three months on

This past Thursday was my three-month milestone in Shanghai. I meant to write something about it then, but I was too busy and forgot all about it. That's a good thing, right?

In Tunisia, I taught three classes, lived in three different apartments, improved my French, explored nearly the whole country, made friends, and said goodbye to friends in all of three months' time. Imagine what I can do with two years in Shanghai.

Three months down, twenty-one to go. Bring it on.

picture time!

Don't get your hopes up; I still haven't bought myself a digital camera. But, thanks to my friends, I do have some visual record of what I've been up to for the past three months. Here are some things I like to do in my free time.

EXPLORE THE CITY
I always discover something new in this city, whether I'm uptown in my neighborhood or downtown in the shopping district.

TRY NEW FOODS
My coworker Jay took these pictures of us hard at work making dumplings – from scratch! – at my apartment. It's really much more difficult than it looks (except for the eating part).

ENJOY THE ARTS
Shanghai has an underground scene for both art and music. I try to go at least once a week to a different gallery or gig.


SING KARAOKE
Yes, this phenomenon deserves a category of its own. Karaoke is THE way to celebrate a special occasion, or to celebrate nothing at all. Talent is not required.


This picture thing is too much fun. Need to get me a digital camera...

honest living

I walked home from the bus stop last night. It wasn't late, maybe 8 o' clock or so, but the sky was dark and the streets relatively empty. I was still on the main road when I felt a tug on my backpack. I spun around and suddenly stood face to face with a young man, perhaps in his 20s, his hand still on the back of my bag. He looked at me surprised. Then he smiled faintly, pulled his hand away, and turned to face the traffic. I, too, was stunned. From the corner of my eye, I saw an old woman in a red jacket, a witness to the scene, watching us from about 20 feet away.
"What were you doing?" I asked the man, incriminatingly. Keeping my eyes on him, I felt the zippers of my backpack. One was partially open, but I knew there was nothing in that pocket to be stolen.
The man did not respond; he just continued smiling and watching the cars.
I watched him for a few more seconds but then didn't know what else to do. Maybe there was nothing else to do. So I continued walking.
I took a few steps and then turned around to see if the man was still following me. Instead, he had taken off running in the other direction. The old woman in red had stopped watching and was heading in the opposite direction, too. The man slowed his pace as he neared her. Soon he matched her stride, and then, to my surprise, they walked with one another on down the street.
As I neared my apartment building, I put my hand in my pocket and felt the jingle of about four or five coins. I was suddenly flooded with anger. Why had that man singled me out? What had I done for him to want to steal from me? Then - why had I done nothing to prevent him from stealing again? Why had I just walked on as if nothing had happened? And finally - why hadn't I thought to give him the coins in my pocket? Maybe then he wouldn't think to steal from the next person. Maybe then he'd decide to seek an honest living.
Never before has anyone in Shanghai tried to swindle me. Sure, the people in the markets jack up their prices to twice or three times the true value, but you're expected to bargain the prices back down. Taxi drivers have especially impressed me with their honesty. If you get in their cab at a red light, they wait until they start moving to put the meter down rather than charging you for the wait time. If they get lost, they'll stop the meter and charge you only for what the fare should have been if they had gone the right way. Only once did a taxi driver pretend to get lost; we told him we wanted to go to the east end of the street and he intentionally went west instead, keeping the meter running the whole time. But when we complained and told him we should only have to pay half the final fare, he did not argue at all.
I've also always considered Shanghai to be a safe city. I don't see crime on the streets and have never felt uncomfortable walking outside late at night. I've heard of people getting their cell phones stolen, especially in extremely crowded places like on the subway or the bus. Generally, though, if you keep an eye on your things and use your common sense, you'll be fine. So the fact that I was pickpocketed in the early evening on a fairly empty street in my own neighborhood - that was just shocking to me.

down south

I flew into Shenzhen, arriving a little past midday on Tuesday afternoon. As I stepped out of the airport, I squinted through the sunlight to read the bus numbers and find the one that would take me to the train station. I squinted! There was sunlight! Not muted yellow light strained through grey clouds and a polluted haze. No! I looked up, and there was the sun, its brilliant self shining imposingly in the middle of the clear blue sky. Blue sky!
The train station was a good 45 minutes from the airport. I tried to use the time to read, but was constantly distracted by the sun's rays that lit up the hills a rich, luscious green. Hills! Green! More mountains than hills, actually, though the word "mountain" suggests (to me, anyway) something harsher, colder - if not barren then at least sparse, if green then covered with grass but with few trees. These mountains, though, were thickly layered head to foot in dark, leafy foliage - unspoiled natural beauty. Unspoiled, until I saw one with a sunken reddish-beige face, heavy machinery carving it away in sheets, as one would do a piece of cake.
The earth from the mountain will, I suppose, be used to fill the coastline, creating new land for developments like the golf course that my parents can see from their 22nd floor apartment. Manicured lawns, displaced trees, transported sand, man-made lakes - all imitations of the very nature they replace. The white egrets, which once made their homes there, have been pushed to a small enclave on the edge of the golf course, their bountiful wetlands now just a meager reservation.
Or maybe the mountain is being leveled so that several large apartment communities can take its place, thus nurturing the fast-growing real estate market. I remember riding the metro in Shanghai and passing rows and rows of tall, rigid, identical apartment buildings, so straight and perfectly aligned, like a battalion of soldiers standing at attention. An aerial view of the city probably looks like a Risk board with opposing forces all grimly ready for the charge. Shenzhen, though a smaller force, is undoubtedly amassing its own armies; competition's always welcome in that Special Economic Zone.
In Hong Kong, construction continues as well. Expansion in the north, in the New Territories - the suburbs, if you will - where there's still untouched land. New train lines, including one stop just outside my old high school. We used to take a 'snake path' up to the school gates, a small footpath worn through the tall grass up the hill from the main road. The snake path is gone, as is the grass. A once isolated school tranquilly overlooking Starfish Bay now neighbors a mass transit line. In the south of Hong Kong, on Hong Kong Island, where practically every space available has already been built up, construction comes in the form of renovation, razing, and rebuilding, motivated by the constant promise of land appreciation as well as the strains of a growing population and a growing economy.
Despite the urbanization, Hong Kong maintains a greater beauty than Shanghai - something in the way the city is built in and around the mountains, with the sea on every side. And, of course, it benefits from the climate. The sun not only brightens one's outlook on the city, but also nourishes a wide variety of vibrantly blossoming trees - trees that are not relegated to parks and botanical gardens, but rather are spread throughout the city, coloring the otherwise soulless, glass and metal landscape.
Though I enjoy Shanghai immensely, spending the week in Hong Kong was like getting a taste of home. The sun, the warmth, the color - I'd forgotten how much I love to be down south.