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!
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
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 adorable?
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!
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!
