Shanghai Street Fighter 12 July 2013

It's the kind of heat that feels like it's against you, out to get you, and you struggle against it--to move, to function, to sweat--even to breathe.  The pollution, the horns, the metallic banging of construction, the bicycle bells, the soggy, oven-like air seeping into the pores on your face, your hands, your scalp.  Your pants stick to your legs, and the fabric feels clumsy as you walk.  The air forces its way into your mouth, up your nostrils--the ammonia-like stench of public toilets, the mouth-watering aroma of peaches, the musty, poopy smell of sewer, the sizzling burn of Shanghai fried noodles cooking up on a street cart, the unfamiliar tang of hard boiled eggs simmering in soy sauce--you don't know whether to hold your breath or to suck it all in. 

You can't fight this. 

In other places this hot, people walk slowly.  They refuse to go out from about 10 am until about 6 or 7 p.m. 

In Shanghai, people still hurry.  Hardly anyone wears flip flops.  Ladies wear high heels and risk turning an ankle--all in the name of fashion.  They carry umbrellas when it's not raining, and the women on scooters wear long sleeves and gloves, and even sometimes a visor that looks like the kind of mask welders wear--all in the name of white skin.  Traffic cops swelter in full uniform--hat, gloves, the whole bit--sweating even under the huge intersection umbrellas on each corner.

People, mostly Chinese men, still smoke inside--elevators in hotels, convenience stores; there are cigarette brands with names like Double Happiness; there are still a few men with long nails (cab drivers showing off the fact that they don't have to do hard labor like farming); on the street in on the subway platform, men and women both still hawk and spit, although much less frequently than 25 years ago in Golmud--you hear it only 3 or 4 times a day now.

You can't fight this.

Fighting takes more energy, and that is energy you need to survive--to dodge the car that follows you up onto the curb--to avoid tripping over a cart or flipped brick--to keep moving without passing out--to eat enough without risking illness.

Before being a street fighter, you have to stop fighting the street.

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.

It's been too long since I've blogged--9 months now.

I'm hoping to publish some of my writing, maybe even a book about my Peace Corps adventures.  Any advice would be much appreciated.

Here's an excerpt from something I've been working on about sakau (this passage is about the singing on one particular night):

Imagine a black Baptist choir doing a rousing rendition of “Go Tell It on the Mountain” on a beautiful Sunday morning.  Then change it.  Remove all of the congregation, all of the women, and most of the choir.  Make all of the men over 40, shirtless, and only partially employed.  Imagine they’d imbibed a bottle of whiskey and were in that mellow, quiet, bluesy stage of drunkenness.  Make it dark outside, with starlight, moonlight, and a single fluorescent bulb the only illuminations.  The men are sitting at a table under a guava tree.  The linoleum-covered wooden table has been chewed by termites and mold.  It is crawling with tiny sugar ants.  The men’s 88-cent flip-flops are all that’s between the dirt and their gnarled toes.  One of the men is strumming a guitar with long dirty fingernails.  A couple are chewing beetelnut; one is smoking a cigarette.  All have plastic cups of sakau in front of them.  The beauty of the notes, the soulfulness of a Baptist choir is still there… but quieter, subdued.