Reverse Racism?

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.

A Strange Shopping Experience

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.

Our Home (Is Starting To Look Like A Home)

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

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.

Food

Lots of folks have asked about the food situation around here so I thought I would add some larger thoughts. Basically my food consumption here falls into three categories:

Americanized: Obviously Shanghai is a big, international city. There are lots of Americans, Canadians, Europeans and other Western folks living and visiting here. We like westernized food and Shanghai has plenty of restaurants to suit out needs.

Many chains exist in Shanghai. I have seen McDonalds, Taco Bell, Burger King, Subway, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, KFC and Starbucks. There are also a number of American-like non-chains. Every Tuesday we go to a little hamburger diner that gives teachers half off deals. Just down the road is a little sandwich shop that has very American like food.

Chinese: Of course there are tons of little Chinese places to eat too. I'd like to compare them to American Chinese restaurants, but as I rarely ate in those I can only say they seem very similar. One major thing different from normal American restaurants is that they don't really do combos or an all encompassing meals. You order each food product separately and it comes in a big plate or bowl.

So if you order the sweet and sour pork, you get a big plate full of nothing but sweet and sour pork. Same with noodles and vegetables. All of this makes it better to each with lots of people so that you order a whole bunch of plates and then communally eat it. That's the other thing, these restaurants are set up so that everybody shares out of a communal plate. They don't really provide smaller plates for you to put your sample of food either, you just have to take it out of the communal bowl and eat.

Most of the places are pretty cheap, though it does add up when you start ordering lots of plates. This again makes it better to have more people as you divide the bill evenly. Strangely most of these places don't offer drinks other than some sort of flavored hot water. If you want a Coke, you buy a can from the local market.

Noodles: We've only gone to Muslim noodle joints, though presumably there are non-Muslim ones. Noodle joints are like Chinese fast food. They are fast and cheap and not particularly healthy. Basically you order noodles or rice that are mixed with various meats and vegetables.

Once again it is best to go with a group and order lots of bowls. We've eaten full meals there for less than 30 Yuan, which amounts to about three American dollars.

I suspect there are other options as well, but that's basically what I have eaten so far.

Grocery stores: Within walking distance we have two small markets. They are set up like the small markets you might find in an American city. They are a little pricey and don't have a lot of things, but they are convenient. Unfortunately some of the convenience is lost on me as most of it is geared towards local Chinese and not crazy Americans. You can't find basic things like bread or sandwich meat. There are lots of strange packages of noodles and things but as I don't read Chinese I am never really sure what is in them.

The bigger grocery store is Carefour and it is a taxi ride away. I'll get into taxis later, but lets just say if you want to go anywhere you've got to ride a cab. Carefour is like a super Wal-mart with groceries and various house hold goods. It is also super busy all the time. Imagine Wal-mart at its busiest, then multiply by about ten.

I don't know what it is about the culture, but people walk and drive and ride bikes in the most sporadic way. Basically you go wherever you want, whenever you want traveling the speed that you want, or if you prefer stopping at the strangest of places. It is just the way it is. So in the store people are everywhere doing whatever they want. Driving a cart you have to weave and wove and turn on a dime, stopping quickly then backtracking and moving around. It is nuts!

Carefour has good American like products, but also lots of weird stuff too. At their little broiler station they had a couple of plucked chickens hanging - head, feet, wings and all. There was also something that resembled a headless Dachshund, but for now I am pretending it was a fox or some other small animal.

In the cold section it isn't unusual to see duck heads and chicken feet. What meat there is to eat on those, I don't know, but there they are.

The sea food is where it gets really weird. They have big aquariums full of all sorts of live things. From fish to eels to bull frogs and turtles they all just sit there, ready to be picked up and eaten. You know I'm not really that squeemish, and I realize people eat these sorts of things and I've even had fried turtle, but it is very strange to see them still alive sitting there looking at you.

I've yet to eat from a street vendor though they are all over the place. Usually they serve meat on a stick, and as that doesn't' seem all that sanitary I'm waiting on somebody to point me to one that they know to be ok, before I dive in.

A Long Excursion

Since we did not buy anything at the furniture place yesterday, several of us decided to go to Ikea today. Ikea is in Shanghai proper as opposed to the more suburban area we live in so there was much traveling to do in order to get there.

We took a van-taxi to the metro station. We decided to purchase the metro pass instead of the single ticket and to do so we needed to speak to a person. Luckily we had friends to help out.

Along with us for this trip were a Canadian married couple – Terry and Buffy who will be teaching kindergarten and are now in their second year in China. Also on board was Sarah who is a first year China spender, but has spent a year in Vietnam and another in South Korea. Terry and Buffy have learned a little Chinese and it was Buffy who ordered our passes.

We took one metro to another one which took us near Ikea. The metro system is pretty neat, and all the cars are very clean. Unfortunately, their stops are not as neatly labeled as I would like and it is slightly difficult to know where you are and where you are going.

But we made it and jumped inside Ikea. Holy Cow! That’s a big store! It is laid out like a giant snake - you start out in one room, with some house hold furniture and this connects to another room with more stuff which connects to another room with more stuff and so on. Unlike most stores – say Wal-mart – where everything is in a super large room and you are free to go where you like, Ikea was designed so that you had to walk through every single room (thus potentially seeing more items and potentially buying them) before reaching the check-out.

And there were no check-out counters anywhere but the end. The place was packed as well. People every which way wondering to and fro constantly swarming about. It was exhausting.

Amy and I found one little chest-of-drawers that we liked – they were on sale “as is.” There was a little label on them and the part in English said we could pick it up in a certain area and it gave us an aisle and station number. We then wandered pretty quickly through the rest of the store, stopping briefly to buy pillows before running into the section where we thought we could buy the dresser.

In my head I expected to find a counter where upon we would produce our paper and somebody would run up to the dresser and bring it down. Instead we were in a warehouse type room with tons of ready-made furniture all fitted in their boxes for us to take home. The numbers we had led us to the same dresser, but the brand new ones not on sale.

We talked to sales ladies, but with our no Chinese and their broken English we couldn’t quite understand each other. Eventually they got the ‘as is’ part of our speech and sent us down a little ways. Turns out the store has a section dedicated to damaged goods and we found a similar dresser for even less money. It isn’t fancy or pretty but it will work.

With some confusion and haggling we paid for it and managed to get set up for it to be shipped to ourselves.