People In My Neighbourhood: wanna buy a cricket?

If you were an old man in China, you might wander up to Wuyi Lu (three blocks away) to check out the cricket vendor's latest offerings.  For anywhere from 1 RMB (17 cents), you can own a tiny pet that you keep in a tiny box designed specifically for crickets.  You can feed your cricket leaves, bring it out for a cricket walk around the neighbourhood in the morning (still in its box, sadly, not on a tiny leash), and, on Saturdays, you can bring it to a local market for the weekly cricket fights, in which one cricket emerges victorious, having ripped the limbs from all other crickets.

Finding this cricket stand explained why one of my neighbours' blue toque always seems to be cheeping.  He keeps his cricket and its cage tucked into the brim.

I dream of purchasing my own cricket and training it to play Debussy, a la Chester in The Cricket in Times Square.  But what should I NAME it?  Prize for the best cricket moniker.

Melissa visited!

Before last week, the last time I'd seen Melissa was when I was about twelve.  We went to Sunday School together at the wonderful Garneau United Church in Edmonton, the most welcoming and diverse church community I've ever known, and where Grandma played the organ. 
So.  When Grandma and Melissa's mom discovered we're both living in China, we all made short work of planning for Melissa to come up from Macau - I'll go down there when it's time for a visa run in a few months.  It was a reunion with funness of epic proportions, and between reminisces of hymnals and Christmas pageants, we tore up the town.  Art supply shopping, gallery browsing, Bund strolling, Expo adventuring, dignitary meeting, fancy dinner eating, wine sipping, trendy bar going* - two days?  No problem. 

Highlights included:

• Me getting attacked by a Japanese toilet in a very fancy art gallery (I admit I shouldn't have pressed all those buttons)

• Skipping the four-hour line to the French Expo Pavilion by flashing our Canadian passports and walking haughtily through the VIP entrance

• Narrowly missing being lit on fire along with the bar at Bar Rouge - those bartenders are showy buggers

Thanks for the good times, Melissa!  Can't wait to hit the slots in Macau.  Just kidding, Grandma.



*Cute stuff in the mail to whoever can tell me where the heck I should put dashes in that sentence.

Oh haiii, Pearl Tower

Let the Expo shenanigans begin!  That's the China pavilion behind us.

*Sip* You were saying, Minister?

 

 

Expo is culture-sensitive.

There is a Hershey's store.  And they have Reese's.  EEE!!!  *Wiping chocolate peanut butter off face*

Vino at Glamour Bar - a definite thighlight

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.

People In My Neighbourhood: the seafood family

One of my favourite neighbourhood shops is the very small seafood store close to where I tutor on Tuesday nights.  The family who owns it always smiles and says "Nihao!" as I approach, and then "The foreigner again" when I'm walking away.  But in a friendly way.

Of course, business demands that they do horrible, murderous things to fish, meaning that you really have to watch your step as you pass.  But October is hairy crab season in Shanghai, so today all hands were on deck for less gory work - plucking wee crabs from a cooler and swaddling their little legs to their bodies with long blades of grass.  As per usual, this was all happening on the sidewalk in front of the store.

Hairy crabs are found in the lakes and rivers around Shanghai, and are a major delicacy.  According to my Shanghainese cousins, crab season is a big deal because it's an opportunity for wealthy businesspeople to gain face by treating each other to crab feasts at exorbitantly pricey restaurants.  I've tried them.  They're super-yummy, though the crab smell lingers on you for at least a day, even if you exfoliate three times.  I've always wondered if this eau de crab also has caché in the business community.

Nooooo! *flailflailflail*

Oh.  Okay.  (Apparently, they keep the grass long so it's easy to pluck them out of the steamer.)

The dad explained that they wear gloves so the pinches hurt less.  Ouch.

Their little boy kept jumping in front of the camera, and then darting around to see the photo on the LCD screen.

Hello (again), world

Yep, it's been a year since I last posted, thanks to blocks on Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, and other things that help people network and organize big events. Like craft parties and potlucks. Or, I guess, protests and rallies. Anyway, I found posting remotely really wasn't my thing. It's like painting without your glasses - you have a general idea of what you're doing, but no satisfaction in seeing the finished product.

BUT! I've just purchased a program that lets me get online through other, less internetically-inhibited cities. As such, I'll be posting regularly, and in a fancy new layout to boot. And to catch everyone up, here's a summary of the past year:

• PROFESSIONALLY: (Very) full-time job doing marketing and events for a non-profit. Learned tons, worked really hard, and finished my year-long contract in June 2010. On the side, I helped my friend Bonnie develop local baking service Sweet Bon-O-Mine. These days, I'm working for self taking assorted contracts and moonlighting as a private English tutor, like every other half-pat (locally-employed expat) here.

• PERSONALLY: Expanded the cast of Claire's Life with new friends, all of whom will surely make their way onto the blog at some point. I've also solidified relationships with People In My Neighbourhood (PIMN), which goes a long way towards making me feel at home here, like when my DVD guy thrusts out the latest romantic comedy when I ride by him on my bike. (Oh, and people, I don't discuss my dating life online. It makes people uncomfortable. Especially me.)

• OTHERLY: Still in my darling apartment, which now features both a couch AND bookshelves. Shazam! // I spent almost three months in Canada this summer. // I'm rocking new glasses like Anastasia Krupnik's, though I still wear my usuals when I'm feeling unobtrusive. // My Chinese is way better than it was. Now I can discuss way more than my ideal husband. // I bought a new camera and am in love with it. // I still suck at cooking, but I sure can make a mean pot of rice.

So, I'm back. Thank you for staying around, and always tell me what you'd like to hear more about - I am nothing without you, dear readers!

- Claire

Project 2: Dinner chez moi

Midterms finished on Tuesday, and Julia and Poppy came over with the idea of cooking a real. Dinner. Like, with courses. The theme? Carbs and butter. So Julia made her trademark and highly delicious onion soup with freshly toasted croutons; I made macaroni and cheese and a side of potatoes mashed with spinach, to break up the beige colour palette; and Poppy concocted her Scottish bread-and-butter pudding, which took two hours to bake but which was entirely delectable, especially when eaten with cream whilst watching "The Sound of Music." We sang along, obviously.

Spot my new favourite cutting board under the (somewhat superfluous) slices of baguette.

Also included: produce bounty. This is what you can buy at the fruit/veg market down the street for just over three Canadian dollars. Note delicious mango at centre stage.

Photos:

1. Another reason to love China: I can afford my vitamins
2. First course: soup, croutons, and wine from the Open House caterer, who was so horrified that we usually drink Y30 bottles that he gave us a much nicer one to take home
3. Macaroni and mashed potatoes baked toaster oven-style: that means double-decker skillz
4. Second course: Julia means business

Project 1: Opening House (not mine)

Every night before I go to sleep, a soft but chiding voice whispers, "You forgot to write your blog tonight, Claire." My toes twinge with guilt and then I drift into slumber, forgetting about the whole thing until the next night at around midnight. Why do I do this? I just saw "He's Just Not That Into You" and Justin Long says it's because my life lacks real drama so I have to create my own. I don't entirely agree, but at least I don't have to take up gambling or, like, catfights in bars.

So what have I been doing the past two weeks? Kind of studying for midterms, but mostly organizing this Open House party for the Community Centre (I insist on CDN spelling) of Shanghai, an organization that helps expats form, um, community in this ginormous city. The Centre offers all sorts of classes, social events for youth and for grown-ups, tours, counselling, etc., etc. It's a really cool place and they just opened their brand new office about a twenty-minute bike ride from my apartment.

About six weeks ago, I decided to volunteer there and was immediately recruited to help party-plan, which I had no problem with; although the whole thing was super time-consuming, I can't pretend I don't love choosing decorations, harassing people to RSVP, and trying to hang unwieldy banners on sketchy walls that shouldn't be depended on to hold ANYTHING up. Some photos below - mostly of the Hongqiao Flower Market, one of several in the city that offers beautiful, gorgeous, stunning flowers basically for free. The party was last Saturday night and was super-successful, despite my and my co-organizer's fear that only ten people would come and everyone would win three door prizes before we packed the catering into Tupperware to be eaten cold every night for the following week whilst reflecting on our failured attempt at entertaining. What a relief! Though the leftovers would have been great.

Photos:

1. Just one of the beautiful flower market stalls
2. This guy did our welcome table arrangement in seven minutes flat. Bam!
3. Julia wins a doorprize, tries to regain focus
4. Party favours
5. Typical: women organize, men cut the damn ribbon

Claire and the toaster oven: a love story

Yikes! Has it been that long? I guess I was too busy making tiny muffins in my new OVEN! (*Wild applause, cheerleaders cartwheeling*) Chinese apartments don't come with ovens - even the lucky foreigners who think they've rented a place with one often find it's actually a little dish sterilizer. Alas, my kitchen had neither, and I've been stirfrying, boiling, and sautéeing (badly) for the past six months, staring pensively at the place where an oven should be. In the baking aisle of the imports store, I would slow down my cart, eye the baking powder and sigh disconsolately, knowing my kitchen could produce nothing that needed puff.

But then! Two weekends ago, Poppy and I were at a Huaihuai Lu (French Concession shopping mecca) department store and found a scratch-and-dent table bearing highly discounted appliances, including a very reasonably-priced, generously-sized toaster oven. Poppy graciously listened to me pro-and-con for ten minutes before basically suggesting that I do the only sensible thing and buy it. Which I did. I haven't looked back. Especially as I now have a reason to buy hundreds of the great cupcake wrappers I found at a wholesale place down the street.

Any recipes not involving too much butter or chocolate welcomed; it's hard to think of what to make without them, I know, but they're really expensive here.


Photos:

1. There she is, at home in my pantry!
2. Check out my balanced meal. That's macaroni and cheese (cheddar AND blue cheese, snap)
3. Darling cupcake wrappers
4. Eee, carrot-pineapple muffins!

A haiku celebration of Chinese notebooks

Hi everyone!

Hands down, one of the best things about China - and, it seems, Asian countries in general - is the plethora of adorable stationery to be had at pleasingly inexpensive prices. It's hard to express the kind of excitement generated by particularly excellent finds of the paper variety (Aunt Maureen, I know you understand), so I've resorted to that old standby, haiku. Actually, it's not my old standby. But it sure will be; I seriously feel ten times more Zen than I did twenty minutes ago. Please feel free to use your own 22 syllables to vote for your favourite book - the winner will receive it in the mail, because I love sending stuff home.


When I am depressed
The notebook store cheers me up
Zebra bums: so cute!

Gambol's so stylish
"Most outstanding achievers"
I hope they mean me

The big fat pink "M"
And the blank pages are great
Also, it has weight





I hate computers!
iPhoto won't flip these pics
Sorry they're backwards :(

Also just realized
You can't see the Gambol text
Okay, here it is:

"Gambol notebooks, made with future technology, for tomorrow's most outstanding achievers."

Shanghai from under the umbrella: Part 1

With only five days left in Shanghai before Laura had to board her Vancouver-bound plane, we’ve had a lot to take in and not a lot of time to take it in in. (Grammar experimentation is exciting.) We got right to it and hit the pearl market, the fabric market, and the glasses market; we’ve been balancing the shopping with, of course, eating: dumplings, hotpot, and home-cooked stirfries and soup have been on the very full menu.

Yesterday, we went with Claire’s friends Eric and Allison to the fabric market, stopping along the way to admire the oodles of buttons for sale in hole-in-the-wall shops (see below for Button on buttons); at the market, Claire ordered a tailor-made hat while Laura agonized over a suitable cotton print for new kitchen curtains – and just happened to find the perfect wool skirt for those cold Clarenville winters. Everyone left happy, especially those of us who got to come home to make soup and watch episodes of Monk before indulging in copious amounts of Laura-imported chocolate.

Somebody in charge knew today was our last day in Shanghai, because it was raining all day – the clouds followed us all the way to the Bund, the city’s must-see destination. We took in the lower half of China’s tallest buildings, and amused ourselves with umbrella sightseeing: seriously, check that one out below. A spur-of-the-moment elevator ride in the Ritz-Carlton rounded out the afternoon. A note to prospective hotel lobby crashers: be confident when you ask directions to the washroom and act like you’re definitely visiting the penthouse when you step into the elevator. Even if you’re wearing MEC and your shopping bag comes from Carrefour.

So: Claire will be on her own tomorrow night and Laura will be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean with 400 other people, who are hopefully keeping their microbes to themselves. (One more bout of strep throat is needed not.) Another great holiday!


1. Laura testing the padded sidewalk near Claire’s apartment. Rating: 7/10 for bounce, 10/10 for capturing the moment
2. Rainy reflections along Nanjing Donglu, Shanghai’s most famous shopping street
3. Universities look the same all over the world; Claire in front of her classroom building at Donghua University
4. In the textiles neighbourhood: don’t mess with PMS security
5. Laura N. Button… or is it Laura and Buttons? (Ha, ha, ha.) Thousands of buttons nestle into shelves and drawers in button shops near the Shanghai fabric market

All things Beijing: Part 1

Before embarking on our 13-hour journey to Beijing, we stocked up on snacks at the local supermarket. Not on our list: $14 Cheerios (Claire’s not-so-silent tears below), handy can of Sweat (we’ll make our own at the Olympic Stadium, thanks), or tennis racquet bag full of meat. Seriously. More tempting were the darling Valentine’s bouquets at Taikang Lu, where we’d visited earlier in the day.

The road to China’s capital city was paved with goat cheese, trés twee crackers, and, of course, our Nalwinegene. Sleeping quarters were cramped but we made it; thank goodness the hostel had the Itty Bitty Welcoming Committee waiting. Sooo cute. Sooooooo puntable.

We snacked on dumplings (extra garlic – nice work with the Swiss Army, Laura) before heading to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City; Beijing welcomed us with beautiful clear blue skies to go with the crisp northern air. Laura was feeling under the weather that evening. Fortunately, China has a reliable 24-hour pharmacy service (see below); by the next morning, though, we decided to make the trip to Beijing United Family Hospital to see about uniting our sick one with some serious medication. As every traveller knows, though, the first step was to notify the insurance provider. Unfortunately, as Claire discovered, the number listed on Laura’s plan card was actually a hotline for “feminine company.” Nice one, Manulife. Anyway, everything worked out fine. We made it to the hospital, where Claire roughed it in the waiting room while Laura chilled with the Duke intern sitting in on her appointment. Now we know how the other half lives…

That afternoon ended up being the highlight of our trip: we rode the metro to the Olympic Park to see the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. Sooo big. Sooooooo cool. Our excitement was definitely documented by many a Chinese camera as few others were as demonstrative of their enthusiasm. Claire talked our way into the Water Cube fifteen minutes before closing (and fifteen minutes after ticket sales had stopped): wit, persistence, and a couple of white lies about Laura’s life dream of being an Olympic swimmer did the trick.

Day Three: we woke up to the first snowfall of 2009 and beat the crowds to the Great Wall. We beat the treacherously slippery slopes at their own game by sliding down – great (Great, ha, ha) fun. The snow-covered mountains were stunning, and we were lucky to catch them as most of it melted away by that afternoon. Another feed of dumplings capped off our trip before we caught the metro from Tiananmen Square to the railway station. The trip back was long – no luxury sleeper car for us this time – it's taken this long to blog about it as we recover from the train hangover.

Enjoy the multiple-posts from our adventures to date.

1. – 3. Grocery store finds
4. Nothing says “I love you” like a dozen tiny bear heads

All things Beijing: Part 4

15. Yeee! Jingshan Park just before sunset
16. “I’m here to see the Wizard”: Claire scores some cough drops from the pharmacy, 10 p.m.
17. Private health care comes with white leather couches. Claire adjusts easily
18. Water Cube! Bird’s Nest! Aiieee!
19. Laura as integral structural component

I survived exams. And: MOM'S HERE!

I bet you for sure thought I'd gotten permanently lost in the metro system or swallowed by the crowds on Nanjing Road. Not so, my dear readers; it was simply final exam stress that kept me from my computer. If you're reading this, I want to tell you how much I appreciate you coming back after two full weeks of non-posting.

First: finals. Under the exceptional tutelage of my friend Eric, a comp-sci grad student at Donghua, I studied like I've never studied before. Eric tells me that Chinese university hopefuls study for 16 hours a day for an entire year - no weekends - in preparation for the entrance exams. Only about one in fifteen make it. So I think he was a little surprised when I assured him that six hours of studying per day was a lot by Canadian standards, and that 12 would be pushing it. Anyway, I made Starbucks my second home and worked my butt off, memorizing about 400 new characters, an entire textbook of grammar concepts, and four Speaking mini-speeches on the topics of:

1. My favourite restaurant
2. My ideal husband ("All around me are handsome men and rich men, but looks and money are not as important and morals and a good education")
3. My views on interracial marriage ("Cross-cultural marriages may have some disadvantages, but mixed-blood children are almost always more beautiful and smart" [this was straight from our curriculum])
4. My opinion on old people remarrying ("Old people who want to remarry may worry that their neighbours may say this or that, but happiness is more important than what the neighbours think")

I can't wait to apply my new conversational skills to real-life situations, in the manner of "All I want is to marry a man who can pay for one vacation per year."

/

MOM IS HERE! She arrived last night at the Pudong Airport and came home to fill my cupboards with organic peanut butter, popcorn kernels, gourmet crackers, Panda licorice, goat brie, and other yummy foodstuffs that make me feel ten bazillion more times at home. Today we hit Nanjing Road - see mom brandishing her first Uniqlo bag - and went over to Fuzhou Lu, two blocks away, to the amazing paper stores there. Mom loves bookbinding and got totally giddy about how ridiculously cheap paper is here compared to the overpriced paperies at home, kind of how I got about scarves and Fineliners.

Tomorrow we're going to go to Taikang Lu and reprise today's amazing foot massage experience - it's seriously a good pain. It's so great to be on holiday and I can't wait to go to Beijing on Monday! After five days there, we're on to Qingdao, former German colony and home of China's most famous beer.

Back soon!

Photos:
1. Crazy bamboo scaffolding by the university
2. Shanghai cultural immersion: shopping
3. The beautiful paper Mom bought. Three dollahs!
4. The paper place.