Shanghai'd

Chinese National Holiday.

Guo Qing Jie starts tomorrow, Monday October 1. We have 7 days off work, which is kind of like getting a week off, but we have to work this Saturday and Sunday to make up for Thursday and Friday, which are not really holiday. Its a weekend shift to make it a golden week. I like the arrangement, actually. :)

We are headed to Beijing tomorrow. We have been warned, its going to be crazy! I don't even know what DC is like on our Independence day... maybe this is a bad comparison. To me, the 4th of July means beach, hamburgers and fireworks. We are celebrating July 4, 1776. The national day in China is a little closer to home, October 1, 1949. Although it still means fireworks, perhaps there is a bit more national patriotism as well. We'll see tomorrow at Tianamen Square. Today we get off early, its like the day before Thanksgiving. Sam, Elaine and Elaine's friend Shannon are arriving tonight - I'm getting excited!

First Name.

After a long discussion about mingzi last night with a friend (what will their neighbors name their baby? Bryson? Mackenzie?) I got a chance to name my own today. Not baby, but Chinese colleague who was looking for an English name to help in communication to the US. Zhang Yan is beautiful, unmistakably mixed with some middle eastern blood, or from Xinjiang, I didn't ask. We checked out some names on the web and I suggested Jasmine. For me, Jasmine is the princess from Aladdin and they have many similar characteristics - the eyes, the hair. I told her this name in Chinese - Moli Hua. There is a beautiful old Chinese song moli hua. I think she is happy with it. And I will never forget it.

Xu Jing went with George.

Chicken Pickin'.

I think I have mentioned how every day at lunch I sit with the girls at the office and popo-mama. An eastern Tennessee friend pointed out that they call this chicken pickin' where she is from, but I can't remember how we would say at home: women sitting around talking about ... well, everything. Its not just gossiping, it rarely is in fact. We talk about anything - clothes, food, men, hair, travel, vacation and weekend plans, sometimes even government, politics and seldom religion. I truly value this time, both for friendship and for a chance to study some Chinese. There is a core group of 5 of us - a fellow validation manager, our business manager, the librarian, and the office ayi. We are sometimes joined by the admin. 3/4 of them are Shanghainese, so if the business manager is not present I get a chance to practice my Shanghai-hua (local dialect), which I cannot understand the words of but mostly get the meeting. It is a completely different language to putonghua (Mandarin).

If anyone remembers how to say this in the midwest, let me know. They want me to translate, but I can't find my own words.

BTW, I got published this weekend :-) http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bjweekend/2007-09/21/content_6124077.htm

One Hundred.

I just noticed this is post number yi bai. If I were a good blogger, the following would contain some sentimental recollection of the dear reader's favorite posts as ranked by most viewed, most commented, blah blah blah. The requisite tag cloud would be displayed. An earnest reassessment of the original motivation for this project and new inspiration for the future direction must be noted.

I am not a good blogger.

In fact, as you probably notice I haven't written much of anything lately. During this apathetic slump, Laurel has fortunately taken up the slack. I'll keep up the photography and look for some creative ways to keep that interesting for you all.

Sorry, not much of a century post.

Here are the photos to go along with Laurel's post.


As always, all the good stuff is on Flickr.

As in the Olympic Torch.

Recently, I entered a Lenovo-sponsored essay competition, coupled with online voting. The prize is a chance to participate in the Olympic Torch Relay, which would be very cool. Please cast your vote for me if you get a chance, and pass it on to your friends.

Thanks for the support!

Vote for Laurel to Carry the Torch
*This seems to work better with IE

Putuo Mountain.

Last weekend, we took a trip to Putuo Shan, one of China's 4 famous Buddhist mountains. Putuo Shan is actually a tiny island off the Shanghai coast in the East China Sea, also know as the Pacific Ocean. The trip was organized by Tim's colleagues and we made a group of 23 people, including 3 Americans and one 5 year old boy. I have to give some props to the planning committee, it is not easy to settle the logistics for 23 people, and everything went very smoothly.

We left Friday night by ferry from the north dock on the Yangtze River. The overnight ferry departed at 7:30 pm and arrived at 6:30 the next morning at Putuo Shan. I cannot report anything about the trip, except that I had a bed and promptly fell asleep when I got on the boat. So I guess the trip over was not too bad. We stashed our luggage on arrival and set out on foot, first to the massive golden Guan-Yin statue - goddess of fertility. We then walked through some saffron colored buildings (assumed the housing for the saffron-clad monks) and onto some rocks near the sea. While the color of the buildings was beautiful, the color of the sea was not. The same cappuccino hue found off the coast of Shanghai. The largest temple, Puji temple was next then we hit the beach for some frisbee. The weather was beautiful and the island was well planned for tourists. There were wooden blanked walkways through lush roadside forests that lead over the whole island. The most interesting thing about the temples was to see so many Chinese openly burning incense, kneeling and praying. Its not something I associated with the culture before, and I was forced to open my mind a little more.

That night, we sadly left Putuo Shan for nearby Zhou Shan for cheaper accommodations. Tim and I were worried at first, we saw many things that were "typical China" when we wanted to soak up more of serene Putuo Shan. Fortunately, our fears were calmed by the home-cooked family style meal the hotel owners prepared and served us outdoors on plywood benches. Zhou shan is famous for crab (we could tell by the 6' tall crab statues all over the island) and the crab was magnificent. The next day we headed to a nearby beach for a barefoot soccer game. The beach was gorgeous, and reminded me of a small cove Tim and I hiked down to in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. The water even seemed a little better and Tim went for a swim.

We took a faster way home - bus, boat, and bus and got back to Shanghai Sunday night around 6. It was a wonderful weekend. We vowed to get out of Shanghai more often. I expect Tim will update our photo blog soon: www.flickr.com/photos/stelzert. Be sure to check it out.

UPDATE:
Photos are now up on Flickr.

Typhoon.

I'll say right off that we are OK, and didn't get anything more than a little rain from the typhoon that was headed here last night.

Last night Taifeng Wipha was scheduled to hit Shanghai. Adrenaline and excitement ran high as everyone scurried out of work early yesterday, it felt like a blizzard or ice storm were coming. Or probably like a tropical storm, but being from Michigan, I can only relate this to natural disasters of the winter variety. AMD finally got an email that work was to be canceled for today (Wednesday).

Tim and I had tickets to the US-Nigeria Women's World Cup Soccer game that is going on in China this year. I was scared and didn't want to go, but the game was still on, so we got our umbrellas, rain jackets and ponchos and headed out to the stadium. It did rain, off and on really hard, but we got seats where we didn't really get wet except when it was windy and enjoyed the game. The score was 1-0 US so now they advance to the quarter finals. Some games for today were moved due to the typhoon.

Anticlimactically, I just woke up to dry streets and relatively clear skies. Wipha, while belting Zhejiang province to our south, hit land and lost speed, never making it to Shanghai. I guess I got a day off out of it, and I am really glad we didn't miss the game. Tim still has to go to work. :-)

Unfortunately, getting rained on while riding our bikes to work was not such a wonderful initiation to this year's quitian, but it is better than raining on myself (sweating).