I love street food in China. My favorite, pan-fried buns. I love the table size cast iron pan. I love stealing glimpses of the white sesame buns when the cook had to periodically lift the cover and rotate the pan. I love the sound of buns sizzling in their own juice. I love the eruption of steam when the cover is finally lifted, revealing the offering of a culinary delight. The balance of paper thin skin on the top, crispy fried bottom, a perfectly proportioned pork filling bathed in a pocket of soupy ecstasy is a full sensory experience to be held.
I hate people taking pictures in museums. I hate it when they use camera with flash. I hate it when they take photo without flash. I hate it when they take pictures of each other standing in front/next to the art. It is almost as bad as craving "XXX was here," another common practice in China. The place for occipital appreciation of art is debatable. I hate when they take it with cell phone cameras. I saw someone today in Shanghai Art Museum literally took a picture of every painting in one gallery. Along with the cell phone camera is the annoying sound of the fake shutter and the subsequent ring tone telling you and the person you just took the upskirt picture of that the picture has been stored. I hate them all.
I hate the RMB 30 coffee in Starbucks, and the suckers, including myself, that crowd their multi-storied shops.
I love the elderly couple who grabbed my attention in a crowed street that a RMB 5 bill has fallen out of my pocket.
I hate the ubiquitous quartet of high-end shopping high rises anchoring every large intersection in Shanghai.
I love the hundreds of people lining up to buy shrimp and crab filled rice balls so they can share this traditional meal with their family on the first fifteenth of the lunar new year.
I love old school restaurants in Shanghai. They are named after place, people or their famous dish. The names made sense. There is certain degree of classical culture and education that went into such names. Of course, now most of such restaurants have franchises all over the city while charging premium prices for their names, but they are still true to their tradition.
I hate the names of new restaurants and bars in Shanghai. These names are often idiotic and show a complete lack of culture sophistication. For example, 锅比盆大, "Pot is bigger than the dish." It is a hot pot joint. Of course, the pot is bigger than the dish. I actually just found a afternoon tea place, 锅比碗大，"Pot is bigger than the tea cup." I love it. A second option is the purposeful misuse of characters with similar phonetic sounds. Chinese is prone to such abuse, but this phenomunom still gets on my nerves. But the worst is when people name their restaurant/bar to their locations. It may be fine if you have a single digit address on the Bund, but otherwise... I think this originated from the art galleries in the West. Western restaurants, bars and galleries love this practice. Well, stop, I don't think it is original and it only shows a lack of creativity and intellectual laziness.
This is the first Chinese New Year (CNY) I spent in Shanghai since I immigrated to the States in 1990. It has been 18 years. 18 years, one could become fully grown and be eligible to vote in most countries. 18 years, a single malt whiskey could fetch hundreds of dollars. 18 years, enough time for the walkman to catch on and go extinct. 18 years, a generation has grown up accustomed to KFC, Playstation (1-2-P-3) and more cars than bikes. So it is not so surprising then that I feel less and less a part of today's society in Shanghai. I wonder about the generational gap between this generation and the one before. The 1980's was such a tumultuous and critical time for the country, yet I suspect Chinese younger than 18 probably know less about the 1980's than any other decade of the twentieth century. Perhaps it is not so surprising that after a week of excessively extravagant banquets, my family has opted for a quiet meal at Meilongzheng, an old favorite Sichuan restaurant, and a meal at home that consisted of rice steamed with vegetable and cured pork, pork hock with bean and tofu with vegetable.
I enjoyed some curry hot pot with a few neurosurgeons last night. I thought it is interesting that doctors here also want to improve the health care system though they are more interested in the best way to compensate and motivate surgeons. It may come as a surprise to Americans that many of them look up to the U.S. One doctor even commented on how difficult it is find a solution that will work effectively within the market economy especially "when even the U.S. is having such a hard time."
Duolun Lu or "Culture Street," was home to some of the left-wing writers/social activists of Shanghai in the 1930's. In the rush to modernize, the older neighborhoods of Shanghai have been inevitably falling victims to bulldozers until someone somewhere could come up with an economical reason why any such place should be preserved. Sometime it was the mere logistics of the land (too narrow a strip to build high rises), while more often it was the combination of the density of population and the price of "moving cost per capita." Duolun Lu is being preserved because its historical significance and the government's goal to transform it into a commercially viable attraction with an artistic twist. You can walk into small shops to satisfy your inner child as an antique collector. Truly, this is one man's trash another man's treasure. Mirroring the fate of the city's old architecture, most of the items on display were probably bought cheaply by the dealers from people who were at one point more concerned about that new color TV instead of the broken grandfather clock.
I spent most of the afternoon in the small alleys off the main road, playing with my the old canon EOS650. I tried to imagine the alleys without the ubiquitous AC outside each window and the growing herd of autos parked to one side. In some ways, life here is not so different than 30 years ago. There are the colorful flags--shirts, long-johns and underwear hanging off bamboo stick, waiting to dry. The new year's mascots--the smoked duck, pork belly, sausages and fish--are both enticing and intimidating. And finally there is the daily ritual of cleansing--the emptying of ma-tong. Listening to the crisp sound of national past time--mah-jong and the "washing of its pieces," is this what life is like in the 1930's?
I took a stroll around the Suzhou Creek Art District today with my uncle and his two photographer buddies. They were planning to shoot some of the abandoned factories near the creek. I had thought they would be shooting with digital SLRs so I did not bring the 20 year old Canon EOS I got from my dad. As it turned out, two out of three were shooting with BW film today. It was fun to observe them, and to just climb up buildings that were probably really too dangerous to go in. Anyhow, this has really inspired me to start rediscover my hometown through the camera lens. My uncle had some simple tips for me: get a simple semi-professional digital, shoot a ton, learn to appreciate photos of others, and start playing with use photoshop :)
I had dinner with my cousin and a couple she knew. All you can eat personal hot pot, yum. We then went to a live music venue at Xintiandi, the Ark--it was the guy's birthday. The band was terrible and so were the drinks. I guess this is life in Shanghai even when you are with people who are in the know. I am always amazed by singers that can sing songs in multiple languages that they do not speak. Well, the lead singer tonight sucked at English, Portuguese, and Chinese.
The highlight of the night was the firework. 5th day of the first lunar month is the date for the god of fortune. And people went nuts with fireworks again at midnight. Imagine 4th of July on steroids. There were people literally launching fireworks from the base of our residential building. The skyline was lit up by fireworks in every direction. How could this much firework not be fire hazard. Perpetrators were everywhere--sidewalks, parking lot, residential buildings, etc. I imagine this is about as close to Baghdad, April 2003 as possible for me.
This has been one of the coldest winters in Shanghai's recent history. There are still piles of snow everywhere to prove it. I have not done anything outside the last two days. Centralized AC/heater is still rare, and even a trip to the bathroom, which is not heated, can be daunting. Of course, the temperature was not the only reason that I barely leave the apartment.
I was playing with my dad's old SLR Canon yesterday. Considering the number of photographers and gadget-philes in my extended family, I am rather a novice when it comes to photography. I soon realized that the best way to learn will be to pop in some film and start shooting. But that will require me going outside to the store.
We had dinner last night with my mom's extended family. The star of the gathering was the Guizhou Maotai. This was Chairman Mao's favorite drink. I wonder if this was because the only thing more irresistible than its bouquet and taste was its tendency to make its drinker talk. Oh, did my family talk, especially my youngest uncle. Not surprisingly, we could not stop until both bottles were finished--we had to find out if the two tasted differently because of the age difference of 15 years. The history of the family is intricately linked with the liquor. When my uncle got married in the early 80's, his brother-in-law who was from Guizhou brought with him 8 bottles of Maotai for the wedding banquet. They were RMB8 each at the time. Each banquet table costed RMB45, which was the monthly salary of my uncle. Maotai nowadays can be anywhere from RMB600 to 6000, and I would not venture to guess how much our meal costed last night. How time has changed. One of my cousins was unfortunate enough to bring his girlfriend (who was a psychiatrist). I wonder who is going to need therapy after she spent the whole meal listening to various people discussing the psychology in today's Chinese society and grilling the couple about a date for their wedding AND their eventual child.
Not surprisingly, the drinking continued after the meal at my uncle's place. A bottle of XO was the victim this time. Apparently I am only nice to dogs when I am drunk. Long story short, I got bit by their dog, I took my revenge by puking on their balcony, and after my dad somehow took me home, I proceed to fall asleep with the TV, lights and laptop on in my bed.
Also not surprisingly, I had to take today off. It was so cold that I just could not think of anything that I want to do bad enough to get out of the apartment. I ended up playing 8 hours of Majong. My techniques were based purely from a HK Majong movie I saw recently. I was winning at a decent frequency. Even after I got cocky and more greedy and missed opportunities to increase my winnings I still came out on the black in the end.
Jet lagged, I woke up this morning at 5:30am. The canons have started already; they are nothing else if not persistent. The fire crackers here are quite impressive. Even when I see them coming, I am still startled by their sound.
I went back to the old family home for lunch. Lunch is followed by the obligatory Majong game. After 3 hours, I bowed out and went for a stroll around People's Park. The city was actually not as crowded as I had expected, possibly due to the exceptionally cold weather. The major department stores were open, but closed early by either 5 or 6pm, while the smaller stores on the side streets remained closed. Walked by the middle school Ge Zhi, it has become unrecognizable. Gone was the old building with the hundred year-old ivy. In its place stood an impressive building that would appeared more appropriate in the fast changing downtown. I stopped by Shanghai Book City, a book store. It was definitely the busiest store I saw. I spent 1 hour browsing the travel guides, looking for ideas for short trips. I also found the medical section with several books on anesthesia, but could not decide which book to buy. Shadowing Chinese anesthetists may prove to be more difficult as I originally thought.
Shanghai is cold this winter. Most people have very thick coat on, even when eating in some of the restaurants. I wonder if the businesses are been ernergy-aware. Will things change once the Three Gorge electricity come online?
I touched down in Shanghai Pudong International Airport to a city of fire and ash. That is a good thing actually. As the tradition of Lunar New Year, fire crackers and fire works are the norm at such time. Having last been in Shanghai in 2006, I braced for another reeducation of the city I once called home. The airport just added another terminal building. The roads and highways leading away from the airport are constantly changing, so soon I found myself on one of such concrete serpents creeping toward the river and the downtown beyond. I was soon distracted by the shimmering lights in the distance. Imaging a typical display of fire work at a county fair on July 4th, then multiple that by 8, and spread them across the horizon. They were most likely uncoordinated displays by private citizens. As we weaved through the concrete jungle of highway, fire works lit up the night sky, like military flares warning the impending arrival of this half-foreign invader.
Forget the smog, I was immediately attacked by the smell of sulfur once I stepped out the car. Like a VIP, I was quickly hustled into my family's old residence, an old style Shikumeng building. Almost everyone from my dad's generation were there plus my grandmother. My dad and I proceeded to eat dinner with everyone watching--something my dad's family in Shanghai share with Jerry Seinfeld's parents, dinner was at 5pm, and we arrived at 7:30pm. Surprisingly no Majong was played, and we called it a night at 9:30pm.
At 11:30pm, I was somehow able to fall asleep with the sound of machine guns outside my window. Against the survival instinct and my better judgement, I peeked out once. Tracer bullets are flying everywhere, relentlessly slamming into the side of our highrise. As the sparks bouncing off the building, I was thankful that we were on the 24th floor. They are not going to capture me that easy.
