Shanghai'd

Shaolin KUNG FU!
Thursday night we headed out to the historic Lyceum Theater and witnessed the most amazing Kungfu performance - live! It started out as some cheezy gymnastic moves to 80s dance music. We had our suspicions, but then a 10 year old kid crossed the stage doing back handsprings on his head! The following performance was truely entertaining. The Shaolin are buddhist monks that train their minds and bodies through meditation and gong. Think "Kill Bill". Many of the moves terminate in a cross-legged prayer position. These guys were super-flexible and did some good acrobatic tricks. But the most phenomenal performance were the "feats of strength". There was the guy who smashed a metal beam in 2 over his head (with a scar to prove it), the "thrusting of 5 spears" where a guy was suspended in air on the points of 5 spears, the "sucking the bowl" where the 10 year old kid stuck a bowl to his stomach did a back bend and another guy picked him up by the bowl, and the "thrusting of 2 spears in throat" where 2 guys pushed a double edged spear at their throats together until it snapped into the audience (luckily the performance was significantly undersold and there were only 12 of us in the theater). But perhaps the most amazing was one guy who threw a needle through a piece of glass to explode a balloon on the other side! All in all, 2 hours of good fun.

Lantern Festival.
On the first full moon after the lunar New Year, the Chinese celebrate the yuan xiao yie, named for the gelatinous "yuan xiao" balls that are traditionall eaten during the festival. I suppose the lanterns are meant to symbolize the bright full moon, though no one was able to give us a great explanation for exactly what the history or reason behind the tradition is. Also, the lanterns are painted with Chinese riddles (example: daggers of water fall from the sky = rain), which are apparently nearly impossible to translate, or else our friends just didn't want to be saddled with the burden of trying to read each one to us in English.

Laurel and I and two colleagues from work, Andrea and Xenia, enjoyed a traditional 6 course Chinese home cooked meal courtesy of Xenia (with Laurel's help), then went to the famous Yu Yuan garden to view the festivities. The entire garden was beautifully lit us and decorated with lanterns and Disneyland-like scenes ranging from quite elegant to completely gaudy. One final (we hope) night of fireworks.

Ice Skate.

Last Friday, to celebrate the release of an NI product we went out to celebrate. I had nothing to do with the creation of the product, but I will happily be a part of any celebration! The first stop was at a hot pot restaurant (the subject of a future blog, I am sure) and then to the rink for some hua bing! The rink was outdoors and is a swimming pool in the summer. Interestingly, none of the NI-Shanghai Chinese were familiar with the English word 'Zamboni' - and by the look of the ice that night, the Chinese do not know what one is. I thought this was a most crucial term to add to their vocabularies. Anyway, we had a blast!

Chicken.
So here is one way you can buy a chicken here in China. You can also get one alive (choose the best looking one of the 250 clawing over each other in the 5’x5’ back room of the wet market). I opted for the pre-murdered, feathered version you see here. There are a few differences between this chicken and one you might buy in America.
1. Most obviously, this one seems to still have some additional body parts I didn’t know jirou had (and I have heard KFC has engineered out of them): feet and a head! Such delicacies, I am afraid that I was inclined to discard them however…
2. Rubber Gloves. Those are for me, not the chicken. Since I am sure this chicken has a greater chance of carrying the (scary!) bird flu. So I was careful while it was raw.
3. This particular bird (and all that I have seen) does not appear to be genetically engineered at all. So for a 1kg bird, you get about 3 oz. of breast meat and 5 oz of dark meat. The rest is bones, beak and toenails. And organs - just the tasty ones, the others seem to have already been thankfully removed.
Luckily, I was making tortilla soup (Aaron, you got me thinking...) and just needed the bird for its bones and stock making potential. Some tortilla chips ($6) and avocados (decently priced at $1.25 ea) from the American grocery store and we had a lovely dinner last night.

Bicycle.
Many of you may vision the streets of China as the idyllic, wide-laned, zixingche-filled boulevards of yesteryear. Think again. While the bicycles remain, so do thousands of taxis, buses and increasingly, private cars all negotiating for a stretch of pavement.
Laurel and I just bought our first pair of bikes (I say first because I fully expect them to be stolen at some point). Good thing a "nice" ride runs about 500 yuan ($60 USD) here. Laurel got a classic city cruiser, complete with front basket, while I opted for the currier-style single speed. Both should be well suited for the pancake flat Shanghai terrain and self-imposed top speed of 10 mph (see below).
As in the US, it is always a good idea to follow the rules of the road on your bike, which as far as I can tell consist of:
- in China, the brake has officially been replaced with the horn. master this first rule, and the rest will come easy. struggle with this concept and be forever doomed to a life of white-knuckle taxi rides.
- the bigger object always has the right of way. plan accordingly
- stick with the other bikes. there's safety in numbers
- whatever you do, do not exceed 10 mph (the only exception is if you happen to be a car making an illegal turn at the time)
- expect the taxi driver next to you to do something stupid any minute now. you see, he just did
- wear a surgical mask or get used to breathing pollution, dust and exhaust
- if you happen to be hauling a load on the back of your bike, pile that crap high; you don't want to have to make a second trip
- only wear a helmet if your name is Tim or Laurel and you come from America
- women over 40 riding BMX bikes reign
Ah, two-wheeled mobility! Off to explore the city, following the above rules, of course.

Name.
For those of you paying attention, the mingzi of our blog has changed from the ever-popular, yet little-understood "liang ge meiguron - two americans" to "Shanghai'd" in obvious reference to our current location, and not the verb form meaning to 'render insensible by alcohol or opium and ship on a vessel wanting hands' in reference to the historical practice. Though at times we have felt victim of the later usage here!