Meanwhile, back in China...

Tiffany is out of town for the week, back home in Chicago, enjoying all the wonderful quiet and cleanliness that we have learned to appreciate from our time in China. In her absence, I thought I would just put together a few odds and ends for an entry.





China is no place for the claustrophobic, or those who fear crowds (known as "enochlophobia", I found out, but couldn't find the origin of that word. Enoch was a biblical character, but I didn' t read anything about his particular fear of crowds. Isn't the internet great?!)








And judging by this city model layout at the Shanghai Planning Museum, no one expects the crowds to lessen any time soon. It's a little hard to tell in the picture, but basically the colored buildings already exist, while the white buildings are planned construction. It looked to me like about 60% of the model was built, and 40% were still to come.




Luckily, the Chinese are not "xenophobic" and have been very friendly and welcoming to us as strangers in their home country. Of course, along with that they are quite curious and practiced masters at the art of non-subtlety.

I know I've mentioned this before, but the Chinese are admirably open with their feelings, in the sense that they seem to be saying, "Hey, I'm curious. Of course I'm going to stare!" whereas in America that seems to have become a cultural faux pas and downright rude. But the Chinese don't mean any offense by it, and we (well, Tiffany really) have gotten sort of accustomed to it. Basically, it doesn't surprise us anymore, but it still makes us laugh.


Which isn't to say that sometimes we don't grow weary from all the crowds and staring and noisy surrounds. Sometimes we just want a timeout, a brief respite from the action, hide out from everybody and maybe take a quick nap.

And we are fortunate that China has essentially three weeks of national holidays, National (or Golden Week) holiday in October, Chinese New Year in February, and Labor Day in May. Last year we stuck around for National holiday and Chinese New Year, but now we know better. These holidays are the perfect chance to get out and see some of the sights of Asia. And if we can find a nice place to relax as well, all the better!


Let's see, what else? I had a few opportunities to meet some interesting people lately. One was Colin Powell, who spoke in Shanghai a few weeks ago. He seemed like a very nice man, and pretty down to earth for a general.









And then I attended a Wharton-sponsored event with the Undersecretary of Commerce, Frank Lavin, with Mark and Meredith, who are our friends here in Shanghai, and my classmates from Penn. The part of the speech that I remember was the US urging China to crack down on piracy, which made me think, "Ooh, I wonder when the new Pirates of the Caribbean will be available at our fake DVD store?" but then I realized Mr. Lavin was speaking about intellectual property rights and was actually trying to stop the widespread sale of fake DVD's... But honestly, I don't think I would know where to buy a DVD that wasn't illegally copied! It's not like there is Blockbuster down the street, or Netflix. (That's not an excuse, by the way, it's just the feeble justification we fake-goods loving expats like to counter with.)



Finally, here is a slightly disturbing find from our weekend trip to Sanya. It was in the closet. In case of fire, it is an air filtration mask, I believe. I suppose it is very practical and should be reassuring to have on hand, but that picture made me think of some sci-fi apocalyptic movie. The Chinese could really learn from Americans, I think, and remove that blunt honesty tendency in this case. I suggest replacing that picture with a Disney cartoon character, for a more G-rated, gentle image.


So that's it for now. I found some expats who play football (American with your hands, not European/Asian/everywhere else in the world with your feet), and went out for a few hours yesterday to run around. I am as a result sore beyond belief, and groan and make pained, complaining noises every time I sit down or get up, like an 80-year old man. (Signs You Are Getting Old #41.)

P.S. Oh, wait, I almost forgot. My sister, Lisa, was written up in the San Fran paper recently. I was just so proud, because I finally see the result of all my years of hard work being her older brother paying off ;) Here is the link to the article, and I am also proud to see that 5 of her 10 favorite local haunts are food places!

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/07/23/LVGS2K1CTK1.DTL&type=travelbayarea

It is strange to see her objectively as an adult and successful career woman. For some reason, I still think of her as my little sister...