Shanghai Part 1

We had a week off in October for a national holiday. I decided a week before that if Darren was going to go to Shanghai to do research I wanted to go to. While we were in Yangjuen we were told that 32 people had left for Shanghai to work in a factory. The owner of the factory is an old friend of Steve (the professor who set up this program and is advising my research project). So alright. It was a bit tricky, Darren is one of those people who won’t give you a serious answer and avoids concrete decisions. Obviously I am just the opposite. I appreciate his humor and am one of the only people in this group who could have had fun with him for that many days in a row though, so we both knew it would be fine.

I bought the train tickets all by myself. Score 1! The train trip to Shanghai is 40 hours long. The train doesn’t go straight east, it has to go north, through Xi’an for example. The train ride to Shanghai was nice. We chatted with the people around us (mostly Darren chatted and I sort of listened, I was still too shy about using my Chinese, but Darren made me practice some). I love looking out the window. But by the second day I was reading and listening to music. I have been working on Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, so I had plenty to read.

We got to Shanghai and the first I noticed wasn’t the crowds, but the weather. It was hot and humid. Ugh. We bought our return tickets, and we had Burger King for lunch. Yes American food! It was fun. Darren decided to maybe find the factory or a hotel near it. So he left for the public bus.

I however was going to stay on the Bund, I had sightseeing to do! I also didn’t have as much research to do as Darren. Of course my cab pulls up at the address of what my guide book says is a budget hotel. Sheesh. The Astor House Hotel is not a budget hotel. But I didn’t want to catch another cab, and I decided to just go with the flow, they had an available single for the night. So I staying in a fancy hotel, by myself, just a block off the Bund. Score 2!

Okay, so the hotel. It was the first Western hotel to open in Shanghai. It has portraits of celebrities who have stayed there, and there are special celebrity rooms, one of which is known as the “Albert Einstein” room. It was expensive but didn’t cost more than the nearby chain hotels in Shanghai do. When by guide book was written it was run down and had a lot of dorm style rooms. Since then it has been refurbished and is moving upscale. The doormen wear Scottish outfits and there is a sing outside saying “Appropriate Attire Required.” The ballroom was closed that night because they were hosting a very posh Shanghai wedding. I can give the link of for the website if you are interested.

I took a nap and a shower and went out on the town. I walked the length of Nianjing Lu, which is the Shanghainese version of Malibu Drive or 5th Avenue. It was so crowded you couldn’t take more than five or six steps without brushing up against or bumping into other people. I also noticed that I was tall! In Chengdu in a crowd I never feel obviously tall. In Shanghai I was obviously tall. It was really fun. I tried to shop, but the crowds were too much. At one point I caught myself thinking “I want to punch one of these little women in the back of the head so badly,” I realized I needed to stop shopping then. I did buy some earrings, and postcards. I bought some nice fleece warm up pants to wear in the dorms.

Later that night outside my hotel I walked up the Bund. There were huge crowds. Someone, a white man, asked me if there were going to fireworks. Of course I didn’t know. But I hung around looking at the Pudong district and the night lights for an hour. I chatted with a nice family. When they left after hanging around I realized that there weren’t fireworks, everyone was just looking at the view, for hours. I walked around in the crowd, I ate street food, and went back to the hotel. I watched CNN. I also got room service, first time in my life! I got a ham sandwich, I know, I know, but I hadn’t had western food since I got here, so spoiling myself seemed alright. Besides, Shanghai food isn’t any good after eating Sichuan food for a month. I can say it was one of the most satisfying sandwiches I have ever had (also one of the most expensive).

It really was a beautiful night. I enjoy cities. I love the energy and the activity. I enjoy watching people. The lights of the Pudong were beautiful. Shanghai has a nice ocean breeze and in the evening the temperature is perfect. Occasionally I could even smell the ocean. There were so many families out that night, daughters helping their aged mothers through the crowd, and a lot of dads with tired kids on their shoulders. It very much felt like a holiday as well, most of the crowds were other Chinese people coming into Shanghai for the holiday. I felt very comfortable just wandering and enjoying the atmosphere.

The next day I didn’t go out in the morning. I had breakfast at the hotel. Breakfast is in the ballroom, it has chandeliers and ancient hardwood floors. It was nicest room I have ever eaten in. While I was eating a tour was let in to look at the room. It was great. I had a mix of delicious western and Chinese breakfast foods. I was dressed up for my day, both for being in Shanghai and also in case I was going to interview the owner of the factory that day. I felt like everyone could have guessed I wasn’t really in Shanghai for an interview or anything, but a student attempting to dress up.

The factory had the company driver pick me up. I won’t go in to details. I spent the day on the third floor of the factory office building, which has dorms and a kitchen for the foreman and office workers. I also spent half the evening in the dormitories for the people who work at the factory. I got to interview the girls from Yangjuen, they don’t actually fit the qualifications for my project, but it was interesting, fun and kind of sad. Darren and I worked together to interview all the people from Yangjuen. As far as factories in Shanghai go, the people are being treated well. It won’t stop bothering me that 18 year old girls are working 10 to 12 hour days 6 days a week, no matter how well the factory is set up.

The people from Yangjuen are always nice. We all had dinner together. It was very homey and nice to be with them. Darren and I were also really silly and enjoyed that day together. I stayed in the factory that night, for free.

The next day was our free day. Darren was going to a suburb of Shanghai to see some friends. I was driven back to the city center. That day was the best by far. I walked to the People’s Park in the center o f the city. There is such great architecture in the city. I thought about going to the Shanghai Museum but the line was out the door. So I headed for the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, the MOCA. On the way some girls my age tried to start talking to me in English.

Well, I decided to be more spontaneous right? I chatted with them. They were going to a tea ceremony and asked if I would go with. A few of them were English majors and wanted to practice. They were all holiday from Xi’an Transportation College. The teahouse was nearby. I had a blast. At one point they kept going on and on about how beautiful I was. We joked about boyfriends. The girl doing the presentation was our age too, and we kept distracting her from her job. I learned a lot about tea. Of course at the end I was pressure into buying some tea, on top of the cost of the presentation. I think we all got scammed a little, and me most, but I say, it was the most fun I’ll ever have getting scammed. The girls all gave me their email addresses and phone numbers. I’ve been getting text messages from them. They also heard my name wrong, and before I knew it were calling me Bai Lu, instead of Bai Wei. Bai Lu really reminds me of “Balu” (spelling) from the Disney version of the Jungle Book. I kept humming “I w anna be like you u u u…” and thinking of my “uncle” Carl all afternoon. tos of tea ceremony