric animals back. Again it was rainy and overcast and thus our views were less spectacular than I had hoped, but this place is so amazing that it didn't matter so much.

One of the rainy days we decided to go caving to get out of the wetness. We were the only white people there and we got many a stare from the Chinese. To get into the cave we had to take a small boat into a cavern. The entrance was so small we had to duck down into the boat and pray that we didn't get knocked over.

I've been to a few caves in the US and am generally underwhelmed. For safety reasons they have to be made so sanitary and generic that they usually aren't a lot of fun. China seems a little more lax with that and thus the cave was much more interesting. Besides nearly getting knocked over coming into the cave there were several moment where we had to nearly crawl through passages, step on slippery rocks to get across creeks and generally access areas a bit more dangerous than would ever be allowed into the states.

It wasn't terribly risky mind you, it was just so much more so than you'd ever see in the States.

The highlight was the mud pool which me and Amy and our friend Sara climbed into. Basically it is a small reservoir of water which is very muddy at the bottom. Tourists love to jump in and get covered in filthy cave mud. We were one of those and we got nasty. The water was actually freezing cold so it took a moment to warm up to, but after that we slung and wrestled and had a blast. Again we were the only ones in the pool and all the Chinese stared at the crazy Americans. They actually had a photo set up going on so that one of the tour guides took pictures of us, then uploaded it onto his computer. They had everything set up there so that we could look at our pictures right there in the cave and have it printed out for us as we toured the rest of the cave.

Farther down was a big pool of water and we took a good swim in it. It also was freezing cold but kind of refreshing. At the end was a massive waterfall that we relaxed under for a bit.

Also during the weekend we took a couple of boat rides and climbed a mountain. The boat was restful and the mountain intense. Lots of stairs followed by an off road trail filled with slippery mud and danger. The view was worth it though.

I'll try to have pictures up in a few days, and I suspect I will write in detail about Yangshuo later.

Due to weather we wound up having our return flight delayed nearly 12 hours and we didn't get home until about noon on Monday. I was in bed by 7 that night and the puking my guts out by 9. I remained sick all that evening and then feeling completely weak from it Tuesday. I'm feeling better now, but am coughing like there is no tomorrow.

And that's what we've been up to.

I'm Back, For Good (Maybe)

2008-03-26T09:53:00.003+08:00

It has been almost a month since I last posted. I want to blame our lack of decent internet service, but that's just a lame excuse as I kept my other blog up to date.

We were without decent internet for nearly three weeks. One day it just went down. On the Dell, where we are connected to a cable, we couldn't get it at all, on the Mac, where we have wireless it was incredibly slow and often would go down without warning.

A little disclaimer here: We have a wireless network, and several others in our little complex do as well. Truth be told, I'm not really sure which one is ours and which ones are theirs. Most of the networks are password protected but there are a couple that aren't and I get confused as to whether or not I am on my own network, or stealing someone elses.

After waiting and hoping it would fix itself we finally had one of our Chinese friends call the company to complain. Turns out we were behind on our bill. Two months late in fact. Now before you roll your eyes and call me a deadbeat, let me explain.

The bill is in Chinese. I can't tell what the heck it is saying for the most part. There are a variety of number on the bill, all of which look like amounts of money and none of which say anything in English telling me how much to pay. The one bit of English on the bill says "prepay" and I always assumed that meant we had paid ahead. I thought this because prepay generally means that you have paid ahead, and because each time we have paid our bill we've had to pay at least a month in advance.

The only way we know how to pay the bill is to the person from the internet company comes to our living quarters. She comes every Sunday in the afternoon. Every Sunday in the afternoon we also have a meeting. Remembering to go to internet lady before the meeting is difficult.

We also got no warning that we were behind. We had heard that if you don't pay a bill then you get items in the mail reminding you to pay. We got none.

Time slipped by and we didn't pay and we got shut off. So we paid and now we're cooking.

--

My birthday was yesterday. It was a pretty good day. We actually celebrated last Friday by having some friends over and playing games. I made a great big batch of nachos which were delicious.

My brother-in-laws birthday was Sunday and we celebrated by going to the Naked Cow on Saturday night. This is a big western style restaurant. Us men folk had meat. Lots of meat. We had lamb shanks and a pork shoulder and a full chicken and several other dishes. It was delicious and it tore me up most of Sunday.

Tuesday night we met with some more friends and had dinner at a place that gives teachers half on on Tuesdays.

I'm glad I've stayed alive another year.

The Shanghai Diaries - Japanese Edition, Part 3: Kyoto, Osaka, and Home

2008-03-04T08:14:00.000+08:00

From Osaka we trained to Nara, an old city that was also the capital of Japan at one time. We visited more temples there, but having rested from them in Osaka, I was once again fascinated by them.

Like Miyajima, there were tame deer roaming through parts of the city. There were many schoolchildren feeding the deer only to realize that once one deer sees food, the whole lot of them sense it and quickly surround the food bearer. In the park side, two bucks began fighting over something. I, like many others, rushed in to take photographs. The battle raged for a few minutes until the two bucks separated a bit.

Still filled with anger, one buck made a mighty sneer at my brother-in-law and then proceeded to headbutt an older lady who had bent down to tie her shoes. He got her right in the back with a thunderous bang. The women fell and the crowd gasped. To both my brother-in-law's and my own credit, we both rushed in and stood between the deer and the woman. It was then I realized the buck's head was about the same height of my midsection. I cringed at the thought of losing my reproductive powers by a deer in the middle of Japan.

Luckily, no more bucking occurred and we all got the crap out of there.

Nearby was the largest wooden structure in Japan (another temple like structure), which was awesome, but lost a little bit of its lure with me still being hyped up from the attack of the deer.

It was then towards Tokyo that we once again headed. On our way we hoped to make a pit stop to see Mt. Fuji in the distance, but it had begun to snow again and those plans were abandoned.

We saw a bit more of the city this time, including some crazy cheap electronic markets, the atrociously ugly Tokyo Tower, a gaggle of Cosplay kids dressed like sleazy nurses, Goth rockers, and a variety of other anime characters.

Japan was amazing, but we were all quite ready for home and its comforts. Due to some communication errors (and a national holiday), we were unable to pick up our new tickets until the day we were to leave. We awoke quite early and headed to one side of Tokyo to pick up the tickets so we would have time to make it to the other side of the city and the airport. We made it to the ticket office just as it opened, only to find out they had sent a messenger to take the tickets to the airport.

A couple of hours later we were in the airport standing in line behind a group of sumo wrestlers. It was quite a hoot to watch all of the various people walk in through the door to be surprised and excited over the sumos. I would have expected the wrestlers to be old hat to most of the Japanese, but even they went crazy for them.

Eventually we made it to the front counter and asked for our tickets. We paid our money and then were surprised to see only one ticket for my wife, but none for me. We asked about this and were assured they would find mine. A few calls later and we were told there was no ticket, nor any record that I had applied for a lost ticket. They apologized, but told me I would have to buy a new ticket to the tune of $900.

For the record, that's more than we paid for two tickets in the first place. They did upgrade us to Business class, but I took note that I was still sitting next to the wife, which, of course, means I paid for my seat twice.

I paid my way, and took it from behind like a good little boy. I'd like to say we got to China and the airline treated me right with some sort of refund, but three weeks later, about a dozen phone calls, and two more trips to the agency has only gained me more anger and confusion.

Japan was absolutely wonderful, and though it is now tainted with that ticket fiasco, I'd still highly recommend it to all travelers.

slow connect

2008-03-03T20:53:00.000+08:00

My internet connection in Shanghai has always been a bit peculiar. Technically we get DSL speeds, but that's only on paper. When all the planets are aligned properly we do get high speeds and everything is good under the sun. Periodically, and seemingly quite randomly things go off and then my connection is anywhere from pretty OK to crap, actually.

Sometimes it is easy to figure out. During the early evening it is easy to understand why things slow down - 18 million people get home and log on. Other times though, it just happens. Sometimes it will go completely down for a few hours or even a day. This week, it has just stunk.

I am averaging about 1 bar on my wi-fi, but it fluctuates. Sometimes it goes up to a two or a three, and often it will go out completely. There is no rhyme nor reason, nor even a bit of prose for the whys. It just is. It is just driving me crazy.

My first internet was connected on a 8 bit modem. When we finally moved up to 11.1 speed we thought it couldn't get any better. Now I don't know how anyone could use a dial-up modem, and while even at a 1 bar I can still surf everything, download and upload at a reasonable rate, I'm ready to throw my computer across the room.

I would say this is why I have not been posting much lately, but well I hate to lie to my readership (today, at least.) Truth is I've been in a funk for the last week. I'm working on getting it un-funked, but with this lousy connection even an un-funked writer is not one that can post very often.

Stuck Inside of Memphis, with the Mobile Phone Blues Again

2008-02-25T22:18:00.003+08:00

"I hate cell phones."

That has been my mantra against mobiles for many a year now. It has always been true too. Until recently at least. Until we moved to China, I had never owned a mobile phone. Truth is I never needed one. I'm not exactly a big telephone guy. I don't make many calls. Don't receive many calls. I try to stay off the phone as much as possible.

I had never seen a need to get a mobile. I've always had a house phone, and I normally have a direct line at work. I spend pretty much the majority of my time at either of those places, and those who need me have those numbers. When I am out and about, I have voice mail where I can receive messages. Do I really need to talk to anybody so badly that I have to take the call while I'm driving? Shopping? At church? No on all accounts.

I'm sure they come in useful for emergencies, or automobile problems. People survived for many years without mobile phones during emergencies and auto problems, I used to say to myself, and thus I can survive without them now.

And so, without a phone, I often found myself high and mighty. Abuses abound with cellular phones, for sure. You can constantly see people talking on their phones while driving. These same people will be swerving across lanes, driving entirely too slow, they are slow on the take off from stop lights, and often are seen cutting others off.

So many times I see cell phone users, rudely take a call while they are chatting with someone in person, or gathered at a meal. Even worse I see them constantly taking calls while they are ordering food, or at the cash register while shopping. 'How rude' I think to treat the cashier so poorly as to not acknowledge them.

In Shanghai, mobile phones are just about necessary. Traveling about the city, it is very easy to get lost, or separated from the group. Cell phones come in very handy. Often, when I am out, I have had to call someone for directions. Plentys the time I have called someone when getting into a cab so that they could tell the cab driver where to go. Shopping is an adventure all its own. The stores are often very large, and always crowded with huge amounts of people. Amy and I often call each other in the stores just to figure out where we are.

Etc.

I am sure we could manage without cell phones whilst living here, but the convenience factor finally made us succumb. And now I have fallen prey to all the things I hate. The other day I was shopping for some warm clothes for Japan and just as I was coming up to the counter I got a text message. Amy got one too, at the same time. Both of us immediately got out our phones and began texting a reply.

I threw my items for purchase up on the counter. Paid no attention at all to the cashier, and tried to fish out the cash whilst still texting.

Then it dawned on me on what I was doing and I was so ashamed.

I understand now why so many people become so rude with these devices. It is so hard not to answer when the phone rings. It is crazy difficult not to read and reply to a text when I receive them. There is something so primal about the need to answer the call. In my pre-cell phone days I would often not answer my land line. Certain times of the day I knew the call was not going to be for me, or would be annoying and I'd simply ignore the ringing. I can't do that with my cell phone.

Maybe it is because I can tell who is calling now. Knowing that it is my friend Sara, or my sister makes me need to answer. Even not knowing the number makes me interested in who it could be.

And thus I have become what I have hated.

Yeah, I'm Growing a Beard

2008-02-21T10:16:00.003+08:00

On Metrics

2008-02-19T11:06:00.002+08:00

When I was in junior high school I remember studying the metric system over a couple of years. The teachers all agreed that the people of the United States would abandon the American system and adopting the metric system within a few years. They used the fact that may road signs posted distance in both miles and kilometers, and the fact that you could find centiliters being used in soft drinks as examples of this change that was a-coming. We were taught about how much better the metric system was to use and how the old crotchety Americans who would refuse to change would soon learn to take it the hard way.

That was ten years ago, and we're still not anywhere near close to making the change.

This is completely understandable. For those who have known the American system all their lives there seems little reason to learn something knew. Feet and pounds and gallons work perfectly well, so why change? Most people aren't scientists nor do they travel around the world and thus their need to know the metric system is nil.

I suspect many kids were just like me and were taught the metric system, yet outside the realms of classrooms and tests, they found no need for the entire system. I've spent most of my life wondering why we learned it in the first place.

It is true that the metric system is easier to use. It is a ten base system which means that all you need to know about conversion is which way to move the decimal point. You can learn that pretty easy by memorizing a few pre-fixes - centi=100, milli=1000 an and so forth. There is no need to remember arbitrary things like how many feet are in a yard, or how many pints equal a gallon. The math is simple and that's more than alright.

I mention this because twice now I have lived in foreign countries and both have used the metric system. It hasn't always been easy as my memory of all things metric has long since faded, but the computer does conversions for me and I am slowly learning that 10 degrees Celsius is still cold, but 30 degrees is nice and warm.

I like the idea of teaching my future children (or more likely - child) the metric system. If the school system is still like what I experienced, some old math teacher will probably teach them metrics, but I want my kid to actually use it. I'm thinking it would be cool to have twenty-four hour clocks, centigrade thermometers and kilogram scales.

Maybe cool isn't the right word, cause nobody really thinks the metric system is cool. And I'm sure if my kid actually uses the metric system he'll probably get beaten up. Still, I dig the whole international flavor of it. And if Amy can teach the kid French, then I can teach him meters.

Oh lawd, my poor kid is gonna have no friends.

The Shanghai Diaries - Japanese Edition, Part II: From Tokyo to Miyajima

2008-02-19T07:58:00.003+08:00

The new diaries is up. In this edition we finally make it to Tokyo and get devastated in Hiroshima. Plus we visit a castle in Himeji, visit some deer on an island and find the toilets all warm and fare.

Things That Need To Be Discussed

2008-02-16T15:11:00.002+08:00

I have been so lazy with this blog, and in so many ways all of my thoughts have moved to the Midnight Cafe, but there are things I want to say here, and I'm making this notes to urge me to do just that.

There is, of course, the Tokyo Story which has been slow to write. With Amy still on break, and us just coming back, there has been much to do (grocery buying, house cleaning)and a great deal of procrastinating (that's where Amy on break comes in, it is a wonder to behold how little I do when she's around save for playing, and watching movies.) This afternoon I started writing and am ashamed to say it just isn't in me. The words are still stunted inside, not yet ready to come out. Give them a couple of more days and I promise something shall be written.

Beyond Tokyo there is the story of me giving blood that I've been meaning to tell, and keep forgetting. Plus I want to talk about mobile phones (and me actually using them much to my own aggrivation.) There is also my new found belief in the metric system and my desire to teach it to my kids in a manner which will make them no only understand it, but prefer its usage (and still not get their faces beat in.)

See, that's lots of stuff right there to talk about. Now if I could only get to the writing of it.

We're Back

2008-02-15T08:59:00.001+08:00

In case you don't read my regular blog, belong to Facebook, or get personal e-mails from me, we made it back from Japan a couple of days ago. It was a great trip, with a bit of trouble for me to get back. More words will be written about it shortly.

The Shanghai Diaries: Japanese Edition, Part One - The Long Journey Nowhere

2008-01-31T09:37:00.000+08:00

For Chinese New Year (or what some refer to as the Spring Festival, even though it occurs in late January/early February) my wife and I get three weeks of vacation time. Initially we had planned to spend some time with my sister and her husband on the beaches of Thailand. As we had been unable to make it to Hong Kong over the Christmas break, we planned a two-day layover there on the way. Then, after tanning for a few days, the wife and I were hoping to visit Vietnam and Cambodia.

All of this was very tentative, you understand. In fact several weeks ago we completely trashed those plans because of a message my mother sent. She told us that she and the father wanted to take all of us kids and spouses to Hawaii this summer. As that made two beaches in less than a year, we decided to scrap Thailand.

The brother-in-law and I beat the Japan drum pretty quickly, as it is a place we have both wanted to see forever. The wife and sister were less impressed with this notion, but in time came on board. This time plans were not so tentative as we booked the plane, the trains, and the hotels.

The excitement brewed, the bags were packed, and the day finally came. Snow had come to China over the weekend. Lots of it. More snow than the country had seen in 50 years. Shanghai, though, wasn't so bad - cold and miserable, but just a little snow. I, for one, was not worried.

The taxi ride over was a bit sloshy, but without incident. We exchanged our tickets for boarding passes, sent the bags through the x-ray machine, and headed over to customs. Forms filled out, I handed my information to the customs lady and received a stamp and got my passport and boarding pass back.

That moment hung in the air like sparrows in the wind. It is a moment I expect I will regret for months to come.

For a split second I thought to myself that something was amiss. I felt like I had not received all I needed. I almost asked my wife if we were good, but then I told myself that the customs official certainly knew which papers to keep and which papers to give back and so I went on my way.

We walked to our terminal, we bussed to the plane, we found our seat. We waited for the second bus to arrive. We waited for everyone to take their seats. We waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

About 30 minutes past the time we were supposed to take off, the captain's voice over the loudspeaker explained to us that there was ice on the wing and that we needed to taxi over to where the de-icing trucks were. He also noted that this might take a little while, as we were third in the queue.

Waiting is the word for what we did next. After about an hour the captain spoke again. This time he told us about how he had made a walk down the plank to check on the ice. He said that the wings looked good, but that the tail was still in trouble. Here he made a point to say that we would have to wait and see whether the tail melting or the de-icing came first to know when we would leave. We were still third in the queue and there was no way of knowing when we'd be ready.

This time we were given lunch while we waited. Then, after about four hours of being on the plane and going nowhere, the captain came on again to state that the tail was still full of ice but that we would shortly be heading towards the trucks with the de-ice spray. All we needed to do was wait a bit more and things would be a go.

After a bit we did indeed taxi, and we did indeed get de-iced, but things were not, indeed, a go.

It seems that after and only after we were sprayed by the trucks, the captain decided to run through his wing heater tests, and they failed. We went back to our original spot and waited for the engineer to come aboard and fix the problem.

After a bit we were informed that the engineer was moving swiftly for a fix, but (and the captain here informed us about how terribly sorry he was) the airport had now canceled the flight.

Six hours we had sat on the plane, and we'd gotten only as far the de-icing trucks. Eventually the bus came back for half of the passengers (including myself and my wife, but not the sister or her husband). We went back to the original terminal, where we were blocked in around the desks where six hours before the lady had taken our boarding passes. A hundred people or so all pushed and prodded their way closer. Closer to what, we weren't sure, but closer we were getting. I did my best not to be pushed into small children, while several others began shouting at those poor people in airline uniforms. They yelled back. It was all in Chinese so I had no idea what was going on at any point.

In time those in uniform opened the line and handed each of us a blank boarding pass. The masses moved to a corner of the terminal and stood looking bewildered. A nice-looking man came and walked us back to the customs counter. There we got an additional stamp and they tore half of the pass off for their own selves.

More arguing ensued, but no nice men directed us anywhere. I followed the crowd towards the ticket counters, and after asking around we made our way to the supervisor counter. Madness came next. The half of the passengers who had taken the bus with us were now standing at the supervisor counter, and they were mad. Screaming, red-faced, spittle-at-the-mouth mad. Others, in the back, were taking photographs of the whole mad scene. We were all crowding in trying to get answers. The front line was shouting at high volume. Several ladies climbed on the counter and were standing, shouting at the conveyor belt that usually takes the checked luggage to wherever the checked luggage usually goes.

My sister and her husband had joined us by the time we got to the front of the counter. We told the supervisor that we were in no hurry and could reschedule the flight to this Saturday. It was at this point that my day got even worse.

As we were arranging to push our flight to Tokyo back by several days, we wanted to delay our return flight too. This was fine, said the supervisor, except I could not find my return ticket. Anywhere. After much thinking I realized that when I first went through customs I had given the lady the entire envelope with both my ticket to Tokyo and my return ticket. She had not given me the return ticket back.

We told this to the supervisor, who indicated this was not a problem and we would simply need to talk to the lady behind another counter, just over there. He also noted that he had changed all of the dates and we were all set. Though I just wrote that in about a minute, the conversation with the supervisor actually took about twenty minutes. We would ask him a question, he would make a concerned face, and then several other people would shout and he would answer their questions first.

Finished with him, we moved to the counter where we had been told it would be no problem to fix our lost ticket problem. The lady there said it was very much a problem and in fact the only thing that could be done was for us to buy a brand new ticket. Much arguing ensued. We then went back to the supervisor and argued with him. He admitted that he knew full well we wouldn't be able to get a new ticket, and told us we could contact the agency that had sold us the tickets.

The following day, I did just that. It took several phone calls, and the conversations were difficult, as I speak very little Chinese and they, while speaking very decent English, were having difficulties understanding how I could no longer be in possession of my return ticket.

They also said that they could not retrieve my lost ticket, but were willing to sell me a new one. I reluctantly agreed and was told to pick it up the next day. It took nearly two hours to get to their office the next day, and there I was once again disappointed. They could not find the quoted price in their computer, though the lady the day before had assured me I had a reservation. After some searching and telephoning the Beijing office, they discovered that the price they had given me was not from Tokyo to Shanghai, but from some other city to Shanghai.

The price, they said, would now be higher. Much higher in fact. More than double. More arguing, this time sprinkled with pleading. Somewhere there was discussion of canceling everything, but refunds were not available since I didn't have the ticket. A number was produced for me to call about actually recovering a lost ticket. Of course I called. Of course they said nothing could be done.

I went home with no ticket and no idea what to do. We still don't know what we're doing. We are going to leave for Tokyo on Friday, and we hope we'll find some way home.

I Think I'm Turning Japanese

2008-01-27T12:17:00.000+08:00

The misses and I are leaving for Tokyo tomorrow morning. We will be visiting Hiroshima, Kyoto, Osaka and a few other cities on the main island. We will be gone for about two weeks. As such, the Midnight Cafe will be closed. I'm sure there will be plenty of stories and pictures to share when we return. Until then, amuse yourselves elsewhere.

An Odd Day

2008-01-22T23:04:00.000+08:00

On your average day I set my alarm clock to about 7:45 and usually snooze until a little past 8 o'clock. When my door bell rang at ten till 8 this morning I knew it was not going to be an average day.

The door bell was actually somebody outside my apartment complex buzzing me to be let in the main door. I knew who it was, but it takes a story to get you there. And that begins last night.

As I've mentioned many times before, we have a big water bottle dispenser set up in the kitchen and we must call someone when it needs a refill. Normally I am the man to make the call, but last night I made the missus do it. This was because my mobile was out of minutes. This actually takes a slight side story to it and that begins with...well it just begins.

Phones in China aren't run off the same sort of plans you typically get in the US. Actually France didn't either and seemingly the US is the only place where you have to buy long term plans for your mobile phones, but I am already digressing a great deal. Mobiles in China take Sim Cards. That's a little card you can buy from a dealer which gives you your phone number. These cards need to be refilled every so often. Basically the Sim locks you into a deal - so many cents a minute and what-not - and then you buy a 100 RMB refill whenever you need it.

Mine, last night, was out of money. Thus the wife made the call to the water guy. This was maybe 9 in the PM. She said the things she was supposed to say, then repeated it and asked if this was OK. This is what you have to do because we don't speak Chinese and they don't speak English. Everything seemed normal and so we sat down and waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

I think we made it through three episodes of the West Wing before giving up and going to bed. It was close to 11 at this point and we were sure nobody would come so late.

Did I mention this was water we were waiting on? We use that water to drink. As in it is the only water to drink as the tap is non potable. Thirsty is the word for what we were. Quite thirsty. We had long since drank the tea I had made earlier in the day. I have given up on Coke products. The only thing we did have to drink was apple juice. I had already had a couple of glasses of that, but you know how when you get really thirsty and only water will do?

Consider us there.

I had pains in my belly I wanted water so bad. My throat screamed for relief. The clock ticked by and still no water.

Did I mention we didn't have any money? Yep we had spent it all 'cepting the cash we needed for paying the water guy who wasn't coming. The local market only takes cash, and both ATMs near here were out of money.

Yes, the local ATMs often run out of cash. It isn't unusual, in fact it is expected at certain times of the month. It would likely be refilled the next day, but we were thirsty now.

We had some change that would have bought a bottle of water, but by the time we realized the water guy wasn't coming the market was closed. In the end I boiled a pot full of water. They say boiling for ten minutes or more will cleanse the tap and make it drinkable. This is what I did. Ever try drinking water that has been boiled for ten minutes straight? I don't recommend it. Since our apartment generally stays at a temperate -35 degrees anymore, the glass did cool more quickly than it might have in a normal home, but it still took a long while.

There we were dying of thirst with no water but some that was not fit for consumption, and some other that was too hot to taste. We managed to brush our teeth with the hot water and decided to go to bed thirsty.

Ah, but this story isn't about what happened last night, it is about this morning and being woken up early. At ten till 8 the guy buzzing my apartment was none other than the water guy. Being wakened by the buzz, I immediately knew who it was, threw on a shirt and dashed towards the door.

I said hello in Chinese as this is a word I know, and I got a reply in English. Still half asleep this confused me and I wondered if I wasn't about to be accosted by some official while I was still in my pajamas. No such luck and I finally had my water.

--

The company Amy works for had planned a blood drive for today and I had agreed to give. I agreed to this rather hastily actually and when I actually started to think about it I was nervous. I'm not opposed to needles you understand, and I am definitely pro-blood giving. I've done it in the States with no problem. But this is China and not everything is easy.

They like IVs here, it seems, and it isn't always a pleasant thing for a Westerner. My sister tells a story of having an IV for some thing or another and that while sitting there with the needle she spotted an air bubble. Air bubbles aren't good for IVs and she cried out for help. Help was given but it was a little bit too Hee-Hawish for my tastes.

I sucked it up and told myself that they would be taking stuff out of me, not putting it in and thus I should be fine.

Tons of e-mails were flung this morning as everybody on board was making preparations to go to the company for the drive. We needed IDs and passports and to be on time! The time came and I left for the front gate. I had no idea who was coming and worried if I'd know anybody. I saw a group of Chinese women and wondered if they were part of the crew. I stood by them and tried to act cool all the while wondering if this was the right gate. There are two you see and I was pretty casual when I read all those e-mails.

Eventually a friend showed up and then the leader and we were off. The company is not far from the school and we were quickly there. We had to use our IDs to get in and then put on little booties over our shoes. My shoes are big and I always rip the booties.

We enter into the room for the drive and are seated at a table. The forms are all in Chinese so the 8 or so of us have one translator. If you have ever given blood before you know the forms get really personal really fast.

There are questions concerning whether or not you have HIV, Hepatitis, have taken any Aspirin lately, are on your period, have ever done intravenous drugs or had homosexual sex. That's a lot to ask while being surrounded by your coworkers. Actually the translator skipped over all the sex questions and just told us to answer "no" without translating them.

There was some commotion when I answered that I had taken aspirin within the last five days. I had to explain that it was actually Ibuprofen and that it was only one pill and that was three days ago. Proving that it was for a headache and not for something else - I don't now what - seemed important. Eventually the doctors agreed I was good for giving.

I was then asked about my height. That's a simple enough question and I know the answer, but only in feet and inches. Know who doesn't measure height in feet and inches? Everyone that's who. Everyone but Americans. I'm a little rusty in my feet to meters conversion and I was at a lost as to what to tell them. I told them in feet and inches, but they were perplexed as to what I was talking about.

Somewhere my eighth grade teacher is laughing hysterically.

Luckily a Chinese friend heard the troubles and translated and I guess converted it to metric. Then there was a weight question and I am proud to say I know how fat I am in kilometers.

From there the process was pretty basic. At one table my finger was pricked and the blood tested. Then I was given my bag that would contain my blood and another bag. I was told to sit and to open the second bag. Or I guess that's what I was told as it was all in Chinese and pantomimed. The bag had lots of bread and a jug of milk.

It seemed I was supposed to eat. Usually blood folks give you a snack for after, but before seems to be the way here. I wasn't hungry though, as I had just eaten an egg and ham breakfast (protein is good for the giving, don't ya know?) I ate a bit of bread and though they weren't happy with my not gulping it all down they took me back anyways. No beds for the giving here, it was just a cold chair and a desk.

We had a choice in giving 200 ml and 400 ml and as a man I gave the big amount.

No bubbles, only life saving goo.

For our troubles we were given an umbrella and 20 RMB to spend at the cafeteria. Not bad but I was hoping for a t-shirt saying 'I gave blood in China.'

--

Back on the home front I spent the afternoon trying to transfer funds from our Hong Kong account to our American one. I've mentioned before that Amy's checks are split in two and half of it goes to Hong Kong in USD. We have a pretty good chunk of it and I have been wanting to transfer it to the US and pay off some bills. Unfortunately doing that is trouble. We signed up for an internet transfer deal but it was proving difficult.

After spending way too much time I realized that they had the wrong account number for my American bank and we were screwed. There's more to that story, but I'm tired of typing and I'm sure your tired of reading.

Tonight we went to refill my phone and instead accidentally bought a refill for Amy's phone. I have a different company than she does and we wern't paying attention.

And that was my day.

The Shanghai Diaries - Miscellaneous

2008-01-22T08:09:00.001+08:00

The new diaries is up. This week it is a collection of small topics that don't fit anywhere else.

See I told you I would start writing again soon :)

Who Cares If I'm In China?

2008-01-21T20:14:00.001+08:00

The other day while listening to a radio show a friend of mine hosts he made the following statement, "shut up Brewster, nobody gives a @!?# about what time it is in Shanghai." At the time it is true that I was heckling him and it is also true that our friendship is born from hassling each other, but the thing is, this time, it kind of hurt.

When Amy and I lived in Strasbourg I swore to myself that I when we returned I would not spend my days talking about living in France. When we finally did return to the States I found this promise was entirely difficult to not break.

Think about it a moment, how often do you talk about the events of the last year? Over the next couple of days when you are talking to friends or coworkers notice how often you mention something you did or experience over the last year, or any time in your past. We are nothing if we have no past. We are made up of nothing but our memories.

And we like to talk about them.

So it was with France. I constantly said stuff like "When we were in France," or "the French do this..." etc. I wasn't trying to be pompous or cool or anything. I had lived in an exotic (at least to me) place for nearly a year and it had a great effect on my life. In conversations these things naturally came out.

And so it is in China. I am sure that when I go back home I'll talk about Shanghai. I already do talk about it in this blog, in e-mails, on the phone and chatting with my friends elsewhere. Again it is not to say that I am better than anyone, but simply a part of my circumstance. I mean I cannot pretend I am not in China and in general conversation weird tidbits of my time here are going to come out.

Like the difference in time zones. Honestly I think it is really kind of cool that I am 13-14 hours ahead of most of my friends. It is completely fascinating to me. When my friend made his jibe it stung because I know that I have brought up the difference in time several times.

At first this was true because of my fascination with the science behind it, but now I am simply stating facts. The radio show my friend hosts is on blogtalkradio which is an internet radio dealie, and each show has its own chat room. When I listen to his show I hang out in the chat room.

The show runs from 11-noon my time and somewhere in the middle my wife calls me about lunch. We usually do lunch together and I always have to leave the show early. When I leave I generally send a message stating that I'm going to lunch. This isn't because I'm trying to be cool because I'm lunching while everyone else is preparing for bed. It is because I'm going to lunch, period. It seems rude to just disappear, and it is natural form me to let everyone know I'm leaving, and the reason behind my departure.

Wow! That's a pretty big whine in a pretty small box. Sorry if that's nothing but a self pat-on-the-back or something. The comment was harmless enough really, but it kind of got to me and I have only this to explain myself.

Ashamed

2008-01-21T20:10:00.001+08:00

It has been entirely too long since I wrote anything on these pages. I don't know what to say except that I've been lazy and my life has been boring. I'm also afraid I'm not going to write too much right this moment either. I'm in the middle of watching the second season of Heroes (or at least what aired before th writer's strike) and I'm too distracted to be a good writer.

I am giving blood tomorrow and I'm sure that will make an interesting story. I also have something to say about being called out for talking about China too much. We're also going to Japan in a week and that will surely create all sorts of fun things to write about. So bear with me friends, the Shanghai Cafe is not dead yet, but sleeping a short while more.

When The Evening Comes

2008-01-10T20:57:00.000+08:00

During the daylight hours, things are pretty boring around here. I mean that both within my home, and out on the street. At home obviously I am here alone. I read, I watch movies, I play on the computer. On the street things are pretty quiet too. Most everybody is at work, and those that aren't either stay home, or pretty quickly move from one indoor to the other.

Around nine o'clock on most morning I take a walk on the outside of the LQ. It is a pretty big complex and it makes for a good walk. It is also pretty lonely. Now I don't mean to say that there isn't anybody out on the street, for there are. There is almost alway a few people walking in and out of the LQ. There are cars zooming down the street. There are folks walking about as well. But for a city of millions things are really rather quiet. People aren't really talking to each other, there is little commotion going on, just people moving to their destinations.

As the sun drops though, it gets exciting. Around 3:30 the kids get out of school and the buzz begins. There is the low moan of hundreds of kids finding freedom. Their parents encourage, question, and scold the children as they are shuffled into their cars or walked home. There is the roar of bus engines and taxis and cars as they ready to take their loads home. Security officers buzz their whistles every few seconds reminding the vehicles that children are near and crossing the street. The cars honk their horns in defiance of this.

About an hour later the teachers and administrators get out and more noise begins.

On the street, vendors begin appearing selling their wares. By the gate is the guy with flowers. Blues, reds and yellows all bright and fresh shine out to the masses asking to be taken home and put in vases. Next to the flowers is a lady selling scarves and hats - all intricately made with colors as bright as the flowers. They are laid out on a blanket in rows again begging for the attention of all who pass by.

Next to the tree is an old man whose great age shows on his sagging face under his Russian fur hat. He stands next to a cart which holds what can only be described as a portable wood stove. It has rounded edges and resembles something like one of those old aluminum campers I used to see zooming down the interstate when I was a child. The front of the oven are several drawers, the largest of which opens to a large fire. The old man periodically opens this door and throws in a few small branches to keep the fire going.

The smaller drawers surrounding the larger one contain several sweet potatoes in various roasted states. Through a small chimney on the top smoke billows out into the open air.

Others stir coals inside a steel drum. The coals warm chestnuts that emit a wonderfully aroma and beckon my nasal passage. I don't really like chestnuts, but every time I walk by those burning nuts, I want nothing more than to buy a bushel.

On some days you can find a young woman selling corn on the cob, and others with oranges and pomellos. Around the corner are guys with carts loaded with DVDs. Above the carts are small flood lights attached to poles and presumably some sort of power source.

Farther down the road are several vendors selling meat and vegetables on a stick. The raw products sit on a fold out table and once you've made your choice they are seasoned and placed over hot coals. Joking with the proprietor is a necessity, but with my limited language skills all I can do is smile and appear friendly.

Sometimes there is a big noodle cart. These guys have a table full of sauces and vegetables and eggs. To the side is a small gas burner which they place a wok upon and fry up your vegetables and noodles.

My favorite vendor is the bread couple. On their table the woman works out the dough, layers it with a variety of spices and herbs and then hands it to her husband. He stands in front of a barrel full of coals and smoke and fire. Like a witch before a cauldron he prepares his magical concoction. The dough gets smacked onto the insides of the barrel where it sticks and cooks for awhile. After awhile he takes it out and lines the bread up with the others cooked pieces.

It costs about ten cents, and tastes like heaven.

All of the carts are on wheels and are ready to scurry away at any sign of trouble, or the cops. Neither ever seems to come. I often wonder where these people come from, and what their lives are like. When they were young did they dream of selling small goods on the side of the road? Did their fathers and grandfathers sell these very things so many years ago?

If one chooses to look closely at the carts and fiery ovens one would probably not enjoy what is there to see. I don't suspect the sanitation is all that good or pleasant. I don't suppose that any of the street vendors go through an inspection process. I don't think I really care.

The food is cheap and it is good. I wouldn't recommend it for a daily meal, but sometimes on a cold night, there is nothing better than walking down the street, ordering up a little vegetable, a bit of meat, and a delicious piece of bread.

The Shanghai Diaries - Celebrating the Holidays

2008-01-08T10:41:00.000+08:00

It has been awhile since I wrote a shanghai diary. One of my resolutions was to be a more dilligent writer and as such I wrote formally about my holiday break. Read about Christmas and my trip to Suzhou here.

Burning Down The House

2008-01-07T09:39:00.000+08:00

I've mentioned before the hassles of washing and drying our clothes around here. Washing has turned easier, but drying is a pain all the time. Winters in Shanghai are very moisture intensive and clothes hang on the line wet if you don't help them along. When it is cold enough I try to run the air blowing heaters towards them, which helps a little, but not really that much.

Since we have purchased a small, electric heater I have been using it as a clothes dryer as well. It works amazingly well, drying individual items in about ten minutes a pop. It is actually a lot of fun to place the heater towards a rather wet piece of clothing and watched the steam pour off.

The other day I noticed that one of my towels had a couple of brown spots on it. Weird looking stains. I stood there a moment trying to remember if this towel was purchased new, or if it was second hand. I was pretty sure it was new which made me wonder how in the world it had a bit stain already. I pondered what we could have spilled on it and worried that our washing machine might be causing trouble.

Days later I fond another towel with similar spots, and with some investigation I also found a hole in it. A cigarette burn looking hole.

And then it dawned on me. The heater isn't only quickly drying my clothes, but it is burning them too! I've always been careful when drying the clothes in this manner that I am within eyeshot of the heater so that if anything were to catch on fire I could quickly either put it out or escape. I guess I haven't been too careful as to put the heater at a decent distance from the clothes.

Yesterday, while folding a sweater I too noticed it had heat stains and a burn mark.

D'oh!

Substitute This

2008-01-03T19:50:00.001+08:00

My sister's boss is in South Africa this week. Normally the middle high school teachers substitute for each other, but since this was going to be an extended leave I got the call. I'm actually only subbing for three classes and the rest of the history department is taking the rest.

The three classes I am subbing for are incredibly easy too. One of the is government and the kids are giving presentations on the Presidential candidates. The bulk of their grade is coming from their handouts and so I'm there to keep order, listen and take a few notes. I'm actually enjoying it a great deal because I'm actually learning about the candidates. I hate to say I haven't been paying much attention to the race, but I really haven't.

The 9th grade class is watching a movie so all that takes is me setting up the DVD and keeping the kids quiet. And they are already quiet as they are good kids.

The movie is good. It is Amazing Grace which is about the slave trade in England, or rather a few men's long struggle to abolish it.

The setting up the DVD is actually difficult. The TV in the classroom is hung from the ceiling just above the big heating unit. I have to stand on a wobbly chair, turn the bulky TV and try to get the wires in the right spot. There is no place to actually put the DVD player either and so I have to move a desk for that duty.

The last class is a Photoshop class and it is incredibly easy. The kids all have an asignment and are determined to do it. I sit in my corner and read a book.

Suzhou Pictures

2008-01-02T16:35:00.000+08:00

Suzhou

New Years

2008-01-02T16:02:00.000+08:00

Since New Years day fell on a Tuesday this year, Amy got off both Monday and the holiday which meant a four day break with the weekend. With that we decided to go to Suzhou along with my sister, her husband, and our friend Dan.

Suzhou is touted as being one of the most beautiful cities in China, and contains numerous gardens. It is only about a 45 minute train ride from Shanghai which made it ideal for a short trip. However, since we live on the outer edge of town it actually took us more than an hour to make it to the train station. We laughed at this as it took us longer to get to the train than the train took us to get to Suzhou.

Once we reached Suzhou it was still a good 30-45 minutes travel time by cab to get us to our hotel. Once there we realized we had not purchased our return train tickets, but were relieved to find that the hotel had a service that would purchase them for us. For whatever reason it seems to be impossible to buy round trip train tickets. They also do not allow you to purchase them online, which means that wherever you go you have to buy your return tickets once you have arrived.

We wanted to return on Monday afternoon so that we could celebrate New Years with more friends. Even though there is a train that runs from Suzhou to Shanghai about ever 45 minutes, every single one of them was booked.

It isn't officially the Chinese New Year, but I guess everybody gets off anyways and travels.

We then had to go to the bus station and buy bus tickets. All in all it took us about 2 ½ hours to find a way home. After a taxi to the subway, a subway to the train, the train to Suzhou, a taxi to our hotel and a taxi to the bus station we were exhausted, cold, and hungry. While waiting around to get bus tickets we saw an add for a Mexican restaurant and this became our first real destination on vacation.

The food was quite good. Mexican is relatively rare over here, and it is always a treat to find some. It is never quite the same as what you'd get in an American Mexican restaurant but it is often quite yummy. This place was no exception. In fact I think I can proudly say I had the best tacos ever in Suzhou.

It was cold there. Darn cold. Really stinking cold. Coldest day we've had all year. Much of Suzhou's beauty comes from its gardens. Chinese gardens never come with a lot of flowers and foliage, but in the dead of winter they are pretty much a bunch of rocks and some water.

We went to, what was supposed to be the prettiest garden, and it was lovely, but after seeing it we all agreed that we really didn't need to go to the other half dozen gardens spaced about town. That night we hit up the twin pagodas which are nestled in a nice shopping district.

Then we crashed at the hotel. It was a really nice hotel and quite cheap too.

The next day we checked out Tiger Hill. Obviously it is a hill and on top of that hill lies a leaning pagoda. From the bottom to the pagoda lie numerous ancient buildings all of which made for some interesting viewing.

After lunch we had to head to the bus station and head home. The bus ride was long but they did show First Blood on the TV and that was awesome, even if it was dubbed and subtitled in Chinese.

For the evening we were invited to two parties – one at our friends Buffy and Terry's house, the other at the Canfields. We hit Buffy's first and were embarrassed to find out it was a costume party. Everyone was decked out in their best bling, while me and Amy were bummed out in our travel clothes.

We partied hardy for awhile then headed over to the Canfield's to play a little Wii. I haven't been as excited about a game console since the super nintendo. That baby is fun!

The midnight roared in and we continued to battle each other at tennis and bowling until about one at which point we went home and crashed.

Christmas Pictures

2007-12-29T10:43:00.000+08:00

Christmas in Shanghai

I just uploaded a new album to Picassa. It includes the church Christmas party and the family one.

Christmas

2007-12-26T20:04:00.000+08:00

For the holiday Amy got off Monday and Tuesday which totaled four days when you include the weekend. We had originally planned to go to Hong Kong, but it got nixed. It is actually slightly difficult to plan anything in this country. At least for us. There was trying to find decent plane tickets. Then figuring out how to get to the airport. Plus we needed a hotel room, and some idea of what to do. After much frustration we went to my sister for help.

After more discussion we realized that we would be in Hong Kong for Spring Festival (middle of February.) We were planning a trip to Thailand for that break and to get to Thailand there is a stop off in Hong Kong. We decided to extend that stop to a couple of days and there we were.

Then we discussed hitting up a nearby city in Mainland China. It turns out we're kind of slackers and never made any more plans. We talked to some friends who were hanging around town and made plans to hit an indoor ski place plus an ice skating rink. It seemed like a good idea to visit some more of this giant city on the break and we were happy with the plan.

Then Amy got sick and we went nowhere. Oh well

For Christmas we went to the Canfields (Brian's sister and husband.) Brian's mom and dad came to and we had a very nice meal and enjoyed the fellowship.

The Canfields boy got a Nintendo Wii for Christmas and we had a blast playing it.

Though we didn't go anywhere and we too sick to do much at all, it turned out to be a nice Christmas.

Really, I am a Great Husband

2007-12-26T19:44:00.000+08:00

For reasons we shall not discuss (mainly because they make me look bad) I didn't go shopping for Amy until the Saturday before Christmas. Now really I'm not that bad a guy. Amy kept pretty mum about what she wanted, she holds the money, and Christmas really snuck up on the both of us. It just hasn't felt like Christmastime in Shanghai.

On Saturday I decided that as a present I would take her shopping. I usually do this for her birthday as she really likes shopping and it is so much better to let her pick out what she wants than to have me try to guess and get it wrong. And get the wrong size.

Out towards the river there is a mall - a Superbrand Mall - which is really super. Super big anyways. Seriously the place is gigantic. Think Mall of America without the playgrounds and night clubs. It is all about the shopping. No frills.

I half expected the place to be super packed too what with the pretty significant amount of ex-pats living in Pudong and this being the Saturday before Christmas but it wasn't bad. I mean it was crowded, but Superbrand is always crowded on a Saturday. It wasn't any more crowded than normal.

There are like seven floors to the place and we hit them all in time. Amy loves clothes and so we hit tons of shops. I am very much a man when it comes to shopping. I go to the store with something in mind, I find that object and I leave. I don't believe I have actually been clothes shopping this decade.

Now I'm not saying I'm still wearing clothes from the 90s (well not too many anyways.) My wife and my mother-in-law see to it that I get clothes on my birthday and Christmas. Sometimes while I am with my wife shopping I'll swing by the men's sections and if I see something I like that is on sale I'll buy it. I just don't specifically go to a store looking for clothes by myself.

My wife though, she is a shopper. She loves it. She loves looking at every single piece of clothing on every single rack in every single store. Generally I get cranky after about two racks. But since it was Christmas time and this was her present I bit my tongue.

For seven hours.

That's right we shopped for seven hours straight. That's a record for me. That's insane really. Who shops for seven hours? Crazy people that's who. Crazy people and husbands who haven't bought their wife a Christmas present by December 23.

**

While we were in the mall we ran into three separate groups of friends. Understand Shanghai has 18 million people or so. I might know 100 of those people. Factor that in your calculator and the percentages get a little crazy. Still, I run into people all the time in this city.

It isn't quite as freaky as that sounds. I live in Pudong which cuts the 18 million to about 1 million. I'm also a westerner who goes to western places. We often dine at restaurants that have American type meals and hit shops with American type goods. So do my friends. And we usually go after school when the people we know would be out.

Still it is weird to see someone you know so often in such a big city.

In Superbrand that day we saw two guy friends who were shopping for their wives. Later we saw their wives who were independently there. Then later I saw my sister and her husband and a friend.

I'll say it again, it is a small world.

Have You Been A Good Little Boy/Girl?

2007-12-22T20:08:00.000+08:00

It is now Christmas break in Shanghai. Amy gets Monday and Tuesday off. Which means that last week was Christmas time for the school. On Wednesday night we had to attend a middle high school program that was...um...interesting.

On Thursday the first grade had a big Christmas lunch with their parents, and guess who got to play Santa?

Yep, it was me. My first time playing old Saint Nick, and hopefully my last. I truly have more respect for those folks who play him in the malls and such places.

The suit was terribly hot and itchy. The kids were actually pretty nice. But there wasn't any sitting on my lap or telling me what they want. Mostly it was just pictures. One class did have presents, but they were wrapped and named so I only had to pick them up, call out the name and give them away. The other classes had their kids come up one at a time, stand next to me and get their picture taken.

Humorously the Santa pants ripped in the crotchel area. Luckily I had made the right choice of keeping my pants on underneath thus not exposing any real danger areas. However as to not look like a Bad Santa, I kept my legs together.

I did not take pictures of any of this, but some of the teachers did and I have put my request out for them.

An Embarassing Admission

2007-12-18T09:01:00.000+08:00

A few mornings ago there was a knocking on my door. Then another. Then another.

Moments later there was a buzzing, indicating that someone was downstairs, outside the apartment building needing to get inside.

Presumably all of these were from the same person, who was in desperate need to get in.

I didn't answer any of them.

Why? You may ask. I was still in my pajamas and unshowered.

At 10:30 in the morning.

I was too totally embarrassed to answer the door in that state. Likely it wasn't my friends as they would all be at work at that time, so it was probably a random Chinese person, mostly likely of all to be someone from maintenance or security. Still, I don't want random Chinese people laughing at my lazy person.

I know this is the second post where I have discussed how utterly lazy I have become. I really did use to be an early riser and a quick bather. Unemployment has made me a bum.

Sunday morning we received another knocking at our door, this time at just before 8 in the AM and both Amy and I were still in the bed. By the time I got up and dressed appropriately enough to be answering the door, the visitor was gone.

Yesterday the same thing occurred except the knocking was a little later, and Amy was up, washed and gone to work. Me? I was still in the bed and once again missed the call.

I did find out what it was about: Sunday while I was at my sisters, taking care of their dog as they were out of town, a knocking came. This time I was up and showered and dressed, well no I wasn't showered as I rushed to their apartment before the shower to try to make it before the dog made a mess on their floor (I was too late.) But I was dressed and awake. The knocker was security double checking out alarm system.

Each apartment has an emergency button that will summon security quickly, and they were resetting them.

This morning I awoke at 7:30 and jumped in the shower. I was awake, cleaned, and dressed before 8 o'clock so I could catch security this time.

And of course they haven't come.

The Shanghai Diaries - Getting Around

2007-12-18T08:27:00.000+08:00

A new diaries is up and this time it is all about how I travel in Shanghai.

Baby, It's Cold Inside

2007-12-13T22:14:00.000+08:00

While it is not quite the arctic mess that Oklahoma has become of late, winter has finally found its way to Shanghai. It is cold. And miserable. I'm from Oklahoma and I lived in Indiana and France so it isn't that I'm not adjusted to cold weather. I'm just used to it being outside.

Earlier I showed pictures of our air conditioning units (sorry I'd link to them, but it is too problematic with the firewall and all.) We have three wall units (one in the living room, and one in each of the two bedrooms.) They work pretty much like window AC units, and they also work as heaters.

Our apartment is pretty big, but it is also drafty. The units work ok, but they don't put out enough to heat the whole place. I typically run the one in the living room, and keep all the other doors shut. This works pretty good except when the unit decides to blow cold air instead of hot.

Honestly I only have a slight idea how to work out heater. All the buttons are in Chinese. We have a mini english guide, but it doesn't say much. And it is only for the one in the living room, for the one in the bedroom we have no guide at all. Mainly I hit buttons and wait for warm air. And it does shoot warm air most of the time, except when it pushes cold air.

The only thing I can think of is that I have it set on some automatic setting. When the temperature is below a certain degree it heats, but when the temperature is above that level (and I'm pretty such it is only above that level 2 centimeters away from the unit) we get cold air.

Which means the room suddenly turns really cold very randomly. Of course all the other rooms are freezing cold. The kitchen with no unit at all, and an outside door that barely shuts, is always cold. The bathroom remains an ice burg. And a wet ice burg at that. There is moisture always in that room and it keeps my towels in a perpetual moist state.

I'm currently in my flannel pajamas, my fluffy slippers and a knit hat. A tobaggon if you will. Because I'm cold.

Speaking of clothes, I told you that I bought a washing machine the other week. I love it and am happy with it. We don't have a dryer though. This wasn't a problem when the sun shined and I could dry my clothes outside. But now that it is cold and damp things aren't so good. Clothes take two or three days to dry. And as we only have one drying contraption, the dirties are piling up.

We did buy one of those portable space heaters. I figured with the perpetual cold it might keep me warm in the non heated rooms. It does work, but it only actually heats the area about 18 inches in front of the heating coils. Everywhere else is cold. On the plus side it does work as a nice clothes dyer. I now stay cold, but I can rotate the wet clothes in front of the heater and they get dry in about 15 minutes.

Forks Versus Chopsticks

2007-12-13T21:56:00.000+08:00

You know how when you go to a Chinese restaurant they inevitably give you chopsticks instead of a fork? Well when you live in China you pretty much get chopsticks everywhere.

Now I'm not one of those guys who has to grumble about this. I don't constantly make sarcastic comments about how this is the 21st century and how silverware ought to be upgraded. I try to understand that even though forks and spoons are generally easier to use, chopsticks have been used for hundreds (if not thousands) of years, and this makes them more culturally significant. I'm also realizing that if you grow up using chopsticks they are remarkably usable.

As I believe I have mentioned before, I was never much for Chinese food in the states. Don't like it, don't eat it. I'm learning to enjoy the food here, and I'm learning to use the utensils. I kind of pride myself in being able to eat most any food with the sticks now.

I think the initial thought for Westerners is to the sticks as tweezers and use them to pick up pieces of food individually. To use the two sticks as pressure points grabbing food items between them. This is ok for little pieces of meat or vegetables, but immensely difficult for slippery items, squishy items, or small things. Eggplant gets annihilated and squished. Glazed chicken slips right out, and rice is impossible.

This is where I have learned to use the sticks more like a shovel. I place the sticks close together (but not too close), then dig it into the rice and when I lift up there is a nice collection of rice sitting on top.

Etc.

I've pretty much mastered the basics of chopstick-ery. I have now began more advanced techniques like biting into a dumpling and moving the sticks to a lower spot on the dumpling while my teeth are holding it steady in my mouth. Or using both the big spoon things in conjunction with my chopsticks. I am no where near an expert user with these methods, but I am learning.

I've been pretty confident with my techniques for some time and this is why I was so upset at lunch today. Amy and I were at the local Sichuan place for lunch. We ordered some pretty basic foods - honey glazed chicken, green beans, sliced pork, and bowls of rice. We were chatting and eating and everything was going fine.

Then a chef showed up. He said some things we didn't understand and pointed to one of my bowls. They always give us small bowls with these spoon like things to go with them. Usually I put some of my food into one of these bowls and use the spoon to scoop out foods that are difficult to take with chopsticks (I still eat those things with my sticks you understand, they just don't work that well when trying to get a sizable portion out of the communal bowl.) For today's meal, I was putting all my food into my little rice bowl.

I really had no idea what this guy was saying but started to assume he wanted me to use the bowl. After a moment he came back...with a fork!

I was crushed. Chinese guy didn't think I had the skills to use my chopsticks. I'm sure he was just trying to be helpful, but it was quite the bruise to my ego. Especially since it was but one fork, meant for me and not Amy. Now it is highly possible that they only have one fork in the whole place. It is also possible this fork is new and he was showing it off.

It still stings.

Locked In

2007-12-08T09:13:00.000+08:00

I totally forgot to tell this story when it happened so I'll tell it now.

Our front door doesn't have a traditional handle. On the outside there is nothing but a keyhole and a small hoop that looks kind of like a door knocker but is just above the keyhole and designed so that you can shut the door from the outside. On the inside there is but a small knob that is more like a small rectangle than a round knob.

We've had trouble with this door and knob from the start. It has difficulty latching and the key takes a special wiggling to work.

A few weeks ago I was home while the wife was at work. I was working at the computer with my headphones on listening to music. Then my wife called. She said she was at a friend's apartment and wanted inside the house. She said the door wouldn't open. She said she had knocked many a time, but as I had the music going I didn't hear her. I promised to let her in and she headed this way.

Little did I know how difficult that promise would be to keep.

The door knob was broken in a manner that it would not open. I twisted the lock and the knob to no avail. I pulled on it. Beat on it. Cursed at it. But it would not open. Amy came and she tried her key, but again it wouldn't open.

Eventually I decided to take it off its hinges. Unfortunately, I don't have any tools. With a butter knife I slowly removed each pin out of the old, rusted hinges. Even with the pins out the door wouldn't budge. The lock was keeping it closed. Finally with both Amy and myself pushing on the door it budged just a little bit. I then tried the knob again and with all my wrist strength it unlocked.

Then the door fell in and nearly crushed me. With the door open and Amy inside I then had to put the door back on its hinges. Not an easy task but with several finger pinches I finally attached it and we were done.

More PIctures Uploaded

2007-12-05T16:10:00.000+08:00

Shanghai

I uploaded some more pictures to my PIcassa album. We took a trip to a big street market this past weekend and then visited a German Christmas market. Enjoy!

Bits And Pieces

2007-12-04T21:49:00.000+08:00

Oh readers of the Shanghai Diaries, how I have forsaken thee! I have been so lax of late in writing. Please accept my humblest of apologies for this dreadful sin. I will stop short of promising to write more often for we all no how that goes.

There isn't really anything major to report, just a few odds and ends.

I got some house shoes. I'm not really a house shoe kind of guy, but in this house I really need them. We have those wood tile floor things instead of carpet and while it looks real pretty, it gets awfully dirty awfully quick.

Seriously, I sweep every day and every day there is a new layer of dust and dirt and crumbs and toenails and little pieces of paper and everything else under the sun. It is utterly disgusting. Especially when I start to realize that all of this stuff gets on the floor in carpeted rooms too, but there it is less easy to see and less easy to clean. How long did I use to go in my carpeted rooms before vacuuming? How many toe nails were buried in that carpet? How much crap doesn't even get picked up by the vacuum?

Gross.

The thing is that even though I try to sweep regularly there is still always some dust and stuff sitting on the floor. This gunk gets on my lovely white socks and makes them a dingy, dirty color. Thus the house shoes.

Funny thing is I have big feet and the Chinese are mostly small. It took me two stores and about five bins to finally find a pair that fit me. And they don't really even fit. My heel just comes out over the end of the shoe. And they stink. Stink bad. They have that - been sitting packaged up with a bunch of other shoes smell. So I've been airing them out for days and wearing them anyways to add some more worn in smells.

But they fell ok, and that's pretty good.

My Chinese is getting slightly better. When I call for water the people almost always understand me on the first try. Taxi drivers sometimes understand where I'm going.

I have a little card that tells the cab drivers where I want to go for most places in Chinese. I pretty much use that when going somewhere, but I do know how to say how to get home and I always try to use that on the cabbies when I am out. Lots of times this works perfectly well as my apartment complex is a popular spot with lots of people.

Sometimes though, they don't know where I live and I have to give instructions. I know some nearby streets and I like to practice their names on the cab drivers just to see if I can get home. I also sometimes actually know which way to go and can give the no-so-sure taxi drivers directions.

It is fun. And interesting. Tonight we went out to dinner (as we often do on Tuesday as some restaurants offer half off on Tuesdays for teachers) and the cab driver wasn't really sure where we lived. We ran through the street names and he still wasn't sure, so I started giving him directions. "Turn right" I said confidently at one street. And we went right. A few blocks down we suddenly realized right should have been left. While I know how to say "right" and "left" I have no idea how to say "turn around." Neither does Amy and she was in the front seat. With some grunting and hand motions the driver got it and did turn around and we found our way home.

As mentioned I have a little card that tells taxi drivers the names of various places to go. Usually this works most excellently, but a few nights ago it was awful. We waited for ages on the cab in the first place. Then the first one that stopped was from another part of town and had no idea where we wanted to go. The second one didn't seem to be confident either but was willing to give it a shot.

He looked at my card then pointed to the name above where we wanted to go like the two were near each other. I tried to tell him no, but I guess I did a bad job at it. We then took off. Now Shanghai is a very big city with lots of roads. Cab drivers go all sorts of different directions when going to the same places. There are at least five different paths you can go when heading from my place to the nearest subway stop. So when I say that I wasn't entirely sure where I was going this night it is entirely true.

I kind of thought he was headed the wrong direction, but not being sure of this and not having any idea of how to talk to the driver about it I let him go his own way. I got a bit more nervous when he started talking to other cab drivers when we were stopped at red lights.

Eventually I realized we were headed to an area I had been before (which was actually the place named above the place we wanted to go on that card.) I wasn't really sure how close the two places were together, and I kind of figured the cab would let us off at the other place and that was good enough for me.

Sure enough we made it to that place and the driver was about ready to let us go, when he chatted with another cabbie, realized he was in the wrong place and took off. I should have told him to stop, but for whatever reason I let him go.

Turns out our destination was pretty close to where we live so we did this whole circle. Actually our destination is pretty much exactly a straight line from where we live and we spent around 40 minutes and 40 RMB to drive around town for a trip that should have been 5 minutes and about 15 RMB.

So yeah, my Chinese is getting a little better.

Thanksgiving

2007-11-30T14:42:00.000+08:00

I was going to write a big post about Thanksgiving, but in the end it turns out I am too lazy.

Amy had to work on Thursday, as did everyone else, and so we made the big meal on Saturday. Thursday night we got together with a few friends, played games and had dessert. On Saturday we got together with the church at one of the larger apartments and had a big meal. It was very filing and wonderful and nice for everyone.

For photos, click here.

Reverse Racism?

2007-11-30T14:30:00.000+08:00

My sister lived in central China for several years and she has always told me that life there is much different than in Shanghai. One of the differences is in the way people treat Westerners, or us white folk. Shanghai is a very modernized and international kind of place, but Wuhan (where the sister lived) was not so much.

My sister often speaks about how anytime she went anywhere people would stop and stare at her. Truth is many people in Wuhan had never seen a white girl before and culturally they weren't embarrassed to show their curiosity. She tells stories of stopping to talk to a friend and within minutes finding a small gathering of Chinese people stopping and staring.

This did have its benefits, though, she says as often the Chinese would rush her to the front of lines as to give her a sort of prized position in their society.

As I said Shanghai is more international so this doesn't happen to us. At least not much anyhow.

Yesterday I went to the market to pick up a few things for supper. As I did this around 6 in the evening there was a crowd of people in the market and a long line to boot. This particular market is set up horribly so that the lines to check out are very near the only entrance into the store. This means that people trying to get into the store have to push past the people trying to check out.

I sighed, took my place at the back of the line and tried not to get too annoyed with the hordes of people pushing past me. After a minute an elderly lady walked up and stood in line right in front of me. As she was talking to an elderly gentleman I didn't get mad figuring the two were together.

Then the lady started talking in Chinese and looked behind her man. He moved out of the way and I moved out of the way as there were some goods behind us and I thought maybe she wanted something. Then she talked some more and looked right at me. I smiled but had no idea what she was saying.

Then she made a motion for me to get in front of her. I smiled and tried to indicate that it was ok, I could wait. But she insisted. Then she insisted that I move up in front of everybody while speaking to them all very loudly. So I moved up.

I felt bad about it, but I didn't know how to politely say that I was fine and could wait. At this point I would have had to be rude about it anyways. The lady clearly wanted me to move up. And yes, OK, I was tired and kind of appreciated the bump.

All the rest moved back and I checked out in a snap.

I'm A Lazy Bum

2007-11-28T15:12:00.000+08:00

The night before last I slept like a rock. Straight through, no chases. It was beautiful, unadulterated sleep. A rare thing around these parts. I slept so good, I didn’t get up until 8:20, which is slightly unusual for me. Typically I am up by 8, but this morning I slept in.

From firm sleep the rest of the morning was lazy as well. In general I am a get showered and dressed as soon as I get up kind of guy. I don’t like laying around in my own filth. I feel better after a shower. I feel ready for the day when I am cleaned and dressed. I have to admit China has made me a little lax in this regard. Not having a job to go to in the morning most days has allowed me to spend a little time lounging around in the morning before I get clean.

Still, I am typically showered and ready for the day by nine o’clock.

This morning that I am discussing, things got a little weird. The Bates’ recently let me borrow the HBO television series Six Feet Under, and as Amy has no desire to see it, I have been pretty steadily making my way through.

Well, this particular morning I decided to finish an episode that I had started the previous night before I got ready for the day. As there wasn’t much left of that episode I decided to watch the next episode too. Then that episode turned out to be a real page turner and I just couldn’t see what happened in the next episode.

Then the phone rang. It was my wife. My hungry wife, ready for luch.

“Is it lunch time already?” I asked.

It was.

I was still in my pajamas.

I felt way to silly to actually tell her this so I stalled. I batted around where we’d like to eat and glanced in the fridge to see if there was anything I could fix here to keep me from going home. Fate was in my corner and the phone went dead. I looked at myself in the mirror hoping I looked decent enough to go out. I didn’t. The face was still splotchy, the hair greasy and I kind of stunk.

I looked for my cap, but I’m not even sure if I brought it to China. I then called her back thinking maybe I could choose a restaurant where the food might take a minute. That way I could give the wife some excuse why I’d be late and let her order.

We didn’t get but a sentence into the call when it died again. I called one more time and this time no connection came at all. This time I stripped and dashed into the shower. I kept the phone nearby so that I could answer if she called and washed faster than any man has washed before.

I skipped the shaving and was out in less than five minutes. I dressed just as fast, and called again. This time it went through and we decided on where to eat.

I met her and she was none the wiser. Of course I spilled my guts within about two minutes of sitting with her. I just can’t keep secrets from my wife. Not ones so stupid anyways.

The Shanghai Diaries - A Trip To An Orphanage

2007-11-24T08:40:00.001+08:00

We recently visited a local orphanage, which was a very moving experience. I wrote about it in the most recent Shanghai Diaries. Take a look.

Pictures, I've Got Pictures

2007-11-21T21:33:00.000+08:00

I realize that I haven't really shown a lot of pictures around here. Mostly I've been uploading them to Facebook, not remembering that a lot of you folks don't have Facebook accounts. As I cannnot deal with Webshots or Flickr in China I am giving Picassa a try. So please come on over and give the pics a gander.

Keep coming back because I'll be uploading more pictures soon.

This Is Getting Ridiculous

2007-11-21T16:26:00.000+08:00

Guess who is unemployed (again?) I got a text message last night from the mom of the two kids I've been teaching. It told me that she was enrolling her kids into an international school and would no longer need my services. Actually it said she might need my services for she will still be taking the boys to their special soccer club in the afternoons and thus she might need me in the evenings and weekends to give them a hand with the classes they'll be missing.

Remember that this is the woman who has fired me once before because she enrolled her kids in a special homeschooling group, but took them back out after a week because they didn't like it. I wonder how long they will last in this school.

I told her to give it a few weeks before making any other decisions including whether or not they will need the extra tutoring. I'm so sick of her and this constant back and forth. I'm so sick of getting jobs and then losing them.

My options at this point are either to bust my butt looking for additional tutoring gigs, or start feeling around for full time teaching positions at the local universities. Most of them hire English teachers pretty regularly.

That might be pretty good except that it would mean a commute and I'd have to pretend to know what I'm doing. I like the idea of teaching, but I'm so clueless when it comes to the nuts and bolts.

I'm taking a couple of days to figure this mess out and decide what I want to do. It isn't that bad on us as I wasn't making tons of money anyways, and Amy more than makes enough for the two of us, but man it sure gets discouraging.

A Brief Encounter

2007-11-15T20:04:00.000+08:00

Coming to and fro from our apartment I often run into the lad who lives right below us. Typically we meet in the stairwell where she is slowly helping her young daughter down the stairs.

As they go down or up the stairs, the mother counts the steps to the daughter in Chinese.

Often I hold the outside door open for them, or wait at the bottom of the stairs to pass. We always smile at each other and say hello, and thank you to each other in Chinese. And as they are pretty much the only chinese words I know, our conversations end there.

Tonight as I left my apartment I ran into them again. Both of them moved to the side of the stairs so that I could pass. As I went by them, the mother said, "oh you live just up stairs?" And then "on the third floor?"

In English.

I smiled and politely answered in the affirmative all the while internally I am laughing that she speaks English. She had never spoke it before so I assumed she only spoke Chinese.

I was too flabbergasted in fact to say much more, but I look forward to being able to speak with her a little more when we meet again.

In The Middle Of The Night

2007-11-15T19:19:00.000+08:00

I have this great tendency to lie on the couch and listen to my iPod all alone, and by myself well into the dark hours of the night. I've always enjoyed the darkness of night. My thoughts collect easier when the lights are out and there are no distractions (and perhaps because no one can see me.) I've done this since I was a teenager actually, me sitting in the dark listening to music that is.

As a lad, I think, it stemmed from a need to be alone and try to figure out that great big question of 'who I am, and what am I doing?' Teenagers don't really get a lot of privacy, but after my parents and sister and brother would go to bed, I could sit up by the warm fire in the winter, or out on the porch under the stars when it was warm, and contemplate these things.

This has flowed into my adult life, and I suppose you could say being married I don't always get a lot of privacy and have to find some after my spouse goes to bed, but this isn't entirely true.

Whatever the reasons I find myself there - on the couch in the night - listening to music and contemplating life. My tendency during this times is to listen to really sad music. I have no explanation for that except that I really like sad music, and inner contemplation lends itself to sad songs more than glib dance tracks.

There I was last night listening to Ryan Adams and Bob Dylan wondering what the heck I'm doing here in China and feeling just a bit sad about it all. But then a Gillian Welch song came on and something changed.

Now normally Gillian is nothing but heartbreaking, but here it was her and David Rawlings and a real live band doing a version of The Band's "The Weight."

Now if you don't know this song besides being disowned by me, you should really hunt down a copy and give it a listen. It is a perfect song. A brilliant song. A life changing song. Its lyrics are enigmatic making some people think of religion and Jesus, and other politics and the US of A.

It has this really great chorus where they do this layered harmony thing that does nothing if not make me smile.

"Take a load off Fannie
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fannie
and
and
and
put the load
put the load
right on me-e-e-e"

It gives me chills just thinking about it.

Anywho, last night Gilliand and friends are doing a live version of it and I had to get off that sad sack of a couch and stand up and dance. I stood there in my living room, in the middle of the night, with all the lights off. In my pajamas. And played air guitar and air sung that song like I was in Madison Square Garden in front of a million screaming fans.

It was invigorating. It made me feel so much better. It made me....a...well a geek I guess.

But a happy one.

Stinking Coffee

2007-11-12T15:29:00.000+08:00

The Chinese love their coffee. I mean L-O-V-E it. They put it in all sorts of things - cereal, pretzels, candy, ice-cream, drinks (!) and crackers amongst others. Name a snack food and they've probably got a coffee flavor of it.

Me on the other hand simply hate it. I hate the smell, I hate the taste, I hate the way it looks. I hate every flavor and variety of it. In college I used to hang out with a lot of coffee drinkers and without fail whenever we'd go out one of them would try to get me to taste some frapa-crapa-mocha-chino thing. They'd always swear it didn't tastes like coffee and it always did.

Lousy so and sos.

Needless to say I hate coffee flavored snacks. Yet I keep eating them.

Obviously I don't speak Chinese. Obviously I don't read it either. Which means shopping is always a strange and sometimes difficult experience. Most things you can figure out - an apple is still an apple. Coke still looks like Coke. And even things like pasta and potato chips or cereal are pretty easy to figure out. The packaging is similar and the insides of course are the same.

But flavors are a little tricky. I might grab a bag of bbq potato chips and not know it. My milk choices are still skim, half and super flabby fat, but I'm never really sure which version I buy most of the time.

That brings us back to coffee flavoring. Way too many times I have picked up some pretzels, or a candy bar or an ice cream bar only to realize (way too late) that it is coffee flavored.

Gag. Yuck. Gross.

Just now I piced up a little ice cream bar and was so looking forward to the cold, sweet goodness when - lick - ugh - oooh it's stinking coffee flavored.

Curses.

To my embarrassment, I'm leaving something out. While I can't read the Chinese labels on these products, most of them do include a picture to tell you what flavor they are. Pick up some tomato flavored chips and you'll see a little tomato on the package. Want some chocolate milk tea? Look for the label with a pure white stream of milk and another flowing of chocolate.

And yes, if you're looking for some coffee flavored something, you'll most certainly see a picture of a coffee bean on the package.

I'm stupid. I'm a dunce. I don't look at labels very closely. I'm just not used to looking for pictures of coffee beans on my ice cream. Thirty years of life tells me the brown stuff around my chocolate bar is chocolate and nothing else. Or if it is coffee flavored it says so in big letters. Who looks for coffee beans on their package of ice cream?

Me, I guess from now on. Unless I want an ice cream bar that I can't eat.

Washing Machine

2007-11-09T15:35:00.000+08:00

We finally bought a washing machine. It was costing us about 50 RMB a week to take our clothes to the cleaner and so a new machine was more than worth the money spent. However a dryer isn't really worth it right now, so we have to hang dry our clothes.

I always forget how much time laundry takes. It is so easy to take a bunch to the cleaners and then come back in a few hours with clean and folded clothes. Now I have to do one load at a time, and then line dry them. It takes forever! If I am lucky I can get through two loads in a day.

We've had the machine a week and I still have a huge stack of dirties piled up.

And then there was a major malfunction today. But first a little bit about getting the washer.

Our laundry hook-up is outside. On each end of our apartment we have some semi-enclosed porches. Just outside the kitchen is one of these and this is where the washer goes. The door to the porch is actually quite tiny and like fools we didn't measure this opening before we shopped for the machine. There was a brief period between buying washer and its delivery that I feared it wouldn't fit out the door.

It did fit - just barely, and I set to hooking it up. This proved difficult and it took the help of Brian and Bet to figure it out. It still leaks at the water hook-up which means that I have to watch it like a hawk. I turn the washer on, then turn the water one. When it is done filling up I turn the water off and remind myself to come back in a bit to turn it on. This goes on through all the cycles, unless I forget. Sometimes I forget and leave the water on and receive a big puddle of water on the porch for my troubles.

But fair enough, this system isn't too bad and I don't mind so much.

Today I threw a load in and did my back and forth with the water, except that on the second round there was a problem. I lifted the lid to see that it was done spinning and turned on the water. No water came running through. In fact there was still water in the bucket. A bunch of the lights were flashing and the machine was flashing something that was obviously an error code.

Understand that this is a Chinese washer. All of the buttons have Chinese next to them. The book is in Chinese. I never actually know what setting I'm putting my clothes on and I sure as heck didn't know what the error was.

Randomly I pressed buttons hoping for something. Then I moved around my wet clothes figuring maybe it was off balance. Then I pressed more buttons and got nothing. Finally I turned it off and on again. Then told it to go and it did. It filled with more water and we were on our way.

Or so I thought.

Later I cam back out to find the same water in the tub and the same error message. This time I took out some of the heftier clothes thinking this may be the problem with the balance (if in fact the balance was the problem.)

More water. More spinning. More error.

I don't know what to do now so I take out all the soaking wet clothes, ring them out as best I can and hang them on the line. They should be drive sometime next July.

Meanwhile I have a washing machine full of water and no idea how to empty it.

On Jobs And Giving Up And Jobs Again

2007-11-09T15:25:00.000+08:00

I know I promised awhile ago to do some daily emo blogging, and it is easy to see that this hasn't been the case. I simply find it very difficult to write anything here. I get most of my blogging needs taken care of at the Midnight Cafe and then I read and comment on other blogs which takes a good deal of computer time from me.

I think also I have difficulties sitting down to write out my thoughts. I tend to sit on the couch and ponder my existence, or I think about where I am going while in the shower, or walking down the street. Once I get my thinking done, I don't need it anymore. I haven't the strength to write. I'll try to do better, you but you know how that goes.

Here's a little something for your troubles.

This past week I basically gave up. No, that's not right exactly - I decided to quit worrying about work. I was wearing myself down with stress over how I should make a living here, and what jobs I should take. I was so tired of getting small tutoring jobs only to have them taken away, only to be offered something else.

I've already blogged about my absolute hatred of not knowing what I'm doing. Every night I went to bed dreading a possible call in the morning to substitute. Not so much for the teaching, but for the being unprepared for it. I just hate not knowing if it is coming or not. Periodically I would get notices that someone was looking for a tutor, and I'd get all nervous before calling them, if I ever did.

I got sick of it and decided that I wouldn't pay them any attention. I could be happy doing my two mornings a week. We aren't in need of money, and that jobs gives me a nice chunk of spending money. It keeps me busy enough that I'm not going crazy.

I could spend my free time then writing, blogging and keeping the house clean. Not necessarily a manly job, but hey this is the 00s and men are kinder, gentler men these days. I made my peace with it. I was happy with my duties and my time here.

Of course yesterday I get asked by a friend to help tutor one of her students. Of course I can't tell her no. Of course I'm sick of myself.

I didnt actually give her a resolute answer. I said sure, but that I needed to work out a schedule as to when I could do it. I'm now hoping it will all just go away.

And so it goes.

A Slight Run-In With The Cops

2007-11-09T13:37:00.000+08:00

Yesterday evening my wife and I decided to eat Mexican with my sister and her husband. Well it wasn’t really Mexican as this is China and they don’t really do Mexican here. It was a tapas place which is more Spanish than Mexican but for whatever reason they do serve some Mexican style dishes - fajitas, burritos, tacos and the like. Although with your quesadilla you get the choices of french fries or potato wedges, which is kind of weird, but good at the same time.

Whatever you want to call that, it was good and just what I was craving. It was also happy hour which meant that I got a refill on my Coke for free. Yeah, that’s right normally you only get one glass of Coke and that’s it. If you want to get topped off you have to pay for it. Welcome to basically anywhere in the world but America.

After filling our bellies we decided to head home. There are two main gates into the schools living quarters. Both are manned by security guards and both have those little mechanical arms designed to keep cars out unless given entry. Though I have seen many of the Chinese workers get stopped and have to show their ID or even sometimes open their bags, I have always been given a pass. I don’t know if this is because I look really trust worthy, or if all white people get a free pass, or if the guards realize they’ll never be able to communicate with me and just don’t bother. Whatever the reason, I have never been stopped.

Until last night.

We pulled up to the front cab, paid the driver and got out. We could have drove on in with the taxi but it is cheaper to pay at the gate, Lord knows I need the exercise, and it is also helpful to others who may be waiting outside the gate to catch a taxi. As we walked towards the gate I didn’t notice anything different about the guards but as we started to pass, we were stopped. It was then I noticed that it wasn’t a guard stopping me, but a policeman.

In broken English he asked for our passports. We were all a little confused and asked what was going on. He again asked for our passports and then said something in Chinese that I didn’t understand. We indicated that we didn’t have our passports on us, and he told us to go to one of the offices in the complex, where someone spoke better English.

At this point all of the horror stories of Americans in foreign countries began running through my head. I could picture myself being taken to some dingy, dirty jail cell somewhere in the bowels of the city never to be heard from again.

We walked to the office and were met by half a dozen officers, some of which were seated at a row of tables looking very formal and menacing. They too asked for our passports and we again explained they were in our rooms. They said we could go get them but first asked us a series of questions involving our names and addresses and such likes. We then went to our rooms and got our passports and returned. We were then asked a few more questions about what we were doing in Shanghai and let go.

All in all it was a pretty easy experience, and certainly the cops are well within their rights to ask for our identification. It even makes sense that they would bring a crew to check passports at a living complex where plenty of foreigners live.

Still, it was a rather frightening experience at first as my imagination took me overboard into all the bad movies I’ve seen over the years.

Beyonce In China

2007-11-07T07:55:00.000+08:00

I saw the pop diva in concert the other night. If you'd like to read a review, shimy on over to the Midnight Cafe.

Internet Bill

2007-11-04T23:28:00.000+08:00

For whatever reasons most of our utilities can be paid at the LQ. And by this I mean that a representative of the utility companies will sit inside one of the offices in the LQ for a period of time over the weekend. They do this partially because so many new people move into the LQ and thus need those services set up, but also so that we can easily pay our bills.

Amy and I made a mistake last week and forgot to pay out internet bill. So today I went down to the office where the internet representative would be and tried to pay our bill late. There were several numbers on the bill and I wasn't sure which one was the one I needed to pay, so I handed the lady the bill and pointed to the number I guessed was the right one. My hope was that she would read it and either nod affirmative, or point to the correct number.

As an added feature to my non-verbal communication I took the two hundred RMB bills out of my pocket and allowed her to see that I was ready to pay.

She said something that I couldn't understand, made no attempt to remove the bills from my hand and then pointed to another section of the bill. This particular bit was in English and said "prepaid." For a moment I figured we had somehow prepaid the month of October and I didn't need to pay anything now.

But then she pointed to a number and said some more things. I looked appropriately confused, but then waived my money around as if to say, whatever, I can pay that number if needed.

The lady said some more things and we were at an em pass. A few more conversations in two separate languages occurred while I continued to have my cold hard cash outstretched for her to see, but nothing really happened.

Next the lady got up and walked me to one of the workers at the LQ who speaks a little English. The two ladies conversed then the English speaker told me that I should have paid this bill in October.

This information I was aware of, and I told her so. Then I told her that as it happened I didn't pay that bill in October, but was happy to pay it now. She told this to internet lady and then explained to me that I would get a bill for November in the mail. At this point I'm completely aghast.

I thought this would be easy. Who knew that you could take a past due bill, have money in hand to pay it, and cause so much difficulty. I came in expecting that maybe she wouldn't be able to take my money and that I'd have to go to some collections office or something, but now it seemed like she didn't want my money at all.

Me and the English speaker talked a little bit more and I tried to explain that I had not paid the October bill, but was willing to do so now. She talked again to the internet lady and then internet lady made some phone calls.

The discussion then left points on October and November bills and went into something about the entire year. English speaker told me that when you pay for internet you pay for an entire year at a time. I seemed to recall something like this during our initial setup, but certainly didn't remember paying that much for it.

More back and forth and English speaker essentially told me it was all ok. I asked her again if I didn't need to pay anything and she said no. I was still utterly confused, but figured either we had paid extra and were ok, or that we'd eventually get another bill telling us what to pay.

I started to walk out when internet lady took my bill and headed back to her desk. Then she started filling out forms with my name on it. When she asked me for my phone number I knew I was in trouble. My guess was she was going to ask me to pay for the year. That's when I went for back-up.

I told her to hold on and got Amy. Her and I discussed the matter and realized we didn't want to pay a full year since we might not be here another full year. Numbers being the universal language we started writing dates down trying to tell her we could pay up until next June but not after.

That wasn't pleasing at all as you get a discount for paying a full year at a time and to stop service early means more money.

At this point I called Brian. Then went to an ATM to pull out a bunch of money. When I returned from the ATM Brian had sorted it all out. He simply told her we didn't want to pay in advance and just wanted to pay for the month.

We then paid and it was done.

My guess is this lady is a suave salesmen and was bent on selling us the whole year as it does give you a discount. Add to her salesmanship my total lack of Chinese ability and you get us both confused quick.

One Paychecks, Taxes, And Collecting Fapios

2007-11-04T22:56:00.000+08:00

Up until recently Amy was paid in the following manner:

Half of the paycheck was paid out in RMB (Chinese currency) which was deposited into a local bank. This money was easily accessible through any ATM or by physically withdrawing it from any of the many branches in the city.

The other half of the paycheck was doled out in USD through a bank in Hong Kong. This money was monumentally more difficult to get to. There don't seem to be any branches in Shanghai, and we received no checks or debit/ATM cards. Essentially to use that money you had to have it transferred out of Hong Kong to another bank. This was done through a confusing system of faxes.

Typically American workers would transfer that money to their American banks and use it to pay off any outstanding debt still held in the States or whatever. It was actually a very good way to save money, as it was so difficult to actually spend.

It was also highly beneficial as since it was never actually Chinese cash the Chinese government was unable to tax it. And as the Chinese system of taxes doesn't take in effect (read they don't actually take any money out) until you reach a certain dollar amount, and we weren't reaching that amount with only half a pay check, we were getting away tax free.

Well very recently this whole system changed. The details are a little vague, but it seems the stockholders for the company that owns the school that employs Amy weren't too happy with this system.

Or something.

The downshot is that Amy now has to be paid completely in Chinese money, which means we're hit with major taxes. We're still having half the money go to Hong Kong as it is still a good method to save money, but it is all getting taxed. Which means less pay.

The company, realizing this is a major hit for its non-Chinese employees is trying to make things better. It seems that taxes have to be paid on all salaries, but they do not effect things like reimbursements.

As a side note here, I will add that we have a third Chinese bank which was opened specifically for the reimbursement we received for our plane tickets here. Now that I am a substitute teacher on the pay roll I too have three separate accounts. Add in the account in Oklahoma, and the still not closed account in Indiana and that brings our total bank accounts to eight!

What the company is now doing to help out is allowing us to be reimbursed on all sorts of things. Sort of. We're actually not really clear on how it all works, but the gist of it is we have to save all our receipts.

The added nightmare to the ever growing mountain of receipts is that any old regular receipt won't do. You have to have an officially stamped special receipt called a fapio.

Some places you automatically get a fapio. Like if you take a taxi, they automatically print one for you with a machine printed stamp on it. And certain markets employ a small army to stand at the exits who then look over your receipt and stamp their approval.

But at other places, the process is more difficult. At most restaurants you have to specifically ask for a fapio. These are doled out like discount coupons. You don't get a single fapio with your actual total on it, but rather you get multiple fapios in various increments such as tens, hundreds, and singles. The change is usually rounded up. Sometimes they run out of singles and you get the benefit of a round up to the nearest five.

These restaurant fapios also have a little scratch off game that I have yet to comprehend.

Most supermarkets make fapio collecting even more difficult. At the cash register you receive a regular looking receipt with your products on it and the total cost. To receive a fapio you must then take this receipt to a separate register set aside on one end of the store. They look a bit like an exchange/refund counter you would come across in the states. Here you wait in another line (after having waited in an always enormous line to purchase your goods) at the end of which you present your regular receipt and have a hand written special fapio receipt given to you.

At the smaller markets (like the mini-grocery that we frequent located just outside the LQ) you cannot turn any old receipt in for a fapio. Since most purchases at these stores are small, it is seen as a waste of paper and time and money to get a fapio for each purpose. Instead we have to wait until we have a large quantity of receipts which can then all be exchanged for a single fapio.

Or something. Who really knows what we're doing, or why we're doing it? We do what people tell us to and hope it comes out for the best. Which at this point means collecting tons of receipts, trying to keep track of where they all come from (which is actually difficult since they're all written in Chinese and we're not the best at remembering where we spent each little bit of cash) and hoping this will somehow make more money appear somewhere.

Since all of us have to keep track of fapios, we have had some interesting experiences doing things together. There is often a lively discussion on who gets to collect the fapio at the end of a long taxi ride or dining experience.

Only in China as they say.

The Shanghai Diaries: Halloween Party

2007-11-01T08:16:00.000+08:00

I have never been much of a party person. I don’t like bars, I don’t go to clubs and come Saturday night you are more likely to find me at home watching a movie, or at a quiet bookstore sipping hot chocolate than you are at some hot night spot. Bars are too smoky, too loud, and too full of drunks. Clubs always play terrible music at volumes that don’t exactly encourage casual conversation. Both contain far too many people and way too much chaos to make me comfortable.

I much prefer a small setting with a few friends that I can converse with - if not on a meaningful level then at least with some humor and interest. I married a woman who is much the same. My dear mate despises clubs and bars as much as I do, and while she does profess a desire to go somewhere from time to time, she rarely produces where that somewhere might be.

Thus we tend to stay at home, playing games, reading books, and watching movies. Now and again you might find us at a restaurant getting some fancy food (and me complaining that it’s too stinking loud to have a decent conversation) or at the movies, or more often than not sitting in a bookstore. Don’t look for us at the hip places; we don’t even know where they are anymore.

I say we’re homebodies. My wife says we’re boring.

There is an exception to this no-party rule. Once a year my wife and I dust off the dinner plates and throw a big pumpkin carving party. We both love Halloween and since we don’t have kids, this party is a fun way to do something childish and still feel like an adult.

I was a little worried about this year’s bash, as we’re living in China and everything is a little more complicated here, but everything turned out really well, and it just might be one of our best parties yet. There was some concern, at first, that we might not find a pumpkin. While in the states every super market carries huge lofts of giant pumpkins the entire month of October, none of the markets around here seemed to have any.

With a little more than one week before the holiday a few of the more western markets began selling a few pumpkins (and I do mean a few, one store had maybe 5 pumpkins in stock). Creatively, my wife and a few others didn’t let the lack of decent pumpkins bother them and bought some brightly colored squash instead.

The other problems involved the fact that none of the stores were selling pumpkin patterns or carving tools. The patterns weren’t too much of a problem as we could find some on the Internet and print. The carving tools were a bit distressing. In the States we have a large collection of little miniature jigsaws, scoopers, shavers and other tools all designed to create interesting, intricate pumpkin carvings. Here we had a set of steak knives.

For reasons that aren’t really clear to me we have more friends in China than we did back in the States. More friends, but not any more space. Pumpkin carving takes more room than your typical standing around drinking parties and there was no way we could invite everyone. Discretion was the word and we invited as many as we could and told everybody to keep it hush hush as to avoid making any non-invitees angry.

The music was hand selected, the decorations hung, the designs printed and the day came. We had an interesting collection of people as two couples have wee ones (a first for our pumpkin party, and a sure sign that we, and our friends are getting older). Another young lady had never carved a pumpkin before in her life.

I had picked out a nice large pumpkin that was more width than height. It was a little different than the pumpkins I am used to carving as it wasn’t exactly orange and it had a extremely thick shell, but was mostly hollow. The shell was so thick, in fact, that I broke my knife trying to get the top off.

The shape of the pumpkin was such that I had a very difficult time thinning the shell with my scooper. This created a difficult carving situation, but I prevailed in the end. Creating something that at least looked like a ghost, if not exactly what was on my picture printout. We all scooped and sliced and carved as best we could until slowly we began to finish. Carved pumpkins found their way to the dark porch, candles lighting their insides with “oooh” and “aaahhhs” from the crowds.

As is tradition, we each voted on our favorite pumpkin and the winner received a lovely prize (a collection of DVDs.) It was really a lovely party, and even though I had worried about China’s ability to have a crackin’ Halloween party it showed us a rather good time. Now the candy has been eaten, the mess has been cleaned up and my wife and I are ready to go back to being boring.

I'm Sick, Round Whatever

2007-10-31T13:50:00.000+08:00

Let's recap. I went from starting my annual six months of coughing/sneezing/generally having terrible sinus trouble and/or a cold to feeling perfectly well. Two days later I got struck with the vomiting/diarrhea decision. Then got better. This week I have picked up the six month cold. My head is full. My nose runs. My body aches.

Yesterday I spent the entire day laying on the couch moaning. Today I'm up and about a little, but still feel rotten. I canceled class today to recover, but I wont really recover. I will spent all winter generally feeling crappy.

Such is life (mine anyways.)

******

My career as a writing tutor is over. I got a call from one of the parents Monday saying they no longer need my services. Well, really what she said was something more akin to "something, er...come up. I'm very sorry. But you...teaching....something happened." I twas me that had to interpret and say that she no longer needed me as a tutor.

Her english is ok, but I think this was too much for her. She didn't know how to tell me I was fired without looking bad. And looking bad is a big no-no in Chinese culture. So I have no idea why I'm fired, but fired is what I am.

Curse.

I was really beginning to feel ok in this town. I had the teaching two days a week, and now I was going to have the tutoring. I liked it. I was working a good full time week, making a little money and still had time to write.

How many times am I going to get a job in this town only to have it leave? I'm teetering on what to do now. I either want to go out and get a million tutoring jobs to keep myself busy, or quite the one I have and say forget it.

But I'll wait to decide when I actually feel half way decent.

A Strange Shopping Experience

2007-10-29T18:07:00.001+08:00

Street vendors are a way of life here. Pretty much everywhere, day or night, if you are out and about you will see all sorts of people selling all sorts of things right off the street. Need some cheap DVDs or CDs? Go over to that corner. Watches and umbrellas your thing? Then head down to this street. Whether it is food or socks or books or turtles that you need, you can probably find it being sold on the streets of Shanghai.

Right outside the living quarters gate is a little Sichuan place that pretty much all of us frequent for supper. Right outside the restaurant usually resides this adorable old ma selling various potted plants. He has a small selection of mums, cacti, aloe and other things. We have purchased from him before because he is cheap, the plants are nice, and he’s just darn cute.

Like so many things in China, actually purchasing or plants is a source of frustration and amusement. We stand there for twenty minutes trying to decide which plan is for us, the old man does an interpretive dance to try to persuade us to buy half a dozen and then we both haggle over price while neither of us understands what the other is saying.

The other evening we went to dine inside the restaurant and were placed by the large window which happens to be right next to plant guy.

My wife made the mistake of catching plant guys eye.

I can’t blame her really as he was right outside, the plants were looking nice, and who doesn’t look out the window when they are sitting right next to it?

Still, mistake it was.

Plant guy first smiled then lifted up a plan to give my wife a better view. Then he began lining up plans beside the window to offer us an entire selection. There were four of us eating and we each laughed, shook our heads in the negative, and tried ever so hard to not look at him again.

Plant guy moved more plans into the sill and lifted them up for us to see. Let me tell you it is quite difficult to not look out a big window while there is an old man waving plants at you. But we did good and didn’t look, or at least when we did look we shook our heads to indicate we weren’t interested.

All the while we were all eating our food and engaging ourselves in conversation. Just as my wife was in the middle of giving a long schpeel on how her graduate work is going, plant guy enters into the restaurant carrying a little cactus. For a moment, my wife simply couldn’t understand why everyone thought her dissertation on participles in old French was so amusing.

Then she saw plant guy and his cactus. When we were through cackling we assured the old man as best we could that we had no need for a cactus, and he left. Not one to take no for an answer though, he soon entered in again with an aloe plant. In order to show us the aloes great usefulness, he began rubbing the plant against his old, wrinkled, unshaven face. My grandmother swears to the wonderful effectiveness of the aloe plant, but I’m not sure it could do anything for that mug.

Once again we assured the old man that we didn’t want such a thing and again he left. By this time we were done with our meal and we got up from our table. But the old man wasn’t through he already had another plant and was headed inside. As we paid we entreated him that we weren’t interested and he let us be.

Once outside, we stopped by his shop and bough a little flower.

Another Job

2007-10-25T21:29:00.000+08:00

I think I mentioned briefly before that I got another gig. I am now tutoring three children in all things writing. Two of them are Chinese Americans, and another one is from Hong Kong. All of them are struggling a little bit with their writing and the moms want them to have extra help.

I will be doing this once a week after school. What's nice is that one of the moms picks the kids up from school and she's offered to give me a ride to their home. This will cut down on the taxi money. What's bad is that they place they live is in an odd place which means the taxi can't make a left out of their home to my home. Which means we have to ride way down the road, take an exit, make a u-turn and get back on the main road to me. Which means more expensive taxi.

Class was fine. They are good kids it seems, and by the time they get to me they are too exhausted to put up a fight.

We did a very basic lesson today and I'll have to figure out what I'm going to teach them next week. More prep work. Yuck.

Everybody is getting sick at school which means I'll be doing more substituting and then probably getting sick again. I think if the two tutor gigs I have work out I'll kill the subbing. I'm just not fit for getting random calls and having to come to work out of the blue.

2007-10-24T14:32:00.000+08:00

Last week I started to get sick. I had a sore throat and was coughing and was really thinking my annual bout of crazy allergies was coming.

Then I got better. I felt great over the weekend and thought maybe I had hit a good delay.

I even accepted a substitute thing for Monday. Then Monday actually came and it was all over. About 5 in the AM I turned over and realized I wasn't feeling too good. Then I got hit with the diarrhea. Then the vomiting. Is there anything more fun that sitting on the floor of the bathroom trying to decide whether the urge to poop or vomit is more pressing.

Three major bouts of that and I felt better. Couldn't substitute and spent the day watching movies and moaning.

Yesterday was more blah, but nothing major. Today I feel good and did the tutoring.

Before I get to that I have to admit that there was a small part of me that was glad I wasn't substituting. It is probably a horrible thing to even have a part of me that preferred vomiting to teaching, but there it was.

I have this small part of me that is begining to think that I'd like to be a teacher, but that small part of me says I need schooling and training and some bloody idea of how to do it.

Which leads me back to today. We did a four hour session with my two boys. Here's the funny thing, with the sickness and business of the weekend I didn't do much preparing. Here's the funnier thing, I assigned homework last week out of their text books, and they only have one copy of the text books. That means I had to leave them there, and thus have no books to actually prepare a lesson out of.

I winged it. I made up some environmental stuff for geography and worked from memory for English. Then we just opened our books and read from there. This worked better than I thought but it was still a nightmare.

The oldest boy is alright, he usually looks bored, but he at least pays attention and doesn't act up. The youngest is a little hyper active and so is all over the place. The way it works is I teach one child one subject, while the other one sits in the computer and works on some busy work I give them. Then they switch.

Since they are in such close proximity it is difficult to keep them on task. This is especially true for the one I am not actually teaching. And more so for the youngest.

Four hours is a long time to keep their attention. Especially when you are not that prepared.

There is no detention. They don't get grades. There is basically no punishment I can give them. I have to encourage, cajole, and make false threats. Today I had the youngest in the corner not being taught. He had some work to do, but a computer was near and it took his attention. He likes to play games. I had to ask him multiple times to turn it off. Then I turned off the computer. Then he turned it back on like I wouldn't notice. So I had to move him and me and the oldest sat by the computer a little cramped.

I was so ready to get out of there.

Music Makes The Difference

2007-10-21T18:57:00.000+08:00

On Saturday Amy and I went to Carefour for some non-grocery items. We went seeking some good speakers, a mobile phone, and a washing machine. We knew we weren't going to buy the washing machine, but wanted to do some pricing and checking out of the models.

We did and realized we don't know much about washing machines. Most machines here don't have the little middle device that helps keep the clothes separated. This makes the bucket look like a...well a big bucket. They say you have to put your clothes in a bag or something or otherwise they will stretch out.

Prices were under a thousand mostly, which puts them at around a hundred bucks or so. Which is good, I guess.

We then realized we were even worse at judging cell phones. In the States neither of us had owned a cell phone until this last year. Then we only got one because Amy was making a long commute and we wanted one for emergencies. We went with T-Mobile because they had the whole sim card like thing where we didn't have to buy ourselves into some long term plan.

I have one now, and I do have to admit that I like having one, but also have to admit that I didn't pick out the phone. It is an old one of Brians and he's letting me use it.

This is to say that we've got very little experience deciding on what kind of phone we want. This was painfully obvious when we started looking at them yesterday. It didn't help that all the specifics were written in Chinese. We sat there looking at these phones wondering which one was for us. Some of them flip, and that's fun. Some of them play mp3s and that's nice. Some of them take pictures and that's definitely something I want. But which one is best?

Beats me. We decided to wait a little longer and have someone help us.

Poor old people don't understand today's technology.

I did get a decent set of speakers. They aren't anything fancy, just a woofer the size of a bread basket and two other little speakers. It costs maybe 30 dollars but that makes a ton of difference.

Before all we've had are the laptop speakers and these teeny tiny ones Amy bought for her classroom. The quality on both stinks. Sure I have decent headphones for the iPod and I listen to them all the time, but it is nice to have something with some volume that can fill the house up with music.

And have some bass. Filling out the bottom end has been missed.

Having these speakers is awesome. I've been playing them almost non-stop since we bought them. I love music. It makes me feel better. It takes the edge off. It makes me happy (and excited and sad and moody, but happy none-the-less.)

The speakers have made our apartment a home. And that's nice.

Feeling Better

2007-10-19T17:35:00.000+08:00

I feel better. Mostly. My throat no longer hurts, but I have that typical Mat Brewster tickle that makes me cough. I say typical because pretty much six months out of any year I cough and cough and cough. It is a sickness. It is annoying. It is pretty much unavoidable.

Last night we went over to a friend's house and had a chili supper. It was in celebration of another friend who has moved to the UAE. She moved there not long after we made it to Shanghai. She isn't really our friend as we don't know her well, but she's friend with pretty much all our friends. So we chilied then played games. Or they played games and I went home. I feel better now, but then I felt like crap.

Today I had another class this morning. It went pretty well. I did a lot of prep work for it yesterday. I went in early this morning so I could print out everything. Like a moron I gave them homework that was from the book. Which means they had to keep the book. Which means I don't have the books to prepare next week's class.

Ooops.

I also met one of parent's involved in my other tutor session. I'll be teaching writing to three boys. Should be a pretty good gig as it won't take a lot of prep work. I just need things for them to write about and then do a little teaching on sentence structure and what not.

You could say it was a good day.

Sick of Everything

2007-10-18T20:19:00.000+08:00

I'm trying my darndest to get sick. It started with a little tingle in the throat last night which moved into full blown pain this morning. The head hurts and the body aches. It isn't enough to keep me from work tomorrow (unless it really blows up tonight) which will actually probably make it worse in the longer run, but I gotta work.

This isn't really emo, or even interesting for that matter, but I keep promising to write more and this is definitely more.

Emo Anybody?

2007-10-17T16:58:00.000+08:00

There is a musical genre called emo. It is typified by introspective, intensely personal lyrics and emotional music (hence the "emo" from emotion.) This now applies to all sort of things like blogging.

I have been thinking about doing more emo blogging. That is to say to really talk about what I'm feeling and get more personal with everything. Part of why I don't blog here much is that I am afraid of saying to much.

I know my parents, and my parents-in-law read this and I don't want to upset them. If I have a bad day and I write that I hate China and life and everything (which may be how I feel) I don't want these folks to get all upset and worried. So instead I write about my jobs and random things that we do. And frankly things just aren't that exciting.

Thus I have been thinking of doing a little more daily experiences and feelings. I don't know if this will help me blog more, as I just don't think about blogging here much. But it might help, and I like the idea of making things more personal.

So parents if I start talking about hating something or being really emotional about it, don't fret. I'm OK. I'll make it. Things will continue on and I'll come out at the end.

More Word Stuff

2007-10-17T16:47:00.000+08:00

Remember the two boys I was tutoring in English/Geography/History. Remember how I got fired? We'll I got rehired. Basically the boys didn't like the home-school program. It was a much bigger program with lots of kids. Unfortunately, most of the kids weren't my boys age and so they didn't like it.

The mom did see things she liked and this is making it better to me. She has turned one room into a classroom and given me access to the computer/scanner/printer to create more interesting materials.

Yea Me.

I also just got another job tutoring three boys in English (mostly writing.) It will be two hours a week.

I like the idea of this arrangement as it will allow me to make a decent amount of money, but at the same time enable me to keep blogging and writing and whatever else I like to do. It is also quite flexible which enables me to do other things as well.

The only problem is that this second class is on Thursday from 4:30 to 6:30 which is also when my Chinese class takes place. I tried to work out another time with these ladies, but it just wasn't too be.

Truth is I didn't really like Chinese class anyways. The language is very difficult. They deal mainly in tones and each sound has about four different tones. So you could say the exact same word (spelled exactly the same) but it will mean four different things depending on the tone used.

This is what Chinese class has been about. We haven't really learned words so much as tones. This is all fine and good except it isn't very useful to our daily lives. I know Americans who speak Chinese, but get the tones wrong. Context helps a lot.

Eventually we discussed this with our teacher and now we have started talking about real world situations. Now the problem is everybody just asks random questions. Like one person will think about how yesterday they went to a restaurant and ordered a particular dish. They will then ask how to say that dish, or how to say something else in a restaurant setting.

Then someone else will think about bargaining at the fake market and will ask about that.

It is all so random that it hurts my head. I need order and to stay on task in learning situations. This is just irritating me. So I'm not sure I'll really miss Chinese class.

The Shanghai Diaries - Food

2007-10-16T08:14:00.000+08:00

The new edition of the diaries is up, and it is all about food.

I'm Really Bad At This

2007-10-15T21:10:00.000+08:00

Seriously, I’m terrible. I’d apologize, but I don’t think anyone is reading anyways.

Let’s see, my sister had her birthday last week. We decided to have the party on Friday. A bunch of us got a van taxi and headed out into the main city. The taxi driver was a little nutty. He took a bit of a fancy to our friend Dan.

Dan is a big fella. Well over six foot tall. The taxi driver immediately noticed this and asked him if he played basketball (he doesn’t.) We decided to laugh at the taxi driver and ask him if he knew kung-fu.

It was all in good fun and everybody laughed. Then the driver offered Dan a cigarette and took his picture.

The food was Italian and it was very good. We all had a nice time, but unfortunately Amy’s belly decided it was time to go before everyone else had ice cream. So we headed home early.

--

I got another hair cut this weekend. It is such a lovely thing for you get a shampoo, head massage, back massage and cut for very little money. Look out for a longer post on that.

--

We bought our TV, I can’t remember if I wrote about that. The school provides cable to everyone, though there is only one English channel. There is also a French channel, though it has been acting funny lately.

Tonight while flipping around we came across a Jackie Chan flick. It was in Chinese, but with Jackie Chan it doesn’t really matter. It was lots of fun. Chan fought off a group of monks followed by these crazy chicks in tights. The chicks were obviously stunt men for most of the time, dressed in ill fitting tights and bad wigs.

Gotta love Jackie Chan!

Um, yeah, that’s all.

My Kids

2007-10-11T22:19:00.000+08:00

After three days of substituting I had a break today. As much as I was looking forward to the day off, I kind of missed those kids. They were exhausting, and rambunctious and often incredibly annoying, but sort of heart warming too.

I taught fifth grade science, which was easier than it sounds. The teacher had left very detailed notes on what to teach, which was mostly let them prepare for a presentation. The kids were mostly good, if a little rowdy.

There were only a couple of problem children, and they weren't really that bad. One wanted to constantly brag about what cool stuff he had. In answer to my question of where they usually study he responded, "in front of my 27" widescreen, LCD television." And when asked when he studies he noted it was usually after watching a really funny movie and playing a really violent game.

Obnoxious, but not difficult.

The other annoyance was a child who wouldn't pay any attention to anything. He wasn't really rowdy, but he was never listening.

Other than that they were really sweet kids, especially my home room. Those kids were full of energy and interest in school and joy.

It made me want to go back to college and get my education degree. Well, when I wasn't wanting to strangle the kid in the back who kept talking during everybody else's presentation.

Yeah, that was the other hard thing. I had to grade a presentation. I haven't graded anything. Ever. And now I had to give grades on a five minute presentation for fifth grade science. All I can say is I was lenient.

Door Closes, Window Opens

2007-10-08T20:10:00.001+08:00

Last night I got a text from the mother of the two boys I have been teaching. It said that over the holiday she had met with a group of homeschooling. Turns out they do a whole group teaching thing and she enrolled her boys into it.

Meaning I am out of a job.

While I was surprised I can't say that I was really shocked.

The fact that she found another group isn't really surprising at all. It was a bit of a blow to my ego though. I fully realize I am not the most qualified teacher, or the best at that job. But I thought I was starting to get somewhere with them, and being unemployed again kind of stung.

It didn't last long though. This morning, at 7, I get a phone call from the school where Amy teaches. One of the fifth grade teachers was stuck in Taiwan due to the typhoon. He needs a substitute for the next three days and they hoped I might fit the bill.

Truthfully, I am not good at quick changes. I tend to make little mini plans in my head about the upcoming days. Today I had planned to work hard on the new blog, do some house cleaning, and make some phone calls about other tutoring jobs. I wasn't expecting a call so early, and I was irritated at having to change my plans.

I was also scared. I've never substituted before. Would I be expected to teach? For real? What was the subject? How would I do?

I walked out the door to see that the typhoon (oh sorry it was downmodded to a tropical storm) was in full swing. The rain went splish and splahs. The wind went WOOOSH with a wallop.

I arrived and talked to the administration lady who called. She handed me the teachers "emergency substitute" plans and a print out of actual lesson plans for the next couple of days. Then she said "have fun."

I had to remind her that I had no idea where I was supposed to go. I had really hoped I might get a few instructions on what the heck I was supposed to do, and how the whole system worked, but I got none.

I arrived at my class and looked over the lesson. It was a pretty quickie on the ways and means that students do and should study. He's having a test next week and I guess he wanted to talk about study habits.

The school works by having a home room for the kids. This is sort of base ground for the students. They come to this class first, and again in the afternoon. They leave their books there and come back to collect or deposit them as they go from class to class.

They sit in this class for the first twenty minutes and then head to their first actual class. I had a very brief lesson plan for this period which amounted to "what did you do over break?"

The truth is, I had no idea of any of this information when I arrived. The kids showed up and I had my lesson plans. So we talked about what they did on break, and then a bell rang. The kids then got up and lined up by the door. I sat down and looked at my plan for the next period.

The kids continued to stand there. Then they got really quiet. Then they complained they were going to be late. Then someone finally piped up saying "are we dismissed?"

Of course they were. Who knew I was supposed to dismiss them?

The first real class came and they were mostly good. A few kids wanted to talk to each other and not pay attention but no one was really disruptive. Most everyone was very interested in the lesson and enjoyed participating.

The second class was more of the same.

Then I had a long break as my kids had Chinese and I wasn't due back until nearly 1. I came home and had lunch and rested before going back.

My third class was a bit more restless. They wanted to do their homework in class and make airplanes and not pay attention. I had to do a lot of shhh-shing and "be quiets." They weren't really bad just restless.

One little boy was very interesting. We were talking about studying and when asked where he studied he said:

"Right in front of my 27" widescreen plazma TV." And later when asked when he usually studied he said something about after he is done watching a funny movie and playing a violent video game. Most of what he said seemed to try to show how much cool stuff he had.

At one point he told me his parents lived in Canada and he was living with his grandparents where he would secretly watch TV instead of studying. Suddenly I could picture him at home with grandparents who have no idea what to do with him and parents feeling guilty about shipping him to China and thus spoiling him with big presents.

The rest of the classes were pretty uneventful. My home room kids came back at the end of the day for a two hour period. They too were a little restless, and I pretty let the ones who didn't want to pay attention not pay attention unless they were noisy.

All in all it wasn't a bad day, but I'm not sure how teachers do that day in, day out.

From The French Concession To The People's Square

2007-10-07T19:17:00.000+08:00

Since we weren’t able to really take a trip anywhere over the holiday, Friday we decided to explore a part of Shanghai known as the French Concession. I’m not really sure why they call it that, as there weren’t a lot of French people or stores there, and my book says there never were, but it was fun anyways.

We got slightly lost and so we didn’t actually manage to see any of the main attractions of the area, but as a whole it is a cool little place. Very artsy and full of cool local shops.

Afterwards we ventured towards the People’s Square which is the heart of the city and is full of big buildings that get lit up for the night.

I don’t really have much else to say, but enjoy the pictures.

None of us really knew where we were going, but luckily we had a map to help us get lost.

The Amy Store.

It really is a pretty section of town.

Creepy looking apartment complex.

A saxophone and a kick drum. Perhaps the most unusual two instruments paired together I have ever seen from a street performer.

You can find socks everywhere in Shanghai. Lots of street vendors sell them, and here is an entire shop devoted to the footwear. I'm not sure why you'd want your socks to be tasty, but if you did, I have found the place to go.

The Special Olympics are in town and they have erected all sorts of little statues in their honor.

This is outside a big financial center. I have no idea what it is.

A pretty park.

Amy enjoying some milk tea with her donuts.

You meet the strangest of people on the streets of Shanghai.

Random art work on a street corner. I thought it was interesting that they'd choose to have this girl on the phone so scantily clad.

Even China has "Mom and Pop" stores.

The French Concession did remind us of France in one way - it has beautiful tree lined streets

This was taken from the subway exit at the People's Square stop. Sorry the photo is slightly blurry, but you can see the mass of people all smashed into the walkway there.

A walkway over one of the major highways in the area.

I don't actually know what that building is.

Gotta love Samsung.

October Break

2007-10-05T10:32:00.000+08:00

Technically, we've been on vacation all week. It is October Holiday time in China which is when they celebrate the creation of the People's Republic of China. So there is food and fireworks and time off. We both get the week off, but since I don't really work much it doesn't make that much difference to me.

Originally we had planned to take a real break and go somewhere, but these things didn't work out. Our first plan was to go to Wuhan with Brian and Bethany and then further into Central China and see a cool mountain range. For various reasons, including Brian's family coming to town earlier than expected, we decided against making this trek.

Then we were going to take a day trip with our friend Sara. There are some cool little towns around the coast that aren't too far away and we thought we'd do that. But then Sara crapped out on us because she had taken an earlier trip and realized the traffic was terrible during holiday for a bus trip.

So here we are, sitting around the house, doing nothing.

Again.

Today though we're going to visit some cool places around the city. So that's something.

Another Long Day

2007-10-02T20:14:00.000+08:00

I had another long but good day today. I started the morning ordering some more water. I’m actually getting pretty good at that. My Chinese classes have helped me with my pronunciation and my understanding of what I’m actually saying. Bethany actually wrote down what all the words mean in my little script for water, but it is amazingly helpful in having learned them in class too.

I played some volleyball this morning. I can’t remember the last time I played, but it was a lot of fun. It was all very non-competitive so when I (and everybody screwed up it was all laughs instead of groans.)

I have learned that I am rather bad with my depth perception. For the most part I see really well, but I have a good deal of difficulty determining how far away something is. This completely comes out when I play sports. Often I’d run to hit the volleyball and find the ball landing way up on my forearm instead of my wrists like I expected, or I’d completely miss the thing.

I went home quite sore, but happy. I was sore not only from taking a few dives for the ball, but also because I wound up sleeping on the arm wrong and woke up with a good deal of pain.

Oh well, we still had fun.

After we decided to eat lunch at Taco Bell. As I believe I’ve mentioned before, Taco Bell here is much different than Taco Bell stateside. The food was quite good. I had some chicken quesadillas and Amy took in a big nacho plate.

We then dug in some ice cream from Cold Marble. It was quite funny because my ice cream server decided to do a little playful move by trying to throw the ice cream blob into the air and catch it with the waffle bowl.

He missed.

Plot, it went right to the floor. He started over with new ice cream and gave the throw a second try. This time he hit the bowl. Mostly. A little bit of it slid off and landed on his arm.

Since we were very near one of the museums we decided to go. The museum is all about urban planning and we’d heard really cool things about it. Urban planning is something that fascinates me a great deal, and with a giant city like Shanghai I was hoping to be wowed.

I mean how does someone go about deciding where commercial zones should go? Or which way a city street should curve? Or how quickly a red light should turn? Its like Sim City on an enormous scale.

Sadly, the museum was a bit of a letdown. One large chunk of it was dedicated to some future city in development. Actually I wouldn’t even say it was in development. It had the feel of all those sci-fi magazines from the 50s where they predicted we’d all be in flying cars and everybody would have videophones and jetpacks.

It was all about how we cold design cities like mountains so that the rooftops could have angles and collect solar energy and how we’ll all be living in these fully recyclable and energy conserving complexes.

It didn’t seem realistic or very interesting.

Most of the rest of it was pretty generic information about the different sections of Shanghai. The main problem for me was that most of it was written in Chinese and I really don’t have a very good concept of the city yet.

Yes I realize I’m in China and thus their museums are going to be in Chinese. I understand this concept, but as a dumb English speaking American I had trouble understanding what they were trying to tell me.

Some of it was translated, but still it was a little dull. We simply haven’t lived in Shanghai long enough for me to have much of a bearing on any part of it. It was kind of cool to see the different districts, but as I haven’t really been to them, I couldn’t put a picture with the description.

The really cool part was that they had one giant room with a model of the city in it. It was amazing to see the city laid out like that. It is really impossible to get an understanding of the enormity of the city while walking in it. Even on the small scale it took up a huge space.

I’ll post pictures of that later.

We came home exhausted and sore, but it was a fun day.

A Long (But Good) Sunday

2007-10-01T09:12:00.000+08:00

As we don't meet with the "family" until three, we decided to go to brunch with Brian and Bethany. This particular brunch is a bit fabled around here as Brian and Bethany have talked about it on numerous occasions, but we have never actually been.

I'd give you the name of the restaurant, but I really can't remember it. It contained a lot of "s"s and "z"s and was mostly un-pronounceable. The price was 99 RMB a person, which is quite a bit expensive for brunch, but since Amy just got paid we decided to try it anyways.

It was totally worth it.

It is called a brunch but it was more like equal servings of breakfast and lunch. It was all buffet style and they had three long tables full of food and then two other separate tables with read to order waffles and soups.

There were eggs done every kind of way, fresh fruit, chicken and fish and beef all prepared in all the best ways. There were salads and pastas and soups. It all looked good and it all filled my plat oh so quickly.

The drinks were instantly refillable (something of a rarity in China) and the desserts were remarkable. There was an entire table row full of desserts actually. I had four.

With the price this is not something I'll be doing every week, but it is definitely something to look forward to in an every-now-and-again sort of way.

After brunch we met with the Family. As this is the beginning of October holiday our numbers were down a bit, but still it was a good meeting.

For supper we headed to Subway for their sandwich of the day. This was a definite let-down from brunch, but it was cheap and thus acceptable.

Subway is near a big shopping center so we bought Amy a yoga mat for her birthday. Then we went into the Pines. This is an international grocery store that we have heard about, but never gone into.

Amy was in heaven.

They had all the things you can't find anywhere else. From American cereal to French cheese, to blooming Dr. Pepper it was all there and it was a bit of paradise.

Amazingly we only left the store with a few spices and things, but now that we know where it is, I'm sure we'll be back.

We finished the night off by going to Bethanys and watching several episodes of "Heroes." I bought the DVD set a few weeks ago and we periodically make a night of it with the Bates.

All in all a very busy, but wonderful day.

The Midnight Cafe

2007-09-30T13:14:00.000+08:00

I know I continue to be a slacker around here. Basically we have already slipped into monotony. Daily life is pretty boring. And unlike when we went to France, I have no desire to write about my daily boring life.

Alas, I suspect a few of you would like to hear those boring details to keep up with the Brewsters. So, I am going to make an effort to write on a more consistent basis.

For the moment though, I want to introduce my new blog. For a long time now I have been saying that I was going to buy my own webspace and have a real blog, not some little free thing from Blogger or Wordpress. Well that time is now, my friends.

Please jaunt over to the new place, The Midnight Cafe and have a look around. It isn't entirely finished. I'm still working on the overall look. My friend Kellie is creating a new banner which will replace the silly picture of all those people that you see now. I'll also surely get a better picture of me (though I kind of like my tongue stickign out pose.) There will, I am sure, be more and more edits as time passes. But the content is up and it's pretty good.

I went in an imported all my old posts so most of what you'll see has already been read, but I'll be adding new stuff all the time. It will be pop culture centric so unless you care about my opinion of movies and music and links that make me laugh, you'll probably want to stay around the Shanghai Cafe.

But if you want a silly place to hang out and talk about the pop culture, you are more than welcome to come and join.

The Shanghai Diaries: Work

2007-09-27T21:40:00.000+08:00

All apologies for being such a slacker her of late. I've got not real excuses except I'm pretty boring, and I've been working hard on something I'll tell you about later.

For now feel free to read the new Diaries. It's all about my work situation.

Locked Out, Briefly

2007-09-23T21:54:00.000+08:00

The front door to our apartment locks automatically, and so we have to be very careful to make sure we have a key with as when we go out. I have gotten into the habit of making sure I grab my key as I prepare to leave anywhere. Typically Amy also grabs her purse, which contains her wallet, which holds her keys.

Every time Amy and I go out she asks me if I have my key. Every time she asks I say "yes."

Well, almost every time.

Tonight, Amy was doing some school work, and I laid down on the couch to watch the 40 Year Old Virgin. I'm not really sure why I decided to watch this other than it happened to be on TV Links and thus free to watch. Our selection of DVDs weren't appealing to me, and with Amy unavailable I wanted to watch something I knew she'd never agree to.

Within a few minutes of watching, Amy came in from her work asking me what I was doing. Knowing this was the end of the movie, I told her we could watch something else. She had other ideas - mainly to go on a walk.

I put on my shoes and grabbed some DVDs we needed to return to Bethany. Then we walked out of the house. No "did you grab your keys?" No answer in the affirmative. This of course means I had forgotten my keys. The one time Amy forgets to ask it the one time I forget to bring them.

As we were walking, Amy did not bring her purse and thus her keys. All of this we realized at about the bottom of the stairs to our apartment. We walked to Brian and Bethanys hoping they knew of some way to get back in.

We knocked there, but they weren't home. Luckily along with the DVDs (but no keys) I had also remembered my phone (but not the keys.) Getting a little frantic now I called Bethany, but got no answer. Or rather, I got no ring. I then tried Brian and again got nothing. Mobile service can be a little spotty so I walked a bit and started to dial again. But before I could Bethany had called me.

We discussed the matter and she said that we could talk to security who would call a guy who would change our locks and charge us 50 RMB.

Then we remembered that Bethany at one time had a key to our place. Before we moved in she had obtained one so that we could look the place over before we signed the lease. We were almost certain she had returned it, but decided to have a look anyways.

Bingo, she still had it. And we're now safe at home.

I think I'll let Bethany keep the spare key in case this happens again.

Awesome Picture Of Shanghai

2007-09-20T16:19:00.000+08:00

I didn't take this picture, and I'm afraid I don't know who did, but man, that's a nice shot.

(If you do happen to be the copyright owner, and don't want me posting it, or would like credit, drop me a line or make a comment.)

Don't Drink The Water

2007-09-19T15:50:00.000+08:00

Tap water in Shanghai is undrinkable. It is chock full of...I don't know bad things. Sick things. Bacteria and what not that will make you very ill if you drink it.

Or so they say. I wouldn't know as I'm not about to try it.

They say, in fact, that it is so bad that you can get sick from even using it when you brush your teeth. I have friends who used to get stay-home-and-puke sick from using the water in this manner. (Obviously the didn't realize this was the problem at first, but when they stopped, so did the sickness.) Others say they get weird things like canker sores from using tap as teeth brushing fluid.

Basically it is good enough to wash your body, wash your clothes, and wash your dishes. Otherwise you might as well throw it out.

For drinking water we have to buy those big water bottles you find in the local office cooler. We have the little dispenser too (although ours doesn't cool, but it does heat!) Most people go to the local market where they have to pay a large deposit for the dispenser and then go back to for ordering refills.

We have some other local guy, known through whatever secret channels my sisters has. We didn't have to pay a deposit for the dispenser as the same sister seems to have had an extra one lying around. The bottles are ordered by phone and cost 14 RMB which is slightly less than two dollars.

Ordering the water has become quite an interesting task, as I don't speak Chinese and the water folks speak no English. That handy little sister of mine wrote out a little phonetic chart for me to order the water. She even wrote the translation of it underneath so I'd have a clue as to what I was saying.

In the end, as per usual, I still don't have a clue.

The setup usually goes something like this. I call a number, someone answers. I quickly run through the little schpeel Bethany wrote for me and then pause. The person on the other end says something I can't understand, and I repeat the last two lines of my Chinese (the first part was basically "I want water" and as they are the water people, I figure they already know this part.)

I listen very carefully to what the Chinese then say because often they are repeating back to me what I just said (which is the part about where I live.) I then repeat some more and add "ok?"

When I am lucky they say "ok" back and we're all set. When I'm not so lucky they say something else I don't understand and I resort to reading the whole thing again. Sometimes several times very slowly.

I am quite sure I totally butcher the pronunciation and tones of the Chinese, but usually they do get what I'm saying and we end with both of us using agreeable "oks." Sometimes I'm still not sure they get it but I don't know what else to do so I hang up and sit around hoping they show up at our door.

So far they always have.

Some Fine Dining

2007-09-17T16:12:00.001+08:00

Since we have arrived in Shanghai Brian and Bethany have been inviting us to Sunday brunch. As we don’t meet together as a “family” until late Sunday afternoon it gives us all sorts of time to have lazy Sunday mornings.

Yesterday we finally took them up on it. The Canfields came along and we all shuttled in two cabs to the Café Du Monde. This is a very pleasant, little restaurant we often go to on Tuesdays as they offer half off to teachers then. My sister has some kind of card that gets her half off on any day during September and so we were happy to enjoy some really cheap food.

As it was a pleasant morning we sat out on the terrace. The café was reasonably full, but not so much so that we didn’t give a second thought to it being slow or needing to go somewhere else.

We ordered our food – I chose the pancake meal with two cakes, hash browns, eggs and toast. Everybody else chose an assortment of lovely sounding breakfasts. Then we waited.

And waited some more.

We got our beverages, mine being a nice glass of tea. Interestingly when you order a regular tea in many restaurants here you can also get it with a little jar of liquid sugar. Instead of having little packets of dry sugar that doesn’t dissolve, they have it in liquid form which manages to mix into the tea making it quite sweet.

Then we waited some more. Then we watched our waiter climb onto a motobike and drive away – he had a delivery it seems. I jokingly laughed that we’d have to wait for him to come back before we got our food.

I would have cried had I known how true that statement was going to be.

20, 30, 40 minutes rolled on by and still we had no food. While most restaurants in China way overstaff themselves, this one seemed to be short handed. There were two waiters on duty and one of them was still out on his delivery. It still wasn’t really that busy, so I expect the cooking staff was underdeveloped as well.

Finally the waffles began arriving. Too bad I didn’t order one of those! Our waiter then came back and still I had no food. Slowly the rest of the dishes came, and somewhere around an hour after I had ordered my dish arrived (the very last dish of our group, thank you very much.)

It really was quite good though. The pancakes were buttery and fluffy and delicious. The eggs done just right and the bacon and hash browns were all yummy.

Despite our irritation over waiting it was good food and really good company. The bill came and the manger gave us sixty percent off for our trouble. My total was like 80 RMB which comes to just barely over ten bucks.

Not bad for a huge meal for both me and Amy.

--

After services we went with some friends to a Sichuan place. That’s a type of Chinese food that is really spicy. As usual when we eat Chinese we ordered around ten different plates and then shared it all communally. It really is a nice way to eat a meal, and this time it reminded me of being at my mother-in-laws for Sunday dinner. The food was totally different, but there was lots of it like Sharyn always makes and we each just dug out of the bowls until it was all finished.

Each plate comes out separately and we ordered a lot – spicy pork with peppers, French fries done Chinese style, honey glazed chicken, broccoli, rice and several other big dishes. It was delicious and filling.

The restaurant was full and thus it was very loud. We had to resort to shouting at each other at first, but as the food came out we settled on filling our mouths and bellies. I ate until I was full and then there were two more dishes yet to come!

As we all ate everything we simply split the bill evenly. Our total: 20 RMB. That’s about 2.50 American! You can’t eat at McDonalds for that in the States, and that more than filled both Amy and I up with much better food.

Changing Jobs

2007-09-14T20:32:00.000+08:00

I quit the crazy tutor lady. I though awhile about keeping her on as the job was easy (if annoying) and the money was good. In the end I realized that at a minimum she would be keeping me late most nights which means no Chinese class (did I mention I'm taking a Chinese class?) and less time to spend with Amy and eating alone most nights.

Also knowing her and her schedule it would mean working most weekends. So I decided it wasn't worth it.

I am now teaching two boys in the morning. They are British brothers, aged 11 and 12 respectively. They've been in Shanghai for a few years, and are very much into sports, specifically football (soccer.) Apparently they are good and had the opportunity to be a part of a specialized group. The only problem was that this group meets every afternoon which puts a strain on school. So their mom has hired private teachers to get their education in, in the morning.

I teach English, History and Geography. The kids are well behaved and so far it is going well. I am constantly amazed at how difficult teaching is though. I can handle the english lessons quite well as we're covering basic grammar right now. But history is proving difficult as it is British history and I am not so well versed in it.

Each night I have to study up just to keep a little bit ahead of the class. But it is fun and I'm learning and enjoying it.

I've just been hired on as a substitute for the school Amy works at. I don't know how much work I'll actually get since my morning teaching will keep me from substituting full days. But I think I can catch the jobs where the teachers have to leave for a half day in the afternoon.

I also had an opportunity to work at Microsoft as an editor. I'd love to get work as an editor and of course Microsoft is a huge company, but I decided to decline. Basically the job was way on the other side of town which would mean at least an hours commute one way which would basically kill my experience here. And ultimately the pay was terrible. I would have made more staying with my first tutor, worked half as many hours and actually been able to see my wife.

I'm a little torn, because I'd like to work and make some extra cash so we could pay off our bills and save some good money, but at the same time I don't want a job that keeps me away from home a lot of hours and makes me not really enjoy China. You can call me lazy, I'll take the name.

The Shanghai Diaries - Special Bootleg Edition

2007-09-12T12:35:00.000+08:00

The new Shanghai Diaries is up, and it's all about buying cheap bootlegs and such like.

Our Home (Is Starting To Look Like A Home)

2007-09-10T07:48:00.000+08:00

Over the weekend we did a little shopping. Last weekend we had gone to IKEA and bought a little dresser type deal that we figured would work well for sitting an oven on. This weekend we bought the oven. As you can see, Chinese ovens are very small.

None of the apartments in the LQ are fitted with ovens, and so everybody has to buy these little bitty jobs. They sell them everywhere, and in fact it is relatively rare to see shops selling the big ones, though I do believe they are available.

I don't really know why this is, but if I had to guess I'd say what we'd call a traditional oven is a relatively new concept in China. When we eat Chinese it is fried or boiled food, and not baked. So my guess is that traditionally the Chinese don't bake things, and so ovens are probably typically bought by foreigners. And since the apartments are probably not fitted for real ovens, the small ones have to do.

I could be completely wrong though. Maybe they just like small ovens.

Whatever the case, we have a small one. It does cook to high temperature and will fit enough food for us to enjoy.

We also got a coffee table. This one was given to us for free. Some new found friends we meet on Sundays had this table and decided they no longer wanted it. I suspect it was due to having a new baby girl in the house and not wanting her to hurt herself on the sharp corners.

It is amazing what a little extra furniture does to a place. Before we felt a little like refugees with such a bare living room, but now we have a little table to put our feet on (and all sorts of other junk) and a little oven.

It is starting to feel like a real home.

Why I Love China

2007-09-07T22:16:00.000+08:00

I know that I complain a lot about China and the culture and everything gone wrong. But sometimes there are things that I absolutely love. This is one of them.

My friend Sara invited me and Amy to dinner tonight. We ate at a Muslim noodle place. It is located not far from the school, but just far enough to get a glimpse at real China. The street is lined with shops - food, grocery, beauty parlors and all sorts of things. There are guys on the street selling a variety of cooked meats and breads. And there are just people everywhere.

Buying. Selling. Loitering. And a little boy with crotchless pants. He's maybe 2 and his pants literally have no crotch or bottom. This looks weird and hilarious, but it is common here as the kids don't do diapers, they just let loose in the bushes, or the grass. Easy clean up I guess.

There is something in the air - something dirty probably, but something exciting and strange and utterly fascinating. We're still a little close to the homogenized, Americanized place that we call home, but for a short walk it will do. (And don't get me wrong, if we didn't have the homogenized place to live things would be much worse, but every now and again I like to see a glimpse into what China is really like.)

We go into the noodle place which doesn't have a real menu, only big pictures on the wall - all in Chinese with prices next to them. We have absolutely no idea of what anything is. It is all noodles with vegetables and/or an unknown meat.

None of us speak the language so we point at the pictures. Since the pictures are on the walls and up high, Amy and Sara try to point from a distance to their pictures. This works in an approximate way, so they have to use more sign language to get the waitress to understand they want the picture on the top and not the one under it. I walk to the wall and sort of leap up to my picture.

All of this makes the locals look in and gawk, and laugh at the crazy foreigners.

Sarah gets a nice mess of noodles and vegetables. Amy has noodles and beef and chicken, but the chicken is bony and thus kind of gross. I get noodles and potatoes and beef.

It is really, really good. Darn good. Some of the best Chinese food I've had here.

The total for me and Amy is 16 RMB which is just over two dollars! And we have enough to take home.

On the way back home Sara stops at a guy on the street selling DVDs. You see these guys all the time selling bootleg DVDs or books or music. They get all the latest stuff, sometimes even before they do in America. For instance, they had the double disk, expanded edition of Death Proof (Quentin Tarantinos bit in the double feature Grindhouse.) That sucker doesn't even come out for another two weeks!

The problem with the street vendors is that they come and go so quickly the quality often lacks. And lawd knows when you are buying illegal, bootleg DVDs you want good quality. I happen to know a guy who owns a real shop (as in really in a building with walls) who happens to be just behind the Living Quarters. So we go and enjoy.

It isn't a big shop, but it is much nicer than the little buggy guy on the street. He's got lots of cool movies and he speaks English as well which is great. Typically he has good quality stuff and he'll let you know how good the DVD is if you ask.

And I like buying my bootlegs from a local guy who I can get to know.

DVDs start at 7 RMB and go up to 10 RMB for the higher quality stuff. That's a dollar and a dollar and a quarter for those keeping track. They also have all kinds of cools sets - like the collected works of Woody Allen or every Best Movie Oscar winner since the beginning of time and TV. Lots of TV.

Some of the TV is bootlegs of the official seasonal DVDs. Sometimes they are fresh off the DVR, booted right off the TV. Like my sister got a copy of the first season of 30 Rock way before they were selling the official version, complete with the little station identification symbol at the bottom and mini ads for some upcoming show. All because it was taped right off the TV during the original run.

Yeah, that's not perfect, but the price is right. They also are big on complete series and such like. So I bought the complete Sopranos (excepting the last season since it just ended) and they're selling boxes sets of X-Files and West Wing and the Simpsons up until now. Etc.

It's all cheap. X-Files goes for about 500-odd RMB which tuns into about 70 or so US dollars. 500 is a bit number no matter how you slice it, but considering you can hardly buy one season of that show in the States for 70 bucks, getting every season is a pretty good deal.

So yes, so far I like China because I can get good, cheap food, I can see babies without crotches in their pants, and I can buy boogleg DVDs on the cheap.

It aint France, but it has its charm.

The Teaching Situation

2007-09-05T12:50:00.000+08:00

Here's a shocker: I'm thinking about staying with my crazy tutor lady. The thing is, while she is sort of stuck in her ways and the classes are as irritating as they are boring, they are not difficult. I go, I read, She repeats. Time passes slowly. But the money is good and I could use the money.

She's actually in Switzerland for the next 10 days, so I'm going to think about staying. I'll probably cancel anyways, but I am considering it.

Today I had my first class with two other students. There is a family from the UK here with two boys who they want to home school. The mom is friends with a friend of mine here and so I got the hook-up.

I got word last night that she wanted to meet this morning. I went in to culture shock hypothermia. I had already been feeling a little blue and the overload of Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch and Ryan Adams on the iPod didn't help. Plus we've been trying to sell our car back in the states and suddenly, in the middle of making plans with my students, I had to figure things about with the car.

Mom found a buyer and so we had to start coordinating between two banks and two continents etc. So I had a big freak-out in the I Hate China mode.

The family live really close to here, just down the street actually, so that will make it great. I actually got lost on my way. The directions I had were a little vague and I first went to the wrong building, then I called her and we both got turned around so I walked way out of the way. But then I found it.

She is really nice and well prepared, so I won't have to do a whole lot of preparation for each class. The boys are friendly and a little rambunctious but they are at a rambunctious age. I think it will work out nicely. And it is just morning hours, so I'll have the rest of the day to enjoy.

I'll be teaching English and Geography and History. I've already learned I'm going to have to go over cursive writing again, as I haven't written in it since like the 9th grade. I'm also going to have to brush up on my British history as they really don't want to learn about American history.

How did I become a teacher again?

The Tutor Situation

2007-08-31T15:19:00.000+08:00

I have complained about the lady I tutored in small ways, and now it is time for a long vent.

Before I even arrived in China I had this job. Brian was tutoring her over the summer with the intent of handing her over to me when I arrived. It all sounded good on paper - she is a wealthy Chinese business woman who plans to move to Singapore early next year so that she can then gallivant about the world. For this she wants to learn English and is willing to pay well for a regular tutor.

The reality is slightly different.

First a few physical annoyances. It gets hot in Shanghai. Mid to upper 90s hot. Dang hot. Sit and drip sweat off your nose hot. But unlike France, China has air conditioners. I've written about them, you've seen them. They work well. They are wonderful.

This lady even has central air, so potentially it could really cool the entire apartment. This is theory because she rarely turns the sucker on. The first day of tutoring I went with Brian and it was probably 90 degrees outside. It was maybe 85 inside. Luckily she lives on the fifteenth floor so I think the upper atmosphere cooled us down a bit.

It isn't like she's some sort of ice queen who doesn't get hot. That very day I watched her sweat. I saw her take a tissue and wipe her forehead many times. I see her husband walking around in nothing but his shorts because he is so hot.

Yet still, no air conditioner. I thought I was going to die. I sweated and sweated. We all sweated.

A couple of times I have showed up and been visibly overheated. The first time I went by myself the tax dropped me off a couple of blocks down and the walk made me perspire like a drunk loon. These times she has pitied me and we have studied in a small office and she has turned on the Air. Not very low mind you, so it went from the upper 80s to the lower 80s which does make a difference.

Our tutoring sessions last four hours at a time, and though she promised a break every hour, we never take any. Usually about two hours into it she will get up and wash her face or go to the bathroom and then we are back at it. I usually don't have enough time during that bit to even stand up.

Again, it isn't like she isn't tired during the sessions, for she visibly sags and has difficulty concentrating and even mentions that she is tired, but we don't stop. We don't break.

That's the physical annoyance, but the real pain comes from who she is and what she wants.

As mentioned initially the plan was to get her ready for travel. When I took over the sessions, I created a three tiered plan to get her ready:

1. Grammar and vocabulary from the book - She has a couple of books that she has been studying, and they are good for learning new vocabulary and helping with sentence structure and basic grammar.
2. Conversation - each class we would dedicate time to discuss popular culture or news events to help with her ability to both listen and talk. I also planned some role playing where she could get some practice with the types of things she would encounter while traveling; such as riding a taxi or shopping.
3. Listening - I planned to record various audio from places like NPR and the BBC so she could get used to listening for understanding and hearing other voices but my own.

That's a good plan right? It covers the basics and should have helped her learn.

She would have none of it. Immediately she changes her goals. Goal #1 is no longer being able to speak English when she travels, in fact she doesn't seem to be planning to travel at all. The premier goal is now for her to be able to watch English television and understand. She seemed to say that she is paying for satellite TV and this contains English language programs and if she can't understand them then it is a waste of her money.

Goal #s 2 and 3 were to listen to English language radio and read English newspapers.

No kidding. TV, radio and newspapers, these are her goals.

Here's the catch - she is unwilling to watch TV or listen to the radio to help her. I suggested these things and to talk to her husband in English and she nodded her head "no."

What we do each day is read and repeat. Each lesson from the book contains a story. I read this story one sentence at a time and she repeats it behind me. Often we read a sentence two or three times until she can repeat it verbatim, from memory. Once done I ask her some standard questions about the reading.

They say the Chinese tend to learn by rote memorization. Education isn't about problem solving or understanding a subject, but simply memorizing facts and figures. They say that and this lady is the epitome of it. She almost always gets the questions right because she is able to memorize almost all of the story.

She will repeat, exactly what the page said. At first I was impressed then I realized that so many times she has no idea what she is saying. A couple of days ago the lesson was on the judicial system. We talked about judges and juries and all of that stuff. We must have discussed the word "guilty" a dozen times. She repeated it. She used the word to answer the right questions.

Then later I asked her a question in which she actually had to understand what "guilty" actually meant. She had no idea. I wanted to scream that she had used the word to answer questions, that I had used it many times and she said she understood, but she really didn't.

Now I know some of this is a basic problem in any language learning. Sometimes you forget a word, sometimes your brain gets tired. Sometimes you pretend to understand because you are embarrassed when you don't. But I swear to you all this woman does is memorize without understanding.

I really think that she thinks that if she can just memorize every word in the English language she will automatically understand what everyone says. I actually kind of understand this thought because as I studied French I would often try to understand every word instead of trying to understand the main points.

This isn't the best way to learn though. I don't know every word in the language, and I've been speaking it for 30 years. I've tried to explain this. I've tried to tell her we need listening exercises but she just won't have it. Actually I think she lies to me because she says she does listen to things - like the audio version of our daily stories - but then we go over the material she doesn't act like she's ever heard it before.

Because she is a business woman (what she actually does is beyond me, but she's constantly getting calls) her schedule is weird. Normally we meet at a set time, but sometimes she changes it up, or as was the case on Wednesday where (as the elevator door was closing between us on my way home mind you) she mentions that she is unavailable on Thursday. Thus the tutoring schedule is and will be weird. If you know me I am very much anti-weird schedules. I like to know what I am doing from day to day.

Lastly working out a pay schedule was murder. She wanted to pay me a low monthly salary (and I know it was low because she was paying Brian more money for less hours) with a large bonus at the end, if she could meet her goals.

Again, her goals were to be able to watch TV and understand. Um, first you'll never reach that goal with read and repeat, and secondly that goal is too vague. I could work my butt off only to find that you don't think you understand enough and screw me out of a bonus.

I said I didn't want a big bonus, I wanted a larger salary. She balked. She argued. She swore that wasn't the Chinese way. I said I don't care, that's what I want. She scoffed. She argued. She promised a bigger bonus. I said I could find another job.

Honestly, I was hoping she'd tell me to take a hike.

She begrudgingly gave in.

The funny thing is, after all that I'm probably quitting. She goes on a ten day vacation next week and I am doing everything in my power to have something else going when she comes back.

On Family Dinners And Residential Permits

2007-08-31T15:06:00.000+08:00

I think I have only mentioned it in passing, but my sister's husband's sister and husband (and two children) are also here living in Shanghai. They are the Canfields (Amy, Buster, Caleb and Emmy) and they are good people. They have almost immediately taken us in as family, even though blood and pretty much any legal system would differ.

Last night they had us over for dinner. It was quite lovely and an especially nice thing after a week full of culture shock, and annoyances.

They very recently adopted a wonderful little Chinese girl named Emma. She is sweet and beautiful and carried an amazingly voluminous banshee squeak, which I think she found last night for the first time. We were all gathered around after the meal and Emma started to laugh, which made us all laugh, then came this loud, high-pitched wail that surprised us all. It was like no other sound on earth. Of course we all laughed some more which only solidified into her mind that this sound was a good thing.

Sorry Canfields, I think you'll be hearing that sound again.

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Today we had to go get our residential permits. It was actually quite painless. The company does a really great job of handling most of the red tape for us and then bussing us all together for the times we have to sign something or get our picture taken.

I keep thinking about our time in France and how we had to figure everything out ourselves and how painful that all was.