One Year Ago

One year ago, Matt and I made our maiden voyage to Shanghai, spending 10 days exploring the city that has now become our home.

Things were a little different then.  For starters, there were only two of us, plus a little bump.  Over a fancy dinner at one of Shanghai's most famous restaurants, we opened an envelope with an ultrasound photo that revealed the little bump's gender.  Instantly, our “peanut” became a baby girl, and we knew we'd call her Tyler Julianne.

ah, the innocence of childless Shanghai newbies...

Our initial impressions of Shanghai were also quite different than the reality of our settled-in life here.

We spent most of our time up on Nanjing Road, the major shopping pedestrian street, and the Bund, which is the row of fancy old European-style buildings along the river.  Since living in Shanghai, I think we’ve visited each of those places twice.

When we left our hotel, we had the concierge translate all details of our travel so that we could simply hand the taxi driver a card of Chinese characters and sheepishly shrug to communicate that we didn’t speak his language or know where we were going.  Now both Matt and I can direct a taxi back to our apartment from pretty much anywhere in the city, using our newly-acquired navigation and Mandarin skills.

During our initial explorations, we were continually impressed by the complex urban highway system and elevated pedestrian sidewalks.  We never thought about the feat of heaving a baby-filled stroller up and down giant staircases just to cross the street.  

because painting crosswalk stripes is too easy?

We saw many many apartment complexes on that trip.  Since living here, though, I’ve realized we only visited the very tip of the iceberg.  I guess there’s bound to be more than a week’s worth of buildings to explore in a city of 24 million people.

I am a big water drinker.  For the life of me, I could not figure out how to order a simple glass of cold, clean water.  Either I'd wind up with ridiculously expensive bottles of Evian, or more often, glasses of steaming hot plain water.  A year later, I do know how to order one (yi bei bing shui), but I find myself preferring the Chinese drink of choice -- hot tea -- and if I want something cool and refreshing, I go for watermelon juice.

I remember walking into City Shop, the original westernized grocery store, and thinking that it was my best (only?) option for grocery shopping.  But now I’ve happily discovered many more shops that are closer/cheaper/fresher/better.  Okay, so it takes me four stores to fulfill my grocery list, but at least I have choices beyond what I originally thought.

On that trip last year, Matt had to go meet a couple of business contacts, and I was too scared to leave the hotel by myself.  Now, of course, I venture out daily, with a baby strapped to my chest no less!

Back then, we fell in love with fresh-squeezed juice stands, where you point to the fruit and it gets juiced & blended right in front of your very eyes, and for only about a dollar (US).  This is still one of my favorite things about living here.

my favorite, pineapple + dragonfruit

At least something is still how we first imagined it.

Tough Girl

This was supposed to be a post about how TJ is such a tough little kid.

I had planned to host a playgroup last Wednesday.  The eight babies span a one-month age difference, with TJ representing the midpoint (believe it or not, she’s one of three in the group with the exact same birthday!).  She’s also the only girl, and perhaps because of this, one of the smaller babies in the group.  Despite these facts, she is the resident bruiser.  At our last gathering in December, while the boys peacefully sat on their moms' laps or lay on the floor, she sat on her own, leaning over her playmates to snatch toys right out of their hands and/or mouths.  This was before she was crawling.  Now that she only operates in two modes -- standing and grabbing, or bee-lining on hands & knees -- I can only imagine what havoc she will wreak on the poor boys at our next play-date.  Since I was hosting, I thought I’d grab my camera and snap this wild woman in action for you all to witness.

But alas, my plans were foiled.  TJ woke up in vomit on Wednesday morning, and things deteriorated rather rapidly.  I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but by the end of it we had made four trips to the pediatric unit at the nearest expat hospital, we had a dining table full of various pharmaceuticals, TJ had endured a range of blood tests, and received diagnoses including cold virus, blocked sinus membranes, double ear infections, and mostly a nasty gastrointestinal bug.  At its worst, in a moment I hope to never repeat as a parent, we had to rush TJ over to the hospital for her to be rehydrated via IV.  After that, she slowly began improving.  We spent a day on the couch to recuperate, where she continually slept on my chest, too weak to sit up or even stay awake for longer than thirty minutes.  Still, she had ceased vomiting, was able to breathe through her nose, and was back to nursing.  We were on the mends.

Then the bug hit me.  I woke up in the middle of the night victim to the same stomach virus.  TJ now had to endure her mama staying in bed for two days, unable to breastfeed due to her own dehydration, unable to allow her too close lest she projectile vomit once again and send TJ into a fit of screams, unable to cuddle away the alternating looks of horror and confusion as she attempted to understand what was wrong with this person who suddenly wasn’t so familiar anymore.

Through it all, I must say, she’s been a champ.  Experiencing vomiting – and then dry heaving – for the first time almost without complaint.  Handling the doctors poking and prodding and frantically searching for a non-collapsing vein.  During the hour and half with an IV hooked up to her arm.  Enduring the many many many syringes of medicine I’ve had to force down her throat.  Persevering through myriad trials and tribulations of feeding.  Continuing to seek cuddles even when mama became a monster and daddy was a bundle of stress, dealing with two sick ladies and a huge pile of work.

I think this still might be a post about how TJ is a tough little kid.

Ghosts of the Future

Yesterday the Weis went off in search of good ol’ fashioned American barbecue.  (You’d think we would’ve gotten our fix of American food while on vacation last week, but apparently not.)  Matt met a guy awhile back who manages a Texas barbecue joint here, so armed with his business card to guide us, we set out for some pulled pork and buffalo wings.

And they were delicious!  But that, my friends, is not the point of this story.  The restaurant is tucked into a residential neighborhood that was created around the time of – and because of – the 2010 World Expo held in Shanghai.  So after lunch, we decided to take a stroll through the old expo grounds.

In true China fashion, the Expo set all of the records for grandiosity: largest site, most countries participating, most visitors*, and highest price tag.  Shanghai tore down hundred of factories and shipyards along the river, and displaced tens of thousands of people by leveling their neighborhoods to clear space for the many expo pavilions. 

Ironically, just a year and a half after the Expo ended, many of those pavilions have now been destroyed as well, clearing the way for the next wave of development.  However, enough is left for us to still get a sense of just how ridiculously gigantic this production was.  Walking through the old expo grounds today is eerie; the juxtaposition of futuristic architecture and abandoned spaces connotes a post-apocalyptic space-station.  The overcast day and scarce fellow sightseers only contributed to the sensation that we had travelled through time to an alternate universe.

We began our journey when we stumbled into this lovely garden, abandoned save for a chain-smoking cleaning crew.

moonboat & China Pavilion in the background

We then saw the giant “moonboat” – no idea what it’s for, but it was one of the few buildings that appeared to still be occupied.

apparently moon + boat = palm trees on the roof (deck?)

get married in a flying saucer!

We walked through the giant complex for the Mercedes Benz Arena, a top-notch facility that seats 20k people but, due to lack of demand, now advertises that you can rent it out for weddings.  Matt has read that the arena hosts only about a half dozen events per year – what a waste!

We passed by the main thoroughfare of the grounds, which alternated tents reminiscent of DIA and funnels reminiscent of the coin-collecting jars in 1990s fast food restaurants.

Hey TJ, photo proof that we took you to the expo!

We had to stop and take a posed photo in front of the China Pavilion, because apparently that is the thing to do.  We didn’t see too many people on our little tour today, but the most we did see were orbiting this structure to take photos.  We even saw a family park their car in the middle of the street (there was almost no traffic) and get out so that the grandparents could hold their infant granddaughter with the China Pavilion in the background while the dad snapped photos.

map of Expo grounds along Huangpu River

After winding our way through the expo site from back to front, we came across a collection of maps and directories to help guide visitors at the entrance.  We delighted in studying the map of the entire grounds, because it seems that whoever was in charge of placing individual country pavilions had quite the sense of humor.  We found Israel’s pavilion surrounded by militant Islamic countries, while North Korea and Iran nestled into neighboring pavilions that were removed from the others.  And then there was Japan, the one country out of 200+ that was given a site on the opposite side of the river.

Finally, we hopped onto a new subway line and headed home.  As silly as the whole expo site now seems – what a waste of time, money, manpower, and materials for a temporary entertainment venue! – I am thankful that Shanghai hosted this event just a year before we moved here.  In addition to this wasteland we toured today, the Expo led to the construction of several new subway lines, added a fleet of clean taxis (with seatbelts!) to the streets, and plastered the city in English translations.  In this way, the Expo did live up to its slogan: “Better City, Better Life.”

*Also done in true China fashion: after failing to hit admissions targets for the first half of the Expo, they sent buses out to random rural villages, loaded everyone on, brought them to Shanghai, and had them walk through the turnstiles.  Win for record-breaking visitors!

Severe Weather Alert

After two blissful weeks of vacation in Hawaii, we had to return to the less balmy climates from which we came.  Our families were greeted in Denver by two feet of fresh snow that had threatened to cancel their flights, but luckily the airport was able to handle the storm.  Meanwhile, our little Shanghai-bound trio returned to a city in crisis.

The Shanghai Daily newspaper’s headline warned residents that the weather bureau had issued a severe alert, apparently of the lowest (=worst) level on the weather scale.  The government mandated that the state-run power and water companies should secure extra supplies for residents, who were asked to independently prepare themselves for this incoming weather catastrophe.  More than 80 flights were cancelled, delayed, or rerouted, affecting tens of thousands of air travelers.  Maritime authorities warned all ships to take special precautions as they entered or exited Shanghai’s bustling port.

What extreme meteorological patterns created such a fuss?  A little fog (which to my eye appeared far less hazy than the typical smog engulfing this city), and temperatures approaching a frosty zero degrees . . . Celsius. 

Aaand welcome back to China.

Chinese New Year

Since we published the many blunders in Christmas decorations around Shanghai, it’s only fair that we present you with the beauty of the biggest traditional holiday here: Chinese New Year.  We missed much of this celebration with our vacation to Hawaii, but we still got to enjoy the decorations around town before we left. 

My favorites were what I nicknamed “the twelve days of new years” around our apartment complex.  It seemed like every morning in January when TJ and I headed out, there was a new decoration added to the entryway.  By the time we left for Hawaii, we had fireworks, chili peppers, gold coins, gold fish (plastic, not real!), scrolls, lanterns and even real orange bushes greeting us in front of our building.

twelve chili peppers,

many firecrackers,

five gold fish,

... and some hongbao in an orange tree

Baby Wearing

For my sister-in-law, a big fan and currently near-constant practitioner of baby-wearing, I have discovered the Chinese version of this practice:

see the little blue hat with white pom-pom?

Yep, that's a baby, wrapped in a sleeping bag, stuffed into a big basket, strapped to his mother's back.

Fabric Market: Adventures in Shopping

Yesterday, TJ and I headed down to the fabric market.  My main objective of this trip wasn’t to capture photos or stories; it was to collect the clothes that I had commissioned for our upcoming Hawaiian vacation.  However, I did manage to snap a few pictures to share this experience with you.

The fabric market was not in its finest form yesterday, as both vendors and customers are already disappearing for the Chinese New Year holidays.  To give you a sense of the madness, though, I’ll share this little anecdote: I took my friend and super-shopper Sarah to the market, and 30 minutes later she was looking for the exit.  Knowing that I tend to develop heart palpitations after five minutes in a mall, Sarah was in disbelief that I enjoyed "shopping" here.  What can I say, I’m settling in I guess!

The market consists of six floors, each housing maybe one hundred little stalls arranged in an illogical maze-like pattern.  Stalls tend to specialize in a fabric or style.  Some simply sell bolts of fabric wholesale, supplying the tailors with a wider selection than each vendor could possibly carry independently.  Some sell premade scarves, belts, gloves, and other accessories.  Some are proper tailors who custom-sew men’s suits or shirts to order.  Some copy western fashions, from outerwear (leather or cashmere coats) to ladies’ fashions such as Mad Men inspired dresses, prom-like ensembles, and an array of blouses and cardigans.  It tends to run the gamut from current fashions to terribly ugly and out-of-date oddities, with some Chinese styles thrown in for good measure.  Generally, they can recreate their own samples, produce a nearly perfect replica of any item you bring in, or work from a photo you supply from the internet or a magazine.  On the upper floors there are specialty shops dedicated to zippers, buttons, and other detailing, so that you can theoretically pick out your trims, find your fabric, and then take it all to a third shop where the tailor will create your unique piece.  The prices are cheap (<$15 for custom fit men's dress shirt) and everything is negotiable, making the fabric market the perfect place for me to practice my haggling skills in Mandarin.  Mini-lesson of the day: tai gui le = “too expensive!”

endless fabric options

fabric for dress shirts

the scarf shops remind me of the street-corner stands in NYC

suits galore

hideous "western" fashions are instant time-travel

Chinese silks, Chinese styles

The whole experience sounds ridiculous for one simple piece of clothing: choose a stall, design an item, pick fabrics and closures, have measurements taken, negotiate the price, return a week later, check fit and quality, final measurements and negotiations, and walk away with your new clothes.  For a person who detests shopping, I’m really not sure how this has become appealing to me.  I think perhaps it’s because the fabric market makes shopping a big adventure, an exploration of a Chinese subculture that is both seedy and extravagant at the same time.  And the one-of-a-kind, perfectly fitting, and reasonably priced pieces I now have are little pearls harvested after much patience and persistence.  You can see my gray cashmere winter coat that has been keeping out the Shanghai chill here.  Stay tuned for a post-Hawaii blog post to witness more fabric market creations!