Moving tomorrow

I saw this sign in the bathroom in my clients’ building today. “Do not work if ill.” That’s good advice, because you don’t want to projectile vomit all over your co-workers. Just think of the ribbing you’ll get in the company newsletter! Har har!

I got the keys for the house today. I’m not having second thoughts, but reality is always more anxiety-inducing than imaginary fantasy existence where everything’s perfect in my funky new house.

Now my life is again overcome with mundane tasks – buying sheets, setting up the broadband, finding light bulbs and on and on. Since I just did all of these chores less than a year ago in New York, it’s a drag to do it again. Plus there’s no Bed, Bath and Beyond here. And even if there was, I don’t know the Mandarin words for “bed,” “bath” or “beyond.”

I also noticed some things about the house that I previously missed. For instance the appliance I thought was the world’s smallest, strangest oven is actually the world’s smallest, strangest dishwasher. It’s maybe the size of a shoe box and features just two buttons mysteriously labeled “K1” and “K2.” Luckily, what the dishwasher lacks in capacity or features it makes up for in zany bright lights that flash continuously when you turn it on.

The whole country gets next week off due to some celebration of our socialist workers’ paradise. In exchange for this time, tomorrow and Sunday are WORK DAYS. It’s not just my company, the whole country gets screwed. I don’t have any big plans for the holiday. Andy is coming down from Beijing on Saturday – it will be good to hang out and see a familiar face. I think we'll just relax, eat, take pictures of peasant women pushing carts and see the Shanghai landmarks.

Then next Thursday we're going to Beijing. I think we'll just relax, eat, take pictures of peasant women pushing carts and see the Beijing landmarks.

I will post pictures of the dishwasher later to see if anyone can help me figure out the mystery of “K1” and “K2.” Also, the 672 settings on the dial of my washer/dryer are only in Chinese. Another job for my crack translation team?

Out to lunch

I ate lunch with two co-workers today at a traditional “healthy” soup joint – it’s kind of a combination of a diner and a Walgreen’s. The soup, like everything in Chinese cuisine, has medicinal properties to help manage your ying or yang or cheese or something. Signs on the shop’s wall offer guidance about which ingredients go together, what one should eat to prevent various maladies, effects of different herbs and so on. There was a lot about “heating” and “cooling” foods, a concept I still don’t understand. (My co-workers translated some of it for me.)

My soup was rather bland, and had slabs of conch and pieces of melon in it. There was a rice dish with chicken (delicious) and then little plates of cucumber (a “cooling” food) and pineapple (a “heating” food.) I don’t think I’m feeling more balanced or invigorated. Maybe it takes awhile – like Xanax.

I try not to engage in hoary Western culinary prejudices but I did notice a dog on one of the signs. I tried to play it cool (Not: “HAR! HAR! Look Ma! They eat dog here! GROSS!!!), so I simply asked, “What does this mean?”

My co-worker explained that the poster listed various foods that shouldn’t be eaten together because they create “poisons” in your body. If you did make this mistake, you had to take a specific herb to put your body back in balance. According to this little diagram you’re not supposed to eat dog with garlic. (I’m not sure if I understood correctly, but this is what I remember.)

“Have you ever tried it?” One of my co-workers nodded, “It’s good to eat in winter.”

I don’t know that I find dog any less appetizing than, say, eating at Arby’s. I’m sure it’s stringy and oily and tastes kind of gamey. It would be mixed with vegetables and oils and spices rather than served up whole on a spit with a frisbee in its mouth. If I try it I’ll let everyone know.

(Hey David, can you translate this for me? I want to know if I understood correctly. Sorry for the crappy camera-phone pic!)

Pandamonium

I joined a gym on Friday, so thankfully I’ve started exercising again. I want to eat Chinese dumplings not become one.

I chose the gym called “Fitness First” located in the fancy mall with the Prada, Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton stores. Everyone I spoke to – expats, tongzhi and Chinese – assured me: “Fitness First is terrific! It’s the best gym in Shanghai!”

I’m nothing if not a slave to hyperbole.

Tonight it started to rain just as I was leaving my office to go exercise. The rain in Shanghai is not like the rain in New York. The rain in New York falls from the sky. The rain in Shanghai travels in multiple dimensions – up and down, side to side, and back and forth through time. This ensures that whatever rain protection you have, you’re surely to arrive at your destination looking as if you’ve travelled there by log flume.

A guy was selling umbrellas at the door to my office building. He wanted 40 RMB, about five dollars. This was a total rip-off. However, standing there in the torrential downpour my negotiating position was somewhat compromised. He took my money and went to do other business.

I opened the umbrella. First, it was tiny, or better, dainty. And it had a panda face on the front. And ears that sprouted from the top when you opened it.

I walked down Nanjing Road – a mutant half man/half panda with a giant encephalitic head. When I was about 100 feet from the gym, a gust caught my panda head umbrella causing it to spontaneously disintegrate into a penny’s worth of plastic, aluminum and crappy engineering. I was totally drenched.

The gym is okay. It’s small, but the equipment is new. It supposedly has “really great classes!” I never take classes. I feel like a complete twat dancing and shaking in a glassed-in room where everyone can see you.

After I finished exercising I went to shower and change.

The water temperature in the shower at the gym has four settings: off, arctic tundra, molten hot magma from the center of the earth, and simply, “sun.” Conveniently these settings are only one micron apart and constantly change position in relation to each other. This ensures a brisk shower to get you going with your day!

I made it home damp and exhausted. Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain, but I’ll take an umbrella from the hotel. It doesn’t have a panda on it.

Contract signed

I signed the contract this evening. The owner is a young tongzhi ABC (Australian Born Chinese) guy whose taste in furnishings seems almost as particular as my own. He was friendly and casual and even agreed to buy a small flat screen TV for the living room.

I have a walk-through on Thursday and then I get the keys.

The first photo is of the back of the house. The next two are of the neighborhood immediately surrounding the compound where it's located.

Schooled

Here’s a picture of the Han Yuan Language School where I’m taking my Mandarin lessons. I don’t want to brag, but I think I’m the favorite student – especially since all the other students are morose, chain-smoking Japanese businessmen.

I never thought I had any talent for learning languages. After 8 years of studying German in high school and college, I still couldn’t help Dieter and Ute get to the fucking Bibliothek. So the thought of trying to learn even basic Chinese was intimidating and scary and seemed like a pointless exercise. I am, however, contractually obligated to try.

I’ve had only 4 lessons and so far I’m enjoying it. I’ve learned to count, some basic vocabulary (days of week, etc.) and a few simple, helpful phrases like “Do you speak English?” “The chicken, please.” and “Which way to the secret military installations?” (Okay, the last one is a goof.) I’ve mastered the four tones and the teacher said my accent is “okay.”

It may not sound like much, but this is twice what I accomplished in my 8 wretched years of German classes.

The expats I know say it’s important at least to become “taxi fluent” – meaning you can give a cab driver directions, order in a restaurant and pronounce anything that’s written in pinyin.

Today I’m feeling ambitious though, with visions of total fluency – dazzling fellow Westerners with my linguistic mastery as I flawlessly speak Mandarin to my Chinese friends and say: “Aren’t foreigners stupid?” Everyone will applaud in amazement.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Get physical

As part of the application process for an employment visa, all foreigners in China have to have a medical examination. I had mine on Monday.

Imagine getting a physical at the DMV.

After filling out dozens of forms asking if I suffered such conditions as “psycho-mental dysphoria” (I checked “no”), I was shuffled into a changing room and handed a clip board. I stripped down, put on a robe and blue booties. I was weighed, measured and ordered: “Room 110.”

In Room 110 I was greeted by a dour Chinese Nurse Ratchet wielding a syringe. “Roll up your sleeve. Make a fist.” As an adult I’d largely lost my fear of needles – Nurse Ratchet helped me find it. She jabbed my arm with all the loving tenderness of a spear fisherman.

She scribbled on my form and handed the clipboard back to me. “Next room!”

In the following series of rooms I had a chest x-ray, EKG, eye exam and ultrasound. I didn’t know men had ultrasounds. It was unnerving to have jelly slathered on my abdomen and that weird, cold scanner pressed against me.

I asked the doctor, “Am I pregnant?” I thought this was hilarious.

He handed back the clipboard. “Next room!”

I got the results today. Everything checked out. I even tested negative for “psycho-mental dysphoria.” I have to go across the river to Pudong on Monday for the final stage of residency approval. I don’t know what to expect. Obstacle course? Cat juggling? Telekinetic bingo?

Hopefully this time – no needles.


(Yes Torr, I know the sign is from San Francisco, but I'm willing to sacrifice journalistic accuracy for the perfect kitschy photo.)

34

Today’s my birthday. I’m 34.

When I was younger I thought I’d be rich, mildly famous and hob-nobbing with movie stars on my solid gold jet when I turned 34.

Instead I’m selling sugar water and soap to Red China.

Nothing turns out like you expect it to. But I wouldn’t change a thing.

Guangzhou by Night

I was on my own for dinner last night so I left the hotel to forage for something other than room service.

From the distance I could see what I thought was a mall - it had so many neon signs and colored lights it looked like the final scene in "Close Encounters." In my brief experience here, a shiny new mall always meant one thing: Starbucks, beacon of English-speaking counter people!

I hiked across an eight lane boulevard, through a pedestrian tunnel and across a construction site. It turned out the "mall" was the Guangzhou Light Manufacturers Emporium. Alas, Starbucks had not yet opened an outlet there.

I did get photos of some outrageous giant fixtures they planted outside.

Then I went back and ordered room service.




 

Guangzhou by Day

I had a bit of time during lunch to explore the neighborhood around the office. Like Shanghai (and every other Chinese city,) there are municipal infrastructure projects so enormous they'd make Robert Moses blush.

They've torn up the streets all over town. I think they're extending the subway - but I'm not sure.



 

Bushed

I try to stay away from political discussions. I find they typically devolve into jingoistic platitudes (from the right) or whiny, breathless indignance (from the left.)

But there was a quote in the NY Times today that made me fear for our collective existance. Yesterday the President spoke in defense of Donald Rumsfeld:

"I'm the decider and I decide what's best," Mr. Bush told reporters in the Rose Garden as he announced several White House staff changes. "And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."

It comes to this: "I'm the decider and I decide what's best."

Beyond the completely retarded logic, The President of the United States now sounds like a bossy 7-year-old girl.

"I'm the decider and I decide what's best," Susie Johnson, 7, told reporters in her bedroom decorated with posters of princesses and unicorns. "And what's best is that we play pretty dolly dress-up."

Wake me when it's over.

Herbal House

After my meeting today I had some time to kill in Guangzhou.

There was a small teahouse in the lobby of my client’s building called “Herbal House” with a suspiciously Starbucks-style logo. I went in and ordered an iced coffee.

The kid behind the counter asked me: “Do you want your iced coffee with ice or with no ice?”

“Eh …with ice. Thanks.”

I try never to make fun of the language gaps because anyone who can memorize thousands of these indecipherable Chinese characters must be some kind of genius. Conversely, to most of the locals, I’m just some idiot American flapping his hands.

I was halfway through the iced coffee when the proprietor of Herbal House stopped by my table. He was a lanky middle-aged guy dressed in a shiny double-breasted suit with a pocket square and white leather shoes.

“Hello! You look like actor Kurt Russell! HAHAHAHA! Did anyone ever say you look like actor Kurt Russell? HAHAHAHA!” His laugh had a perfect staccato cadence. Something like a Batman villain.

“Thank you. Thank you.” Smile and nod and smile and nod.

He handed me a take-away menu from his tea house. “Please take with you. We have special tea for executive like you.”

Smile and nod and smile and nod.

The menu was quite cool, beautifully designed and illustrated. The teas were divided into three categories: “Tea for Men,” “Tea for Executive,” and “Tea for Ladies.” The “Tea for Ladies” section was also subtitled: “Ladies are like flowers; flowers care for ladies faces.”

The menu suggested teas for various ailments and offered detailed descriptions of their particular palliative qualities. The text had a poetic feel that ranged from the frightening:

“The business men are busy for social intercourses everyday, and easy to be drunk, vomiting, alcohol-cause headache. Their livers are damaged.”

To the incomprehensible:

"Acrid, cool. It enters the lung and liver channels. It dissipate wind heat. Clears brain. The heart is the master of the whole body, king of organs and skeletons.”

To the perceptive:

“The busyness and tension in modern life make people, especially white-collars, insomnia, mind fatigue, as well as poor memory. It is called losing nourishment of heart and spirit.”

To the oddly affecting:

“Mimosa tree flower: sweet, neutral in property. It transforms dampness, improves appetite, opens orifices, sweeps phlegm, wakes spirit and sharpens the wisdom, calms fetus.”

Finally, on the back page of the menu it read, “You will be nourished and rejuvenated in Herbal House, and experience the essence of nature. You will live a gorgeous life.”

I didn’t know whether to burst out laughing or cry from the utter profundity of it all.

Instead I just ordered another iced coffee. With ice.

Guangzhou

Sprawling. Scary. Smoggy.

Positives?

It's the city that does the smoking for you!

Lane house

I got the rental contract today. Keep your fingers crossed.

The first photo is of the master bedroom. The second two photos are the view from the roof terrace (terrace sounds too expansive ..."turret" might be better.) The last photo is of the living room.

House photos always kinda suck - but you get the idea.

Today's special

A menu item on a sign outside a restaurant near Fuxing Park.

I can't decide whether it's a new entree or an imperative to the patrons.

I think I found a house

I spent the day looking at apartments with my real estate broker Calvin. Predictably most of the places were in enormous, sterile expat compounds with pools and gyms and marble entries and cookie cutter layouts.

I kept asking if I could see something more authentic and with a bit of local character. I didn't move 7000 miles to live in Fort Lee.

The last place he took me to see was exactly what (I didn't know) I wanted. It's a restored row house in one of the few areas in the French Concession that hasn't been mowed over for crappy high-rises. The house is tiny, but unbelievably quaint with perfect proportions, a small garden and roof deck with enough room for a table and a few chairs.

The interior photos didn't really turn out, but here's a shot of the street.

Calvin called the landlord and I think we have a deal. It's a sliver more than what I wanted to pay (of course), but it's a HOUSE amidst the energy and activity of a real Shanghai neighborhood.

And I've got plenty of room for visitors. :-)

One week

Well, almost one week.

Work is busy, but all is okay. Tonight I ate Italian food (not bad!) from the restaurant downstairs, and now I'm watching crap movies on HBO.

I'm going to Guangzhou next Tuesday to meet more clients. Apparently the city is Detroit, Houston and Cincinnati rolled into one heaving, swampy, dirty Chinese megalopolis.

I'll take pictures.

????

Since I’ve been nervous to go to restaurants that aren’t American fast food joints or packed with foreigners, I’ve been foraging in conveniece stores where there’s less opportunity for COMPLETE COMMUNICATION MELTDOWN.

The food is sometimes, eh, challenging. Not so much for what it is, but for figuring out what it is.

To wit, here’s a largely accurate transciption of my thoughts as I shop:

Don’t know what that is.
Don’t know what that is either.
Ummm… some kind of shrink-wrapped bag of indeterminate flesh.
Yogurt in a bag?
Plastic tub of goo.
I didn’t know you could use “zesty” as a noun.
Jello, maybe? Although that looks like corn. Who would eat corn in Jello?
“Smokey prawn” Pringles, no.
These are the most perfect apples I’ve ever seen.
This is a really good price for this.
Really don’t know what that is.
It looks like candy. But it’s made of meat.

Generally I’ve ended up with shrink wrapped vegetables, crackers and a bottle of water. It’s kinda hard to fuck up vegetables, crackers and water.

I feel rainy

It rained today. It rained yesterday. It rained Sunday.

Apparently it rains enough here to make London feel likes Scotsdale.

Tonight I stood in the rain for almost 15 minutes trying to get a cab. When I finally snagged one, the driver didn't speak any English. I gave him the taxi card for my building, he squinted at it for awhile, held it up to the light, then squinted some more. Squinting, holding, squinting, holding, turning, squinting. Then he motioned at his eyes and said something (natch: unintelligible) in Chinese.

After much grunting, hand gesturing, smiling AND nodding, I realized that he was trying to communicate that he was too far-sighted (or pretending to be too far-sighted) to read the card. He did have a point. The characters on the card were in about 4 point type -- inky dots you'd need an electron microscope to read.

Unfortunately for the taxi driver, I wasn't about to give up his cab to stand another fifteen minutes in the monsoon. I pointed ahead and yelled "Nanjing Xi Lu" and "Ba! Ba!" (I think this means "Yes! "Yes!") He squinted and accelerated down the street, barely dodging a bus, bicycles, pedestrians.

I got home ...almost dry.

Access Denied

I can’t view this webpage.

It seems the Chinese have shut off access to the Blogspot domain to make some kind of inscrutable political point. However, thanks to a quirk in Google’s Picasa software, I can make posts.

If you see lots of typos and formatting errors – blame communism.

This brings me to my point:

FREEDOM!!!

Now that I don’t breathe liberty’s sweet, sweet air, it has made me reflect on the various freedoms we have in America. So, here in order from AWESOME!!! to “meh,” are my top ten favorite freedoms:

10. Religion
9. Press
8. The one about getting together in groups or whatever
7. Speech
6. Fries
5. No unreasonable searches
4. Speech
3. Concealed weapons in Sunday school
2. Limitless online porno
1. Speech (This is the best one, right?)

So God Bless America! May freedom shine its light on all of us and so on.

And to my Chinese government hosts who may be monitoring the Internet, I say: I’m just kidding! I kid because I love!

The Hainan Mutiny

 

I arrived in Beijing right on schedule on Saturday afternoon. I was meant to have a three hour layover and then catch a 5:00PM flight to Shanghai on a domestic carrier, Hainan Airlines.

In my limited experience here, the Chinese domestic airlines' approach to "schedules" and "timetables" seems giddy at best. I waited in the gate and around 5:30 a ticket agent came and made an announcement in Chinese. Everyone in the waiting area moaned, so I correctly assumed this meant we'd been delayed.

At 6:30 we finally started boarding the plane. Everyone thronged the jetway, shoved their bags in the bins, got seated and waited ...and waited ...and waited.

Around 8:00 PM the pilot made an announcement in Chinese.

Mayhem ensued.

An elderly woman ran down the aisle screaming at the flight attendents. Dozens of angry people stood up and began taking their baggage out of the overhead compartments. A group Chinese tourists in identical hats started rushing the front of the plane.

Me (as stupid foreigner): "Can anyone tell me what's going on?"

A woman a few rows up explained that the airplane needed repairs, and it would be another hour (maybe) until we could take off.

I asked why people were trying to get off the plane.

The woman responded: "They don't believe we'll take off tonight. Oh, and some of them are afraid to fly on this airplane."

Terrific. "What's wrong with the plane?"

I could tell she didn't quite know how to translate.

"Ummm... bird poop."

"Bird poop?"

She nodded. "Yes, there's bird poop covering the radar."

I didn't quite know how to respond. Finally I decided to sit and wait it out.

About half the people deplaned in a screaming, angry horde. This meant their luggage had to be taken off as well. This took some time. I took another Xanax and drank a beer.

The plane took off around 10:00PM and I arrived in Shanghai at midnight. I don't know what happened with the bird poop. 

I'm here

 

I arrived in Shanghai late Saturday night thanks to a delayed flight in Beijing (see: Mutiny, Hainan.) The office manager Jenny met me at the airport and got me checked into my temporary apartment.

The accommodations are spartan, but clean. It's a small two bedroom with a view, like everything in Shanghai, of some sort of mega-construction project (see attached photo.) And if anyone needs to be reminded of the incredible pace of development here -- the workers started jackhammering. At 6:00 AM. On a Sunday.

It rained yesterday so I didn't do much walking around. Luckily there's a mall down the street with a food court AND a Starbucks. I ate some lunch, looked around a bit and then headed home to unpack.

More later.