Day 7: SH

First a few notes of clarification.

1. Wilson asked who all the people were I was talking about … the Wu family I’ve known since I was a kid, one of the Taiwanese families of Columbus, GA. Mr. Wu (Wu uncle – though he’s not my actual uncle, that’s just what we call all the Columbus dads, and they are sort of like my extended family) is in Shanghai during the week for work but goes home to Beijing on the weekends. Mrs. Wu (Wu A Yi) lives in Beijing in the apartment that’s kinda in the northeast suburbs, where I stayed. Jennifer is their daughter, and Jon her bf came w/ her. They’ve got a son also, Franklin, who goes to school at UGA. For shanghai, I’m staying at my actual uncle’s apartment. Xiao jio jio = Uncle Fred, and that basically means little uncle b/c he’s my mom’s youngest brother (tho he is older than her; my mom is the youngest). Xiao jio ma = Aunt Sandy. Rui is my cousin who just recently moved to shanghai, and she’s got an older brother Sonny who lives in NYC and is about to get married in Sept. Puo Puo is my grandmother, my mom’s mom, and she lives here and keeps a super strict schedule as far as when she gets up, meditates, eats, sleeps.

2. Trash and the environment: basically China is in the stage of development where it doesn’t care much about effects of stuff on the environment. Recycling isn’t very big. Some parks have separate cans for trash and recycling, but no city-wide recycling pickups or I don’t think even places to bring recycling…. But maybe I’m wrong about the last part b/c people on the streets will ask you for your plastic bottles to recycle. I think they only can recycle plastic bottles easily. As for trash, people throw stuff on the ground here and spit stuff on the streets and stuff. I saw someone in a car next to us roll down his window and toss out a box of something on the road. But the cities are surprisingly not that dirty or anything. They have people whose job it is to clean – walk around w/ brooms picking shit up.

3. Driving around, what’s the deal w/ having a driver… So… One part of the explanation I think is that it’s pretty tough driving in the cities here. For example, some big streets don’t have turn signals at the lights – you just have to move into the intersection and face the oncoming traffic and pedestrians and use your horn. Also, people like to move in and out of lanes quickly sometimes w/o much room. People don’t drive especially fast here b/c there are too many cars to do so, but it still feels pretty crazy compared to US driving. Maybe in manhattan its sorta like this, but I don’t even know about that. So, if you’re not used to driving here it’s easier to have someone do it for you, and safer. Parking is hard, so having a driver means that you don’t have to try and find a parking space b/c they’ll do it or sit in the car (and maybe there are special places for the drivers to park that normal people can’t – I’m not sure about it). Of course, having a driver costs $, and I have no idea how much, but it’s certainly a luxury not everyone can afford. But the salaries here are way different from US, in a way that you can’t really compare them at all. I imagine if you work for a US based company and have lived in the states previously before moving here to continue work for that company, the salaries for you are different than for someone who grew up here and works here. I’m making suppositions that I hope someone will correct – leave a comment if you understand this more (mom?). PS, having a driver is super nice.

4. Toilets. A lot of places have regular toilets like you’re used to in the states plus squat toilets. Some places only have the squat ones – a lot of the public WCs. Most of these also don’t have paper in the stalls – either they have a common paper dispenser outside near the sinks, or there’s just no paper and hopefully you remembered to bring your own. I’ve got a part of a roll of toilet paper in my big backpack for future use, and Wu a yi also gave me a couple of those rectangular pocketsized tissue things that I’ve been keeping in my little backpack that I carry almost everywhere. In here are also some wetwipes. And hand sanitizer. It’s a good idea to wash your hands a lot (or use hand sanitizer) esp before eating and esp if you’re out and about sightseeing and stuff.

5. Fuel. At first I thought it was expensive… But actually I think it’s only a bit more than the states. It’s about 6RMB a liter, 3.78 l to a gal, using 6.8 RMB to 1 USD, that’s $3.34/gal. The gas stations here are full service – you can’t pump your own gas. That’s somebody’s job, and they need a lot of jobs here for the number of people that exist.

6. Superstitions: At parks or any place w/ big gates and places like a big courtyard, if there’s a walkway in the center that goes through the biggest part of the gate in the middle, you should walk in the center b/c that’s what the emperor would’ve done. When walking under a gate, the threshold thing at the base you should step over and not on. If you don’t eat beef, you’ll meet your match and get married. You should drink room temperature water b/c cold water solidifies the fat more and makes it harder to digest plus easier to clog your arteries.

Today, went w/ xiao jio jio to the Shanghai Museum. Very nice. There were halls displaying things like bronze, calligraphy, painting, jade, currency, furniture, etc, and each hall was organized by dynasties. We had less than 2 hrs, so looked at only part of the museum, but there were def some cool things there. I especially liked the paintings and calligraphy.

We walked over to Meridien (big shopping mall) for lunch at this Italian place w/ a bunch of people xiao jio ma invited. One of whom is someone named Emily – she’s got two sons and one is in Taipei right now interning, and he moved to Shanghai after being in NY and hated it for a year before he got used to it. But her older son recently learned the equivalent of the f word – ni3 zi4 (pinyin is most likely wrong but words are you day literally).

For food, I got the risotto, and the texture was right on, as was the creaminess, but I feel like it’s lacking some flavor. For sure lacking parmesan, and we were too lazy to ask for it, but I think they just should’ve put more cheese in it already. Pretty good though. Rui had some rigatoni and it was a nice al dente.

After, we dropped Rui at the Puxi apartment (where she was supposed to be living and I was supposed to be staying, except now that she’s in school to learn Chinese every morning and the school is closer to the Pudong apt, she lives there) to rest. Uncle fred and I went to sign me up for a day tour of Suzhou and Zhuozhang for Thursday.

Then we came back to the apt to rest for a minute (which turned into a pretty long nap) before going to work out at their gym where Uncle Fred got me a day pass. It’s something called California, which Rui said started in, yes, California. It’s a nice big gym. No pool. But great facilities. Lots of new machines. Every machine that you could want. Free weights, but the weight increments were in kgs… and even though I should, I didn’t really know the exact conversion to lbs… I did seated dumbbell curls w/ the 8s, and that seemed a bit heavy but I dealt. We were prob there for almost 2 hrs. I did a lot of stretching at the end b/c I was done but they weren’t. Stretching is so nice. I always kind of skip it, or do less than I should. But really, it feels pretty great. This, I feel, is one of those things that older people start to believe and understand… I just realized that sigh I think stretching is nice. Who says that? People who aren’t 20 anymore. In this way, 30 is def not the new 20. In so many other ways, it is. Ok. So… After working out we went back to the apartment (I learned that the word for tunnel is shui4 dao4 b/c we were stuck in one in traffic for awhile), had dinner (leftovers from yesterday), and chilled. We are chilling. Right now. As I write this.

Also, I chatted w/ my grandma for a bit. She usually eats at 6:10p. so we missed that and had dinner after her. She then does a little bit of walking around and stuff for digestion. And then she was watching tv when I went into her room to talk to her. She thinks that I can read Chinese… so when I asked her what she was watching she was like, I dunno read that stuff on the left side. I was like sigh I can’t. Ming2 something something something. We talked about … mm this is complicated … mom and how come I don’t live with her and whether her “friend” is Chinese or not and how she thinks she met him one time… what state I live in and how far it is away fom mom and come I don’t know how to say Georgia in Chinese… how it’s weird that I like girls and whether that girl I was “good friends” with before is still around or has she gotten married… I didn’t even know that my grandmother knew about her… dammit. Despite making me feel weird a bit, she was also really sweet. She said that I can of course watch tv with her and come in her room anytime. She gave me a hong bao (red packet) for shuon4 fong1 (I think)… safe travels back home, and one to give to mom when I get back. And she gave me a little bao3 hu4 ping2 an1 hangy thingy (protective charm thing). She said that she had a set of two, and one her good friend came and visited and liked a lot, so she gave one to her. And now this one she gave to me.

After uncle fred and aunt sandy went to bed and rui got on skype w/ her friend, I sat and stretched in the living room watching tv. This funny game show caught my eye as I flipped channels. It was like deal or no deal in the sense that there were cases held by women in dresses, but there were multiple contestants (2 per team, a guy and a girl). Once a case was chosen, the team who chose the case has to perform an activity/game – something to do with singing like having to fill in the lines of a song, or acting out like charades, or one was one contestant watches a video of something (in this case a beer bottle being opened and poured in a glass) then has to basically make the sound of that video such that the teammate can guess what it is, except it’s got to pass through 3 other people like telephone. And sometimes the game is one that both teams have to play. It was funny, and the contestants very interesting. If you complete the game successfully, you get the $ amount that’s in the case (and it ranges from 1 cent to 50,000 kuai). If you lose the game, the other team gets the $. If you win the $ this group of dancers comes out and that team dances w/ them for like 30 secs to “Hey Mickey” … hilarious. Rui came out later b/c she didn’t feel like sleeping and was feeling anxiety about her quiz tomorrow. And she studied for a bit but we also talked about our shrinks for awhile. They apparently don’t believe in psychology or psychiatry here but instead feel that Chinese medicine (and maybe meditation) can take care of everything…