Skewered Squids and Sandy Shores

It’s been awhile since we’ve left the city and the weather has been rough recently. We’re experiencing springtime rain showers near daily and for some reason we’ve had strangely high levels of wind blowing through the city. A nightmare for umbrellas. And it howls past my twentieth story windows during the night. 下下雨，大风多了. Xiaxia yu, dafeng duole. Lots of rain, lots of wind.

But this weekend was perfect. Super warm and sunny. We decided to go to the beach. Now I know what you’re thinking, beach in Shanghai??? You’d certainly be right to think so. Beaches are not really a Chinese thing unless you make your way down to the southeast Asian Chinese coastline, Hainan, Hong Kong, etc. The greater Shanghai area has some opportunities to escape the heat. There are a few pools open to the public, 50 kuai entry fee, bathing caps are mandatory, and dudes wear thongs. There is also a man made “beach” along the south part of the Bund where 100 kuai gets you entry and the chance to rent a lawn chair and sun tan by the murky banks of the river Huangpo (黄坡). Not my cup of tea. But there is an actual ocean-side beach in the southern suburban town of Jinshan (金山, golden mountain). One of my classmates has been there and described it as “doable”. So we thought we’d get a group together and make a day trip of it. And we had the long weekend free of work and classes, China’s May Day holiday was well underway.

Eight of us then woke up early on Friday morning and set out, flip flopping our way to Line 3, a twenty minute walk from the university. Jinshan is not close, and therefore makes the beach seem more desirable. We took Line 3 from Jiangwan City in northern Shanghai to the city’s South Station, an hour and a half away. Then we hopped a regional bus to take us another painstaking 90 minutes to the coast. Jinshan is well in the south and far away from any shipping traffic to the city. There are some visible and unattractive factories in the distance however, both north and south of this beach town. But its distance from the city was its greatest asset and we were happy to have finally arrived. A quick walk from the bus station through the little town led us straight to the beach. We stood along the walkway, perched well above the beach below, and looked out toward the ocean. Here is what we saw.

To be fair, the beach was relatively legit. Nice, soft sand sprawls out along the shore for about a mile in either direction. The beach was packed full of Chinese beach-goers. In the distance, out to sea, there were some really interesting looking islands that looked like perfectly conical volcanoes, kind of Fuji-shaped. There was a haze that blended the warm weather humidity with the omnipresent smog and shrouded the islands in the distance with some air of oriental mystery. But the open ocean broke toward shore onto a monstrous jetty that stretched from the shore to the right and cut parallel to the beach which effectively prevented the waves from reaching shore. This wouldn’t have been a big deal, a lot of beaches do that to protect the boats and beach goers from dangerous open ocean waves, except for the the fact about five yards from where the tepid ocean water met the beach were a series of pile-ons that propped up and strung along a large and lengthy net which effectively prevented anyone from swimming. This was a very disappointing realization as swimming in the ocean was a major goal of mine. Off to the right was a pier that stretched along the shore a ways, acting like a beach-side promenade, and jutted into the water a bit, like an L shape.

We stood there awhile, admiring the view, feeling the breeze a bit. We had brought towels and blankets and picnic-style stuff along with us so we spotted an open area and poked down to the beach for a closer look. The beach was packed with people, all Chinese with a very few exceptions, and everyone was wearing their full city get-up. No bathing suits, no bikinis, no sun hats or flip flops—just normal city clothes, and shoes, and dresses even, at times. We felt a bit exposed as we walked shirtless and bikini clad through the hoards of people. There were a lot of families there, and many of them had propped up tents to escape the sun. So yes, the beach scene was a little different than we were used to but we have been relatively well adapted to this type of cultural experience. We found a spot, camped up, and beached out. We played cards, threw a frisbee around, made some Chinese friends. Three young girls approached the group and chatted with us in Chinese, a great way for us to practice. They wanted to know what our thoughts were of China and what our favorite hobbies were and things like that—we basically talk like toddlers in Chinese anyway, it worked out well.

The photo taking was annoying though. In many parts of China, especially where few foreigners live, photo taking of foreigners is prevalent. Sometimes it happens in subtle ways where people take photos discreetly with their smart phones, hoping to snap a photo without attracting attention. Sometimes it happens with permission (and I usually oblige, why not?) and foreigners pose for a few snaps with individuals or couples or entire families. This happened to me a lot while I stood with my feet ankle deep in the water, hands on my hips, shirtless, ray ban-ed, and beaming with sea-side satisfaction. I got through four or five photos, posing with people before I gave up and retreated back to the group. But sometimes it happens unabashedly, like paparazzi, and that gets annoying. You start to feel like you’re on display for a while, or a zoo attraction. This happened a lot here at the beach. Probably a lot of these people weren’t from the city and may never actually see foreigners in person. It happens a lot. I have been the first foreigner Chinese people have ever seen in person on several occasions. And it makes sense that that would be interesting. It gets old though, quickly, especially here at the beach where at home, at the beaches we are used to, people feel relatively secure in wearing beach attire, sort of an unspoken rule that the beach is a safe zone.

But again, go with the flow. On the flip side, the pier-side promenade was awesome and exceeded any expectations I had. The food and beer were cheap and the atmosphere was lively. Around the pier were some cheap and less than appealing carnival style attractions but the pier itself was worth the visit. The pier was a dense maze of food stalls selling skewered and barbecued seafood and chilled beers. Absolutely perfect. We walked up to one and pointed to different fishes and crustaceans and meats as the man behind the counter put the skewers on a tray for barbecuing. Another nice aspect of the pier was that interaction with the stall keepers was very positive. Out here, no one sees foreigners let alone expect them to speak any Chinese. So our trying to communicate in Chinese was well received. I ordered a crab, three shrimps, and a flayed squid, along with a bowl of fried noodles. The skewers were slow roasted over coals and sprinkled with traditional Chinese spices and lajiao (辣椒, hot Sichuan peppers)—could not have been tastier, all for about four dollars.

Food stalls wedged into canopied mazes along the pier

Some seaside attractions

A little dirty, but full of interesting stuff

My group, a surprise photo

Fish for fish?

In the distance were some less than pleasant looking factories, probably good we didn't go swimming

My tray of crab, shrimp, squid, and mantou

Other trays, fish and shrimp, and some noodles

The aftermath

What we spotted, some practice courts for the pros

Spain in action!

The semi-finals, Germany defeats Spain

After our long day out in the sun, and with bellies full of skewered seafood, we started to head back, it had been a long day and it was around dusk. But as we started heading back towards the road we noticed some beach volleyball courts where a lot of people had congregated and we quickly discovered that the World Beach Volleyball Tour was rolling through Shanghai and was being hosted at this beach. Massive Europeans and Americans were pounding the volleyball to and fro in officiated games. We walked to the center court, a small stadium actually, free and open to the public, and took a seat in the stands and watched as Germany knocked out Spain in a semi-final match. It was very cool and a nice surprise.

It was late and with a three hour ride back to the university, we took off. We were back around 11pm. When all was said and done we spent about seven hours at the beach and were properly tanned. I had a great time but probably won’t go back, to be fair. I was happy for the outing though. A nice way to spend May Day.

One McBooth Please, For Here

I went to McDonald’s today for lunch. Friday is my long day at work—I have no classes on Fridays so I work the normal 10-6, eight hour work-day. And because I’m here all day, I usually grab my lunch downtown and go for something nice each Friday. There is a massive building called the “Shanghai No. 1 Food Mall” a short walk down East Nanjing Road, the pedestrian shopping street by my workplace, which is full of small restaurants across several floors. Some floors are like food courts, some just have restaurants, and some are open-market food stalls that swarm with locals during holidays and festival periods, selling things like moon cakes and red been buns. My favorite lunch spots though are Sushi Express, the Tokyo-style sushi-go-round (of the same kind I was obsessed with in Japan), and Coco Curry, a chain that serves up Japanese style curries and rice (another spot I was obsessed with in Japan). Today was a less glamorous exception. I went to McDonald’s. 18 kuai Spicy McChicken with fries.

But that is not noteworthy. I took a seat, party of one, on the second floor seating area that has some tall stool-style seats along a shelf that overlooks the first floor seating area. I was munching on some fries when I noticed this Chinese man, maybe upper twenties or lower thirties, tattered jacket, unshaven and a bit unkempt, hanging out at one of the booths by himself. His face was really tanned, as if he had spent a lot of time outdoors. He had no food, bought nothing, sort of rudely propped up his feet on the seat next to him, and he seemed to be scanning the other tables and watching people. This didn’t really phase me. McDonald’s and other western style fast food joints are notorious in China for their lax “loiter” policies. Many of these restaurants are open 24 hours and if you walk in to one at 4am after a night of clubbing or something, you will inevitably encounter youngsters or homeless people fast asleep, heads on the table, some having bought a small drink, some shamelessly buy nothing at all. Employees don’t bat an eye. They’ll clean up around them and let them sleep. This happens in the middle of the day too. It seems as if there is some unwritten code of tolerance for people who need a place to crash and have nowhere else to go. I have abused this code in the past. On my stopover to Lanzhou during my “Great Eurasian Adventure” period, my overnight train from Jiayuguan spit me out into the dark, wintery chill of the city’s pre-dawn hours and I had about five hours to kill, with my pack, dead tired, before I could check into this Chinese hotel room I had booked. I spent them wisely and without bother at a KFC in the train station, along with lots of other people doing the same.

A follow up photo of an earlier post on my commute---stuffing in to a subway car

This is what the station looks like at 5pm, it gets busier as rush hour develops

This is why I wasn’t too phased by the man hanging out by himself and without food, chilling in some first floor booth. But I watched him a bit. Another thing about western fast food joints in China is that the trend is that when you’re done eating your meal, you can just leave your tray on your table and a designated employee will take it to the trash for you. If you take up your tray yourself, people give you odd looks. During busy hours, the employees sometimes have a hard time efficiently clearing all the trash and trays and sometimes it collects. The man I had been watching, after a little while, got up from his seat and moved toward a table where a group of young Chinese girls had just vacated and left behind a fair amount of trays and trash. The man sat in one of the seats, looked around a little sheepishly, then began picking through the remains, looking for leftover food. He compiled what he could find into one empty burger container and shoved the rest aside for the McDonald’s employees to haul away. He had some success. He found lots of fries, found some veggies from the burger boxes, chiefly lettuce bits and tomato remains, and some soda from a cup. I had never seen this before but it seemed to me a really clever way to find food if you have no money. No one apart from me noticed him or cared and he ate quickly, as if he hadn’t eaten in a while. When he was done, he sat there quietly and re-commenced his scanning.

麦当劳 (mai dang lao)---Chinese for McDonald's

This is the McDonald's by my workplace. Also included: a McCafe, surprisingly good spot for a coffee

A crap photo of the golden arches outside an H&M

A slightly worse photo of the inside

These lines can get chaotic and seating is often at a premium

It was a sad scene. I actually haven’t seen too much public homelessness or street begging in China which may or may not be incredible considering how large the population is. Either the government is quite good at implementing social welfare policies or beggars and homeless people are shuttled out of the public eye. I remember when I was first in Beijing in 2007, you could see a fair amount of beggars and people sleeping in public spaces, especially around the Tiananmen area and where tourists congregated. But after 2008, after the Olympics that is, exactly zero beggars or homeless could be seen anywhere near Tiananmen which came as a shock at first, at least to me. But I had heard that the city government essentially initiated a huge movement to take care of this ‘problem’. Again, I’m not sure exactly how—whether they were relocated, arrested, or given proper care, I couldn’t say.

Some beggars congregate around Nanjing East Road, where I work, and where lots of tourists come. But they scatter when police walk by and I’ve seen more than a few beggars being chased away from the main pedestrian areas.

If I had seen this in another country, somewhere in the third world, I wouldn’t have been surprised and I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it. But for some reason this seemed noteworthy to me, having seen it in Shanghai. In many respects, China is still considered a “developing” country, not necessarily of the third world, but on the same token, not really a member of the developed world either—an industrializing country with a recently established, but rapidly increasing middle-class. Beggars and the homeless should be a not surprising part of development. But it’s a hard thing to find in China. Interesting phenomenon.

By the way, it’s midterm time for me. Stressful days ahead. I just wrote a paper on the long term effects of Yeltsin period, post-Soviet liberal economic reforms in Russia, lovely, and I have a presentation coming up on the implications of an emerging northern sea route in the Arctic on the shipping industry in Asia. I’m an international affairs nerd and so I really get into this stuff, but I’ve been busy. Just wanted to explain the obvious loosening of my self-imposed post deadlines.

But the warm weather is here and along with it are some sweet events in Shanghai, including two huge outdoor music festivals (Midi and Strawberry) and a couple of cycle events (a scene which I am increasingly enjoying). I just conducted some interviews with a local fixed gear bike shop in the French Concession and will get to write an online piece on that for the magazine. And “Labor Day”, in more of the Communist sense than the holiday’s counterpart in the US, a Soviet legacy to China and much of Eastern Europe, is May 1st which extends my weekend. I think I and some Fudan buddies are going to try and take over some park on the outskirts of the city and do some barbecuing. I’m excited.

Go Red Sox!

Give Me Food or Give Me Love

I was sitting on a park bench yesterday afternoon and watched as a small kitten single handedly destroyed a perfectly pleasant picnic on the lawn in front of the university’s main building for two Chinese girls. This kitten wasn’t messing around. It was hungry. And a little curious.

It was about 6 in the evening. I had twenty minutes to kill before my Chinese class and I was just arriving at the campus from work that afternoon. I stopped off at the East Gate of the campus and grabbed a coffee, 12 kuai, the best coffee in town, from this small shack next to a fried rice joint. Take out only. I took the coffee and walked across the huge lawn that sprawls neatly in front of the main campus’ main building, the Guanghua Tower. On nice days, students lay out on the lawn, picnic, play games, and hang out here. It is a great spot for people watching and for spending a few moments collecting your thoughts after a long day. Benches are hard to come by here as this area is so popular. But I found one facing the lawn. I darted across the large grassy space and claimed my prize.

Sprawled in front of me were the usual collection of students. A young Chinese student and his girlfriend were smooching awkwardly in one section. A grandmother had propped up her stroller and let her toddler run around with a balloon. And off to my left a couple of Chinese girls, undergraduate college students probably, had laid out a blanket, secured the corners with their shoes, and set out some food. There were some plastic containers of recently barbecued meet from one of the ubiquitous street food vendors outside the gate, a few bags of chips, and two six packs of beer cans, one Suntory, the other Tsing Tao. One of the girls was pretty normal looking, with thick glasses and relatively subdued. The other girl was pretty chubby and more lively. They were enjoining themselves.

Behind me there was another young Chinese couple taking photos of a small kitten with their smart phones. Lets get into this a bit. First thing worth noting: Fudan University is infested with cute stray cats. Don’t take this the wrong way and I have no way of proving this, it is all conjecture, but I’ve heard that stray critters don’t last too long in Chinese cities. I’ve heard all kinds of things, that illegal street food vendors hunt down stray dogs, cats, rats, whatever, to bulk up the meat in their trays, or that the police collect all stray animals and put them down to reduce the spread of disease. Either way, I’ve never seen stray dogs, cats, or even any rats in this or any other Chinese city. Except that their are tons of stray cats on Fudan’s campus. My theory is that the students are very tolerant of cute kittens and want to have them around all the time. So if I was a stray cat, I’d live here too. And they really are cute, there’s no denying that. The other point worth mentioning here is that Chinese youngsters love to take photos with their smart phones, like really love it. Especially of cute stuff. Every day, walking around the campus to and from classes, I’ll see a Chinese girl up close to a flower, taking a photo, then taking a selfie of herself with the flower, and then repeating, over and over and at all angles until her smart phone is filled with the same photo, over and over again, or so it seems to me. Or she’ll make her boyfriend take a photo of her with the flower, over and over again. Cats aren’t spared photos either. A cat will wander through the park and trailing it will be a small crowd of students, snapping away, petting it, throwing food at it, etc.

This was happening behind me on the bench. A young couple was stooped over a cute kitten, brown and black stripes, like a tiger, bright green eyes, very adorable. They were taking photos and petting it. They had had enough and casually walked away. The cat started wandering toward me, popped out from under my bench and walked through my legs and stopped to survey the lawn spread in front of me. It spotted the picnicking girls to my left. It had a mission. I sat back, relaxed, and watched the show.

The kitten slowly, casually, with some swagger in its tail, wandered over to the girls who were facing away from me. They never saw it coming. The girl with the thick glasses was taking a swig of a beer and the chubby girl had one hand in an open bag of chips. They were chatting quietly. The kitten stealthily, carefully stepped onto the blanket, split the girls, and aimed for the open containers of barbecued meat in the middle. Then I heard at first a very quiet, and then very quickly getting louder, collective “Eeeeeehhhhhhhwwwwwww…” as the girls became exasperated at the thought of the kitten touching their food. “别过来! 别过来!” Bie guolai! Bie guolai! Don’t come over here! said the chubby one, clearly the more exasperated of the two. The chubby girl started making lots of whiny noises, took her bag of chips and a couple of containers of meat and stood up, eyeing the cat at a safe distance. The girl with the thick glasses did the same, but remained seated.

The kitten all the while completely ignored the girls and their whining and began to poke around. It found a nice open container of meat, settled down into the folds of the blanket, and began to dig in. The chubby girl from a distance began whining a little more loudly and then made some whimpering noises and began to bend her knees a little, bobbing up and down in helplessness. The seated girl, now equally whiny, began to swat the air around the kitten, hoping that the shooing motion would be enough to dissuade the kitten. It was not. The kitten just stood there as if to say, “Give me food or give me love.” Apparently the girls had no interest in actually touching the kitten and therefore the kitten had no incentive to move. This little kitten had effectively rained on their parade. Both girls, awkwardly paralyzed and whiny, held as much food in the air as they could. The chubby girl, tiring of this state of non-picnicking, started to eat a bit of the meat from the container she was holding, and then finally took out her smart phone, snapped a photo of the kitten, before returning to her post off the blanket, and back to her whimpering.

This went on for literally 15 minutes, nearly the whole time I was sitting there. Eventually the kitten started to get antsy. The chubby girl stood there, watching the seated girl squirm around the now mobile kitten. Then the kitten started walking towards the chubby girl, who made more noises of exasperation, and started trotting around the blanket, trying to avoid the approaching kitten. The seated girl said something to the chubby girl who responded, “我怕! 我怕! 我怕!” Wo pa! I’m scared! and then finally offered the kitten a conciliatory prize by tossing a piece of meat away from the blanket and into the grass a little ways off. The kitten took the bait and was finally preoccupied, away from the picnic. The chubby girl took back her seat, both girls eyeing the kitten warily.

Satisfied with my bout of free entertainment, I picked up my bag and my coffee and headed off to class.

Not THE perpetrator, but a troublemaker, no doubt

What wet flowers look like when taken at close range with an iPhone

The action took place here, from my vantage point on the bench

Presumably Fudan students' smartphones are filled with pictures like this

A mini panorama of the lawn in front of the Guanghua Tower

So as not to dominate this post with kittens and picnics, I saw something pretty interesting today at lunch. On Mondays, after my morning class, I have about a half hour to get some lunch before I hop the subway downtown to get to work for the afternoon. I usually eat up in the Fudan area as opposed to downtown because it’s much cheaper. There is a small side street that runs the length of the academic building where my class is located and along the street are some really small, cheap, outdoor food shops and vendors. They prop up tables and stools along the sidewalk in nice weather and for this reason, I like to go down there for a quick bite of lunch, sit in the sun, and relax a little before work. Sitting and eating on the sidewalk is another great way to people watch—something I do often. 

Today, as I was waiting for my 特色蛋炒饭, te se dan chaofan, specialty egg fried rice, to cook up on the wok of a small food stall under an umbrella tent, I noticed that along the sidewalk were some huge piles of dirt and garbage, but garbage from construction materials as opposed to rubbish. The piles had been neatly brushed into large heaps in a few spots along the sidewalk and they’ve been there a long time. Either no one has the manpower to move them or perhaps the money to hire someone else to move them. Instead, they’ve become sort of a fixture of the sidewalk and of the view from the pop up tables set out at lunch time. But this time, I noticed that from these heaps of dirt and garbage were sprouting some small plants, neatly collected into groups as if it was a make-shift garden. Little metallic stands were aiding the little plants in vertical growth. And small fence-like materials were set up to protect them. I thought it was really interesting and took a few photos with my phone when I heard from off to my right, “朋友! pengyou, friend (pause…)朋友! (another pause…) 朋友!” Finally realizing I was being summoned in the friendliest of ways and immediately fearing I had done something offensive by taking photos of their cultivated garbage mounds, I turned to say, “你好,” nihao, hello, and found my rice master holding up a spoonful of some red peppers, grounded in a fine powder, with a mischievous grin on his face. I said, “啊. 可以吧” ah, keyi ba, ah, yeah go for it, and satisfied he dumped the spoonful of powder in the rice.

I always seem to take photos of food after I've eaten most of it. My plate of specialty egg fried rice

A close-up of the dirt pile, not easily seen are the plants on the lower left and upper right

The dirt piles sitting on the sidewalk, in between some store fronts to the right and the street off to the left

I’m not sure what the little plants are for. Probably not for eating, there wasn’t enough there. But I was somehow comforted by the thought of the local shopkeepers making best use of their dirt mounds, cultivating and encouraging life in this micro-hostile atmosphere, bits of greenery surrounded by crumbles of dirt, broken cement blocks, and wires, if even because, why not?

With that bit of positivity now fresh in my mind, I picked up, grabbed a fresh papaya juice for the road, and walked to the subway.

On Buses

Riding public buses in China is one of the more unpleasant things one can do. Traffic in China is a nightmare. Rules seldom apply to cars and rules never apply to scooters or bikes. Pedestrians have no rights, ever, and I thank God every time I cross a street and don’t get plowed over by a taxi. And rush hour traffic, whether riding the metro or taking the bus or catching a cab downtown, is a frightening, sweaty adventure. A fight for humanity. A constant struggle to just get home. There are a lot of things to like about China, buses is not one of them.

During the week, when finishing up from work downtown at the magazine, leaving the office around 5pm, I hop the metro to get back up to the university. 5pm is a little on the early side of the rush hour spectrum, but here my journey begins. Although I’ll admit the commute is not nearly as bad as that of the commuters on Tokyo’s subways (I used to live in a city near Tokyo), where the ritual stand-in-line-and-hope-to-get-in-the-third-train-that-stops-in-front-of-you ordeal is a given and expected. A place where they have full-time shovers on hire to stand by the subway car entrances and literally push and squeeze every last ounce of person available until the door is able to fully close. Beijing is like that too, in some stations (watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG-meaGqg-M). But Shanghai isn’t that bad, for what it’s worth, at least on Line 10 heading north. I check my bag through the metal detector heading into the subway entrance, swipe my card at the gate, and plummet down the escalator to the depths of the station. Lines start at the bottom where they begin by the platform’s edge and merge in the middle, as people on opposite ends await their appropriate direction. Squeezing around the corner of the bottom of the escalator to get deeper into the waiting platform, away from the crowds, is a challenge because the people hop in line and stand defiantly, stolidly, all the way to the wall and sit there, unbudging. I often have to literally shove my way through, cursing under my breath and rolling my eyes, breaking across the lines like a game of red rover. The line standees grumble, bobble over, and pop back into place.

The subway has these plastic barriers between the platform edge and the approaching train. There are little arrows printed on the ground indicating where people should stand in line, along the edges of the door frames, and where people should be exiting the train, through the middle. These arrows have power over the people until about three seconds before the doors open up to the train. Then it’s a free for all. The lines of people on either edge of the frame smash together, completely blocking those exiting the train from getting out. There is no option but to buckle down, drop your shoulder a bit, and plow through the stampede. Upon entering the train, I clasp on to the closest anything I can get a hold of, handle dangling from the bars above or the edge of the seats, or bars in between cars. But often I can’t get a hold of anything. Twenty minutes of subway surfing later and I walk from the station to the nearest bus stop, a ten minute walk away, taking me across a shopping plaza, under a highway overpass, and to the stop in front of another shopping mall. There was a street performer today, a musician, pretty good with a guitar.

Waiting for the bus to get to work, mid-afternoon

The bus

Everyone has seats, it's quite and comforable

The 960, not one I can take to get to the metro

Subway entrance near Fudan, at Wujiaoqiang

The waiting platform in the subway

On the subway

But the bus is where the real fun begins. Waiting for either the 99 or 749 and watching dozens of other buses churn by can be frustrating as I stand there contemplating the commute, counting myself lucky for not having been hit by something of vehicular stuff as I made my way to the stop. On average I wait about 5 minutes for a bus, which is not that bad. But the frequency doesn’t help. There is an actual bus stop but the hundred or so people waiting for the bus all scatter around the sidewalk and into the main street as scooters beep and zigzag their way through the crowds like Plinco chips. And because there are so many people waiting for the bus in the street, the bus, screaming in like it wants to kill everybody, has to slam on its breaks and stop near the middle of this three lane highway. But no one knows exactly where the bus will stop. So wherever it does wind up stopping, people start running alongside as it slows, hoping they’ll be one of the first to get onboard. The idea is, shove your way to the front so that you can increase your chances of getting a seat, or even of getting on at all. Sometimes the bus is so full that it doesn’t bother to stop at all. But when it does stop, all’s fair and the mad dash to the door leaves people screaming, shoving, groaning. Old women duck under my arms and kids maneuver to the front, crawling through legs. I’m always so taken with the process that I wind up getting on last. Not that I don’t try though. I push and shove with the best of them.

The last time I got on the bus, I was standing by the side entrance. Every trip on the bus winds up being about the same. The bus screams to a start, taking all onboard by surprise. When one person loses their balance and falls, they usually take three or four others down with them. And the engines are ill-prepared to deal with the driver’s demands. The scream and groan as the manual shifter pops in and out of gears, metal on metal, grinding loudly and rumbling below our feet. Stalling is frequent as cars beep in and around the motionless bus. And corners are taken at full speed, centrifugal forces throwing riders about. When the bus approaches a stop, it turns suddenly in towards the curb and the breaks are so suddenly applied that it takes every ounce of strength in my arms to keep me from falling over. Approaching my stop, I have to squeeze through the masses that congregate by the door. I yell, “我在下车了!” Wo zai xiachele! I’m getting off! And then, “啊, 对不起! 对不起!” Ah, duibuqi! Duibuqi! Ah, sorry! Sorry! As I step on people’s shoes. The bus screams to a halt, opens its back doors, and I literally jump off, through the crowd of riders, to the freedom of the street below. I land, two feet at a time, stand upright, and take a huge sigh of relief, as the bus groans to a start, metal gears grinding against other metal gears, and then excels into the traffic and away. I don’t look back.

Having gone back through this post I realize that this has been little more that the cranky ramblings of an expatriate, still seemingly maladjusted to the uniquely overwhelming population density of China and all the problems and social effects that induces. This effect, intense population density on commuters and public transportation, affects me daily. And actually, one such commute was so obnoxious I went straight back to write about it. So here it is. With that said, because I sound so cranky, I think it’s time to dial it down a tad and give credit where credit is due. In the spirit of positivity, I am also nearly equally impressed by the fortitude and skill of the bus drivers here in Shanghai, as I am shocked with their shortcomings. The fact that they go, day in and day out, without murdering people on the street, or going nuts on the bus, or plowing down scooters who themselves decide to plow down disembarking bus riders, is truly a miracle. If I got in any one of these buses and had a go of the route, I wouldn’t make it one block, I’m sure of that.

Of note, all the pictures featured here, all the casual, non-professional photos of buses and the subway, were taken during the relatively easy commute I take heading downtown, midday, to the magazine. I couldn't be bothered to try and take photos on the way back, during the mayhem of my return journey. I probably would have lost my phone in the process--and we need none of that!

By the way, what once was an idea to post every Sunday has become rather an effort to post weekly, more generally, as I’m sure you’ve noticed I’ve been missing my Sunday deadline. Sorry for that. Blame the lack of beard. You were forewarned. But things are getting busy at the same time. I have weekly presentations in my classes that require extensive time to prepare and things are getting busier at the magazine as well. I’m writing there, nearly constantly, and if not writing, then going out on fact finding missions. I went with a coworker last week, touring and exploring the different “fake” markets here in the city. And the week before that, we explored Little Tokyo’s hidden sake bars. And did I mention the spa review I wrote? And the complementary $150 spa session that accompanied the review? I’m having fun with this. But I’ll try and stick to my Sunday deadline in the future.

See you next week.

An Army of Old Chinese Women

I was on the subway the Thursday afternoon, on my way to work at the magazine. I was in a rush, but I was on time. I had just expended energy by aiding in Chinese to English translations, negotiating a new cell phone purchase for my girlfriend, exhausting stuff. The nice thing, one of the only nice things, about living so far up in the northern Yangpu district is that I nearly always get a seat on the subway. As I inch closer and closer to the city, the cars fill up fast, these people have to stand. I was seated, hunched in the corner by the door, glazing at the empty seat across from me. Enter: an army of old Chinese women, filling in the remaining seats in the car. They all seemed to know each other. Two women, sitting across from me, busied themselves by pouring over a recent purchase, a dark green knit sweater. They flipped it over, fingering the fabric in their hands, flipping it over and over, analyzing every detail as if they were former seamstresses and were critiquing its quality. The patterns, the stitching. Over and over. Another army of old women burst through the doors at the next station (was it old women shopping discount day?). They filed in and squeezed every ounce of remaining seats left, forcing spots meant more for one, to two. All apart from one found a seat. She darted around like a pinball, head down, looking for a space where none was available. She gave up, all her friends had seats. She laughed, smiled, reserved towards her misfortune, and then looked at me, making eye contact. Sheepishly, I got up, said, “请做, 做吧,” Qingzuo, zuoba. Please, have a seat, and she rushed to take my place. All the old women looked at me, smiled, and said, “谢谢!” Xiexie! Thank you, then instantly dismissed me as any group of old women would, returning to their gossip. I wandered over to the corner of the car.

In other news, I took my first excursion out of Shanghai’s city limits to the small Venetian-esque water village of Zhujiajiao (朱家角), about an hour’s bus ride to the city’s west. The village is one of several out in that area, villages that are all built around a system of intertwining canals and whose dense network of residential and commercial alleyways were built directly along the water’s edge, much like Venice. But this town was nothing like Venice of course, it was inherently Chinese. In fact, it is so Chinese that in filming the Hollywood blockbuster, Mission Impossible 3, they decided to put an entire Shanghai scene here, the scene where Tom Cruise is running along one of the canals, awkwardly shouting, “Xiaoxin! Xiaoxin!” (小心! 小心! Careful! Careful!) to the villagers around him, dodging people left and right, trying to get to a small Chinese house where the villain was holding his wife hostage. The scene looks great because of its location, way more Chinese looking than the internationally recognizable downtown centers of Shanghai.

It was a great day trip. I went with three German girls, my girlfriend, her friend from home and a new German friend from Fudan. On an absolutely beautiful springtime Saturday afternoon, we hopped a local bus from a small station outside the People’s Square in the city center, and about an hour later, driving down China’s famous G-50 highway, called the Yan’an elevated highway in the city (famous because so many China writers before me have traveled down this highway, starting in Shanghai at the Bund, going straight west across the entire country), we arrived in the sparsely populated township of Qingpu, where a brief walk through the town led us to the water village. We dutifully bought our touristy entrance tickets, affording us the chance to pop into the village’s more touristic spots, and set about finding a place to eat (it had been a late night the evening before and a sleepy wake up the morning of, we were starved). We found a great little restaurant on the second floor of one of the buildings along the main canal. It had an open terrace with tables under the gloriously warm sun, and tables along a wandering hallway up against large windows. We found a table towards the end of this hallway. The table was designed in a traditionally Chinese style, perfectly square, with a smaller square of marble inlaid to the table’s center, and molded into a dark wooden outer-rim, delicately carved in oriental patterns. Each side of the table had a long, thin, wooden bench. We were right up against the open bay window where we could peer directly down into the canal, watching men in sampan hats slowly sway back and forth, manually propelling and steering their gondola style boats to and from different pick up points along the village. We ordered yuxiang qiezi (鱼香茄子, fish-flavored eggplant), gongbao jiding (宫保鸡丁, diced chicken and peanuts) and qingcai (青菜, fresh vegetable dish of green onions and lettuce) with a large bowl of baifan (白饭, white rice). It was tasty.

The main canal running through Zhujiajiao

Old lanterns within a temple entrance hall

German girls, my girlfriend and her friend from home

One of many pork meat stalls

Resident old woman, with her photo in the shop's corner

Temple where I was introduced to Buddhist fortune telling

Old women army, praying towards the burning papers

Lunch

This reads, "Park car eat food"

Giant cat eats baby!

Shot of a local gondola driver from above on our restaurant terrace

More gondolas

We picked up, bellies satisfied, and toured the village. One of the highlights, one of the free highlights, is the village’s dense market streets, where pedestrians and market frequenters plunge into the dark alleyways to buy traditional Chinese goods, non-traditional cheap crap, and some really amazing stall foods. Some of the best stall foods I found sold Chinese sweets like caramelized peanut squares and chewy green-tea buns filled with Chinese red-bean paste (my favorite). Other stalls had various pork meats, different cuts of meat, I guess, from the pig. Pig feet and snouts, caramelized in a sweet glaze, and other meat products prepared in a similar way. I think this village was sort of well known for these types of shops. Some stalls had pictures of reporters interviewing the shop owners or had framed pictures of magazine articles written about them. Many had awkward pictures of an old woman, each shop’s resident old woman, presumably the shops’ head chefs, super-imposed over a strange digital display of flowers or something else unappealing, smiling sort of, holding a pan or spatula or something. It was weird. But their shops nonetheless were undeniably impressive.

The village was full of these alley ways. But every now and again, set in a bit deeper from the pedestrian romping market paths were some hidden temples and gardens. We walked into one. The entrance was shrouded in smoke bellowing from the temple within, smelling of incense, and we could hear some faint chanting. We pushed through to the source and as the smoke was clearing we could make out a courtyard full of yes, old Chinese women. Hundreds, standing, then kneeling, then patting their heads and hands on the floor, then rising and repeating, all the while chanting in unison, all aimed at a large bronze pot of burning paper. We stood there watching, mesmerized. Ten minutes passed and it was over. The women got up, looked around, and smiled, exiting en masse through the entrance we had just entered. We explored the aftermath.

Another temple, this time a monastery training school, had much smaller activities occurring but the grounds were active nonetheless. Several Buddhist temples sprawled along the central courtyard. In one, monks in robes were repeating some mantra, over and over, repeating after their master as he hit a low-bass drum. Further in, some bamboo passageways led to further temples. I broke off a bit, on my own, to take some photos in the seclusion of a cluster of smaller temples when a monk popped out from a bush and handed me an incense stick. Without words he pointed to a small golden box within which was a small flame. I lit the stick and watched it slowly burn along the edges, turning the black of the stick to an ashy white, releasing visible fumes into the air. Another monk, watching me from above on the top of some steps urged me inside and beckoned me to the foot of a large, elaborate, Buddha shrine. He had me kneel and put up my hands in prayer with the incense stick in between. He looked at me, clapped his hands and bowed a few times, reciting some singsongy prayer. Then he smiled wide, put his hands into fists raising them in the air a bit, and said, “Ah, good luck!” seeming pleased with himself. I put 5 kuai in the money box, as is tradition, I think, and he got excited and handed me a small red envelope. He took out the piece of paper inside and read aloud the three traditional Chinese characters inscribed: 禄 lu, a traditional word for money, 夀, shou, long life, and 福, fu, good fortune. He pointed to them and read them to me one by one, urging me to repeat them after him. Then he showed me to a man in the corner, another monk in robes, sitting at a writing desk. He had small circular spectacles on his face and looked up at me. I gave him my piece of paper and he said, “A-Haaa!” then said some things in Chinese that I couldn’t follow, then wrote some things on a piece of paper. The first line he described to me, in English, as, “Goooood family!” The second line, “Haaaappy endingggg! (his words, not mine)” The last line was, “Goooood luck! A-Haaaaa!” I said, “Xiexie,” and signed a registry. The registry had foreigners’ names, their countries, then how much they donated for this fortune reading. Each had a number like 150 or 200 kuai. Awkwardly, I reached into my pocket and pulled out 5 kuai, offering it to the monk. He said, “Ooooh,” rounding out his mouth like a fish, pointing to the numbers from other foreigners. I then reached for some coins, beckoning the 5.30 kuai towards him and then he smiled, taking my money, throwing it into a box. I left.

When all was said and done we had a great time in this village. We walked around for the majority of the day, then hopped an early evening bus back to the city. Finding where to catch the bus was a bit of a challenge and only snuck onto the bus right before it left. Lacking available seats, the four of us squeezed into the step leading down to the back entrance and watched the countryside whirl by from the bottom of the near street level window.

Last thing. I shaved my beard today. It was a nice beard. But my goal was to shave it when the weather got warmer. If for whatever reason my posts start to get less and less interesting, I blame the lack of beard. Just a head’s up.

In Pictures

In what I hope will become the first of many installations, this week’s post aims to better capture the essence of space through photographs, enhancing the portrayal of Shanghai for readers through images (in case I wasn’t sufficiently doing that through previous posts, better safe than sorry). I’ve begun with this first set of photos by capturing a few local spots, in and around the Fudan campus, my dormitory, and the adjoining streets. And I threw on a few parting shots of the city skyline to ground this post in the city at large.

It was a beautiful day today. Spring is nearly here. I’ve written this short intro from a rigid chair out on my balcony. It’s too high up to hear the hum drum of street-level noises, conversations, bicycle bells, and the like, but two things pierce through that clutter and echo up clearly to me on the 20th floor: car horns and birds. As you may have heard, car horn blasting is ritual, done regardless of necessity, but done so frequently that I sort of tune it out. The birds’ singing however is relatively new, presumably coinciding with the arrival of warmer air. And it’s a welcome sign, reminding me that I was in fact pooped on by a bird last week (and not something else, as I sort of feared), and that they seem relatively undeterred by the smog, which I’ll say it again, isn’t so bad here.

The following are mostly pictures of today’s wanderings. Enjoy!

Bicycles outside the entrance of the foreign student's dormitory, my building

Chinese pudgster with his Popsicle overlooking the coy pond by the student canteen

Fudan's sidewalks are strewn with propaganda style banners, but not always from propaganda style purposes

Chinese mailbox, trashcan, and phone booth, a functional street corner

Side entrance to the student canteen on campus, late night hours posted above the entryway

Inside this dilapidated complex is an excellent Japanese sake bar

Hippie bus, Seoul to Shanghai, now housing a Korean barbeque dining area

Local shops within the campus

My favorite convenience store, good for cheap coffee (believe it or not) and baozi, breakfast dumplings

Side entrance to an administrative building on campus

The oldest building on campus, built in 1927

Student cyclists

Mao, welcoming visitors by Fudan's main gate

Students enjoying the Sunday sunshine in front of the Guanghua building on campus

Kids behind the campus guards

An apartment block above a supermarket outside the campus gates

Good for sandwiches and pizza, caters to the foreign student crowd

Korean BBQ joint on University Ave

Local fruit market outside campus

Typical shops on a side street by the campus

Not an attractive photo, the magnetic tracks used to shoot the Maglev train to and from Pudong Int. Airport

A banquet style dinner, with friends at a Henan restaurant for a friend's birthday

An interesting duo within the mall by my workplace

A clear shot of the Pudong skyline at dusk

The same shot, panorama style