|
Bryan Stumpf's China Journal |
||
|
Streets of
Shanghai Now that the rainy season is
over, the temperatures are just plain HOT. Typical temps are 95-105
Fahrenheit. And it will probably only get hotter. I hate to sound like a wimp,
but I’ve never been so dependent on air-conditioning in my life. Yaping calls
me repeatedly throughout each day to make sure I haven’t expired. Though I am still determined to explore more of Shanghai while I am still living here, I have to admit most of the exploring occurs after dark, when it’s a bit cooler. During the day, I stay in my air-conditioned apartment typing out journal entries and cursing the heat outside. As for this journal entry, I figure it was time to write more about just living in Shanghai. My earliest journal entries focused on my culture shock. I was so easily frustrated by the “unique” features of Shanghai. But now I’ve reached a point where a lot of the old frustrations no longer bother me. In fact, I’ve actually grown fond of some of those old frustrations. I’m able to look past my old grievances because I know that I’ll actually be missing these unique features of Shanghai when I’m back in the states. I’m certain of this because that’s exactly how I felt after my living in England for four months. During my whole time in England, I griped about a lot of things I considered backwards, bizarre, and inefficient. Most of all, I griped about how England wasn’t quite the eye-opening, life-changing experience that I expected it to be. I just looked forward to being home, where things made sense. It turned out living in England became an eye-opening, life-changing experience only AFTER I returned to the U.S. I realized that all those backwards, bizarre, and inefficient things were actually quaint, distinctive, and culturally significant. I ended up wishing I had been more open-minded while living there. And I missed England so much that I also wished I had stayed longer and regretted not doing more while I was there. I’m assuming I’ll have the same feeling about Shanghai, but I’ll only find out after I leave. I’ve also come to the conclusion that a lot of my grievances about living in Shanghai derive not necessarily from living in China, but more from living in the fourth largest city in the world (just under Mexico City, Tokyo, and New York City). I’ve never really lived smack dab in the middle of a city before, so it’s taking me a while just to get used to urban living. Like most people, in an effort to adapt to my new environment, I seek a routine. Having a weekly routine was easier when I had classes - the preparation and classroom hours took up a lot of my time. But now that classes are over, my days are wide open. But then again, my sightseeing time has to be pushed to the twilight hours since that’s the only time it’s cool enough to walk the streets. So I have a current routine for my life in Shanghai that I’m satisfied with. The first thing I do every morning is write. I usually wake up at around 5 or 6am and write until 10am. Then, it’s time for breakfast. My apartment’s kitchen was already fully stocked when I moved in, but all the cooking utensils are Chinese. I’ve yet to master fried eggs in a wok, though I’ve tried many times. Most mornings, I fix myself something very American for breakfast, like Grape-Nuts and toast with strawberry jam. That might not sound very American, but all of the food items involved in this breakfast are hard to find in Shanghai. The toast is always whole wheat, and whole wheat products are actually pretty hard to come by. Strawberry jam is a little easier to find, but by Chinese prices, it’s a little on the expensive side. The milk for the cereal also isn’t really that hard to find, but for some reason, once you open the carton, you can expect it to expire within three days. I guess that’s why milk is only sold in liter cartons and never in gallons. But the hardest food item to find is American cereal. I was able to find Grape-Nuts in one of the few special expatriate grocery stores hidden around Shanghai. Right before breakfast, I usually go out to the street to buy two newspapers from the newspaper stand. English-language newspapers are very hard to find on the streets of Shanghai, but if you know where to look, there are two pretty good English-language papers available: Shanghai Daily and China Daily. Fortunately, the newspaper stand outside of my apartment just started stocking those papers. When I had classes, I could only pick up Shanghai Daily and China Daily at the Crowne Plaza Hotel near the campus. I liked going to the Crowne – the newspapers are free and it’s one of the few places where I can buy a Newsweek. English magazines are extremely hard to find in Shanghai, much harder to find than English newspapers, but luckily the Crowne caters to a largely expatriate clientele. So after breakfast and a thorough check on US and world events, I’ll return to writing or working on miscellaneous course preparation for my upcoming year at Highline. Depending on my zeal for whatever I am doing, there could be sporadic to frequent visits to my balcony to look down on the streets of Shanghai. Along with balcony gazing, another common, yet unfortunate distraction from my work is watching one of my American TV shows on DVD. At the DVD store right near my apartment, I was able to buy Seasons 1-2 of “The West Wing” and Season 1 of “Six Feet Under.” Also, my mother was kind enough to FedEx me Season 4 of “The Simpsons.” I’m actually not much of a TV watcher – you might remember, on my first day in Shanghai I made my apartment’s TV into an end table. But on the rainy days, it’s nice to watch some American TV. I usually forgo TV watching for more productive distractions from my afternoon work. For example, catching up on my reading is also a very common distraction. I’ve read 10 books since my arrival in Shanghai. Before my arrival, I bought 10 of the 20 books in the “Master and Commander” series, and lugged them across the world so I could read them in China. After really enjoying the movie “Master and Commander” that came out last winter (to see my Movie Malcontent review, just click on www.stumpffarm.com/BryanStumpf/MovieMalcontent), I was pretty sure I’d really enjoy the books the movie was based on. Unfortunately, of the 10 books I’ve read since my arrival, only 2 of them were “Master and Commander” books. It turned out the books are not nearly as riveting as the movie. I soon gave up and went looking for books that would be a little more exciting – I bought a few popular fiction novels at the Foreign Languages Bookstore and borrowed some classics from the Jiao Tong Foreign Languages library. And lastly, another distraction during my afternoon hours is playing my guitar. This is the same guitar that I bought within my first two weeks of arriving in Shanghai. And it’s the same guitar I will try to sell before I leave Shanghai. It’s a beautiful guitar, and I bought it for a song, but it’ll be just too cumbersome to bring back home. Unfortunately, playing the guitar is the afternoon distraction I do the least – I wished I played more since the guitar will be gone soon. So by 4pm, after a lot of distractions and a little bit of work, I am usually suffering from cabin fever. At this point in the day, I am determined to brave the heat to find some place for dinner and do a lot of sightseeing along the way. But before I can even hit the streets, just leaving my apartment building can often be an adventure. In China, most buildings have people that ride the elevators all day and push the buttons for you. At first, I thought this was a completely unnecessary job – but then I realized that elevator riders not only push buttons, but also act as security. In my apartment building, occupants need a special key to gain access to the stairs (could this possibly be a fire hazard?). The elevator is your only way in and out of the building. So the elevator riders get to keep a close eye on the comings and goings of all the occupants. The riders often try to engage me in conversation, but since they only speak Chinese, I can only guess at what they are talking about. My replies are only smiles, nods, and the occasional chuckle. Before I go on with my routine, let me just say that the apartment staff is very friendly and my experience in the building has been mostly positive. A cleaning crew comes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to take out my garbage and drag a wet mop over the floor. But they often make visits to my apartment on other days too – the maintenance crew frequently needs to make a surprise visit to turn some knob, tighten some screw, or stop some leak. I swear one member of the apartment staff pops in my apartment at least once a day. Much of the time, I’m not sure if they even have a reason - I think they just like visiting my apartment to see how messy the American can be. And then there was the time when the managers of my apartment decided to fix leak in my bathroom. I had actually gotten used to puddles appearing on the bathroom floor after I showered, so I didn’t see the repair work as urgent. But through Yaping, they notified me that all during the second week of June, they would need to shut off my water while they made the repairs. During this time, I would have the full use of the empty apartment across the hall. They actually wanted me to move into the apartment, but Yaping and I insisted that that would be too inconvenient. Instead, I would just have to go to the second apartment to shower and wash dishes. Though I’ve mentioned how my shower is a deathtrap, it was nothing compared to the shower facilities in my second apartment. The shower head was connected to the wall at about chest level, the water came out black, and usually it just dribbled out. Even though many may see this as unpleasant, according to others in the building, I actually had it good. When I mentioned the black water to another apartment resident, she just shrugged and said, “My water comes out red.” And another occupant just said, “Well, sure, if it comes out black, you just let it run for a few minutes. It’ll go away eventually.” But like I said, I accept these frustrations as just part of living in a big city. And once I get passed the friendly elevator riders, and hit the streets Shanghai, I am faced with the daunting task of circumnavigating the sprawling city. Walking has always been my main way of getting around. I’ve gotten used to cars honking and I no longer fear for my life when crossing the streets. The only hazard that persists is bike traffic. Bike riding is huge in Shanghai, as it is all over China. Before the 1980s, nearly all Chinese made do with bicycles. But after the recent economic transitions, there’s a new passion for car buying. More than 200 million cars were sold in China last year – 80 percent more than in 2002. But even with all of the car buying, bikes are everywhere and they often make life difficult for pedestrians. Though the actions of Shanghai car drivers have become more predictable, the actions of bikers remain very unpredictable. With very little warning, bikers can come at you from both sides by zipping around corners. And they’ll often hop the curb onto the sidewalk right in front of you. And motorbikes have free reign on the sidewalks. I’ve seen motorcyclists roll right up to sidewalk entrance of any business and do their business transactions without even leaving their motorcycle’s seat. And bikes can be parked anywhere. Long stretches of parked bikes often leave little room on the sidewalks for pedestrians. In fact, along one road to the Jiao Tong campus, you can’t even use the sidewalks because of all the parked bikes. So a lot of students have to walk on the streets instead, where they get honked at by traffic and cars have to dodge around them. Another common way of getting around is the subway, especially when the place I want to go is too far to walk. It’s actually very easy to pay for the subway; I have a transportation card that I just swipe across a screen on the subway turnstile. In fact, this transportation card can be used for practically every means of public transportation in Shanghai. Such a card wouldn’t be possible in America since different companies own different means of public transportation. But in Shanghai, all public transportation is controlled by the government. So I can use the same transportation card for the subways, taxis, and busses. As for using taxis, I can only take the taxi to and from my apartment and the university. I am confident in my pronunciation of my apartment location (Wanping Nan Lu, Ling Ling Lu) and the college (Jiao Tong Da Xue). But I fear mispronouncing other locations and ending up near Inner Mongolia. Compounding this fear is the fact that a lot of the taxi drivers speak Shanghainese. Though Shanghainese is a dialect of Mandarin, it’s practically a totally different language. People who speak Shanghainese cannot understand speakers of Mandarin, and vice versa. So even though my Mandarin pronunciation might be dead-on, a Shanghainese-speaking taxi driver will have no idea what I am trying to say. I once hailed a cab, sat in the backseat, and asked a driver to go to Xujiahui – a very well-known area of city, the Times Square of Shanghai. The driver had no clue what I was saying. I was pretty sure I was pronouncing Xujiahui correctly - taxi drivers in the past had understood me - so I just said Xujiahui a few more times. Still the taxi driver couldn’t understand me. I thought to myself, “More 30,000 taxis in this city and I get in the one with a driver who’s never heard of Xujiahui.” So I got out and walked. When I explained the ordeal to Yaping, she said, “The driver probably spoke Shanghainese.” But the public transportation that still vexes me the most is the buses. I’ve mentioned my frustrations with Chinese buses before in my Beijing journal, but I’ve discovered even more frustrations. For example, Shanghai buses will not linger for more than 5 seconds at a stop. So if you are waiting for a bus, when the bus comes to a stop, there is always a mad rush as soon as the doors open. And buses don’t always stop at the same point - you never know where it will come to a complete stop. You sometimes see crowds sprinting from the spot they expected the bus to stop at to the new spot the bus driver decided to stop. And if you are riding the bus and your stop is coming up, you have no choice but to leave your seat while the bus is still moving and wait by the door. If you are not standing by the door when the bus stops at your destination, there’s a good chance you’ll miss your 5 second window for disembarking from the bus. Let me be fair and say that there’s one thing I actually love about the Chinese buses. Some buses have television monitors set up around the bus, and on these TVs, they usually show a continuous loop of advertisements and news shows. But sometimes, they show really funny home videos of animals. As many of you may know, I love funny home videos of animals. Although it may seem strange for a bus to provide animal videos as their cabin entertainment, it’s even stranger how no one else on the bus is laughing out loud – or I should say, laughing as loud as I am. So there I’ll be - laughing riotously at a water-skiing squirrel and dogs biting people on the crotch, and then I’ll look around the bus and see people ignoring the videos, looking at their watches, and grimacing at the traffic. I just don’t get it. So walking remains my primary means of getting around the city, even though I’m missing out on funny animal videos. By the way, as I walk the streets of the city, I often get a glimpse at Chinese attitudes towards animals. Pets in Shanghai are not all that common. Once in a while you’ll see someone walking a small dog, but for the most part, there are not a lot of cat and dog owners. And after asking a few people about it, I’ve found out that it’s more common for Chinese people to fear cats and dogs than to own them as pets. For example, and I swear I am not making this up, but I once saw a young Chinese woman become frozen in terror at the sight of a stray kitten. Also, and again I am not making this up, I’ve also seen grown men and women shriek and scurry away at the sight of a stray puppy. On the other hand, I’ve seen people handling snakes and eels at the local food market without batting an eyelash. And by the way, I guess snakes are in season right now - just the other day I saw an old man at a market holding two four foot long snakes, one in each hand. The snakes were mostly yellow with a little brown, and they looked very ornery. But the man was just casually sitting on a stool, waiting for someone to buy them for dinner. And it’s very common in these alley markets for the meat sellers to slaughter the animals right in front of the customers. In fact, when buying food, the Chinese prefer choosing a live animal and then watching it get butchered. After the recent bird-flu scare, however, markets could no longer sell live chickens. People had to buy frozen chickens from the grocery store and, according to new health restrictions, could no longer buy live chickens from the market. As soon as these health restrictions were put in place, there was a huge public outcry. Many Chinese complained that they were being denied the right to have freshly killed chickens. There were many editorials in the paper saying that buying frozen chicken in the store was an affront to the habits of the Chinese. Many letters claimed that freshly killed chickens were more nutritious and tastier. So in response to this public outcry, a new set of regulations were put in place and food markets were allowed to resume on-site killing and butchering chickens for their customers. Though Chinese attitudes toward animals may vary from American attitudes, I’ve never actually witnessed animal cruelty towards any pets or strays. And I rarely let Chinese opinions about animals and food deter me from trying out Chinese cuisine. However, there are two places in Shanghai where I eat regularly, and I have to admit, in both places I usually find myself ordering meatless dishes. Both restaurants are right next to the college campus. Yaping translates the name of both places as “Little Happy, Cheap.” They are right next to each other, so maybe they are owned by the same person - that would explain why they both have the same name. One “Little Happy, Cheap” serves more noodle-based dishes; here I always get “spicy noodles with egg.” The other “Little Happy, Cheap” serves more rice-based dishes; here I always get “egg and tomato fried rice.” Now the reason I always get the same meals at each restaurant is not because I’m not interested in trying something else, it is because I cannot pronounce the names of the meals. The way I order food is I have Yaping write down the Chinese characters of certain choices from the menu in my pocket notebook. And then, when I want to go eat, I just take out my pocket notebook and point at appropriate characters. Not only is the food in these places pretty good, but it’s amazingly cheap. For example, consider how much I pay for a large bowl of spicy noodles, large enough to fill anyone in just one serving: 45 cents. I could buy 10 Chinese dinners with amount of money it would cost me to buy one American fast food meal. When I decide to walk to one of the Little Happy, Cheaps for dinner, there are various routes I take. But there’s one route that I use more frequently because it’s definitely the one with the fewest traffic hazards. This is the same route I often take to campus. During classes, I often invited my fellow teachers to allow me to be their guide on this secret passageway, boasting of its low traffic. Unfortunately, most of them declined, preferring to take the bus to campus instead. Recently, the route has become even less trafficky because of road construction. As of June, the city of Shanghai has been trying to get all of their electrical and communication cables underground. And I can understand why. When walking the streets of Shanghai, I am often surprised by how wires seem to be hanging randomly from telephone poles, trees, lampposts, awnings, footbridges, and whatever. Having once worked at a telephone company, I can say that the knotted splicing and low-hanging wires - some drooping so low you’d think taller folks must often collide with them - would definitely not be up to code by American standards. The massive project to get the wires underground has large backhoes all around Shanghai gouging trenches into the city streets. One of those streets was once the only trafficky part on my route to school. But now that there’s a trench being dug right down the middle of the street, there’s a construction island that offers safe harbor as I cross the street. But it must be hell for car traffic. So after my walking and then having dinner at one of the Little Happy, Cheaps, I usually head over to Yaping’s. Her apartment is on the same block as the Little Happy, Cheaps. Usually, I’ll just hang out there until I am ready to go for a run. Jiao Tong opened a brand new running track the first week of July and I’ve been trying to run there every night since. It’s a nice track and very new – the Astroturf still smells fresh. When I am ready for a run, I head to the track and run a few laps. Once I finish running, that’s the end of my daily routine - it’s time I head home. The routine varies on certain days. On Sundays, Yaping and I definitely try to make a day outing to some interesting part of Shanghai. Usually that interesting place often turns out to be a restaurant, of which there is no short supply in Shanghai. In fact, when I was still teaching classes, Wednesday was also a day for discovering a new restaurant. In a kind of weekly event, all the American teachers from my apartment floor would go out to a non-Chinese restaurant on Wednesday nights. For some reason, this weekly event became known as “Pigshack Wednesday” – I believe it had something to do with how one of our students, not one of mine, said that having a tight-knit group of friends is like living in a “pigshack.” Choosing non-Chinese restaurant didn’t reflect any cultural bias, we just wanted to explore the more unique restaurants of Shanghai. Among our outings, we went to a Tex-Mex restaurant called “Taco Popo,” an Indian restaurant called “Pujabi’s,” a Mexican restaurant “Zapatas,” and a Brazilian restaurant called “Brazil’s.” Among these places, I had a few favorites. For food, my favorite place was “Pujabi’s.” In fact, I took my mother there when she came to Shanghai. For atmosphere, my favorite place was “Zapatas,” which I am sure is the only restaurant in Shanghai that has a stepladder to help patrons step onto the bar for some bar dancing. For uniqueness, my favorite place was “Brazil’s,” a place where servers walk to each table offering assorted kinds of meat on spears. And if you give them the thumbs-up to any selections, they’ll slice a few slabs of the meat into your plate. You might think that eating out is my only Shanghai routine. But really, most of the time, I prefer eating at one of the Little Happy, Cheaps. And I go to these places not just because of the food, they are also good places for people-watching. A lot of locals eat at the Little Happy, Cheaps, mostly students and businessmen. So another common routine while teaching classes was going to the Crowne after class, grabbing my Shanghai Daily and China Daily, then going to one of the Little Happy, Cheaps. There, I would eat noodles, read the newspapers, and watch the locals. You also might think all I ever do in Shanghai is hang out in restaurants. But before the weather got too hot, I used to spend my free time reading in the park near campus. Once the weather got a little too warm, I moved my reading to the balcony of my apartment. Now that the weather is scorching, I have to read in my air-conditioned bedroom. But reading on the balcony was the best. There was a time during the month of June when the temperature was perfect for reading on the balcony. I would read and glance up periodically to watch traffic on the Lupu Bridge or check for oil tankers on Huangpu River. And I would especially make sure to start reading right before the sun set and stay on the balcony until well after dark, glancing up from my reading periodically to watch the sunset. I guess there’s been so many variations of my routine, it’s hard to say I’ve ever had a routine. And whenever I did have a routine it would get jumbled up after a trip out of city. BUT, the main purpose of the routine has always been to get more familiar with Shanghai. And I especially wanted to be familiar with Shanghai when my mother visited between May 20th and May 30th. My mother’s visit to Shanghai was an opportunity to explore the city like a real tourist again. For that first weekend, Yaping, Mom, and I visited the touristy parts of Shanghai. Though the places we visited mostly catered to tourists, when our weekend was finally over, I had a whole new perspective of the city. First on our agenda was visiting the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. The tower is the most distinctive feature of the Shanghai skyline. It’s the city’s tallest structure, reaching the height of 1400 feet. It could be described as resembling a rocket ship. But you could also say it resembles a hypodermic needle with three red “bubbles” at different points along its height. There’s one big bubble at the base, a second bubble of the same size 2/3 of the way up, and a smaller bubble halfway up the “needle.” At the middle bubble, you’ll find an observation deck and a rotating restaurant. The top bubble just has an observation deck. Most people go to the second bubble because the highest bubble is very expensive. Mom, Yaping, and I just went to the second bubble, but the view was amazing. The immense size of Shanghai became clear to me for the first time. Our second must see part of Shanghai was the Bund. The word “bund” is an Anglo-Indian term for muddy waterfront area. And it’s appropriate since Shanghai was actually built on a muddy waterfront along the Huangpu River, which would explain why the city sank several meters between 1920-1970. But the Bund is mostly known for the classic European architecture of several buildings along the river. All the buildings are international banks, thus the Bund is often referred to as the Wall Street of Shanghai. Along the waterfront, on the east side of the river, with the Bund visible on the opposite bank, mom and I posed with an edition of our small, local newspaper, “The Thousand Island Sun.” This newspaper is so small and local that it frequently publishes pictures of local families traveling abroad. From our vantage point, Mom was amazed with how the east side of the river, with the Pearl Tower, was so developed while the west side still retained classic architecture. On Saturday, we visited the Old Town area where mom bought several souvenirs, including paper-cuts, fans, and some traditional Chinese paintings. And on Sunday, we visited another ancient town, Zhou Zhuang. Zhou Zhuang is actually a short bus ride south of Shanghai and draws many tourists because it is considered one of the oldest villages of China. And it’s also known to be the Chinese Venice because instead of having streets, the village has canals. Walking along the city’s canals and over its bridges, we found Zhou Zhuang to be a very picturesque. One local artist was actually catapulted to worldwide fame after painting the village’s famous Double Bridge. Thoroughly charmed by Zhou Zhuang, we reluctantly boarded our bus back to Shanghai at around 4pm. As our bus drove us back into Shanghai, Mom again mentioned how there’s such a contrast between the old and the new in the city. I never really thought of the city in this way, but I realized she spoke the truth. Then, to cap off our weekend, we had a Sunday night dinner with Xiaohong and He Yan, two of Yaping’s colleagues from Jiao Tong. Actually, my mother had previously met Xiaohong and He Yan when they taught at Highline. In fact, mom had to remind me that we once joined He Yan for dinner at her Seattle apartment. During our Shanghai dinner, mom tried her best at working the chopsticks. Once or twice she would try spearing the food with one of her chopsticks, I guess in an effort to eat it like a shish kebab. Throughout the weekend, I saw mom reliving the same frustrations I had when I first came to Shanghai. She was sometimes uncomfortable with Chinese people staring at her. She was a bit timid in crossing the road, and surprised by all of the honking. And she couldn’t understand why the Chinese seemed to make things more complicated than they needed to be. And I kept warning her about the shower in my apartment. It was funny - I was speaking of it like it was this evil thing that lurked in my bathroom. After her first shower, I knocked on the bathroom door to check to see if she survived. I was surprised when she said she found nothing diabolical about the shower. Unfortunately, the week was the hottest and most humid in Shanghai so far. The temps were between 90 and 100 the whole week. The humidity was high and the haze was thick. And my mother absolutely detests heat and humidity. On most days during her visit, whenever she was in my apartment, she would retreat to her bedroom where the air conditioning was blasting. Each room has air-conditioning, but the A.C. in her room was running pretty much 24/7. I referred to the room as “Mom’s Igloo.” On Monday, Mom and I explored more of Shanghai, but this time we were accompanied by He Yan instead of Yaping. We first checked out the Jade Buddha Temple, and then went to People’s Square. We finished our day at the Shanghai Museum. Then, we said “good-bye” to He Yan and headed back to the apartment where I prepared dumplings for dinner. I think my mother was surprised with my proficiency in buying frozen dumplings at the nearby grocery store and then boiling them in a wok. The next few days were class days for me. While I was out teaching, Mom did mom things like buy various fruits and vegetables that she found lacking in my fridge. She also bought me a fresh set of clothespins. And of course, she also did laundry, folded and ironed clothes, and did a lot of cleaning up. None of this was at my behest, I swear. On Wednesday, Yaping invited us to a faculty singing competition at the college. Singing competitions between faculty departments are common in many Chinese colleges. As many of you may know, karaoke is very popular in China. Its popularity shows that the Chinese are not shy about singing in public. In China, no one is ever shamed for having an imperfect singing voice. If you have a voice, you can sing. And so without any concerns about anybody being unqualified to sing, these singing competitions offer an opportunity for the faculty members of all departments to sing their hearts out. I tried to imagine such an event in the states. It made me chuckle to imagine Highline’s Math faculty belting out “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” in a bid to outshine the Computer Science faculty’s rendition of “Mr. Sandman.” Jiao Tong’s singing competition was an all-day event. Mom and I didn’t show up until 4pm, when Yaping’s department, Foreign Languages, was scheduled to perform. We arrived early enough to get a glimpse of Yaping’s competition and we were impressed. Each department seemed to go all out. They had matching costumes, professional instrumentalists, including pianists and accordion-players, and tons of enthusiasm. Some of the performers got all puffed up and Pavarotti in their performance. During a duet in the Business Finance performance, the male singer kept swinging grand gestures at the audience and gazing longingly at his female singing partner. There was a professional camera that was constantly swooping around the stage during each performance. At one point, he came over to take a picture of Mom and me because we were the only foreigners in the audience. Unfortunately, like all of the other theatre performances I’ve seen in China, the crowd never goes quiet. Even when someone is performing, the crowd continues to murmur to each other. There seems to be no effort to be respectfully silent during a performance. As soon as Yaping’s department came out, I predicted they would win best costume – if there were such an award. The department was all women, and their costumes seemed tailored and colored to make them all resemble Jane Jetson from “The Jetsons.” And then they sang - and they totally blew the roof off the place. They had been practicing rigorously for months and it showed. They were focused, professional, and very serious about singing their hearts out. They could have put the Vienna Boys Choir to shame. They ended up winning the competition. The award was a hefty sum of money for the department. They decided to use it for a department trip. Yaping pulled a few strings so that I could come on the trip too…but that trip’s in the next journal. The next day, I had my last class of the week on the main campus. I decided it might be a treat for both my mom and my students to have her come in for the last 10 minutes of class as a kind of guest speaker. I started the class by saying, “I have a special guest coming at the end of class today. First, I’ll let you know that she is an American.” There was a murmur of excitement among the class. Then I said, “Also, she has been teaching English for over 35 years.” The murmur of excitement was even louder this time. Finally, I said, “And she also happens to be my mother.” Then the class burst into thunderous applause. I told them they should give the same applause when my mother entered the room. So near the end of class, during a young woman’s speech, I saw my mother wandering the hallway looking for my classroom. (Yet again, it was a very hot day and when I realized the overhead fans were not working in my usual classroom, I moved the whole class to a room where the fans did work. The new classroom was much cooler; however, it wasn’t the classroom I told my mother to meet me in.) When I saw her, I didn’t want to interrupt the student’s speech, so I went to the door, made silent gesture for Mom to wait outside the classroom for a moment, then returned to my podium. Once the student finished her speech, I told the class that we had completed our class work and in our last 15 minutes, I had a few surprises. First of all, it was the end of the month and that meant we had some birthdays to celebrate. As a way to dispense my American gifts, I found out which students had birthdays each month. And at the end of each month, I would distribute gifts to the students who had a birthday that month. Plus, we would all sing the “Happy Birthday” song in English. So with my mother waiting outside, I gave gifts to the two students with May birthdays: Thomas Paine and Betty. After the two students received their presents, I figured I needed an excuse to finally let mom into the classroom. So I said as an added bonus, my mother who “has a beautiful singing voice” would like to join us in singing “Happy Birthday.” Mom didn’t know she was expected to sing and she’s actually a bit shy about her singing, but I figured her voice would be drowned out by the students’ singing anyway. So finally I asked Mom to walk in. And there was thunderous applause and my mother was all smiles and “thank yous.” Then, I said, “OK, now let’s sing!” And so we sang. But I noticed the students were not singing as loud as usual. It soon dawned on me that they were singing quietly so they could hear my mother’s “beautiful singing voice.” Unfortunately, I made her singing the center of attention. I tried to get the students to join in more loudly, but they were all rapt with watching my mother sing as best she could. After the singing, I told the two birthday people, as an added gift, they could each ask one question of my mother. I knew that if I let the whole class ask questions, we would be in that classroom all day. (Another enjoyable part of teaching in China – the students are not getting ready to go 5 minutes before the end of class. In fact, they won’t even consider gathering themselves to leave until I say, “Class dismissed.”) So Mom walked up to the podium and Betty asked the first questions, “Could you please introduce yourself?” I imagined my mother, starting with, “It all began on a dark stormy night back in September 28th [year withheld] when Karen L. Bronner was brought into the world…” My mother’s not given to histrionics, but she has had a very colorful life. I had to stop myself from saying, “I’m sorry, Betty, but could you ask a question that mom won’t spend the next hour in providing the answer.” Before I could tell Mom to keep her answer under 10 minutes, she showed the utmost degree of restraint and simply focused on her career as a teacher. She didn’t even touch on her hobby as a private pilot. Then Thomas Paine asked his question, “What was your impression of China before visiting and what is your impression now?” First, of course, she talked about Chinese food. But mostly she talked about her fascination with the contrast between the old and the new in Shanghai. It was fun watching my mother stand at the podium and field questions from my students. She is totally in her element speaking before a class. And my students totally adored her. They provided more thunderous applause after I concluded the Q&A. And several students walked up to her after class to welcome her to China. And so with my last class of the week finally complete, it was time to focus on more sight-seeing. On Friday, Yaping, Mom, and I set off for a day-trip in Suzhou. Suzhou, a city north of Shanghai, is supposed to be as enchanting as Hangzhou. Except instead of having a big lake, Suzhou has gardens. But the city’s gardens are looked upon as works of art – a fusion of nature and architecture intended to calm the mind and relax the senses. Throughout the day we visited gardens called “The Humble Administrator’s Garden” and “The Garden of the Master of Nets.” These gardens were not just flowers and weeds, they had cobble-stone trails, rock formations, tunnels through boulders, ponds, streams, bridges, the whole works. Some even had teahouses and little gazebos. Even if you weren’t into gardens, you couldn’t deny that the places had charm. We also visited a place called “Tiger Hill” where they had a leaning pagoda, closely resembling the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Suzhou is also known for its silk so Mom also wanted to buy some silk while she was there. Before we left, mom found a suitable silk place and bought a few meters of a dark blue print. As the day came to a close, we headed back to the train station. Now, in my travels around China, I’ve found it’s very common for beggars to hang around train stations. And the beggars commonly pursue foreigners. And among the beggars, there are usually some who are disfigured and missing limbs. As we left our taxi and walked to the Suzhou train station, Mom had the unfortunate experience of being chased by a beggar with no legs. He sat on a board with wheels, and with a brick in each hand, he pushed himself along the pavement. When I spotted the man, I shook my head to indicate I had nothing to offer him, then headed for the train terminal. He then went after Yaping and Mom. With them he was much more aggressive. He blocked their paths and once they walked around him, he basically tried to run them over from behind. He shouted as he chased after them and mom was quite scared. Luckily, they reached a point where he could go no further. Mom was a little shaken up and I felt bad that I wasn’t by her side during the ordeal. But I can say, she glimpsed a very real truth about poverty in China. The next day, Saturday, was my mother’s last full day in China. First, we headed to Shanghai’s Fabric Market, Dong Jia Du, so that I could pick up a suit and jacket that I had tailored. But also I knew mom would love the Fabric Market. The place is huge and there are more than 300 different stalls, and each stall sells a wide selection of fabric. After perusing several stalls, she found some satisfactory silk. She bought a few meters and declared her silk shopping now complete. In our search for silk, we had also visited Shanghai’s most famous silk store, so famous Hillary Clinton once bought a dress there. That place was interesting. Not because I know good silk, and they had it, but because of their clientele – they had pictures of presidents and prime ministers from various part of the world buying silk in their store. I think there was a picture of Richard Nixon buying a dress. Dong Jia Du is also known to draw a lot of foreigners, not because of famous clientele, but because of high quality fabric and world-class tailoring for a very cheap price. I had a traditional Chinese jacket hand-tailored in cashmere and it only cost $50. And my tailored suit was only $60. Before we left, as a thank you to Yaping for all of her help during my mother’s stay, Mom and I bought her a tailored silk shirt. After Dong Jia Du, it was time to visit the Jin Mao Tower. Jin Mao is the second most recognizable feature of the Shanghai skyline. It’s almost as tall as the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, reaching the height of 1265 feet, but it’s an actual building with offices, restaurants, and a hotel. Jin Mao gained notoriety the year before for having parachuters jump from the top. Since we visited the Pearl Tower on the first day of Mom’s trip, I thought visiting Jin Mao Tower would be a nice bookend to her trip. So from the Fabric Market, we took a ferry across the Huangpu River, and then rode the elevator to Jin Mao’s 55th floor. On this floor there are four different restaurants, and a martini bar. Yaping, Mom, and I first hung out in the martini bar and listened to the jazz trio. The martini bar of Jin Mao is amazing because even though there are 33 more floors above you, you can see clear to the very top of the tower. There’s open area between floor 55 and tower’s top. All 33 floors above the martini bar belong to the tower’s hotel and the rooms encircle the open space. After an hour in the martini bar, we chose the Italian restaurant for dinner. The outer wall of the restaurant was all glass, so we found a table that overlooked the west side of the river. From our height, we could see the Bund and Old Town. And from our table we could see the Pearl Tower - it was like our trip had come full circle. The sun was setting over Shanghai as we ate our Italian dishes. We watched the lights of the city come on. I mentioned to Mom that the night was my favorite time for sightseeing in Shanghai. At night, the streets are drenched in ultra-neon; and you can definitely feel the pulse of the city. As we finished our meals, and settled back to take in one last look at Shanghai, it was a bittersweet moment. My mother would be leaving the next day. But we had seen a lot of Shanghai. And I had been able to show her around the city. And I would be resuming my routine after mom left. I’d
continue walking the streets of Shanghai, exploring the parts beyond where Mom,
Yaping, and I had already treaded. It was hard to believe I hadn’t seen
everything already in my two months in Shanghai, but I know there is so much
more to discover.
|
||