My nose
I was taking a walk in the People's Square. Every Chinese city has a People's Square. It's a square for the people. I was accosted several times by groups of Chinese tourists looking to practice some English. The first group was really just two girls from Xian. They were visiting a family member in Shanghai. They were friendly and invited me to drink gong fu tea with them. I declined mainly because it reminded me of a come-drink-tea-with-us scam which it almost certainly was not, but I also wanted to continue walking. I did chat with them in English/Chinese for a little while. The second group was comprised of three people, also from Xian. They were students living in Shanghai for some unclear period of time. They started with a "hello, how are you?" but then moved immediately to "Do you speak Chinese?" That conversation was challenging. The one guy who wanted to do most of the talking was difficult to understand due to a very strong accent, although others later told me that the Xian accent isn't particularly hard to understand and it may have just been this particular guy's background or way of speaking. He mentioned to me that my nose was enormous, for which I thanked him. Apparently this is not necessarily an insult in China, though it sure feels like one. He also caught a look at the freckles on my arm and then held my arm and studied it like an ancient artifact. He spoke at some length about the reasons I might have freckles which as far as I could tell had something to do with water, roots of plans, and something I ate in my childhood. This is probably not correct though it as close as I will ever get to knowing what the hell he was talking about.
I guess I haven't written here since Monday. The internet really drives me nuts here. It's so inconsistent. This is the first time I have tried to do work here, which is probably why I have felt it more than previous visits. I never traveled with a laptop before and now I have one and often during the day I will do several hours of work, though lately I have taken to working offline to the degree possible since there is no other real choice. For most things I need to do, I had anticipated this to a degree so I can still get quite a lot done, but it is still inconvenient in ways I hadn't anticipated. I can't even reliably reach my home server which hosts various important things to which I need access.
The weather has been reasonably nice again. It hasn't been raining at least. It is in the 60s in the mornings, and the 70s during the day. I have gone out to several Couchsurfing events. There was one at a bar in a district called Luwan which was nice. The bar was kind of a dive not unlike one might find in NYC. I haven't been in many of those. Some guests in the hostel are here long term. They go out many nights to various bars around Shanghai. I haven't gone out with them really as they tend towards the swankier, pretentious places which sound even worse than the one place like that I visited. The Shanghai New Rich apparently frequent these joints, although I would at least find that interesting to see since it is novel. One girl I met, an expat from Germany living here for a while, told me that many foreigners come here to "celebrate their wealth." I think that's a good way to describe what I have seen. Also many foreign man seem to be making their way through the Chinese girls without much regard for anything but their own pleasure. The women seem to allow this since a foreign boyfriend represents a status symbol and a chance to permamently increase one's status through marriage, moving to the west, or something like that. These are things Chinese girls have said to me by the way, not entirely my own theories.
I like Shanghai overall. It's an attractive city and it is clean in a way that other cities are in China. There are neighborhoods that exist here which exist in no other city. Some are very high-end, comprised of Lamborghini and Maserati dealerships and every trendy brand of clothing or handbag one can imagine. Others are a fusion of European and Chinese architecture with small cafes and tree-lined streets. As I discovered this week, there are also many poor neighborhoods filled with tiny homes stuffed with several generations of a family, clothes hanging in every direction, people washing their hair in a communal area in the street, and long rows of street vendors filled with people and motorcycles. These places are every bit as China as any other city I have visited, in contrast to the common assertion I hear that Shanghai is not China. That may be partly true, but I didn't have to go far to find the real thing. I read that there are 9 million immigrant workers here and apparently plenty more of those tiny and non-rich neighborhoods are Shanghai natives as well. I'm sure going farther out of the city it is easy to find more of that. Many of the local districts I discovered were one street away from a busy tourist block. The instant change from trendy malls and tourists to food on sticks and no foreigners is incredible.
I did a few touristy things this week. After the rain cleared up, I went out to capitalize on the sun while it was still out. I went and visited Jing'An temple, originally built in 200something AD, though relocated in 12something to its current location. Impressive, but temples sort of blur after you've seen a few dozen of them. That day like many was accompanied by lots of city walking and exploration, in that case with an American girl I met at the hostel. The next day I started out with a Danish girl and an Irish girl I'd met at the hostel. We first visited the Yu Garden, one of those beautiful imperial era gardens built by some wealthy government official. Bridges traverse ponds filled with goldfish too fat to swim and meticulously decorated temples and pagodas fill the place. Next door to that garden is the "old city" of Shanghai for which I had hopes, but the presence of Dairy Queen should give some idea of what the place was really like. All the buildings are constructed in ancient styles, but it is way too packed with tourist shops and kiosks to give even the tiniest semblance of atmosphere. It was really just one more orgy of commerce, though in this case at least a lot of food was there was well. The street food market we found later well outside the "old city" was vastly superior though. After the garden and old city, we wandered. We walked through one of the aforementioned local neighborhoods encountering no foreigners. We eventually made it to the river and walked north along the Bund, taking in the ridiculous spectacle of insane skyscrapers and modern construction that comprise the skyline east of the Huang Pu river. Shanghai is divided into two parts really, west of the river which is Puxi and east of the river which is Pudong. The view from Puxi to Pudong of all the skyscrapers is usually what you see in the magazines when they show you a picture of Shanghai. You can tell by the presence of the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower, the building that looks kind of like a spaceship from a movie in the 50s when they decided to go with the rocket ship look as opposed to the flying saucer look.
I did make it to another vegetarian restaurant the other day which was quite good. That meal I passed with six Couchsurfers. I think I was still the only vegetarian which made for a lot of indifference and complaining about the food and vegetarian food in general. These people all volunteered for the meal, but I think both of my vegetarian meals have been with non-vegetarians who don't particularly care for vegetarian food. I'd like to find some people with whom I can dine who actually appreciate the meals instead of tolerate them. It's not like the food is bad, it's just that they love meat and want to make sure I know that what I'm eating is a sad excuse for food and not possibly comparable to the delicious taste of an animal that was probably killed in a way so horrible that they wouldn't want to watch for a few seconds let alone the duration of the animals miserable life. This reminds me, Mark Zuckerberg was in a news article I briefly managed to read in which he described his new annual challenge that he apparently sets for himself each year. I happen to like that idea by the way. Last year he learned Chinese, or at least began to study it. Once Youtube works again I'll have to go find a video of him speaking it and see how he did with a few hours of study each day for one year. Sticking to something regularly makes a difference. It was always said when I was learning to read music that practicing 10 minutes a day is better than 4 hours every few weeks. Anyway, his new challenge is not eating any meat from an animal he has not killed himself. So he killed a chicken and a pig so far I think. And he also boiled a live lobster himself. The last part sounds pretty awful, but at least I give him credit for the idea of taking responsibility for what you are eating and being aware of what actually went into the meal on your plate. I doubt most of the self-professed meat lovers would ever do such a thing. Sure there are a few hunters, but they are not the ones bitching to me about what's wrong with my diet.
Well, it'd be easy to write more but that seems like enough tangents for one day. Besides, who knows how long my window will be open for me to publish this. Today, headed to language exchange again. The weather is a bit better this week, so I will stay longer I think. Last week was good but drizzly and the meeting was outdoors. Not a great combination. Various plans for the upcoming week. June 6th heading to Hangzhou, June 10th flying to Singapore. Still need to book a hostel in Singapore actually, though I booked something in downtown Mumbai so at least that is ready to go. The hostel booking sites don't work normally, they require some kind of tunnel or proxy which doesn't always work, so I'm kind of at the mercy of the government when it comes to booking accommodation. Makes perfect sense, don't you think?
I guess I haven't written here since Monday. The internet really drives me nuts here. It's so inconsistent. This is the first time I have tried to do work here, which is probably why I have felt it more than previous visits. I never traveled with a laptop before and now I have one and often during the day I will do several hours of work, though lately I have taken to working offline to the degree possible since there is no other real choice. For most things I need to do, I had anticipated this to a degree so I can still get quite a lot done, but it is still inconvenient in ways I hadn't anticipated. I can't even reliably reach my home server which hosts various important things to which I need access.
The weather has been reasonably nice again. It hasn't been raining at least. It is in the 60s in the mornings, and the 70s during the day. I have gone out to several Couchsurfing events. There was one at a bar in a district called Luwan which was nice. The bar was kind of a dive not unlike one might find in NYC. I haven't been in many of those. Some guests in the hostel are here long term. They go out many nights to various bars around Shanghai. I haven't gone out with them really as they tend towards the swankier, pretentious places which sound even worse than the one place like that I visited. The Shanghai New Rich apparently frequent these joints, although I would at least find that interesting to see since it is novel. One girl I met, an expat from Germany living here for a while, told me that many foreigners come here to "celebrate their wealth." I think that's a good way to describe what I have seen. Also many foreign man seem to be making their way through the Chinese girls without much regard for anything but their own pleasure. The women seem to allow this since a foreign boyfriend represents a status symbol and a chance to permamently increase one's status through marriage, moving to the west, or something like that. These are things Chinese girls have said to me by the way, not entirely my own theories.
I like Shanghai overall. It's an attractive city and it is clean in a way that other cities are in China. There are neighborhoods that exist here which exist in no other city. Some are very high-end, comprised of Lamborghini and Maserati dealerships and every trendy brand of clothing or handbag one can imagine. Others are a fusion of European and Chinese architecture with small cafes and tree-lined streets. As I discovered this week, there are also many poor neighborhoods filled with tiny homes stuffed with several generations of a family, clothes hanging in every direction, people washing their hair in a communal area in the street, and long rows of street vendors filled with people and motorcycles. These places are every bit as China as any other city I have visited, in contrast to the common assertion I hear that Shanghai is not China. That may be partly true, but I didn't have to go far to find the real thing. I read that there are 9 million immigrant workers here and apparently plenty more of those tiny and non-rich neighborhoods are Shanghai natives as well. I'm sure going farther out of the city it is easy to find more of that. Many of the local districts I discovered were one street away from a busy tourist block. The instant change from trendy malls and tourists to food on sticks and no foreigners is incredible.
I did a few touristy things this week. After the rain cleared up, I went out to capitalize on the sun while it was still out. I went and visited Jing'An temple, originally built in 200something AD, though relocated in 12something to its current location. Impressive, but temples sort of blur after you've seen a few dozen of them. That day like many was accompanied by lots of city walking and exploration, in that case with an American girl I met at the hostel. The next day I started out with a Danish girl and an Irish girl I'd met at the hostel. We first visited the Yu Garden, one of those beautiful imperial era gardens built by some wealthy government official. Bridges traverse ponds filled with goldfish too fat to swim and meticulously decorated temples and pagodas fill the place. Next door to that garden is the "old city" of Shanghai for which I had hopes, but the presence of Dairy Queen should give some idea of what the place was really like. All the buildings are constructed in ancient styles, but it is way too packed with tourist shops and kiosks to give even the tiniest semblance of atmosphere. It was really just one more orgy of commerce, though in this case at least a lot of food was there was well. The street food market we found later well outside the "old city" was vastly superior though. After the garden and old city, we wandered. We walked through one of the aforementioned local neighborhoods encountering no foreigners. We eventually made it to the river and walked north along the Bund, taking in the ridiculous spectacle of insane skyscrapers and modern construction that comprise the skyline east of the Huang Pu river. Shanghai is divided into two parts really, west of the river which is Puxi and east of the river which is Pudong. The view from Puxi to Pudong of all the skyscrapers is usually what you see in the magazines when they show you a picture of Shanghai. You can tell by the presence of the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower, the building that looks kind of like a spaceship from a movie in the 50s when they decided to go with the rocket ship look as opposed to the flying saucer look.
I did make it to another vegetarian restaurant the other day which was quite good. That meal I passed with six Couchsurfers. I think I was still the only vegetarian which made for a lot of indifference and complaining about the food and vegetarian food in general. These people all volunteered for the meal, but I think both of my vegetarian meals have been with non-vegetarians who don't particularly care for vegetarian food. I'd like to find some people with whom I can dine who actually appreciate the meals instead of tolerate them. It's not like the food is bad, it's just that they love meat and want to make sure I know that what I'm eating is a sad excuse for food and not possibly comparable to the delicious taste of an animal that was probably killed in a way so horrible that they wouldn't want to watch for a few seconds let alone the duration of the animals miserable life. This reminds me, Mark Zuckerberg was in a news article I briefly managed to read in which he described his new annual challenge that he apparently sets for himself each year. I happen to like that idea by the way. Last year he learned Chinese, or at least began to study it. Once Youtube works again I'll have to go find a video of him speaking it and see how he did with a few hours of study each day for one year. Sticking to something regularly makes a difference. It was always said when I was learning to read music that practicing 10 minutes a day is better than 4 hours every few weeks. Anyway, his new challenge is not eating any meat from an animal he has not killed himself. So he killed a chicken and a pig so far I think. And he also boiled a live lobster himself. The last part sounds pretty awful, but at least I give him credit for the idea of taking responsibility for what you are eating and being aware of what actually went into the meal on your plate. I doubt most of the self-professed meat lovers would ever do such a thing. Sure there are a few hunters, but they are not the ones bitching to me about what's wrong with my diet.
Well, it'd be easy to write more but that seems like enough tangents for one day. Besides, who knows how long my window will be open for me to publish this. Today, headed to language exchange again. The weather is a bit better this week, so I will stay longer I think. Last week was good but drizzly and the meeting was outdoors. Not a great combination. Various plans for the upcoming week. June 6th heading to Hangzhou, June 10th flying to Singapore. Still need to book a hostel in Singapore actually, though I booked something in downtown Mumbai so at least that is ready to go. The hostel booking sites don't work normally, they require some kind of tunnel or proxy which doesn't always work, so I'm kind of at the mercy of the government when it comes to booking accommodation. Makes perfect sense, don't you think?
posted by Dan at 7:28 PM
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