Why it's hard to leave Shanghai

Understand this:  my social life had been sadly lacking in Spokane for the better part of six years.  I'm very grateful for the time I spent with my family, especially my sister.  I'm grateful for my cat, for blue sky and fresh air.  I miss all of that.  I miss the smell of pine and cottonwood trees.

Nevertheless, there are reasons to stay in Shanghai, and I'm planning on signing up for a second year here. 

KTV

I never thought I'd say this, but Haoledi (Holiday, or as I like to call it, "a howl a day") was really fun!  I can't believe it's taken my nine months to experience this, a hugely popular activity in Shanghai.  Some of the people in my intake group go once a week!

Located next to my center, team-building locations don't get any more convenient than Haoledi.  An American and a Chinese teacher were about to leave us for good, and a new American teacher was being welcomed.  About a dozen of us squeezed into a 25 square meter private room, complete with tiny corner stage, two large flat screen TVs, and a disco ball.  A case of bottled beer was brought in, along with bottle openers, bottles of green tea, ash trays, glasses, tambourines, and three microphones.  We ordered food.

There were songs in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and English.  My new boss from South Africa spent several years in Japan, so he sang quite a few songs in Japanese.  A co-worker with a Chinese wife sang along with the Chinese songs.  Another co-worker has a Korean grandmother, so the Korean songs were hers. 

Unlike karaoke singers in the U.S., most of my co-workers drank very little, if at all, and seemed to take the singing quite seriously.  They had fun, but the emotion behind the (often sad) songs seemed very real.

I sang Green Day's "When September Ends" with a Chinese co-worker--I'd had no idea the video was so depressing.  Two American guys and I conquered Nirvana's "All Apologies".  I'm not a huge Kurt Cobain fan, but I know the song well and felt I owed it to the guy since I was the only Washingtonian in the room.  We sang "Hey Jude" by the Beatles and danced to Psy's "Gangnam Style". 

American Night

Started by an American, this night at the pub occurs every five weeks or so invites every Canuck, Aussie, Kiwi, Yank, Springbok, and Zhonguoren who's interested.  It's interesting and entertaining to hear English through the filter of half a dozen different accents.  Everyone's usually in a good mood...it's common to have a few drinks, and you can meet people from all over (even Greece!) while getting your American fix.  The American guy who started it waits until everyone's had a few, and then he yells, "Candadians, where you at?"  and they all shout back.  "Aussies, where you at?"  They scream.  And so on.  It's great.

Pub Quiz at the Camel

My only experience with pub quizzes before coming to Shanghai was seeing the fancy one in the second "Bridget Jones" movie.  It looked fun, but I didn't know enough people to form a team, and it's not like Spokane had regular pub quizzes (at least ones that I was aware of).

Pub quiz nights coincided with "Tight Arse Tuesdays", meaning you could get two-for-one fish-n-chips and happy hour pints from 4 to 8 pm. 

Team names:  everything from the silly (Monkey Kings and Hampster Whoopie Cushion--our team) to the obscene (I won't mention details, but body parts and dirty words were involved).

The winnings:  500 RMB and a bottle of booze for first place; a bottle of booze for second; and a round of shots for third.

The quiz always involves the week in news, Shanghai trivia, a large music and movies section (hold me back!) and usually some kind of technical, historical, or sport section with a mysterious connection.

I've been twice now, and have had a team of four each time--me, two Brits, and a Chinese woman.  I would say we're all pretty well-rounded, and we did well, considering other teams had six or more players.  We were in the bottom half of about 20 teams.

Our homework assignments were to "revise" (Brit-speak for study) general knowledge and news for the next quiz--I chose baseball and celebrity gossip (twist my arm).

WeChat

This last sounds a bit trite, but yes, I've been sucked in to the social-media-on-your-smart phone-in-Shanghai set.  I never had a smart phone until I came here, but I am now addicted and wondering how I ever did without.

As long as there's wifi, I can connect with my Shanghai friends and acquaintances in a Facebook-like environment on my little Samsung smart phone.  Lately I'm actually spending more time on WeChat than Facebook.  WeChat doesn't require a VPN.  It doesn't try to kick me offline every other click.  When our free wifi was shut down at work, I went out and got a wireless router and set up my own wifi at home--all by myself!  I'm pretty proud of that.  Part of the manual was even in Chinese!!

Grandma's Home

Yu tou tang.  Ma pu doufu.  Yum. 

Yep, fish head soup and spicy tofu are not exactly things I was expecting to like, but they are actually really good at Grandma's.  That's the name of a restaurant that prepares Hangzhou cuisine.  Hangzhou is about an hour outside of Shanghai by high-speed train and is famous for some of its food.

This restaurant is extremely popular, with long queues (for those of us unfamiliar with British English, that means lines) outside 30 minutes before opening.  Part of it is the food.  Along with the aforementioned dishes, Grandma's makes some great stir-fried green beans and peanut smoothies.  Of course there are the usual things foreigners never order (pickled pig trotters, for example, or cartilage of chicken leg).  You can get a large meal for six people under $50.  It's my favorite Chinese restaurant!  If you come to visit me, I promise we'll go!!