Sunday, November 30, 2008

I couldn't wait: my Christmas tree!

I know you're supposed to publish one post every couple of days instead of three posts in one week, but I'm still getting the hang of it. I just couldn't wait to show you my tiny tree!

A little worried about the fire/bug hazard of a real tree, not to mention having no idea where to procure one, I resigned myself to buying a fake one. I didn't want to be depressed by celebrating Christmas with a fake tree that was trying to look like a real tree, though, so I just threw the baby out with the bathwater, as it were, and opted for a white one that can at least hope to be mod if not homey. But once assembled and (literally) bent into shape, it gives off a rather pleasing glow, aided in large part by the lights, which have eight settings:

1. Combination
2. In Waves
3. Sequential
4. Slo-Glo
5. Chasing/Flash
6. Slow Fade
7. Twinkle/Flash
8. Steady On

I have opted for the latter, feeling somewhat encouraged by its confident attitude.

Photos:

1. One little box, so full of potential! (The other bag holds a few decorations for the rest of my apartment.)
2. Looks like tree murder, but you could say the same thing about any surgery, halfway through.
3. Progress! Lights glowing pluckily in background.
4. Ta da!




This Saturday: Snoopy, no-fun parks, and the hunt for Christmas spirit

Though not in that order. After tutoring, I took the bus to Yuyuan, an old part of Shanghai that has been revamped to appeal to tourists. It's done its job, not only with the old-style buildings and charming cobblestone streets, but also with its ridiculously huge market of super, super cheap stuff from sewing supplies to underwear to... Christmas decorations. Now almost a month past when I usually start decorating for the holidays, I figured it was time to at least get a tree up. Forums at shanghaiexpat.com recommended Yuyuan as a place to pick up the goods.

On the walk there, I munched on a street-stall green onion pancake and contemplated the rather prohibitive suggestions posted at the entrance to the park. The No Stepping was the hardest to obey.

The Christmas stalls were a bit depressing - like shopping for the holidays at a really crowded dollar store where the price quadruples for foreigners. I managed to find a tree for Y65 after bargaining hard, only to find it for Y45 on the next block. Damn! It's not the $4 I miss, but my pride. Anyway, I felt good for having purchased a little bit of Christmas for my apartment, and was excited all night to come home and decorate (more on that tomorrow).

My friend Tim recently scored a boxed set of every Peanuts cartoon ever committed to DVD, and hosted a Snoopy night - I've always loved Snoopy, and the little movies are hilarious - the humour is so understated, and the animation and the music are fantastic. I don't even know if we got through one of the 20 discs in the set, and I'm secretly hoping Tim will establish some kind of biweekly Peanuts event, though it may end up with just me giggling in front of his TV while his roommates ask him what I'm doing there again.

Photos:
1. How not to use Shanghai parks
2. Renegade steppers
3. A sample of the wares at Yuyuan market
4. One of many Christmas stalls
5. Relaxing with Peanuts

Heaven

The discovery of Cake & Coffee Happy Hour has pretty much made my week. Yesterday when I was feeling a little low I just skipped across the street to slightly-upscale coffee bistro Wagas, plunked myself down into an Eames-inspired chair, and ordered a latté and a slice of ganache-happy chocolate cake - $6 well-spent! I've also discovered that English-language classic books are super affordable here, so I'm on a Jane Austen kick right now. Anne Elliott, the heroine of Persuasion, is a little passive for my taste, and I confess to being a little worried that she may not get off her butt and do any Persuading at all. I'll let you know how everything pans out.

P.S. Isn't the latté's napkin sweater adora
ble?


Monday, November 24, 2008

Another weekend, another free food bonanza

Whoa! Two posts in one day! Well, I had to tell you about this weekend, which was super-fun, especially after my residence permit trauma (see below). Friday night was an art opening at a huge warehouse-cum-gallery down near Suzhou Creek - a German photographer was showcasing images of old and new Shanghai. The real show, though, was the rest of the event - the planner had hired ten or twelve street food vendors to work inside the gallery, providing the evening's refreshments. (Side note - I haven't completely figured out how I feel about hiring the poor to essentially be part of the show, and I'd love your input.) So... unlimited dumplings, egg pancakes, kebabs, roasted chestnuts, popcorn, cotton candy, and even mandarin oranges. And an open bar. As Katie and I concluded (but didn't verbalize quite like this), who cares about art when you can eat your face off?

Saturday night was Helene and Nico's housewarming - they're the French couple who came to my party last weekend. Their place is super-cute and in a great location near Xujiahui, which has arguably the best shopping in town. Helene had concocted potato salad, while Nico presented a dangerous beverage of sugar cane syrup, rum, and mushed-up lime, which helped everyone warm up as it poured rain outside. Katie and I had spent the afternoon shopping at the fake market (real market, fake goods) in Pudong, the new area of Shanghai, and it was so nice to just be inside with friends instead of fending off the fake Fendis (ha! ha! wordplay!); I had, however, purchased an awesome pair of earrings that don't strive to be any label at all. Picture below.
I spent the rest of the weekend tutoring - I have a new student, a Taiwanese businessman, who can only meet weekends, but he's a really nice guy (don't worry, I meet him at Starbucks and he doesn't know where I live) so I figure the income is worth it.

More soon. P.S.
All photo credits to Anja, who, unlike me, doesn't forget her camera. Thank you!



All manner of technical difficulties

Hmm.. something went wrong; I meant this to be posted two days ago!

Instead of going to school on Thursday and Friday, I spent three hours each day at the police station with my landlord. I had to change my residence permit so I don't get tossed out of the country when they find out I don't live at the Donghua residence anymore. It was your typical Chinese administrative procedure: on Thursday, my landlord fought for attention amidst the crowd of other recent relocaters, waving my passport at the one police officer - a bored-looking woman with a number of shiny gold stars across the chest of her immaculate blue suit, presumably indicating a rank high enough to take her time doing her job but low enough to enjoy the suffering of others. Eventually, she took my passport, examined it carefully, and gave it to another officer, who looked at it with two others before taking it to the break room - clearly visible behind a glass door - where he smoked a cigarette and flipped through its pages. He returned it to us five minutes later, briefly glanced at my change-of-residence form, and told us to get a letter from Donghua University stating I was a student there and to come back tomorrow. (Even though I had already shown my highly-official student card and a form filled out and stamped by the university.)

Friday: we return with the letter, typed and stamped specially, and are told after about half an hour of waiting that we need to make photocopies of the letter, my other form, and my passport. My landlord goes away and comes back ten minutes later with copies in hand. The officer (same lady as Thursday) takes the papers, puts them on her desk, and helps the three people standing behind us in line. Then she makes three more copies of all my documents with the photocopier that is on her desk (!!!). She produces an impressive array of rubber stamps from a drawer, and an orgy of stamping follows: every page seems to get at least three, each a different shape and size. This is all intermittent - various people shove their way to the front of the "line" and are helped instead, sometimes for up to fifteen or twenty minutes, before returning to my file. This must be the reason there is plexiglass between the officer and the visitors - it keeps me from leaning over and yelling, "Focus! Focus!" and possibly hurling a steamed bun or two just to get some attention. The system here is so different from home, and I know Westerners are criticized by Chinese people - especially in business - for being too up-front, for rushing things and lacking subtlety. I know I'll have to get used to this way of conducting business if I'm ever to have a career here. I just hope the "getting used to" will happen sooner rather than later.

Happily, I did change my residence permit. I am registered as living, for free, as a friend in my landlord's spare room at his own apartment. Apparently this is standard for foreign renters, so don't worry.

No pictures - I had to delete the two I took in front of the police station's security guard. Yikes!


Thursday, November 20, 2008

学校 (School)

Hi everyone,

Sorry I disappeared for a couple of days. I got kind of homesick and dropped all lines of communication - which is kind of the opposite of what one should do, but I'm working on it.

So... despite what my postings may thus far suggest, Shanghai isn't all shopping trips and cozy parties. I'm here on a CCSEP, or Canada-China Scholars' Exchange Programme, scholarship, and as such spend my mornings studying Mandarin at Donghua University. This has to be one of the sweetest deals offered by the Canadian government - though it's in tandem with the Chinese gov't, so I shouldn't give Ottawa all the credit. They have covered my airfare, tuition, books, and a decent monthly stipend, and would also be giving me accommodation if I didn't mind living on campus with some cockroaches. Yes, the application process was lengthy, but it didn't require anything other than a couple of reference letters and a willingness to jump some hoops.

All language students are required to take three classes: Listening, Speaking, and Intensive Reading.
I'm not really sure why they divide up the classes like this, as we listen, speak, and read in all of them - though I love imagining putting on earmuffs and blindfolds at the beginning of Speaking classes. Listening is the only class I really dread - we listen to recorded sentences and then try to work out which of the answers in our textbook makes sense. The hard part is that many of the characters in the answers are new, and that those of us in the class who weren't brought up speaking/reading an Asian language have a hard time keeping up. I'm often only halfway through understanding what the answers even mean before the tape rolls, someone chirps "B!" and we've moved on to the next question. This is bad for confidence and also for friendly relationships with "B!"-chirpers. :)

Classes run from 8:30 to 12:10 every day. We have two subjects per day, and two 45-minute periods of each in a row. Sometimes the time really crawls, but finishing school at noon every day always feels fabulous. My class is a nice group of people; most of the students are Korean, with the rest of us from Turkey, Japan, Poland, and Germany - and me, from Canada (there are only two Canadians at Donghua, me and a boy I've met a couple of times). Once a month or so the International Students' Assocation organizes Chinese Corner, an hour and a half of language practice with local students. This past Tuesday's theme was Street Chinese, which, disappointingly, was about traffic safety and not Asian ebonics.

Donghua's campus is quite lovely, with lots of trees. The Teaching & Research Building, where we have classes, is one of the nicest buildings - old red brick instead of a greyish tiled exterior. On the first week of school, a giant inflatable archway welcomed new Donghua students (literally: Welcome You, New Donghua University People!), and at Autumn Festival, the courtyard was lit up with Christmas lights and lime and violet floodlights. I can't believe I didn't take a picture!

Lots of love. And i
f you know anyone who might be interested in CCSEP, let me know - this is really a fantastic opportunity to study in China without worrying how you'll finance a year away.


Photos:

1. School gates, first week of school
2. Our classroom
3. Our class bulletin board, which won First Prize in the Interclass Bulletin Board Decorating Competition (see certificate at upper left)
4. The Teaching & Research Building
5. Chinese Corner









Monday, November 17, 2008

Last housewarming pics



Photo 6: Jenny, Conny, Helene, and Anja
Photo 7: blurry soup is always the yummiest.

House: adequately warmed!

Last night I finally had my housewarming party, some four and a half weeks after moving in. We drank cocktails with highly suspect Ikea vodka, ate amazing onion soup cooked in my kitchen by Julia (garlic-chopping credits to Poppy), and made my teeny apartment really feel like home. Sitting alone in bed after everyone went home, I realized what a difference it makes to be able to imagine your house filled with people - knowing that there is potential for company makes the place feel homey even - dare I say especially? - when you're on your own.

It was a great mix of people, and a good opportunity to introduce my friends here to you. Poppy, Julia, and Katie were there, and so were Megha (American), my old roommate; Anja, Jenny, and Conny (all German), friends from the dorm; new friends Helene and Nico (French); Kellan (American), a friend from school whom I met at the harrowing health-check "field trip" at the beginning of term; and Eric (Chinese), who is doing his Master's at Donghua and who was helping out on a volunteering trip I went on last month with the university.


I am planning to host Christmas festivities here as well - anyone have any decorating ideas?

Tomorrow: all about my studies.

Photo 1: Katie and Megha
Photo 2: Kellan
Photo 3: Eric and Poppy
Photo 4: Julia and Nico
Photo 5:
Everrrybody! Note Poppy moving faster than the speed of light. (Why can't I post more than five pictures?)



Saturday, November 15, 2008

My Saturday routine

Weekends in Shanghai mean people, lots of people, everywhere. I always tutor from 1:00 to 3:00 over in Pudong (Shanghai, like Edmonton, is spliced in two by water, and Pudong is on the far side of the Huangpu River), and negotiating the crowds on the metro trip there and back is an experience unparalleled by anything in Canada. Sometimes I try to imagine what situation at home would compel people to cram themselves through doors as passionately and unapologetically as they do here. It's like the Strathcona Farmers' Market, only the same amount of people have to squeeze into one-tenth the space. And it's Christmas Eve, and there is a turkey shortage so there is only one free-range turkey left. And everyone's elbows are extra-sharp, and most people are a little shorter than usual so the elbows really get into your ribs.

The blurry photo below was the best I could do before the camera was knocked out of my hand (fortunately into my bag).

Before squeezing into the metro, I had a fantastic morning wandering around a little artsy area called Taikang Lu, where a lot of artists moved to take advantage of the cheap rent a few years ago and which has, predictably, become somewhat gentrified. Among the little shops, though, are old row houses whose original occupants still hang out playing chess outside and washing their clothes in giant, bright-coloured plastic bowls. It's a really strange mix of trendy expats and far less privileged Chinese people, and I don't feel comfortable describing it (like my guidebook does) as "charming" and "off the beaten path" when really, it's a cluster of kind of decrepit alleyways with Chinese residents that probably don't have money to rebuild or even repaint. I do think Katie had a point, though, when she said that at least it's one historical part of town that isn't being sacrificed for a new condo.

After doing a bit of Christmas shopping, I took a cab to the closest metro station. Refreshingly, the ride was beautiful - we were in the French Concession, which has gorgeous old trees hanging over the streets. I wished I could have wandered around instead of teaching in the afternoon, but alas, there is rent to pay!

Grandma, I will write more about school this week. Thanks, everyone, for your comments - they're really fun to read and make me feel like an Important Internet Presence.





Thursday, November 13, 2008

Don't worry, Grandma, sometimes I eat protein

I've never been much of a cook, but I have, with the help of Poppy and Julia, developed a delicious new snack. It's called Roasting Fruit-Flavoured Chinese Marshmallows Over My Burner And Eating Them Off A Fork, or RFFCMOMBAETOAF for short. I know they look a bit charred, but they are seriously delectable. I chose the photo with the smallest flame for everyone's peace of mind.

(The underlying theme of this post is Feel Free To Send Me Clif Bars.)


Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Road trip!: Wuzhen

Last Friday, Donghua (our university) took all willing international students to Wuzhen, a little canal town about three hours away from Shanghai by bus. We weren't really sure why we drove six hours in a day to spend three at Wuzhen, but when it comes to Donghua-organized events, we've learned it's best not to ask - there's a different sense of logic here.

Wuzhen was a lot like Xitang, a closer town that I'd visited in October with my cousins - both places have teeny cobblestone streets, gorgeous old houses, and lots of photo ops. The main difference was that the view of Wuzhen included the edge of my umbrella - it poured all day! But seeing a shadow puppet play, poking around old courtyards, and being in total silence for the first time since coming to China was totally worth it.


Cast of characters below: Julia (remember her from Sunday brunch?), Fadi (Turkish, in our class), and Yan Laoshi (Teacher Yan, our reading teacher). Photo credits to Julia for the fancy red-umbrella shot - and also for the brunch photos, except for the one of her, which was allll me.




Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Sunday brunch chez moi

This Sunday, I had Poppy (Scottish, sipping mocha) and Julia (Polish, delicately handling utensils) over for a lazy brunch. My kitchen is my favourite part of my new apartment (aside from the laundry rails that crank up and down from the ceiling), but since I realized that Western ingredients are more expensive than Western restaurant food, my gas range and lovely yellow countertops haven't been getting much of a workout. The solution: French-pressed mochas; my old favourite, French toast; and a ginormous fruit salad. Katie (American, delivering dry wit) joined us too, and sitting around the awesome sea-foam folding table that came with the flat (and enjoying the first sunshine we'd seen in a week), we congratulated ourselves on starting a new weekend tradition.




Welcome!

Hi everyone!

Well, it has taken me two months and two weeks in Shanghai to figure out that keeping my loved ones in the loop about what exactly I'm doing here is just about impossible. My gmail account is littered with half-written drafts of long, descriptive emails; Facebook takes ten years to load; and my apartment's cell phone reception is limited to the corner by the window, where I can phone home if I am standing up, facing northeast. Sure, Shanghai is great, but it's darn hard to start a new life here knowing that my ties home are molding over like those gross rails on the Titanic.

So: this blog is meant to help change all that. I know it's a little one-sided at this stage, but I'm hoping that just being able to show you what I'm doing here - the food I'm eating, the people I'm spending time with, where I'm sleeping, the stuff I'm buying - will make us feel a little less far away. Please feel free to comment, ask me questions, and request parcels. I will post updates at least a few times per week.

Here's to new beginnings! With lots of love,

Claire.