Why I’m Not a Local

Besides the horribly slow Internet connections here in Shanghai (which are practically driving me nuts as I try to post to this blog), I still have no idea how the locals manage to eat their shrimp – with nothing but a pair of chopsticks. Several times now I have ordered a shrimp or prawn dish at a local restaurant here, only to have the shrimp come out fully cooked and, you guessed it, entirely whole. Head, legs, shell, feathers and all. Now I love shrimp, and have peeled plenty of the little cockroaches-of-the-sea in my life time. I have even shelled several times including pulling the head off. In fact I’ve thought about entering a shelling contest or two. So to put it lightly, I don’t consider myself an amateur-shrimp-sheller (or is it de-sheller).

But I have no idea how to peel it when it is already mixed in a thick heavy brown sauce with vegetables and the like already in the dish. It looks very funny when I reach my hand across the table to pull out the shrimp and have to shake off the thick gooey sauce from my hands so I can quickly pull the meat from the shrimp and throw it back into the dish. And it makes a very big mess- especially considering they don’t typically offer napkins at restaurants in Shanghai! But I seem to have digressed into a very messy eater over here anyhow, so that is not my main concern- rather it is the timing of eating a steaming hot dish without scalding my hands that has me thinking about alternatives.

After some discussion, Caro and I imagine (but have yet to visually confirm this), that you must bite into the thing whole and then spit out the legs and shell that you decide not to swallow. I think I’ll stick with burning my hands, thank you very much.

Our 1st Conversation

So Caro will probably not be thankful that I am posting this one, but I just had to…

One day after we had begun to get enough confidence to talk to some of the locals (even if only for simple questions), we found ourselves in an unfamiliar part of Shanghai looking for a subway. So Carolyn meticulously planned out the words she needed in order to make an attempt at a part-way complete sentence. She then picked out an older local woman to interrogate that happened to be walking by us. Caro repeated her question to the lady a couple times as she “tweaked” the pronunciation, and then the woman finally looked up at her, and in equally bad Mandarin, said “I am Japanese.” Now I’ll give Caro a few props for quickly understanding what the woman said in reply, but I sure did find the whole incident funny.

Propaganda at its Best

Interesting fact of the day- in China, you refer to the cardinal directions in the following order:
East - South - West – North

So is this just another piece of propaganda to fit with the whole “East is Red” mentality, or is the practice of starting with North, as commonly quoted in the United States, a little bit of our own North American propaganda?

Shaolin Kunfu

Wow- I would not want to be in a fight with a Buddhist Monk! We saw an interesting, if not a little commercialized, performance called Shaolin Soul tonight at the Lyceum Theater (which itself is a very grand venue for being built in 1931). For all you karate fans, they were straight from the Shaolin Temple on Song Mountain. Anyhow, they put on some amazing physical displays. Striking a needle through a plane of glass was amazing, to say the least. Of course some of their stretches looked VERY painful. Carolyn grimaced at the child Buddhists doing back flips and landing perfectly upside down… on their head. Then we both grimaced at the display of the monk held up in the air by the tips of 5 spears (and yes, his chest was cut after he was done). But I was really in pain when the monk in a handstand spread his legs into a split formation while one of the other monks broke a wooden rod across his groin area. I think everything after that moment is a little bit of a blur for me…

Universal Commerce

I fully expected some things things to be found universally in this global era. I knew Coke, Sprite, McDonalds, and KFC would be readily avilable over here in Shanghai, albeit with slightly altered menu selections. I was not surprised to find Pizza Hut and even a Taco Bell (although the fact that the Taco Bell is a formal sit down meal with white linen napkins was a little humorous). I was a little surprised, yet thankful, to get my same brands of Soap, Shampoo, Lotion, and Hair Gel from the local store. But one of the last things I would have expected to see was a bunch of little Chinese kids all gathered around the toy section asking their parents to buy them Polly Pockets.

How to Spot a Westerner

So far we have eaten a total of only about six meals in our apartment, and this has been strictly relegated to some fruit, cereal, and sandwiches. Nonetheless, we still have managed to produce more trash than the rest of our apartment floor combined. It is rather humorous to see 4 trash bags for the whole floor sitting by the pickup location as we bring out our 5 bags.

I can't really explain how this occurs. Cearly we buy and consume more. Also, I assume we must be much more inefficient in our use and reuse of consumables. (We Americans love to throw things away!). For example, I am sure the local Chinese are better about reusing all platic bags they receive from the store. And I can tell just from walking down the supermarket aisle that they are much more efficient when it comes to food. Every piece of a fish is packaged and sold in some way, shape, or form, as food or medicine or for some other use (head, scales, bones and all). Okay the packaging is wishful thinking- much of the parts are just dumped into big bins and sold openly, but I prefer to skip those aisles of the supermarket. Anyhow, a Korean woman always used to tell a co-worker of mine, "You Americans waste so much fish!" The same thing goes for chicken- apparently every part can be eaten. (what's in your Chicken McNuggets today?) In fact, the Chinese prefer chicken feet so much that they cannot support the delicacy based only on internal production. The US is now the number one supplier of chicken feet to the Chinese population. The majority of their chicken feet are shipped over from the US as remains from our chicken industry and then sold as food. I guess its a symbiotic relationship... just as long as they don't mind our excess of trash :)

Sense of Smell

It is my common experience that 9 out of 10 smells are ones you are either completely indifferent to, or more than likely, ones you wish you had not smelled in the first place and really don’t ever care to smell again (Kobi Gunther would surely disagree with this statement so I discount any and all of his comments on this subject entirely). Were it not for the interrelatedness of smell and taste, I would without a doubt be under the knife already.

I am midway into developing my personal Map of the French Concession, defining which roads to avoid strictly on the basis of smell. In fact, I think this would be a great addendum to the Lonely Planet Guide to Shanghai, as it really limits the number of streets one feels they must visit.

Pride of Kansas City

Well I know its the pride of KC and all, but if you want the BBQ in China, they do it Texas style here. Sorry KC! (Actually, Hong Kong does have a uniquely distinct flavor in their own BBQ pork dim sum, but outside of this, they assume BBQ, as with many things American, originated in Texas)

The Violin

I made the mistake of picking up a violin from one of the street vendors in the old antique market. It was clearly out of tune, so I began to tune it by ear. By the time I was done there was a group of about 8 old Chinese male street vendors surrounding me. The shop owner motioned for me to come around to the back of his stall, where he immediately pulled out another violin from inside. It was obviously much nicer than those on the street, and as I played on it for a minute he pulled out the ubiquitous calculator which was really our only mode of communication. 1500 RMB, which I clearly could have brought down to 1000 RMB ($125 US). Probably a great deal for the instrument at this price, I just had no way of carrying it around with me. When I told him no (which you don’t really ever say directly in Chinese culture anyways) he began talking very fast, appeared to be more than a little agitated, and I had to push my way through the group of old men just to get him to back off. I felt a little better about ditching the guy when I saw Caro and the other couple we were with in similar heated debates at their respective stalls 30 seconds later.

Ready…Set…Walk

Interestingly enough it appears more dangerous to walk across a street when the signs tell you to walk than when they tell you stop. This is a result of all the mopeds, motorcycles, and bicycles that ride on the sidewalks and edge of the streets and will lurch forward and weave through the crowds whenever it is the pedestrians turn to walk (since they no longer have cars to deal with at that point). A few intersections have traffic officers that will sometimes walk out to the middle of the road to stop traffic for you. This job clearly requires a calm demeanor, as I have yet to see a vehicle stop until the officer is directly in front of them with their palm outstretched in the universal halt gesture while blowing profusely on their whistle. Even then I am sure they regularly see their life flash before their eyes as the cars screech to a halt or ignore them and swerve into the next lane.

Caro and I give ourselves a 3% chance of not getting hit by something during our 4 weeks here. Any takers?

Home Sweet Home

We checked into our apartment for the next few weeks. 2 bedrooms with a shared fridge and bathroom and something that resembles a washer/dryer combo machine, although after our first run I'd tell you the drying functionality must have been an afterthought created by the marketing group. It does have a rather nice view from the 15th floor.

Our roommate, Bern, is from none other than Stuttgart. Wherever we travel, Caro and I will always find someone from Texas and someone from Stuttgart. Without a doubt I am convinced that at least 10% of the world’s travelers must be from these two places.

As Caro would tell you, it is a death-defying 15 minute walk to our school from the apartment (not that the taxi drivers are much better). I of course am oblivious and just assume everything, including the buses traveling 50+ mph on the city streets, will stop for me or swerve to avoid me.

Welcome to Shanghai

One side note from yesterday- it is critical to know in advance what a reasonable price is for items here… at the airport we managed to wade through the taxi swindlers and finally find someone willing to take us to our hotel (Jinjiang Tower in the French Concession) for a reasonable price. But it was not a straightforward affair.


This city is like a giant blended dichotomy – East meets West, old meets new, the haves and the have-nots (ok I’ll stop before I start to sound like Dickens). Anyhow, it is massive. Apparently 10 years ago there was one building above 18 stories tall. Now there are easily over 2,000 sky-scrappers (20+ story buildings) and a whopping 12,000 above 18 floors tall.

Our hotel has a great 360 degree revolving restaurant at the top which gives an amazing view of the city and its modern sci-fi looking buildings.

And by the way, it is extremely humid here. Caro is up from her normal 2 showers a day to something like 4 or 5. I of course am still on my 1 shower a day. And that is on a good day.

Tornadoes to Typhoon

Don't know why I thought my luck with plane travel would change overseas. Clearly that was just wishful thinking. Our flight to Shanghai was delayed 45 minutes at boarding because of the proximity of the first typhoon for the season (the flights before us and after us were all either cancelled or very delayed). Luckily it was a low category typhoon. Unluckily, we sat on the tarmac an additional 2 hours after boarding because of the backup in planes waiting to take off.

Actually I suppose the fact that their air traffic control didn't allow us to take off directly into a typhoon should garner some confidence in their regulations. They did serve us Häagen-Dazs (and Coke to Caro's delight) while we waited, so we can't complain too much. And it gave me some time to read up on my guidebooks (with only the purest of interests in finding some nice decadent, non-stop night clubs; not because we actually will go, but just because our gets-tired-at-9PM butts likes to wish we could still party old school with the college kids)

The US Consumer

We spend our first day in Hong Kong travel around town exploring cell phones and service providers. I am amazed at the crazy amount of service options available-- dual-band/tri-band/quad-band/SMS/MMS/GSM/IDD/3G/RIM/blah/blah/blah. About the only thing apparent from this experience was how companies have decided to pre-bundle all their different services and dumb-down their packages for the American market. Clearly they feel (and are probably correct) that most Americans could not comprehend all these options any better than they could program their VCR.

Doh!

Day 1 -- 7:15AM -- Hong Kong time zone -- Regal Hong Kong Hotel... I awake as Caro begins to scream from the shower that there is still no hot water. It is at this point that I decide it is time to inform her that the hot & cold work backwards here. She rotates the knob and is immediately gratified (okay okay I too forgot about it until just now).

Elvis Has Left the Building

The flight over was remarkably easy this time, especially compared to the inevitable multitude of last minute errands and tasks we scrambled through on the last day.

…still debating whether the extended layover with Continental is worth it given the laptop power and individual TV monitors, compared with United's more direct service with a bad attitude through ever-stressful O'Hare. Continental's flights might be worth it if their equipment ever worked- I'm pretty sure their flight last time was the one where we had English in the left channel and Japanese in the right channel (this is way harder to watch a movie than it sounds, no pun intended). This time it was no working buttons in the seat, which meant the flight attendants had to go around and ask everyone from time to time if the preferred their individual seat light on or off. It also meant no games on the Interactive TV. Luckily my seat was one where the laptop power did still work.

26+ travel hours later, we finally arrive at our hotel- both of us a little cranky (I'll take the writer's liberty of saying Carolyn was more cranky than me) and very smelly. So we have a nice cool shower (hot water not available but it really didn't matter at this point) and venture around Hong Kong for a few hours. We decide to have our first go at an authentic restaurant and through a matter of pointing, order some fishballs and red-bean soup which was quite decent.

The Human Transport Machine

View Segway Chicago Slideshow

Yes, you do kind of look like a dork, but if anyone gets the chance I highly recommend a Segway Tour. Probably couldn’t justify one for everyday transportation use over a bicycle. Plus, you’d be amazed at how fast your feet get tired from standing in one place... but they are a blast nonetheless.