Being an expat

Last night was my first real night out as an expat. Well, sort of, it was certainly 'expatesque.'

They say there is around 90,000 expats in SH. Among 22Million people, that aint many. And from my small experience, they all hang out at the one bar. (I jest of course, there's at least 3 they go to)

I feel that there is a big difference from being a tourist to being an expat living in a city working there. Expats seem to be louder! Or was that because we had to talk (yell) over MC Hammer tracks playing and the screaming at the Foosball table?

A night at a smokey (and I mean seriously smokey) bar in the heart of the traditional expat business area was good exposure to how people live in a foreign city where the language is so different.

I was out drinking with a guy I haven't seen for 10 years and an Aussie designer from the office.

Oh, and another expat (Rob) from Brisbane that Steve met at the bar. He was a good bloke, so the four of us talked and laughed together. Especially at Rob, who is in Shanghai exporting and designing effluent recycling systems. Yep, he is in the business of cleaning up shit and slime. (Almost a new age 'green' Kenny).

We drank 'Tiger' Beers, with the odd Tequila shot (yuk). Did I mention how smokey it was. (you might start to think I was a sad and bitter ex smoker wouldn't you)

There were a lot of laughs. The young girls kept bringing the beer and kept telling stories and sharing experiences of SH. It's clear that under all of the smoke, between the beers and shots, this is how a lot of work gets done. (Not sure my Brisbane conditioned lungs can handle it though).

It's becoming more clear now, that there are three ways to do things in SH. The normal way - expect to pay more and or wait longer. Then there is the local way - "I know someone who.... " if you get what I mean. (Some say its like a "blue" market - legal but not really, sort of proper but not quite, it's legal somewhere along the line). The third way is obviously the wrong and illegal way.

Expats connect each other with each other. It's like any normal small community in a bigger community, just this one effectively crosses the divide between communist china and western commerce.

The influence of expats in this way has clearly depleted as China becomes more global. But one of the amazing things is that they talk about massive change in 2 and 5 year periods, not decades or generations like we are used to.

There are just so many amazing growth elements in this city. Like the SH University graduates 160,000 students each year. Most now speak English. It makes the Brisbane cities 'infrastructure plans' pail into insignificance.

And with this change, there is change in the way China do things. They are getting 'better' very fast. This is not a criticism, but they are still learning to be a modern country and modern city and modern people. And form what I hear, its the rate of change and improvement that is as exciting to watch as the new sky scrappers being built.

So back to 'expatness'. I left the bar a little (wobbly), having eaten no more than lemon slices and salt. With Tiger Beer confidence, I headed of home walking. Now remember how I keep saying I get disorientated here. Well, just add beer and tequila - I made it home in no time and in a direct way. It's a miracle. (just don't ask me to get back to where the bar was. I have no idea!)

Thanksgiving in Shanghai

Thursday was Thanksgiving Day. I had the pleasure of attending a dinner at the apartment of one of my colleagues. It was a great night and wonderful chance to meet a few 'locals'.

The culinary experience was certainly along the lines of the many great contrasts in this city. Sumptuous roast turkey, stuffing and mash potatoes with gravy and cranberry sauce - it was all delightful. And I even got to use a knife and fork. (I really never thought that I would say that).

Thanksgiving is a wonderful event. the food is much like a Christmas feast but without the presents and all of the decorations. You eat, drink, talk, eat, drink, talk, eat, drink, talk. I like it.


And of part of the joy of thanksgiving dinner in SH is talking about the challenges of getting things like a 20lb turkey (and finding a place to get it cooked, because apartment ovens are small), getting apple and pumpkin pies made and so on. It makes for a lot of laughs. This year, walnuts were the hardest thing to find.

Now talking of talking. There conversation was as good as the food. I learnt more about Shanghai that night than I did in a week. The friends of my colleague are wonderful and as diverse as Shanghai itself. Some of the them had the most interesting reasons to be in SH and some great roles here; The head of GM Chevrolet in China, A professor of Literature that has been here teaching for over 20 years, a corporate lawyer, a German building developer that has been here a long time, restauranters and the list goes on. It was a wonderful mix of people and I was very lucky to be there, especially as the only Australian among a group (most of) 'international Americans'.

Sometimes, drinking bourbon, riding a Harley, knowing the difference between a 'Line Backer' and a 'Tight End' can be helpful skills, especially at Thanksgiving!

The contrasts of Shanghai continue to amaze me.

Which way, what's that?

This is the 'little' street on which I reside. "Wumuluqi Xi Lu" that's 'oomooloochi she loo' said really quickly with the inflections in all the wrong places. I actually said thank you a few times, today, so I have graduated form just "hello" in Chinese. Tomorrow I will hopefully be able to say "Stop" to the taxi driver. Ooops, I digress.

Anyway, this is my little street. It's a new version of traffic management - a one way street for cars, buses, trucks and two way for push bikes and scooters. Yep, that means one of the bike lanes goes against the traffic. And given that 2/3 of all trips in SH are by bike, you soon realise, the lanes are wrong. The cars should be on the outside and the bikes should have all the space. No, that would be logical. Instead, we have bikes in all lanes and cars in between wherever they can fit. Confused? Well you should walk it in peak hour and try to hail a cab without having your arm ripped off by a passing cyclist coming the 'wrong' way. It's all part of the daily commute (3.2 Kms and 15-20 minutes depending on the time of day).

I just got back from dinner. It finally happened. I found myself in a restaurant that didn't have any English on their menu and no one really spoke English. So what does one do to order? Before I get to that bit, let me describe the restaurant.

It's on the 4th Floor of an average building and it's called "Fashion Show." Names are often misleading, so I was not sure what to expect. Anyway, it was a hip Chinese restaurant (I thought it was Japanese, but that was just my bad guess). Anyway, the decor was polished concrete, white padded chairs, dark timber table and a projection of the Fashion TV station on a wall (so I had something to watch!). It was trying to be chic and almost was. It was quiet and I had a choice of table. The girl that met me at the door seated me and asked if I wanted a drink. She showed me the beers on the menu (all in Chinese,) I picked one at random - it was a Heineken! Not a bad start.

Then to the dinner choice. In a city were they eat the weirdest food every day, there is a sizable risk in not being able to read the menu... I was nervous now.

The young girl who tried so hard to speak English was showing me the menu. I was looking at her and smiling with a suitable dumb look on my face, as the menu was irrelevant. She said, fish, pork ,beef. I stopped her at pork (thinking that was safe). Then what?

She found the pork section on the menu but couldn't translate it. She offered to pick for me ("I pick nee"). Nervously I agreed. This will be interesting I think.

It was pork ribs, in an awesome sauce with chili and some weird veggies. It was yummy and tasted like nothing else I have had.

The moral of the story. Be nice to people on the way in. Smile a lot and cross your fingers.

On leaving, I offered to tip the girl that helped me. All she wanted to do was apologise her English was so mad. We ended up chatting a while (in bits and pieces) about our names she was "Di" pronounced 'Dee' and where we are from etc. It was a joy.

I just had the riskiest and one of the best meals I have had in Shanghai. Sometimes risk is rewarding. Note; I say that now, I haven't had a bad experience yet.

Lunch time wanders

I am feeling some pressure as to what tonight's Blog will cover as I feel that yesterday's was one of the better ones (make sure you read it). So, how do I maintain the standard? Here goes.

Let's start in the real world of work. The morning flew by as I was racing against a deadline for some research interviews. I was writing the questions. Nothing unusual there but they had to be translated, so I had to finish early and give the team time to translate and re-phrase. Strangely, they didn't invite me to sit in on the interviews.

Anyway, lunch time came around, the food options are endless and Xiou Bing gave me a tip on where to get some good food as we left the lift. I was a bit stiff, so thought I would walk for a bit first. What a great move.

Just two small blocks from the office (ad the main street of downtown SH) is a really traditional area of city dwellers and, weight for it, an antique market. It was awesome. So many things to look at from Charmian Mao posters to old coins and a lot of crappy stuff too. I felt like I had discovered a new world.

The antique market (which is actually just stalls on 3 streets), was just the precursor to today's real discovery.

Everyone has hard the saying "Chinese Laundry." Well, I stumbled on the perfect example. Streets where they hang their laundry from anything, between anything. Down the foot path, across the street, on phone lines, on power cables. Anything will do. Clearly a hazard of an underwear fetishist walks by, but it's just the done thing. You get to see a great variety of clothing and underwear from the lacy to the winter long johns.



See the picture (above), this is a footpath that I was walking along until I was confronted with the day's washing. And the second photo (right) is a cracker. If you look closely in the middle the dark section s a bunch of guys sitting and standing playing cards. Just like kids in a makeshift 'cubby house,' these guys play on surrounded by the sheets and towels.

Key observation;
Without the clothes on the lines, I don't see the strings and the hang just at my neck level. So I think hanging clothes on these lines is a good safety thing.

You also have to be careful and nimble when they are using long poles to get the clothes off the overhead phone lines across the streets - I nearly had a set of long johns land on my head as I walked by. I was just quick enough to dodge and avoid a disaster of "luandromatic proportions."

Enough laundry talk, back to the office.

Back to work today

After a couple of great days exploring the sights, it was time to get back to what brought me here in the first place. WORK.

Working on the 31st floor of a building in the heart of downtown Shanghai has some advantages. It also has some interesting side effects.

The good side.

The view out of my window is amazing (that’s when the smog is relatively thin and you can see more than a city block). I am embellishing a bit – because this afternoon, as the sun was setting I could see right across the river and the buildings were bathed in an angelic golden light. It was a vision splendor.

The side effect.
Lets start with the maths:

• A building of 38 floors.
• Lets say, 100 people per floor (there are cinemas on some, so that’s a fair estimate on average)
• That’s 3,800 people.
• 6 lifts. (see pic)
• That’s 633.333 people per lift. (the 0.333 is a very small person often referred to as a child)

And guess what. It seems they all arrive at work at the same time, they have lunch at the same time and they leave at the same time.

It adds a whole new dimension to Shanghai peak hour.

The important thing I have quickly learnt is lift etiquette - it goes something like this:

1. Watch for he lift that will open it’s doors next. (there’s an electronic sign but it’s in Chinese)
2. Jostle for a position in front of the doors. (Don’t let little women get in between you and someone else, as they will trip you up. I have seen it happen).
3. Watch the number on the wall so you can count down the timing. 10, 9, 8, etc
4. As the door eases open, push like hell to squeeze into the lift (think champagne cork back into the bottle)
5. As you settle into a position, help squeeze the exiting passengers out of the lift (think toothpaste out of a tube).

Side note. Don’t wait for exiting passengers. That will just slow you down and you will miss the lift.

Whatever you do.
A) Don’t hesitate, or you will be stuck out of the lift.
B) Don’t sneeze because you are too squashed to get your hand to you mouth. (so it will be messy)
C) And most importantly try and hit the right floor button as you squish past them (otherwise you will just go for a squashed ride and never make it to your floor)

This morning I rode the lift with one of the Account Management team. She is as cute as a button and quite tiny (even by Chinese standards). I didn’t even see her in the lift until we got out at our floor. A girl like that could literally be lost in the sea of bodies. Luckily the lift cleared a bit this morning and she popped back to life as we arrived at floor 31. (I imagine it's a bit like our No One character but a small and cute version popping into life)

One day, I will count the people we get into a lift and will report back to you.

An interesting work note that relates to the joy of lift experiences: I showed the Virgin Blue Premium economy TVC (Close talker) to one of my Chinese colleagues, he didn’t really get the insight about personal space. Go figure.

And finally, a big thanks for those that have commented. I was starting to feel I was the foreign correspondent writing a column in a foreign language that no-one spoke. But alas, I am just a foreign correspondent in a land were I don't speak the language. And I have been assured more people than just my nephew and Aunty-in-law are reading this fine prose. So thank you one and all, I hope I maintain your interest and readership. Cheers 'Daz in Chinaland'

Sunday in Shanghai

First up a visit to the Jing' An Temple. A Buddhist temple on the main street. Surrounded by shops and traffic, this is a small and ancient oasis of peace. Although, it has been damaged over the centuries and is structurally more a modern replica than an original building. That said, watching monks study along side massive jade Buddhas still gives you a sense of time gone and the crazy Shanghai world outside the walls has temporarily stopped.

I know I am bordering on obsession with all things traffic, but I found where the cars go at night. They go into sky scrapper apartment buildings just like the people. See the pictures below. The car drives in, then disappears. It goes up into the sky scrapper car park. Or is it called a 'carpartment.'

The taxi driver dropped me off and pointed around the corner. I had know idea what I was looking for or where it was. Is strolled the streets that were very traditional style architecture.

I just wandered where the people seemed to be going. It was just crazy. I then grabbed some fried won tons (i think) from a stall and snacked. As I wandered, I watched people and took plenty of pics. After a couple of hours, I spotted people going into a hole in the wall. I found a small sign. It was the Yu Garden. That's what I was there to see. I just happened upon it. Luckily. (I could have just as easily missed it and gone home not knowing it existed)

As it turns out, this is a famous traditional Chinese garden ,preserved through thousands of year. Inside is just amazing in every way. The garden ,the building, the tiling everything. I even met a lady in a shop that spoke English and told me a lot about the Mao people of southern China. Outside the garden were thousands of stalls and shops. And the million odd people. It was again an oasis by contrast and an oasis by nature.

A big observation today was not that it was raining, but that everyone uses umbrellas. Now, in a city of millions of people, most about 5 to 5'6" tall, umbrellas are effective for them and a huge danger for me. Wandering around at 6'4" (that's the height they hold the umbrella), is a real challenge. I ducked, I weaved, I bobbed and still with thousands of people packed into small spaces, I was jabbed, pocked, skewered and garroted by umbrellas all day. I hope it stops raining soon.





Having walked myself into a stoop over the weekend, so I finished off with a foot massage. Ahhh, heaven. Some jazz on the Ipod, a cup of tea and a Chinese girl grumping that my feet are too big. Maybe that's my little revenge for the umbrellas.

Jing'An Temple


Yu Garden