Well this is a little weird.
It’s the holidays, but I’m not home. As in, home-home. Permanent address-home.
It’s also that “holiday/vacation/school break” where you know that everyone gets off. Consecutive days off, at the same time. No exams, papers to worry about. The first time since summer. It’s also the first time, where for many of us, it’s the first big break we’ve had since starting the post-college life. A milestone of sorts. It’s prime time for everyone to meet up, reunionize again, catch up and reminisce, share new stories of the love, the hurt, the funny, the sad and the awkward. Remember that first winter break since starting college? Winter 2004. But this time, 4 years older. It’s the most wonderful time ... of the year.
And I don’t get to experience it this year. At least not in the way I used to. New times, new changes.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Dear 304 ...
Dear 304 ...
This song came on the radio when I was in the car yesterday. It took me back 6 months. In my opinion, the goodbyes were rushed because everyone had to leave immediately for one reason or another. We knew things were going to be different now, but in a way, we went through the motions as if tomorrow would be the same as today, nothing would have changed, circumstances and schedules would have remained the same.
On that last day, my college best friends and I packed up the apartment and our personal belongings. 4 years of our lives suddenly seemed so tiny and plain as everything fit into boxes and cars. However, we knew the true story inside those boxes.
One last look around.
One final hug.
“I can’t believe this is it.”
“It’s been great. It’s been fun.”
“I’m going to miss you.”
“Me too.”
“I gotta go. They’re waiting for me.”
“Yeah, me too. Have a safe trip.”
bye.
bye.
A few hours later, when everyone was back at their permanent addresses, this song was linked through instant messages. We still had remnants of 304 on us. I’ll be honest, I teared up as the emotions and memories from the last 4 years hit me as a giant slap in the face. A good slap. But still a slap nevertheless, as a reminder that it all came and went by too fast.
Tina, I’m sorry you were not available at that time for that final 304 moment. But here it is again - this time shared across state lines and time zones.
The emotions, memories and sentiments remain true. This may mean that proper goodbyes were never needed because we will never really say goodbye to each other. Let’s pick up from where we left off...
Hello.
p.s. For those who don't know Chinese, learn some Chinese and translate the lyrics (or google translated lyrics). Despite the corny and tacky late-90s graphics, it's a nice song.
Friends by Emil Chau
朋友 by 周華健
Monday, December 15, 2008
Egg & Tomatoes
Today I had the best egg & tomatoes dish that I’ve had in China ... maybe in my entire life. This is one of my default dishes that I get sometimes when I’m not really craving anything, but I need food. Or if I’m not sure what to order at a take-out place or a Muslim restaurant. I like this dish because it’s simple and it’s familiar; I know all the ingredients that goes into it.
The one I had today was a good mixture of solid and mushiness. It was not too salty and it was not too sour. In fact, it tasted a bit like spaghetti sauce. Delicious Western-style spaghetti sauce. Mmm...
I had it at ZFH during dinner. Yes, a Chinese school dinner out of the customary metal tray.
The one I had today was a good mixture of solid and mushiness. It was not too salty and it was not too sour. In fact, it tasted a bit like spaghetti sauce. Delicious Western-style spaghetti sauce. Mmm...
I had it at ZFH during dinner. Yes, a Chinese school dinner out of the customary metal tray.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Joey's Play
Last night, a couple Shane teachers and I went to watch one of our own, Joey, perform in a local play for charity. This is what City Weekend has to say about it:
“Beautiful Thing by Jonathan Harvey is an urban fairytale that reminds us that the things we want in life are possible. This multi-award winning play is the unlikely coming of age story of two teenagers living in a London housing estate who fall in love against all odds. Sensitive Jamie (Joakim/Joey Eriksson) would rather watch rainbows and musicals than be at school. His athletic neighbor, Ste (Derek Kwan), throws himself into sport to avoid the troubles that wait at home. Jamie's feisty mother Sandra (Christy Shapiro) juggles her job as a barmaid and her younger lover and working-class wannabe, Tony (JP Lopez). Their sassy neighbour Leah (Sophie Lloyd) has been kicked out of every school in the area and lives vicariously through her idol, Mama Cass of Mamas and the Papas fame, whose music forms the soundtrack to the play.
Adapted from the award-winning movie written by Jonathan Harvey, this play is an urban fairytale, reminding us that the things we want in life are possible. Set in a council estate in Southeast London, Beautiful Thing centers on five endearing characters who are trying to confront themselves and find true love. All proceeds from the event go toward the Chi Heng Foundation, a charity committed to educating people about HIV/AIDS and supporting those infected.”
Lisa and I met up for dinner at Metro City and then grabbed a cab. It was performed at the Zhijiang Dream Factory (芷江梦工厂）and was basically a Shanghai expat-y event where all the foreigners come out with the occasional Chinese girlfriend. The play was good and funny and the actors kept us entertained. Even though it was the story of two gay boys, the play was not overtly gay ... it was basically a love story that happened to have gay boys at its center. Joey was pretty funny and we commented that his personality was shown throughout the play because we totally saw him speaking and acting in that manner in real life.
When Jamie tells his mom he’s gay and she talks about the times when Ste stayed over at their home because of his abusive father:
Sandra Gangle (mom): And all this time I felt sorry for you for having to share a bed with Ste. But it could just be 70 minus 1.
When Jamie’s mom has her boyfriend go in to talk to Jamie:
Jamie: I’m queer!
Tony (boyfriend of mom): Wow, so does your mom know?
Jamie: *sarcastically* No, I thought I would tell you first.
“Beautiful Thing by Jonathan Harvey is an urban fairytale that reminds us that the things we want in life are possible. This multi-award winning play is the unlikely coming of age story of two teenagers living in a London housing estate who fall in love against all odds. Sensitive Jamie (Joakim/Joey Eriksson) would rather watch rainbows and musicals than be at school. His athletic neighbor, Ste (Derek Kwan), throws himself into sport to avoid the troubles that wait at home. Jamie's feisty mother Sandra (Christy Shapiro) juggles her job as a barmaid and her younger lover and working-class wannabe, Tony (JP Lopez). Their sassy neighbour Leah (Sophie Lloyd) has been kicked out of every school in the area and lives vicariously through her idol, Mama Cass of Mamas and the Papas fame, whose music forms the soundtrack to the play.
Adapted from the award-winning movie written by Jonathan Harvey, this play is an urban fairytale, reminding us that the things we want in life are possible. Set in a council estate in Southeast London, Beautiful Thing centers on five endearing characters who are trying to confront themselves and find true love. All proceeds from the event go toward the Chi Heng Foundation, a charity committed to educating people about HIV/AIDS and supporting those infected.”
Lisa and I met up for dinner at Metro City and then grabbed a cab. It was performed at the Zhijiang Dream Factory (芷江梦工厂）and was basically a Shanghai expat-y event where all the foreigners come out with the occasional Chinese girlfriend. The play was good and funny and the actors kept us entertained. Even though it was the story of two gay boys, the play was not overtly gay ... it was basically a love story that happened to have gay boys at its center. Joey was pretty funny and we commented that his personality was shown throughout the play because we totally saw him speaking and acting in that manner in real life.
When Jamie tells his mom he’s gay and she talks about the times when Ste stayed over at their home because of his abusive father:
Sandra Gangle (mom): And all this time I felt sorry for you for having to share a bed with Ste. But it could just be 70 minus 1.
When Jamie’s mom has her boyfriend go in to talk to Jamie:
Jamie: I’m queer!
Tony (boyfriend of mom): Wow, so does your mom know?
Jamie: *sarcastically* No, I thought I would tell you first.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
謝謝giving from China
For Thanksgiving, Dr. Kim had an early Thanksgiving dinner at his home and a few MAIS students gathered. Nice to see people and eat some good food. Traditional Thanksgiving food, too.
So much to be thankful for this year. Being so far away from everything familiar, as corny as it is going to sound, has given me a lot to be thankful for. I have my family, I have my friends. I have a roof over my head, I have clothes to wear, I have food to eat. I have this wonderful experience where I’m seeing new sights, meeting new people, learning new things and well ... growing up.
I have the memories and experiences of my past for me to learn from and to smile about. I have a future that I am uncertain about because who knows what will happen, but excited about the possibilities nonetheless. I hope that even when I’m old I will still remember to be thankful for what I have: the past to recall and the future to have.
So much to be thankful for this year. Being so far away from everything familiar, as corny as it is going to sound, has given me a lot to be thankful for. I have my family, I have my friends. I have a roof over my head, I have clothes to wear, I have food to eat. I have this wonderful experience where I’m seeing new sights, meeting new people, learning new things and well ... growing up.
I have the memories and experiences of my past for me to learn from and to smile about. I have a future that I am uncertain about because who knows what will happen, but excited about the possibilities nonetheless. I hope that even when I’m old I will still remember to be thankful for what I have: the past to recall and the future to have.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Chinese Shopping Experience
Qipu Rd. ... sounds like Cheapu Rd.??
I just realized that this weekend off was mostly spent scouring the Chinese shopping area of Qipu Rd. This place is pretty cool and it is the type of place you hear about. The knockoff market, the cheap clothing. It’s all true. However, China has 1.3 billion people and I think I rubbed elbows with half of them this weekend. It is super crowded there.
I went with Lisa on Saturday and with Sina and Darleen on Sunday. The key, it turns out, is to have a game plan. You cannot go there with the idea that you’ll just be “shopping.” You need to know what you want to/need to buy. Otherwise you’ll become so overwhelmed with the place that you might just end up buying nothing. Many of the things are basically the same things over and over, so once you see something you like, start bargaining for the price you want. If you don’t get the price you want, you can try another place. But know what you already want. By the third vendor, you’ll get an idea of what the market price is. Or what the market price is for you. Just deal with it. There is a break even price after all and you have to remember that these shop owners/workers still need to eat. So you try for the best and aim for the native Chinese price. Not the foreigner price.Do not be like me, “This is okay, but I might see something I like later.” Once you do that, you will just keep saying it over and over.
Another rule, don’t really bargain hard unless you actually plan on buying it. This is different from just asking them to quote you a price and doing a mini-bargain. A mini-bargain can kind of help you gauge where the shop owner stands. But once you start doing the full dance with the shop owner over the price, and the owner goes down to the lowest price they can do, you better be serious in buying it. Otherwise, it might result in the shop owner getting pissed at you and telling the other shop owners nearby to not sell you anything because you are just there to “play around” with them. Which is kind of what happened to me, Sina and Darleen at one store.
At Qipu Rd.?
Wallet 35RMB
Boots 40RMB (were super on sale, btw)
Jacket 90RMB
Blanket throw 20RMB
Total 185RMB = ~$28
I also bought another pair of boots and a pair of semi-dress shoes, but not at Qipu Rd. This was at a shoe store that’s here in the Xuhui District near the Shanghai Stadium, right where the bus dropped us off. The prices were not bad either because they were about the same price as Qipu Rd. if we were to really bargain them down. But of course the better quality stuff was more expensive, as expected. But some stuff was okay.
Boots 85RMB
semi-dress shoes 58RMB
Total 143RMB = ~$21
Grand total of my first super local Chinese shopping experience? 328RMB = ~$48. Not too bad in US dollars. Or I can buy 328 baozi (buns, of the eating variety).
I just realized that this weekend off was mostly spent scouring the Chinese shopping area of Qipu Rd. This place is pretty cool and it is the type of place you hear about. The knockoff market, the cheap clothing. It’s all true. However, China has 1.3 billion people and I think I rubbed elbows with half of them this weekend. It is super crowded there.
I went with Lisa on Saturday and with Sina and Darleen on Sunday. The key, it turns out, is to have a game plan. You cannot go there with the idea that you’ll just be “shopping.” You need to know what you want to/need to buy. Otherwise you’ll become so overwhelmed with the place that you might just end up buying nothing. Many of the things are basically the same things over and over, so once you see something you like, start bargaining for the price you want. If you don’t get the price you want, you can try another place. But know what you already want. By the third vendor, you’ll get an idea of what the market price is. Or what the market price is for you. Just deal with it. There is a break even price after all and you have to remember that these shop owners/workers still need to eat. So you try for the best and aim for the native Chinese price. Not the foreigner price.Do not be like me, “This is okay, but I might see something I like later.” Once you do that, you will just keep saying it over and over.
Another rule, don’t really bargain hard unless you actually plan on buying it. This is different from just asking them to quote you a price and doing a mini-bargain. A mini-bargain can kind of help you gauge where the shop owner stands. But once you start doing the full dance with the shop owner over the price, and the owner goes down to the lowest price they can do, you better be serious in buying it. Otherwise, it might result in the shop owner getting pissed at you and telling the other shop owners nearby to not sell you anything because you are just there to “play around” with them. Which is kind of what happened to me, Sina and Darleen at one store.
At Qipu Rd.?
Wallet 35RMB
Boots 40RMB (were super on sale, btw)
Jacket 90RMB
Blanket throw 20RMB
Total 185RMB = ~$28
I also bought another pair of boots and a pair of semi-dress shoes, but not at Qipu Rd. This was at a shoe store that’s here in the Xuhui District near the Shanghai Stadium, right where the bus dropped us off. The prices were not bad either because they were about the same price as Qipu Rd. if we were to really bargain them down. But of course the better quality stuff was more expensive, as expected. But some stuff was okay.
Boots 85RMB
semi-dress shoes 58RMB
Total 143RMB = ~$21
Grand total of my first super local Chinese shopping experience? 328RMB = ~$48. Not too bad in US dollars. Or I can buy 328 baozi (buns, of the eating variety).
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
We Will R.O.C. You!
Evidence that my kids are cooler than your kids. I randomly said "we will, we will" in an attempt to get them to calm down when they suddenly shouted, "ROCK YOU!" Where do Chinese 5 year olds learn this stuff?!
I'm molding my minions from an early age. They are going to R.O.C. the P.R.C.!
I'm molding my minions from an early age. They are going to R.O.C. the P.R.C.!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
China Time
Jimmy told me that daylight savings as just occurred back home. I was re-counting what the time difference was when I wondered whether China had daylight savings time. This being the country that has only one time zone ... for the whole country. Meaning, wherever you are in the country of China, whatever time it is in Beijing means that’s the time where you are.
That was when my welfare officer called to inform me of tomorrow’s transport schedule. I decided to ask her whether there was daylight savings in China. This is how the conversation went. Kinda cute, but also kinda funny. Remember, I’m using Chinglish.
Amy: Nancy, does China have daylight savings?
Nancy: what is that?
Amy: It is when ... in the winter ... you change times.
Nancy: You mean your teaching schedule? The school schedule?
Amy: No, I mean ... the time. The time on the clock. You change it. Because it’s winter. And then you change it again when it’s spring.
Nancy: But how can you change time? Time will always keep moving!
Amy: I mean, you just change time ahead or back one hour. In America we have “daylight savings” where two times a year, you change what time it is.
Nancy *half jokingly: Wow, America is so talented [li4 hai4 厉害]. You guys can change time!
Amy: we’re not literally changing time. We’re just changing the time that it says on the clock.
Nancy: ... but why?
Amy: ok. well, the fact that you have no idea what I’m talking about means that China has no “daylight savings.”
Nancy: ok! problem solved!
That was when my welfare officer called to inform me of tomorrow’s transport schedule. I decided to ask her whether there was daylight savings in China. This is how the conversation went. Kinda cute, but also kinda funny. Remember, I’m using Chinglish.
Amy: Nancy, does China have daylight savings?
Nancy: what is that?
Amy: It is when ... in the winter ... you change times.
Nancy: You mean your teaching schedule? The school schedule?
Amy: No, I mean ... the time. The time on the clock. You change it. Because it’s winter. And then you change it again when it’s spring.
Nancy: But how can you change time? Time will always keep moving!
Amy: I mean, you just change time ahead or back one hour. In America we have “daylight savings” where two times a year, you change what time it is.
Nancy *half jokingly: Wow, America is so talented [li4 hai4 厉害]. You guys can change time!
Amy: we’re not literally changing time. We’re just changing the time that it says on the clock.
Nancy: ... but why?
Amy: ok. well, the fact that you have no idea what I’m talking about means that China has no “daylight savings.”
Nancy: ok! problem solved!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
"Coffee, milk, tea" for the Laowai
Laowai = Lao3 wai4 = 老外＝ old outsider = foreigner
I was taking my usual metro ride from Longyang Rd. out in Pudong back to the Shanghai Indoor Stadium in Puxi. This requires me to get on metro line 2 and transfer to metro line 4 at Century Avenue. That’s the logistics of it all and is not the point of this story.
The time that I spend on line 2 is not that long since it is a quick transfer over to line 4. Line 4 is where all standing and waiting takes place. I had brought along reading [“The Return of the God of Wealth”] for Dr. Kim’s class so that I can at least be somewhat productive during an otherwise very unproductive time (unless you count NOT toppling over being productive. But I believe I have perfected the “Shanghai Metro Stand”). I step onto the metro 4 car, find a spot (standing of course), make it my own and pull out my book. This is where the story starts.
So there’s a guy, I would say probably mid 20s, early 30s, standing near me. Initially he is standing with his side to me, but he somehow turned so that he was facing me directly because he noticed my book. I am reading, but he makes his movements kind of obvious that he was taking something out of his backpack. I pause to look up because I am a naturally curious person. It was a stack of papers ... written in English. I thought maybe he was an ABC or some sort of business person (I’m always on the look out for those because I want to make contacts). Then I quickly realized he wanted to make sure that I knew that he was also doing something with English words.
He makes it a point to make sure that I saw that he was holding ENGLISH papers. Papers with ENGLISH printed on it. I do not think that it’s that big of a deal so I go back to reading my book. So I’m standing there reading and occasionally taking notes (all while standing on a moving metro I must add) and he is flipping through his papers and holding it up at such an angle so that it is quite noticeable. At one point he stops to roll up his sleeves and extends one of his arms to the point where the papers are knocking into my hands for a few seconds. I guess he wanted to informally compete to see who knew more English. I’m sorry fella, but I think I would pwn you. Quite easily too.
I am still reading but at the same time find this situation creepily funny. I was ignoring him but I could feel his eyes on me. Because I have to look up occasionally when people step on and off the metro, I noticed that he had taken his cell phone out. He might have been text messaging, but the way he was holding it kind of looked like he was using the camera phone ... on me. I just pretended to “sway” to the side and tried to hide behind a girl who was now standing somewhat between us. Next comes the best part where everyone that I had told the story to started laughing because of the pure hilarity and randomness of it all.
My stop is announced so I put my book and notes away in my backpack. In the back of my mind I’m wondering whether he would also get off at the same stop. Lo and behold, he does. I see him walk across the platform to look at the map of the metro going in the opposite direction. By now, I had joined the massive crowd of people funneling onto the escalator to get to the main floor. I’m squishing and squashing and as soon as I step onto the first step of the escalator, I hear from behind a low voice right above my right ear ...
“coffee, milk, tea...”
omgosh! it was the same guy! He was not whispering sweet nothings to me, he was whispering “coffee, milk, tea” to me! I did not know whether to laugh, run, or turn around and ask him what the deal was. I was stuck on the escalator so I kept facing forward. Inside, I was laughing and creeped out at the same time. I was also very confused. Did he really want to prove to me that he knew English? Was he practicing his English on me? And then I started laughing inside because I found it amusing that someone had made the discovery that I was a foreigner and was trying so hard to impress the foreigner. In the words of Karol N, “I guess that’s what white people get all the time, huh?”
p.s. Originally I heard him say “coffee, milk, cheese” but Sina said he was probably saying “coffee, milk, tea” ... which makes more sense. Though “cheese” would have made this story even funnier. I guess he needs to work on his pronunciation.
I was taking my usual metro ride from Longyang Rd. out in Pudong back to the Shanghai Indoor Stadium in Puxi. This requires me to get on metro line 2 and transfer to metro line 4 at Century Avenue. That’s the logistics of it all and is not the point of this story.
The time that I spend on line 2 is not that long since it is a quick transfer over to line 4. Line 4 is where all standing and waiting takes place. I had brought along reading [“The Return of the God of Wealth”] for Dr. Kim’s class so that I can at least be somewhat productive during an otherwise very unproductive time (unless you count NOT toppling over being productive. But I believe I have perfected the “Shanghai Metro Stand”). I step onto the metro 4 car, find a spot (standing of course), make it my own and pull out my book. This is where the story starts.
So there’s a guy, I would say probably mid 20s, early 30s, standing near me. Initially he is standing with his side to me, but he somehow turned so that he was facing me directly because he noticed my book. I am reading, but he makes his movements kind of obvious that he was taking something out of his backpack. I pause to look up because I am a naturally curious person. It was a stack of papers ... written in English. I thought maybe he was an ABC or some sort of business person (I’m always on the look out for those because I want to make contacts). Then I quickly realized he wanted to make sure that I knew that he was also doing something with English words.
He makes it a point to make sure that I saw that he was holding ENGLISH papers. Papers with ENGLISH printed on it. I do not think that it’s that big of a deal so I go back to reading my book. So I’m standing there reading and occasionally taking notes (all while standing on a moving metro I must add) and he is flipping through his papers and holding it up at such an angle so that it is quite noticeable. At one point he stops to roll up his sleeves and extends one of his arms to the point where the papers are knocking into my hands for a few seconds. I guess he wanted to informally compete to see who knew more English. I’m sorry fella, but I think I would pwn you. Quite easily too.
I am still reading but at the same time find this situation creepily funny. I was ignoring him but I could feel his eyes on me. Because I have to look up occasionally when people step on and off the metro, I noticed that he had taken his cell phone out. He might have been text messaging, but the way he was holding it kind of looked like he was using the camera phone ... on me. I just pretended to “sway” to the side and tried to hide behind a girl who was now standing somewhat between us. Next comes the best part where everyone that I had told the story to started laughing because of the pure hilarity and randomness of it all.
My stop is announced so I put my book and notes away in my backpack. In the back of my mind I’m wondering whether he would also get off at the same stop. Lo and behold, he does. I see him walk across the platform to look at the map of the metro going in the opposite direction. By now, I had joined the massive crowd of people funneling onto the escalator to get to the main floor. I’m squishing and squashing and as soon as I step onto the first step of the escalator, I hear from behind a low voice right above my right ear ...
“coffee, milk, tea...”
omgosh! it was the same guy! He was not whispering sweet nothings to me, he was whispering “coffee, milk, tea” to me! I did not know whether to laugh, run, or turn around and ask him what the deal was. I was stuck on the escalator so I kept facing forward. Inside, I was laughing and creeped out at the same time. I was also very confused. Did he really want to prove to me that he knew English? Was he practicing his English on me? And then I started laughing inside because I found it amusing that someone had made the discovery that I was a foreigner and was trying so hard to impress the foreigner. In the words of Karol N, “I guess that’s what white people get all the time, huh?”
p.s. Originally I heard him say “coffee, milk, cheese” but Sina said he was probably saying “coffee, milk, tea” ... which makes more sense. Though “cheese” would have made this story even funnier. I guess he needs to work on his pronunciation.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Leehom Shanghai Concert 2008
So amazing! So much fun! So awesome! And we call him Alex Wang now. To celebrate the fact that he is ABC like us. [and this is a long post, but worth your time reading it]
Saturday, Oct. 18, 2008 = Wang Leehom’s Shanghai concert for his 2008 Music Man Concert Tour. I didn’t work that Saturday because I requested it off. Thanks to Lisa for covering for me that day!
I had to take care of some visa issues earlier that Saturday. Not to mention that the business class’s module 2 assignments were due Saturday midnight. So you can guess what many of us were doing on Friday night. Homework. Sina and I went to the Shanghai South Railway station to pick Jing up, who had traveled from Hangzhou to Shanghai for the concert. And we continued doing homework that night. Haha, it felt like I was back at UCLA again in apt. 304. Or back in the Hedrick or Sproul study lounges. A group of friends sitting around a table with their laptops, books and papers spread out. Typing away, listening to music. And every once in awhile stopping to ask a question or to chat about something off tangent.
So that Saturday morning, I woke up early to meet Lisa, Ryan and Nancy at the Science and Technology Museum metro stop. After much bureaucracy and red tape, none of us were able to complete the process. I was the one who got closest but because I didn’t bring my police registration (thank goodness that I went with Sina to do it, otherwise who knows what would have happened. And thank goodness that it was near the lunch hour so they didn’t ask me too many questions as to why my registration was so late, ~2 months after arrival in China when the policy is within 48 hours of arrival. Hence, no fine...because they were hungry?) Nancy has to return on Monday to drop off that final form and then they can start processing me so that Papa Mao can know my every movement.
I got back home and Sina and Jing were about to leave to go out sight seeing because they had submitted their module 2s. I decided to stay in and finish up work. I took a short nap afterwards because I was so tired from lack of sleep the night before. The meeting spot was going to me me/Sina’s apt. Jing and Sina inform me that they were still at People’s Square but they were on their way back on the metro. Daniella called me saying she just got off at the Shanghai Indoor Stadium metro stop and I gave her descriptive directions to help her find our apt “look at the wall on the right, are their shards of glass sticking out of the top? now you will turn left at the street with the woman sewing on the corner.” Karol was still doing homework...
Pretty soon, we realized that we had to get going to the concert because the tickets said it would start at 7:30pm (which really meants 8pm) and it was currently 6:30pm. We made a trip to the nearby grocery store to buy some “Leehom water”. His face endorses a brand of bottled water here in China; it’s called Wa Ha Ha water. We asked a worker to take a picture of us holding up the bottles and he probably thought we were crazy.
Me, Karol, Sina, Daniella, Jing at the Hua Lian Supermarket with our Leehom Wa Ha Ha water bottles!
We made the short walk across the main road to the Shanghai Stadium area. It’s great to live so close to the stadium because we didn’t have to travel too far. When we got there, there were so many vendors selling random things. Glow sticks, “food” and artist paraphernalia. However, as we were looking through everything we were wondering why Ayumi Hamasaki’s face was on everything. And why people were walking into the Indoor Stadium instead of the Outdoor Stadium (which are right next to each other). Turned out Ayumi was having a concert that night as well. We bought what we thought were lamb meat on a stick but it was really fatty meat on a stick. We kept walking towards the stadium that our ticket said “Shanghai Stadium” aka “outdoor.” And then we saw more Leehom paraphernalia. It was so much eye candy. We wanted to buy stuff, but didn’t want to carry it with us during the concert so we skipped out on that. But Sina and I got "glow sticks".
All of a sudden, we hear music coming from inside the stadium! But we were still outside! And we didn’t know where we were supposed to go to enter for our seats! We asked security and then bolted in the direction he told us to run. We ran around the entire stadium and it was later that we realized we went the long way when we could have gone in the opposite direction and save ourselves time. We kept running and running until we got to our gate and the 3 sets of security check points allowed us in. Then we had to find our seats in the dark. Sina and Jing’s tickets were two rows in front of me, Karol and Daniella. We bought them at different times. Some people were in our three seats and as I was trying to figure out how to get them out, a couple foreigners around us started helping us out. One girl asked me whether we were in row 14 (yes!) and then an old guy behind the row (probably with his Chinese mistress) helped us by looking at the seat number of the three people who weren’t getting up. Eventually, they stood up, apologized and left. And the three of us sat down happy.
When Leehom appeared on the stage after the opening singer the crowd went crazy!!! I went crazy!!! I mean, I have seen him before, and even closer in person (darn that table for separating us!!) But this was his concert!! I was super excited even though he was tiny. But there were the projected images. But wow. I was enjoying every moment of the concert. Every song, even the ones that aren’t my favorites. During his “Change Me” song, “imposter” Leehoms appeared on stage for drummer, and guitars. The funny part was that the drummer dropped their sticks, but the music had kept going. But these look-alikes were just there for the effect, you have to know the music video to know what I’m talking about. Also another highlight was when the Chinese guy sitting in front of us started freaking out when Leehom’s “Can You Feel My World” song started. He was doing this awkwardly cute shoulder dance that the three of us started imitating because it was so awkwardly awesome. And during the encore...
Leehom: So which song should I sing?
Audience: 唯一!! [Wei Yi, The One and Only]
Leehom: I already sang that song! How about 唯二? [Wei Er]
[Yi means one, Er means two. Trust me, it was cute]
Also when he was calling out to the audience, “Any friends from [place]?” Karol and I yelled out when he asked, “Any friends from Taiwan?!?!?” And then he said “Any Hong Kong friends?!?” but he said it in Cantonese and kinda totally butchered the pronunciation. Even though he can speak it better than he did that night. We were disappointed he never asked “Any friends from America?!?” We would have gone crazy yelling. In order for him to hear us ... because we were sitting far away. LOL.
I took many pictures and many videos. But some came out blurry. But they are still worth a thousand words each to me. He sang all his popular songs including a new song “搖滾怎麼了“ [What Happened to Rock and Roll]. Forever Love, Can You Feel My World, 唯一， 心中的日月， 蓋世英雄， 大成小愛， 一首簡單的歌， 放開你的心， 龍的傳人， 改變自己， 花田錯，愛你等於愛自己，竹林深處，落葉歸根, 在梅邊 ... and more. Really, so much fun and so awesome. I want to go to another Leehom concert. He’ll probably sing the same songs, but who cares. I enjoy them. And you know how some artists sound different in concert than they do on their albums? Because they’re singing live (no lip-syncing). Leehom was singing live, you could tell. But it sounded so close to the album voice. He did some improv here and there, but the sound was so much the same. He has perfect pitch. Plus, he kept bringing out instruments to play during the concert. He brought out his guitar, piano, violin, drums ... he even started beatboxing at one point.
After the concert, we went outside to the vendors and bought some posters and cups. Leehom overload!! One guy who was selling posters was trying to get us to buy this one poster of Leehom that wasn’t exactly too flattering. He told us, "Leehom, 帥的不得了!" [Leehom, So handsome you don’t even know what to think!]. Karol and I thought it was hilarious the way he was selling his posters. We bought some from him, but not that poster. There was one guy who was selling bags; cheapy souvenirs but we were still interested. He said he could give it to us for 5RMB each. We said no. Then he said 2 for 5RMB each. We said 2 for 4RMB. He said no. So Sina told him, "Come on, give me best friend price!" [running joke among us]. He said, "We are not friends..." And that was when we were all like, "wow ... burn..." We walked away to the vendor next to him and started bargaining for Leehom cups. He wanted 10RMB for each. We told him no. We would pay 5RMB for each. He said something to the effect of "I sell these for 20-30RMB each. I will give it to you for cheaper because the concert is over and I don’t want to carry them home." We said, "Fine, then sell it to us for 5RMB each and you don’t have to carry 5 extra cups home." He said, "10RMB and I give you a free poster." We told him that we had already bought posters. Eventually we got the price down to 6RMB per cup + free poster. As we were walking away, he was telling his friend (the guy who refused to sell the bags to us for 1RMB less), "those girls bargained hard." But who knows how much those cups really cost.
We walked a little more and came across another vendor who sold us the bags for the price we wanted. Score! We grabbed some ice cream at the stadium’s Coldstones (yes, the American ice cream chain) because after each concert they have buy 1 get 1 free ice cream if you show them your concert ticket. While we were eating ice cream, we were still stuck in this Leehom dreamland phase. We kept talking about how awesome the concert was and how awesome Leehom is and all that good stuff. Actually, we are all still stuck in this Leehom dream phase.
Now here are some of the pictures. I had to steal some of these pics because my camera ran out of battery on the last song of the concert:
The seats we wish we were sitting in
Karol on her first date with Alex Wang
Wow. Such an awesome night with good friends, good fun and good music!
And one more final picture of Leehom just for fun. If only they were selling this poster. I wouldn't even bother bargaining the price:
Saturday, Oct. 18, 2008 = Wang Leehom’s Shanghai concert for his 2008 Music Man Concert Tour. I didn’t work that Saturday because I requested it off. Thanks to Lisa for covering for me that day!
I had to take care of some visa issues earlier that Saturday. Not to mention that the business class’s module 2 assignments were due Saturday midnight. So you can guess what many of us were doing on Friday night. Homework. Sina and I went to the Shanghai South Railway station to pick Jing up, who had traveled from Hangzhou to Shanghai for the concert. And we continued doing homework that night. Haha, it felt like I was back at UCLA again in apt. 304. Or back in the Hedrick or Sproul study lounges. A group of friends sitting around a table with their laptops, books and papers spread out. Typing away, listening to music. And every once in awhile stopping to ask a question or to chat about something off tangent.
So that Saturday morning, I woke up early to meet Lisa, Ryan and Nancy at the Science and Technology Museum metro stop. After much bureaucracy and red tape, none of us were able to complete the process. I was the one who got closest but because I didn’t bring my police registration (thank goodness that I went with Sina to do it, otherwise who knows what would have happened. And thank goodness that it was near the lunch hour so they didn’t ask me too many questions as to why my registration was so late, ~2 months after arrival in China when the policy is within 48 hours of arrival. Hence, no fine...because they were hungry?) Nancy has to return on Monday to drop off that final form and then they can start processing me so that Papa Mao can know my every movement.
I got back home and Sina and Jing were about to leave to go out sight seeing because they had submitted their module 2s. I decided to stay in and finish up work. I took a short nap afterwards because I was so tired from lack of sleep the night before. The meeting spot was going to me me/Sina’s apt. Jing and Sina inform me that they were still at People’s Square but they were on their way back on the metro. Daniella called me saying she just got off at the Shanghai Indoor Stadium metro stop and I gave her descriptive directions to help her find our apt “look at the wall on the right, are their shards of glass sticking out of the top? now you will turn left at the street with the woman sewing on the corner.” Karol was still doing homework...
Pretty soon, we realized that we had to get going to the concert because the tickets said it would start at 7:30pm (which really meants 8pm) and it was currently 6:30pm. We made a trip to the nearby grocery store to buy some “Leehom water”. His face endorses a brand of bottled water here in China; it’s called Wa Ha Ha water. We asked a worker to take a picture of us holding up the bottles and he probably thought we were crazy.
Me, Karol, Sina, Daniella, Jing at the Hua Lian Supermarket with our Leehom Wa Ha Ha water bottles!We made the short walk across the main road to the Shanghai Stadium area. It’s great to live so close to the stadium because we didn’t have to travel too far. When we got there, there were so many vendors selling random things. Glow sticks, “food” and artist paraphernalia. However, as we were looking through everything we were wondering why Ayumi Hamasaki’s face was on everything. And why people were walking into the Indoor Stadium instead of the Outdoor Stadium (which are right next to each other). Turned out Ayumi was having a concert that night as well. We bought what we thought were lamb meat on a stick but it was really fatty meat on a stick. We kept walking towards the stadium that our ticket said “Shanghai Stadium” aka “outdoor.” And then we saw more Leehom paraphernalia. It was so much eye candy. We wanted to buy stuff, but didn’t want to carry it with us during the concert so we skipped out on that. But Sina and I got "glow sticks".
All of a sudden, we hear music coming from inside the stadium! But we were still outside! And we didn’t know where we were supposed to go to enter for our seats! We asked security and then bolted in the direction he told us to run. We ran around the entire stadium and it was later that we realized we went the long way when we could have gone in the opposite direction and save ourselves time. We kept running and running until we got to our gate and the 3 sets of security check points allowed us in. Then we had to find our seats in the dark. Sina and Jing’s tickets were two rows in front of me, Karol and Daniella. We bought them at different times. Some people were in our three seats and as I was trying to figure out how to get them out, a couple foreigners around us started helping us out. One girl asked me whether we were in row 14 (yes!) and then an old guy behind the row (probably with his Chinese mistress) helped us by looking at the seat number of the three people who weren’t getting up. Eventually, they stood up, apologized and left. And the three of us sat down happy.
When Leehom appeared on the stage after the opening singer the crowd went crazy!!! I went crazy!!! I mean, I have seen him before, and even closer in person (darn that table for separating us!!) But this was his concert!! I was super excited even though he was tiny. But there were the projected images. But wow. I was enjoying every moment of the concert. Every song, even the ones that aren’t my favorites. During his “Change Me” song, “imposter” Leehoms appeared on stage for drummer, and guitars. The funny part was that the drummer dropped their sticks, but the music had kept going. But these look-alikes were just there for the effect, you have to know the music video to know what I’m talking about. Also another highlight was when the Chinese guy sitting in front of us started freaking out when Leehom’s “Can You Feel My World” song started. He was doing this awkwardly cute shoulder dance that the three of us started imitating because it was so awkwardly awesome. And during the encore...
Leehom: So which song should I sing?
Audience: 唯一!! [Wei Yi, The One and Only]
Leehom: I already sang that song! How about 唯二? [Wei Er]
[Yi means one, Er means two. Trust me, it was cute]
Also when he was calling out to the audience, “Any friends from [place]?” Karol and I yelled out when he asked, “Any friends from Taiwan?!?!?” And then he said “Any Hong Kong friends?!?” but he said it in Cantonese and kinda totally butchered the pronunciation. Even though he can speak it better than he did that night. We were disappointed he never asked “Any friends from America?!?” We would have gone crazy yelling. In order for him to hear us ... because we were sitting far away. LOL.
I took many pictures and many videos. But some came out blurry. But they are still worth a thousand words each to me. He sang all his popular songs including a new song “搖滾怎麼了“ [What Happened to Rock and Roll]. Forever Love, Can You Feel My World, 唯一， 心中的日月， 蓋世英雄， 大成小愛， 一首簡單的歌， 放開你的心， 龍的傳人， 改變自己， 花田錯，愛你等於愛自己，竹林深處，落葉歸根, 在梅邊 ... and more. Really, so much fun and so awesome. I want to go to another Leehom concert. He’ll probably sing the same songs, but who cares. I enjoy them. And you know how some artists sound different in concert than they do on their albums? Because they’re singing live (no lip-syncing). Leehom was singing live, you could tell. But it sounded so close to the album voice. He did some improv here and there, but the sound was so much the same. He has perfect pitch. Plus, he kept bringing out instruments to play during the concert. He brought out his guitar, piano, violin, drums ... he even started beatboxing at one point.
After the concert, we went outside to the vendors and bought some posters and cups. Leehom overload!! One guy who was selling posters was trying to get us to buy this one poster of Leehom that wasn’t exactly too flattering. He told us, "Leehom, 帥的不得了!" [Leehom, So handsome you don’t even know what to think!]. Karol and I thought it was hilarious the way he was selling his posters. We bought some from him, but not that poster. There was one guy who was selling bags; cheapy souvenirs but we were still interested. He said he could give it to us for 5RMB each. We said no. Then he said 2 for 5RMB each. We said 2 for 4RMB. He said no. So Sina told him, "Come on, give me best friend price!" [running joke among us]. He said, "We are not friends..." And that was when we were all like, "wow ... burn..." We walked away to the vendor next to him and started bargaining for Leehom cups. He wanted 10RMB for each. We told him no. We would pay 5RMB for each. He said something to the effect of "I sell these for 20-30RMB each. I will give it to you for cheaper because the concert is over and I don’t want to carry them home." We said, "Fine, then sell it to us for 5RMB each and you don’t have to carry 5 extra cups home." He said, "10RMB and I give you a free poster." We told him that we had already bought posters. Eventually we got the price down to 6RMB per cup + free poster. As we were walking away, he was telling his friend (the guy who refused to sell the bags to us for 1RMB less), "those girls bargained hard." But who knows how much those cups really cost.
We walked a little more and came across another vendor who sold us the bags for the price we wanted. Score! We grabbed some ice cream at the stadium’s Coldstones (yes, the American ice cream chain) because after each concert they have buy 1 get 1 free ice cream if you show them your concert ticket. While we were eating ice cream, we were still stuck in this Leehom dreamland phase. We kept talking about how awesome the concert was and how awesome Leehom is and all that good stuff. Actually, we are all still stuck in this Leehom dream phase.
Now here are some of the pictures. I had to steal some of these pics because my camera ran out of battery on the last song of the concert:
me, Daniella, Karol (foreigner with Chinese mistress behind us)
Daniella & Karol
me & Daniella
Daniella & Karol
me & Daniella
Karol & me
Sina & Jing
me, Daniella, Karol
LEEHOM!!
Leehom with his glittery hair and silver leather glittery pants
The seats we wish we were sitting in
Karol on her first date with Alex Wang
After the concert @ Shanghai Stadium
Seats: Section 17-2 ... a.k.a far away, but still tons of fun
Seats: Section 17-2 ... a.k.a far away, but still tons of fun
Wow. Such an awesome night with good friends, good fun and good music!
And one more final picture of Leehom just for fun. If only they were selling this poster. I wouldn't even bother bargaining the price:
Saturday, October 18, 2008
SO AWESOME!
Omgosh! Leehom's concert was amazing! I had so much fun! I'll post about it soon since I'm so tired now. But at the same time so awake from all the adrenaline.
SO AWESOME!
SO AWESOME!
Friday, October 17, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Hangzhou - Paradise on Earth
Darleen, Christian and I left Shanghai for Hangzhou Sunday evening. We had to do one of those dashes through the train station that you see on TV. We weren’t late, but we certainly weren’t early either. Unluckily, we had to ride the entire train ride backwards because of our choice of seats. It wasn’t too fun. But we tried to sleep it off during the under 2 hour ride.Once we arrived in Hangzhou, we were surrounded by taxi drivers who wanted to take us to our destination. Totally trying to gyp us because we were foreigners. They told us that they could take us to Hangzhou Dianzi University for 100RMB. Uh, no. Patricia had told us that it’s about a 30RMB ride. We were feeling very discouraged until a guy was nice enough to tell us that we should walk a little down the street where there were real cab drivers who could take us to the University for about 30RMB.
Once at the University, we sat around and caught up with Jessica and Patricia. They had not seen much of the other MAIS people because they’re in Hangzhou so they were excited to hear all the Shanghai stories. Darleen, Christian and I had planned on finding a hotel to stay at but because of the holiday and because Darleen had forgotten her form of ID we had to be illegal in Hangzhou. China has this policy where foreigners have to be registered with the local police whenever they move to a different province, even for a few days. So we called up Jing and asked her if we could use her apt for the 2 days.
The next day we hit up the West Lake area. This is the must see place in Hangzhou. And it certainly was! There were crowds of tourists milling about and traffic was pretty bad. We had a difficult time getting a taxi. We had to separate into two taxis and I did one of those, “Follow that cab!” moments. We had just pointed to a
place on the West Lake map and decided that that would be a good place to go. However, once we got to the Lingyin Temple, we saw that we had to pay a fee so we walked around for a little bit instead. While we were walking around, we saw cable cars that would take you to the top of Northern Peak. We agreed that was more worth our money, so up we went!This is the view from the top of the peak.
After coming back down, we walked around the lake and enjoyed the scenery. I highly recommend visiting Hangzhou’s West Lake if you ever get the chance to come to China. We also randomly wandered into the West Lake Expo Museum. Which was actually interesting. There were some artifacts (probably replicas) from when West Lake held a mini-expo. We even stood atop a map and pretended to be Godzilla. After playing at West Lake, Patricia took us to a place she knew where you could do bargain shopping. I’m not very good at it, but it was still fun walking through all the random stores.
The next day we felt like we should do something “cultural” so that we could show people that we didn’t just go to Hangzhou to shop. We looked through the travel book and found another free museum, China’s National Silk Museum! whoohoo!! It actually turned out to be pretty interesting as well. At the end of our museum walk, we even took the time to paint some silk handkerchiefs. I don’t remember who has those pics of us painting. While we were painting, crowds of Chinese people would gather around us to watch “the foreigners” paint. They would sometimes even discreetly (or not discreetly) take pictures. I overheard one lady tell her friend, “here’s the camera, I’m going to stand behind her and look over her [Christian] shoulder and you take the picture.”
The plan after the museum was to go to the shopping place again, but because we had such a difficult time getting a taxi again, we eventually had to just head back to the University to grab some dinner in order to make it to the train station in time. On the ride back (I had switched train tickets with Patricia because I thought that her ticket would get home faster but it turned out it took longer because there were stops vs. the original ticket I had was non-stop) I sat next to a girl named Lily. And the two of us had a nice conversation. She was just as interested in life outside of China as I was about life inside of China. Some of the topics we talked about were Chinese and American politics, the Beijing Olympics, Taiwan, the One-Child Policy and old people. It was cool because this was the first time I was able to have this type of discussion with a Chinese person.
After a quick two days in Hangzhou, it was back to the hustle and bustle of Shanghai. Patricia came back with us, so we tried to do some of the sight-seeing things around town. That will be posted another time.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Hangzhou or Bust!
I'll be heading out to Hangzhou for the Oct. Holiday (Nationalist Day) from Sunday evening to Tuesday evening. Yay for mini-trip!
Monday, September 22, 2008
Amy & Karol "Explore" Shanghai as Westerners
[I finally figured out how to upload pics!]
Not really a true exploration, but it did involve metro-ing and walking around Shanghai. To parts of the city that I haven’t been to yet. I have Sundays and Mondays off from work, as does Karol. Karol also lives “next door” to me in the complex across the park. This requires a 3 minute walk to meet up at the gate. We had a very International/Western weekend.
The theme of the weekend? To be Western and to buy Western in China. And to amaze the natives with our ability to speak English “so well! and so accurate!” Because, it’s not like we were born and raised in America or anything. But that’s another story for another blog entry.
Sunday morning started off as a lazy morning. Karol messages me with her frustrations of getting her cell phone fixed and so was going to go to Head Office (HO) to have someone help her translate and get things squared away. She asked whether I wanted to accompany her and I said yes because my other option would have been to bum around the apt attempting hw and attempting cleaning house.
We took metro to HO which is located somewhere near Jing’An (maybe). Spent some time hanging out in the teacher’s office and met some of her Shane teachers. Saw Simon again and again he would speak so fast I would not be able to understand his English accent. When someone had helped Karol contact the Nokia care center, we got back on the metro and headed for Fuzhou Rd. at People’s Square. I definitely want to go back to People’s Square and just wander around. There is a sort of underground shopping mall. There are so many shops to look at (probably expensive though) and tons of people to people watch. We saw a church (I believe it is the Moore Memorial Church) whose peaceful atmosphere was a striking contrast against the bustling People’s Square crowds.
We watched Mr. Bean while waiting in the Nokia Care waiting room. After dropping off her cell phone to be fixed (~1 hour) we went next door to the KFC for lunch. KFC is really popular in China. But the funny thing is, the menu is completely different. For one, I don’t think they sell buckets of chicken or potato wedges, THE typical food of KFC. When we went in, just about everyone was eating shoestring french fries and had a drink. Where was the chicken?! (22-24RMB/meal) However, Karol and I did score some play straws that we could change into funny shapes.We also bought a hand-held sewing machine (15RMB) from a lady off the street. We were so amazed by it that she knew she had an instant sale. It’s kinda shaped like a stapler, but you can sew/hem with it!
After KFC, we walked across the street and saw a McDonalds. We bought ice cream cones (2.50RMB) As we were eating, we came across a huge bookstore. Of course we wanted to go in, but the security told us to finish eating the ice cream first before going in.
Karol wanted to find a China travel guide book. Couldn’t find any, however we did have some fun times in the foreign/bilingual book section. She wants to improve her Mandarin so she was looking through the learn Mandarin books. After laughing at some awesome titles as “EXTREME MANDARIN!” and “Romeo and Zhu Ying Tai Phrase Book” (probably the most awesome book by the way. It basically teaches a Western male step-by-step how to have a relationship with a Chinese female. The book is divided into such chapters as: Saying Hello, Compliments, Meeting the Parents, Fights (long and short ones) and Proposal among others) we came across some Chinese-English dictionaries.
Karol: Here are the pocket sized Chinese-English dictionaries.
Amy: Are you sure these are pocket sized? [points to a FAT dictionary]
Karol: hahaha, you can’t fit this in your pocket. [attempts to fit FAT dictionary in pockets]
Amy: Is that a Chinese-English dictionary in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
[laugh inappropriately for a good 5 mins. or so]
We also visited the Marxism-Leninism Literature. Which was located across from a portrait of Mao Zedong. You gotta love China. Later on, as we walked around the Shanghai Stadium looking for a place to buy Leehom concert tickets [epic_fail], we took pictures in front of Beijing 2008 signs made out of flowers.
On Monday, we attempted to buy train tickets for the upcoming weeklong October Holiday/National Day Holiday. We went to the Shanghai Railway Station to inquire about prices. We probably also pissed off the woman who was helping us because we were asking her to check every single day and for multiple locations: Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou. Well the mission was another epic_fail because we left empty handed. We went back home, stopped at Cross Regions Plaza (Foxtown!) to grab some spaghetti and pizza and then went home. We met up with Michelle and Lisa for dinner at Blue Frog which is a Western style restaurant that has buy 1 get 1 free burgers on Mondays. Karol and I decided to walk over to Michelle/Lisa’s apt because Karol said she knew how. She didn’t really know and we ended up walking somewhat in the right and wrong direction. Though a Chinese-American guy who was walking behind us suddenly asked us “So are you girls from the States?” We were surprised because we were in the middle of figuring out whether the Shanghai Indoor Stadium was different from the Shanghai Gymnastic Stadium when we suddenly hear this American voice over our shoulders. He’s from near Philadelphia.
At Blue Frog. So there we were, four Chinese-American girls, all of us more American than Chinese, sitting at a Western style restaurant eating burgers (40RMB with the discount) and speaking in English. We are super awesome. Bennett also went there for dinner, but he showed up with his Chinese friend when we were about to leave. We made a stop over at City Shop which is an International super market and couldn’t believe how expensive Western brands were. Well, we can believe it, but we were still shocked.
Karol and I departed from Michelle and Lisa and started navigating our way back towards our apts. We used landmarks and big buildings, “I recognize that building, we want to walk away from it.” I saw a store we now call the “2 Kuai Store” where everything in the store was 2RMB. It’s filled with useless stuff that you want to buy. While Karol and I were in there looking around, two Italian-Jewish guys overheard our English and walked up behind us asking us where we were from. It was all cordial in the beginning because we were speaking a mixture of Chinglish, English, Spanish, French and Italian with them, making small talk about being in China. The owners/workers of the 2 Kuai Store were loving us because here you had two white guys and two Chinese looking girls speaking to each other in a foreign tongue. We were probably bringing customers in for them. Then they started hitting on us and kept wanting to invite us out to a club/bar called Baby Face. Karol and I looked at each other and started sending messages to each other with our eyes and walked towards the door to make our purchase. They called out to us again, “Come on, let’s go!” which we politely replies, “sorry, we have classes tomorrow morning!” We asked an old Chinese man to take a picture of us outside the 2 Kuai Store holding the 2RMB plastic world globe Karol bought and then we left for home.
Not really a true exploration, but it did involve metro-ing and walking around Shanghai. To parts of the city that I haven’t been to yet. I have Sundays and Mondays off from work, as does Karol. Karol also lives “next door” to me in the complex across the park. This requires a 3 minute walk to meet up at the gate. We had a very International/Western weekend.
The theme of the weekend? To be Western and to buy Western in China. And to amaze the natives with our ability to speak English “so well! and so accurate!” Because, it’s not like we were born and raised in America or anything. But that’s another story for another blog entry.
Sunday morning started off as a lazy morning. Karol messages me with her frustrations of getting her cell phone fixed and so was going to go to Head Office (HO) to have someone help her translate and get things squared away. She asked whether I wanted to accompany her and I said yes because my other option would have been to bum around the apt attempting hw and attempting cleaning house.
We took metro to HO which is located somewhere near Jing’An (maybe). Spent some time hanging out in the teacher’s office and met some of her Shane teachers. Saw Simon again and again he would speak so fast I would not be able to understand his English accent. When someone had helped Karol contact the Nokia care center, we got back on the metro and headed for Fuzhou Rd. at People’s Square. I definitely want to go back to People’s Square and just wander around. There is a sort of underground shopping mall. There are so many shops to look at (probably expensive though) and tons of people to people watch. We saw a church (I believe it is the Moore Memorial Church) whose peaceful atmosphere was a striking contrast against the bustling People’s Square crowds.
We watched Mr. Bean while waiting in the Nokia Care waiting room. After dropping off her cell phone to be fixed (~1 hour) we went next door to the KFC for lunch. KFC is really popular in China. But the funny thing is, the menu is completely different. For one, I don’t think they sell buckets of chicken or potato wedges, THE typical food of KFC. When we went in, just about everyone was eating shoestring french fries and had a drink. Where was the chicken?! (22-24RMB/meal) However, Karol and I did score some play straws that we could change into funny shapes.We also bought a hand-held sewing machine (15RMB) from a lady off the street. We were so amazed by it that she knew she had an instant sale. It’s kinda shaped like a stapler, but you can sew/hem with it!
After KFC, we walked across the street and saw a McDonalds. We bought ice cream cones (2.50RMB) As we were eating, we came across a huge bookstore. Of course we wanted to go in, but the security told us to finish eating the ice cream first before going in.
Karol wanted to find a China travel guide book. Couldn’t find any, however we did have some fun times in the foreign/bilingual book section. She wants to improve her Mandarin so she was looking through the learn Mandarin books. After laughing at some awesome titles as “EXTREME MANDARIN!” and “Romeo and Zhu Ying Tai Phrase Book” (probably the most awesome book by the way. It basically teaches a Western male step-by-step how to have a relationship with a Chinese female. The book is divided into such chapters as: Saying Hello, Compliments, Meeting the Parents, Fights (long and short ones) and Proposal among others) we came across some Chinese-English dictionaries.
Karol: Here are the pocket sized Chinese-English dictionaries.
Amy: Are you sure these are pocket sized? [points to a FAT dictionary]
Karol: hahaha, you can’t fit this in your pocket. [attempts to fit FAT dictionary in pockets]
Amy: Is that a Chinese-English dictionary in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
[laugh inappropriately for a good 5 mins. or so]
We also visited the Marxism-Leninism Literature. Which was located across from a portrait of Mao Zedong. You gotta love China. Later on, as we walked around the Shanghai Stadium looking for a place to buy Leehom concert tickets [epic_fail], we took pictures in front of Beijing 2008 signs made out of flowers.
On Monday, we attempted to buy train tickets for the upcoming weeklong October Holiday/National Day Holiday. We went to the Shanghai Railway Station to inquire about prices. We probably also pissed off the woman who was helping us because we were asking her to check every single day and for multiple locations: Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou. Well the mission was another epic_fail because we left empty handed. We went back home, stopped at Cross Regions Plaza (Foxtown!) to grab some spaghetti and pizza and then went home. We met up with Michelle and Lisa for dinner at Blue Frog which is a Western style restaurant that has buy 1 get 1 free burgers on Mondays. Karol and I decided to walk over to Michelle/Lisa’s apt because Karol said she knew how. She didn’t really know and we ended up walking somewhat in the right and wrong direction. Though a Chinese-American guy who was walking behind us suddenly asked us “So are you girls from the States?” We were surprised because we were in the middle of figuring out whether the Shanghai Indoor Stadium was different from the Shanghai Gymnastic Stadium when we suddenly hear this American voice over our shoulders. He’s from near Philadelphia.
At Blue Frog. So there we were, four Chinese-American girls, all of us more American than Chinese, sitting at a Western style restaurant eating burgers (40RMB with the discount) and speaking in English. We are super awesome. Bennett also went there for dinner, but he showed up with his Chinese friend when we were about to leave. We made a stop over at City Shop which is an International super market and couldn’t believe how expensive Western brands were. Well, we can believe it, but we were still shocked.
Karol and I departed from Michelle and Lisa and started navigating our way back towards our apts. We used landmarks and big buildings, “I recognize that building, we want to walk away from it.” I saw a store we now call the “2 Kuai Store” where everything in the store was 2RMB. It’s filled with useless stuff that you want to buy. While Karol and I were in there looking around, two Italian-Jewish guys overheard our English and walked up behind us asking us where we were from. It was all cordial in the beginning because we were speaking a mixture of Chinglish, English, Spanish, French and Italian with them, making small talk about being in China. The owners/workers of the 2 Kuai Store were loving us because here you had two white guys and two Chinese looking girls speaking to each other in a foreign tongue. We were probably bringing customers in for them. Then they started hitting on us and kept wanting to invite us out to a club/bar called Baby Face. Karol and I looked at each other and started sending messages to each other with our eyes and walked towards the door to make our purchase. They called out to us again, “Come on, let’s go!” which we politely replies, “sorry, we have classes tomorrow morning!” We asked an old Chinese man to take a picture of us outside the 2 Kuai Store holding the 2RMB plastic world globe Karol bought and then we left for home.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Let's Get (a) Physical!
One of the requirements for foreigners to work in China is to pass a physical. There’s nothing tricky about the physical, you just can’t have a mental disorder or any STDs. Basically, China doesn’t want you to pass on your dirty, contaminated genes into their otherwise pure and clean society.
I don’t exactly have a phobia of hospitals but it’s still not on my top things to do in a foreign country. Nancy (welfare officer) gave me some photocopies, an address and told me that I would be able to get to the hospital a-ok. She did take me on a bus halfway there (it was on the way to the office) and then told the taxi where I wanted to go. I found the place alright. Before the physical, you basically wait in a room with other foreigners (and some of their translators) for your number to be called.
It’s an efficient process. They have it all figured out on how to expedite the process. You first check in, then they direct you to the waiting room. When your number is called you go in to have them check your paperwork and take a quick (ugly) photo of you so that as you walk through the stations, the nurses can make sure you are who you say you are. Then you go to the cashier to pay. Go to the changing room to take off half your clothes, wear a robe and shoe booties. You go from room to room where you are weighed and heighted. They draw some blood, check your blood pressure, test your eyes, look up your nose, chest x-ray, heart check, an ultrasound (?? to make sure my womb is empty??). I also helped the office make health check appointments for two other teachers.
Afterwards, I had to figure out how to get myself either to the office or to get home. I decided I had time to go home and rest before my afternoon of classes. Got in a taxi, told them I wanted the line 2 metro stop (which was supposed to be the closest station) and got myself back to my neck of the woods. However, I didn’t anticipate the distance being so great, so I ended up having something like an hour at home before I had to head back out. Sad times. I’m feeling really really tired these days.
I don’t exactly have a phobia of hospitals but it’s still not on my top things to do in a foreign country. Nancy (welfare officer) gave me some photocopies, an address and told me that I would be able to get to the hospital a-ok. She did take me on a bus halfway there (it was on the way to the office) and then told the taxi where I wanted to go. I found the place alright. Before the physical, you basically wait in a room with other foreigners (and some of their translators) for your number to be called.
It’s an efficient process. They have it all figured out on how to expedite the process. You first check in, then they direct you to the waiting room. When your number is called you go in to have them check your paperwork and take a quick (ugly) photo of you so that as you walk through the stations, the nurses can make sure you are who you say you are. Then you go to the cashier to pay. Go to the changing room to take off half your clothes, wear a robe and shoe booties. You go from room to room where you are weighed and heighted. They draw some blood, check your blood pressure, test your eyes, look up your nose, chest x-ray, heart check, an ultrasound (?? to make sure my womb is empty??). I also helped the office make health check appointments for two other teachers.
Afterwards, I had to figure out how to get myself either to the office or to get home. I decided I had time to go home and rest before my afternoon of classes. Got in a taxi, told them I wanted the line 2 metro stop (which was supposed to be the closest station) and got myself back to my neck of the woods. However, I didn’t anticipate the distance being so great, so I ended up having something like an hour at home before I had to head back out. Sad times. I’m feeling really really tired these days.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Stocks > Fruit
I’m supposed to be lesson planning right now, but all I can do is watch the stocks on Wall Street go crazy. Markets have just opened in the States on Monday morning and after the news of what happened in the financial market over the weekend ... all I can say is “whoa.”
Lehman Brothers (LEH) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after it wasn’t able to find any buyers for its apparently suffering company. I had not been keeping updated enough and didn’t even know there was financial troubles with LEH. I guess I didn’t pay enough attention to them because they are (were) a relatively large company. This goes to show that large companies can have large debts as well. Like $613 BILLION in debt.
Bank of America (BAC) also acquired Merrill Lynch (MER) over the weekend. This is a pretty large acquisition. One which did the usual of lowering the stock price of BAC and raising the stock price of MER. Expected financial results when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. What was NOT expected was just how much MER’s stock price jumped. I thought maybe like $1. Last I checked, up $5+!!
This is all pretty big financial news. Much more interesting than lesson planning for little Chinese kids a lesson about different types of fruits.
“What fruit is it?”
“[apple]!”
“What color is it?”
“red!”
What if instead I taught them:
“What do you do with stocks?”
“Buy low!”
“And then..?”
“Sell high!”
Now THAT is a good lesson.
Lehman Brothers (LEH) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after it wasn’t able to find any buyers for its apparently suffering company. I had not been keeping updated enough and didn’t even know there was financial troubles with LEH. I guess I didn’t pay enough attention to them because they are (were) a relatively large company. This goes to show that large companies can have large debts as well. Like $613 BILLION in debt.
Bank of America (BAC) also acquired Merrill Lynch (MER) over the weekend. This is a pretty large acquisition. One which did the usual of lowering the stock price of BAC and raising the stock price of MER. Expected financial results when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. What was NOT expected was just how much MER’s stock price jumped. I thought maybe like $1. Last I checked, up $5+!!
This is all pretty big financial news. Much more interesting than lesson planning for little Chinese kids a lesson about different types of fruits.
“What fruit is it?”
“[apple]!”
“What color is it?”
“red!”
What if instead I taught them:
“What do you do with stocks?”
“Buy low!”
“And then..?”
“Sell high!”
Now THAT is a good lesson.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Exciting News
The most exciting, fabulous, wonderful, awesome, [insert more synonyms] thing happened today. Maybe the best thing that has happened in the last two weeks.
I finally got Internet installed in my apt!!
Circa 10:30AM the China Telecom service guy knocked on my door and said "I am here to install your ADSL." I was so happy and speechless that he had to ask me, "Do you speak Chinese?"
I finally got Internet installed in my apt!!
Circa 10:30AM the China Telecom service guy knocked on my door and said "I am here to install your ADSL." I was so happy and speechless that he had to ask me, "Do you speak Chinese?"
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Atmos. Sci. 3 in Shanghai
I don’t think that I’m the “weather” type of girl. As a purebred SoCal girl, I will admit I am a bit of a snob when it comes to my weather. I prefer my days not too hot and not too cold. Not too dry and not too wet. Is that too much to ask for?
In the past three weeks or so that I’ve been in Shanghai, I’ve experienced humidity so high it should be illegal, rainfall that flooded half the city (resulting in organized chaos), sunshine so strong that Nancy asked me why I turned so dark suddenly, and today a spontaneous rainfall that went from slight drizzle to insane downpour in the matter of 2 seconds. Luckily I had my 19RMB Chinese umbrella with me. Unluckily, my shoes and pants were still soaked the whole way through. I believe the rain was falling at a 45 degree angle aimed directly at my feet. I am positive I did not step in any puddles, yet my feet still squished water on my walk back to my apt. There was also a small pool of water in my backpack. Though I still have yet to figure out how that got in there as I thought I had it zipped up completely and covered.
And now, with the rainfall gone, I’m enjoying a gentle cool breeze through my bedroom window on the 8th floor.
What’s more perfect than that? Two days ago I made a discovery that could rival Columbus’s discovery of America.....
My apt’s windows have sliding screens!
You don’t know how happy I was after this discovery. Now I can keep the windows open while worrying less about unnecessary mosquitos flying in and feasting on my body.
In the past three weeks or so that I’ve been in Shanghai, I’ve experienced humidity so high it should be illegal, rainfall that flooded half the city (resulting in organized chaos), sunshine so strong that Nancy asked me why I turned so dark suddenly, and today a spontaneous rainfall that went from slight drizzle to insane downpour in the matter of 2 seconds. Luckily I had my 19RMB Chinese umbrella with me. Unluckily, my shoes and pants were still soaked the whole way through. I believe the rain was falling at a 45 degree angle aimed directly at my feet. I am positive I did not step in any puddles, yet my feet still squished water on my walk back to my apt. There was also a small pool of water in my backpack. Though I still have yet to figure out how that got in there as I thought I had it zipped up completely and covered.
And now, with the rainfall gone, I’m enjoying a gentle cool breeze through my bedroom window on the 8th floor.
What’s more perfect than that? Two days ago I made a discovery that could rival Columbus’s discovery of America.....
My apt’s windows have sliding screens!
You don’t know how happy I was after this discovery. Now I can keep the windows open while worrying less about unnecessary mosquitos flying in and feasting on my body.
I Spoke Too Soon
Another “Playtime” session a complete disaster. It’s not that I hate little kids, I just hate “playing” with them for 45 minutes using a language they don’t understand and receiving no feedback but still under the scrutiny of the Chinese teachers who are probably thinking to themselves (and each other, out loud) what a complete idiot I am.
The second class’s teacher is pretty much horrible. I can feel her giving me Looks. I know she’s thinking, why do we get the Asian-looking teacher? Where’s my blond hair blue eyed FOREIGN teacher? Just about every game I suggest she says it’s too difficult for the children. Dallas (another SES teacher ... who is white) was able to get his teacher to agree to dividing the class into two halves and doing two 20 minutes sessions instead of the one big group for 45 minutes session. Which makes so much more sense. I tried it with my first Playtime class today and at the end of the lesson, the teacher told me that she didn’t think it was a good idea because it was too short a session for each child and the parents would complain because they were paying money for the lessons. I’m thinking that if I had been a white person suggesting this, she would accept this idea because “the white, foreign teacher said it would be a good idea.” But no, I’m just a young, Asian girl who probably doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Because I’m Asian, they are more okay with saying “no” to me. Because then, they are not really offending anyone international.
I feel like it is time for me to talk with Cristina about these Playtime sessions. I always leave those sessions so depressed.
edit: New perspective. I took another look at the schedule and I really can’t complain. I have one of the nicer schedules. I am not commuting too much and I do not have to have random layovers at the office except on Thursday (and assuming my HS classes are canceled forever). I am stationed at one school basically, so that is “my” school. I just need to learn how to work better with the little pre-schoolers. Why couldn’t they all be super-brains so that I could have philosophical debates with them? In English, of course.
The second class’s teacher is pretty much horrible. I can feel her giving me Looks. I know she’s thinking, why do we get the Asian-looking teacher? Where’s my blond hair blue eyed FOREIGN teacher? Just about every game I suggest she says it’s too difficult for the children. Dallas (another SES teacher ... who is white) was able to get his teacher to agree to dividing the class into two halves and doing two 20 minutes sessions instead of the one big group for 45 minutes session. Which makes so much more sense. I tried it with my first Playtime class today and at the end of the lesson, the teacher told me that she didn’t think it was a good idea because it was too short a session for each child and the parents would complain because they were paying money for the lessons. I’m thinking that if I had been a white person suggesting this, she would accept this idea because “the white, foreign teacher said it would be a good idea.” But no, I’m just a young, Asian girl who probably doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Because I’m Asian, they are more okay with saying “no” to me. Because then, they are not really offending anyone international.
I feel like it is time for me to talk with Cristina about these Playtime sessions. I always leave those sessions so depressed.
edit: New perspective. I took another look at the schedule and I really can’t complain. I have one of the nicer schedules. I am not commuting too much and I do not have to have random layovers at the office except on Thursday (and assuming my HS classes are canceled forever). I am stationed at one school basically, so that is “my” school. I just need to learn how to work better with the little pre-schoolers. Why couldn’t they all be super-brains so that I could have philosophical debates with them? In English, of course.
"The Money Is In Your Pocket"
What can I say? I had a relatively good day at work yesterday.
Even though it was an early day, I had to meet Chris and Susan at the Xinzhuang metro stop by 7:45am, the day was ... good.
The high school class we were demonstrating in was half and half. The first class was a disaster since they wanted to keep it with 30+ students in addition to the small crowd of other English teachers observing, “just what the Western style of teaching was.” Chris and I tried to implement small group sizes but with the way everything was set up, it was just not going to work. We went around doing small group introductions and tried getting the students to open their mouths and speak. But the sentences they said were very rehearsed and by the book. The bigger disaster happened when I asked the students to pull out one of the books and they said they didn’t have it. What. An. Unfortunate. Thing.
The regular teacher quickly came over to help me work out what was the problem. And I told Chris to “entertain” the crowd as a couple of us tried to solve the problem. Switched up the lesson plan to using something that was already copied out of the (other) book. Needless to say, I felt like it was a disaster because of the slow-paceness and just boringness of the lesson. The other teachers observing the lesson asked us why they would need a foreign teacher to do something that a regular Chinese teacher could already do. What was the point of having us there?
The second class they wanted us to demonstrate a more “Western” style of teaching. We had the large class divided up into 2 smaller classes of about 15 students each. Chris took one class and I took the other. I felt sorry for Chris because SES had told him that he would just be helping me out and not teaching a whole class by himself, so he was basically thrust onto the stage against his knowledge.
To get the students to open up more and to talk more (a silent class is so boring as I know from past AAP tutoring experience), I had the students move away from their desks/computers and come closer to the center. Started with introductions to give each student a chance to talk and then I started on the presentation of the lesson, “greetings and goodbyes.” Yawn. I asked two students to come up to demonstrate a simple dialogue and from there it spiraled off to a wonderful tangent. I had each student come up in groups and asked the audience to give characters and scenarios. I could tell that the high schoolers were enjoying this because they were able to use their creativity and use more spontaneous English. This was a move away from doing things by the book and responding with a rehearsed sentence.
Every once in awhile I would sneak a peek at the observers in the back and I saw that even they were having fun! Here, the students were working on their English and having a fun time doing so. Even though the vocabulary was limited, I could tell the students were searching in their brains for similar words that could convey the meaning they wanted. A particularly funny one involved 3 boys who were given the roles of mother, father and baby arguing in a restaurant. The “baby” could speak English apparently.
Mother: I want to eat much food. I want to eat sandwich, hamburger, steak. I want to eat all the expensive food.
Father: You want to eat too much. I don’t have money.
Mother: Yes you do.
Father: No I don’t.
Mother: The money is in your pocket.
Father: No money in my pocket.
Baby: Mother! This is a bad father. Father has no money.
Mother: I leave now.
Baby: Mother! I go with you.
Father: Wait for me. I come with you.
There was also a hunter shooting down a singing bird, a robber robbing a rich old lady with the interference of a policewoman (the robber refused to go to jail because her father was sick), two strangers going to eat dinner, and a famous singer (me) charging her #1 fan 10RMB to receive an autograph.
I later found out that day that the high school classes are canceled until further notice. The overall impression I got at the meeting after class was over (whether the HS would hire a SES teacher) was that they wished I looked more “foreign” and want a guarantee that their students will be able to pass the listening portion of the Shanghai English Exam.
Later that day, I went to my usual school, ZFH, to teach the 3rd graders. They are probably my favorite group so far. They remembered my name and some of them even kissed my cheeks during introductions. That was too cute. And they are also at that age where whatever (lame) game you give them to play, they love it. Even when there are no winners and losers. We played a game where all they had to do was run around a chair to look at a flashcard, sit down and raise their hand to be called on to answer “what color is it?” Even when someone else answered the question, they got very excited because they had the same answer and it was validation enough that they had also “won.” And they are old enough to give me some feedback even if it is in Mandarin (which I pretend to not understand) or miming. Not to mention that they have a lot of energy and love to run back and forth.
Even though it was an early day, I had to meet Chris and Susan at the Xinzhuang metro stop by 7:45am, the day was ... good.
The high school class we were demonstrating in was half and half. The first class was a disaster since they wanted to keep it with 30+ students in addition to the small crowd of other English teachers observing, “just what the Western style of teaching was.” Chris and I tried to implement small group sizes but with the way everything was set up, it was just not going to work. We went around doing small group introductions and tried getting the students to open their mouths and speak. But the sentences they said were very rehearsed and by the book. The bigger disaster happened when I asked the students to pull out one of the books and they said they didn’t have it. What. An. Unfortunate. Thing.
The regular teacher quickly came over to help me work out what was the problem. And I told Chris to “entertain” the crowd as a couple of us tried to solve the problem. Switched up the lesson plan to using something that was already copied out of the (other) book. Needless to say, I felt like it was a disaster because of the slow-paceness and just boringness of the lesson. The other teachers observing the lesson asked us why they would need a foreign teacher to do something that a regular Chinese teacher could already do. What was the point of having us there?
The second class they wanted us to demonstrate a more “Western” style of teaching. We had the large class divided up into 2 smaller classes of about 15 students each. Chris took one class and I took the other. I felt sorry for Chris because SES had told him that he would just be helping me out and not teaching a whole class by himself, so he was basically thrust onto the stage against his knowledge.
To get the students to open up more and to talk more (a silent class is so boring as I know from past AAP tutoring experience), I had the students move away from their desks/computers and come closer to the center. Started with introductions to give each student a chance to talk and then I started on the presentation of the lesson, “greetings and goodbyes.” Yawn. I asked two students to come up to demonstrate a simple dialogue and from there it spiraled off to a wonderful tangent. I had each student come up in groups and asked the audience to give characters and scenarios. I could tell that the high schoolers were enjoying this because they were able to use their creativity and use more spontaneous English. This was a move away from doing things by the book and responding with a rehearsed sentence.
Every once in awhile I would sneak a peek at the observers in the back and I saw that even they were having fun! Here, the students were working on their English and having a fun time doing so. Even though the vocabulary was limited, I could tell the students were searching in their brains for similar words that could convey the meaning they wanted. A particularly funny one involved 3 boys who were given the roles of mother, father and baby arguing in a restaurant. The “baby” could speak English apparently.
Mother: I want to eat much food. I want to eat sandwich, hamburger, steak. I want to eat all the expensive food.
Father: You want to eat too much. I don’t have money.
Mother: Yes you do.
Father: No I don’t.
Mother: The money is in your pocket.
Father: No money in my pocket.
Baby: Mother! This is a bad father. Father has no money.
Mother: I leave now.
Baby: Mother! I go with you.
Father: Wait for me. I come with you.
There was also a hunter shooting down a singing bird, a robber robbing a rich old lady with the interference of a policewoman (the robber refused to go to jail because her father was sick), two strangers going to eat dinner, and a famous singer (me) charging her #1 fan 10RMB to receive an autograph.
I later found out that day that the high school classes are canceled until further notice. The overall impression I got at the meeting after class was over (whether the HS would hire a SES teacher) was that they wished I looked more “foreign” and want a guarantee that their students will be able to pass the listening portion of the Shanghai English Exam.
Later that day, I went to my usual school, ZFH, to teach the 3rd graders. They are probably my favorite group so far. They remembered my name and some of them even kissed my cheeks during introductions. That was too cute. And they are also at that age where whatever (lame) game you give them to play, they love it. Even when there are no winners and losers. We played a game where all they had to do was run around a chair to look at a flashcard, sit down and raise their hand to be called on to answer “what color is it?” Even when someone else answered the question, they got very excited because they had the same answer and it was validation enough that they had also “won.” And they are old enough to give me some feedback even if it is in Mandarin (which I pretend to not understand) or miming. Not to mention that they have a lot of energy and love to run back and forth.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Chinese Laundry
Today, I did my laundry. Chinese style.
Well, actually half-Western, half-Chinese. While washers are relatively common in China now, dryers are still considered rare and more of something “them foreigners” use. My apt has a washer (whew!) but no dryer. Instead, I have a lovely balcony to hang my clothes up to dry. It is actually quite neat though. Because the clothesline(rod?) can move up and down when I turn the knob. I was a bit worried initially because it was too high up for me to reach.
My “balcony” is enclosed so it’s not like my laundry is hanging for the whole world to see. Even though that wouldn’t be weird here. Since China is more humid than SoCal, the key is to do laundry in the morning so that the afternoon sun has a chance to dry it. I wonder how fast laundry dries during the winters. I might miss soft, fluffy clothes though.
Well, actually half-Western, half-Chinese. While washers are relatively common in China now, dryers are still considered rare and more of something “them foreigners” use. My apt has a washer (whew!) but no dryer. Instead, I have a lovely balcony to hang my clothes up to dry. It is actually quite neat though. Because the clothesline(rod?) can move up and down when I turn the knob. I was a bit worried initially because it was too high up for me to reach.
My “balcony” is enclosed so it’s not like my laundry is hanging for the whole world to see. Even though that wouldn’t be weird here. Since China is more humid than SoCal, the key is to do laundry in the morning so that the afternoon sun has a chance to dry it. I wonder how fast laundry dries during the winters. I might miss soft, fluffy clothes though.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Home Sweet China?
This was written a couple days ago. So the dates and timeline is a little off in real time. And I still don't have Internet. I'm using a friend's internet right now. Deal.
--------
I moved into my apt today. I have no Internet. I have not completely unpacked yet. Nancy helped me move my luggage over and then we walked over to IKEA to find bedsheets. Rather, I went to find bedsheets because Nancy had to go back to the office and i guess she figured that I knew enough Mandarin to survive.
Chinese people seem to love their IKEA. It was pretty crowded and people were walking around taking pictures of the furniture and room set ups. I wonder if many people really were buying things or just wanted to pass the time. It was almost like a museum for them to see how Westerners decorate their homes. Except my home back in America certainly doesn’t look like IKEA. And the IKEA food court was really crowded as well.
I spent so much time looking at the bedsheets. First of all, I didn’t know what size my bed was. It wasn’t a twin and I didn’t think it was a king, so I was going with the assumption that it was a queen. Problem was, I didn’t know how big a queen was in centimeters. Blasted metric system. I finally realized that I could just go over to the mattress section and find a bed that looked like mine and look at the measurements on that. So after I figured out that I was looking for 200cm x 200cm it made things easier. Though for a moment I thought maybe I could do things cheaper and just get a twin size quilt, only to realize that that would make things more complicated and riskier in whether it would fit or not. Plus I like to roll into a comfort pod, so I went default and just picked things out. Since I am still in the process of getting my deposit money together, I knew that I had to spend as little as possible.
I got back to my apt and dropped things off. And then I was hungry so I thought this was a prime opportunity to explore my new neighborhood. The reception/lobby lady is really nice to me and told me to go to her if I ever needed something. She even gave me some laundry detergent because she knew that I hadn’t been able to find a store nearby that sells it. Her and other people who were in the lobby tried to direct me to a China Construction Bank. But when I found out that I had to take the metro to another area just to go to the bank, I decided to save that trip for another day. Maybe I’ll make a stop to the Jinhui (JH) office tomorrow and use the ATM there because I know where it is. Plus it was starting to become evening and I didn’t want to have to travel too far away.
So I am wandering and wandering around the streets near my apt and I pass the same stores like 3 times. I think it was a lot easier having Ryan around because I could use him as my excuse for not knowing how to read all the items on the menu. “Give us a moment, I am translating the menu to him.” I finally pick a restaurant that had a pretty large picture menu (and English menu as well!). I think it was because it’s located so close to the Shanghai Stadium where they had some of the Olympic Games. While I’m waiting around for my food, I txt msg Lisa, Ryan and Karol because they started work today (not Karol as I found out later). Karol replies saying that she is at IKEA and I thought that was just dandy because that was just around the corner!
I met up with Karol at IKEA (second trip in one day) and I help her pick out a couch and coffee table. And other random things. It was great to see someone I knew! We got some looks because we’re both Chinese girls speaking perfect English. IKEA stuff is cheaper in China than in America. Or at least I think it is. I told her we had to stop converting things into US Dollars otherwise we’d buy too much stuff. We have to start thinking only in the Chinese currency. As evidenced when we were comparing two couches that were a 300 RMB difference (~ $43) and were like “you might as well, only a $40 difference” and then realized, ”wait a minute, you can do a lot with 300RMB in China. Like eat 5RMB bowls of noodles for 2 months. Or buy a ticket to Leehom’s concert.“
I show her my apt and tell her to visit whenever she wanted. Poor Karol is pretty much by herself in another part of town. I need to start lesson planning now. My first day of teaching English is tomorrow!
--------
I moved into my apt today. I have no Internet. I have not completely unpacked yet. Nancy helped me move my luggage over and then we walked over to IKEA to find bedsheets. Rather, I went to find bedsheets because Nancy had to go back to the office and i guess she figured that I knew enough Mandarin to survive.
Chinese people seem to love their IKEA. It was pretty crowded and people were walking around taking pictures of the furniture and room set ups. I wonder if many people really were buying things or just wanted to pass the time. It was almost like a museum for them to see how Westerners decorate their homes. Except my home back in America certainly doesn’t look like IKEA. And the IKEA food court was really crowded as well.
I spent so much time looking at the bedsheets. First of all, I didn’t know what size my bed was. It wasn’t a twin and I didn’t think it was a king, so I was going with the assumption that it was a queen. Problem was, I didn’t know how big a queen was in centimeters. Blasted metric system. I finally realized that I could just go over to the mattress section and find a bed that looked like mine and look at the measurements on that. So after I figured out that I was looking for 200cm x 200cm it made things easier. Though for a moment I thought maybe I could do things cheaper and just get a twin size quilt, only to realize that that would make things more complicated and riskier in whether it would fit or not. Plus I like to roll into a comfort pod, so I went default and just picked things out. Since I am still in the process of getting my deposit money together, I knew that I had to spend as little as possible.
I got back to my apt and dropped things off. And then I was hungry so I thought this was a prime opportunity to explore my new neighborhood. The reception/lobby lady is really nice to me and told me to go to her if I ever needed something. She even gave me some laundry detergent because she knew that I hadn’t been able to find a store nearby that sells it. Her and other people who were in the lobby tried to direct me to a China Construction Bank. But when I found out that I had to take the metro to another area just to go to the bank, I decided to save that trip for another day. Maybe I’ll make a stop to the Jinhui (JH) office tomorrow and use the ATM there because I know where it is. Plus it was starting to become evening and I didn’t want to have to travel too far away.
So I am wandering and wandering around the streets near my apt and I pass the same stores like 3 times. I think it was a lot easier having Ryan around because I could use him as my excuse for not knowing how to read all the items on the menu. “Give us a moment, I am translating the menu to him.” I finally pick a restaurant that had a pretty large picture menu (and English menu as well!). I think it was because it’s located so close to the Shanghai Stadium where they had some of the Olympic Games. While I’m waiting around for my food, I txt msg Lisa, Ryan and Karol because they started work today (not Karol as I found out later). Karol replies saying that she is at IKEA and I thought that was just dandy because that was just around the corner!
I met up with Karol at IKEA (second trip in one day) and I help her pick out a couch and coffee table. And other random things. It was great to see someone I knew! We got some looks because we’re both Chinese girls speaking perfect English. IKEA stuff is cheaper in China than in America. Or at least I think it is. I told her we had to stop converting things into US Dollars otherwise we’d buy too much stuff. We have to start thinking only in the Chinese currency. As evidenced when we were comparing two couches that were a 300 RMB difference (~ $43) and were like “you might as well, only a $40 difference” and then realized, ”wait a minute, you can do a lot with 300RMB in China. Like eat 5RMB bowls of noodles for 2 months. Or buy a ticket to Leehom’s concert.“
I show her my apt and tell her to visit whenever she wanted. Poor Karol is pretty much by herself in another part of town. I need to start lesson planning now. My first day of teaching English is tomorrow!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Apt. Hunting pt. 2
Apt. hunting complete! I ended up signing with #3 of the 3 we saw yesterday. I’m not exactly “living it up” in Shanghai in the way that I had dreamed and thought I would. But it’s a start. it’s certainly no luxury high rise with all the services, but it’s a high rise. I’m located on the 8th floor. 8 is a lucky number in China.
I will take better pictures soon and show off my new “crib.“ I have to explore the surrounding area a little bit more. I had just gotten quite comfortable with the area surrounding my school’s office since Ryan and I have to go out to eat every day (or starve). We had tried all the reputable looking restaurants in the area and our next step was probably going to be heading down another small street for “street food.”
Anyway, back to the topic. So I’ll be moving into my apt tomorrow on Monday. Nancy, my welfare officer, said she would help me. And hopefully one of the school’s drivers can help me transport my luggage. I’m going to need to get settled, buy bedsheets that sorta thing. On top of that, I have some lesson planning to do and I also need to do my MAIS grad school work. Classes started this week and we have assignments due already. I need to get my hands on a daily planner so that I don’t miss deadlines or teaching schedules. On top of THAT, I need to learn how to survive in Shanghai by myself. Such as the public transportation system and paying bills. Buying food. Now that my schools (Shane and Concordia) are basically releasing me into the wild, pushing me out of the nest, throwing me into the pool, etc etc. My roommate is still in America awaiting her working visa. I’ll probably end up visiting Lisa’s apt and Ryan’s apt quite a bit.
I will take better pictures soon and show off my new “crib.“ I have to explore the surrounding area a little bit more. I had just gotten quite comfortable with the area surrounding my school’s office since Ryan and I have to go out to eat every day (or starve). We had tried all the reputable looking restaurants in the area and our next step was probably going to be heading down another small street for “street food.”
Anyway, back to the topic. So I’ll be moving into my apt tomorrow on Monday. Nancy, my welfare officer, said she would help me. And hopefully one of the school’s drivers can help me transport my luggage. I’m going to need to get settled, buy bedsheets that sorta thing. On top of that, I have some lesson planning to do and I also need to do my MAIS grad school work. Classes started this week and we have assignments due already. I need to get my hands on a daily planner so that I don’t miss deadlines or teaching schedules. On top of THAT, I need to learn how to survive in Shanghai by myself. Such as the public transportation system and paying bills. Buying food. Now that my schools (Shane and Concordia) are basically releasing me into the wild, pushing me out of the nest, throwing me into the pool, etc etc. My roommate is still in America awaiting her working visa. I’ll probably end up visiting Lisa’s apt and Ryan’s apt quite a bit.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Apt. Hunting pt. 1
Yesterday (Saturday), some guys from my school/company took me on a motorbike ride through Shanghai to find apartments. I had originally thought that Mr. Lu (Big Boss) was going to be driving his car over to meet me, but instead two guys show up on bikes. And when they said, “get on, let’s go” my first thought was, “really?”
I have been on those Asian motorbikes before in Taiwan. They are pretty fun and you start to feel kinda native to the land, except real natives can probably tell right away that you are nothing more than a foreigner. We rode from the Minhang District to the Xuhui District, which while they are right next to each other, it still made for approximately a 30 minute bike ride. Too bad I didn’t get a picture of me on the motorbike, though Ryan said he wanted a picture I have no idea whether he was able to take one before I left him at the hotel.
To be frank, the first apartment we saw was crap. The hallways were pitch black, the space was tiny, and the owner thought Leo (the younger of the two guys who was taking me around) and I were a married couple and was questioning why we would even need two beds. Dodgy old man. The only good thing? It was located in the middle of town. Literally. I could see the big ball-shaped building (recognizable landmark!) from the window. Though not worth it. I think the guys could tell that I didn’t like it because we didn’t even bother asking for the rent.
The second place, while the area was an upgrade, the inside was for a lack of better words, even crappier. The kitchen was the living room and the living room was the kitchen. One of the beds was a futon/bamboo cover. The bathroom was old and gross looking. I guess I’m American and have high standards.
The last place we saw was a whole lot better. It was better lit, the space was bigger and it just felt more comfortable. The old guy that came with me said, “This place doesn’t even compare to the first two. Those first two were too ”bad“.” And apparently it is convenient to things as well. Such as IKEA. Which I could see from the window. LoL. I think this place may be the default if I don’t see anything better. Now, if only I can get Sina to respond to my emails and constant badgering so that we can come to an agreement. Let me tell you, apartment hunting is hard if your roommate is in another country, in a different time zone.
Today, the plan is for Leo to take me and Ryan out to look at some more places. Ryan wasn’t able to make it on Saturday because he was doing observations. And me, well because I guess I am picky. I want to live it up in Shanghai, with the nice apartment and my “Western” salary, but Shanghai is probably like the West LA of California. Hard to find a nice apartment with a set budget. If only I had an unlimited fund. I would then be so cool.
I have been on those Asian motorbikes before in Taiwan. They are pretty fun and you start to feel kinda native to the land, except real natives can probably tell right away that you are nothing more than a foreigner. We rode from the Minhang District to the Xuhui District, which while they are right next to each other, it still made for approximately a 30 minute bike ride. Too bad I didn’t get a picture of me on the motorbike, though Ryan said he wanted a picture I have no idea whether he was able to take one before I left him at the hotel.
To be frank, the first apartment we saw was crap. The hallways were pitch black, the space was tiny, and the owner thought Leo (the younger of the two guys who was taking me around) and I were a married couple and was questioning why we would even need two beds. Dodgy old man. The only good thing? It was located in the middle of town. Literally. I could see the big ball-shaped building (recognizable landmark!) from the window. Though not worth it. I think the guys could tell that I didn’t like it because we didn’t even bother asking for the rent.
The second place, while the area was an upgrade, the inside was for a lack of better words, even crappier. The kitchen was the living room and the living room was the kitchen. One of the beds was a futon/bamboo cover. The bathroom was old and gross looking. I guess I’m American and have high standards.
The last place we saw was a whole lot better. It was better lit, the space was bigger and it just felt more comfortable. The old guy that came with me said, “This place doesn’t even compare to the first two. Those first two were too ”bad“.” And apparently it is convenient to things as well. Such as IKEA. Which I could see from the window. LoL. I think this place may be the default if I don’t see anything better. Now, if only I can get Sina to respond to my emails and constant badgering so that we can come to an agreement. Let me tell you, apartment hunting is hard if your roommate is in another country, in a different time zone.
Today, the plan is for Leo to take me and Ryan out to look at some more places. Ryan wasn’t able to make it on Saturday because he was doing observations. And me, well because I guess I am picky. I want to live it up in Shanghai, with the nice apartment and my “Western” salary, but Shanghai is probably like the West LA of California. Hard to find a nice apartment with a set budget. If only I had an unlimited fund. I would then be so cool.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Expensive & Cheap Chinese Food
Yesterday (Tuesday) after training, Lisa and I headed out to her apartment to meet up with some MAIS people who had just arrived today/finally made it out to visit. We got a cab and rode through rush hour traffic. When we got there, we could hear their voices from outside!
Walked in to see Brian (he lives there), Jess, Daniella, Nicolle, Michelle (not Lisa’s rommie) and Bennett. A whole room of MAIS people! We did some mini-catching up and tried to figure out a place to grab some dinner. Brian suggested this one place in Shanghai that is filled with Western style restaurants. The name escapes me at the moment.
To get to the area, we had to take the metro. Since many of us still have to learn how to navigate the metro, we let Brian take the lead. We were a giant group of foreigners trekking through the station. Since Nicolle and Michelle (and Bennett, but he stayed) had just flown in that day, they were understandably jet-lagged and decided to go back first to rest. The rest of us continued on our journey.
Brian led us in an unnecessary circle around the block before realizing that all we had to do was cross the street. It was a nice stroll through some city life I guess, lol. Except many of us were tired and hungry. When we arrived, I was amazed at how many foreigners there were! Everywhere I turned there was a non-Chinese face! And in China, if the number of foreigners increase, the prices increase as well. Our bill for 6 people came out to over 1100RMB ($160USD) which is a bit pricey even in the States (we are grad students after all) and practically a fortune for the majority of the Chinese (especially just to eat a meal). I didn’t realize it until later, but my can of coca-cola was 40RMB ($5.85USD). In the States, I can get that for 0.75cents from some vending machines!
We told ourselves not to calculate the price. We were treating ourselves to something nice after finally meeting up and arriving at our destination. We walked around the plaza for a bit and since Bennett needed to buy some bedsheets, we stopped at a mall to buy some. Even the bedsheets were expensive. Luckily, I was able to ask them to find some cheaper ones (they were also on sale) otherwise his bedsheets would have cost more than our meal.
After everyone kinda dispersed to go back to their respective districts, Lisa, Brian, Bennett and I headed back to Xujiahui (where Lisa and Brian live) and then Lisa and I took a taxi back to Minhang (the district that Lisa and I’s hotel for training was). Got back around 10:30pm, took showers and promptly fell asleep.
Oh! Today (Wednesday) I had finally worked my way down to my first street food. During the lunch break at training, Joey took us to a noodle place that he was familiar with. He said the bowls of noodle were about 5RMB each and we all thought that was just dandy. We really needed to start eating like real Chinese people in order to make our RMB stretch. We walked a couple blocks and it was this little family run place that was so happy to see a bunch of foreigners wanting to come in to eat their food. They even went out of their way to buy us some cold bottles of water (we paid the price of course). In total, the 8 bowls of (huge) noodles + 4 bottles of iced water bottles cost us 40RMB ($5.85USD). Total. That was how much my can of coca-cola alone cost the night before. So divide that price by 8 and you can figure out how much each individual meal was.
Visit me in China!
Walked in to see Brian (he lives there), Jess, Daniella, Nicolle, Michelle (not Lisa’s rommie) and Bennett. A whole room of MAIS people! We did some mini-catching up and tried to figure out a place to grab some dinner. Brian suggested this one place in Shanghai that is filled with Western style restaurants. The name escapes me at the moment.
To get to the area, we had to take the metro. Since many of us still have to learn how to navigate the metro, we let Brian take the lead. We were a giant group of foreigners trekking through the station. Since Nicolle and Michelle (and Bennett, but he stayed) had just flown in that day, they were understandably jet-lagged and decided to go back first to rest. The rest of us continued on our journey.
Brian led us in an unnecessary circle around the block before realizing that all we had to do was cross the street. It was a nice stroll through some city life I guess, lol. Except many of us were tired and hungry. When we arrived, I was amazed at how many foreigners there were! Everywhere I turned there was a non-Chinese face! And in China, if the number of foreigners increase, the prices increase as well. Our bill for 6 people came out to over 1100RMB ($160USD) which is a bit pricey even in the States (we are grad students after all) and practically a fortune for the majority of the Chinese (especially just to eat a meal). I didn’t realize it until later, but my can of coca-cola was 40RMB ($5.85USD). In the States, I can get that for 0.75cents from some vending machines!
We told ourselves not to calculate the price. We were treating ourselves to something nice after finally meeting up and arriving at our destination. We walked around the plaza for a bit and since Bennett needed to buy some bedsheets, we stopped at a mall to buy some. Even the bedsheets were expensive. Luckily, I was able to ask them to find some cheaper ones (they were also on sale) otherwise his bedsheets would have cost more than our meal.
After everyone kinda dispersed to go back to their respective districts, Lisa, Brian, Bennett and I headed back to Xujiahui (where Lisa and Brian live) and then Lisa and I took a taxi back to Minhang (the district that Lisa and I’s hotel for training was). Got back around 10:30pm, took showers and promptly fell asleep.
Oh! Today (Wednesday) I had finally worked my way down to my first street food. During the lunch break at training, Joey took us to a noodle place that he was familiar with. He said the bowls of noodle were about 5RMB each and we all thought that was just dandy. We really needed to start eating like real Chinese people in order to make our RMB stretch. We walked a couple blocks and it was this little family run place that was so happy to see a bunch of foreigners wanting to come in to eat their food. They even went out of their way to buy us some cold bottles of water (we paid the price of course). In total, the 8 bowls of (huge) noodles + 4 bottles of iced water bottles cost us 40RMB ($5.85USD). Total. That was how much my can of coca-cola alone cost the night before. So divide that price by 8 and you can figure out how much each individual meal was.
Visit me in China!
Monday, August 25, 2008
Orangized Chaos
What was supposed to be a relatively quick 30 minute drive from our office to the head office (for training week) turned into an unexpected tour of the city of Shanghai. Warning: this is long.
I woke up at the early hour of about 6AM to the sound of thunder. I peeked out the room window but saw no rain, but there was no mistake for that rumbling sound in the sky. Before I knew it, it was raining like no other. As a purebred SoCal girl, any form of precipitation falling from the sky is enough cause for excitement. But here was window-rattling thunder and pouring rain. It was like God suddenly decided to empty his bottomless pool over onto the city of Shanghai. I tried going back to sleep but the sound was too much for me so I woke up and went online for about an hour or so. Finally deciding that I would need all my energy for the full day of training, I tried to go back to sleep and was able to get maybe all of a 10 minute extra sleep.
Lisa (who pretty much slept through the whole morning) and I woke up to get dressed to go to the office to meet our driver. We braved the streets of backed up, non-moving cars for the short walk from hotel to office. When we arrived, the only people in the hallway was a Chinese guy and Ryan. Turned out that no one else had made it in on time. We wait around for awhile, standing near a window for ventilation when an office worker arrived, recognized Lisa and we went in to wait in the waiting room. We were supposed to leave the office at 10am to make the 11am training sessions. Our driver calls and informs the office that he was going to be running late because of the traffic. Not a problem, so the three of us went down to the convenience store to pick up some breakfast and snacks.
Driver arrives at 12noon. Actually, driver calls office to have them bring us down to the street corner to meet him since it would take too long to turn into the drive way and come back out. Office Man takes us down, tells us to wait at the street corner, and that he was going to run back to the office to grab his cell phone. We wait and the driver shows up. He shouts out the window to get our attention and we quickly ran through the rain to the door. We move halfway down the block and Driver gets a phone call from Office Man who says that he was to come with us to the office. It’s not like we moved far down the street so Office Man runs into the crowded street to search for us.
Keep in mind for the rest of this blog that the streets are filled with cars. x1000. Two lane streets turned into a random jumble of 7 “lanes”. Cars started to drive in the direction of opposing traffic and even on the sidewalks. If there was a sudden empty space you can bet that some car will find its way into that spot within seconds. There was complete disregard for the street lights and all laws of driving safety. There are really no words to describe it. You had to see it. But there were no accidents and no cars were bumping into each other. It was pure organized chaos.
We are driving ever so slowly. We were once stopped at an intersection for so long that we were debating whether to get out of the car and grab some lunch. Right on the corner was some sort of food place. We literally had enough time to get out, order our food, eat our food and get back into the car. And the car MIGHT have moved one foot.
The car ride was getting boring since we would stare at the same scenery for a long time. The endless car honking was getting annoying and we wanted to sleep. That was when things started to get interesting. We see a group of men standing outside of their cars yelling at each other. Fight! It would have been so cool if they started punching each other, but that didn’t happen. The cars didn’t even hit. They were just yelling at each other. Our driver used that to his advantage because he followed the car into the opening that it had created and we were able to turn onto the next street.
Circa 2pm (you do the math) we started seeing a lot more water on the ground. As we continued driving, the water level rose higher and higher on the sides of the roads. Pretty soon we saw that some of the streets were flooded. The motorbike lane (kinda like the bike lanes in America, but a separate area on the street barred off for motorbikes) was flooding. In some parts it had raised to the level of the sidewalk. Some brave walkers were trudging through it and it was up the their shins. Driver tells Office Man that we should get out and take the metro since we were near one of the stations by now. 2 hours to drive about 10 blocks!
So glad that I know Mandarin because it made the whole sudden change of plans a lot smoother. We got out of the car in the middle of traffic and had to cross a flooded street. Ryan was able to jump over it and Lisa had boots on but I had flip flops on because of my bum feet. So Ryan was trying to help me across but I’m not tall enough to jump when Office Man finally pointed out a shallow area. Office Man led the way and kept nervously glancing back to make sure that the three of us were keeping up. I bet he didn’t want to lose the three American teachers he was responsible for. The three of us had no clue how to navigate the metro so we just followed Office Man and he would speak to me in Mandarin and I would translate for Ryan and Lisa. I think that put a lot of people at ease because there was effective communication. While on the Metro, Lisa and I would watch each other’s bags since we were facing each other and couldn’t see behind us. We just kept following Office Man through the maze and crowd of people to another Metro line, got off, walked a few blocks through Shanghai and then finally arrived at the head office. At 3:30pm.
Office Man dropped us off and then disappeared. He told me to call Mr. Lu when we were done and “he would take care of how we would get home.” They were already wrapping things up so we got maybe about 30 mins of training. We finally saw Karol and she was questioning why we were so late. So Lisa, Ryan and I stayed behind for a bit to get a quick crash course of what they went over that day. Driver and the office call us to let us know that Driver had finally made it to the head office and was waiting downstairs. He basically spent the whole day driving to and from head office. There was no abnormal traffic on the way back to our district (Minhang) and all the flood water had disappeared. Driver dropped us off on the corner of the office and said he would meet us at 10:30am the next morning to take us back.
Lisa, Ryan and I got out of the van and immediately wanted to get some food. We had not eaten the whole day except for the little bit of breakfast snacks we had managed to buy before leaving our office. We walked down the street and stopped at the first place we saw (and felt safe eating). We were looking at the menu outside trying to figure out whether we would eat anything there when we realized that we were so hungry that we didn’t really care anymore. As we walked in I saw that it was a restaurant with a Tainan theme (which means it was Taiwanese style) so I figured that I would be able to find something to eat. It wasn’t really Taiwanese style, it was more a mixture of just Chinese food. Which was good because there was more variety. Best part? They are open 24 hours. I guess we found our Chinese Denny's restaurant. And it’s pretty cheap, too.
It’s only about 8:30pm but all of us are so exhausted for a day where we spent sitting in a car all day with a brief walk through the Metro and Shanghai. Great team work today team with not losing each other. And especially appreciative of our awesome Driver and Office Man who were so determined to get us to head office. Especially Driver with his mad driving skills.
I woke up at the early hour of about 6AM to the sound of thunder. I peeked out the room window but saw no rain, but there was no mistake for that rumbling sound in the sky. Before I knew it, it was raining like no other. As a purebred SoCal girl, any form of precipitation falling from the sky is enough cause for excitement. But here was window-rattling thunder and pouring rain. It was like God suddenly decided to empty his bottomless pool over onto the city of Shanghai. I tried going back to sleep but the sound was too much for me so I woke up and went online for about an hour or so. Finally deciding that I would need all my energy for the full day of training, I tried to go back to sleep and was able to get maybe all of a 10 minute extra sleep.
Lisa (who pretty much slept through the whole morning) and I woke up to get dressed to go to the office to meet our driver. We braved the streets of backed up, non-moving cars for the short walk from hotel to office. When we arrived, the only people in the hallway was a Chinese guy and Ryan. Turned out that no one else had made it in on time. We wait around for awhile, standing near a window for ventilation when an office worker arrived, recognized Lisa and we went in to wait in the waiting room. We were supposed to leave the office at 10am to make the 11am training sessions. Our driver calls and informs the office that he was going to be running late because of the traffic. Not a problem, so the three of us went down to the convenience store to pick up some breakfast and snacks.
Driver arrives at 12noon. Actually, driver calls office to have them bring us down to the street corner to meet him since it would take too long to turn into the drive way and come back out. Office Man takes us down, tells us to wait at the street corner, and that he was going to run back to the office to grab his cell phone. We wait and the driver shows up. He shouts out the window to get our attention and we quickly ran through the rain to the door. We move halfway down the block and Driver gets a phone call from Office Man who says that he was to come with us to the office. It’s not like we moved far down the street so Office Man runs into the crowded street to search for us.
Keep in mind for the rest of this blog that the streets are filled with cars. x1000. Two lane streets turned into a random jumble of 7 “lanes”. Cars started to drive in the direction of opposing traffic and even on the sidewalks. If there was a sudden empty space you can bet that some car will find its way into that spot within seconds. There was complete disregard for the street lights and all laws of driving safety. There are really no words to describe it. You had to see it. But there were no accidents and no cars were bumping into each other. It was pure organized chaos.
We are driving ever so slowly. We were once stopped at an intersection for so long that we were debating whether to get out of the car and grab some lunch. Right on the corner was some sort of food place. We literally had enough time to get out, order our food, eat our food and get back into the car. And the car MIGHT have moved one foot.
The car ride was getting boring since we would stare at the same scenery for a long time. The endless car honking was getting annoying and we wanted to sleep. That was when things started to get interesting. We see a group of men standing outside of their cars yelling at each other. Fight! It would have been so cool if they started punching each other, but that didn’t happen. The cars didn’t even hit. They were just yelling at each other. Our driver used that to his advantage because he followed the car into the opening that it had created and we were able to turn onto the next street.
Circa 2pm (you do the math) we started seeing a lot more water on the ground. As we continued driving, the water level rose higher and higher on the sides of the roads. Pretty soon we saw that some of the streets were flooded. The motorbike lane (kinda like the bike lanes in America, but a separate area on the street barred off for motorbikes) was flooding. In some parts it had raised to the level of the sidewalk. Some brave walkers were trudging through it and it was up the their shins. Driver tells Office Man that we should get out and take the metro since we were near one of the stations by now. 2 hours to drive about 10 blocks!
So glad that I know Mandarin because it made the whole sudden change of plans a lot smoother. We got out of the car in the middle of traffic and had to cross a flooded street. Ryan was able to jump over it and Lisa had boots on but I had flip flops on because of my bum feet. So Ryan was trying to help me across but I’m not tall enough to jump when Office Man finally pointed out a shallow area. Office Man led the way and kept nervously glancing back to make sure that the three of us were keeping up. I bet he didn’t want to lose the three American teachers he was responsible for. The three of us had no clue how to navigate the metro so we just followed Office Man and he would speak to me in Mandarin and I would translate for Ryan and Lisa. I think that put a lot of people at ease because there was effective communication. While on the Metro, Lisa and I would watch each other’s bags since we were facing each other and couldn’t see behind us. We just kept following Office Man through the maze and crowd of people to another Metro line, got off, walked a few blocks through Shanghai and then finally arrived at the head office. At 3:30pm.
Office Man dropped us off and then disappeared. He told me to call Mr. Lu when we were done and “he would take care of how we would get home.” They were already wrapping things up so we got maybe about 30 mins of training. We finally saw Karol and she was questioning why we were so late. So Lisa, Ryan and I stayed behind for a bit to get a quick crash course of what they went over that day. Driver and the office call us to let us know that Driver had finally made it to the head office and was waiting downstairs. He basically spent the whole day driving to and from head office. There was no abnormal traffic on the way back to our district (Minhang) and all the flood water had disappeared. Driver dropped us off on the corner of the office and said he would meet us at 10:30am the next morning to take us back.
Lisa, Ryan and I got out of the van and immediately wanted to get some food. We had not eaten the whole day except for the little bit of breakfast snacks we had managed to buy before leaving our office. We walked down the street and stopped at the first place we saw (and felt safe eating). We were looking at the menu outside trying to figure out whether we would eat anything there when we realized that we were so hungry that we didn’t really care anymore. As we walked in I saw that it was a restaurant with a Tainan theme (which means it was Taiwanese style) so I figured that I would be able to find something to eat. It wasn’t really Taiwanese style, it was more a mixture of just Chinese food. Which was good because there was more variety. Best part? They are open 24 hours. I guess we found our Chinese Denny's restaurant. And it’s pretty cheap, too.
It’s only about 8:30pm but all of us are so exhausted for a day where we spent sitting in a car all day with a brief walk through the Metro and Shanghai. Great team work today team with not losing each other. And especially appreciative of our awesome Driver and Office Man who were so determined to get us to head office. Especially Driver with his mad driving skills.
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