Qingting 13 August 2014

I was on my way to record audio at EF headquarters, walking along Nanjing Xi Lu and listening to my headphones.  Voice acting is fun for me, and today's session would be mostly dedicated to the Rio project.  EF is the official English language provider for the 2016 Rio Olympics, and I feel proud to be contributing to that.

As I walked, I noticed a man coming toward me on the sidewalk.  His yellowish robes, shaved head, and ready smile seemed very familiar and friendly as we made eye contact.  My family and I had visited some monasteries and had met a few Buddhist monks here and there during our time in Qinghai in the late 1980s.

While still about 50 feet away from each other, I noticed he was holding a small pink book in one hand and a little yellow card in the other.  I saw a couple of Shanghainese swerve widely around him, as if he had a disease.  I wasn't surprised at their reaction, but it still hurt a little.  After all, this guy had renounced everything in his life to follow Buddha--couldn't people treat him like a human being?

I smiled at the monk as we passed each other, and he handed me a little card.  It was a cheesy holograph of the Guanyin Boddhisattva.  I was familiar with her--a being of compassion that figured as prominently in The Journey to the West as Athena did in The Odyssey.  A boddhisattva, for those of you who aren't sure, is a being that had achieved enlightenment (like a buddha), but has stayed on Earth to help others do the same.  The closest thing in Christian religion?  Sort of a guardian angel.

I'd barely taken a quick look at the card before the monk pushed his pink book under my nose.  I noticed that others had written their names in the book (in Chinese characters, of course).  I think he meant to pray for me?  A pen appeared from one of the folds in the monk's robe, and I said, "Oh!  Okay, I'll sign your book."  We smiled at each other again, and as I was signing, he slipped a bracelet around my left wrist.  It was made of brown and tan marbled plastic beads, with a silver buddha on one side and a Chinese character on the other (I later learned this was the Mandarin for buddha). 

"Oh!"  I said, delighted, "thank you.  Xie xie!" 

"Bu keqi," he said, and pointed at the next column in the book.  I noticed that there were numbers.  200 and above.

Something clicked in my brain.  He wanted money.  Well, that's how a lot of religions work, I thought.  Amazingly, I wasn't getting frustrated about this.  I pulled out my little wallet.  It was a cross between burlap and canvas.  My sister and I had bought them at Yuyuan Gardens--a total tourist trap--for 10 kuai (or $1.50) each.  Mine had Chinese characters on it that read:  Qian bu shi wenti.  Wenti shi mei qian.  Money is not problem.  Problem is no money.

When I started to pull out 20 kuai (I knew that bracelet couldn't have been worth more than that), the monk waved his hand back and forth:  no no no!  "One hundred," he said in English.  I was pretty sure he'd peeped into my wallet and knew I had the money.

"Oh, God," I mumbled.  "Okay, okay."  100 RMB is around $17 USD.  I handed him the note.  All RMB is stamped with Mao's visage, which I thought was really funny right about now, considering Mao had tried to shut down Buddhism during the Cultural Revolution. 

In spite of shelling out more than I'd wanted to, I couldn't stop smiling at this guy, and I continued to feel delighted for the next half hour or so. 

Later that same day after work, I was walking to the train.  Passing through the tunnels was always interesting around Wujiaochang.  A recessed circle--a sort of courtyard--was sunken beneath the freeways overhead, and The Egg--an interesting oblong shape made of woven metal--was all lit up overhead.  Blue and green lights chased each other over The Egg's entire 100-foot length.  People bustled here and there, holding fancy paper bags with Uncle Tetsu's cheesecake inside, or plastic bags with takeout in them.  The ladies wore bright green and yellow dresses with jungle patterns, tiptoeing on their high heels like exotic birds.  Men held their girlfriends' pink handbags without the slightest hesitation, and other men looked like dandy gay models in their super-skinny red cropped jeans and tilted fedoras.

There were a few old people I always saw--grandmas trying to sell little things they'd knitted or men trying to sell puffed rice or corn cooked up earlier in the day.  One old guy was always shirtless, sitting on some steps and playing a Chinese flute--quite well, I might add.  His music sounded like old China--imagine one of those traditional black and white watercolor paintings, the misty mountains and waterfalls of Guilin.  I'd given this guy money before, but wasn't passing close enough to him today.

There was another old dude I'd passed before, a guy with tufty white hair and a broad, childlike grin who wove interesting animals out of palm fronds.  Dragons, birds, and crickets dangled on the long palm "leashes" he'd somehow woven into their backs.  He held these in his hands like balloon strings.

I'd talked to him before going home to the States for 3 weeks.  Our conversation, all in Mandarin (I say proudly) consisted of me bartering the price down to 10 kuai each and telling him I couldn't buy them now but would buy three when I went home to visit my family in America.

However, when the time came for me to pack up and leave, I couldn't find the old man. 

The same night I met the monk, I ran into the palm animal guy.  We smiled big smiles at each other, and I walked right up to him, my eyes on a specific one.

"Shi kuai, shi kuai!"  he said, remembering our price, even though it had been nearly two months since I'd seen him.  "Qingting," he continued, noticing where my eyes went. 

"Qingting," I replied, unnecessarily pointing to the dragonfly.  I handed him my 10 RMB with both hands, a sign of respect, and he laughed, one small little laugh.  I walked away, delighted, like a child holding her first balloon.

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.

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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'.