Supermarket Musings

I guess it makes sense – given a cuisine centered around stir-fry – that the largest aisle in the supermarket would be devoted to cooking oil.

and none boast of low-cholesterol, unsaturated, trans-fat free, omega-3, etc.

Close runners-up include aisles for tea, tissues (because what we use to wipe our nose, they use as kleenex/TP/napkins/facecloths), and ramen (below).

the dorm student's dream: an aisle full of instant noodles

What I'm Not Missing

There’s an online forum here called Shanghai Mamas, which is an awesome resource for foreign parents in Shanghai.  Much of the chat activity centers around people wondering where to find things: the best preschools, familiar cereals, craft supplies, a cleaning lady, imported medicine, organic vegetables, western-style furniture, clothes/shoes that fit women over five feet tall.  Many of the chats also lament the myriad frustrations of living here.

Yesterday, one member started a different type of thread, called What I’m Not Missing, with a post about how her friends back home were complaining about ticks, a problem she had happily forgotten about.  Soon comments were pouring in from other members, reminding us all that our home countries aren’t idyllic either and in many ways Shanghai (and China more broadly) can actually boast of having the advantage. 

So, with inspiration from my fellow Shanghai Mamas, here’s my own personal list of what I’m not missing:

·      television commercials

·      the barrage of ads, solicitors, and news stories related to the upcoming election

·      doom-and-gloom news media, and a consequently pessimistic public

·      expensive taxi rides

·      dirty, smelly, dingy subways

·      driving everywhere, and maintaining a car (gas, oil changes, insurance)*

·      the temptation of fast food

·      getting sucked into bad TV, especially the multitude of mind-numbing reality shows

·      scrubbing my bathroom

·      my binding cell phone contract and outrageous cell phone bills

·      taxes added to my bill at a store

·      tips added to my bill at a restaurant

·      parking lots

·      conformity

·      only being able to fantasize about affordable tropical vacations, interesting cultural excursions, and exotic travel destinations

·      celebrity gossip

·      paying exorbitant rent for a teeny tiny apartment

·      my job, or even having to work outside of our home

·      everyone with headphones in and eyes averted

·      the wail of sirens

·      obesity as a national crisis, concern, or even conversation topic

·      the question “what do you do for a living?”

·      paying more than $10 for a haircut or a DVD box set

·      commuting to my workout

·      the expectation of tips from anyone who does anything for me

·      predictability

Of course there are a few things from home that I’ll always miss.  First and foremost, our family and friends.  The fresh, crisp mountain air.  And Target, I’ll always miss Target.

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* this was near the top of the list for all of the American moms who went from suburbia to 

city living here, and it makes me grateful that I’ve never owned a car in my “adult” life!

Foreign Food: kumquats

When I started this blog, I intended to chronicle our forays into foreign food much more often than I have so far.  It isn’t for lack of gastronomic adventures – sea slugs, chicken feet, and a red bean milkshake come quickly to mind – but rather because I usually forget to take photos until the evidence has disappeared.

However, the kumquat has become one of my favorite treats here, and as the season is ending, I had to share it … at least visually, which sadly is not nearly as satisfying.

my afternoon snack, a bowl of kumquats

Although I first tasted kumquats elsewhere, these little zingers are native to China.  They are considered good luck here, frequently given as gifts during the Lunar New Year.  Kumquats taste a little bit like tangerines or oranges, but more tart.  Their thin rind is actually the sweetest part, while the inside flesh can be mouth-puckering sour.  

post-sliced, pre-seeded kumquat

 
They can be eaten like grapes, just popped in whole, chewed, and seeds spit out at the end.  However, I prefer a slightly more complicated – and I imagine more refined – method of enjoying them.  First I roll the kumquat between my fingers, a technique recommended by kumquat aficionados to release the essential oils in the peel and soften the inside flesh, breaking down a bit of the sourness.  Then I slice it in half and gently shake out the seeds.  And for the final touch of magic, I dip it in sugar.  Between the fragrant and flavorful rind, sour flesh, and sweet sugar crystals, it is heavenly!

this one is just about to be enjoyed by yours truly

Model Neighborhood

The back of our apartment looks out onto a traditional Shanghainese neighborhood, built in the Shikumen style.  This means two- and three-story row houses built along narrow alleyways connected to the main road via a gate.  Meandering back into one of these neighborhoods is a quick way to get a feel for “authentic” Chinese life.  Here we find laundry crisscrossing neighbors’ windows; children playing chase or kicking balls through the maze of alleys; women chopping fresh chicken by the light of the sun streaming through open doorways; men huddled around wobbly folding tables, cigarettes and cards in hand.  In the Shikumen alleys, locals go about their business largely unaffected by the recent wave of cosmopolitanism that has hit their city.

our view of the Shikumen rooftops

Except that soon, the urbanization of Shanghai will indeed affect them greatly.  Shikumen-style residences used to account for about sixty percent of the housing in Shanghai, but as the population expands and land becomes more valuable, high rise apartment buildings are the new norm.  Slowly, these beautiful and vibrant Shikumen neighborhoods are being taken over, their tenants relocated, the small local shops shut down, and the buildings razed, replaced by massive apartment complexes -- such as the one where we now live.

new skyscrapers looming over an abandoned Shikumen neighborhood

Walking nearby, Matt and I noticed these scaled models of our neighborhood sitting out on the sidewalk as some delivery men discussed how to move them into a nearby condo showroom.  Upon examination, we noticed that our Shikumen neighbors had all disappeared, replaced by fancy looking shiny buildings and an athletic field.  I later found out that this is a planned international school being built to accommodate the recent influx of foreigners into our posh urban neighborhood.

 

this model suggests our future view (in red) will be a bit different

I wonder if any of the people who live in the Shikumen houses had happened upon this sidewalk, and had paused to notice the models.  I wonder if they realized the conspicuous absence of their current neighborhood.  I wonder how much notice the government will give them before they have to abandon their homes.  I wonder how many people have already predicted their future – after all, this is one of the only traditional developments left in our area – and moved elsewhere.  I wonder if these relocated families prefer their spacious apartments with modern upgrades on the edges of sprawling Shanghai, or if they miss their traditional Shikumen homes in the buzz of the city center.  I wonder if this is why every day I notice more and more laundry lines pulled down, boards placed in windows, and roofs collapsed in disrepair.  I wonder about what is to be gained, and what will forever be lost, once our new "model neighborhood" becomes a reality.

Subway Series: NYC vs. Shanghai

by Matt

Many of Val’s blog entries contrast the US and China with an emphasis on how strange this place is.  However, I want to highlight that despite all of this strangeness, China can also be awe-inspiring.

Take the subway system, for example.

Living in New York City for the past several years, we heard a lot about the 2nd Avenue subway line.  It’s been in the works for over 75 years, jokingly referred to as "The Line That Time Forgot.”  With powerful labor unions, pesky shop owners, and conflicted Upper East Side residents, the project has faced a series of false starts and plenty of dysfunction.  Phase I of the project, which runs a measly two miles up the east side from 62nd St to 96th St, still has yet to open.

Contrast all of this with the subway system in Shanghai, a city with three times the population of NYC. Imminent domain, labor groups, and environmental concerns be damned, this city – and country, for that matter – gets stuff done!  The city is adding entire subway lines (not just two mile sections) at a pace of one line per year.

Here’s a subway map from 2000, when the city had just a few lines.

Here’s a map from 2010, after a decade of expansion aided by the World Expo.

And here’s the planned map for 2020.

  

Unlike the infamously incomplete 2nd Avenue subway in NYC, I have no doubt that this aggressive expansion will actually materialize on schedule.

PS – While NYC’s subway has rats and Ninja Turtles, the Shanghai subway can boast of air-conditioning, underground cell phone service, safety barricades lining the platform, and to-the-second updates on arriving trains.

The Dog & Baby Show

This past weekend, we went to Zhongshan Park to see the cherry blossoms, which were supposedly at peak bloom last week.  They were, in fact, quite pretty to view.

Sadly for the cherry blossoms though, they just could not compete with the spectacle we created by introducing our curious little blue-eyed baby to a dog owner who was overeager for photo ops.  Both dog and baby garnered attention for their walking; TJ because (as we've been told by every local female over 50 in Shanghai) Chinese babies just don't walk when they're this young/small, and the dog because they're still rare as pets here, and I mean c'mon, shoes and hind-leg walking?!?  

 I’ll allow the photos to tell the rest of the story...

dog and baby meet

dog owner in gray sweatshirt

the crowd gathers

awaiting further instructions

and we've created a spectacle

the new friends -- and showbiz partners -- strutting their stuff

Airing out the Laundry

In New York City, I knew the seasons had shifted when I walked down the sidewalk and felt a drip drip drip from high above.  The condensation from window air conditioning units was a sign that the weather was heating up.  

Don't mind the drips.

Well, Shanghai has it’s own version of this phenomenon, only here the drips come from people’s wet laundry.  

In a city of 24 million people, where almost everyone lives in apartments and almost no one owns dryers, wet laundry has to dry somewhere.  Often people hang it from poles they’ve rigged out of their windows.   

Allowing car exhaust to add that final hint of freshness to the linens.

If that doesn’t work, they just walk down to a nearby intersection and fashion up wires between light poles on the street.   

As a result, laundry has become just another obstacle to avoid while walking along local neighborhood streets here.   

Caution: dripping intimates overhead.

My favorite anecdote is when I had to warn a visiting friend to look out for a particularly low-hanging pair of underwear he almost put his face through.  

 I’m learning that in this town, laundry (along with so many other things) trumps pedestrians.

Why didn't the chicken cross the road? Crosswalk blocked by laundry.

Double-decker laundry poles assert their dominance by blocking a storefront.