Day 52 Expo, Take 2

Well, the Expo was just about how I remembered it. Really super hot and not worth any waits in lines. More details later, now I’m trying to pack before I have to leave for Xi’an in thirty minutes.

Day 51 Field Trip Eve

Tomorrow is July 31st, Harry Potter’s birthday. It is also the day our field trip starts, and I think this is a good sign for the rest of the week. Tonight I thought “Hmm, what fun thing should I do with my Friday night?” and then I remembered that I had to somehow empty my suitcase of all my recent purchases, pack for a week of mystery-activities, and fully charge my two phones, ipod, kindle and camera tonight using a sometimes functioning outlet. I guess those things are all fun in their own way.

So I don’t plan on taking my computer on this field trip (I may be making a huge mistake, I’ll let you know by next Sunday) so I’ll be kicking it old school with a pen, journal, and limited amount of picture space on my camera. We’ll see how well I do. As an introduction to what we’re doing on this field trip, here’s a brief overview of my itinerary (and my opinions, of course):
Saturday: Expo in Shanghai with other interns (Remember my last experience at the Expo? I am not dying to go back, but alas, I expect I will have to do less pleasant things this week)

Sunday: Classes and lectures pretty much all day on topics like “China Development Road”, “NGOs in China,” and “From Harvard to China”; at 4:00 pm we leave for Xi’An via train

Monday: 8:00 am we arrive (on the same train, hopefully) in Xi’An and then get right back into a bus to go to Huangling County where we will see something cool

Tuesday: First day in Yan’an- we’ll go to a few parks, museums, and have waist drum and paper cutting lessons (likely to be the least motion sick day of the trip)

Wednesday: My baby brother’s 17th birthday and I will be at the Yellow River, maybe will throw in 17 rocks for him or something; and various historic site visits

Thursday: Visits to rural elementary schools and service project with Yan’an students

Friday: 8:30 we leave via bus to go back to Xi’An (looks like it’s going to be a seven hour ride, woohoo!)

Saturday: Travel to Famen Temple (for some reason this temple reminds me of noodles, I think it’s the similarity between Famen and Ramen…), travel to see the terracotta warriors

Sunday: Travel to the airport and back to Shanghai (I predict that the Motel 168 will be looking pretty darn good at this point, I’ll be craving my aircon and purple chairs, not to mention my internet)
So, does that sound fun or what?! No, but really, I think it’s going to be fun. Remember how a few weeks ago (I think when I went to Beijing) I said “If I can survive this week I can survive anything”? Well, I think I lied. I think it’s actually this next week that’s going to be the real indicator of my ability to survive. If you run out of things to pray for this next week, you might consider praying that I don’t run out of Dramamine :) And maybe that I discover to how to apparate in the next 24 hours, that would also be very helpful.

Day 49-50 Lately

Well, as some of you know, I’m preparing to go on a week-long field trip with my internship program to rural parts of China- we leave this Sunday. Tomorrow and Saturday I’ll give a better introduction to what exactly we’re doing, but for now, all you need to know is that there is going to be a joint performance with some of the students at a college in Yan’an at which I will be playing a few songs with Kenny Chen, who plays the viola. The past two nights I’ve met up with him to practice over at a music school in the French Concession area. Kenny is the son of the program director, John Chen, who is a good family friend and one of the most generous people I know.

Last night after practicing, Kenny, John and I went to dinner at a Sichuan-themed restaurant. (For those of you who haven’t ventured out of Panda Express yet into other types of Chinese food….Sichuan food is spicy. Think Kung Pao chicken.) The food was pretty good, and, if I can brag a little, I continue to be amazed by my willingness to try things. Literally, I do not know why I have tried half of the foods I have tried here. Actually, before I left Seattle, I ran into a random classmate from my Chinese class who I guess remembered that I was going to Shanghai for the summer. I asked him for any advice and he said “Try everything, the food is really good.” I said something like “Yeah, that’s a good suggestion” while thinking something like “Ha, yeah right.” I am astounded at how well I’ve followed his advice. Today I found some dumplings being sold at this little place in some alley (I love alleys, too) and I couldn’t really tell the vendor what I wanted, so I just pointed at some random dumplings and took those ones. Could have been filled with fish guts, I wouldn’t have known and probably wouldn’t have cared. I guess it’s a survival technique. Oh and there was a bug in some little dish last night that didn’t look like such a good thing to eat, so I pulled it out with my chopsticks, smushed it in my napkin, brushed off my chopsticks, and continued eating the pickled cabbage. That really happened. I feel like I’m losing my identity haha.

Another great thing about the past two nights- I’ve taken fairly long cab rides back to my motel on what I now like to call “Rainbow Road”. As in the Mario Kart racing arena. There are all these crazy elevated high ways in Shanghai that are lit up really cool with funky lighting and when the taxi drivers start racing…you really feel like you’re in a video game. Last night I was literally unable to fathom how the taxi mirrors weren’t ripped off. Tonight I was almost smashed by a bus. Twice. Two different buses. And I just sat there, in the back seat with no seat belt (no fault of my own, they just don’t have them in China I guess) listening to my iPod thinking something like “Oh look, that bus is really close to us.” So to anyone who’s ever been frustrated by my slight OCD tendencies, you’ll be glad to know that they’re almost entirely eliminated now seven weeks into my ten here in Shanghai.

Days 46-48 Oops

Can you believe that I’ve been too busy to blog? It may or may not be true, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Here’s a quick update of the past few days.

Sunday (46): Went to church, learned about the Shanghai Call Center (call and as/get answers to all your Shanghai-related questions in English!), was given a fork at my dumpling restaurant, had a romantic (?) walk along the Dongchang Riverside Garden, watched too much of the TV show House and was pretty sure I had all the same symptoms as the dying patient.

Monday (47): Got sweaty on the way to work, got the master schedule for our program field trip which is next week, worried about being motion sick for the entirety of next week, survived another Monday office meeting with minimal childish distractions, tried on my custom-made suit and perfected my charades game with the nice tailor, ate a delicious piece of cheesecake.

Tuesday (48): Slept in for an hour, was recognized by my favorite worker at my neighborhood bao zi stand, visited Mr. Peter Alexander of Z-Ben Advisors with my coworkers for a consultation on international expansion strategies, took notes at said meeting and was praised for my thoroughness (woot woot), took a ridiculous cab ride that got us pretty much nowhere, ate Coldstone Ice cream, attempted to explain some of the oddities of Mormon culture, practiced the piano in French Concession, ate XinJiang street food for dinner, missed the last metro train by probably three minutes, took a second ridiculous cab ride, ate baby panda biscuits for dessert (is anyone else wondering about my diet here? I know I am.)

Day 45 Low-key Saturday/Happy Pioneer Day!

Today I was not feeling quite as adventurous as I have past Saturdays, but still had a great day. After breakfast, liang ge bao zi (2 of the Chinese steamed buns filled with surprises) eaten at my favorite Dongchang Riverside Garden, I headed to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum. It’s true that this museum is aimed towards kids, especially expat kids, but I was still interested in seeing it. Unfortunately, the lines were RIDICULOUS. Like, every awful thing you’ve ever heard about Chinese people having a hard time with lines was true. Talk about a nightmare, so I bagged that idea and instead walked over to the fake market that’s right next to it.

It was a good thing I went shopping, of course, because how could I live without all the wonderful things I found there? Pretty easily, actually. And those wonderful things I found might actually cause me some trouble in 28 days when it’s time to pack my suitcases. But it’s China, and who knows when I’ll be back and how long this stuff will all be here, so why not.

Next door to the fake market is the Yada Pearl Market, probably my favorite shopping place in Shanghai. I just love it! So I had some fun there and made friends with some of the cute girls who work there.

And today was the first time I used my new Subway card! Previously I’ve been buying tickets every time, but that got pretty old so now I’m really cool and have my official little pass. It’s pretty awesome actually, because all you have to do is pull out your wallet and put it next to the entry gate- it magically reads the card. Talk about awesome. It was the icing on my Shanghai residency cake.

And Happy Pioneer Day!

Day 44 Friday Friendship Feast

Friday Friendship Feast: n. 1. An event held at the Seattle Institute filled with friends and feasting for only $2.50 2. Weekly highlight; a memorable Seattle tradition 3. New expectation for every meal survived around noon on a Friday.


All through high school, particularly my senior year, Friday lunches were held at the McKay house, provided by sweet Sister McKay, and always involved amazing garlic bread and lasagna. This bread was so good that people at school requested pieces to be brought back to them. (Besides, of course, the time when we almost lit the microwave on fire with the easy mac, these lunches are some of my best memories from senior year.) When I moved to Seattle, I was pretty sure that nothing was going to beat this tradition. However, I was soon introduced to Friday Friendship Feast at the Seattle Institute, not necessarily a replacement but definitely a weekly highlight.

Shanghai has yet to provide an event as memorable as Friday lunch or Friday Friendship Feast (or the easy mac incident, for that matter). In fact, today’s lunch was downright sad. Here’s the story: At 11:30, Evan and I walked out of the office and to the elevator. James took a bathroom detour and told us he’d meet us downstairs (we usually hit up the convenience store, grab a Chinese version of the sack lunch and eat back in our office). As Evan and I stood waiting for the elevator, another worker we didn’t know walked up to us and this dialogue proceeded:

Employee: Hello.

Evan and me: Hello.

Employee: Would you like to eat steak with me?

Maggie (to herself): Actually, not really. But good on you for being brave enough to talk to the office white kids.

Evan (out loud): *Chinese* *Chinese* *Chinese* (Translation: Um, where is the steak restaurant? Like, you mean this weekend?)

Worker: *Chinese….hmmm hmm hmm…* (No translation, I’m not sure it would have made sense even if I did speak Chinese.)

Evan: *hmm..mm…Chinese…hmm..* (Well I guess we could go down to the cafeteria with you)

Maggie (to herself): Oh my gosh Evan, really? We can’t just crawl back into our office dungeon and be antisocial?

Maggie (out loud): Ok, sounds good.

So we went with him down to the cafeteria, bought our little meal tickets together, and then proceeded to get into different lines (though there was every indication that we would be sitting together). He got out of the line much faster than we did, and promptly disappeared from our view. Five minutes later, when Evan and I had our food (which by the way, was particularly bad today which made the situation that much more hilarious) we went to look for Employee. Finally, probably five minutes and twenty-six awkward staredowns later, we found him sitting at a table of five or six other employees with no indication of any desire to sit with us. So Evan and I sat at another table and talked about our plans for after we graduate, which was fun too, but really, Employee? So the moral of the story: Fake a language barrier or you will get snookered into eating gross, mushy, mystery squash and bean curd in the Aurora cafeteria with very little to show for it.

*Long post, I know, but I have to mention one other recent effect of Friday Friendship Feast. Tonight I met up with Chenru, a new member of the church in Seattle who Elder Scott and Elder Durrant encouraged me to meet in Shanghai. We went to dinner at the Super Brand Mall and had a wonderful time. Chenru was positively the sweetest thing, we’re going to visit Hangzhou in a few weekends together, which will be great. Anyways, I asked her how she first was introduced to the church, and her response was….Friday Friendship Feast!! So, six months later and an entire continent away, FFF is still doing its job.

Day 43 Laundry, Part II

There’s really not an easy way for me to describe the horrid stench that has been emanating from the garbage bag full of laundry that is currently sitting on my floor. If you recall my previous laundry post from about 30 days ago, you might remember that I’ve been relying on my own laundress skills to keep my clothes clean. After 43 days, these skills have officially failed me, and I am now a proud client of “Aping Washclothes,” located off the noodle alley. Today I put on a t-shirt (I thought it was clean, I am quite sure I washed it sometime last week and haven’t worn it since) and almost gagged. So I got out my eco-friendly grocery bag, picked some precious pieces of clothing to relinquish to the cleaning people, and headed out to find a solution to this very smelly problem. In total, I had two t-shirts, four pairs of underwear and two sports bras. You’d think these would be pretty cheap to wash, but no, it costs something like 10 quai per shirt; the total was 48 quai and I can go pick them up in 3 days. About 8 dollars. Three days. Is that ridiculous or what? At this point though, I’d be willing to pay a whole lot more for some good smelling clothes. I guess I shouldn’t get my hopes up, because there’s a pretty good chance that these clothes won’t actually smell very good when I get them back, but I am at least hoping that they will smell better than they did before.

This might be really pathetic but I think I will end up ranking laundry pretty high on my “things that were hard in Shanghai” list at the end of the summer. Food? Easy, I love it. Chopsticks? Better than forks. Living out of a suitcase? Fantastic. 95 degree weather? Piece of cake. But this laundry issue is really getting me. I may or may not shed a few tears of gratitude when I can go home and wash and dry several huge loads of laundry in my superstar laundry room.

Day 42 The Fabric Market

Work today, if you could even call it that, was pretty great. I learned lots of great facts like the specifics of the endangerment of the blue fin tuna and all of the jeopardy questions from the past year as well as got through the majority of “And Then There Were None,” which is what I am currently reading. As you might be able to guess, work has dwindled a little bit. Our company professes to love us but we’re not so convinced after examining the work load they have given us. It’s getting a little ridiculous but we’re doing our best.

We got permission to leave work early, though, because we went with Zach’s mom (who is Taiwanese and one of those scary Chinese ladies who will make you do what she wants) to the fabric market. This was an interesting experience for me, probably pretty unique from other tourists’ experiences, kind of like the rest of my experiences here. For example, a tourist might work out getting a suit for 300-600 RMB out of fairly nice material with ok tailoring. Honestly, I would probably have been happy with this and would have patted myself on the back for getting a really good deal. Mrs. Williams had no such intentions- it’s all about quality and it’s worth paying more for it. Honestly, it was pretty hectic. This lady is really nice and very helpful with the non-English speaking tailor, but was convinced she knew what I wanted (she didn’t) and I might end up spending a fortune on this suit, it’s yet to be determined. As it turned out, I am having a pretty generic light colored brown suit being made (if you think this will look bad or unstylish, don’t tell me, even though I think you might be right) and then I’ll try it on, tell them what I don’t like, and then they’ll fix it. Honestly, the whole experience was sort of a mess but I think it will probably turn out in the end. (And this was just my suit- we had to deal with Evan, James, and Zach, too. Those boys were pretty picky but what was really funny was Mrs. Williams constant comments on how fit Evan and James were--haha).

After the fabric market, Evan, James and I went with the Williams' (Mrs., Mr., and Zach) to dinner. Over the course of the meal, Mrs. Williams tried to convince us to forsake the Motel 168 for a nicer apartment in Puxi, tried to get us to go get foot massages after dinner, tried to get James to go by Chinese herbal medicine at the mall with her after dinner, and tried to get James to go back with Zach to his apartment to take a bath instead of a shower. Like I said, really nice lady, but super passive aggressive and pretty set in her ways. And let’s just say James wasn’t at his best at the end of the night.

Day 40 SWFC

Today we were lucky enough to enjoy fairly clear, blue skies so after work Evan, James, Zach and I headed over to the Shanghai World Financial Tower to go to the 100^th floor observation deck.  We had been waiting for the perfect clear day all summer to go to the top and it looked like we weren’t going to get much better than this one.  So we headed over to the base of the SWFC to buy our tickets (150 quai each which was a little ridiculous, but we were determined to get to the top of that building) and then were shown into this very creepy basement room with some kind of display in Chinese about the building.  If you can imagine a ride at Disneyland mixed with some kind of space age spaceship loading procedure mixed with some kind of Tim Burton interpretation of Alice in Wonderland you would have a good idea of what this display was like.  Very strange.

            

The elevator went pretty fast up to the 97^th floor.  You get off here and look at the view from this floor which is pretty cool.  I mean, 97 floors is still really really high.  Then you get in line to go up an escalator one floor to another elevator which takes you up the last two floors to floor 100 (is anyone questioning the efficiency of this method right now? I know I am).  We got to the 100^th floor right as the sun was setting which was great timing because we still had some daylight time but then we also got to see the lights go on which was probably cooler.  It really is a great view from up there even if it made me a little dizzy being so high.  I really hate the glass panels in the floor that let you see just how high you are.  I think those are just unnecessary, but I guess some people enjoy them.  Anyways, I wouldn’t necessarily need to go up again, but it was a good thing to do once and sort of a dream come true for a certain coworker who literally loves this building.

            

After SWFC, we took Zach to our favorite noodle place, browsed our favorite DVD shop, and then grabbed ice cream bars after so he has officially been welcomed to the office.  All in all it was a very fun night.

Day 39 The Dancing Baby-Stealer

First, a little background: It’s safe to say that I’m not a dancer.  In fact, I would say that I don’t dance.  Ever.  In regards to dancing, I have about as much grace as an African elephant.  Just know this up front.

            

So today I went about my usual Sunday activities. I headed to church at 9:45, got lunch, took a nap, hung out in my air-conditioned hotel room (remember my recent post about the weather?  I cursed it.  It was so hot today I literally wilted on my way home from church) and then decided to get dinner.  After dinner at the neighborhood Casbah, where I sat at the table next to this adorable family singing the alphabet “A you’re adorable” song, I decided to go for a walk rather than going back to my room.  There’s this nice little stretch of park along the river that’s about a quarter mile from the hotel so I walked over there and sat on the grass reading for a while. By this time it had cooled off quite a bit and there was a nice breeze coming from the brown-colored river, so it was pretty comfortable. 

           

After a while I got up and wandered up and down the river a little bit and then heard this loud music coming from somewhere close by.  I planned to start walking home, but I stumbled upon the source of the music (a smallish amp on wheels being controlled by an older woman) and four or five people dancing in a little square.  I stopped to watch because it was so cute, and within ten minutes or so there were about twenty people all lined up doing the Chinese equivalent of jazzercise.  When I say people, I actually mean Shanghainese grandmas.  I just couldn’t bear to leave because these women were so adorable and then I decided to join them.  I know, total personality betrayal. I have no idea what came over me, it just looked like fun, and how could I say that I watched these ladies for twenty minutes and never actually tried it myself?  So I just jumped in there and tried to do what they were doing, which, by the way, was WAY harder than it looked.  I probably made the biggest fool of myself (no probably about it, really) but I was laughing so hard the entire time picturing how funny this scene must be.  Twenty jazzercising Shanghainese grandmas and one white girl doing who knows what.  The husbands of the grandmas got quite the show. 

            

After a few songs and basically as much embarrassment as I could handle for one night, I decided it was time to head home.  I started walking away only to be called back by this Chinese man who had just been dancing with this very cute little boy.  (He did the really nice “Hallooo?!” thing that I think is so funny.)  So, figuring I had nothing else to lose and no propriety left to save, I agreed to dance with him and ended up having a fantastic time.  I did not magically become a good dancer (I might have even gotten worse) but that, reader, was a cultural experience you cannot fake or find in a guide book or buy with a souvenir. 

            

This probably goes without saying, but as a side note, I saw the cutest babies ever tonight.  There was this one little baby being held by her mom that I might have wanted to steal.  These Chinese babies have won my heart.  

Day 38 Third World Shanghai

Today was fantastic.  I was inspired to do a better job of seeing the real, traditional side of Shanghai after reading a blog of another friend who’s in a foreign country, so that’s what I did this morning.  My goals included finding the Wenmiao (Confucius temple), wandering around the alleys of Old Shanghai and taking 100 pictures (this seems ridiculous, but I have not been doing a great job of pictures lately).  Here’s the list of things I ended up doing: 1. Explored the wettest of wet markets.  We’re talking live ducks and pigeons being picked up and examined for dinner, live fish being pulled out of tubs and having their heads chopped off, a myriad of strange vegetables that probably needed to be washed before eating, and big bags of frogs.  Mmmm mmmm mmmm.  It was fantastic.  2.  Private tour with Chinese guide through the Confucius temple.  She just came up to me and asked if I wanted to go through it with her and it seemed like a good idea.  If you ever go to Shanghai, I would highly recommend this place. Hardly anybody was there (compared to Yu Yuan garden- which could be skipped). I’m always amazed by how pretty these Imperial Chinese garden/temples are.  This one in particular was just so peaceful I forgot that I was in this huge, crowded city. 3.  Played peek-a-boo with the cutest baby boy ever. I know I’ve said that before, but he really was the cutest ever.  I had him laughing so hard and hopefully gave him a good first impression of the “bai ren” (white people).  The grandma holding him was also adorable.  4.  Talked to this gorgeous teenage girl who was learning how to cook from her grandma in one of the outdoor kitchens that are so popular in the alleys of Shanghai.  I asked if I could take a picture of what she was doing and I think she thought I just wanted a picture of her, but that was fine too.  She just had the most glowing personality and I just had to tell her how beautiful she was before she was brainwashed by the ridiculous western media that has convinced these beautiful Chinese girls they will never be as pretty as white girls.  This literally makes me sick. 5.  Talked to a lady selling this strange green fruit.  I asked her what it was (in Chinese!) but then she answered in Chinese and I was lost (of course, it’s not like there was anything she could have said that I would have understood). Then she pulled one out and proceeded to show me how to eat the little nut things that were inside.  I broke the cardinal childhood rule (never take food from strangers) and gladly watched my comfort zone stretch to the point of almost ripping.  6.  Said “hello” to probably 20 Shanghainese old men. They think it’s funny/fun/cute/whatever to yell “Hallo!” as I walk by, it actually is pretty funny so I just say hello back and then take a picture of them.  7.  Bargained (and probably got ripped off) at a few antique stores in the Old Shanghai area.  Best buy: my new abacus!! If I told you that I wasn’t coming back from China until I learned how to use an abacus and you thought I was lying (you know who you are), well, you were wrong.  So far I’ve mastered addition and tomorrow I’ll get the hang of subtraction.  I also got some other things, but they’re secrets for right now. 8.  Took 172 pictures.  These were about half of the Confucius temple (SO gorgeous, I just can’t stop thinking about it) and half of the awesome new Shanghainese friends I made (including the live ducks).  I took one picture of myself in the garden, which I thought was sufficient.  I will probably come back to the states with four or five pictures of myself, which I haven’t decided if I’m ok with yet.

Day 37 "Xing hmm hmmm" Food

Tonight for dinner I went out with a few of the LDS youth in the area to a restaurant near People’s Square specializing in food from a province I like to call “Xing hmm hmmmm”.  This province, which does have a real name that I just can’t say properly enough to remember, is predominantly Muslim and has a Middle-eastern feel to it, so their traditional dishes are like a cross between Indian food and Chinese food.  The people from this province also have fairer skin and more western looking features, just another little tidbit.  This restaurant was pretty tasty- they had amazing lamb kabobs and a Chinese version of naan and possibly the best sweet and sour pork I have ever had.  At first I was hesitant to try the pork because I’ve never loved sweet and sour pork in the states, but thank goodness I did because it was literally life changing.  No offense to all of you Panda Express lovers (I used to be one too), but I think I might go burn it when I get home.

            

This restaurant and the fact that we were eating “Xing hmm hmmm” food are just small examples of how distinct each province in China is.  Each one has such a different character and its people are proud of their uniqueness.  I think of provinces like states, but with a boosted pride that I haven’t seen in many of the United states (except maybe Texas).  I can’t think of what a “Utah Restaurant” would serve that would be very unique from an “Idaho Restaurant”, but I could definitely tell you the differences between food from the Sichuan and Shanghai provinces.  I think it’s really neat that each province has kept its own identity and I hope that this relatively new centralized Chinese government thing doesn’t ruin that for the people.  

Day 36 A Random Compilation of Thoughts on Shanghai

1. So I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve gotten used to it or what, but the weather in Shanghai is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  Six weeks ago I was preparing myself for the worst and attempting to force myself to accept that I wouldn’t feel comfortable until I was back in my air-conditioned home in Utah on August 21^st but I think I psyched myself out enough that now that I’m actually here, things aren’t bad at all.  Other than the painful day at the Expo, the temperature and humidity haven’t been totally debilitating.  Even when things have been bad (like tonight when we were eating hot noodles in a small, poorly air conditioned restaurant in our stuffy little alley) I’ve been impressed at how well I’ve handled things, if I can brag a little bit.  It definitely helps that I wear skirts just about all the time and go home to a 16 degree Celsius room every night. 

2. China, as you know, has an enormous labor force.  If for some ridiculous reason you don’t believe me, you can look at the Shanghai metro system, the Beijing Olympics, the Shanghai Expo, etc. etc.  But what are all these people doing when they’re not building strange looking buildings?  Well, turns out they are employed as security guards in Shanghai.  Literally, you cannot go more than ten feet without coming to another security guard, even if there isn’t any kind of gate or entrance behind them for them to be guarding.  At every subway station, hotel, apartment building, alley entrance, mall, restaurant, office building, you name it, there’s at least one security guard and probably two or three standing outside doing who knows what.  (And when it’s raining these numbers double because, of course, someone has to have the job of handing out little plastic baggies for everyone to put their umbrellas in).  

3.  Shanghai has really embraced the Expo theme, “Better City, Better Life.”  Besides the government’s efforts to keep the city safe (thank you 200 security guards in every square kilometer), they are also trying to keep the city clean and might even be employing more street sweepers than security guards.  I regret that I do not currently have a picture of this, but about every 50 feet you’ll see another street sweeper cleaning up leaves or garbage.  They use these huge bamboo brooms that at first look too primitive to actually function but at closer look are actually amazing.  Then, once they have a huge pile of debris, they somehow pick it up (I’ve never actually seen this part happen, I just assume it does) and put it all in their very large green wheelbarrows.  I will definitely document this whole process, because it is pretty fascinating.  It’s weird to be standing outside some of the tallest and most technologically advanced looking buildings in the world and seeing a group of men with no shirts on using bamboo brooms and big green wheelbarrows to pick up trash.  

Day 35 Asian Fashion Citation

First, an apology for the relative scarcity of posts lately.  Sometimes I feel like I’m out of interesting things to say, so if any of you wonderful readers have requests or questions, definitely send them my way.   In the meantime, I will do better with relaying my experiences. 

Today averaged about mediocre.  This morning was pretty bad (although I did win the game Evan, James and I now play of “Guess what time Zach will show up to work today”).  Sometimes I feel like I have a few bipolar colleagues and sometimes work goes by really slowly; when those two things combine, it’s not pretty.  The afternoon was a lot better, though, and involved James getting a new high score in minesweeper (222 to beat Evan’s 288, you can imagine how many pictures we had to take to document that), Zach reminding us about the Bible story where Abraham went to sacrifice his son Jonah (don’t worry, I burst out laughing and then set him straight on who the son actually was), and Evan showing off his drawing abilities on our whiteboard by drawing a monkey in a cage (this was the cover of a book he’s reading and happened to copy, but there may have also been some underlying message to our superiors on how we feel in our little glass room).  So though work can be exhausting and these boys definitely wear me out, the afternoon went by pretty quickly.

After work I headed to one of the malls about a block from Motel 168 to do some shopping, maybe get a manicure and have dinner.  Mostly I needed time away from the scoundrels I spend the rest of the day with.  (Oh, but before that, James and I went to the western supermarket near where we work to search for graham crackers.  We found them, but didn’t feel like they were worth the ridiculous 65 quai they were going for so bought goldfish instead).  Anyway, my shopping trip in a typical Shanghai mall was pretty revolting.  I guess I hadn’t actually looked around a non-touristy mall too closely yet, but now that I have I am indeed concerned for Asian fashion.  I think I found one thing that I would not have been ashamed to be seen wearing.  If that’s a little harsh, well, it’s the truth.  My very favorite part of shopping in China, though, is seeing shirts with phrases on words in English on them.  China has this thing where they just love putting English words on their clothing items, no matter if the words make sense or not (and they usually don’t).  Kind of like with asset management companies, I just do not see why it would be so hard to hire a native English speaker to proofread what you put on your clothing (or company website).  The phrase “You can reach your dreams you if only believe” in confident, pink letters will surely mark you as a little clueless and result in me never taking you seriously.   

But to balance this post’s bashing of Chinese style, I will say that last night I found these adorable cookies called “Baby Panda Biscuits” that are like teddy grahams but probably three times more delicious and cute.  I plan on filling my suitcase with them when I come home just to prove it to you all. " 

Day 33: The New Kid in Town

7/12/10

            Today was uncharacteristically hilarious.  I almost want to save some of the good stuff to write about tomorrow because there’s a good chance we’ll just be back to normal.  Anyway, this morning we had a visit from Charles, head of the International Business department.  He informed us that we would be welcoming a new member into the Boston Room, another American student who lived in Taiwan who would be helping us with our projects the rest of the summer.  My initial thoughts were: our office is going to be very crowded, our projects probably can’t support the work of another person or we’ll finish this week, and I hope he’s not going to ruin our already hilarious office dynamic, basically in that order. 

            A few minutes later, Zach walked into our lives, and I’m pretty sure we’ll never be the same.  I don’t really know what to say about him here (in the same way I don’t know what to say about James and Evan here).  He launched right into some of his stories (which I predict we’ll be hearing a lot more of) which were positively hilarious to me.  I don’t think he meant them to be, but I was thoroughly entertained.  Basically, it’s like we’re in an office sitcom and he’s the new character that the director forgot to tell us was added for the rest of the season.  At first I was pretty hesitant as to how well we’ll all work together (let’s be honest, I was pretty sure I didn’t like him at all) but then I realized how much entertainment this kid is going to provide me with, and I am now okay with the change.  Right now I’m anticipating a whole lot of silent laughter getting me through the rest of this summer.

            After we got over the shock of a new guy in the office, we headed to our bi-monthly office meeting, conducted entirely in Chinese. These meetings are pretty hilarious; a quarter of the attendees are passed out in their chairs, another quarter are playing games on their cell phones, and the rest are politely gazing into the middle distance in the direction of the speaker.  This is a little window into Chinese courtesy, though I’m not sure you’d find anything too different if you were to visit a similar lecture at any American university. 

            After this meeting and a little lunch break (Xuejing told me Chinese fairy tales for an hour which was fantastic) we got back to work and proceeded to train our young padawan, Zach.  At about 2:30 (if you’ll remember, this is our funny hour) Evan went to re-alphabetize our spreadsheet.  At about 2:45 we discovered a major problem having to do with the companies and fund names of some of the funds on the spreadsheet and spent the next twenty minutes trying to untangle the mess.  At 3:10 we realized that something had gone wrong during the re-alphabetization and all of our company names that had previously been attached to specific mutual funds had been switched (now alphabetized) while their funds had stayed in the same place on the spreadsheet.  If you’ve ever made a spreadsheet of 900 mutual funds, you’ll know how big of a problem this is.  So Evan and James are freaking out, Zach is sitting there looking confused and wondering why he picked this day to come into work, and I just start laughing.  Like, we’re talking uncontrollable laughter.  I definitely realized how big our problem was (we’re talking hours and hours of work to redo) but I could just not help myself and was overcome by how funny this all was.  Anyways, at about 3:25 Evan figured out that he could just ‘undo’ enough times to fix the problem, but we had quite the scare.  Quite the hilarious scare.  

Day 31 I Heart Shanghai

Well, today I saw one of those “I *heart* Shanghai (or NY or DC or wherever)” signs, and I thought about it for a minute, and decided it was true. I do heart Shanghai. At this moment, I would even go as far to say that I love Shanghai (but maybe Monday as I walk to work I might be back to just liking it). Today marks 4 weeks full weeks that I’ve been here, and Shanghai and I have managed to pull it together and be good friends. I’m definitely not saying that I would rather be here an anywhere else (is that what love is?), but when people ask me in 6 weeks if I liked Shanghai, I will sincerely say “I loved Shanghai!” I might even have to get a “I heart Shanghai” shirt to prove it.

Anyways, I started Saturday off with a visit to the Shanghai Museum, a pretty well known spot among tourists in Shanghai with lots of Chinese artifacts. Getting there was sort of an adventure, mostly because I had to walk through a portion of People’s Square that was full of these disgusting pigeon-like birds (except they were worse than pigeons because they were bigger and seemed braver). If you’re reading this you probably know me well enough to know that I am terrified of birds, especially pigeons (and now this bird). So you can imagine how awful this experience was. I managed to survive about 5/6ths of the way through, and then one took flight right next to me and I literally freaked out. We’re talking screaming, maybe a little arm flapping, definitely weird looks from the Chinese mom I was trying to hold onto, it was really embarrassing. Not my finest moment but I’m sure I’ll be able to laugh about it at some point. Right now it’s still making me cringe. (But I still love Shanghai.)

So after that little fiasco, I got into the museum after a short wait in line and headed into the bronze sculpture exhibit first. This museum is organized by themes (like bronze, sculpture, calligraphy...) instead of time period, which was pretty cool. Basically think of your most stereotypical Imperial Chinese artifact, and that was the kind of thing they were showing. It was pretty cool, but after a while things start to run together. There were some really neat sculptures, though, mostly of Buddhism-related objects. There’s not much to say besides that. Possibly my favorite portion was on the top floor where they have an exhibit of the different cultures within China with costumes and things like that from each group of people. I was most impressed by how similar some of these cultures appear to other world cultures. For example, some of the costumes looked exactly like something you’d see in a museum exhibit on American Indians or Hawaiians or Alaskans. Maybe that’s a big ‘duh’, but I thought it was pretty cool.

After the Shanghai Museum and a little shopping in the labyrinth called the underground of People’s Square, I headed to Taikang Lu and Taizifang. Taizifang is a block of French Concession (I think?) that is really artsy and has lots of cute little boutiques. Unfortunately, it’s recently become pretty touristy, but it’s still a really cool place. I had a really good lunch at a cool Thai place where we all sat on the cool pillows on the floor instead of at tables and used forks instead of chopsticks. (Small confession- I actually really like chopsticks, they are way more fun than forks, especially when you get to eat yogurt with them). After doing a little shopping, and a little more shopping at the Pearl Market (second time, I just love it) where I randomly ran into a cute little Mormon family, I decided to head home. I inadvertently took the wrong subway, so getting back took a little longer, but it had been such a great afternoon that it really didn’t matter.

Day 29 How to Entertain Yourself at Work

So as you probably know, my work here in China consists of mainly doing research for a Chinese asset management company. We have two main projects: Compiling a database of mutual and hedge fund products that invest in the greater China region and creating a presentation on the global expansion strategies of other asset management companies. There’s no doubt that I’ve learned a lot about finance and international markets in the process, but sometimes sitting at a computer for nine hours a day gets a little tedious. And when five out of those nine hours are spent reading Chinese websites translated very poorly by Google Translator, you really see how much you can handle. Luckily, we’re a creative bunch and have come up with some good ways to entertain ourselves. This picture captures several of those ways (note: these will not be nearly as funny to you as they are to me):

1. We are frequently privileged to see great displays of talent, such as Evan’s skill of balancing things on his knee. Juice bottle, phone, pen. Incredible. James will have to show him up tomorrow.
2. Note the white board above Evan’s head and the portion of the diagram drawn on it. So after visiting hundreds, maybe thousands, of company websites, you start to see a lot of ridiculous looking diagrams and flowcharts. They make absolutely no sense when you look at them closely, but they’re the sort of things that businesses just love to put on their websites. So we drew our own Boston room flow chart. The part you can’t see demonstrates how growth and innovation lead to solutions and is very inspirational to us.
3. So it might look like Evan is busy reading about mutual fund returns, but in reality there was an Old Snakey showdown going on as this picture was being taken. This daily event occurs from about 2:30 to 2:40 every day and consists of James challenging Evan to beat his top score, me placing bets on who’s going to win that day while trying to remain neutral, and watching Evan run into a wall while bragging about his awesome score. I don’t usually enjoy watching computer games being played, but this is hilarious.
So as you can see, even the most tedious work can be broken up with small adventures.

Day 28 Memorable Meals

Recipe for a Motel 168 Specialty:

1 package Ramen noodles (China has AMAZING instant noodles. If I didn’t already know I’d be sick of them by August, I would bring some back with me and prove it to you.)

1 banana*

1 package of crackers* (They looked like graham crackers, which I have been craving, but ended up being something kind of like wheat thins, which are good too.)

.8 liter tap water
First, pour the tap water into the water boiler. Check that it comes to a complete boil, or you will regret it. Pour the water into the bowl of hard noodles. Try to stir the noodles around without melting the plastic fork that comes with them. Next, open the pack of dried vegetables and empty it into the bowl. Open the three sauce packets and carefully smell each one. (This step is very important. If you happen to know only the character for beef, then you might get some surprising flavors in your instant noodles. Be prepared for the worst.) Throw 2 out of the 3 packets away, and dump 1/3 of the remaining packet into the bowl. Continue mixing the noodles with your now dilapidated fork. Sample the noodles and forget that you just poured boiling water in the bowl until it’s too late and you’ve burned half of your tongue. Enjoy!

*These can be eaten at any time, but savor the banana, as it’s the only source of any kind of vitamin until lunch tomorrow.

Day 27 Munchies!!

Work today was excruciating, I’ll just come right out and say it. I went through several packs of tissues over the course of the day and suffered from a little malady called lack-of-motivation. One interesting thing happened at lunch today, though. James decided not to eat with Evan and me because he never likes the food anyways so he just went straight to his American candy bar instead of wasting time at the cafeteria. Whatever, it’s his lunch. So Evan and I head down to lunch and in the elevator this random kid says, “So I heard you guys speak English,” and we told him we did and then ended up finding out that he’s another intern at China Universal working in Customer Service and then ate lunch with him. We were also joined by his fellow intern, a nice girl who is an international student at Washington University in St. Louis and had a fun lunch talking with them about some Chinese culture things and where to buy train tickets. Once you get to know them, Chinese people are very friendly and generous and everyone we’ve encountered in the office has been willing to help us with a variety of things. (However, if you don’t know them, and you’re at, say, the Expo, you might come out with a bad impression of these people).

After work, I headed over to the Jing’an area of Shanghai to meet some of the other LDS young adults in the area for dinner and just hanging out. We had a few cancellations, so it ended up being me, another guy I met on Sunday named James, a guy who works at the Expo named Micah and the organizer, Tyler. We headed to the BEST American restaurant in Shanghai: Munchies. I’m pretty sure I have never had fries or a chocolate milkshake as good as these, even in the states. And I don’t think that’s only because I’ve been starved of American food for a month now. We had a great time and definitely got out some of our pent up frustrations that come with living in China. These guys are all really interesting, too. Tyler is a professional skate boarder and the waitress at the restaurant recognized him from a recent magazine article. James offered to set me up with a VPN that he could provide from his own private server. Micah grew up in Thailand, speaks very good Chinese and yesterday translated for a star NBA player (whose name I cannot remember) when he spoke at the USA Pavilion. You meet some crazy awesome people in foreign countries, that’s for sure.

Possibly the best part of the night happened in the taxi ride back to Pudong. The subway in Shanghai closes ridiculously early (even for me, and I’m usually ready to head back pretty early) so I’ve been getting very good at hailing taxis. I’ve also gotten good at telling taxi drivers where to take me (Basically I say: “Pudong, Pucheng Lu *mumble* Shangcheng Lu” and then he’ll think for a minute and he’ll say something that sounds something like what I told him, and I say “Dui” and get in.) Well, I guess he thought I sounded really good because three minutes after I was in the car he started up some full-fledged conversation and I had to shamefully tell him, in English, “Oh sorry, I don’t actually speak Chinese.” Embarrassing, but cool that he thought I did!

Day 26 The 4.5-Hour Lunch Break

This morning I woke up with a wicked sore throat and a pounding headache. This is excellent because being sick in China is an experience I couldn’t stand to miss out on. Incidentally, Chinese grocery stores (even the mega-Western “City Shop”) do not sell medicine like stores in the U.S. do, which is lame but unsurprising. I should have seen this coming, though--my diet here has basically a negative amount of vitamins, so my immune system is particularly vulnerable, and then I went and spent 18 hours on Saturday at a hot, humid place with 500,000 other people: Basically, a germ fest.

So I managed to pull myself out of bed and get myself to work this morning where Evan, James and I were reminded that we had a lunch date with a one Mr. Williams, a board member of China Universal and a Harvard alum. This majorly clashed with my plans of holding still all day, not saying a word more than I had to, and making Evan and James periodically replenish my tissues. But alas, we don’t get to eat lunch at the Shangri La Hotel restaurant every day, so I pulled it together and headed out to meet Mr. Williams. The food at the restaurant was really very good, and I was able to satisfy my recent craving for Chicken Tikka Masala (it was a buffet with various ethnic cuisine) and then try to conceal my pain as an invisible boa constrictor preyed on my head. We ended up staying at the restaurant for over three hours talking with Mr. Williams about the Chinese government, economy, culture, and other various topics. Overall the discussion was interesting, and it was fascinating to hear the experiences of a man who has lived in China over the past thirty years, a period during which so much has changed. Finally, after what seemed like ages, we headed back to our office where Mr. Williams wanted to see what we’ve done on our projects so far this summer and look at the kind of research we’ve been able to do. He ended up staying for another hour (which might have been a little over-generous of him). Anyway, he finally left and I managed to make it home (though I might add that this was not a good day for Evan and James to bust out the speed walking).

Day 25 Freedom to Serve

One of the first articles I read in a Chinese newspaper described the university admissions tests that Chinese students take in their last year of high school. The article gave a good idea of how important these tests are: Commercial airline flights are rerouted to avoid the schools and cars are not allowed to honk within a certain radius around the testing buildings (a significant challenge here) in an effort to minimize distractions to the test-takers. The students’ admission to universities depends solely on their performance on these lengthy tests in relation to other students, a harsh demonstration of how competitive education is here. Unfortunately, education is far from the only competitive field in China; with over 1.32 billion people there are many privileges that simply cannot be available to all citizens. The sad result of this reality is that each citizen and family is very careful to spend their time and effort on bettering their own chances of success and has little time to devote to helping others.

In comparison, because of the many opportunities afforded to us as Americans, we have the ability and privilege to serve others. Service has played a critical role in my life over the past three years in particular, both as a participant and recipient, and has benefited me in ways I would have never thought possible, but I’ve never thought of these blessings from service as an indirect result of living in a nation with so many opportunities. The people I have encountered in China are certainly not forbidden to give but the other required uses of their time often eliminate the possibility and thus they are unable to realize the blessings from helping others. From my observations here, contributing only to your own success is seen by the Chinese people as their best and only way to survive but I see this as the most significant restraint on their success as a nation, as well as the driving force behind America’s own success. We are so blessed to live in a country that allows us the free time and resources to serve others, as these are privileges not all nations have.

Day 24 My First World Expo

10 Best Moments of the Shanghai World Expo:

1. Visiting the USA Pavilion- we got to skip the entire line (probably 2 hours at least) because of an inside connection and were then pleasantly surprised by the contents of the pavilion. USA was supposed to be sort of lame, but we actually really enjoyed the 4-D (I know!) videos and got cute t-shirts afterwards.

2. Watching a huge thunderstorm from the observation deck of the Expo Culture Center- we actually timed this perfectly, we were totally dry and watched as the lines at each pavilion halved, then talked to a Chinese man who tried to explain to us how eating dog meat will keep you warm at night…go figure.

3. Getting presents at the Taiwan pavilion- Seriously, if you want people to love your pavilion, tell them you’re giving them gifts at the end of the tour. This pavilion was pretty cool anyway, but the gift bag really clinched it for me.

4. Visiting 19 Pavilions- That’s right, we visited 19. If you had been to the Expo, you would know how awesome this is. Most people visit a third of this number. Now to see if I can remember them all: Taiwan, USA, Iran, Uzbekistan, Indonesia (my favorite), Luxembourg, North Korea (so pathetic it was hilarious), Italy, France, Netherlands (“Happy Street”), Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, South Africa, Egypt, Slovenia, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, and Germany (sort of, but we’ll count it).

5. Not killing Evan or being killed by Evan- So we left for the Expo at 6:00 a.m. (approximately) and got back at midnight (approximately). That’s right, we spent 18 hours together at the Expo. I think we both deserve awards for still being friends and still being alive.

6. Not using the bathroom once at the Expo- This was an incredible feat and something I would highly recommend if you are ever lucky enough to visit the Shanghai Expo. This accomplishment can be attributed to the incredible amount of sweating I was able to do over the day- I think I drank probably 4-5 full water bottles and sweat it ALL out. No joke. TMI, let’s move on.

7. Passing up a pavilion because “I’ve been there in real life”- This was pretty satisfying. Enough said.

8. The sideways orchestra at Italy- So the Italian pavilion was all around pretty cool, but probably the neatest thing they did was take an entire orchestra (we’re talking instruments, stands, music, instrument cases, the whole shebang), turn it sideways, and then put it on the wall. So in case you missed that last bit, there was a full grand piano turned sideways and attached to the wall. It was really cool. At some point I will attach a picture and then you can see what I mean.

9. Skipping the 8 hour line to Saudi Arabia- What would you give to visit a palm tree garden on the top of a UFO-looking building in the middle of Shanghai? Not 8 hours of my time spent in the king of all Expo lines, that’s for sure.

10. The Indonesia Pavilion- This was probably my favorite pavilion. I felt like the Indonesia displays were actually informative (this was actually rare, believe it or not) and the facts about the country were very cool. They also had this great display about one of the most unique Indonesian instruments, the angklung. After visiting this pavilion I really wanted to go to Indonesia, so I’d say they did a pretty good job.


5 Worst Moments of the Shanghai World Expo:

1. Waiting in line to get into the Expo to wait in more lines- It was good we got there early (6:45), because I can only imagine the chaos going on at the gate right at 9, but this wait was probably the most brutal. It was SO hot and humid and those stupid mist machines were getting us all even wetter than we were; I was preparing to bump “Westport Deep-Sea Fishing” and “Driving the Alpine Loop to Timp Cave” down to 2nd and 3rd on my “worst days of my life” list to make room for a new “worst day ever.” That’s how bad it was.

2. Sweating ALL day- I can literally not remember another time when I have sweat so much for such an extended period of time. I sweat every minute of those 18 hours. Needless to say, it was very uncomfortable.

3. Attempting to refill my water bottle- So there are these nice little water stations every so often in the Expo where you can get clean water instead of buying it. It’s a great idea in theory, but when you add the full brutality of Chinese crowds, it becomes a disaster. I’m trying really hard not to base my judgment of this nation off the disgusting behavior I saw in this moment, but it’s been difficult.

4. Being touched by sweaty people in general- If you know me very well, you might know that I don’t like to be touched. I especially don’t like to be touched when I’m hot. The Expo experience violated my personal bubble in every way possible. Actually, looking back, I can’t believe that I managed to keep my cool, though I may have thrown some elbows in some of the more sticky situations.

5. Seeing myself in a mirror- Obviously, I won no prizes today for style or beauty, however, even I was surprised when I walked by a mirror in one of the pavilions. Was that really me? No wonder not as many Asian people asked to take pictures of me today.

Day 22 Pictures

So work today was pretty lousy, and I’d rather not relive it, so instead I thought I’d share some of the pictures that I’ve taken in the past few weeks.
These cute little Chinese ballroom dancers never get old. Every time we see any I have to stop and take a picture because they’re just so cute!

This is one of the bridges at Beihai Park in Beijing, an imperial palace/garden place. Very Chinese looking.

This was one of two contraband pictures taken in the Buddhist temple last Sunday. The temple sort of forms a courtyard so in this picture you can only see 1/4th of the temple.

This is a moderately crowded subway. I got some nasty looks for taking this picture, but hey, people take pictures of me all the time, so I felt fine about it. Notice how there are no other white people.

Hahaha, anyone looking for Chinese husbands? Three worthy candidates being displayed at People’s Park.

Another picture of the Bund at night- I just love how these buildings are lit up. I’m not sure exactly what they are used for, but they kind of show how much European influence is in Shanghai.

Evan and James playing badminton- this was when we went with our coworker, Fred, and were very sore the next day.

John, the program director and a good friend, and me at the Great Wall in Beijing.

Store front in Beijing.

Some of the animals being sold at the “Pet” or “Chinese delicacies” market- these little frogs are possibly the most adorable things ever.

Part of the Shanghai skyline from the back.

Yongda International Tower, where the LDS church meets in Shanghai.