Bloog

Monday, April 5, 2010

I just realized how to characterize what creeped (apparently not a word?) me out so much about the Pudong community the other day. It was felt and looked like a home for the elderly, but it was occupied by the young and pretty and inexplicably rich. They could have gotten their own mini-mansions elsewhere, and lived their lives in lavish seclusion, but chose to live together in the same freakish apartment complex, so that they might be more efficiently marketed to. There were postings for lectures by scholars and tutorials by experts. Adverts for the class "Mixology 101" and a lecture titled "Forld = Foreign World" were prominently displayed. 

 5:44 PM

So anyway, I just got back from walking around the Bund, which was crazy cool, sorta, but even more hot and tiring and a little boring and really tiring. Too many people there. The family couldn't quite understand why people wanted to go to the Bund, I think. It was one of those (Thank you, The Onion,) "Everyone at Bar Wonders How Everyone Else Has the Energy" moments. 

http://www.coloradoconnection.com/news/story.aspx?id=249649

11:12 PM

I just met Chinese Uncle Jeff. It was amazing and funny and odd. At first I couldn't place why I seemed to know him, and then I realized that he was basically a Chinese clone of my Uncle Jeff. How crazy is that?

It was at this awesome family party thing that I just went to. But it was the culmination of a bunch of weekend awesomeness, so I should start with other stuffs.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010, 7:32 AM

Anyway. Weekends are awesome, here. Saturday the family went to Sao Mu, which translates literally to Grave Sweeping, but is really, like, paying respects to ancestors at their graves. Burning money and eating sweet fruits in tribute to them. It was really amazing to see the graveyard, which was the biggest I've ever seen. The graves were packed really tightly together, and were in the shape of thrones. Every grave was made for a husband and wife, and each had two spots for little portraits of the deceased. The atmosphere was interesting, one of both grief and festivity. On the way up, I thought it was just going to be my family and I, but it turned out the whole extended family was there. I could see a few other families who were seriously grieving for their loved ones, but our family had a pretty jolly sort of attitude. 

Then we all, a big bunch of us, went to eat, not at a restaurant but at a pretty cool kitchen thing which the family seemed to rent, and they cooked a bunch of food themselves. I had some soft-shelled tortoise. 

Oh, like, last week, my mom packed me some snack-food-packaged duck tongue. Jason was all over it. A little too cartilage-laced for me. 

And then we walked around with just Naiyi and another dude our age and I, to a park, which was more like a well-padded outdoor series of workout implement things. It was odd and another one of those places that seems a little government infused, and I wouldn't really consider it a fun place to be, as a kid. 

And then we had dinner with the same people, in the same room, with some of the same food, which was good but again, a little odd. They had me sit down at one of the tables, and I started eating and things, and then I realized that the table I was sitting at was just dudes, and I looked over, and the other table was just women. Which didn't seem like coincidence, I don't think. 

And there was this awesome little girl there, who was learning English, so she asked me how to say "band-aid," and it was crazy cute. I've confirmed that my Mandarin is about as good as a 5 year old. 

We're all in denial that we'll be leaving Shanghai in a week, and China in two. Should I prepare myself for America again, or become further attached to life over here? I got really nice Chopsticks to bring back, so I'm prepared for whatever happens. I'll eat bagels and cereal with chopsticks. Ahh yeeah. 

Outside, public stairs here tend to have bike lanes. Little ramps on the side, so people can ride up and down the side, or if the bike is too big or has a big load of stuff on it, you can hop off and walk the bike up the side.

Us American kids have involved conversations about Chuck-E-Cheese from time to time.

http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?startat=/getthumb.asp&search=123667&c=c&aid=485555780&tid1=33 (Look! People cashing in on and misattributing crappy art to Banksy! How could someone ever think this [http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?startat=/getposter.asp&APNum=5327226&CID=6E5B8BDD1A094B559800F8C85AEA517E&PPID=1&Search=&f=t&FindID=0&P=1&PP=1&sortby=PD&c=c&page=1] is a Banksy? Auggh. Allposters.com, you just lost all respect.)

For the real stuff: www.Banksy.co.uk

A bunch of people have fake iPhones over here. Some are good fakes, and others are just clearly made for pretend. 

Okay, totally random note. I'm going to take you on a journey, now. Pretend you're opening a bag of chips. You grab the sides of the bag, and pull. Ta-da. Okay, now pretend you're opening a ketchup packet. You grip the top, and rip the perforated edge thing, right? Okay. Now come with me to China. Here, bags of chips can't be opened like bags of chips. Here you must open them like a ketchup packet. Yes, it is true. I have yet to come across a bag that can be opened like a bag of chips, but ketchup-style bags are everywhere. Crazy stuff. Also, right now, I'm eating a bag of "Ethnican Flavor" chips. They're called Inca Chips, but there's totally a Native American on the bag. 

And then on sunday we went to that party thing, described above. And yesterday I played badminton with the father for a solid two hours. It's absurd how good he is. Now I'm really sore, like, all over, because he had me sprinting around, left-right-left-right. (Zuo bian you bian zuo bian you bian, in Mandarin, which I said, all exhaustedly, after a particularly ridiculous volley. Everyone giggled.) 

(Hannah and I just found out we both have a solid appreciation for Cake. You should share our solid appreciation. We think you should start here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5KmB8Laemg)

I just realized that I'm really used to wearing slippers around the house. I come in, I take off my shoes, and I slap on those snazzy slippers. Ta-da. When I get home, I dunno what's gonna happen. If I'll pine for the slippys, or what.

http://kenyanbirthcertificategenerator.com/

Something I'd sort of noticed earlier, but got a pretty good, direct explanation of just now, is that no one eats raw vegetables over here. When I was eating hot pot with some of the German students and hosts and friends, (and hot pot, I hope you remember, basically consists of a big pot of boiling water, and people dipping different things in there to cook them. So you get raw meat and vegetables and things, and cook them and eat them yourself. So anyway. Back to main text), I popped some veggies into the broth, and then some into my mouth, and some people freaked out. Which I was totally not expecting. So now, Naiyi and I were just watching "You Are the Chef!" which is a weird you-can-cook-too sort of show, whose host is a British ex-pat lady who can speak really good (at least I think so) Mandarin, so they have there, appealing to a wide demographic, cooking ineptly. And so she popped some raw mushroom in her mouth, and said that the Chinese tend to believe that raw vegetables are poisonous, and that basically everything should be cooked. Which is pretty consistent with my experiences, here. (Also apparently the same thing happened to Hannah. Tried eating raw cabbage at hot pot, got everyone scared. "It's not cooked yet!")

Just had an awesome dinner conversation with my host dad. Naiyi and I ate by ourselves, as we often do, but then he got home early with even more food, because today the food was oddly slim, so we ate "more and more," as my host dad likes to say for just about everything in a really endearing and surprisingly descriptive sort of fashion. 

So we talked about a bunch of things, with surprising amounts of information being passed between us. He's going to America next year to study at Arizona State University, which he couldn't really pronounce, so he went and got me his grades that they sent him. All A's, except for a B+, so I said they were excellent, but that one teacher must've been bad, which was well received. 

And another link, this time actually crazy relevant. https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/87/brain-east-west.html Describes pretty well exactly what I'm experiencing.

From Sunday on Naiyi's had a fever and cold, which really stinks. He's pretty tired all the time, anyway, and he pretty consistently falls asleep on the couch, while he only did that sometimes, before. He met me at the underground station with one of those face-mask thingys that everyone around here has (maybe I bought a face mask with some bones Bedazzled [Yeah know, "the fashion craze of the season," http://mybedazzler.com/] across the front? just maybe? Maybe I hit 30,000 words in this thing? Maybe?). 

This is one of those "I thought I maybe had more to say?" sort of moments. But I did a pretty good job of actually recording what I've done in the past few days, so I'm good and proud. Now to waste time on http://hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com/

Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 10:58 AM

We just had one of the best mandarin classes ever. (Sorry, guys from Mandi class back home. Good times, but this probably took the cake.) We talked about Chinese/American internet slang, and it was nothing short of epic win, as I think you can see from the picture above. 

One of those quotes that's better taken out of context: "She saw me with Chardonnay and Oreos, and I was like, 'yeah'"

6:32 PM

Just got back from the Tailor with Kae-por, again. Good times. We talked about some places in Needham, and I was surprised by both how much he remembered, and how much I cared about the place. 

I took the underground home again. By myself for just the second or third time, I think. It's always a good experience. I heard someone say to their friend, "The American is on the phone!" when I was texting Naiyi. I've started to have pretend conversations with people on the subway. Little dialogues in my head.

"Shei fong pi le?!" ("Who farted?!")

[Any of the myriad exclamations I've learned over here.] Examples: "Qu ci!" (go die), "Tian a!" (Oh my god!), "Wo ca!" (censored) [Native speakers: do I have the pinyin for that right? Maybe you don't want to tell me. That's cool.], "Ta ma da!" (censored), "Gan shen me!?" (What the hell!?), etc. 

"Wo shi yi ge wai guo ren! ni zhi dao le ma?" ("I am a foreigner! Did you know that?") 

"Wo xi huan ni de tou" ("I like your head.") (Inspired by seeing a bunch of dudes rubbing their friend's buzz-cut-ed dome, in that way that apparently everyone in the whole world likes to do.)