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.