Monday, April 14, 2003

Honeymoon in Shanghai

Many people have asked me to resend this Shanghai letter so here you all go.

Ahhhh Shanghai,
If you have any bad thoughts towards the city because it is in a Communist country, put them away. It is a city worth seeing and extremely tourist and foreigner friendly. There are foreigners everywhere. Shanghai, Beijing and the Three Gorges are estimated to be the #1 tourist attractions in the world with in the next 5 to 10 years. I really want to go to the Three Gorges and Li really wants to go to Beijing for the Olympics. Everything is written in English, amazing amounts of people speak quite good Engli sh, and the city never sleeps. There are the most amazing pubs and restaurants and shopping areas, all CHEAP!!!!
The people are fairly friendly, although I found the shop keepers a tad rude but then I have been in Japan for a while where they are falling h ead over heels bowing to you. Ridiculous really. There was NOTHING that spoke loudly saying this is a communist country. There was an obvious division of classes but not any more than you would see in Canada. There is a different way of thinking, which is collective group thinking. This can drive you crazy if you are an individual thinker who would much rather go on your own. I admit I lost it at one point. -I don't want to go shopping every bloody day!!! I want to go to the museum, the zoo and see the sigh ts!!!!--- They were surprised by my out burst but I was getting a tad pissed about all these plans being made with no consideration of the fact that I had never been to Shanghai before.
The down side is that EVERYONE smokes Everywhere. If you are a smoker no problem and the cigarettes are really cheap. The city is a little dusty. They are aware of this problem. They wash the streets every morning and the street sweepers are busy all day and night to try to keep them clean. The dust is mostly due to the fact that I have never seen so much construction going on before. There are new buildings and roads being built on every corner. And the roads are amazing. They are 8 lanes wide almost every where and there are three levels of elevated roads. WOW!
The taxi ride will put your heart in your mouth and your stomach may fall into your bowels. Crazy drivers, but the only accident I say was some stupid idiot who backed into an OBVIOUSLY there van in a parking lot. The taxis are cheap though and very easy to find. You never call a taxi you just stick out your thumb like in a cartoon movie and they will appear with their back wheels spinning in the air.
Pedestrians beware!!! You are but a fly waiting to be squashed. Crosswalks mean nothing. Wait for the green light and run when it starts flashing. If there are vehicles turning right (they drive on the right) MOVE QUICKLY or they will help you.
Now a strange observation that I made that soon became an obsession was the make of the cars. About 80%, no exaggerations, of the vehicles in Shanghai are Volkswagens. Every single, and there are a lot of them, taxi cab was a Volkswagen Santana. There were many other types there as well. There were a few other privately owned cars of a different make and only one BMW, some vans and what not, but the Volkswagen thing really had me stunned. I discussed this with one of my students and he believes that this is due to the Chinese governments high tax on import vehicles and he thinks that VW has a plant in or near Shanghai so they are considerably cheaper to buy. Made sense.
We went on a 2-day bus tour to some surrounding tourist sights. We were three busses FULL of retired people, mostly women and a bunch of friends of Li's mom, and Li and I were the only people there under 50. UGH! But it was good. We went to this really famous philosophers house, cant remember his name though. We visited this beautiful mountain waterfall shrine dedicated to the monk who brought kanji writing to Japan. Then we went to this cool river place where we went in a yak drawn cart and floated down the river in a bamboo raft and went through a dragon mouth fountain. Then Li and I went up into a hot air balloon and saw amazing views. I took TONS of pictures.
When we got back we had to start preparing for the Wedding Party on Saturday. I had to wear 4 dresses at the party, a fact I was not very comfortable with. I had brought one with me and I bought a green and gold Chinese dress and a beautiful red cocktail dress. Then I met Li's wonderful younger aunt and uncle from his mother's family who went with us to the Photo Studio. WOW!!!!!!!!!!! This is a story in itself. Anyway they gave us a 4th dress to use. They gave me a WHITE FLUFFY WEDDING DRESS, and they did my hair and makeup before the party.
The party was on Saturday and I started getting sick on Saturday. Now I was starting to experience stomach problems due to the fact that Li's mother kept dumping food, strange looking food, on my plate for me to eat even when Li told her to STOP! It started to get REALLY annoying. To make everyone happy I was trying to eat everything to be the good foreigner. UGH! My already overly sensitive stomach was getting very pissed due to the fact that they seem to use a tad bit more salt and MSM in their home cooking than Li does and it wasn't sitting right.
My stomach gave way on Saturday. Now it wasn't nerves. I wasn't nervous. Mostly because I had no idea what to expect. I went to the photo place too scared to even look at food and they did the most amazing makeup and hair job on me. I had this huge lily in my hair, it looked beautiful. She plucked my eyebrows!!! Now I am screwed and have to continue to do this. Never in my LIFE did I say I would pluck my eyebrows. Still not nervous yet. Li got his hair glued on his head, it wouldn't move! And his overly hyper mom went off to get the flowers. Well the car came back covered in flowers, which surprised me a tad, and then we got in the car and headed off. I assumed, as did Li, that we would be going straight to the restaurant. Still not nervous. Mom insists that we must go home first. I was a tad irritated by this. There was no way I was getting out of the car at the house, mostly because I would get really dirty there. It was not the most beautiful place in the world. Now when we got there I got nervous. The apartment building was SURROUNDED by people and when we arrived they set off all the Chinese firecrackers, very loud, and even more people arrived. Then there was this huge camera in my face for the cameraman that we hired that I had completely forgotten about. He taped the whole party and we watched most of it at the house after wards but guess what, it doesn't bloody work in Japan, so it definitely won't work in Canada. AUGH!!!! I really wanted everyone to see it.
The very posh restaurant was decked out with a GIANT wedding cake, a tower of champagne glasses and waiters for every table. We had this huge dragon carved out of some sort of food as a centerpiece for our table. I changed my dress every 40 minutes, a strange feeling, and both Li and I had no time to eat. The entire family was there. Many had come all the way from the canton area for the party. WOW! I had my picture being taken every 20 seconds it felt like. I had to light the uncles' cigarettes and then had to light Li's dads with everyone blowing on the lighter, I succeeded. Some stupid tradition they have. I made everyone happy and everything went really well. We got enough little red envelopes full of money to pay for everything including the photo studio the next day.
Now the photo studio was amazing. I had to choose five different dresses from their giant closets. Two white wedding dresses, a cocktail dress, a Japanese kimono and a traditional Chinese dress. In total they took about 50 pictures and from this we had to choose 25 for our book. We were there from 8:30 in the morning till after 8 at night. We did outside pictures and everything. The book they created IS HUGE and beautiful and we had a to buy another suitcase to fit it into. I am sending my father and mother miniature versions of the book. You won’t see the big book unless you come to Japan because there is no way I am bringing it on the plane again. HUGE! They changed my hair five times and the lady did the most amazing things with it. For the traditional photos she added some fake stuff but damn she was good. I kept having coughing fits and she and I would do this mad dash for the Q-Tips to stop the flow of tears that kept popping to my eyes every time I did. I am so sick of Halls. Li tipped her well. Everything cost about 600$CAN. It would have cost me $1500 in Japan for half the job. Li and I are very happy about this.
Li also introduced me to the beauty of Chinese hairdressers. If anyone goes to China GET YOUR HAIR WASHED!!! You don't have to get it cut. Due to the need for hot water heaters to have a hot shower at home a whole business has popped up that caters to those without these required heaters. There are all night massage, no sex, parlors where you can get a full body massage and a hot shower for very little money. There are many spas and the best of all is the hairdressers. They are open REALLY late. Most of the time we showed up there at 11:00ishpm. For approximately 2$US you can get your hair washed and a head, back and arm/ hand massage. It takes almost an hour. They SCRUB your head while you are sitting up. They use squirt bottles to slowly wet your hair. After 20 minutes of heaven they wash it out then escort you back to your chair where they give your forehead, back, arms and hands a professional therapeutic type massage but will go harder or softer depending on what you want. Heaven. The last time we went Li treated me to a full body massage that bordered on painful and heaven when she found those bad muscles. She scrubbed my head then escorted me into a back room that was almost full of other people experiencing heaven and I got an amazing massage. My body was limp and it felt so good, all for about 4$US. China has very low road rage and whatnot; I believe this is because of the amazing massage parlors. Oh and they clean your ears as well. OH and the hairdressers are all men not women. The massage people are all girls. Hmmmm…
Shanghai has no vending machines. NONE! They just have tons of tiny little stores everywhere. The problem is trying to find a COLD drink as no one seems to use those drink fridges you see at the stores. It was starting to irritate Li and I. There are a few vending machines starting to pop up but they work only by using your cell phone. There is only one convenience store chain that I saw and they had very few stores.
We went to this Grand garden place. Beautiful Bamboo gardens. I got some gorgeous pictures. We also went up this Pagoda tower thing. The panorama shot is awesome. I will bring all these pictures when Li and I go to Canada sometime next year. Then we headed out to this could be beautiful water town. It is really old and all of the buildings are in their original state. Wonderful. Has a Venice feel to it with the waterways and the boats going up and down. The problem is that 2 years ago it was placed on the AAAA tourist travel list and it is CRAZY. There were so many people. There were also SOOOOOOOOOO many people because the second week we were there (first week of Oct.) is the celebration of new China's Birthday and everyone travels. I felt like a bloody sardine and did not enjoy myself that much. Neither did Li. He had been there a few years before it was placed on the AAAA list and he said it was much more beautiful then. IT was quite interesting though. We went on the boat ride and walked around, sort of, this was very difficult as there were SOOOOOOO many people. If there had been a fire we would have alllllll been dead. We did find some really neat marble animal shaped chopstick holders for about 5cents each.

Oh and the big thing about China is the toilets. Basically I will admit this is the worst thing. I am surprised that it doesn't keep people away. Know where the McDonalds and Starbucks are as they are the better washrooms. The pay for use toilets are doable but not 100%. They stink, they are dirty and they are down right fowl. I have been in toilets which are a straight trough running down and water periodically whips through to clean them out. I have been in toilets with no doors and I have been in places where there are so many women (the travel bus stop) that you are actually pulling up your pants outside because someone else has stepped in and pushed you out. The most amazing situations. EEEEKKKK!!!!! Now if you are a guy you are unaware of these main problems as you are able to stand and pee and life carries on for you no problem. Li was actually unaware of the women's toilet situation until I arrived. In some cases Li would actually ask for the waitresses or people to bring me to the private boss bathroom, or at a restaurant he had the girl bring me up to the third floor, which was not yet open that day. The poshest places have the most disgusting washrooms. There is a strange attitude towards them and the feeling that they are not a necessity. Don't know why. OH, and the strangest thing, they do not put toilet paper into the toilet bowl and then flush. They put it in a wastebasket. NO JOKE! Now part of this reason is that IF paper is made available it is actually heavy hard paper towel paper. Basically you must carry around a pack of tissue paper to use. Now women, use your imagination on this one, they NEVER put tissue paper in the toilet, ever. Think real hard. Yup. Bloody disgusting. I described this to Li and he was not impressed with me giving him that mental image but I felt he had to know what I was experiencing. I would love to go to Shanghai again but the toilet situation is turning me off slightly.

The shopping rocks, the food is amazing. Shanghai crab!!!! Actually I can not tell the difference. I ate turtle, tastes like chicken, I ate frog, tastes like chicken, and I ate fried water snake, interesting, okish. Can't say I will seek out this food again though. I was craving salad sooooo bad I thought I would die. I finally got it at a restaurant and Li's mom started buying it. She ate raw lettuce for the first time ever. I can't imagine. Actually she loves it and was eating it all the time after. Hehehe. The architecture is WOW. There are some beautiful old buildings and some amazing skyscrapers. I was really impressed with the sky line. The buildings are really neat. I got a sore neck from looking up all the time. You can really tell that Shanghai used to be the oriental Paris because of the very European palace like buildings everywhere. And beautiful buildings too.
Anyway, I have pictures I will begin to send out to people and I will bring the photo albums with me when I go next year. Love hugs and kisses all around.
Andrea
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Posted by (Top)Andrea::4/14/2003 ::

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