Kauai, Hawaii

After flying Shanghai to Tokyo, Tokyo to Honolulu, and Honlulu to Kauai, I have arrived at my home for the next week completely make sup for the two hours or sleep I got in the last 24 hours. Shanghai? Hawaii is looking pretty damn good right now!

French House in the Chinese Countryside

Last weekend a few friends and I headed about 3 hours out of Shanghai to a town near the small city of Shanyu. We stayed at a new Bed and Breakfast called Guerouel. It was built last year by a french man, who was later joined by his sister, mother, and a bulldog, what a combo! Meant to replicate his country house in Brittany, France where he was born, he built one large french style house called the "French House," and another Chinese style house, called the "Chinese House..." who would have thought. The four of us shared an apartment in the Chinese style house, and being the only guests there, pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. We woke up each morning to the strangest looking chickens clucking around, as well as their bulldog grunting as bulldogs do, along with a fresh breeze flowing through the window, and butterflies, and flowers, pretty idyllic. The bulldog, named Cappulhi, which is french for "ugly frog" and "naughty boy" combined, was definitely one of the highlights of your trip. Even though he was at times overly sexually minded, he was a lonely bulldog in the Chinese countryside so I guess who could blame him...and for the most part, he stayed away from our legs. We biked to bamboo forests, ate heavy creamy french food, and drank lots of wine. Although our first meal was a little questionable as it was a dinner of just potato's gratin, the meals to follow thankfully included some veggies and protein. f you know me, you know cream and butter aren't my foods of choice :) Serving french food in the Chinses countryside is a challenge and I think they are still working on that aspect. I All in all it was a nice break from the city and being by far the only westerners in the town, we really felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. Despite the time two locals felt the need to accompany us on our bike ride by following alongside us on their motorcycle for a good while so we wouldn't get lost, we were mostly left alone to wander the area as we pleased. Even though it was a french house in China, it really felt like we could have been in the French countryside. Such a drastic contrast from Shanghai, it will definitely be a place to revisit especially after the pool and horse stables are built!

Chinese Fondue

Hot Pot. The literally "hot pot" is where the meal starts and ends. Think Chinese fondue. Raw food and big boiling dishes of water and oil. Going to Hot Pot is something that needs to be done with Chinese friends, as was the case after work one night. Upon arriving dishes of oil and water were brought to the table and placed upon the table's burner to heat. You can order everything you want from pigs feet to mushrooms off of the menu, which will arrive in a cart beside your table. Fish, meat, veggies, and tofu; the array of food is both beautifully presented and usually great tasting as long as you don't ask too many questions. On this particular night I arrived a bit late after my Chinese co-workers had already ordered. Some of the stuff in the mix I could decipher and others I couldn't. One thing you learn when living in China is not to ask too many questions about what you are eating and just eat. The common approach when eating hot pot is to simply stick your chopsticks in the communal broth and fish around until you pick something out that looks appealing. This usually suits me until I hit bone and then questions start arising in my head such as "What part of the animal is this? What animal is it in the first place? Do I really want to be eating mushrooms that have been cooked in pig feet infused water?" Generally at the start of the meal the vat of various foods looks appetizing, but by the end, after much of the oil and water has evaporated, the carcasses reveal themselves and you know it's time to leave. Despite the unappealing aftermath, its always a great communal meal. In this case, our whole staff joined and it doesn't get much better than going to local restaurants with locals who know how to order and eat.

Friends come and go in Shanghai...

Living as an expat typically means living in a transient community with friends constantly coming and going. In this case, my good friend and boss, Devon, is leaving. She has been here from the beginning and she has definitely been a positive presence in my life both at work and outside of work. Even though she is moving on to bigger and better things like getting a Master's at the Teachers College at Columbia University, it will be sad to see her go! :( So... in true Shanghai style, what better way to kick off the beginning of the end of Shanghai for her than a BBQ at her apartment at the Ritz. Not a bad way to spend the day hunh? Not only did this mean gorgeous grounds for lying on their nicely cushioned lawn chairs while tanning in the sun, but also the use of their two gorgeous grills, a trampoline, a basketball/tennis/soccer field, a pool, and all while taking in the great views of the Shanghai skyline. A small group of friends spent the afternoon replicating a lazy Sunday for the average American with a backyard barbecue. We snaked on chips, salsa, and guacamole, drank corona and Tsingtao (just a little piece of China,) and grilled burgers and ribs. With Heinz Kethcup and Mustard, and Garden of Eden tortilla chips, what could be better? Its the small things that keeps us going. We got to see the sun set and the moon rise, took great action shots of trampoline jumping, dove into the pool with make shift swimsuits, or lack there of, and enjoyed our last days with Devon. Burgers, beer, friends, a pool...there was no other place I would have rather been.

Long time...but I am back!

So i know it has been an incredibly long time since I last posted, but hey what can I say...such is life. The top three things on my mind right now are...

1) A student throwing up all over the table in my 9am Saturday morning class. Great way to start the day!

2) Local restaurant staff doing group stretching on the sidewalk to get prepared for the day

3) Mother's Day

Working and living in Shanghai has continued to be quite an experience. I am completely content with living in Shanghai (although miss the mountains and open space)! It has everything any Westerner would need. Just got my hair highlighted from a Brit at the Hilton...definitely can't trust Chinese salons since everyone has more or less the same color and type of hair. Try teaching curly, dark blond and light blond, and dark brown and light brown to a group of Chinese kids. Let me tell you, not that easy! Me walking in with curly thick blondish in some spots brownish hair with layers, would not go over well. Stopped at Starbucks on the way back to grab a friend a piece of cake, before dipping into my lunch of a homemade organic veggie salad with homemade vinaigrette. Life is pretty good. It's like living in New York but being able to afford actually living! Although I ride my bike almost everywhere, being able to hop in a taxi without thinking about how the 10 minute cab ride will effect my bank account is pretty nice! And I have also been able to save money to top it off. Never would have happened in New York...as a student.

Living in Shanghai is good, working in Shanghai is...OK. Although I work for a pretty great company, it is quite large and quite corporate. Highlights are meeting Bob Iger (C.E.O. of Disney Worldwide) and having him show me his new Ipad while playing the "My humps" music video by Black Eyed Peas. Now, imagine a 50 or so year old businessman of one of the largest corporations in the world showing you a music video of a scantily clad Fergie bouncing to the Peas..quite a laugh, and quite a cool guy too. Also, being able to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D before it hit theatres anywhere, and getting a sneak peak at the Prince of Persia with some recording detector to make sure no one in the theatre was recording any bit of the unreleased, still in production film....is all pretty cool. Besides that, work is mostly non-challenging, which is a challenge for me in itself. I have started to think about grad school for either a Masters in Social Work or Masters in International Relations..but hey, those are just thoughts and any input is greatly appreciated.

I am looking forward to meeting my dad and step mom in Hawaii in July and can't wait! Will be the first time out of China in 10 months! And...am awaiting my mom's arrival who will also be working with me at Disney...but definitely at a different school. Who would have thought, my mom and I in matching uniforms in China. Looking forward to a Meditteranean dinner this evening, pita bread, hummus, and fallafel :) Life is good.

Yunnan

To celebrate the Chinese New Years (a.k.a. 10 days off of work), Max and I traveled to Yunnan, a province in the west of China that borders Vietnam, Tibet, Burma, and Laos. As a result, it has the highest number of ethnic groups of all Chinese provinces. The ethnic diversity is obvious in the people, the art, and the food. We flew into the city of Kunming, known as the "City of eternal spring." Although I had my head in between my knees sick from the turbulence, the rest of the people on the plane reacted to the bumps as if they were on a rollercoaster, cheering and ready to take on the next one. Coming from the cold and cloudy weather of Shanghai, the weather was a perfect start. When we arrived at the hostel, I quickly situated myself on the roof order to soak in the sun as much as possible, FINALLY! After Max recovered from his 24 hour stomach bug, which I caught a few days later, we traveled 8 hours North by bus to Lijiang. The "old city" of Lijiang attracts thousands of tourists every year and we were there during the height of the tourist season, the Chinese New Year. Inhabited mostly by the Naxi group, the city has "the best preserved ancient town in China." Mini canals line the streets and are still used both for irrigation and to dump trash of course, while the old cobble stone streets provide a perfect paths to wander around the town for hours. Along with the cobble stone streets, amazing views of the "Snow Mountain," and gorgeous jewelry, we saw Chinese after Chinese walking by in Cowboy hats they picked up at one of the many tourist shops. Young and old, short or tall, male or female, if you were an Asian tourist in Lijiang, you were wearing a cowboy hat. From Lijiang, we bussed up to the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge hike. An amazing 8 hour hike along a gorgeous gorge, known for its 20 switchbacks in the first hour of the trip, provided a much needed work out. Huffing up the 18th of the 20th switchback, we were passed by two girls in heels goin to the next town. Hiking boots, heels, hiking boots, heals, no big deal. We passed a few guesthouses along the way, which provide hikers with overnight stays and meals. We finished the hike in one day and spent the night at the end of the trail at Tina's hostel, which overlooked the gorge. We hiked with an Italian, Luca, and a Korean, Lee, and ate dinner with a German, an Italian, some Israelis, some Koreans, and another American, one of the best things about traveling. The next morning we traveled back to Lijiang by way of a narrow dirt road with a straight drop down to the river below. We had to get out of the vehicle at one point to run across a landslide to avoid the falling rocks while the bus rammed up a hill. The Korean held a huge rock next to his head for protection and needless to say we made it safe and sound. After Lijiang we bussed to Dali, which sits on a lake below a large mountain. Dali, inhabited by the Bai people, is the Berkeley of China on a much smaller scale. Cafe after cafe line the streets filled with Asians with dreds, chinese hipster artsy types, Westerners who came 30 years ago and are still living there doing odd jobs, and old toothless women coming up to you every five minutes asking, "Hey...you want to smoke the ganja...marijuana?" As it grows wild there I guess it is not that far fetched...guess it's a way to make a living! Beats the woman who had a random table set up on the Tiger hike selling snickers, water, and marijuana. We spent our days in Dali eating breakfast on the roof of our guesthouse, Mao Mao Cool, which was brand new and gorgeous complete with a garden and a dog. We read in cafes, tanned in the sun, and of course ate local specialities like yak meat, and goats cheese. Yunnan is the only cheese producing province in China...yummmm. Even though I wasn't ready for the trip to end, it felt really good to be back in Shanghai. I felt like I was coming home and was excited to get back to my apartment. I know I won't be here for ever but for now I feel its where I belong, which is good enough for me.

Photos:

1) Market outside of Dali selling Patik

2) Weighing veggies

3) Tiger Leaping gorge

4) Max

5) Market outside of Dali

6) Angry child on hike

For more photos follow the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/106634987443650716423/Yunnan?feat=directlink

Happy Chinese New Year!

The Year of the Tiger (coincidentally my year as I was born in 1986), starts tomorrow evening. Taken back to when I was a child eating at Chinese restaurants and I found entertainment reading the zodiac symbol place mats over and over again, I never thought I would ever be in China actually celebrating a new years of any sort, moreover my year! I now understand that the year you are born is represented by one animal only, and for me that is the Tiger. This never occurred to me when I was younger and week after week would spend an hour trying to find my year, my animal, and my animal's description.

Tigers are....

"Physically powerful, gracious, independent and brave, they are extremely bold animals. They are friendly and loving but can also selfish and short tempered. Tigers seek attention and power; frequently they are envious in a relation. Tigers live dangerously which often leads to trouble. They are intolerant, take risks and are always searching for excitement. Tigers are also instilled with a good dose of courage."

....hmmm...I'm going to have to think about that one!

Before New Years eve, practically everyone in China travels home to their families. Planes, trains, and automobiles, you name it, are full! Once rejoined with your family, the Chinese New Years is celebrated by eating meal after meal over three days. All of the meals are composed of dishes that have specific symbolic significance. For instance...

-"Noodles represent a long life; an old superstition says that it's bad luck to cut them."

- "Clams because of their resemblance to bouillon."

- "Tangerines and oranges are passed out freely during Chinese New Year as the words for tangerine and orange sound like luck and wealth."

-"Fish also play a large role in festive celebrations as the word for fish, "Yu," sounds like the words both for wish and abundance."

So if you are in China eat your noodles and clams!

Happy New Year!

THANK YOU!

Last night was my "Hope for Haiti" fundraiser at a local bar, Not Me. We had VOID DJ's Shanghai Ultra and Nat Alexander spin, along with Brown Nylon Suit (Hideout). Thank you to everyone, Max for helping me organize and do anything I needed help with, Elisa for providing amazing graphics for the whole night, and Nuno and Tom for designing the fliers for advertising! Most of my colleagues had to work at 9am the next morning, so they were at the bar early and helped get the night going. Once the clock hit 11 people came pouring in, throwing down drinks, and dancing. 50% of all rum based drinks were donated to the cause by the bar, which totaled 1,000 RMB. In total, we raised just under 10,000 RMB for Partner's in Health, and had about 175 people show up. Photos to come!

Fundraising for Haiti

It's official! Two fundraising events have resulted from my preliminary idea of raising money for Haiti earthquake relief efforts. The manager of one reggae band I hit up turned the original low key event into a 5 band music fundraiser at a huge venue where they are expecting upwards for 300 people! Not bad right. Turning it into something bigger than I ever though is awesome but at the same time, didn't allow me much of my own freedom to do what I had primarily envisioned. As a result, I created a smaller event scheduled on February 6th, at a local bar. Complete with a night of 4+ well known Dj's and all door proceeds going to Partner's in Health, it should be a great albeit smaller event. The most important thing that is coming out of both of the events is the money that will be donated to the Haitian Relief effort. Thanks to everyone that has been helping me and supporting me! It should be a a great 2 nights :)

Táng, Tàng, Tăng, Tāng

Max started Mandarin shortly after he arrived. The one thing he often questioned was how such brilliant people could have come up with such a complicated language system. Now I know what he means. Mandarin has four different tones and depending on the tone, one word can have up to four different meanings. For example "Tang" depending on the tone ("Táng Tàng Tăng Tāng") can mean "soup," "sugar," "to lie down," or"boiling hot." To top it all off, the language forces your mouth to say sounds you never thought existed. One has to go through a whole book of "initial" and "final" sounds before one even begins to delve into vocabulary 101. The one thing I have going for me is I work with an assistant Chinese teacher and am consequently used to hearing at least some of the sounds on a daily basis. I haven't even tried to learn Chinese characters and although I am sure at some point I will, I am settling for pinyin, the Romanization of Mandarin (using our ABC's).
I like my teacher. She is around my age and engaged to a westerner, (surprise, surprise)... Our first class we got totally off topic and started talking about food for about a half hour (another surprise, surprise)... Hence I walked away with some interesting facts.

1) In a country of 1.3 billion, 0.9 billion are farmers. (They farm smaller plots of land because the majority of farmers are without machines. Consequently they can't dominate as much land as those with machines). This is why food is soooo cheap.

2)No legs (fish) are the healthiest, two legs (chicken) are the second healthiest, and four legs (cow, sheep etc.) are the least healthy. The Government recommends eating as many "no legs" as possible.

3)They don't use ovens so... 2 legged, 4 legged, and no legged friends are either boiled, steamed, or stir-fried.

4) They almost always use rice wine, scallions, and ginger for cooking our 2 legged, 4 legged, or 0 legged friends,

5)Almost everything is cooked with bones. They believe bones hold the most nutrition.

...more Mandarin and cultural tidbits to come!

You know it's a nice day in Shanghai when...

You know it's a nice day in Shanghai when
you pass by the local Michelin tire store
and notice the employees climbing up and
down a ladder, hanging fish, chicken, and
meat carcasses to dry in a tree. Although this
photograph was taken in Hangzhou, you get
the picture. Just add to the picture a busy street
corner with a constant flow of cars and pedestrians,
and a tree with various animals hanging to dry
in the sun.

Fundraising for Haitian Earthquake Victims

I am sure you have all heard by now of the horrific earthquake that occured in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. Not only was it the worst earthquake they have had for 200 years, but they have no infrastructure to recover from the massive destruction. After hearing this news far far far away in China, I immediately set out to think what I could do to aid in the recovery process. I do not have the money to fly over there, nor do I have any medical training. My day was consumed yesterday by a constant flow of thoughts running through my head of ways I could help. I settled upon the idea of having a fundraiser at a local venue and have a certain percentage of the night's profit donated to Doctor's Without Borders or Partners in Health. I have never held a fundraiser before. Organizing one in a city where I have only lived for a few months and where English is not the mother tongue, a difficult task is certainly in front of me. However I am ready to dip my toes into something I have never done before, as well as collect as much money as possible to donate to the Haitian Earthquake victims. Any advice or suggestions on fundraising from start to finish is more than welcome. I also urge you to do something of the sort wherever you are, or donate to an organization, like the ones I have listed below. I have included the websites below for you to find out more information.
Doctors Without Borders: http://doctorswithoutborders.org/
Partners in Health: http://www.pih.org/home.html