Friday, October 22, 2010

Shanglows

You know when it's tough to live in Shanghai?  When you wake up needing the kind of day where you quietly go about your tasks, listening to your iPod and, should you feel ambitious enough to cook, reflecting about what you might make for dinner later.

It's all fine if you can spend the day at home watching Seasons 1-5 of Project Runway.  (Oh, it's happened.)  But when you have stuff to do, there's just no way to do it without getting sucked in by the city's frantic pace.  I'm talking about an end-of-the-conveyer-belt-into-the-slaughterhouse kind of atmosphere.  There's noise.  There are people.  There are people's elbows.

Here are the two things that put me over the edge, and by "over," I mean, "in need of," and by "the edge," I mean "an ice cream cone to bring me down":

1.  Yup, I speak Chinese.  I went shopping for Christmas wrapping paper down on Fuzhou Lu.   

ME:  [in Mandarin] Hi, how much is this coloured crepe paper? 
VENDOR:  Three kuai [RMB].
ME:  Oh... hmm - [about to explain that I usually buy it for one kuai - which is true - but will offer him one-fifty]   
VENDOR:   [to other salesperson]: Stupid foreigners.  You can charge them anything.
ME:  I can understand everything you're saying.
VENDOR:  [ignoring me and holding up three fingers.  In English:]  TREE!  TREEEE! 
ME: [still in Mandarin]  Forget it.

2.  Um... thank you?  I took my usual Line 2 back home, crushed against a pole by the rush-hour crowd.  These women were so intimately close to my body that when they spoke, I could feel the condensation from their breath on my neck. 

WOMAN 1: This foreigner's scarf is a strange colour.  [It's mustardy yellow]
WOMAN 2: Yes.  It makes her skin look worse.
WOMAN 1: But she is nice and pale.


Let it be known that Baskin Robbins' Cookies 'n' Cream ice cream is as effective a sedative as any.  And now, back to Project Runway.


5 comments:

dee-eff-emm said...

Oh, Claire. This was hilarious. Enjoy the iced cream.

Derek said...

Hang in there!

MS M. said...

Hi Claire!

Maybe you need a sense-dulling kit containing: some headphones, a coat with huge shoulder pads, huge dark glasses, some essential oil with a strong smell like lavendar (bonus: it might relax you, but probably not), and some hard candies to suck on.

I know of which mustard scarf they speak, and I love it.

Roweramo said...

ha!

Antony Adler said...

i hope for more of these overheard/not-meant-to-be-heards :)