Thursday, November 29, 2007

Street sweeper in Shanghai

Mistaken for a VIP

Flying back from Wenzhou last night I was mistaken for a VIP by the airline and escorted into their VIP waiting room. The room, apparently little used, was ringed by understuffed chairs. A large plasmascreen TV dominated one wall of the room. Sitting there all alone I noticed I had a bad headache and inquired of the VIP-handler outside if she had an aspirin. This turned out to be a mistake.

She quickly summoned six or seven colleagues who huddled around a desk and consulted on what to do. A few minutes later a doctor in a dirty lab coat and jeans arrived to examine me, take my pulse, and ask if I was "mentally ok". Assured that I was not going to die in their custody, he said he had some medicine for headaches but unfortunately, it wouldn't work on non-Chinese. At this point the only thing that would have made my condition worse was to not get on my flight home, so I told him my headache was gone and I was ready to fly. They huddled again and then one of the stewardesses whisked me out to the plane in a coaster and up the stairs.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Friends on Ruijin Lu

Alley Guard

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Zhou Enlai and Yellow High Heels


A rare, sunny day in Shanghai. I started out in Xintiandi at the Coffee & Tea for a 30 kuai breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast. I threw away the sausage and substituted a whole wheat roll I'd bought from Paul's nearby. Two hours of answering emails under the skylight and I was off to Fuxing Road and west to Fuxing Park (formerly French Park) and a drop by at Zhou Enlai's old residence and a photo exhibit on the bad ol' Nationalists and their American friends. I was the only person in the museum on a Saturday - must be the quietest place in Shanghai.

Further south past the sprawling Ruijin Hospital to Taikang Art Street - a maze of alleys of old shikumen-style houses that have been turned into art shops and trendy eateries with seating in the alleys. It was 3 pm - time for lunch. Not a chair or table open anywhere - the alleys were choked with "the beautiful people" - yuppies and chuppies from brick wall to brick wall. An open table! I set down and order a margherita pizza and a Coke and enjoy the sunshine and the show. Europeans with their upside-down fork-in-left hand, chuppie girls in leather boots, black leggings and short denim skirts, and Party-boss landlord chatting up one of his young mistresses. The occassional non-glitterati local stumbles through - agog at the sight of all these foreigners and cosmopolitan Chinese hidden in these back alleys behind Jiangguo Street. One such laborer, taking what he thought was going to be a shortcut through the backalleys on his motorbike gets tangled up in a young blonde's cashmere sweater and in his panicked attempt to back out of the weird scene knocks over a caraffe of wine, spilling red over the canary yellow high heels of an Italian Niccole Kidman look-alike. I head home with the motorcyclist's and restauranteur's energetic argument fading into the distance.

Friday, November 23, 2007

The Underground

Northern Passage


On my recent return flight from West Peavine to Shanghai my flight passed over the North Pole about seven hours out of Chicago. As we transited the Pole I looked in vain for signs of a pole, neon lights or any other telltale sign. But I was distracted from my look out the window by what I saw on the little TV screen in front of me. The flight path monitor always shows the plane's direction in relationship to the map but as we passed over the pole the little plane on the map started spinning and pointing in all directions. For a few seconds I was concerned until I realized that it must be due to being directly over the magnetic pole which must have confused the directional gizmo.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Thanksgiving Refuge

My employer gives me Thanksgiving Day off - a rarity in China where most Chinese have never heard of the holiday and even most American-owned businesses treat the US holiday as just another work day in the Far East. In all of Shanghai I'm probably one of only a few hundred lucky Americans that had the day off. Given this, I thought I'd get out and about to see some of the normally very crowded attractions. To my chagrin, they were still crowded. The Carrefour supermarket was just as crowded as on the weekends. The Bund was crowded, as was HuaiHai Road - Shanghai's shopping street. Where are all these people coming from?, I thought to myself. Why aren't they at work - and out of my way? Why are they hogging in on my holiday?

The only time of day or week that one can get some relief from the crowds is very early on a weekend day - say 6 am on Saturday or Sunday. Chinese, like Americans, like to sleep in a bit on weekends and these early morning hours are the only time one can walk the streets in relative silence. At 6 am I can even walk across the broad street in front of our housing compond without having to dash to avoid kamikaze taxi drivers and buses. Don't try this at 8 am.

By mid afternoon I retreated to my home and stayed there. It's the only place I could find to have a quiet holiday.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Wind Splitters are the Future

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Return from Wuhan

I returned to Shanghai from Wuhan last evening via China Eastern Airlines. The economy seats were cramped beyond belief and every single seat was taken. It was the same on the Shanghai Airlines flight to Wuhan earlier in the week. The airlines in China seem to be doing well - at least on domestic routes. They don't fair so well on international routes where they face international competition. China Eastern dropped a flight to the US last year because of losses on the route.

On the China Eastern flight last night my knees were jammed up against the seat in front of me - the pain was so bad that I had to take the in-flight magazine out of the seat pouch to give me a couple of extra centemeters. During the meal I had my tray table down when the fellow in front of me decided to violently push his chair back - nearly slicing me in two. I was glad that the flight was just over one-hour in length.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

From Peavine to Wuhan

Just back from a great trip to Peavine I had one nights rest before catching a Shanghai Airlines flight to Wuhan, an industrial city on the Yangtze (Changjiang) River. I've been in meetings since my arrival but if the air is always as polluted as it looks today then this is not a healthy place. The sun has been a dull disc hidden behind smog all day. I can barely see nearby skyscrapers from my 11th floor hotel room.

While the sky is murky I'm pleased to find that many of the websites that are blocked in Shanghai are accessible from Wuhan - at least from my hotel. I'm not sure if the citizens of Wuhan have the same degree of open access to the web that I do in my international five-star hotel. I'm taking advantage of this unusual access to download as many podcasts as possible. Most of them are blocked in Shanghai.

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Back in the States

Back in the mainland US for a few days and it feels great! It's been almost two years since I was here last time and the first thing I noticed was the solidness of everything. Buildings, streets, all the infrastructure feels solid and permanent. The food, the services, - everything looks and feels like it's going to be here for a long time. This is noticible having just come from China where so much of what one sees is either being slapped up or torn down - seemingly at the same time.

I arrived in Kansas City a day ago and headed straight for a bagel eatery and enjoyed a bit of "solid food" - bagels are as rare as queues in China.