Some Impresssions So Far

My apartment:
I found a nice apartment in Zhabei, just north of the center of Shanghai. It’s on the same subway line as my school so it’s pretty convenient. It still takes my about 45 minutes to get to work but I’m happy here. I live with a 23 year old guy named Justin. He is Chinese and speaks perfect British English. So good, in fact, that I told him he should be teaching English! Originally, I looked at 1 bdrm apts but once I finally found a nice one in a good location, I realized that if I moved in there I would be lonely. Justin is great company. We share the same taste in TV shows and movies and Shanghai is the land of pirated dvds. We spend a lot of time in the evening watching our latest finds.

Food:
Food in Shanghai is plentiful and delicious, for the most part. Unfortunately much of it is deep fried. There are people cooking and selling food on the street in almost every neighbourhood, although it sounds like that may change some day as more high rises go up and more and more of the old traditional neighbourhoods get torn down. You can buy dumplings and steamed buns and meat on a stick all for about 20 cents a piece. But, of course, everything comes with a price. I really started to pork out! So now I’m trying to eat healthy, make my lunch, stay away from the street foods. It’s hard.

Oh, yes, fast foods. There is the usual: McDs, Dairy Queen, KFC, but they have the most fabulous food courts here in all of the malls. All kinds of noodles and dumplings and rice. Very delicious, but not good for the waistline.

Shopping:
I heard before I left that Shanghai is a shopping mecca. True, there are department stores and malls just about everywhere. In fact, most office buildings seem to be shopping centers for the first few floors and small shops are ubiquitous in Shanghai. I have also found numerous underground shopping ‘mazes’. Areas that seem to have sprung up out of the subway system that spread out into complex mazes of hundreds of small shops selling clothes, jewellery, handbags, etc. In between the office buildings and subway stops, the streets seem to be lined with one small hole-in-the wall shop after another. Prices run the full gamut from very cheap to very expensive depending on where you buy it and how well you can haggle. But one thing’s for sure. Regardless of what you are looking for, you can probably find it in Shanghai.

People:
What can I say, there are about 25 million people in Shanghai. That’s a lot of people! I made the mistake of taking the subway during rush hour one day. Wow! 25 million people all rushing off to work and school at the same time. People pushing and shoving. It was complete chaos. Somebody in Ottawa described ‘the Chinese’ as gentle people. Obviously that person has never taken the subway during rush hour. I was pushed, I was shoved, I was elbowed and I was squished. When I finally arrived at my stop and managed to fight my way out of the car, while other people were pushing their way in, the scene outside the subway car was even more chaotic than within. Everybody that had exited the train was now running towards the escalator. It was as if someone had yelled ‘fire’ and everyone was in a panic to get out alive. Not a pretty scene.

Kids:
Kids are really special in Shanghai and not just because they are all adorable. I think people here really cherish there children. Not just the parents, everyone. People just seem to love kids. And I haven’t seen any obnoxious kids yet. No temper tantrums, no cranky kids, no crying kids, just sweet adorable little children. Maybe that's a positive side-effect of the one (or two)-child cap on families. I have seen so many cute things since I’ve arrived. Kids on the back of bikes, on the front of scooters, I can’t begin to describe all the cuteness I`ve seen. One morning I saw a lady headed towards me on her scooter. I could just barely see two little eyes looking out over the handlebars. As they went by I saw she had her son with her. He was standing on the running board but he was so small he could just barely see over the handlebars. Off they went with the wind blowing through his hair as they joined in with the rest of the rush hour traffic. So cute! But so dangerous!

Deaf People:
I ran into two Deaf people one day on the subway! I was very excited about that and I tried to sign to them but they couldn’t understand anything I signed!! I tried signing Canada like Lois showed me (‘5’ on my chest), which she thinks is how Chinese people sign it but they had no idea what I was trying to say! They were very nice and finally we just smiled and waved good-bye. I would really like to learn Chinese sign language but I don’t know how. If only I could have asked those two people I met in the subway.

Just one more thing before I sign off. I read this on the back of a book about China the other day. It described Bejing as being, among other things, a city in which pyjamas never go out of style. Same thing here in Shanghai, people wear pyjamas everywhere, out for a walk, to the mall. I guess you never know when you might want to take a nap! Which reminds me... don’t get me started on people sleeping on the furniture at IKEA!