Huŏguō 21 December 2013 Mingyue (bright moon) Charcoal Hotpot (huoguo)

I'd been put in charge of organizing the staff Christmas dinner/Secret Santa gift exchange.  We had a generous budget of 2000 RMB.  My Chinese still isn't good enough to make reservations over the phone, so I had to ask one of my awesome coworkers to do it for me.  Only two of my coworkers couldn't attend--one was ill, the other was on annual leave.  I have to admit the Secret Santa thing was kind of exciting.  I'd drawn my boss, a lovely Filipina lady who is Catholic like myself, so I grinned as I tied a red "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" ribbon onto her gift bag.  I'd gotten her a lovely tropical plant and a seaweed mask, which I thought was fitting for an islander.

Saturdays tend to be a bit rough for me sometimes.  I usually start at 10:40 am with three classes in a row.  The good thing is that I'm usually done one or two hours before most of the other teachers.  Two of my American coworkers joined me down at Mingyue for a quick "pre-game" beer while the staff took their time prepping the table for two large hotpots.

There were these big ceramic bowls with sort of metal chimneys sticking up in the middle--like a volcano or something.  Full of charcoal, the chimneys had waves of heat and tiny trails of smoke coming out the top; the water in the ceramic bowls was at full seething boil.  One bowl was the spicy one, and the other one was flavored with milder stuff.

We trooped out to make our own dipping sauces; there was a buffet of ingredients:  chili sauce, vinegar, scallions, Chinese parsley, chopped nuts, sesame seeds, sesame oil, sesame paste, garlic, etc.  Literally 30 small salad bowls full of different things to create your own potion.  I'm a fan of sesame oil, so I loaded up on that, among other things.

I know it sounds obvious, but the hotpots were REALLY hot by the time we returned to the room.  They made our faces turn red.  In broken Chinese, I asked my coworkers to name many of the ingredients, cold and/or raw on their plates waiting to be cooked.  It was fun to throw in thinly sliced beef or pork, prawns, lotus root, yam, winter melon, pre-cooked quail eggs, and lots of other stuff--and then fish it out!  It was like camping, in a way, which I adore.  Just trying to get the eggs, for example, out of the boiling, oily water with chopsticks took more skill than eating should have to take.  We giggled or groaned, trying to help each other.  Eventually, we all had to get plastic Chinese soup spoons, and even my Chinese coworkers used them. 

I begged forgiveness for peeling the shells off my prawns with my fingers--after two years in Micronesia, the idea of eating seafood with a utensil was impossible, but I didn't want to offend my coworkers--who somehow managed to neatly nibble the prawns out of their shells with delicately-held chopsticks.  Every 20 or 30 minutes, a restaurant staffer would enter the room with a huge steaming kettle of water and add some to the bowls, making clouds of steam that evaporated quickly. 

I may have been on my second or third Budweiser (which I usually can't afford) when it was present time.  None of my Chinese coworkers celebrated Christmas, but they'd sure gotten into the spirit.  And they'd gotten some great deals.  Our Secret Santa budget had been 50-60 RMB per gift, and some of my coworkers showed up with huge tote bags full of stuff.  I really don't know how they'd done it--other than the fact that they were locals, of course. 

Another of my coworkers had made a silly paper crown for an American guy who sits next to me in the office.  It had come down to Thai food or hotpot, and he'd successfully pushed the vote for hotpot.  "We have an announcement--the King of Hotpot, everyone!"  We laughed, and the coworker who'd made the crown videoed the King's speech with her smart phone.

My gift was a solid cube of soap from L'Occitane that smelled like linden.  It was from the lone Brit in our office, who would be leaving the next day.  So far, two foreign teachers had left and two had replaced them; the local turnover was higher, with four out and four in.  That's just in the six months I've been working.

I still haven't made any solid decisions about my future here.  My contract is up in July 2014.  I hate the pollution, and there is a painful awareness of just how many people 20 million is when you must push your way through them on a daily basis.  But I've met and/or seen Chinese, American, Irish, Italian, Kiwi, Canadian, Indian, and German ex-pats, just to name a few.  I love the diversity.  There's a Chinese man I met who's been teaching English to Maori children in New Zealand.  I've seen a beautiful Chinese woman speaking German on her cell phone.  I've listened to Johnny Cash and Enya while eating lunch at a restaurant named Southern Belle with an Aussie and a Brit from my Chinese class.  I love knowing THE WORLD EXISITS--something that we don't really KNOW in Spokane, I'm sorry to say.

At the same time, I long for crisp blue skies; for an all-day chat with my sister over a cinnamon roll from the Rocket; for the purr of my cat next to my ear as he sleeps; and for the absence of constant construction noise.  Everywhere I've been, everything I've seen--nothing compares to the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, it's mountains and its trees, its clear streams and quiet hiking trails.  I can't imagine living in Shanghai forever, that's for darn sure!

Learning English--fun or not?

When I chose to learn Spanish at MHS, it was for several reasons:  one, I already knew some words.  Please, thank you, bathroom, and my numbers one through ten…I knew several words for foods:  tacos, burritos, churros, empanadas…Once I can name some of my favorite foods in a new language, I feel much more comfortable learning everything else!

 

Reason two, most college and universities required two years of a foreign language, and I figured Spanish would be easy…

Three…and FUN!  A language historically intertwined with salsa music and mariachis, sombreros and flamenco dancers had to be fun.  One year my Spanish name was Mercedes; another year it was Raquel.  I liked the names—they were my Spanish class alter-egos.  I went on a mission trip to Mexico with one of my Spanish teachers, and I had a blast acing every test I took.

I think my experience is similar to many high school and college students in the US—we’re picking up another language because it’s fun and cool, with the dream that maybe one day we’ll visit the country where it’s spoken.

I’m not sure my Chinese students would describe learning English as fun.  Oh, sure—I have some university students who are taking my classes on the side.  For them, it’s just another part of their schooling, and at 20 years old, their enthusiasm and curiosity often spice up a class.

However, I also have many students who come to class after work for that three-in-a-row all the teachers have (6:40 – 9:30 p.m. on weeknights).  It is painfully evident how exhausted some of the students are.  These working professionals do everything from surgery to food delivery for Sherpa’s.  About once a week I’ll have a student fall asleep in my class.  When I walk through the computer lab, I’ll see three or four students asleep at their desks.  It doesn’t help that some of the classrooms are 80 or 90 degrees Fahrenheit—the mall has turned off the A/C for the year, and eight floors of electric and body heat float up and settle on the 9^th floor where our center is.  On a sunny Saturday or Sunday, some students will be at their computers as long as I'm there--over eight hours.  It's like a second job that they're paying for.

A handful of my students have a spouse from an English-speaking country, and some occasionally travel for business.  However, most of my students are learning English for one reason:  English-speaking countries (the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom) are still the most powerful in the world, and English is the language of power.  Improve my resume…Be more competitive in the job market…My company is paying for my English lessons…I haven’t met a single student who’s learning English “just for fun”.  To me, it’s a little sad.

Many of my students have had the same English name as long as they’ve been studying—10 years, maybe longer.  It’s not a fun alter-ego anymore; it’s as if they have a split identity, an English-speaking part of them that might allow them to become a bit more stable or successful in the world.  I wonder:  Do they feel as though they are giving up a piece of who they are—part of their Chinese identity—in order to make room for the English part—in order to get ahead?

For more than a few of my students, there is a desperation to their learning, it seems to me, that has an entirely different feel than my fun lessons with Senor Verde. 

There is a vegetable market a little ways from my apartment that some friends showed me.  The produce there is great, and there’s meat, too—it’s all clean and up off the floor and quite nice.  But to get there, I have to walk down a road several blocks long.  On this road, there is food garbage littering the street, making it slimy:  rotting bok choy and cabbage, bits of ramen from that morning’s breakfast tossed into the gutter.  Sometimes blood will trickle across the pavement from cuts of fish or pork.  A stray dog or cat, its fur matted with dirt, will often sniff around these places, dodging scooters and bicycles and children in strollers.  Every other stall along this road is blasting one kind of music or another—traditional Chinese, dance music, Kpop (from Korea).  Half of the men are smoking cigarettes.  Sometimes, filthy, crippled beggars with patched clothes will sit in the street, or hobble along with a crutch and a tin cup.  There are no bathrooms here, my friends have told me.  If you live within ten square blocks of this place, you have to use the public cesuos next to the main street (Haining Lu).  Imagine this.  Really think about it.  If you are a child, maybe eight years old, you probably wake up at least once a week in the middle of the night needing to pee.  You probably have to wake up an older sibling (if you have one) or a parent to take you to the bathroom blocks away at three or four in the morning.  There’s no soap there, no toilet paper, and of course they are “squatty-potties”. 

When my mom came to visit me, we walked through this neighborhood a couple of times to get to the vegetable market.  Once, a fire truck tried to get through.  Between haphazardly parked cars, swerving scooters, beggars, animals, and families stopping every minute to shop in one stall or another, it took the fire truck about five minutes to go one block, blaring its horn the whole time.  The firemen weren’t hesitant to lean out the windows and yell at people, or laugh.

With streets like this, if a fire broke out, it would burn the neighborhood to the ground before the fire truck could get through.  With hygiene like this, if some contagious disease found its way here, half the people in the neighborhood would have it before they knew what hit them.  And if you think they could afford to go to a decent doctor, you’ve been in America too long.

My point is that poverty in China is still very real, even in Shanghai, even in 2013.  My students are quite privileged if they can afford English lessons at the center where I work.  As soon as they learned the word “cosmopolitan”, they applied it to Shanghai and couldn’t stop talking about how modern and high-tech Shanghai is.  But no matter what they say, I know they are not completely ignorant of neighborhoods like the one near my apartment.  I can almost see them thinking:  That could be me.  If I don’t keep studying, keep working, keep trying…it could be my children, too.  They don’t talk about it, though.  They just keep learning English.

Mission Statment

What is it about fall that makes me draw inward--search inside myself?  I feel as though I always become a bit more pensive this time of year, and often my mind drifts toward past SEARCH retreats and thoughts that are a bit deeper.

A recent lesson--a Career Advancement Seminar, we call them--gave me pause.  The aim of the lesson was to expose my students to the Eight Components of a Mission Statement--for a company, of course, but I couldn't help thinking:  How long had it been since I'd considered my own mission statement?  If you've ever gone on a SEARCH retreat (*Catholics cheer*) then you know what I'm talking about.

The following are the eight components of a company's mission statement:

·         Relationship to Customers

·         Market Location

·         Products and Services

·         Use of Technology

·         Care for People and the Environment

·         Major Advantages

·         Company Values

·         Growth and Profit

Parts of the mission statement that follows were written on subway platforms, or in a courtyard with Pullman (holla!) Hotels looming over me as I sipped an iced cafe au lait and ate a croque monseiur, with the classic rock song "Low Rider" playing in the background.  It is not always easy to put Shanghai in a box, and I think the same can be said for people, including myself.

But how was I going to take these eight components and shape them into a personal statement?

Well, Market Location was kind of easy:  if I could be considered a "market", then I am worldwide, baby!  I've lived in three countries outside the States.  I'd like to consider myself a global citizen.

Major Advantages:  What makes me ME?  The sum of my experiences--living overseas, close relationships with family and friends.  Genetics.  Pets.  Books I've read.  Dealing with homesickness and depression.  My values (see below).

Company Values:  What are my personal values?  My family.  My cat.  Nature.  My faith.  Writing.  These are closest to my heart, and they can feed me in ways that no food (not even a croque monseiur) can. 

Care for People and the Environment:  The afore-mentioned lesson stated that most international companies now have some kind of social responsibility piece in their mission statements.  I feel I've always been close to this.  In spite of my complaints about Shanghai, I've flirted with countless chubby-cheeked babies, to the delight of their parents, especially if I use a mix of Chinese and English.  I really enjoy my students, my co-workers, and people that are becoming good friends.

As far as the environment goes, I try to keep my A/C at a decent level (it's off most of the time these days), and I reuse plastic bags (since you have to buy them at the grocery store here) and plastic bottles until they get soft!  These things aren't hard to do, and they save me money as well.

I've also been pleased to see that "That's Shanghai", the ex-pat magazine, regularly lists pet rescue, shelter, and adoption events.  I see sweater-wearing dogs here now, being walked by everyone from scruffy old Chinese men to foreigners to young, petite Chinese girls.  I never would've guessed, 25 years ago, that it'd be possible to see such things in China--tears of joy!

Growth and Profit:  I don't have any delusions about getting rich as a teacher.  At the same time, I still do feel called to this profession.  I read once that teaching is the highest tribute to learning--basically, I'm showing respect to the teachers in my past by teaching in the present. 

My Chinese is growing, slowly.  I take a two-hour class once a week, and some Chinese co-workers are teaching me a little Shanghainese (one of the Wu dialects).  Shanghainese is different than your standard Beijing Mandarin. 

I'm learning that even if the little green man at the crosswalk says go, that I still don't have the right of way--scooters always do, and even rogue cars get away with running lights.  Patience pays off--I've had near misses, but I haven't been run over.

Relationship to Customers:   I guess my customers are my students and the people I interact with.  I'm not always awesome to people--sometimes I do shove my way off the subway, because if I didn't, I would miss my stop.  I'm not always patient, either--with myself or with others.  Especially if it's a slow-moving person ahead of me who's glued to their smartphone or yet another young girl wearing heels and dragging an overloaded trolley behind her, blocking the stairs and giggling.  That being said, I think my relationships with others are pretty good overall.

Use of technology:  What is technology, really, but a resource used to improve our lives? 

The resources I've got:                                  Some things I need/can work on:

this blog/Skype/FB                                         church/prayer/meditation

good food                                                      yoga

Facebook                                                       reducing alcohol consumption

walks                                                              patience and kindness toward the self

family and friends

Products and Services:  What do I produce or provide?  Laughter.  I have a great time laughing with a couple who lives in my apartment building, and my co-workers and I can be pretty funny.  I don't have your typical American perspective.  I've spend enough time living overseas and working with at-risk youth to know the American dream--green grass, nice house, etc.--does not exist for everyone.  I was born luckier than most, but it doesn't make me better. 

I am wacky.

I encourage people to try, and keep trying.

Sun Island! 24 September 2013

When I saw the pictures in the e-mail, I couldn't believe it.  Sun Island 2013 Summer Party for hundreds of staff and teachers?  Golf course, go-karts, "carnival", pottery, horseback riding...and the best part, in my opinion, was a wave pool and "beach".  The whole thing--buffet, drinks, entertainment, was being paid for by my employer.  Was this for real?

The only other company picnics I remember were those that RAHCO had back in Spokane when I was a kid.  When the old boss was still in charge, he'd wear a beer helmet and talk to all the employees' kids, who were hopped up on free-flow lemonade and soda.  Everyone had big grins.  Everyone brought food--pies, salads, rolls of every kind, brownies, jell-o salads, cole slaw...All of the drinks, and anything that went on the grill, came out of the boss' generous pockets.  As the sun started its downward coast toward the horizon, the adults would play tug-o-war or take turns driving a speedboat around the lake, towing the older kids on giant inner tubes.  Mothers and young children chatted and dozed on blankets under the pine trees.

When I was a kid, the RAHCO picnic was one of the highlights of summer.

Fast-forward to 2013 and this summer party.  It was as if all of my childhood dreams had come true.

I'd had a bit of a night out the evening before, so the 90-minute bus ride was a little painful at times.  I wish I'd inherited my grandfather's cast iron stomach, but I hadn't, so I contented myself with sipping sweetened green tea out of a red can and nibbling on Pringles, taking deep breaths.  The closer we got to Sun Island, the better I felt, but it took about an hour before the skyscrapers were behind us.  Yes, Shanghai is one of the world's most populous cities.  The flat landscape lends itself to millions of high rises.  It seems impossible that they could go on for so long, but they did.

But all things end, and eventually we could see more greenery, more sky.  Blue sky!  Before we took the final turn, I even saw a cow, and exclaimed out loud--I hadn't seen a cow in over two months, and the farmland and livestock made me feel happy and relaxed.

Our bus passed the corral first.  The horses seemed small, saddled and tied up to their posts, heads down in the mid-day heat, looking weary and sad.  They weren't even flicking their tails at the flies.  I could imagine their smell--horse sweat smelled like petunias to me--and I imagined the smell of leather, the way it sounded creaking in the sun.  I felt guilty--I'd always been horse-crazy as a girl, and I hadn't ridden in nearly 20 years.  I thought Maybe, just maybe...But the bus passed the corral, and by the time we reached our destination, the horses were at least a 10 minute bus ride behind us.

Bus after bus of teachers and staff spewed into the lobby of the largest building.  Our site at Wujiaochang alone had 50 people attending.  It seemed hard to believe that we'd traveled 90 minutes out of Shanghai, and it still felt like the middle of rush hour.  We stampeded toward the free Singaporean buffet lunch, and after a soda, we started in on the semi-frozen bottles of Tsingtao.  A couple of my co-workers were on a mission to get stumbling drunk, but I didn't feel completely comfortable with that.  For one thing, I was tired from last night; for another, all of my co-workers, including my boss and her bosses, were in attendance.  Free alcohol was nice, but I had no desire to act the fool in front of these people.

After a bit, a few of us took the shuttle to the wave pool, where the site vs. site tug-o-wars would be held.  I couldn't believe that I hadn't been swimming all season--swimming is one of my favorite summer activities, but with preparations for coming to Shanghai and settling in here, I simply hadn't had the time.  I didn't care that the "beach" was fake, with obviously manufactured sand, or that there was no alcohol being served.  I put on a small layer of sunscreen and laid out on my complimentary navy blue company towel.  My co-worker and I took turns swimming (the water was the perfect temperature) or going down the water slides while the other stayed behind to keep an eye on our gear.  Some bikini-clad girls from other sites soon plunked down next to us, and we had a nice little chat, albeit a gossipy one.

One of my trips down the slide was with a male co-worker, a Chinese man who usually looked very serious and even moody.  But as we climbed the stairs together (me for the first time, he for the third), we couldn't stop talking and giggling like kids.  It was great to see each other outside of work, just having a good time.  When I saw him the next day at work, we gave each other big grins, and it felt like the whole trip had been worth it.

After a couple hours we made our way back to the main building, where the staff performances were being held.  Luckily, WJC was up first, because the conference room was PACKED.  The chairs and tables had been removed.  Most people were sitting on the carpet, like kids at a school pep rally, and everyone else crowded on along the edges in the dark, standing body to body with familiar and unfamiliar folk alike.  Colored disco lights and spotlights colored the room, licking the tops of our heads and making them sparkle like gems.

At one point, a handsome American guy I'd seen at the pool in a Speed-o came in--still barefoot and in his Speed-o, obviously tipsy, pushing his way in, his nearly naked butt centimeters from the faces of shy Chinese girls who'd spent hours making themselves pretty for the event today.  I cringed.  Ah, here was the example of an American, the example famous everywhere around the world.  The good-looking, entitled, loud American Example.  The Example said, rather loudly:  "Hey, a talent show!  How can I get in on that?  My buddy can beat-box and I'll rap."  I wanted to glare at him.  Some of the staff had been rehearsing for months.  After WJC finished (to great applause and my loud cheering), I pushed my way out of the crowd.  I didn't want to know whether this guy had made it to the stage or not, but I didn't want to watch.

I sipped my way through a cocktail, somewhat reluctantly.  I was getting really hungry, and I knew if I had another drink after this, it wouldn't be a good scenario.  After the buffet lunch, the food had been picked up.  There was no snack bar or any place to buy food that I could see.  I thought it was great that my employer had done all this for us, but I thought it was a little irresponsible of them to provide an unrestricted flow of beer and liquor without even some chips to help soak it up.  Ah, well.

A co-worker and I caught one of the first busses back to Shanghai.  We had a great conversation, and it felt like a good ending to a good day.

For more photos and information on Sun Island, check out their website:  http://www.sunislandclub.com/en/

Updates, part 2

Anonymous

If I had to choose one single complaint about living on the tiny Micronesian island of Pohnpei, it was my lack of privacy.  The roaches, the constant steam-room climate, the constant diarrhea...after a while, your body stops fighting all that.  You can't keep up a struggle against an unrelenting environment, no matter what American folklore says.  Eventually you accept what you can, deal with the rest, and move on.

On Pohnpei, there was no anonymity.  The homogeneous culture, the small population--if you are not 5'5" and brown, you are NOTICED.  In the absence of entertainment, gossip is king, and as an outsider, I was the most obvious target, as well as the safest (no blood family to seek retribution for loose lips).

The lack of privacy nearly drove me crazy.  It never stopped.  My actions were discussed unceasingly.  Five times a day people asked me where I was going, undoubtedly so they could share with a friend.

In Shanghai, as in most large cities, no one cares who you are.  This anonymity can be refreshing at times.  I was one of the hundreds (thousands?) of ex-pats living in the city, and yes, being white may have earned me a few glances, but no one asked where I was going--or cared. 

They cared even less about personal space--if I had to choose a single complaint about living here, that would be it. 

As an American from the western US (and of northern European descent), I care about personal space--a lot.  Even with close friends, I usually like an arm's length in all directions--my own bubble, if you will. 

However, leaving 12", then 6", between me and the person ahead of me in any queue did nothing to deter the "cutters".  Frustrated, and unwilling to lose my spot in a long line at the grocery store at the end of work, I once put my toes right up against the heels of the customer in front of me--who did not flinch.  And a Chinese lady still hovered at the "gap", eyeing each of us in turn, waiting for someone to twitch or show some sign of weakness.  I kept my elbows out, shifting my weight subtly back and forth, not making eye contact.

No way, lady, I thought.  No way.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Names

Here are some English names my students have chosen.

Males                                                    Females

Scalpel                                                  Stanley (yes, a female with a male's name)

Whale                                                   Decade

Ocean                                                   Silence

Invoker                                                 Yummy

                                                               Icy

                                                         Nolan

                                                         Dan (yet another female with a male's name)

                                                         Orange Tang (her real surname)

                                                         Bubu

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Teacher Day

From my company I got this present:  a pen-sized device that would turn the slides in my PowerPoint lesson presentations, with a built-in laser pointer.  When it works, it's my favorite thing ever!  I feel slick and in charge, like a suit-wearing corporate type.

The sliding glass door to the teachers office was plastered with notes from the students, some signed, some not.  One of them said:  "I hope the female teachers more more sex."  A female Chinese co-worker and I laughed over it and then pulled it down.

From a great student, I got this message:  "To Heather:  Thank you for being such a wonderful teacher.  You are my favourite teacher, Heather.  :)  Wishing you a HAPPY TEACHER'S DAY!"  She signed it with her English name--the same as one of my cousins.

Lifts 16 September 2013

A white icon pops up on the electric blue display.  It is a round gauge with the letters "kg" underneath.  No one moves.  When the doors close, we go nowhere.  The elevator is stalled.  Someone jabs the button with the two arrows moving away from each other and the doors open.  We're still on the 7th floor, and there's an annoying, high-pitched beeeeeep! in our ears.

I briefly eye the ceiling of the elevator and take a deep breath.  I got on at B1, work is on 9, and an elevator trip that should've taken a few short minutes is turning into a story.

Two people, a couple of about 40, steps off, then back on, the elevator, giggling.  The beeping stops briefly, then resumes, with the reappearance of the kilogram icon.  Beeeeeep! 

I want to scream like the Australian pilot in "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome":  "We're overloaded!"  Don't they see the icon? I wonder.  Surely they can hear beeeeeep...

The couple stands together like stone statues.  No one says anything to them.  No one tells them to leave.  The elevator doors close.  We sit motionless for a whole minute.  The beeping stops again; the icon remains.  There are at least 15 people in here and it's getting stuffy.  I want to shift my weight, but I'm pressed against the back of the lift, and there's pretty much nowhere to shift to.  Somehow, though, half the passengers are managing to check their Weixing and QQ accounts (like Facebook) on their Samsungs or iPhones.

Finally, someone opens the doors again.  Beeeeeep!  Two different people, shaking their heads, push from the center of the elevator out.  If this was NYC, I thought, one of them would, at the very least, be cursing under their breath.  I want to cheer when the doors close and the elevator resumes its upward trek.  There's a tiny dip downwards first, though, which is common when there are this many live bodies in a lift.

"Ba lou dao le," a mechanically scratch female voice announces.  Eighth floor.  Five people push out; simultaneously, eight or nine are pushing their way in.  In the jostling, I find myself moved toward the front, and I squeeze myself to the right, bicep to wall, sucking in.  Elevator capacity is 21, and just as I'm thinking this...

Beeeeeep! 

No one moves.  Finally, the doors slide closed on their own.  We are motionless.  Again.

The girl in front of me pushes the door open button.  We are still on the 8th floor.  Beeeeeep!  The kilo icon reappears.  No one moves.

I exhale loudly.  This is an almost weekly occurrence, and today, I've had enough.  I know I'm being the typical "ugly American", but I can't help it.  I reach over the girl's shoulder, tap the kg icon, and let it out, albeit in a level voice:  "We're overloaded.  Someone has to get out."  No one even looks at me, which is surprising, since I'm speaking a foreign language--in more ways than one, I think to myself.

No one moves.  The doors remain open.  Beeeeeep!  I laugh and shake my head.  Finally, two whole agonizing minutes later, a mother and father pull a small girl out with them, looking like they'd been  voted off a life raft.

I sigh, inwardly this time.  The doors close.  A slight dip, and then a rising--ascending above 8 and heading, gloriously, toward 9.

Sunday Night Lights 6 September 2013

Change is good.  As I sit typing this first blog post of the month, I've got my window open and the air con off.  Yes.  It's 21 degrees Celsius (that's about 70 for my American readers) and overcast (yīntiān).  The humidity stands at a soggy 88%, and there's a 30% chance of rain.  It feels awesome to get some fresh air without melting.

Even though today is Friday, I thought I'd share something I saw last Sunday as I looked out my window after work.  I've mentioned the lack (to put it mildly) of safety here in China in previous posts, and if you've read any of my other writing, you know that I sometimes cock a critical eye at construction practices I find less than efficient.  In my genes I've got that German/Austrian logic that made the Mercedes-Benz possible, and a mechanical engineer for a father.

The spotlights moving back and forth outside my window drew me to look 20 floors down.  There was a crew of a dozen men, unloading 3 foot by 5 foot steel plates in 20-high stacks from a flatbed.  They were using a crane.  The spotlights were obvious; it was 10:30 pm on a Sunday night.  I watched these guys for a while, and after about ten minutes I was already acting like a (albeit inexperienced) foreman:  there was only one rigging for the crane.  That meant that after the guys on the flatbed secured a load and let the crane take it away, they had to wait several minutes for the guys on the ground to help set down the load and unhook the rigging, sending it back on the crane to the flatbed.

"If they just had two riggings..."  I mumbled to no one, "the guys on the truck wouldn't have to just stand there.  They could get the next load ready to go.  They could be finished in half the time!"   I shook my head.  The impracticality of most people is mind-boggling, and this wasn't the first time that being a Kaschmitter watching others work had nearly driven me insane.

Knowing I could do nothing about this, I concentrated on the men themselves.  No hard hats.  No gloves.  No steel-toed boots.  I couldn't believe anyone with this type of work experience would go to a job site this naked, but at least these men were fully clothed.  In a way, I sort of admired their tenacity.  It took guts to do what they were doing--like playing American football without a helmet and all that other gear.  I must've watched the men for 20 or 30 minutes--no one got hurt, not even a pinched finger.

In spite of the lack of bloodshed that night, I realize that, in all likelihood, someone had been injured or even killed on every other building in this city.  It was impossible to think that hundreds of 26-floor apartment buildings, office buildings, subway tunnels, and malls could've been built without casualties.

Some people might look at Shanghai, then, and see each high-rise as a metaphorical grave marker.  And yes--a huge amount of resources and risk went into each one, and that's not without some sort of price.

However, I choose to look at Shanghai differently.  Maybe it's the western American in me, but, in spite of the risks and the costs, I see each high-rise as a testament to the Chinese people--the oldest continuous civilization on Earth.  Their lack of Western safety precautions hasn't prevented one of the biggest cities on the planet from being built up almost overnight.  It's progress.  It's like the railroad back in the Old West.

Looking down at the little Chinese men rushing about the site that night, glowing like dynamos, I was struck by something:  the spotlights cast huge shadows of the men on the freshly-poured concrete, magnifying each man to ten times his size.  One Chinese man may be small, but the shadow he casts is huge.

Mr. Perfect 23 August 2013

The irony of my (lack of) love life was almost laughable as I looked at the title of the week's activity:  "Romantics:  Creating your Mr./Mrs. Perfect".  Oh, if only it were as easy as "creating" him!  Abracadabra!  Ha, ha.  It was even more hysterical that a good third of the students in the class were married or dating--and that the teacher teaching it (me) was single.

Since arriving in Shanghai, I've met four gay men.  They have all been wonderful people; however, at times meeting men like this was only a reminder of how few available men remain for someone my age. 

As a Peace Corps Volunteer at 25, I remember the villagers on Pohnpei being shocked that I was still single; they didn't believe that I didn't at least have an illegitimate child in the States.  "Twenty-five!"  they'd say, eyes wide, sometimes shaking their heads at each other--as if I wasn't there.

Well, kids, now I'm 36, and the situation hasn't changed.  What do you think about that?

Reluctant to trash my career over an office romance, I still have yet to meet many men outside of work.  The good thing is that, compared to Spokane, there are plenty of attractive men my age in Shanghai that I've seen.

After three cycles of the Chinese zodiac, I'll admit it'd be difficult to change my ways.  I've had about seven or eight years (off and on) of living without roommates, but that doesn't mean it would be impossible for me to learn new behaviors--to marry and live with someone.  That being said, after a year of eHarmony, six months on Plenty of Fish, and trying OKCupid and Match.com a few months each, the fact is that I've had exactly one boyfriend within the last eight years and perhaps four or five dinner dates. 

While I'm admitting things, I'll also admit that being able to up and leave the States for a year in Shanghai is something most of my married friends would be unable to do.  I'll admit that making my way through millions of people every day turns me off the "be fruitful and multiply" idea.  There are people all around me, and yet loneliness is cast like a veil over everything.  I can speak to almost no one, so I may as well be alone.  I struggle sometimes with why I came here.  Wasn't part of the point to find some friends, and to find The One?  ARGH. 

One of my good friends once shared a quote that went something like, "Each of us, no matter what we say, is exactly where we want to be."  If I am exactly where I want to be, why do I think about men and marriage so much, and why can't I let go of my loneliness?  Why can't I just accept that this is my life--single and adventurous?  Why do I keep longing for someone to share those adventures with me?

Only three of 20 students in the afore-mentioned "Romantics" class believed there was such a thing as the perfect relationship.  Is the fact that I keep hoping for one the reason why I'm still single?

Temples

One of the difficult things about my work schedule is the absence of "normal" weekends, and therefore the absence of a regular church time.

 In 1988 in Ge'ermu, religion was something eyed with suspicion or ridicule--at least that's what it felt like.  There were no signs of Christianity out there; there were a sprinkling of Buddhists and a few Muslims.  That was it.

I was hopeful about the idea of Catholic churches being in Shanghai.  However, my schedule in Shanghai is such that I work Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings--there are no English masses at other times that I can find, and I'm not even sure there is mass in Chinese any other day of the week.  My days off have changed three times in about six weeks, so mostly I'm just trying to get used to that!

I have had time to visit some of the local Buddhist temples, though.  Because they are tourist attractions, they're open all the time.  I'd like to share a little of that with you.

I thought Jing'an Temple (across from the park I mentioned in an earlier post) would be a total tourist trap.  The temple was almost smack on top of the line 2 and line 7 metro hub, and located near my employer's main offices.  The area was chock full of large modern buildings hosting Burberry, Michael Kors, Hugo Boss, and other luxury brands.  There were American restaurants, French patisseries, and a general sense of wealth and fashion. 

It was a surprise when I paid the entrance fee and stepped into the main square.  I was the only white person, and although everyone was dressed in modern clothes--shorts, sneakers, etc.--the main thing I noticed was the seriousness with which people were praying. 

To do this, a person made a donation to obtain sticks of incense, and lit them at a sort of oil barrel sink.  It was like a grease fire, with hot orange flames licking the breeze and trying to chase our hands away.  Once lit, people held the incense in their hands, palm to palm in front of their chest, bowing, chanting, eyes closed.  I prayed too, thinking about my grandparents and wondering what others prayed for.  In the center of this main square was a huge black tower.  Bells banged about in the breeze and people tried to toss jiao coins into the tower's cutout holes for luck.   

After prayer, I strolled around.  There was a peaceful courtyard with two trees and a couple of guys eating bowl Ramen and drinking green tea out of plastic Tupperware containers.

The main attraction at Jing'an Temple, of course, was the huge silver buddha statue.  He was a bit tarnished in this climate, as you might expect, but was simple and peaceful, as you'd expect a buddha to be.  There was a 50-gallon bowl in the same room.  People approached this bowl with reverence, touching their palms and the backs of their hands to it, then touching their faces.  Their touch was firm, as if the bowl belonged to them.  I learned later that this bowl was possibly the copper Hongwu Bell from the Ming Dynasty, weighing 3.5 tons.  I am still unsure why the bell is treated with such respect.

One of my favorite parts, though, was the Guanyin Bodhisattva.  Do you know the difference between a buddha and a bodhisattva?  My basic understanding is that a buddha achieves enlightenment and melts into Nirvana, while a bodhisattva achieves enlightenment but chooses to remain on Earth, helping others to do the same.  The closest thing we have in Christianity are guardian angels, perhaps.

I have a special feeling for the compassionate goddess--I sometimes wear a jade carving of her around my neck (a gift from my parents, the jade coming from Qinghai where we lived), and when I worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, I always enjoyed working in the Asia exhibit, where I could feast my eyes on Buddhist sculptures and architecture.

The Guanyin Bodhisattva at Jing'an Temple is carved of light-colored camphor wood from Myanmar (a.k.a. Burma), shined to glowing.  Her expression was one of bliss and compassion.  A slightly mentholated tinge to the air seemed to purify my lungs as I took a few deep breaths.  There were plenty of red pillows to kowtow at; however, since I am not Buddhist, I refrained.

Temple architecture and traditional Chinese housing are almost the complete opposite of American suburban living--our lawns and yards surround our houses, while traditionally, the courtyards of Chinese structures are inside.  There is a serenity that comes from this type of design; noise reduction plays a part, as does security--a mother telling her children to play outside knows the walls of the house keep them safe.  The interior is enriched and beautified, not the outside. 

Even with the absence of Catholic mass in my regular schedule, I know that my interior spiritual life is something that can continue to grow and develop.

 

The Daily Show

No, not the show with Jon Stewart (although it's awesome!)--and please don't sue me for using the catchy name as a title for this blog post.

I'm going to talk a little about my daily life here in Shanghai so far.

My favorite thing to do is pull back the drapes over my west-facing window in my studio.  There is black-out plastic velcroed to the other side.  Sometimes I like to say (like Robin Williams), "Good morning, Shanghai!"  I'm trying my best to drop the "shang" with a western twang in my pronunciation.  It's pronounced "Shong-hai" by the locals.

I look 20 floors down to Haining Lu (lu means road) at the traffic going east and west.  Even at this height, with concrete walls, I can hear the horns, the street sweeper, the slightly mournful "duh-duh-duh-DUH!" music of the water truck spraying the shrubs and trees along the street.

There is a construction site to the west that my window faces, and I hope they don't build some high-rise that blocks my view entirely, but I'm sure that's the plan.  Right now it's fun to watch some guy hose down the concrete foundation as it cures, or to see people welding without much protective gear, or to see the workers' children playing basketball with a makeshift hoop--it's not like American suburbia, where every kid has a basketball hoop in the driveway.  They look like little ants from 20 floors up, industrious and inspiring.

There is what seems to be a bus depot to the west of my subway exit--lots of those around this area, so close to the Bund, a major tourist attraction and about 25 minutes from my apartment.  The Bund will usually be very breezy, the major attraction for me on my morning walks, and swarming with tourists (mostly Chinese).  Aside from the breeze, my favorite part of walking to the Bund is the little wooden path along the Wusong River and seeing all the blessed dragonflies--angels in my eyes, busily eating mosquitoes. 

Like many of the worksites here, mine is located in a mall.  There is a Walmart across the street.

The Walmart in China is three floors of dollar store-type merchandise.  The food area is much more expansive and includes a deli about twice the size of a Walmart Superstore at home.  Every grocery store has a weigh station for produce--someone weighs your stuff and puts a price sticker on it, as there are no scales at checkout.  There is no pharmacy in Walmart here--those are separate.  There is no electronics department, either.  It is basically Walmart in name only--it doesn't even look like Walmart when you go inside.  I've only been there once.  I'm not really a big Walmart supporter, anyway.

The school where I work is on the ninth floor.  The ninth floor bathroom is shared by my worksite and every other business on the ninth floor--needless to say, it can get a little gross.  There is at least soap (not that everyone uses it, not even the local chefs or wait staff that also use the facility).  There are ashtrays in the stalls which are used occasionally, but there is no toilet paper and there are no paper towels.  Ah, well.  Soap is good, and in my opinion, the most important part.

On my way back to my worksite I'm overwhelmed with the mall's soundtrack--three or four songs on repeat over the loudspeaker.  Yep, the same songs all the time.  One of the teachers has been here for six months and says they never change the music.  Sometimes we can even here it in the teacher's office, at least 50 feet from the entrance, blaring in the hallway.  It plays in the bathroom, and on every floor.  There is no escape from the music.

To the left is Haoledi ("howl-e-day", I want to say, but it's actually the pinyin spelling of "Holiday", at KTV or karaoke place).  The staff is fully suited up; young men with vests, the whole bit, wait for customers and pick their noses with long fingernails.  A mirror ball sprinkles colored light on the right of the entrance.  Haoledi is pretty popular, with everyone from families to slightly intoxicated Asian businessmen.

On B1 is a great little grocery store and a sort of food court.  Going to Pizza Hut here means a sit-down restaurant with hostesses and wait staff.  There is nice decor and mambo music playing in the background.  I had a pizza there once, and grabbed an Elle magazine (all in Mandarin, of course), featuring full color, glossy card stock ads for beauty products--five pages each.  There was also a pull-out catalog of Cartier diamond engagement rings.  I found it hard to believe that America, a capitalist nation, did not have the same things in its version of Elle, while a so-called Communist country did.  Interesting.  The malls, the huge magazine ads--Mao must be rolling over in his grave.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Tiantong Road (Line 10) is the closest metro stop to my apartment.  It's very Chinese.  The exit spits you out with sudden force into an older, run-down shopping mall.  The shops are small, squeezed together, with names in Chinese and/or English.  It's not like a mall at home--pretty much all they sell here is clothing and shoes.

When you get to street level there are two KFCs (but be prepared for no biscuits and tons of mayo on everything).  There's also a Fresh Lemon (possibly a Happy Lemon off-shoot)--they make mango smoothies to die for (only 10 yuan, or about $1.70), iced tea, and all sorts of refreshing hot weather drinks.  There are lots of little noodle stands with your choice of chopped onions, cabbage, whatever.  There are stands selling mini-dumplings in small round bamboo steamers and Japanese fried balls with chopped octopus tentacles inside.  The food looks pretty good--I was told to keep an eye on who stays in the same spot for more than two weeks--it usually means their food is pretty tasty and won't make you sick.  Granite tables in some areas indicate longevity to me.

People shove here.  You've got to be moved, or move out of the way.  Thank God for my time in New York for preparing me for this; however, New Yorkers would be very offended, because in NYC the shoving is at least accompanied by "Sorry" or "Excuse me".  Not in China.  If I shove, too, no one really minds--being one in a billion is something they all understand.  People do not step aside to let you onto the train or off of the train--it's pandemonium.  You have to push if you want off or on, period.  It's every man, woman, or child for him-/her-/itself, but there's no malice in the pushing, I feel.  I feel thankful that my schedule helps me to avoid the worst of the commuter traffic.

In spite of this densely populated place, the high rises going on past either horizon and the random strangers I rub thighs or arms with on the metro and never see again--it's like being in the desert.  There is quiet never, but it's easy to tune out, because I understand less than 1% of what's being said.

 Every day on the way to the metro to go to work, I see people pushing their meat skewers, their handbags ("Lady, you want bag?"), their household cleaning products, their sea monkeys, their wind-up plastic soldiers slithering on the ground, rifles in hand.  There is an old man who lies on his stomach with his head covered, begging.  There is an old woman with swollen ankles, stringy gray hair, and a beaming smile, begging.  There is a woman with short hair, maybe my age, missing an arm, begging.  Like everyone here, they are pushing to be recognized. 

For too long, China's been off the world grid.  They've existed, but America's been too focused on Afghanistan or North Korea to pay attention.  The oldest manhole cover I've seen in Shanghai is from 2005.  That means most of their development--new metro lines, skyscrapers, a lot of the fancy buildings in Pudong across the Huangpu River--has shot up within the last decade.  We owe China over a trillion dollars (http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations/2012/09/18/summer_2012 _to_whom_does_the_us_government_owe_money).  In my opinion, it would behoove America to learn a bit more about this country.  Just sayin'.

Legalities 5 August 2013

Good and evil.  Yin and yang.  Night and day.  East and West.  Yes, China and the U.S. are very, very different from one another.  For example, in the U.S., people stop at a red light.  In Shanghai, the traffic lights are more like guidelines--pedestrians must cross the street at their own risk, no matter what the traffic light says.

A lesson about work accidents and compensation really opened my eyes to another, and in my mind, more important, difference.

One of the work accidents my students were to assess was about a man named "James".  James had worked a long, hard day and was tired.  The floor had been cleaned recently, and the company had taken the proper safety precautions by putting up one of those big yellow "WET FLOOR" signs.  However, James had taken out his contact lenses because his eyes were sore.  He missed the sign, slipped, fell, and hurt his ankle.

"Who's to blame?" was the question asked in the lesson.

"Well-l," most of my students said.  "It's James' fault, really.  If he'd left his contacts in, he would've seen the sign and been more careful."

American corporations and insurance companies:  *Applause and cheering.*

"But," my students continued, "it's the law:  the company should pay."

American corporations and insurance companies:  "Huh?!"

"Is that really the law in China?"  I asked.

They all nodded--four different classes, about a dozen different students.  In their eyes, James may have been careless, and the students even said he was to blame--but he was still at work.  The law in China says this:  Chapter III, Article 44:  "No production or business units may, in any form, conclude agreements with their employees in an attempt to relieve themselves of, or lighten, the responsibilities they should bear in accordance with law for the employees who are injured or killed in accidents which occur due to lack of work safety." (Look for yourself at : http://english.gov.cn/laws/2005-10/08/content_75054.htm)  In this case, the company had put up a sign, but James was still hurt at work.  James probably wouldn't make the same mistake twice, but while he recovered, his company would take care of him.

When I told my students that the situation in America would be quite different--that there was no similar law, and that corporations and insurance companies would do just about anything these days to avoid any kind of payout--my students either shook their heads or gave me blank looks.  To them, a company not taking care of its workers--regardless of cost--was unthinkable.

For a country that constantly gets blasted in our media for human rights abuses, I find this fascinating.

After all my travels in this world, I've come to value American freedom and independence with a fierceness that most homebodies will never feel.  At the same time, there's also the sense in America that the word "independent" is synonymous with "alone", as in "You're on your own."  "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!  If you can't, you deserve to die."

It seems to me that China is more of a "We're in this together," society.  Yes, I've only been in Shanghai for one month, but I did live in China before.  I remember what a big deal it was for my family to live in Qinghai--how hard the Chinese tried, with what little resources they had, to look out for us.  Everything from fancy banquets to accompanying us out of the country in May 1989--right before the protests at Tiananmen Square.

Am I romanticizing China by saying they're a cooperative society (at least more than America is)?  Perhaps.  There is a value in accomplishing something on your own:  it boosts your confidence when you know you can take care of yourself.  But sometimes I wonder:  Would it be that bad if Americans looked after each other a little more?  How much would it really affect companies like Nike and Walmart if they took better care of their workers?  Is it that bad to get help sometimes?

This is so cheesy, but I have to ask--I really want you to think about this--If Jesus were in charge of Walmart, what do you think he would do?