Feb 20, 2012
After we visited the bottle opener building on Saturday we wandered into the metro and saw a sign for what seemed like a fancy supermarket. Well, it was! It’s actually called city’super–and it was indeed super fancy. And we were super lucky–it was SAMPLE DAY! Gotta make note of that–we definitely can’t afford to shop there regularly, but wandering on sample day was fun. We spied some familiar items, too, as you’ll see below. It’s fun to see what shows up here in Shanghai (and what doesn’t). We enjoyed some delicious green tea gelato before leaving. They had a big sign about how gelato is a health food. All-in-all a tasty detour.
Feb 19, 2012
Yesterday Sean and I visited the current tallest building in Asia–the World Financial Center. People say it looks like a giant bottle opener. We didn’t go all the way to the top, but we did go as high as the 92nd floor. Here are some views. The future tallest building is going up next to it…. Isn’t Shanghai unreal??
You don’t really see graffiti here in China…but in the M50 gallery area there is a stretch of it. Here are some nighttime pics:
Feb 18, 2012
Just doing a little late Friday night banking, etc. phone calling back to the U.S. (glamorous, huh? Love that 14 hour time difference. . . ) and thought I’d post a quick note before bed to let you know I’ve jumped the hurdle of Acclimatization Wall #1, and am feeling much better than on Wednesday.
We had a fun night out on Thursday to bid farewell to one of our German “flatmates,”, who was off this morning to travel SE Asia before he heads back to Germany. We met him and a few of his friends at this total student/backpacker-type place called PERRY’S that reminded us a lot of Ali Baba’s in Tianjin, if any of you Nankai people are reading this. Very funny vibe–sharpie writing all over the walls, a light sculpture made out of bottles from the bar, Bob Marley posters–you can picture it–and Sean arrived from work in his suit, which was pretty hilarious in that setting. (Think daily special of “buckets” of rum and coke.) (I did not partake in a bucket). But it was a fun young vibe, with Chinese students and foreigners, not too expensive and not in anyway touting luxury brands–which was nice for a change! Also our flatmate was in good spirits and excited for his adventure, and that is always nice to be around.
And today, well today, once again morning class was way too early, but luckily, in the middle of class, the SUN CAME OUT. After days and days of rain, cold and gray. Praise the heavens! Thank goodness. I had lunch after class with Katarina from Sweden and Olga from Russia, and got to hear lots of good stories about past visits to Shanghai, upcoming Malaysian weddings, and adventures in Chinese living. Then a nice walk home in the sunshine. While walking around I thought about photograph collections I’d like to make (young men’s hair fashions, colors of buildings, 101 styles of UGG boots) and also, a list occurred to me. So here it is:
A LITTLE LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AGO….
I moved to Shanghai!
I thought it odd that people walked down the middle of the street in our neighborhood. Now I do it, too, without even thinking about it.
I didn’t know how to say “also” or “breakfast” or “basketball” or “big brother” in Chinese, or the rules for stroke order in writing a character.
I hadn’t seen nearly enough gold or sequined UGG boots in my lifetime.
I’d never lived on the 30th floor.
I was not accustomed to days and days of rain in February
I hadn’t met Sean’s boss, George.
I didn’t have a metro card.
My pantomime muscles hadn’t been flexed in awhile.
I didn’t regularly have a whole weekend off.
I hadn’t walked in a Jesuit Chinese garden.
I’d never had a government ordered medical exam. (right?)
I didn’t know there’d be a dude around the corner who MAKES SHOES.
I’d never seen such a large stuffed Hello Kitty, and not been allowed to photograph it.
I didn’t fully appreciate how cheap most things are in the US.?I thought it was generally easy to find a mailbox nearby.
I wasn’t quite sure what, exactly, I was getting into, or what would happen next! (This is still true.)
Thanks for all your notes and thoughts of encouragement!
Xie Xie!
hugs,
j
;
Feb 14, 2012
Haha! But no—really!
“When will it stop raining? Why do I have to extend all this effort to learn Chinese? So I can live here longer, in the constant rain, erratic traffic and polluted air, bumping into luxury ads and almost getting run over at every turn? I think I’m getting a blister. Arg!”
Last week’s light-hearted attitude has melted into this week’s grumpy mood–a crabbiness even the cute Chinese girls wandering around with Valentine roses yesterday couldn’t dispel. Bah humbug!
These things happen. If you ever studied abroad, you probably went to a seminar where they showed you a roller coaster chart and told you that is how your enchantment, disorientation, and disenchantment with your new home will flow. I seem to have hit Chinese Acclimatization Wall # 1–in just a week! But it’s probably not even a record. I can’t even claim that title.
I knew I was crabby and overwhelmed after class yesterday, so I decided to walk home a different way, knowing I risked getting lost (again) (in the continued cold rain) but also knowing it would take me off the crowded and fume-y main road. Grumble, grumble, near-miss on an eyeball gouge by an umbrella, woe-is-me, grrr…Woah~what is that?? A Harry Potter high school!
Admittedly I am not a huge HP fan, but this Chinese high school definitely looked a little Hogwarts-esque to my eye. That’s interesting. Look at all those shutters!
Hung up behind slow walkers with giant shopping bags and lethal umbrellas once again, I decided to turn left past the high school campus to avoid getting too disoriented. Soon I noticed that behind the fence to my left was a bunch of bamboo and other greenery–a park? I followed the fence around the corner and wandered in at the gate. I realized I must be in the park behind the former-Jesuit-Cathedral-turned-Meteorological-Society, when I saw this huge cross:
The park itself didn’t bother me. It was nice. I seized the opportunity to wander through the gardens despondently, feeling sorry for myself and indulging my frustration, pondering how much I still hate the phrase “trailing spouse” and feeling uninterested in any more rice or gloppy Chinese food from a cheap stand. (Note: it’s not really all gloppy, but in this moment it all was.) Then I bumped into Emperor Xu and explorer Matteo Ricci.
Oh, I still need to read more about Matteo Ricci, I should do that.
The food thing really is a big part of the funk, as well as the trailing spouse thing. The food thing is not really only about gloppiness. It’s also about not knowing what things are some of the time, and definitely about not having a clue where it’s come from or what’s been sprayed on it. This is a big loss of information and connection, after shopping at the damn Seward Co-op for years and years. As much as organics have threats in the U.S., and there is a need there, as anywhere, to be active and vigilant to protect our food supply, we do have a pretty amazing food going on in the Twin Cities. But then at the same time in my spiral of doom, I think, maybe when I worry about the food here, maybe I am just being xenophobic and racist, maybe the food here is just as tainted as a lot of food anywhere else. Maybe the organics here aren’t all just fake labels, etc. etc. . . .
The “trailing spouse” thing irks me because, well, first of all it is just a terrible term, and second of all, it seems so old-school. I know it’s really just a term of the marketing blogosphere, but there is something in me, because of the era I grew up in, watching Growing Pains and Family Ties and celebrating the move of women into the workplace, it is hard for me not to feel judgement in the idea of packing everything up and “following her husband’s job.” I have to be honest about that–it creeps me out, no matter how practical I know this sort of move sometimes is, and even though I’m excited for Seanny. (Have you made this kind of move? Please share your thoughts with me.) I’ve seen enough statistics on “displaced homemakers” and women’s loss of income after divorce, etc. etc. to know that jumping out of the in-country workforce is not an insignificant move.
I scoff at myself, however, when I read the latest HuffPost headline about the death rate of starving children around the world, who don’t have access to food, period. And when I consider that realistically the “workplace” and the global scene are all evolving together. And then I think about my Chinese teacher on Monday saying, after telling us she is “famous for being different” among the faculty: “Don’t be nervous, forget judgement and keep a peaceful heart, be patient, and you will learn Chinese.” I do, honestly, know my time here will be valuable and I will find useful things to do, and it will be exciting and stimulating and I will grow, blah, blah, blah–but that is the sort of thing you lose sight of at Chinese Acclimatization Wall #1. Instead you focus on what is annoying, difficult, and different, what you left behind and how much harder the formerly-simple things are. This probably means it’s time for me to make some art, and maybe break out one of my two big splurges from Monday and chill out a little!
Sean and I did redeem Valentine’s evening. We’d made no reservations, so we couldn’t go out, but we enjoyed gloom week splurge #3 (pizza). The take-out lady busted Sean for not giving me flowers like all the other girls were walking around with, and we found–randomly–some ginger beer on sale (aka about to expire), brought them home and improved my spirits with downloaded TV shows that start with P–Parenthood and Portlandia. (America–you are funny!!!)
I’m still wondering whether this post (half of which disappeared into cyberspace last night, I might add) will end up being an Eeyore post or a Pooh Bear post–where will it go?
Today, of course, up bright and early to get to school on time. I put on my big pink wolf earrings to help me persevere. But I was still pretty much a whiny baby.
It’s so hard. It’s going to require so much work. It’s hard to sit in class for three hours, saying “ooh” “wah” “uuu” “aaa” and acting as if I can hear the difference between the tones. I amuse myself by noting that my first teacher loves reindeer sweaters, and today’s reindeer were sparkly. My second teacher loves tiger prints. If all else fails, maybe I can adopt the mantra SPARKLING REINDEER or TIGER SWEATER to help me through my time here.
Class today was followed up by being disoriented in Jing’an AGAIN. I got on the subway and realized I didn’t have the actual address I needed. Just a link that I couldn’t link to because I don’t have internet access when about town right now. I was pretty sure the street of place for which I was looking (a healthy food place–see I am making an effort to deal with this mood!) started with X. Okay, starting-with-X is not a useful clue here. I decided just to wander and see if I found anything.
Back in our neighborhood a couple hours later, I attempted to buy a power strip, some kleenex, and something to make our bathroom smell less weird, at the local Easy Enjoy. It was neither Easy nor Enjoy. I created a 10-person pile-up at the register because I didn’t understand how to pay with a card. The cashier kept pointing to the PIN pad, which also only speaks Chinese, and insisting I take a free scented plastic rose with my purchase. Which I couldn’t purchase. I didn’t understand any of it. (Hm, shall we return to my whining about learning Chinese?) I left and walked back home to get actual yuan. I returned to Easy Enjoy, re-picked out all my items and was successfu!. None of these mis-steps are devastating but all of them are annoying. They offend my sense of efficiency! Even though I have very little reason to be efficient for at this point in the journey!!
The possible pot of gold at the end of my gloombow, is this post box I found while lost today. I can finally mail the letters I wrote on Sunday. Be on the lookout, four lucky people! (Don’t worry, I wrote them before this week began!)
Here’s hoping the next time you hear from me I’m as happy as a 20 year old Chinese girl in giant black-framed glasses with no actual lens, enjoying life in the big city. Lastly I have to add, wow, refugees and immigrants around the world, how do you do it??? I salute you. Big time.
more hugs and less whines,
J
Feb 11, 2012
This was at the welcoming ceremony for new students (such as me) at Jiao Tong this morning. Supposedly 800 foreign students from 100 countries. These dragon dancers were the best part! I think it was mostly dudes in maybe their 50s. Impressed!
Feb 10, 2012
First off I must note that IT’S SNOWING!!! It’s not supposed to snow in Shanghai, so this is very exciting. It’s sort of rain-to-snow, so it won’t accumulate, but it’s still a thrill. To celebrate my northern pride at this meteorological episode, I am listening to Prince as I type this post.
Yesterday I spent the bulk of the afternoon retracing our steps around the neighborhood, testing whether I could return to places we’d been without getting terribly lost. Success! As I walked around I thought about how, at least until school starts, time, curiosity, and a naive smile with a “ni hao” are my greatest assets right now. This means I can spend my day playing games like:
* can I find IKEA again? (my first trip was following along after Sean in the deepest fog of travel and jet lag)
* can I make that old man or woman in padded clothing smile back at me?
* can I squeeze through this small space in a crowd without actually bumping into anyone?
* can I successfully pantomime that I’d like a napkin (not hand sanitizer?)
I am at the fun time when I bumble around illiterate and mostly unknowing, able to avoid small talk or much responsibility. The novelty inevitably wears off, but it’s fun for awhile. Probably ’til about Sunday, which is good because Monday school starts, and then I have to get down to business with being Responsible with the Chinese Language. I finalized my registration and picked up my schedule and books today!
But here I am in limbo time and that means I also come up with projects like “Take a Picture at Every One of the 30(ish) Floors from Our Apartment to the Ground,” which I completed–lucky for you! I say “30-ish” because they skip 13, which you’ve probly seen before, but they also skip any floor with a “4″ in it, because the word for 4 sounds a lot like the word for death! (Sounds approx. like “Tss”). I don’t know what happens in a building with floors into the forties–I’ll keep an eye out and report back.
So here is your pictorial tour from our outer door to the ground floor lobby and out the front door! It’s subtly–mainly you’ll notice a building across the way getting shorter and shorter. But the light changes, too, if you watch closely. (It would be great for some sort of flip book–tap gently on the slideshow and you get that effect). One floor had no window, as you’ll see. One floor either had food or vomit (also food, I guess) tossed against the wall, but I am sparing you that image (which I shall never forget). The floors also got taller as I reached the bottom, so I had to hold my phone over my head. Incidentally, the office is on the 8th floor–they had a tall green planter at the entrance to that floor (not pictured). Oh, hm–8 is a lucky number here, I think–I wonder if that is just a coincidence? I’ll keep you posted on any #8 developments as well. (I did take it as good luck that I am in the #8 group for beginner Chinese. Why not?)
I think the snow and Prince are making me ramble. On to the pictures!
–j
p.s. tons of pics have been going up on twitter–you can see that feed on the jk.com home page
Feb 8, 2012
Yesterday I took my first metro ride and met Sean near his office (that area is called Lu Wan). The entrance to the subway is a couple blocks from our apartment, and I only had to take one line, so it was easy. Overall, I haven’t felt like things are too crowded for a city of 30 million people. Our neighborhood is very quiet–mostly home furnishing stores. I didn’t get a seat on the metro, but I wasn’t squished, either.
Lu Wan is “fancier”–lots of upscale goods stores (Apple Store, Cartier, Tiffany, Coach, etc.) and people were a little less casually dressed. There was a UNIQLO store off the metro stop–I don’t know why I find UNIQLO so exciting to spot, but I do. . . . There was also a Dunkin Donuts, so I witnessed the alleged Bonito Flake donut in person. (See pic below–top shelf)
Generally things are more expensive here or about the same. We went to IKEA the other day. The store is exactly the same as in MN, but the turns of the hallways are opposite–very confusing! The prices mostly were more expensive than at home.
Sean did not take me to Tiffany’s, but instead for a bowl of hand-pulled noodles (we saw the guy do it–so cool) in a sesame/spicy peanut soup. Then we walked around the neighborhood’s man-made lake, which was nice. Notable here were two boys who kept walking inside the DANGER line, talking and laughing, and eventually one threw his ice cream stick in the water (I *knew* he was gonna do that!) and the other boy farmer’s-blowed his nose into the lake–you’ll see a pic of them below, one with his arm around the other, laughing after that triumphant moment. Too funny.
Also exciting in the area of the “lake” were several funny dogs–IN DOWN JACKETS! One with hoodie even! That dog looked a lot like Fozzy the Bear and it was hard to not stay and watch him frolic all day. Hooray for cuteness!
Off the lake is a neighborhood that looks old-school Shanghai, but it somewhat recreated (Sean was unsure to what extent, but we think maybe a mix of original and new building materials) called Xin Tian Di. Shops in this area included: Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, a Thai restaurant, Starbucks, some fancy Italian chocolates/pastries, massage spa, and some tapas bars. Oh and Haagen Dazs. So, yes, old and new!
Speaking of massage, last night we walked all over the place looking for massage. The place one of the roommates liked recently closed. He told us this just as we walked out the door (boo hoo). There is a “silent” massage place not too far that was closed for renovation–we wonder if that is a blind massage place (there is a tradition in many parts of Asia of blind massage therapists.) We’ll have to check again in a few weeks. And there are lots of other “massage” places that give you the feeling they are not really massage. So we tried to identify suspicious factors: overly-blinky signs, open 24-hours, completely closed off windows, certain Japanese phrases, etc. We did end up getting decent foot massages right next to our building, within a hotel. Not sure what all goes on in that particular place, but I thought the woman who worked on me had a style similar to shiatsu, so that is awesome. She said she was from Sizchuan province and Sean’s therapist was from Hunan. I think we’ll go back there another time. They also advertised cupping, Chinese medical massage, and something like traditional Chinese massage.
Okay, here are the cute dogs + more! (I haven’t figured out how to add captions when not on the computer, so real quick–there is also a view of the subway, a dude whose collapsible shop doubles as a chair (fantastic!), DD, a man doing tai chi, the Xin Tian Di area, apple store crowd, etc.)
–j
(the Apple Store)
Feb 7, 2012
We live on the 30th floor of a concrete building. We share the apartment with two German roommates who I’ve barely seen so far. Soon they will be replaced by two new Germans! Exciting.
Here are some scenes from in and around the apartment;
Fireworks exploding literally outside our window on Monday:
Two views out our window this morning. Sunny:
My temporary Skye replacement, a pillow pet we named Butterscotch. Sean won him at a lawyer event:
The New Standards Holiday Show poster I pledged to hang on my wall in China:
Our bldg entrance and street at night:
A German book I found in a drawer in the hallway:
After buying breakfast yum-yum yesterday, we could get this with our remaining 5 yuan:
This is not in the apt., but I wish it was. I found this amazing wallpaper at my soon-to-be school:
