A Snake

“I really want to try snake,” said Marina. “I’ve heard that it’s very good.”

Last night, a group of eight of us went to dinner. The core group was my Chinese class (Marko, Marina, Ade, Michelle and me) but I invited a coworker and one of her friends and Ade brought her husband as well. The original plan was to go to a restaurant in Pudong that Marina had found where the specialty was snake. Our intent was to get a fairly large group together because the minimum order was two kilograms and we weren’t sure if the taste would be to our liking. Plans changed and we wound up going to Yunnan Lu – one of the famous food streets in Shanghai.

The live fish, chickens and snakes were outside on the sidewalk in front of each restaurant and hawkers tried to encourage us to choose their restaurant. We didn’t see any other foreigners on this street and after checking out each shop we finally chose one. There were two snakes in the basket and between the 8 of us managed enough Chinese to select one. The handler got it out of its cage and right in front of us clipped the head off with a pair of scissors. The head landed at my feet. It was quite an event. Then we picked some live shrimp from another tank and after much deliberation headed upstairs.

There was no English menu, no pictures in this place. We ordered lots of food – the obligatory Kung Pao chicken, Hangzhou style beef and peppers, fish smelling eggplant (much better than the name), fresh spinach, broccoli, spicy tofu, the shrimp we had selected and a huge bowl of rice. At the end of the meal we then had a cold salad that was snake skin and then finally the snake. It was deep fried and coated in some kind of spice. Not bad really – not sure how something deep fried is good for your skin, but overall a very satisfying meal.

We split the bill and after paying had 35 RMB left over. We decided that we’ll save the money for the next time we get together to try something new. We’re not sure what to try next.

Question: What food do you really want to try or what food should I try while I’m here?
I can’t believe that I’ll have been here six months on Thursday. To use one of the idioms that I teach – “Time flies!” Hope to hear from you all soon.

The Rain Begins

Today has been a rainy day. Umbrellas are sprouting like the tulips you see in Chicago in the spring. Rain is a season here and residents of Shanghai take their umbrellas seriously. Most are the golf umbrella variety, very sturdy and large with long handles. Almost none of the umbrellas are black - I see pink and purple and blue and yellow, stripes, polka dots, lace.

It is said that Shanghai men are the best men in China to marry because they do the cooking, the cleaning, carry their wives and girlfriends purses, etc. One lesson that I've taught multiple times at school is on dating and relationships. I asked the question: "What's the worst thing about being married?" One of my male students answered, "Having to clean the floor." He was Shanghainese and had just gotten married six months ago.

The moral of this story is that Shanghai men are very comfortable with their masculinity. Today I saw three businessmen, all dressed in suits. One was carrying a bright purple umbrella, one a striped pink umbrella and the third a blue polka dot umbrella. It made me smile.

Question - What do you like to do on rainy days?

东北人

What do you get when you combine four New Zealanders, two Germans, two Brits, an Australian, an American and a Chinese person?

Dinner tonight at an excellent restaurant called Dong Bei Ren (东北人 or North Eastern People). My classmate Ade organized the event to which the above crowd gathered to celebrate China and the departure next week of Josh, one of our classmates, back to the UK. We ate and drank and overall had an excellent time. North Eastern food is different than the Cantonese food that we eat in the United States - there is an emphasis on potatoes and root vegetables that you might not expect in Chinese cooking. This restaurant is known for its pork ribs which we ordered. They were so big that each person was given a plastic glove to hold the rib with and so we gnawed and nibbled the meat as if we were at a Renaissance fair.

The other specialty of this restaurant was the singing waitresses. Our waitress sang us songs from the North East of China and after some prodding also sang us a song from the south of China. We were sharing a room with another group of about 10 Chinese people from the North of China and they had a great time laughing at the foreigners in the room and we had a great time watching them as well.

Overall it was a great night. Chinese food is meant to be shared and this was a great night to do so. We were stuffed when we left and the cost per person (including drinks) was 60RMB. Not bad for about $9.

Question - What is the best restaurant you know of to go with a big group of people? Why is it the best?

Cheers!

The Beauty Salon - Part II

In my previous post about the beauty salon, I neglected to mention that Arnel, Marisha's husband also decided to get his hair cut. Men get the same treatment as women with a half an hour shampoo/scalp massage and then a haircut. Arnel's haircut finished much sooner than Marisha's and I think he started to get bored. Before going to the salon he had joked that he was going to dye his hair and as he waited his resolve strengthened. He decided to get red highlights.



It was an incredible process. The pictures below document the experience:

At one point there were five stylists standing around Arnel making sure that everything went well. I'd imagine that the highlights are pretty much gone by now - almost two months later, but they will be one of my favorite memories in the hair salon.

Also - I got my hair cut last week for the first time since the kissing stylist incident. Luckily the guy who made the move on me wasn't there and I was able to relax and enjoy my haircut. The stylist in the picture with Arnel is the one who cut my hair last week.

An Exercise in Futility

Ever since I've gotten here, my mother and grandmother have been telling me to go to the fabric market and get clothes made. I put it off until the last couple of weeks, but have had coworkers and friends get custom made shirts, pants, overcoats and other things without incident. Last Tuesday one of my coworkers said he was going back to get some shirts made so I asked if I could come along. I brought a pair of black pants that I have that fit perfectly for them to copy because I had heard that they could copy anything.

I had given away the card of the shop that one of my coworkers had recommended, but there are three floors of different shops and after looking at a couple we settled on one on the third floor. I gave them my pants, picked my material - a navy blue with a small pinstripe - and lining and after some hard bargaining agreed to a price of 100RMB for the pants with the promise that they would be ready on the following Friday.

On Friday Chris and I went to the fabric market together under the presumption that my pants would be ready. We wandered a bit and then headed to the third floor. I saw the sales girl's face drop as I walked in which is never a good feeling. The three people inside started arguing in Chinese and I could follow the conversation. They were saying - she could come Saturday, Sunday, they're not here today, what should we do, what should we say? They then flat out told me the pants weren't there and could I come back tomorrow. I work all day Saturday and Sunday and told them as much. They then asked if they could deliver them to my house. I said no - if they're not right, then I would still have to come back and I didn't feel like dealing with that.

We settled the issue by saying that I would come back Tuesday (today) for the pants. Thus, after Chinese class today I hopped into a taxi and headed down. Guess what happened? I made my way to the third floor and saw what appeared to be a deserted booth. I waited a minute and the salesgirl came back. Her face fell.

Let's say that there were several more phone calls to the boss about the girl with the black pants. They then told me to "Wait a moment." The pants weren't done again. At this point I was worried I would never see my old black pants again. When you're 5'10'' in China you can't just buy pants off a rack and not having my black pants for a week was limiting my wardrobe options even more so than usual. Then, the boss showed up with my black pants - but not the new blue pants. We had the discussion again - they're not ready, can we send them to you? We'll deliver them to your company, to your house, to your...

So now I was negotiating with the boss. Once again I explained that I didn't know if they were done correctly. He finally said to me: "I will bring them to you myself. If they don't fit I will give you your money back." We settled on a time of 8pm this evening.

At 8:15 my buzzer rang and I let my visitor in. He handed me the blue pants. They looked really good - the inside was copied, the pockets, lining looked okay. I tried them on.

They were three inches too short.

He tried to convince me that that was the length of my black pants and they had copied it. I put the black pants back on and showed him. His face fell. He made a telephone call, then asked me to take the black pants off so he could measure them. He looked at the hem on the blue pants - it was about an inch and a half. He reached into his wallet and gave me my money back.

All of that work, all of that time - wasted. Before he left he tried to convince me that for 10RMB they would turn them into capri pants for me. I don't know about you, but navy blue pinstriped capris would be pretty hard to pull off at work and are probably a mite formal for around the house. I turned him down. He left with the pants.

I won't be recommending this shop. Chris has ordered a suit from another shop. He is supposed to pick it up this weekend. If it is successful, maybe I will try that shop - but not for a while. I need to rebuild my energy after this exercise in futility.

Q - Ever had your own exercise in futility? Please share.

Hope you all are well. A silver lining in this is that almost all of the transactions in this story were conducted entirely in Chinese, including one telephone call. Today is my five month anniversary of being in China and I am extremely proud of how much I have learned here.

Cheers!