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!!

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.