Shanghai'd

Travel!

Tomorrow we take off on our next lǚyóu adventure - this time to Taipei, Taiwan and Kyoto, Japan. We have 10 days total, but Tim has to work for 2 of them in Taipei. We are really looking forward to this trip, these were two of the remaining locations on our travel wish list while we are here in China. I have heard great things about Taipei, and they speak Mandarin there, so we should be set! Except if we have to read... they also use Chinese characters, but the "traditional" form, the mainland uses "simplified". I am actually looking forward to all the traditional parts of Taipei. In Japan we are hoping for a relaxing time, for which Kyoto is perfect with the highest concentration of gardens and temples in Japan. Tim is hoping for some extreme Zen! We'll see how that goes. ;-) Both of these cities are located close to mountains and outdoor stuff, so we hope to get up in a mountain under some trees, or at least some clear skies.

Our upcoming adventures: Beijing Olympics in August, and a 3-week bike trip from Lhasa, Tibet to Kathmandu, Nepal in October.

As many of you know, our time in China is drawing to a close. We plan for about 5 more months in the Middle Kingdom, coming back to Austin towards late fall this year. No dates yet, but if you have been considering a trip out here - get on it! You are invited to come and stay on our couch and enjoy Shanghai; it's a great jumping off point for the rest of the country. Summer here is pretty rough (hot, humid), but September starts to cool off and is a good time for your own lǚyóu.

Cartoons.

Today is a sad day, we had to say goodbye to our good friends the Keeleys since they are headed back to the states today. It was wonderful getting to show Joe, Irene and Andrey around Shanghai. They said Shanghai was their favorite place in China, possibly just to patronize us, but it made us happy anyway :)

Having a 2-year-old around the house is a different experience for us, and today I sat down with her while she watched Chinese dònghuà. I thought it was interesting how she was so engaged in them, but didn't understand what was being said. What was even more interesting, I found while I watched with her, is that this program was all cartoons depicting scenes from the recent earthquake in Sichuan. In one 5-minute clip that played repeatedly, 2 bobble-headed girls are playing in the house when it starts to shake. One of the girls is buried by building debris that falls from the sky while the other watches. Then the lights go out and all you can see are a set of white blinking eyes. Flash to the next scene and the girl who was buried digs out with windmill like arms. Her friend who had been in the dark (the lights are back on) pulls her from the rubble and they hug.

All Chinese stations are still playing earthquake footage 24/7. Seems it is also the case for children. I hope these cartoons can help the children to deal better with the traumatizing experience they went through. I wonder if any children's programming went to this effort after Katrina or some of the tornadoes that hit the midwest. And I wonder if it really helps kids cope.

I wanted to share the feeling I just had during my ride home, because everything about it reminds me of Asia, and China, and Shanghai in particular.

I bolted out of work at 5:30, after an hour of watching the skies darken, at what I figured was the last possible moment to make it home without getting dumped on. The air was thick as I rode - smog, smoke from cooking stoves, humidity, exhaust, and the excitement of a impending storm - with a smoky charcoal fragrance. The sky flashed with lightning as one of the year's first plum rain season storms was brewing. Cars and buses slowly started turning on their headlights. As I neared home, I crossed a completely jammed intersection of an 8 lane road that had at least 12 cars across. One side. I weaved in between the taxis, buses and silver minivans as they inched closer and closer to each other, honking their horns. At the final intersection, I watched a crossing guard try and exercise his "authority" (through blowing his whistle) over a man on a scooter who was heading the wrong way down the bike lane. The scooter driver, smiling, refused to heed the instruction to go around, and they settled on him just backing into place in front of all us stopped bikes and scooters. No face was lost for the authority-less crossing guard. As I turned into our complex, the first sprinkles started to fall.

So I successfully avoided getting rained on and had yet another of what will always be in my mind a quintessential Asia experience.

Summer's here.

After the longest spell of wonderful spring weather we have witnessed in Shanghai, finally rèqǐ láile. Today is Memorial day in the US, always the unofficial start of summer in Michigan, usually celebrated by installing the dock at the cottage during rain and 55 degree air temps.

So, what marks the start of summer here in Shanghai? Here are the telltale signs that rèqǐ láile:

1. Umbrellas. Everywhere. And it is NOT raining.
2. Full-face shields, tie on sleeves, the aforementioned umbrella, any means necessary to keep skin out of the sun and risk losing the pearl white complexion.
3. A sudden absense of the question that almost becomes a mantra for our coworkers during the winter: "Aren't you cold?" Its replaced by the simple phrase: "Hot!"
4. In blatent disagreement with #2, the emergence of very short shorts and skirts (mainly by the young female population). I guess the leg complexion is not of top concern.
5. After dinner, in the street. boxer shorts and a wifebeater pulled up exposing the belly. The relaxed summer outfit of the older male.
6. The air quality has gone south, fast. Tim describes it as "the inside of a stale balloon". Bottle me up some and you can use it to remind me not to come to Shanghai in June.
7. Bamboo mats! Get your bamboo sleeping mats! We actually should get one... it gets hot and stuffy at night.
8. The sun is up before 5am (today-4:53). That's just crazy!
9. Spring Sleepiness, 春困 (chūnkùn), is replaced by Summer Sleepiness, 歇夏 (xiēxià), which will be followed by Autumn Fatigue, 秋乏 (qiūfá)...
10. My personal favorite - sweating on the ride to work. Bike or Taxi. Just stepping outside is enough.

Ah, Shanghai Summer.

Motorcycle.


(Literally: the meat protects/wraps the steel)





So, I am officially now the only one in my immediate family who chooses tiěbāoròu over ròubāotiě when it come to motorized transportation. The only steel this meat protects is that of my made in China Giant bicycle frame.


This pic is my dad on his bike with Grandma on the back. Mom's bike is peeking out in the background. The sisters have theirs down in Texas. The weather here looks so perfect - Michigan spring. It makes my heart break.


Are you getting your fill of blog posts today? Sorry for the feast or famine model here...

After the Earthquake.

This week, dìzhèn zhīhòu, China held a national 3 days of mourning to commemorate the earthquake. It started Monday, a week after the initial BIG one. We observed 3 minutes of silence at 2:28, the time of the earthquake. If you have been to Shanghai, you might think silence would be impossible. Well, this one was accompanied by an air raid siren (quite mournful, actually) and every car on the freeway laying on their horn for 3 strait minutes. Silence, China style. Some folks said they remember the last time silence was observed, although the event tied to it is not clear. I guess they were too young. It may have been the 1976 earthquake.

During the three days of mourning that followed the silence, all entertainment was banned. The radio did not play music, the TV was all news. The torch relay was canceled (I had tickets too! Another chance with the torch, this time to watch the relay, lost). Karaoke bars, internet bars, and alcohol bars all closed. Tim and I attended a charity event Wednesday night. Although gathering, having a raffle, drinking free flow beer and eating BBQ were not banned, the packed event lacked any background music or band. It was the strangest experience, and forced us to remember why we stood eating and drinking with just a dim chatter around us.

Our friends, the Keeleys who are visiting China now from the US, did not cancel the leg of their trip that took them to Chengdu, 60 km from the epicenter of the quake. I haven't seen their photos, but they said all people were camping in the streets afraid of the buildings' safety in the wake of aftershocks that have plagued the city for 10 days. Irene said she felt at least one while they slept on the 11th floor in their friends' apartment. Thankfully, they have moved onto Xi'an now and left Chengdu safe. They even got to see some pandas.

The Chinese are certainly banded together following this catastrophe. Horrible photos and goosebump raising stories circulate on intraoffice email. One photo set I saw was a couple taking wedding photos in front of an old building in Sichuan during the time of the quake. The photographer caught images of debris falling from the building midair, as well as before and after of the bride and groom, makeup and hair to dusty and disheveled. Charity has also been a major topic. I have never known the Chinese to give part of their salary to help others, but in the wake of current events, they have opened their wallets and cleaned out their closets. The method is a bit less discreet. News and internet sites publish donation amounts and it becomes almost a contest. People do not hesitate to tell you exactly how much they have donated. While companies do matching, friends and classmates band together and send their money in with the guy whose company is going to match the most. This is a bit disturbing, but maybe its just China getting used to the middle class.

In any case, being in a country while they go through a devastating time such as this is not really the same as being in your own country. My heart goes out to all the people who were hurt, killed or are survivors of those who were. But there is a sense of national togetherness, much like we felt after 9/11, that as a wàiguórén* I just do not feel.

* wàiguórén 外国人 - Literally, outsider. Its the Chinese word for non-chinese people, or foreigner.

There was a decent showing - 7 people in all. I had to miss it (I had an early meeting). Did anyone in Austin or other cities out there participate in ride your bike to work day?

Earthquake.

You all might have heard about China's 7.6 dìzhèn today. That was out in Sichuan - far, far from Shanghai. A lot of people felt it, and there was the standard pandemonium, including a 5pm early dismissal from work. We didn't notice anything, and we are safe.

Vegetarian.

We are 3 weeks into visitor season, and currently have our friends Joe, Irene and Audrey staying with us. (Side note about them - their initials JIA spells the pinyin for "family" in Chinese 家. I think that is cute.) Irene is a sùshízhě, which can be a problem in China. It also bring up several points about China and their meat. Not to mention their vegetarian past.

Shanghai is a good place to be vegetarian. Yesterday we went to the Taiwanese run Jujube Tree for lunch. We ordered tofu-pinenut-spinach wraps, potato starch noodles with sesame sauce, ginger "chicken", lettuce wraps, tofu pancake with chili and wonton soup. Everything was fantastic; a meat eater couldn't miss the meat. Especially in the "chicken" we got. It was a tofu product, but had exactly the right texture of chicken breast without the stringiness.

Chinese are good at faking meat. Quite in the same way as they are good at faking Louis Vuitton bags, if you want to make the comparison. With a long history of Buddhist vegetarians and times when meat was not plentiful, the vegetarian menu includes sweet and sour "pork" to Beijing "duck" that would have anyone fooled. Not to mention these fakes come sans bones. Can't say that for the real deal.

The new generation of Chinese are not vegetarian. The generation of the cultural revolution remembers what it was like to not have enough. Today, after the standard of living has risen to an acceptable level, that results in meat at every meal for their children and grandchildren. Similar story for other developing nations, second world countries that discover McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut. The big difference here: China has 1.3 billion meat-eaters.

The environmental cost of this "development" is enormous. Cows are not raised in Shanghai, and all meat is shipped in from up north. Transportation is not even the biggest offender, the process of raising the animals creates up to 7x more pollutants than transportation. The cost of meat is going up (and that generation of Chinese meat-eaters are up in arms). Hopefully that will help to curb their taste for the unsustainable choices of beef and pork.

And if a few more of them would go to Jujube Tree and try out the Hunan "beef", we might make sùshízhě out of some of them afterall. At least for one lunch. :-)