Shanghai Update 01 August 2013

In three days I will have been in Shanghai for a month! 

I thought in this piece I would just present some sketches--impressions of my time here so far.

Weather

*Around 2 pm the day reaches its maximum temperature of 106.  Descending into the metro, I often see people sleeping on the stairs or sprawled out flat on the floor.  Ninety percent of them are not homeless.  Some are construction workers or street sweepers, taking a rest, lest they collapse.  Some are retirees, sleeping here in the cool air before the metro closes at 10, forcing them back into their sweltering, tile-roofed homes for another sweaty, sleepless night.

*This afternoon and yesterday afternoon we've had thunderstorms.  I can look out my 20th floor window (watching the view is better than watching TV) and see people running for cover.  The sky turns gray with water and silver-blue with lightning.  Yesterday there was a huge crack of thunder--the lightning must've hit something.  I can hardly see the skyscrapers just blocks away.  It's as if they're gone.  A whitish mist envelops everything.  This morning I could see blue sky overhead--most of the time, I can't, but the air had been scrubbed of pollution, at least for a while.

T-shirts I've seen

*Easier said than done

*London

*Upset

* Long live the Queen (on a cute Chinese college chick)
* Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined.  (Oversized Hooters shirt worn by a dark-skinned, messy-haired Chinese female tourist)

*Port Townsend, Washington (holla!)

*Beer, cigs, and VHS

*Circus is not Uncle McDono

*Madonna--as a three-eyed cartoon with fangs

*Baby Mio

*Adidas is the sh*t

*I'n hepig tomcat (whatever that means)

Jing-an Temple Park

When I cross West Nanjing Road, right out of the metro, there's a tree-lined path about as long as a football field.  The trees look and smell like green-leaf maples back home, but their leaves are brighter, their trunks fatter, with thin, flaky bark in different shades of gray.

It is shaded and breezy here, with people taking advantage of the many nice benches.  Ladies in their 20s and 30s walk by in heels, holding their pretty umbrellas overhead--shades of midnight blue, plum, and pink, with lace-like mesh and sequins.  Children and retirees alike lick ice cream cones and chow on Subway sandwiches, and a few adults are smoking.

The air seems easier to draw in, the pace slower--one dark-skinned foreigner is even napping, lulled by the loud-quiet-loud racket of the crickets in the trees overhead.  A few finches (identical to the ones at home) chirp happily.

Safety

*One of the guys in my intake group saw this: 

A man on a scooter.  Normal, right?  No.  His wife was sitting in front of him--face to face, her legs over his, like Cameron Diaz straddling Tom Cruise in "Knight and Day".  The woman was holding a tiny infant between them.  No helmets.  The cherry on top?  The man was on his cell phone.

*On my way home from the metro station one night, I saw a man with a concrete saw.  He was crouched down--the block he was cutting on the ground.  The saw was grinding away.  Sparks flew.  The man had on shorts and flip flops.  No shirt, no gloves, no goggles.

Yuyuan Gardens 25 July 2013

Misters?  Really?  We need MORE humidity in the air?!

I was at Yu Gardens (a.k.a. Yuyuan Gardens), and I had just approached the algae-green pond.  It was absolutely gorgeous:  The lotus leaves were bigger than dinner plates.  The pond was full of carp--deep orange, silver, white, orange and white.  There were even turtles.  Just seeing all the greenery--a couple of kinds of magnolia trees, quince (reminding me of home), and of course bamboo--made me feel refreshed.  I swear the air was cleaner here.

However, I'd just walked two miles in 100-degree-heat.  I'd thought, ridiculously, that the middle of the day was a great time for a trek like this.  It's easy to think things like that when your A/C unit is pumping away at 25 degrees Celsius!  I was sweating so much that sweat was stinging my eyes.  I'd learned to carry an umbrella, though--many Shanghai girls and even some men do this, and it's the smartest thing ever, as a small bottle of sunscreen costs $10!

Under the zig-zagging bridge across the pond to the teahouse was a series of misters, spraying away, adding an air of mystery to the place.  I wanted to laugh or shake my head, but I didn't.  Instead, I proceeded over the bridge, pausing among groups of Korean, Chinese, French, American, and Brazilian tourists to take pictures and wait for others doing the same.

When I got to the Huxinting ("Mid-lake Pavilion") Teahouse, I saw a glass case with a three blue and white porcelain jars of tea inside.  A cash register rested on top.  There were a few tables here, but I didn't see anyone drinking tea.  Then an employee made eye contact with me.  "Tea upstairs," she said.  She was not smiling.

I'd caught onto this.  Americans smile too much.  At least, I do.  I'd found myself smiling like a monkey on more than one occasion--it wasn't necessary.  I nodded and made my way up the red lacquer stairs--there were quite a few of them, narrow and high, so I proceeded with caution and held the handrail. 

The owner shouted at his son (texting madly) to get a menu (probably) and show me to my seat.  The menu was the cleanest, most beautiful menu I'd held since arriving in Shanghai, with names of tea in a light blue script (in both Chinese and English).  I momentarily felt bad for all the non-English speaking tourists down below. 

I asked him what kind of tea he liked.

"Dragonwell." 

I ordered that. 

There were ashtrays on each table in the tea house (yes, smoking inside public spaces was still permitted in China); thankfully, no one was smoking here.

There were two older Chinese women sitting at a table to my right, and a Chinese lady at the table behind me.  There was another foreigner I'd seen prattling on her cell phone about her students--she was about 50 and didn't notice me.  There were no men up here, other than the owner and the waiter.  One of the Chinese women on the right kept taking photos; the woman behind me kept coughing and mumbling--I didn't want to turn around, and I assumed she was on her cell phone.

Tea was over $10, but it arrived with a big thermos of kai shui (boiled water) to add as I wished to the already steaming cup full of leaves; three small eggs (quail?) hard boiled in soy sauce; three pieces of plain, warm tofu (the firm kind), and two pre-packaged sweets--one like a Japanese mochi, and a tart, candied fruit no bigger than my thumb with a rather large seed inside.  It was an interesting snack.  Along with the treats was a sealed packet containing a fresh-smelling moist towelette, with which I gratefully scrubbed my hands and sweaty face.

At one point I'd noticed that the woman behind me wasn't on her cell phone--she was mumbling to herself.  It was as if she were having a conversation with someone I couldn't see; once in a while she'd look at a tourist down below, giggle, comment, and then cough and hawk and nearly spit. 

I pushed the tea leaves out of the way with the tea cup's lid the way the waiter had shown me--I'd seen people strain their tea this way in Golmud, too, back in 1988--and sipped.  Really hot, but a great green tea flavor.  Not sweet, not bitter or grassy.

You may have thought me insane to be drinking hot tea on a day like this, but according to NPR, it actually makes some scientific sense.  Here's a link to the article:  http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/07/11/156378713/cool-down-with-a-hot-drink-its-not-as-crazy-as-you-think.  I'd actually had my share of hot tea in the Peace Corps, and I have to admit, it did cool me down somewhat. 

The tea was making me sweat, but in a way that felt purifying.  As I took in the corners of the tiled rooftops swooping up like bird wings, I could imagine the essence of a dragon being released from the leaves by the hot water.  I felt it move into my body like Gatorade--dragonwell.  I honestly felt healed.

The Bridge of Nine Turnings must've worked--it supposedly deflected evil spirits--because it felt very peaceful in the middle of the pond.  The air wasn't arctic, but there must've been A/C somewhere, because I was no longer sweating profusely, and the windows were closed.

Mumble, mumble.  Cough, hack!  Giggle.  The lady behind me flapped her towel for the umpteenth time at an invisible fly or spirit or whatever.

I made my decision.  My tea was finished, and the gardens closed at 5 pm.  I couldn't take The Mumbler any longer.  There are crazies no matter where you go.

Feeling recharged after my tea, I wandered through the maze-like gardens.  After picking up a packet of post cards, I paid the entrance fee (30 yuan, or about 5 bucks).  After fighting through masses of tourists and gift shops with overpriced knick-knacks (wood carvings, fans, chopsticks, "silk" clothing, jade jewelry), I was finally seeing roped-off rooms where people had done calligraphy or performed on stage, There were high-end shops with fabulous paintings by local artists.  And of course, there were the trees.

Everywhere were ecstatically healthy-looking trees:  a towering gingko, Korean boxwood, Siberian elm, lacebark pine, Japanese camellia, and Kaido crabapple.  (No, I am not a botanist:  the Latin names had been on display, and I'd had to Google them). 

After seeing so much "green gold" (trees providing shade), I was more than a little saddened to see a few scrawny banana trees clinging to life with their yellow leaves, looking like a Micronesian version of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.  It may have felt like Micronesia today, in terms of weather, but these banana trees weren't half as lush as the ones I'd seen as a Peace Corps Volunteer on the isle of Pohnpei.

The patterns on the ground were intricate puzzles, bricks and stones shoved up by tree roots and buckling with humidity.  Some of the larger, older stones that made stairs were worn shiny and smooth by millions of touristy feet, reminding me of the Great Wall--it would not be safe to walk here after a rainstorm.

The carp in the various ponds and streams were quite fat and used to being fed.  You'd think that fact and the heat would've made them lazy, but it didn't.  Some young adult tourists were sprinkling what looked like gray-green fish flakes onto the water's surface, and a hundred carp were suddenly sitting/floating on top of one another--begging.  They begged like baby birds, open carp mouths gulping air and water and sometimes food.  There was a lot of thrashing about, and the feeders--probably college students, the girls in skirts and holding umbrellas--laughed along with me.

One of my concerns about living in a big city was noise.  For the last six years, I'd been living in quiet old Spokane, Washington; before that, I'd spent three years in New York City, and no place was ever totally quiet there.  Would there be anywhere in Shanghai I could escape to, even for a few minutes, to hear twittering birds, falling water, and God's breath sighing in the trees? 

The answer was yes, as long as I added babbling tourists to the list!  Here at Yu Gardens there was peace, even amid the racket and chaos that is Shanghai.

 

Check out more of my photos on my Facebook page!

Salon Mania

Salon Mania  July 19, 2013

I was getting shaggy, and if I didn't do something about it soon, I'd look rougher than a yeti.  I'd only been in Shanghai two weeks, and it was already time for a haircut.

I don't remember ever getting my hair cut in Golmud (in Qinghai Province, where my family had lived 25 years ago).  My mom must've been the family barber--although she did have to get her own cut by a local eventually.

"You can get a haircut in China for about 50 kuài," said Mike, a guy from the U.K. in my training group.  That wasn't even nine dollars.  Although I'd had to shell out three months rent plus deposit before moving into my apartment in Zhabei, I could certainly afford that.

Next to the high rise I'd just moved into was a white building with black and white barber poles spinning on either side of the door.  The sign of the establishment read "Salon Mania".  I was pretty sure that, away from touristy areas like Jing'an Temple and the Bund, I wouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg.  And I couldn't beat the convenience of the location.

The floor consisted of the same large cream-colored tiles I had in my apartment.  A huge aquarium separated the shampoo area from the cutting area.  In the tank swam about a dozen fish, all over two feet in length and all different colors.  The water in the tank was pretty clean:  I felt better about this place already.

I took one look at the cute receptionist behind the counter and smiled.  With her flowing, dark brown hair fashionably cut, her skin a healthy light olive, she was one of the prettiest girls I'd seen in Shanghai.  Her light brown eyes and long lashes made her look like she could be Kristin Kreuk's little sister, and I immediately liked her.

Her brother, the dude with the top knot I'd seen smoking outside earlier, looked to be the owner.  He had a very serious face, a black and white polo shirt, and no intention of being considered preppy.  His face said "edgy", and I could almost imagine him wanting to be the next Karl Lagerfeld--there was an intensity there.  

I said "Ni hao," and gave the two behind the counter a tentative smile.  I wondered how much English they spoke, and if I'd be able to say, "Please don't die my hair purple," and have them understand me. 

The first thing I had to do was let them take my backpack (I was planning on going to Jiadeli Supermarket after) and stow it in a small brown locker behind the counter.  They gave me a key with a small blue number on it.  The guy taking my bag looked like a bouncer at a club--wide shoulders, heavy bones, a big head, and a tight black shirt.

"Shampoo," the possible owner said.  He indicated I should follow a young boy to the area behind the fish tank.  The shampoo chair had a footrest that the boy put up for me and comfy black leather.  It was hard not to sink and sigh in a chair like that, especially with beautiful fish swimming languidly in front of me. 

The shampoo boy looked like he was about 14.  His jeans were almost tight enough to be hipster.  He had a fun, spiky hairdo that looked like something you'd see on an anime character.  He kept a string of small wooden beads wrapped around and around his wrist, which he took off to work. 

Not only did he give an excellent shampoo (vigorously but gently scrubbing the orange-scented lather into my scalp), but he also cradled my neck with strong fingers, encouraging me to relax as he rinsed the suds.  For a young kid, he was seemed strong and self-assured; there was no awkwardness.  I don't remember anyone in America ever holding my neck this supportively.  I have some issues with neck pain which lead me to visit a chiropractor fairly regularly, and leaning back into a chair while trying to hold your head up doesn't help.  I didn't have to worry too much this time, though.

After drying, the boy led me to a chair on the other side of the wall--the window side.  I briefly wondered if the plan was to get other people to notice a white girl getting her hair cut here.  The boy draped me with not one cape but two--the first a flowing white "capelet" (if you follow fashion at all you know what I'm talking about), the second your longer, standard, tight-necked one.  In the mirror, I saw the little receptionist approach behind me on the right side, moving the hairdresser's cart into position.  My eyes must've widened a little, because she made eye contact with me in the mirror.  "Okay I cut hair?"  I nodded and smiled immediately, but on the inside I was squirming.  Why oh why hadn't I learned to say "Yes, but please don't shave my head" in Mandarin?

Gently and tentatively, the girl started to comb my hair from right to left.  "Um, no," I said, gesturing to indicate I usually parted my hair on the left.  She nodded and changed directions.  Oh God, I thought.  I'd totally thought the owner (or who I'd assumed was the owner) was going to cut my hair.  I had not walked into this place to have some sweet sixteen do it. 

But it had to be done.  I was going to start teaching full time at my worksite, Wujiaochang, the next day, and I wanted to look like I'd made an effort.  I swear it hadn't been that long since my last cut, but I was feeling seriously unkempt.

To calm myself down, I checked out the girl's clothes in the mirror as she was still combing.  White leather saddle shoes with cute cutouts and no socks.  Bleached skinny jeans with a few fashionable rips, and a skinny pink belt.  She wore a white tee shirt and a thin, cute yellow sweater over it, and black plastic earrings dangled from her lobes.

I started to notice that every time she'd finish cutting a section of my hair, she'd move the clip to her own head.  She'd re-section my hair, re-clip, and cut again. 

Not to be racist, but if this had happened in Micronesia, I would've left immediately.  I got lice there in 2004, and using the same clips as your client was definitely not the SOP (military lingo for standard operating procedure) for hairdressers in America.  But this was not America, I needed a haircut, and I needed to relax!

I forced myself to pay attention to her deft little hands as she worked.   She was holding her shears in the so-called traditional/Western grip used by Europeans-- first knuckle of the ring finger on her right hand in the right finger hole, thumb in the other.  She was not talking to me, but she wasn't talking to the boy or anyone else, either.  Soft Chinese pop played in the background.  The girl's eyes were narrowed in concentration.  Something about her face made me pay attention:  she reminded me of "Venus", a hairdresser I'd visited regularly at an establishment named "Dramatics NYC".  Repeatedly this girl looked in the mirror, at my face, measuring the sides, making sure everything was even.  Her hands were--experienced. 

Maybe she wasn't 16.  Maybe she was in her early 20s.  Many of my Japanese students at Mukogawa had looked a lot younger than they were--perhaps that was the case here.  I'd really misjudged this person.

At one point, the shampoo boy, who was watching everything, started to twist the beads around his wrist impatiently.  The girl paused, gave him a slightly dirty look, and rolled her eyes.  They were either dating or related, I thought, trying not to smile.  Clearly this girl took her work seriously.  She was a perfectionist, and the slightest interruption, even one non-verbal, was not tolerated.

I smiled at her broadly at one point and gave her a thumbs up.  She nodded with a little smile and kept working for about ten more minutes before blow drying.  As she worked, the shampoo boy took a fresh-smelling light blue sponge and sweetly wiped the tiny stray hairs from my nose and cheeks.  Then she picked up her shears again--meticulously checking, layering, studying.  She was doing a really good job.

She finished off with a touch of hair wax to keep everything in place, and I had to admit, although my hair looked slightly pouffier than I was expecting, it felt great.

I took one last look in the mirror and smiled at the girl as I stood up.  "Hen hăo," I said with a thumbs up.  She gave me a big smile in return, and even looked slightly humble.

"Eighty," the bouncer guy at the front told me.  It was not a question. 

"Eighty?"  I almost gasped.  This was thirty more than Mike had told me.  Then again, Mike hadn't been living in Shanghai previously, and I reminded myself  that eighty kuài was about 13 bucks.  This was Shanghai, and this was a better cut than some I'd paid $20 for in the States.  Plus, I did not want to mess with Bouncer Guy.

I walked out feeling fancy.  First haircut in China:  check.

St. Ignatius (Jesuit) / Xujiahui Catholic Church 7 July 2013

St. Ignatius (Jesuit) / Xujiahui Catholic Church                                                      7 July 2013

It was further than I'd thought.   It had looked like the church was one or one and a half miles from Rayfont Hotel where I was staying in Shanghai.  But after scaling the Yan'an Road overpass and following the elevated highway for about a mile, I came to another large overpass. 

These overpasses are like crosswalks making an "air square" about two flights of stairs above the hustling traffic of the street.  9:45 am on a Sunday in Spokane is sleepy and slow, but Shanghai looked like a regular Monday morning rush hour.  Bicycles, scooters, cars, buses--all zoomed by, weaving in and out of traffic and pedestrians.  I was all too aware, even after only a few days, that fearless scooter pilots often rode on the sidewalk right behind people on foot, scarcely avoiding contact (and possible hospital visits).

At this second overpass, I went to a map of the main roads of the city.  This map was about three feet by three feet.  Of course, the city was massive, and the map was mostly in Mandarin, but they did have pinyin for the main roads (north-south and east-west) that broke the map into quadrants.  Ditching my trek toward the east, I turned south toward Xujiahui.  It shouldn't be long now, I reckoned.  However, walking another 10 minutes or so didn't put me in a better mood.

It was only about 10:15 am but it was in the mid-80s, sunny, and the air was stickier and more polluted than New York City in August.  Imagine being misted with warm, slightly oily water in 90 degree heat while walking.  The skin on my arms and hands was as smooth as an infant's.  Sweat/condensation was rolling from my hair, my back, and my armpits all the way to the waistband of my shorts, soaking the material.  I was alone, and in spite of constant horns and bicycle bells all around, I could hear the blood rushing in my head.  I broke out my first water bottle and finished it, my head quieting a bit.

I slogged a little farther, and then, miraculously, I spotted a sign for a metro station.  The 1 line went straight to Xujiahui, two stops from where I was.

I'd already experienced the metro the day before.  The fact that the cars were all air conditioned, with stops announced in both Mandarin and English, sealed the deal:  I put my backpack went through the metal detector.  Then, I swiped my transportation card (good for buses and cabs, too).  One swiped again on the way out--two to four stops deducted three yuan (about 50 cents).

Exiting from the Xujiahui station, I walked less than a block before noticing two tall buildings with crosses--I'd found it!

The crickets in the trees were protesting the heat as loudly as I was feeling it, waves of sound flowing as heavily as jackhammers, ebbing into brief silences.  They were giving cicadas a run for their money in terms of volume.  The day before, a group of us (EF teachers new in Shanghai) had passed a man selling pet crickets in small individual cages--balls of woven reeds.  The crickets had seemed to call to us.  These were no quiet American country crickets.

Along the concrete block pathway was a flower garden and lawn, where two or three Chinese couples were having wedding photos taken.  One girl was in a heavy gown, not a drop of sweat on her face.  Her makeup and hair were impeccably pristine.  I couldn't believe it--I was a hot mess.

I found a Costa Coffee and ducked inside for a medium iced latte.  The cafe's A/C was supersonic, and I got feverish chills for about five minutes while my body adjusted.  I ended up having to leave the cafe about ten minutes later.

I was violating the church dress code on two counts:  my knees and shoulders were bare.  At least I was wearing sneakers (flip-flops were another no-no).  They still let me in, though, after I sucked down the rest of my (now no longer iced) drink.  I don't think super-touristy places can survive without letting some people break the rules.

The church had a vaulted ceiling, and ceiling fans dangled down like spiders on web thread, beating uselessly at the soggy air.  A few of the stained glass windows had bamboo motifs.  There were a few TV screens hanging purposelessly from columns, and oscillating fans doing their best to make the air bearable.  Under each wooden plaque signifying a Station of the Cross was a tiny room, each with a kneeler, a small altar, and a statue or painting--14 in all.  There were one or two people in nearly every cubbyhole, and I had been touched to see some older Chinese women praying reverently at a statue of the Virgin Mary just outside the church.  It seemed hard to believe that such loyal devotion to this foreign religion existed in the same country where, 25 years ago, we hadn't even been able to attend any kind of Christian service.  Xujiahui had been here a long time, however.

The lightweight, dark wood pews were scuffed and lacquered within an inch of their lives, but they were filled.  The congregation looked to be mostly Chinese and Filipino, with a few Americans, Europeans, and Africans tossed in for spice.  It was easy to spot the European men, as most carried shoulder bags.

The Chinese priest sprinkled holy water on us and burned incense throughout.  A strong, citronella-like odor filled the air.  I had thought that water-sprinkling and incense-burning were suspended during Ordinary Time, but perhaps I was wrong.

The choir was about 15 people; all looked to be under 50.  They were accompanied only by a piano, and even sang a few familiar songs:  "City of God" and "Here I Am, Lord", along with "Take and Receive", a pretty song with Mandarin characters printed on the other side of the hymnal page.

The offertory was led by a dozen toddlers of all races, each led by a parent.  In their little fingers were three roses apiece.  This seemed par for the course, and I thought this little procession should be added to every mass everywhere.  For communion, one woman sang a gorgeous version of "Amazing Grace" that raised the hair on my arms.

I did not envy the priest in his heavy robes as he spoke:  "The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few."  I was sitting down, unmoving in my shorts and ruffled tank top, and sweat was still rolling down my back.  I thought it was appropriate that a Chinese priest would talk about laborers in a Communist country, and I thought about the millions of people in this country--the "harvest" abundant, indeed--and how many of them were Christian--"few".  The priest emphasized we needed to follow Jesus, not in the ways of the world:  "We are the lamb of God."