lao wai highs, lao wai lows #4

This is the 4th installment of lao wai highs, lao wai lows, a weekly (or so) feature.

It’s a chance for me to look back at the last week and gather a few high and low points of being the bumbling foreigner (lao wai).

Enjoy!

LAO WAI HIGHS:

> meeting a friendly upstairs neighbor who’d like to invite us to dinner

> seeing the water-character-painting guys in Fuxing Park (pic below). this was the first time i’ve seen this! one was writing very slowly with a tall brush, one crouched and wrote quickly, while his wife and grandson waited

> one of the perks of being a Shanghai lao wai is that you can occasionally splurge on a cool IPA at happy hours after a long, hot day. especially on days you arrive in mear-tear culture shock frustration. beer like this is not common in China.

> being a lao wai has made me try out new book reading formats. i listened to Cheryl Strayed’s Wild while painting for a good portion of the week. i am now her newest fan.

LAO WAI LOWS:

> trying to decipher several mysterious slips of paper in our mailbox, which we think all relate to one package waiting for us at the post office, which it ultimately takes several trips to convince them it is for us. we should get it today! rumor has it, it may contain Twizzlers! (It turns out the new Carrefour doesn’t carry them after all.)

> thick, thick, wet frosting-like air that smelled nothing like frosting, but you coulda dragged a knife through it

> for the roomies–both missed work due to digestive distress this week. (“how do you say it in English? diarrhea?”) i am now on food carefulness alert!

> on that note, the food scare of the week--tainted milk :(

here temporarily

is grandpa done yet?