Friday, September 17, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Two markets
9.12.10 and 9.14.10
Market Number 1: the South Bund Soft Fabric Market.
On Sunday Kevin, our friend Alex and I all wanted to make the trip to the fascinating and mind-boggling cheap Fabric Market. In the late afternoon we took an hour long metro ride to the Southside of town.
When we climbed out of the subway station and saw a city seen that looked like the rest of Shanhai—sky scrapers, rooftop freeways and hostile moped traffic. I followed the guys because the two fashionistas could seemingly smell where the market was. We walked towards a neighborhood that Kevin said reminded him of the fashion district in New York. There we found a three story building that stretched about a block long and we walked in.
Inside we were immediately met by countless stalls overloaded with fake polo shirts, wrist watches, belts, socks and of course fabric. We meandered around the premises for a while and looked at the display models and catalogues that the vendors had on hand. Alex and Kevin were foaming at the mouths and they could not help but stop at any place that looked intriguing.
We went upstairs where people say you can find the best deals. The crowd was mostly North American and European tourists—businessmen and women—getting custom made silk shirts, ties and blazers. Sometimes you could find families of westerners shopping together. One time I saw a woman, who by my best guess was Dutch, go from stall to stall with her oversized suitcase with a duty free shopping bag—she had just gotten off the plane and her first stop was this market. As outrageous as this may sound, it’s an economically wise idea. If you are looking for deals, it’s cheaper to buy a plane ticket from the west, buy a wardrobe and fly back rather than buying all this stuff at Nordstrom or Saks.
I followed my eyes to a stall and looked through a catalogue. They had cut outs from magazines that they could steal the designs from. I found an article from a GQ that Kevin had left on the coffee table from last month!
I met up with Kevin and Alex who were enchanted by one saleswoman’s charming English skills. She said that she wanted to give students a discount on everything so she was gonna sell us Y80 tailored shirts—about $13. I hung out as Alex ordered up a custom plaid long sleeve and Kevin got a Khaki suit. Kevin’s suit, cut to his specifications and his exact figure is going to cost him Y500 and he didn’t even bargain!
The initial purpose of the visit was to peruse what the market had to offer and not actually buy anything. I didn’t want to spend anything quite yet but by the time we left I knew that I would be back.
Market Number 2: the Meat and Vegitable Market
Yesterday I went out with a group of three other people to complete a project for our anthropology course. Our mission was to analyze Chinese people’s spending habits and see how they buy their groceries.
Our first stop was the closest large grocery store. There, we split off into two groups so we could evenly distribute the Chinese speakers with the non-Chinese speakers. I went around with Kevin and smiled as he asked questions in mandarin to female shoppers and store keepers. We ended up finding out that most Chinese people use grocery stores to augment what they have already bought in a market place. They shop close to home and would go out of their way to wind up at a store like this. We got this information from shoppers young, old and middle age. From the shop keeper we learned that their most sold item is Vai Jo or hard rice wine.
After compiling our findings we headed to a market about a block away that contained all other Chinese food necessities. The dimly lit market place had an array of interesting smells and I felt like a curious Labrador sampling air from all the bizarre corners of the football field sized area. We first passed a stall that sold chickens, pigeons and rabbits (this was the place that Kevin got our chicken feast from a few weeks ago). The squawking birds and lethargic bunnies gave off a stench that could make a hog farmer cringe.
I was going around the market place with a Chinese American girl who spoke good Chinese. When we would interview people I would say “ni hao,” get their attention and she would do the rest. I spent the time she gave the interview looking around and picking up a few and words and phrases here and there. Most stalls had a great collection of vegetables—most of them green, sea food, meat, beans, rice and spices. The place was not overly packed but busy all the same. Some people were so down to business that they hated being in an interview. We found out that most women—from all different age groups—come to the market about four times a week and even though they find it expensive they still prefer this market over a grocery store. After we had finished our interviews we snapped pictures with giant eggplants, inked squids, live eels and giant melons. As we were heading out Kevin spoke with the owners of the chicken stall who remembered him. Their three year old daughter gave him a kiss and the owner of the stall shook Kevin’s hand when he learned that Kevin is a student at Fudan.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The Shanghai World Expo
9.11.10
There were a lot of people, other than that, it was great…
….
The day started as a drizzly Saturday morning. Kevin and I thought we could outsmart the crowds and visit the expo on a day that was overrun with monsoon downpours. We would soon be out outsmarted ourselves by hundreds of thousands of other die-hard tourists.
We took a moto-taxi to the metro stop half a mile away. A moto-taxi is the newest version of a rickshaw. It is a motorcycle up front and a two seat tricycle in back. On the streets this contraption is absolutely terrifying experience as the amped up driver jolts around traffic going in the bike lane and in oncoming traffic. I paid the driver five kuai for getting us to the station alive and we submerged to the underground.
It was a long train ride on the worlds most expansive metro system—it took us maybe 40 minutes to get to the Expo’s gates. When we arrived there was a lot of walking around huge crowd control fixtures that are the metal barriers to keep people in long curving lines. We bought student tickets for 100 kuai (about 15 bucks) and then proceeded to the Expo’s own metro line. Still there were not too many people and Kevin and I thought that maybe we did actually outsmart the crowds. On the train over the overhead TV read that there were some 350,000 people at the event—I hoped they had room for two more.
After getting frisked at security and walking through many ticket lines we emerged to find the expo grounds. The first thing that we saw was the Australian pavilion. “What the hell is that?” “oh shit, it’s the line.” People wrapped around the pavilion building, hundreds of people long, the wait must have been at least three hours. We had not found a way to beat the crowd but we were about to see what 400,000 people look like!
Having no idea where we were , we explored the pavilions that lied around for a little while. We were in the Oceana square and we bypassed the New Zealand and Indonesian pavilion to the get in the much shorter line at the Brunei site. Because it was our first stop on the day, it was shockingly interesting and simple all at the same time. We walked into the architecturally immaculate oversized shack to find a lame display of what Brunei is about. There would be a picture of a traditional instrument or article of clothing with a terse half paragraph of explanation. For not having too much intellectual depth, the building was certainly beautiful and I can say that the most interesting part of this exhibit was the floor design—milky neon lit glass made to look like opal.
We continued our prowl to the European section. Kevin wanted to go to every site that didn’t have much of a line but given I have no real interest in seeing what Slovakia has been doing with itself for the past four years I acted as the filter; I wasn’t about to wait in line for nothing. We waited about five minutes to get into the rat-packed Czech Republic exhibit. Inside we saw sophisticated science fair like displays of how Czech people are finding the first cures for AIDS and how their scientists have been able to the view the molecular formations of certain fabrics. On the ceilings were works of art—so crowds wouldn’t overrun the sights. In one such display a civic formation was created from discarded electronic equipment—it was pretty cool. I had a lot of respect for the Czech pavilion, they had put a lot of money into displaying what’s going on in their country. The only thing is, I think my respect was unshared by the hundreds of Chinese tourists who trampled the sight. It was becoming clear that most people coming in were only there for the most basic of photo opts and to get their Expo passports stamped (you can buy a Passport and get a stamp from every pavilion—lame).
We breathed oxygen outside then continued on to a collection of countries from the Balkans. The pavilions for Macedonia and Albania had small lines and were surrounded by some bullshit countries like the Republic of San Marino. Once again these places were low on info, high on pizzazz. In a very sophisticated manor the countries’ greatest touristic sights were outlined. Many people in line in front of us bolted through the exhibits, got their Expo passports stamped and ran outside for the next pavilion. The crowds were already getting to me.
Next up was the Swedish pavilion, which according to other visitors was one of the highlights of the Expo. We waited in line for an hour and defended our spot the entire way in; people tried to cut us the entire way in. The pavilion was a two-storied architectural masterpiece. The first thing I noticed was a giant picture of happy Scandinavians playing ping pong as if to say “hey china, we play ping pong in our country too.” The first exhibit showed how the Swedish government created livable neighborhoods and bountiful wilderness from on land that was once ecologically destroyed. There were more colors and pictures and the Chinese swarm around us seemed to pay more attention to what was being presented. For a country that doesn’t have Wikipedia (P.R. China), learning about the outside world in the World Expo is such an eye opening experience. My Chinese friends who are all studying for their masters at the MIT of China (SUFE) know very little about the cultural traits of other nations, not like students in the U.S. might. Thus, the Expo is a good way get a feel for the world around the middle kingdom.
We entered in the main display area where IKEA furniture was bolted to the ceiling to be displayed for all to see (the main corporate sponsor was IKEA after all). Kevin, who never officially has been to Europe was enthralled by what Sweden has to offer. To me, it was like going to my fatherland for a few minutes and examining the best moving parts of Swedish society; after all I already know that Sweden is a Utopia of sorts.
After stopping in the gift shop to buy the coolest t-shirt memorabilia ever, we saw a hipster group of neo-electronic musicians outside. They were dressed in black and purple spandex and looked hilarious. When they were warming up to perform the drummer hit himself in the sweet-spot trying to jump on to his band member’s shoulders—that was also hilarious. They sang with synthesizers and electronic beats. We left the pavilion and felt like such losers for not being Swedish—how come our country sucks so much more?
Hungry and sick of lines we had to find some food. I was hopeful that outside of the Belgian pavilion there would be a beer garden with cheap plates but a downpour was just starting and this was no time to enjoy the outdoor air.
We headed for the Spanish pavilion which most everyone has said “this was the place” to see. The beautiful building was in a wave like pattern and dressed with 6x4 wicker panels. It looked so modern, yet so classy—100% Spanish. The line was more intense than expected and people stretched around the block to get inside and see the giant baby sculpture that was built for the pavilion. It was raining outside but you could feel the humid warmth of sweating bodies stopped in tandem behind the crowd controlled gates. Too much waiting, too many people, we headed for the café for some grubb. We were soaked but we were warmly greeted by a well dressed Galician and given a spot in the café that had the same feeling as a the Guggenheim. Looking over the menu of overpriced typical dishes from all over Iberia the sommelier came out of nowhere and explained the wine list in Spanish. “Yo quiero dos de esto” and he went back to retrieve whatever the hell I ordered. At this time I realized that at some point I should spruce up my Spanish skills a little more so I can utilize a more elegant lexicon. The bow tied Spaniard came back with two glasses of white sherry and pour them in a theatrical manner. He assured me that this would be similar to what we drink in California but he was completely and totally wrong. The sherry was acidic and strong but cool and refreshing. I ate stuffed peppers with bits of cod mixed in and Kevin had some Spanish meat balls. In a typical Spanish way we stayed about an hour and a half and sipped coffee after our minimeal. We were drying off and soaking up the calmingly classy atmosphere. I always love Spain.
After we emptied our pocket books on the café lunch, we started our map-less search for the American expo. Walking clear to hell we finally found the giant pavilion at the end of the expo sight. Along the way we walked through the Africa building. If your country does not have enough money to fund its own pavilion you can slap together a room of colorful flags, maps and pictures of your dictator in one of the three or four massive display buildings. The African exhibit was a tacky mess of fake rainforests and portraits of Robert Mungabe. It was also filled with Chinese people but we made our way through to the Americas square and the good old USA.
We walked around the pavilion and scoped for a freedom loving countryman to let us through the velvet rope. Kevin and I found secret servicemen enjoying a cigarette who assured us the line would only take half an hour. As we were talking to him a group of Frenchmen asked us if they could piggyback inside the pavilion on our American IDs. “Yeah whatever” we said. We headed for the line and found it to be unbearably long so Kevin poked to the front of the VIP and disabled line found some American insiders and begged them to let us in. I waited at the end of the glob, hopeful that the seas would part and let me, Kevin and the Frenchmen in but after waiting about 10 minutes, Kevin came back and said that a guy who went to school in New England would let us in if we walked to the other side of the line. No Frenchmen allowed though.
We met a middle 20s pavilion worker and bypassed a three hour line of dizzy Chinese people. Inside the movie had just begun—Americans play movies rather than having a showy display. The first section of the film was a series of shots taken of everyday Americans trying to learn to say a few words in Chinese. The rest of the movie was a welcoming message in Chinese from real Americans who could actually speak the language. Once the film was over a woman with fiery red hair announced in Chinese that we should walk to the next room. In the next room we watched a movie that featured Kobe Bryant, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (people snapped photos when the prez came on). The film gave off the message that America is a place where new ideas are born and grow. It was full of hope and multiethnic people. In the last cinema room we watched an interactive movie (there was rain and simulated earthquakes) with some lame message of “we can do it together”. The presentation was very American—overly dramatic, heavy on the special effects, heavy on the sappy messages and idealistic in every sense of the word. It was a well orchestrated attempt to send the message “Yeah China, we got this.”
--Oh and Dad, there was a section in the movie interviewing a Chinese American who worked for a potato farm in Inner Mongolia owned by Pepsi co.
After the movies was a room filled with presentation booths from all the corporate sponsors. According to everyone else, the pavilion was dangerously underfunded but apparently every major US company from Boeing to Disney to Chevron chipped in to made sure that America is number 1. In the sponsors lobby Chinese people demanded they take pictures with Kevin and I (we were the only white people in the 500 person mass) and we talked to the guy who let us in. He told us that the pavilion was only staffed with Americans who speak Chinese fluently.
When everything was over at the American pavilion we headed over to the Latin American building. In it was most small Latin American countries. We stopped at the first booth—Ecuador. We scoped to see if there were any empanadas but we were disappointed. Everything in the booth was right out of the Guayaquil International Airport gift store except for the cumbia band that played. Kevin and I talked with the leader of the group. He was from Otavalo—the market city—and he said that there weren’t too many Ecuadorians that he had run into in Shanghai. We were given Ecuadorian flags and we left.
The final stop we made was in the Uruguay room. They had pictures of blond Latinos enjoying the beautiful South American country. I had to have my picture taken with a life sized image of the soccer great Diego Forlan.
We tried in vain to get into the Canadian pavilion but the skinny, bearded Canuck bouncers at the door would not allow Kevin to prove his Canadian residency. Kevin lives in Toronto for part of the year but forgot his fake McGill student ID at home.
Totally worn out from the massive crowd we walked through expo looking for the metro out. We got lost and it took us a long time to finally get out. That night I was exhausted but my friends made me go out to a Canadian bar where I hung out with some Mexicans and other American students. The Expo was a cool place and I would like to go back if I have any more patients and money but it still remains true that Shanghai is a very international city—Expo or not.
There were a lot of people, other than that, it was great…
….
The day started as a drizzly Saturday morning. Kevin and I thought we could outsmart the crowds and visit the expo on a day that was overrun with monsoon downpours. We would soon be out outsmarted ourselves by hundreds of thousands of other die-hard tourists.
We took a moto-taxi to the metro stop half a mile away. A moto-taxi is the newest version of a rickshaw. It is a motorcycle up front and a two seat tricycle in back. On the streets this contraption is absolutely terrifying experience as the amped up driver jolts around traffic going in the bike lane and in oncoming traffic. I paid the driver five kuai for getting us to the station alive and we submerged to the underground.
It was a long train ride on the worlds most expansive metro system—it took us maybe 40 minutes to get to the Expo’s gates. When we arrived there was a lot of walking around huge crowd control fixtures that are the metal barriers to keep people in long curving lines. We bought student tickets for 100 kuai (about 15 bucks) and then proceeded to the Expo’s own metro line. Still there were not too many people and Kevin and I thought that maybe we did actually outsmart the crowds. On the train over the overhead TV read that there were some 350,000 people at the event—I hoped they had room for two more.
After getting frisked at security and walking through many ticket lines we emerged to find the expo grounds. The first thing that we saw was the Australian pavilion. “What the hell is that?” “oh shit, it’s the line.” People wrapped around the pavilion building, hundreds of people long, the wait must have been at least three hours. We had not found a way to beat the crowd but we were about to see what 400,000 people look like!
Having no idea where we were , we explored the pavilions that lied around for a little while. We were in the Oceana square and we bypassed the New Zealand and Indonesian pavilion to the get in the much shorter line at the Brunei site. Because it was our first stop on the day, it was shockingly interesting and simple all at the same time. We walked into the architecturally immaculate oversized shack to find a lame display of what Brunei is about. There would be a picture of a traditional instrument or article of clothing with a terse half paragraph of explanation. For not having too much intellectual depth, the building was certainly beautiful and I can say that the most interesting part of this exhibit was the floor design—milky neon lit glass made to look like opal.
We continued our prowl to the European section. Kevin wanted to go to every site that didn’t have much of a line but given I have no real interest in seeing what Slovakia has been doing with itself for the past four years I acted as the filter; I wasn’t about to wait in line for nothing. We waited about five minutes to get into the rat-packed Czech Republic exhibit. Inside we saw sophisticated science fair like displays of how Czech people are finding the first cures for AIDS and how their scientists have been able to the view the molecular formations of certain fabrics. On the ceilings were works of art—so crowds wouldn’t overrun the sights. In one such display a civic formation was created from discarded electronic equipment—it was pretty cool. I had a lot of respect for the Czech pavilion, they had put a lot of money into displaying what’s going on in their country. The only thing is, I think my respect was unshared by the hundreds of Chinese tourists who trampled the sight. It was becoming clear that most people coming in were only there for the most basic of photo opts and to get their Expo passports stamped (you can buy a Passport and get a stamp from every pavilion—lame).
We breathed oxygen outside then continued on to a collection of countries from the Balkans. The pavilions for Macedonia and Albania had small lines and were surrounded by some bullshit countries like the Republic of San Marino. Once again these places were low on info, high on pizzazz. In a very sophisticated manor the countries’ greatest touristic sights were outlined. Many people in line in front of us bolted through the exhibits, got their Expo passports stamped and ran outside for the next pavilion. The crowds were already getting to me.
Next up was the Swedish pavilion, which according to other visitors was one of the highlights of the Expo. We waited in line for an hour and defended our spot the entire way in; people tried to cut us the entire way in. The pavilion was a two-storied architectural masterpiece. The first thing I noticed was a giant picture of happy Scandinavians playing ping pong as if to say “hey china, we play ping pong in our country too.” The first exhibit showed how the Swedish government created livable neighborhoods and bountiful wilderness from on land that was once ecologically destroyed. There were more colors and pictures and the Chinese swarm around us seemed to pay more attention to what was being presented. For a country that doesn’t have Wikipedia (P.R. China), learning about the outside world in the World Expo is such an eye opening experience. My Chinese friends who are all studying for their masters at the MIT of China (SUFE) know very little about the cultural traits of other nations, not like students in the U.S. might. Thus, the Expo is a good way get a feel for the world around the middle kingdom.
We entered in the main display area where IKEA furniture was bolted to the ceiling to be displayed for all to see (the main corporate sponsor was IKEA after all). Kevin, who never officially has been to Europe was enthralled by what Sweden has to offer. To me, it was like going to my fatherland for a few minutes and examining the best moving parts of Swedish society; after all I already know that Sweden is a Utopia of sorts.
After stopping in the gift shop to buy the coolest t-shirt memorabilia ever, we saw a hipster group of neo-electronic musicians outside. They were dressed in black and purple spandex and looked hilarious. When they were warming up to perform the drummer hit himself in the sweet-spot trying to jump on to his band member’s shoulders—that was also hilarious. They sang with synthesizers and electronic beats. We left the pavilion and felt like such losers for not being Swedish—how come our country sucks so much more?
Hungry and sick of lines we had to find some food. I was hopeful that outside of the Belgian pavilion there would be a beer garden with cheap plates but a downpour was just starting and this was no time to enjoy the outdoor air.
We headed for the Spanish pavilion which most everyone has said “this was the place” to see. The beautiful building was in a wave like pattern and dressed with 6x4 wicker panels. It looked so modern, yet so classy—100% Spanish. The line was more intense than expected and people stretched around the block to get inside and see the giant baby sculpture that was built for the pavilion. It was raining outside but you could feel the humid warmth of sweating bodies stopped in tandem behind the crowd controlled gates. Too much waiting, too many people, we headed for the café for some grubb. We were soaked but we were warmly greeted by a well dressed Galician and given a spot in the café that had the same feeling as a the Guggenheim. Looking over the menu of overpriced typical dishes from all over Iberia the sommelier came out of nowhere and explained the wine list in Spanish. “Yo quiero dos de esto” and he went back to retrieve whatever the hell I ordered. At this time I realized that at some point I should spruce up my Spanish skills a little more so I can utilize a more elegant lexicon. The bow tied Spaniard came back with two glasses of white sherry and pour them in a theatrical manner. He assured me that this would be similar to what we drink in California but he was completely and totally wrong. The sherry was acidic and strong but cool and refreshing. I ate stuffed peppers with bits of cod mixed in and Kevin had some Spanish meat balls. In a typical Spanish way we stayed about an hour and a half and sipped coffee after our minimeal. We were drying off and soaking up the calmingly classy atmosphere. I always love Spain.
After we emptied our pocket books on the café lunch, we started our map-less search for the American expo. Walking clear to hell we finally found the giant pavilion at the end of the expo sight. Along the way we walked through the Africa building. If your country does not have enough money to fund its own pavilion you can slap together a room of colorful flags, maps and pictures of your dictator in one of the three or four massive display buildings. The African exhibit was a tacky mess of fake rainforests and portraits of Robert Mungabe. It was also filled with Chinese people but we made our way through to the Americas square and the good old USA.
We walked around the pavilion and scoped for a freedom loving countryman to let us through the velvet rope. Kevin and I found secret servicemen enjoying a cigarette who assured us the line would only take half an hour. As we were talking to him a group of Frenchmen asked us if they could piggyback inside the pavilion on our American IDs. “Yeah whatever” we said. We headed for the line and found it to be unbearably long so Kevin poked to the front of the VIP and disabled line found some American insiders and begged them to let us in. I waited at the end of the glob, hopeful that the seas would part and let me, Kevin and the Frenchmen in but after waiting about 10 minutes, Kevin came back and said that a guy who went to school in New England would let us in if we walked to the other side of the line. No Frenchmen allowed though.
We met a middle 20s pavilion worker and bypassed a three hour line of dizzy Chinese people. Inside the movie had just begun—Americans play movies rather than having a showy display. The first section of the film was a series of shots taken of everyday Americans trying to learn to say a few words in Chinese. The rest of the movie was a welcoming message in Chinese from real Americans who could actually speak the language. Once the film was over a woman with fiery red hair announced in Chinese that we should walk to the next room. In the next room we watched a movie that featured Kobe Bryant, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (people snapped photos when the prez came on). The film gave off the message that America is a place where new ideas are born and grow. It was full of hope and multiethnic people. In the last cinema room we watched an interactive movie (there was rain and simulated earthquakes) with some lame message of “we can do it together”. The presentation was very American—overly dramatic, heavy on the special effects, heavy on the sappy messages and idealistic in every sense of the word. It was a well orchestrated attempt to send the message “Yeah China, we got this.”
--Oh and Dad, there was a section in the movie interviewing a Chinese American who worked for a potato farm in Inner Mongolia owned by Pepsi co.
After the movies was a room filled with presentation booths from all the corporate sponsors. According to everyone else, the pavilion was dangerously underfunded but apparently every major US company from Boeing to Disney to Chevron chipped in to made sure that America is number 1. In the sponsors lobby Chinese people demanded they take pictures with Kevin and I (we were the only white people in the 500 person mass) and we talked to the guy who let us in. He told us that the pavilion was only staffed with Americans who speak Chinese fluently.
When everything was over at the American pavilion we headed over to the Latin American building. In it was most small Latin American countries. We stopped at the first booth—Ecuador. We scoped to see if there were any empanadas but we were disappointed. Everything in the booth was right out of the Guayaquil International Airport gift store except for the cumbia band that played. Kevin and I talked with the leader of the group. He was from Otavalo—the market city—and he said that there weren’t too many Ecuadorians that he had run into in Shanghai. We were given Ecuadorian flags and we left.
The final stop we made was in the Uruguay room. They had pictures of blond Latinos enjoying the beautiful South American country. I had to have my picture taken with a life sized image of the soccer great Diego Forlan.
We tried in vain to get into the Canadian pavilion but the skinny, bearded Canuck bouncers at the door would not allow Kevin to prove his Canadian residency. Kevin lives in Toronto for part of the year but forgot his fake McGill student ID at home.
Totally worn out from the massive crowd we walked through expo looking for the metro out. We got lost and it took us a long time to finally get out. That night I was exhausted but my friends made me go out to a Canadian bar where I hung out with some Mexicans and other American students. The Expo was a cool place and I would like to go back if I have any more patients and money but it still remains true that Shanghai is a very international city—Expo or not.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
My New Rig
9.5.2010
On Sunday Shortly after I wrote my last post Kevin and I went out to have some lunch at Muslim place downstairs. Emerging from a filling plate of homemade noodles and salty stir-fry, Kevin dragged me over to a street side vendor of bicycles. They wanted 150 rmb (like 22 bucks) for a shabby built street bike. Maybe we said, but we were really looking for a bike for 100 rmb and I was not about to buy crap. We walked down the street to a “real” bike shop that gave exorbitant sticker prices (for Chinese standards). I was dumbfounded to find a rip-off Specialized S-Works—a $6000 bike internationally being sold for 600 kuai.
We determined that the bicycle street vendors were destined to rip us off because our lack of Chinese skills. We were just about to give up and wait for Marx to help us when we stopped at a woman’s stand right outside of the Fudan campus. She started with a hard 200 kuai asking price for the stock Chinese everyday bike. A little much we bargained her down to 150. She decided to throw in a basket and we were more less set on her price. After she took her time installing the basket I gave the rig one last test ride. But something was up, I parked the bike and found the crank arm was just about to fall off and the seat couldn’t handle my American body weight. I couldn’t buy this bike, as a former bike mechanic I couldn’t buy crap. We left the troll-like street bike merchant in the dust as she chassed after us giving us any price we wanted.
Back at the apartment we saw Marx who immediately took us out to do some more shopping. He took us back to one of the stalls we had been but couldn’t negotiate any better price. Marx after returning from talking with the merchant: “he said that these are nice used bikes. They are 200- now but if you buy two at the same time they could be 200-” Kevin: “That’s the same price.” And so on.
We were losing patience and we didn’t want to buy someone’s stolen bicycle so Marx led us to a nearby bike shop that was a little more authentic than any of the places we had seen before. They showed me the biggest bike they had, which still made my knees think they were using the little BMX rig that I had in high school. Regardless of the pain in my lower extremities the bike was pretty well made and for 320- we could get a nice ride with a basket and an extra lock. It was a sale for Kevin too and we went to the bank to get some more funds. At this point I only had some hundreds bills and a little mixed change so instead of paying the full 320 I just handed the vendor 300- and left with my bike. I rolled out of the bike shop with a slick new black commuter and Kevin followed in a blue identical with Marx sitting on the rear basket.
At sunset I took my new rig out for a spin, swerving in and out of traffic, passing up grandma and grandpa in the bike lanes and running stop lights—when in Rome, do as the Romans.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Pets Mart
9.3.2010
Last Friday my program took us to what they called the “bird and insect market.” What I had thought would be a tourist trap of sorts where foreigners go to sample unheard of delicacies like scorpions and sparrows actually turned out to be nothing more than an overgrown pet store.
The whole group left the International Village and traveled by subway to the center of Shanghai. When we arrived at the closest metro station it was a short walk to a concealed alley way. A long string of American students squeezed into the tight walk way. As we walked around most people snaped shots of miniature turtles and exotic birds.
It soon became obvious that insects and birds were not on the menu, they we to be pets and bets. As a matter of fact, most of the animals being sold were grasshoppers. Chinese people love to give them as gifts of good luck or train them to fight with other grasshoppers. They were definitely the most lethal grasshoppers I had ever seen, they were being specially bred to be big and strong.
After a couple of laps around the block sized market I headed out and followed my group to the nearby antique market. Even thought the antique market may have sounded like a good fined, it turns out that most of the stuff they have there is just faked to look old. I like looking at the mass produced posters of Mao and the various statues and figures you could buy. Given that anything cool enough to buy probably would not fit in my suitcase, I gave up trying to find stuff to buy and I left.
Going home I wanted to walk around Shanghai a little bit so I decided to take a different metro stop closer to the city center. What I thought would be a nice little detour actually turned into two and a half hours of lost. I wandered the streets for the better part of the afternoon searching for a subway station that didn’t appear until I landed at the tourist swamp of a destination known as Yuyuan Gardens (I posted about this place earlier and yeah its cool and all but it’s totally overrun with people). I mostly enjoyed by detour because I got to see the shops and small streets that hide themselves in the shadows of major skyscrapers, but by the time I wanted to go home I had to deal with the mayhem of the excretion of tour bus gridlock. I was happy to finally find my underground way home.
I had hoped to be back at the apartment in time to accompany Marx and Kevin to the market. We were planning to make dinner for our friends and Marx gave us the idea that we should have a chicken slaughtered for our feast. Marx and Kevin did in fact go to the chicken slaughtering market without me but I did get to see some pictures. It’s actually not as gruesome as it may sound, I won’t go into secondary details but all I can say is that the chicken was really fresh.
Once we had the chicken we made stir-fry and rice and people brought other dishes that we enjoyed as a group of about ten. It turned out to be a pretty good dinner party and we will hopefully be doing it once a week!
Last Friday my program took us to what they called the “bird and insect market.” What I had thought would be a tourist trap of sorts where foreigners go to sample unheard of delicacies like scorpions and sparrows actually turned out to be nothing more than an overgrown pet store.
The whole group left the International Village and traveled by subway to the center of Shanghai. When we arrived at the closest metro station it was a short walk to a concealed alley way. A long string of American students squeezed into the tight walk way. As we walked around most people snaped shots of miniature turtles and exotic birds.
It soon became obvious that insects and birds were not on the menu, they we to be pets and bets. As a matter of fact, most of the animals being sold were grasshoppers. Chinese people love to give them as gifts of good luck or train them to fight with other grasshoppers. They were definitely the most lethal grasshoppers I had ever seen, they were being specially bred to be big and strong.
After a couple of laps around the block sized market I headed out and followed my group to the nearby antique market. Even thought the antique market may have sounded like a good fined, it turns out that most of the stuff they have there is just faked to look old. I like looking at the mass produced posters of Mao and the various statues and figures you could buy. Given that anything cool enough to buy probably would not fit in my suitcase, I gave up trying to find stuff to buy and I left.
Going home I wanted to walk around Shanghai a little bit so I decided to take a different metro stop closer to the city center. What I thought would be a nice little detour actually turned into two and a half hours of lost. I wandered the streets for the better part of the afternoon searching for a subway station that didn’t appear until I landed at the tourist swamp of a destination known as Yuyuan Gardens (I posted about this place earlier and yeah its cool and all but it’s totally overrun with people). I mostly enjoyed by detour because I got to see the shops and small streets that hide themselves in the shadows of major skyscrapers, but by the time I wanted to go home I had to deal with the mayhem of the excretion of tour bus gridlock. I was happy to finally find my underground way home.
I had hoped to be back at the apartment in time to accompany Marx and Kevin to the market. We were planning to make dinner for our friends and Marx gave us the idea that we should have a chicken slaughtered for our feast. Marx and Kevin did in fact go to the chicken slaughtering market without me but I did get to see some pictures. It’s actually not as gruesome as it may sound, I won’t go into secondary details but all I can say is that the chicken was really fresh.
Once we had the chicken we made stir-fry and rice and people brought other dishes that we enjoyed as a group of about ten. It turned out to be a pretty good dinner party and we will hopefully be doing it once a week!
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Food and Jenga
9.4.2010
I was just about to go out to have a little walking adventure in Jing’an district—which is known for its elitist populous and fu-fu shops and restaurants—but right as I walked out the front gate the heavens opened up and the monsoon from the Fuzhou arrived and poured rain. Thick drops of rain fell from the sky in all directions at my body. I walked down the block thinking it would let up but by the time I reached the other end I was SOAKED. People in cars and busses pointed and laughed at the drenched white kid. This was a bad sign I thought and I turned around and headed back to the apartment.
I guess instead of heading out, I should reflect on the past 24 hours or so because they have the best insight to the awesome adrenaline feed that I have gotten from this city’s night life:
After waking up at a considerably lazy hour Kevin Marx and I finally found enough motivation to head over to Shanghai School of Finance’ recreational field and kick the ball around a little bit. When we got to the field the gates were locked and we decided to wait for someone to open it. We headed to the basketball court where China’s new found pastime is quickly being developed. Marx really wanted to play and when he begged Kevin and I to join him we looked at him with about as much desire to play meatball as two cats about to be bathed. Luckily for the both of us Marx didn’t have a ball and no one invited us to their pickup games.
When the clock struck four we decided to see if the gates were unlocked. They weren’t and we opted to hop the steel bared fence and break into to the astro turf ground. Within no time we were kicking the ball at each other, in the net and down the field. Another pair of Chinese soccer boots showed up and after they had warmed up we challenged them to some two on two. They were pretty good but Kevin was once drafted for the US armature national team and we Americans were better. I fed him the ball and we found it easy to beat their off side trap. Kevin tapped it into the net almost every time. The heat was exhausting though and even in the late afternoon shade we sweat profously. Once the game was over we talked to our opponents and found out that we might be eligible to try out for the SUFE soccer team. That would be fun!
After soccer we got cleaned up and headed out to eat at our favorite Hunan restaurant down the block a ways. The place was packed and we waited for almost 40 minutes. We were starving but the wait was totally worth it. We had plates of stewed cabbage, peppered beef, rabbit kabobs, and sweet tomatoes—it was the definition of divine. The entire meal was flavored just perfectly with a pepper that is so, so tasty and just perfectly spicy. Kevin and I will become regulars at this place in no time.
After dinner most of the people from our program came over to our room to celebrate someone’s birthday party. It was loud, slightly obnoxious and very American; exactly like being at a party at home.
Closer to midnight I got in a cab with some people and we headed to the good side of the French Concessions. We went into a few bars before we ended up meeting more people we know at a bar called Logo. Inside the place was packed and the dance music kept hot bodies cozy. It was interesting to look around. On the walls they played animated Disney movies and had a light show. The place was about half foreigners and half Chinese people. My group laughed at one French guy who with his long black beard, dread locks and bled mascara looked like Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Next we hit up a “pub” close by which was a total mistake and we then went to a place called Dada (the two syllable thing is the trend right now). This bar was the place. The music was even better: the DJ who was from Maine spun music from genres that will only become popular in the coming years. We drank mixed drinks and sat in a booth and played Jenga while the whole dance floor thumped. When we could not contain our North American animo and we found ourselves lighting up the dance floor.
We stopped in one last bar but were turned off by the expensive glasses of scotch, the dim light and the hokey lounge band—not to mention they didn’t have any food. We had no other choice but to abruptly end our self designed pub crawl and head back up north.
We ate at a restaurant downstairs which lets you pick out what you want to be grilled on the open flame. I chose a skewer of chicken, one of lamb, one of beef and one of tree mushroom. They were all excellent but the tree mushrooms really stood out in my mind. When it was all over I climbed the elevator into my cozy hovel in the quiet part of the big city.
I was just about to go out to have a little walking adventure in Jing’an district—which is known for its elitist populous and fu-fu shops and restaurants—but right as I walked out the front gate the heavens opened up and the monsoon from the Fuzhou arrived and poured rain. Thick drops of rain fell from the sky in all directions at my body. I walked down the block thinking it would let up but by the time I reached the other end I was SOAKED. People in cars and busses pointed and laughed at the drenched white kid. This was a bad sign I thought and I turned around and headed back to the apartment.
I guess instead of heading out, I should reflect on the past 24 hours or so because they have the best insight to the awesome adrenaline feed that I have gotten from this city’s night life:
After waking up at a considerably lazy hour Kevin Marx and I finally found enough motivation to head over to Shanghai School of Finance’ recreational field and kick the ball around a little bit. When we got to the field the gates were locked and we decided to wait for someone to open it. We headed to the basketball court where China’s new found pastime is quickly being developed. Marx really wanted to play and when he begged Kevin and I to join him we looked at him with about as much desire to play meatball as two cats about to be bathed. Luckily for the both of us Marx didn’t have a ball and no one invited us to their pickup games.
When the clock struck four we decided to see if the gates were unlocked. They weren’t and we opted to hop the steel bared fence and break into to the astro turf ground. Within no time we were kicking the ball at each other, in the net and down the field. Another pair of Chinese soccer boots showed up and after they had warmed up we challenged them to some two on two. They were pretty good but Kevin was once drafted for the US armature national team and we Americans were better. I fed him the ball and we found it easy to beat their off side trap. Kevin tapped it into the net almost every time. The heat was exhausting though and even in the late afternoon shade we sweat profously. Once the game was over we talked to our opponents and found out that we might be eligible to try out for the SUFE soccer team. That would be fun!
After soccer we got cleaned up and headed out to eat at our favorite Hunan restaurant down the block a ways. The place was packed and we waited for almost 40 minutes. We were starving but the wait was totally worth it. We had plates of stewed cabbage, peppered beef, rabbit kabobs, and sweet tomatoes—it was the definition of divine. The entire meal was flavored just perfectly with a pepper that is so, so tasty and just perfectly spicy. Kevin and I will become regulars at this place in no time.
After dinner most of the people from our program came over to our room to celebrate someone’s birthday party. It was loud, slightly obnoxious and very American; exactly like being at a party at home.
Closer to midnight I got in a cab with some people and we headed to the good side of the French Concessions. We went into a few bars before we ended up meeting more people we know at a bar called Logo. Inside the place was packed and the dance music kept hot bodies cozy. It was interesting to look around. On the walls they played animated Disney movies and had a light show. The place was about half foreigners and half Chinese people. My group laughed at one French guy who with his long black beard, dread locks and bled mascara looked like Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Next we hit up a “pub” close by which was a total mistake and we then went to a place called Dada (the two syllable thing is the trend right now). This bar was the place. The music was even better: the DJ who was from Maine spun music from genres that will only become popular in the coming years. We drank mixed drinks and sat in a booth and played Jenga while the whole dance floor thumped. When we could not contain our North American animo and we found ourselves lighting up the dance floor.
We stopped in one last bar but were turned off by the expensive glasses of scotch, the dim light and the hokey lounge band—not to mention they didn’t have any food. We had no other choice but to abruptly end our self designed pub crawl and head back up north.
We ate at a restaurant downstairs which lets you pick out what you want to be grilled on the open flame. I chose a skewer of chicken, one of lamb, one of beef and one of tree mushroom. They were all excellent but the tree mushrooms really stood out in my mind. When it was all over I climbed the elevator into my cozy hovel in the quiet part of the big city.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Put-putting around Pudong
9.2.2010
Yesterday after class and after eating lunch with my friends in a thick Korean neighborhood just off campus I decided that I had to go to Pudong, Shanghai’s steel plated finance district. I didn’t exactly know what I would find or even what to look for. I thought that the ciudadella would resemble San Francisco’s financial district or New York’s Wall Street, a place shaded by sky scrapping monstrosities and infested with stressed out businesses men. I found neither.
I took the metro down to Nanjing Road and then crossed underneath the Huangpo River. The trip was long, this city is big. The trains were cramped and sweaty even though they were clean, orderly and air conditioned. Emerging from the subterranean world light jumped off the steel and glass buildings invading my retina. I was shocked to see how big Shanghai Financial Center actually is—it’s the world’s second largest building. I had to take a picture and just as I did I was intercepted by two Chinese country girls who wanted their picture taken with me. Disoriented I started to explore the area a bit, walking down the sidewalk.
The second thing that I notice after the Shanghai World Financial Center is how many parks are scattered throughout the area; everywhere that is not skyscraper is a beautifully tranquil garden area with perfect Taoist energy being emitted. I crossed the street which is was wider than the Missouri River and walked to the base of SWFC. I took a few pictures and then walked in to the building. There is actually not much to see on the inside, just a few shops and restaurants. I’m sure there is an observation deck but I will save that for a later trip. If I really had a lot of money I would stay at the Hyatt located on the 87th floor, meet with my chums at Ernst and Young and then have a thousand dollar meal at a fine Japanese restaurant. I felt a little out of place and I headed out to continue my prowl.
I walked across the street to find the Jin Mao Tower which might not have the height but has all the elegance of its neighbor. I think of Jin Mao as the bottle and the Shanghai World Financial Center as the bottle opener. You might be able to see this from my photos. Jin Mao is more down to business and was not as inviting as SWFC. When I went to go take a picture of the sign the guard shooed me away. He said something along the lines of “no pictures please” in Chinese, I assured him “I like Yao Ming too” and finished taking my picture.
The next sight on my excursion was the Oriental Pearl Tower a building made of several balls of pink connected with a concrete neck. The iconic center piece of the Shanghainese skyline seems to only be aesthetic and has no real function other than being a television feed. I did not try to go to its base because the walkways that surrounded the tower were full enough with happy tourists. In this neck of the steel sequoia woods it was clear the socialist building plans were executed with the utmost precision; every building in its place, clean and beautiful and yet the feeling of the capitalist machine is not ever present in the faces of the passersby—eerily different from what I am used to.
I walked around Pudong’s avenues a little more, slightly shaded by manmade structures that stretched to the heavens. The major issue I found unbelievable in Pudong was that there are no people on the streets. Maybe they were all working hard high above but if the same business climate were in North America it would be obvious that this is a financial hub. Overall there was room to breath, which is a funny feeling in a place that is supposed to as hectic as the NYSE.
I finished up my short introduction to Shanghai’s business world got on the subway headed home and studied myself to sleep.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The Last of the normals
9.1.2010
Because of the risk of turning this blog into lame travel diary I am hoping to fill my posts with observations I can make on living in China and the other encounters and adventures I (will) have. Forget noting the mundane normalcy of my daily rituals!
With all that aside, here’s what happened on Wednesday, the last day I plan to describe in detail what I did all day:
Because I have class very late on Wednesdays I had a late morning today. I ate lunch at the Taiwanese noodle soup place with Kevin and then headed to Fudan to sit in on my Society and Culture class. The course promises some sort of anthropological perspective of the Chinese culture we are living amongst. Because much of the subject area is a wide brush stroke of what many already know it will be interesting to see how much new information my fellow students will retain from this course. We spent our time in class discussing academic policy and then we watch the movie “to Live” which goes through the major Chinese social revolutions of the 20th century—it was actually a pretty good quality film.
After class I went to Wal Mart to buy a few more dishes for our apartment. Then we went back to our place and ate hot pot for dinner in the restaurant bellow us. Studying and procrastinating consumed the rest of my night.
Tomorrow I will be going to Shanghai’s business district—Pudong—and I will be sure to describe that experience.
Because of the risk of turning this blog into lame travel diary I am hoping to fill my posts with observations I can make on living in China and the other encounters and adventures I (will) have. Forget noting the mundane normalcy of my daily rituals!
With all that aside, here’s what happened on Wednesday, the last day I plan to describe in detail what I did all day:
Because I have class very late on Wednesdays I had a late morning today. I ate lunch at the Taiwanese noodle soup place with Kevin and then headed to Fudan to sit in on my Society and Culture class. The course promises some sort of anthropological perspective of the Chinese culture we are living amongst. Because much of the subject area is a wide brush stroke of what many already know it will be interesting to see how much new information my fellow students will retain from this course. We spent our time in class discussing academic policy and then we watch the movie “to Live” which goes through the major Chinese social revolutions of the 20th century—it was actually a pretty good quality film.
After class I went to Wal Mart to buy a few more dishes for our apartment. Then we went back to our place and ate hot pot for dinner in the restaurant bellow us. Studying and procrastinating consumed the rest of my night.
Tomorrow I will be going to Shanghai’s business district—Pudong—and I will be sure to describe that experience.
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