Chris’ Blog

This is my second attempt at writing this update. The first was interupted by a power outage. It was quite startling. I was typing away, deep into the literary process when “POP!” Everthing went dark and my heart just about exploded. Normally I wouldn’t be so jumpy, but yesterday I connected our printer and scanner that we brought back from Canada with us. They run off 120 V of course so that meant I had to by a transformer. Now I don’t know why, but every transformer that I’ve ever seen never has a three-prong jack. I guess running a wire from one end to the other is just too much work. The usual solution to this problem is to pull the ground prong out of the plug and away you go. I went one step better and bought an adapter that plugs into a two-prong jack but itself has a three-prong jack. So yesterday I was hooking everything up and the printer is supposed to be grounded, but isn’t and when I went to connect the USB cable to the computer there were some sparks which made me a little nervous, but not enough to do anything about it. But it was still something that was in the back of my mind and when the power went out and I heard a pop and I thought, “What have I done?!” and then I screamed. Christine thought I had hurt myself and came running in. I was okay. So now we have no power and I’ve lost a good page of writing. My first reaction is to just wait for the power to come on, but then I start thinking…”This is China. The power might not just come back on. What if I’m the only one without power.” I check the breaker box and evrything is normal. Christine thinks that I should go outside so I do and I can hear other people with tv’s and radio’s going, so we decide that it’s just us. We also remember hearing drilling above us just before the power went out, so we decide it probably had something to do with that. Well, I could call one of the guys from work who could call our landlord (who only speaks Chinese) and tell him….except that my addressbook is on the computer…and the power is out. We decide to try to tell the guard downstairs at the front desk. I pull out my trusty phrase book and look up electricity…dian. So I head downstairs, find the guard and say “bu dian” (no electricity…I hope). He spouts back a barrage of Chinese of which the only part I could understand, probably because he repeated that part five times, was “san tian”. Okay. So I guess he knows about the problem. So I head back up to our apartment. In the elevator I look up tian in the phrase book. I know than san means three and find out that tian means DAYS! That’s a problem. Three days is too long with no electricity. Back upstairs Christine and I decide to try to talk to the English speaking couple who live on our floor. Well that was our best idea so far. Ten minutes later a guy comes by, looks to see that our lights are off, goes into the utility room and throws a switch and back on comes the power.

Back Where I Started

Okay, so now that that is out of the way I will try to remember the start of this e-mail that I had already typed a week ago. I think the beginning said something like…

This update has many pictures and so will be broken into parts for those people who for no good reason use a hotmail account. If you are one of those people and are saying to yourself, “I don’t know of any reason why hotmail is not good.” Then I will tell you. Hotmail comes with only 2 MB of e-mail storage. That should be reason enough if you ask me. But I can go on. In addition you can only use the Hotmail website or Outlook or Outlook Express to access your e-mail. This is far too limited in my mind. I would suggest that you switch to Yahoo! e-mail where you are given 6 MB of storage, can check your e-mail online, set it up as a POP3 account (meaning you can use any e-mail program to check it) or have it forward the e-mail to another account, even your Hotmail account, although I can’t imagine why you would do that.

Our Place

I’ve included a nice picture of our place. From the right angle it actually looks quite nice. I’ve also included some pictures of our view. Recently they’ve undergone a mad Paint it Pink campaign where they’ve painted all the grey buildings around us pink. It could, quite possibley, drive me insane. You may also notice the picture of the rubble across the street. If you remember, when I left in February they were demolishing it one rock at a time by two guys with a hammer. Well, when Christine and I returned in June it was comlpetely levelled. They really come in under the 2010 completion date that I predicted.

The Effects of SARS

The most notable difference bewteen the pre and post-SARS Shanghai is thatthey don’t spit any more. Well, I mean they do, but not like they used to. Do you remember, there was an old Rubbermaid commercial where guys were using different Rubbermaid products as drums and they were all playing a different “instruments” and it kind of sounded like a song. Well replace the Rubbermaid sounds with people spitting, and that is what greeted us every time we left the confines of our apartment. Now, so that you understand completely, when I say spitting, I don’t mean a little pe-too, I mean people reaching deep into the dark recesses of their nasal cavities and hoarking up things long forgotten to the outside world. I once saw (actually I think it might have been two or three times) a woman walk out of a shop onto the sidewalk and blow snot from her nose straight onto the street. We call that a farmer blow back where I come from. Well, one day after Christine and I had returned we were downtown and saw this sign. It was pretty funny, so we took a picture. Who knew all it took was a sign to change a people’s lifestyle.

Our Toaster

Shortly after I arrived here in January, I realised that I needed a toaster.Is it not written that man shall not live on bread alone? Well, I must say that I was quite disapponted with the toaster selection and the price. A toaster is the same price as a bicycle, which of course is only $20, but still it doesn’t seem right. I searched through the available models and chose one that didn’t have some rice cooker attachment or something stupid and brought it home. I must say that I was quite disappointed with the resulting toast. It always seemed that one side of the toast would be good, but the other would have soft spots. I reconciled it to that Chinese just don’t care about toast. Then one day, several months later, I saw something in my toast and I realised why it had soft spots. Have a look for yourself.

Our first Visitor

We had our first visitor stay with us. Gayle Burkholder, who went to high school (not to mention junior high and university and also lived in the same apartment building as us for two years) with us came to stay with us for a week and the end of July. In my opinion a week is the perfect amount of time for a visit. When they arrive you’re happy to see them come and when they leave you’re happy to see them go. It’s a long enough amount of time that you’re able to visit and do a few fun things without feeling rushed and it’s short enough that you don’t want to kill each other when it’s time to go. Of course this theory only applies to non-family visitors. With family sometimes two days is too long and sometimes three months is too short, although the former is probably more likely. Oh, by the way, I have now cought up to where the power went out the first time, so the rest is all original unedited stuff. So Gayle arrived on a Saturday around noon. We did a small tour of Shanghai that day. We walked through a market and to a garden that we didn’t know was there before and then downtown. It’s good loop to see some of the more interesting things in Shanghai, but we were pretty tired once we were done. It was only 12 cm on the map, but I think it was more like 6 km in the real world. I’ve attached a few pictures of Yu Yuan which means something garden.

Sunday morning we jumped on the train for Nanjing, which is about 200 km west and was the capital of China for some of the dynasties. We had been there once before, but this was the first time on our own. Once we arrived we stepped out of the train station only to be assaulted by hordes of people selling tickets and trinkets and who knows what. It didn’t help matters that we were the only whities. We pushed our way through the crowd and jumped in the first available taxi and we were off to the purple mountain. There are three main attractions at the purple mountain. The first is the Xioling Tomb of Emperor Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty of 1398. The buildings aren’t very impressive because the main templet was destroyed or at least I think it was. So I didn’t include any pictures of that. Oh, and also nobody knows if the emperor is buried there anyway. The cooler part of the tomb is the sacred avenue which leads up to it. It is a pathway leading up to the entrance of the pathway that leads up to the tomb. Chinese like to have long paths that lead to something, even if the something isn’t very impressive. The sacred avenue is lined with statues of warriors and animals that are supposed to protect the emperor or something like that. They’re pretty cool. I have included pictures of some of the statues.

The second main attraction is the mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen who was the founder of the Nationalist party. The Nationalist party was in control of China before the Communists took control. The mausoleum is pretty nice, but you’re not allowed to take pictures inside, so we have mostly pictures of outside. Lots and lots of stairs.

The third attraction is a Pagoda. This pagoda is special, because you’reallowed to walk up to the top, not like the leaning pagoda in Suzhou that you can only look at. We were pretty tired when we reached the top. I think there are about 10 levels, and it was pretty interesting because as you would climb higher you could suddenly see new things that had been hidden by trees one level lower. We’ve got some pictures of that as well. Near the entrance to the long path and stairs that lead to the pagoda is a small lake. It was dug overnight by 1000 or maybe 10 000 (I can’t remember) of some emperor’s solders. Ah…to be an emperor. The best part about the pagoda is that we saw a praying mantis. I’m not sure if it was the ravenous female or the injudicious male but it sure looked cool.

While at the Purple Mountian we also tried our first attempt at eating at a place that didn’t have an English menu or pictures of any kind. With our trusty phrase book in hand we were able to order some kind of food.

After that it was back to the train station and home where we collapsed.

The rest of the week was much more relaxed. Christine and Gayle did different things during the day while I went to work. One night Gayle took us to a Korean restaurant and we ate Korean food. That was pretty good. Another evening we went on a boat tour of the Huangpu river, which divides Shanghai. We went down to the dock and got three tickets and then were told to sit in a waiting area. A little later someone came to get everyone and we followed a guy with a flag…not to a boat…but a bus. And then we were off down side streets and back alleys to some undisclosed location. Then we got off the bus and had to walk down some alley (did I remember my pepper spray?) and around a corner to find…a boat. I was actually a little disappointed. It was big and looked like it wouldn’t sink. I was expecting a dinghy with an outboard. Maybe next time.

Soon after Gayle left, we made a trip to a city called Hangzhou which is about an hour away with a coworker and his family. The people in Shanghai like Hangzhou a lot because it has trees and a big lake. The people that live in the city always want to go to places with nature.

The day started out with us planning to meet at the train station, but it turned out that the train station had moved. So we met at our place instead. We arrived at the train station, bought our tickets, waited for a while, and then we were off. There was some confusion on the way there. My co-worker, let’s cal him Limin, had not bought a ticket for his son, let’s call him Leong. When we bought the tickets, the ticket sellers said that we didn’t need one for Leong because he was a child. But it turned out that we did need a ticket for him. The place where we bought the tickets was a travel agency and probably had run out of children’s tickets, so they said that we didn’t need one so that they wouldn’t lose our business. Clever. There was a woman with her daughter in the same situation. Eventually Limin and the woman had to buy an extra ticket, but not before ten of fifteen minutes of arguing between the woman and the train ticket person. Most things here involve a good deal of arguing.

When we arrived in Hengzhou, the first place we went to was the lake. I thinkit’s called West Lake or something like that. I’ve attached a picture, appropriately called “hengzhou_lake”. We jumped in a boat that took us across the lake to the Three Moons Reflecting Pond, named after the pond where you can see the moon being reflected three times. There’s a picture of us on a bench, some girls dressing up in traditional costumes, and a great sign. You can dress up in old clothes and then get your picture taken, kind of like those antique photo shops. We just took a picture of someone else.

Then it was off to a place with a bunch of caves with statues carved into the walls. That was pretty cool. I said to Limin, “How old are these carvings?” He said, “I don’t know how many thousands of years old they are.” Riiiiight. Only in China. I’ve attached a great picture of the rock carvings. Very cool.

Then to the silk factory where we also had lunch. Mmmmmmmm silk worms. No, we didn’t eat silk worms. They’re probably too expensive. We had something else that I’ve since removed from my memory. The silk factory is pretty cool. They take the silk worm inside it’s cacoon and throw it into some hot water to loosen up the cacoon. The find the starting thread (I think this is the hardest part) and attach it to a winder. Each machine has about 20 winders that you can engage or disengage from a main spinner. Once the winder is engaged then the cacoon begins unravelling. Apparantly you can get about 1 km from a single cacoon.

Then it was off to a garden. The garden had a few interesting things, some musicians playing old instruments and singing old songs. Limin said that they’re becoming unpopular due to lake of interest by the new generation. After having a listen, I could see why. We saw the child dragon angels. That was pretty funny. And we saw a bit of a play. The play was performed in the Shanghai opera style, meaning that all the actors are women. This particular play was about a woman pretending to be a man for some reason. It’s a long a confusing love story that soon lost my interest. So, in the attached picture, one of the people is a woman pretending to be a man and the other is a woman pretending to be a woman who is pretending to be a man. I couldn’t tell you which is which.

After the garden we went to a tea factory. They sat us all down and explained the many aspects of making tea and gave us samples. Of course it was all in Chinese so I just watched all the people. And when they were all finished explaining and letting us sample the tea…then they sold us tea. I’ve got a picture of a field of tea, a guy drying tea in a large bowl, and a picture of a statue of a famous tea drinker. In China, if you really like drinking tea and if you can look very serious, then they will make a statue of you.

And after the tea factory we went to what I call oldtown. It’s kind of like Fort Edmonton, but of a Chinese city. Of course, if you don’t know what Fort Edmonton is that doesn’t really help. It’s a recreation of what the city might have looked like so many hundred years ago. The best part of the oldtown were the performances that they had. There were a bunch of guys with drums and after them a bunch of guys dancing on stilts. I’ve included pictures of course.

And after oldtown…we went home.

I see now that there were two pictures that I didn’t include from that trip yet. The first is from the place with the rock carvings. There’s a statue of a guy holding his hands out. One pointing up, the other down. It’s kind of a reference to Heaven and Hell, but the Chinese don’t really have this concept, so I think it’s more like the guy is pointing up or down. If you look down he flicks your nose; if you look up he punches you in the stomach. Oh, I also found out, later on of course, that it’s really back luck to take a picture of this statue. Oops.

We also got a picture of people and their umbrellas. I think this may have also been at the rock carvings place. If there’s one thing that the Chinese love it’s umbrellas. They have them in the winter for the rain and in the summer to block out the sun. The problem is that I hate umbrellas, especially when they’re used by other people. Many people have no concept that their umbrella is perfectly poised to gauge out my eye. Any time it rains or it’s really sunny it’s a constant battle to make it down the sidewalk without getting my eyes poked out.

Christine was teaching English for a few weeks in July and we have some pictures of some of her students. After teaching English she decided she would rather be a student than a teacher for a while and is now learning Chinese full time. She has learned quite a bit already and hopefully when she is finished the course in December we will be able to go to more restaurants.

Hot & Sour Soup

I almost forgot to mention that one evening I made hot and sour soup for two of my co-workers. I claimed that it was the best in Shanghai and after they had it they said it was very good. I take that to mean that they agreed. So, if anyone who comes to visit us they can taste my hot and sour soup.

Mission Impossible

We’ve got this great picture of the Grand Theatre in Shanghai with four guys scaling the wall. I’m not sure what they were doing.

Some Symbolism

The last picture is a great shot of Pu Dong (East Side, the new and modern part of Shanghai that was swamp land ten years ago) with the TV Tower and a boat full of coal going by. I think it symbolises a lot of what China is.

And that’s all. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.