The Hardware Store

Shortly after waking up today, I started thinking of the best way to spend my three day weekend. (China marks today, May 1, International Labor Day, as a national holiday) Looking about my apartment, I was discontented with the more or less bare walls and decided to take action. With visions of grandeur, I went off to the hardware store and the intention to embark upon an art project that would drastically change the decor of my apartment.

While the art project itself is still in the envisioning stage, I knew that to get what I wanted I would need a big canvas made of wire screen. This project will, you see, involve of papier mache.

Thus, I marched though the doorway and down aisles of porcelain toilets and various other decorative fixtures to the "raw materials" department. With rough dimensions of the project in mind, I first set about converting from standard measurements to metric. At this point, I can convert from Farenheit to Celcius well, as well as miles to kilometers and pounds to kilograms. However, other units of distance, such as inches to centimeters or feet to meters, is still a bit beyond what I can do. In the end, I simply ended up spreading my arms and asking "How many meters is this? This is how wide it should be." After a short discourse, what I wanted was clear and it became time to bargain. Not really knowing the price of wood, screen, nails, and staples, etc., I doubt I fared well. I think in the end, I probably netted free delivery. However, not having any tools of my own, my position to negotiate the cost of having it all put together was rather weak.

None of this is very noteworthy. Outside of the bargaining, it had been up to this point a rather typical American hardware store experience. Then, the assembly began and suddenly I was in China again.

People who have not been to China expect it to be a crowded, noisy place. And, of course, it is. Here in China, we foreigners also enjoy groaning about the annoying Chinese cultural nuance of basically ignoring strangers- unless, of course, that stranger is doing pretty much anything. Naturally, as assemblage of this canvas frame began, what seemed to be half of the store crowded around us to wonder outloud "What is the laowai (a slang term for foreigner) doing?" And so there I was, instructing the store worker as per my specifications while a peanut gallery of smoking Chinese men proffered their own advice and made jokes about how the store worker should make me pay even more.

While this all sounds annoying, it was actually rather fun. The hardware store felt kind of like a circus. As tired as I am of being so regularly the focus of the center ring, the atmosphere was jovial enough that I could laugh with them throughout the afternoon and the experience lacked almost all of the frustration that typically comes with trying to get anything done efficiently here in China. Next time, however, I will bring a bargaining partner.

Do I Know You?

Chinese New Year is apparently so crazy that it took me just over two months to recover. Whoops?

Notes:

• I got promoted (kind of): I am now no longer an "academic specialist" but rather an "academic supervisor."
• My oldest friend- at least in my recollection- came to visit China while she was teaching in Thailand. During her stopover in Shanghai, I built upon the lessons of my last guest and tried doing almost no touristy stuff at all. Instead, we tried out random restaurants I had always wanted to try, walked around, and went to the brand new Barbie store. The Barbie store was kind of like a girly Niketown, maybe. It's six floors, slathered in pink, and has an overpriced bar up on the top floor. That being said, it's actually really well decorated.
• More rock concerts, including the group Battles all the way from NY and Hedgehog from Beijing. Battles was outrageous, while Hedgehog was spoiled by the crowd of obnoxious Chinese hipsters apparently unfamiliar with deodorant and toothpaste, not to mention standard rock concert protocol.
• Wow, Bush administration, you just make it easier and easier to paint you as awful villains, don't you? Really? You waterboarded the same two dudes over two-hundred fifty times? I don't imagine I'd take too kindly to being tortured, but I suspect somewhere around the fortieth time, I'd start to be a little nonplussed by the whole affair.
• Baseball season is here! Go Yankees! The managers of my company are all from Taiwan, where baseball is much more popular than it is here on the mainland where you're lucky if people even know what baseball is. One of the managers, being from Taiwan, is a big fan of Wang Chien-ming and the Yankees. I don't think I'd ever spoken to him in the nearly one year of time I've been around him (between my intership and my current tenure) until he approached me after Wang bombed again in his second start to say "Wang Chien-ming..." while shaking his head. I took the chance today to approach him and do the same today, following Wang's third blowout.
• The weather's getting nicer, so I'm taking more opportunities to wander around as a pedestrian instead of as a passenger. It makes the city a lot more interesting, and it's amazing how much closer everything is than you might think。
• I'll officially be returning to the States, although only for two weeks, in June. So, start making preparations now.

And, just like that, we're back in business.

Oh, right...

So remember that bit about China maybe possibly sort of kind of beginning to feel the economic crisis thing? Yeah, that's definitely happening. Yours truly has been busy not posting blog entries over the past few weeks because I've been pulling a James Woods and trying to experience what it means firsthand to be affected by an economic crisis. Notes:

1) Having no money in your wallet or everyday-use bank account is bad.

2) Bok choy soup and rice is a surprisingly tasty meal, now that I've had enough practice making it this month.

3) Taking the bus is less of an adventure when you have to do it. On the other hand, it's now "effortlessly" green to do so.

4) Seriously, having no cash on hand is awful.

Just before embarking on this research, I was blessed enough to have a visitor here in Shanghai. This made for a really good opportunity to be a tourist. Too often, I think, we don't take the time to actually check out the stuff around us. Just thinking about the list of places I haven't been in New York is a headache, let alone the places I haven't been here in Shanghai. So, even though this last week might have been partial inspiration for my "research," it was probably worth it. Skyscrapers, gardens, temples, pedestrian streets, and a super cool "museum" definitely helped me close 2008 on a high note.

2009, however, has already been interesting. Work is picking up. Imminently, I'll be taking on a whole new batch of responsibilities as the company plans to do some "spring festival cleaning". (Chinese New Year is called the Spring Festival here. So, it's actually a pretty good joke.) Plus, we have our big new service launching, TalkOnline. I've also made my way onto Chinese TV already, and as soon as I get a copy of the video, you can be sure you'll find it here.

Also, according to China Daily, the government sponsored English language newspaper, "China is about to enter a peak time for mass incidents..." That means riots and protests. So, that's exciting, right?

Anyway, 2009 is here and I'm planning to make it a good one. Now, who's going to join me?

Timeline: Nov. 5, 2008

Because I live in Shanghai, I live half a day ahead of the action back at home in the States. Here's the recap of how Election Morning went.

6:45 AM: Alarm goes off. I'm ready to kill my supervisor, Jaret, with whom I'll be heading over to Malone's to watch it all unfold.

8:00 AM: The election party is well underway. Polls start closing as breakfast gets served. I pickup a cool Obama poster that will soon be the first bit of wall decor for my apartment.

9:00 AM: Second round of polls. Obama takes the lead from McCain. The entire bar is pro-Obama and, even this early in the morning, the place goes wild. We're all also totally confused by a) CNN's insistence on using hologram technology, and b) Wolf Blitzer's continual insistence that "these are real votes we're looking at."

9:30 AM: Sonja arrives, soon to be followed by Clemon. The bar is filling up, still rocking for Obama.

10:00 AM: Next round of polls, and Obama's lead becomes commanding. It feels like a Saturday night at Malone's. Soon after, John King more or less proclaims the night over and the place goes ballistic.

11:00 AM: Round four. As this hour goes on, we start really doing the math. It's now just a countdown to noon, when the West Coast will make it all official. We've got two more compatriats that have joined us at our corner of the bar.

12:00 PM: Explosion of jubilation and relief. It's all finally over: eight years of confusion and two years of diligent attention to current events, done in an instant. CNN gets turned down and the PA turns towards Stevie Wonder. It's now actually a party. The gang's now buying rounds of Budweiser to celebrate. I notice everyone in the bar is breathing very, very deeply.

12:30 PM: McCain concession speech is very gracious and the whole bar kind of develops a soft spot for old guy.

1:30 PM: Obama addresses 240,000 people hanging out in a park, not to mention we millions around the world. Malone's totally freaks when he address "those watching from beyond our shores."

2:00 PM: Jaret and I get back to the office, still in total disbelief. Every breath I take sounds like a sigh.

5:00 PM: Work moving very slowly. It's all still surreal.

7:30 PM: Teaching goes really well, but it's clear that I'm totally out of it.

9:30 PM: I'm on the subway, headed towards the Bund to meet up with my high school girlfriend. She's in Shanghai on a trip.

10:15 PM: We're at Glamour Bar for the official Obama victory party. Lots of foreigners, and they're all ecstatic. They're serving "Obama-tinis" and "Change We Can Believe Ins".

Nov. 6, 2008

10:00 AM: Wait, did yesterday really happen? This distance is really making it not feel real.

This has been such an incredible past few days. It's amazing how much support Obama has here among the expat community. I've met exactly one person that supported McCain, but we're pretty sure he's in the CIA, anyway.

I've spoken about my incredible love of country before, but, as of Wednesday morning, I've never loved it more. Feeling the excitement of a whole community rallying behind Obama was really special.

(Asian) Glow in the Dark

This monstrous blue blur is not a tragic explosion. It is, in fact, part of Kanye West's "Glow in the Dark" tour, captured via my totally inelegant cell phone camera.

Tonight, I got to see a concert I'll probably be able to talk about forever. Honestly, how often does one get to see the world's hottest pop act while overseas? Tonight's concert was rather short, but memorable. Kanye brought out all his hits, including this summer's latest "American Boy". He also, rather inexplicably, brought out Journey's greatest hit, "Don't Stop Believing". I've never been to a real rap concert before this, and I'm not sure how many more I'll go to. Having said that, Kanye's show had the coolest light show I've ever seen, and this was a stripped down version of what he did in the States. He did something I've always thought more artists should do, which is really coordinate a light show with the music.

As fun as this concert was, it also reminded me of a pet peeve: drunk white girls. Not that I'm hating on my fellow Caucasians, but drunk white girls have to be stopped. Take the one sitting next to me, for example. I'm sorry that you're clearly thirty-five and still single, but that's not an excuse to dress like an eighteen year old, and it's definitely not an excuse to act like a sixteen year old that got invited to junior prom. You should have learned this lesson a long time ago: you probably aren't a good dancer sober, and, after so many drinks, you definitely haven't gotten better. And, please, it's awkward for the rest of us when you sing along more enthusiastically during the parts when the black guy uses the "n-word".

That being said, this totally neon concert was a great reminder of everything that's awesome about this city: lights, action, energy, and completely international.

Maps! (or "Where I Live")

The above is a map I've made using Google Earth and Macromedia Fireworks. The subject is the neighborhood in which I'll live beginning tomorrow, when I sign the lease on my new Shanghai apartment. As you can see, it's been conveniently color coded in order to introduce those unfamilar with it. The top of the map is more or less due north.

First, I've taken to coloring the streets. The light, whitened roads are the actual streets in the area. YanAn Rd, running east to west up top, is one of the most important roads in the city. It is multi-tiered, with the upper level comparable to a freeway. Running north to south on the left is DingXi Rd, a street I lived on during my trip last year. It's a busy street, full of shops and restaurants. On the bottom of the map, running east to west, is XinHua Rd. This is the street on which I worked last year, in the building that has been colored yellow. The street is full of old villas and other luxurious things, and is also one of the greenest streets in Shanghai.

Between YanAn Rd. and XinHua Rd. is FaHuaZhen Rd.. This is the street on which I'll technically be living. I say technically, because I'm actually living off an "alley". The green colored roads are more of these "allies". Essentially, they are sidestreets that are numbered like buildings and are then subnumbered. The pink building, the one I will be living in, is then still technically located on FaHuaZhen Lu.

The building I'll be living in is part of a small community of buildings, as is often the case with apartment complexes here. My apartment is on the third floor, which I appreciate since I don't really care for heights. I'm not scared of them and I don't get vertigo: I'm just easy with prolonged exposure to heights. This made living on the twenty-first floor last summer not so much fun. Luckily, because the apartment is a little away from the main streets (being on an alley- remember?) the low placement won't mean loud noise.

I'm pretty happy with the placement of the apartment. Ideally, I'd be situated further north on DingXi Rd., but those apartments tend to be more expensive. Further north is a major park and a key subway station that links three different subway lines. This apartment's location is still really nice, though. It's still close to the subway, and it's a short taxi ride away from most of the good nightclubs and bars. There is a bus that stops on YanAn Rd. which goes directly to my office.

Tomorrow, I begin the moving and decorating. I'm sure that will also mark the first time I've ever wished I had access to HGTV.

Shanghai, baby!

The date finally came and went, and today I write with the wonderful news that I am alive and well in Shanghai, China. Yesterday, I got off the plane, instantly recognized that smell in the air, and immediately felt at ease. I cruised through customs, shrugged off the airline forgetting to bring my luggage, and hopped into a cab.

Last time around, I arrived in Shanghai during the cold wintry weather of February. I was overwhelmed and could barely bring myself to speak with the driver, even to tell him where I was going. Embarrassed, I handed him a piece of paper with the address and sat back. This time was different, though: I felt none of the nervousness of last time. Confidently, I told the driver where I was going. The weather was among the best I've ever seen here, blue sky and all.

The city itself looks great. In the year that has passed since I was last here, so much has already changed. Construction on incredibly skyscrapers has been completed, as have several new subways lines. In the neighborhood I used to live, and plan to live again, there is a brand new Best Buy. The big mall that anchors the neighborhood is now filled with stores, including an H&M. It's really remarkable.

Now that I've been here for a day, I'm starting to readjust to little things that you forget about, such as how crowded the city is. But overall, I don't expect that to be problematic.

Not much has happened so far. Mostly, I've been walking around, working on getting a cell phone, and sleeping, so there isn't much to report.

I'll be spending the afternoon looking around for apartments and working on getting a feel for the neighborhood again.