Street scenes, the Subway and Blooming Tea

A large part of my time here is spent in transit, either on foot, in a cab or on the subway. This post is dedicated to the things I’ve seen along the way. I think I’ve already mentioned that my feet will never be the same due to the amount of walking I’ve been doing, seriously like over 10 blisters within the first few days but I got some sweet new tennies and now Iook like a real resident of the US with my shiny New Balance’s and dress clothes en route to work.

The subway has been very entertaining for a number of reasons; many of you know and love me for my shamelessness and this is one of the few things that I feel I have very much in common with Chinese people. They are completely shameless, which makes people watching better than ever. My most recent subway saga involved walking through the Guilin Lu station and having the girl in front of me stop dead in her tracks. Naturally, this caught my attention and I followed her gaze to a tiny little brown mouse scurrying along with the rest of us apparently headed for the number 9 to Middle Yanggao Road. Well, a girl who was probably 18 or older also noticed the mouse and began furiously chasing it until it slipped back up into the wall. The animal excitement didn’t end there; I need to preface the next part of the story with this little caveat. Security is pretty serious on the subways you have to walk through a metal detector and if you make eye contact with the guards you have to put your bag through an x-ray machine before you can scan your transit card; there is a long list in Chinese (and pictures for the rest of us) of all of the items and behaviors prohibited on the subway among them no smoking, no spitting and no animals. Well imagine my surprise, in the same day as the mouse incident, as I exited the train at Middle Yanggao (the end of line 9 I might add) when a man walked off with a pigeon in a cage. Yes. A pigeon. It was a perfect subway day.

The other experiences that stand out are the adorable 5-year-old named Kevin who, prompted by his parents, talked to me one night on my way home. He told me his name, his baby sister’s name- Mia, and tried to feed me potato chips in between blowing me kisses. It was quite a spectacle for the full subway car needless to say. Then there was the day that a guy my age sat down next to me and asked in perfect English if I spoke Chinese. This was fairly startling, but I was thrilled to speak with someone in English since it was only my second or third day commuting. He told me I was very beautiful and asked if he could have my number because he was a photographer and wanted to take my picture. I burst out laughing and said well no, and he seemed surprised so I explained that I didn’t know who he was and I wasn’t just handing out my number. He ended up telling me about the art school he went to in China and that he works for an ad agency and offered to show me some of his work on his tablet. He is a good photographer and I shared my blogs with him, he gave me his number and told me to think about modeling for him and to call. He also offered to teach me Chinese, which I would seriously consider. Needless to say, I haven’t called him yet but if I do I will definitely update here.

Here are some photos from our adventures around town and the subway. Notice the Hotel Thing Confluence, that’s where we go to get all kinds of random kitchen and household accessories. Its literally a market that sells anything from dishes to cleaning supplies to furnish hotels or locals such as ourselves, they also have tailors making uniforms for the multitude of service industry jobs. There are a couple of photos of a restaurant in Pudong called East West that has house cats, which I of course LOVED! Trent forbade me from petting them on the grounds that the last time I was there they circled and attacked a dog. Hard to believe when you see them grooming one another, sigh, needless to say I heeded his advice. Although the calico came right up to me and wanted some loving, I resisted and just documented them thinking all the while of my little Gus back in the mitten. I really do miss the little beast and can’t wait to bring him here in January. Even though, his caregivers have renamed him the bully I still miss him.

The sidewalk scenes are my route to work on the Pudong side, with a detail of these whimsical pink flowers that fall out of the trees and litter the sidewalk which I love and I also walk past the Chia Thai Life Style everyday which is a shopping mall connected to Lotus, my preferred grocery store so far. The only issue is for some reason I always want to call it Locust, which amuses Trent and so now I say it on purpose of course. Last but not least, Jasmine tea that blooms when you drop it into your hot water. We saw this on a documentary about Shanghai that we got from the library back in Milwaukee, and I’ve been dying to try it. Its delicious and beautiful, I’m hooked. 

Asian Death Flowers

Well, my apologies again! I had every intention of completely getting you all up to date over the long weekend but instead I managed to catch an icky little cold. Maybe it is the pollution, which is excessive, or maybe as Trent's Chinese tutor suggested it was the Spider Chrysanthemums that I bought at the Bird and Flower Market our first week here. Hua Wai, Trent's tutor, was appalled because he thought my students gave them to me for teachers day, but the reality was that I had mixed them in with the roses from my students. Hua Wai suggested that I was sick because we have the death flowers in the house. I'm feeling much better today and caught a lucky little break with not only a 4 day week but I also only have to teach half days which has helped tremendously in my recovery process. My last class is technically Shanghai Institute of Technology Students and they have the week off so I get to start my 1.5 hour journey home at noon. The only downfall is how absolutely, swelteringly hot it is at noon.

I read about the Bird and Flower market at The Bean and Tea Leaf at Thumb Plaza our first weekend here and was dying to go. It sounded way too perfect to pass up. It was a truly interesting experience. We went to a smaller one, yes there are multiple Bird and Flower markets throughout Shanghai, and they had more than just birds and flowers. They had fish and turtles of every shape and size. They also had crickets of varying sizes and cages for keeping them in, I'm serious there was a cricket the size of a mouse! We ended up buying an orchid and a little leafy plant for the kitchen, I think the people working at the market were just as interested to see us as we were to see them and their wares. Needless to say, we will be going back I loved it and we were lucky that it wasn't one with too many animals crammed uncomfortably into cages which is unfortunately quite common at other markets.

The first photo is the first look I had of the market it was kind of U-shaped with little stalls crammed on both sides full to the gills with randomness. You can also see the buckets of yellow and white Spider Mums or flowers of death on the right, beware! The black birds with the colorful beaks were all over the place at the market, they were the closest thing to parrots for sale and as one shop owner demonstrated they can be trained to speak. She called out "ni-hao" in a high pitched voice and a chorus of "ni-haos" screeched back in response. It was a very memorable experience, and you can see me with the beautiful white orchid that now lives in our bedroom. Hopefully, white orchids aren't the symbol of something else death or illness related, if so please advise!

Our little slice of Shanghai

Trent and I live in a beautiful apartment complex called Qingshui Garden with at least 27 buildings, I say at least because we live in building 27 but I have no idea how many there are! There are lots of families that live here and they're mostly Chinese and Korean. Pu Dong is an area well populated by ex pats from all over the world but somehow I still manage to draw a decent amount of attention where ever I am. People say hello to me and speak English to me occasionally, I feel very much like I'm still in DeWitt quite often. Why? you're asking, how is this possible? Well, because everyone stares at me! They peer into my face inquisitively as if I am the giant white girl they met that one time at that one party or something. Most of the time I don't mind and I just peer back at them, but in my moments of frustration I wish I could blend in or if they're going to stare at me I wish they would just ask me whatever they're wondering. Sometimes they smile back at me and say ni hao and a lot of people do speak English but I haven't really gotten to know anyone just yet.

Luckily Trent has been here for a month longer than me and in that time he has been taking Chinese lessons. I have picked up some of the survival phrases for shopping/buying food on my own but otherwise I really don't know any Chinese. One of Trent's co-workers is interested in doing a language exchange with me, basically we get together and I have conversations with her in English to help her improve and she in turn tutors me in Chinese. I'm excited to get started I think it will be really helpful for both of us.

Below are photos from our neighborhood, from our balcony and the window in the hallway by the elevator and of the buildings, walk ways, ponds and trees throughout the complex.  There are details of the beautiful vegetation and that last photo is our living room, the beautiful flowers were a gift from the students in my first class because today is Teacher's Day in China it was such a wonderful way to end my very first week teaching. It definitely had its ups and downs but I finally feel like I am doing something that puts my 6 years of college to use in an equally challenging and rewarding environment. Looking at these photos I realize I need to take a lot more to help you have a more well rounded understanding. Unfortunately, this blog can't convey the complete picture no matter how hard I try. So much of what makes this city so unique and memorable are the smells and the sounds. I could take 1,000 street scene photos but without the humming of motors, frequent blaring horns, bike bells, yelling and all of the different smells literally layers of smells sometimes awful sometimes good. Basically you just have to come and see for yourself, I will never be able to express how vibrant, alive and stimulating this city truly is.