Manners and Other Musings

At the beginning of the month, I had the chance to go back to the US for the first time in almost one year. I spent a whirlwind week seeing as many family and friends as possible, spending time at our family’s lake cottage, and stocking up on all the wonderful food I miss back in China.


There were a few observations I had while I was home:

1. The air was so clean! I think the sky was blue every day I was home; unlike the questionable Shanghai gray we have the majority of the time.

2. Everything was so quiet! It was like I was wearing earplugs, even when my dad picked me up at O’Hare. There was no superfluous honking or piercing Shanghainese being thrown around.

3. The grocery stores seemed 50 times larger than I remembered! We shop in grocery stores that are equivalent to Walgreen’s in terms of square footage, so I found it extremely entertaining to just wander down the many aisles of Jewel and Target taking in all the products. The cleanliness of these stores was also impeccable. Our local grocery store has a cat that lives in the grocery store that loves to climb over the food.

4. People seem so friendly and polite! Of course, after living in China for 11 months, I've found the culture leaves a lot to be desired in terms of western manners (note previous blog references to pushing and spitting). I sneezed while in line at the gas station, and the cashier said ‘bless you’. I almost hugged him! There are no customs when it comes to excusing someone when they sneeze, so every time I say 'bless you' to one of my colleagues out of habit, I hear giggles from the peanut gallery. My Shanghainese assistant confessed that the office thought I was a religious zealot as they assumed I was religiously 'blessing' everyone from time to time.

5. Everything was extremely easy. I could read the labels at the grocery store, and when I had a question, I could understand 100% of the answer, as opposed to bits and pieces with my kindergarten level of mandarin. It was wonderful!

After a fun week spent relaxing at our lake cottage, taking a mini road trip with my best friend to Indiana University and her new home at the University of Illinois (we both decided the former is WAY better), hanging out in Flossmoor with family, and trying to eat every type of food I miss and can’t get in China, I was ready to get back to the chaos of Shanghai. Granted, life is a lot easier and more comfortable in the states, but the trip home made me realize I still have lots of adventures (not to mention a pretty cute partner in crime) waiting for me on the other side of the world.

Walk to Work with Tiffany

One of the benefits of my job is it’s a 20 minute walk from our apartment. While I do spend part of the walk looking at the ground to make sure I don’t step in any byproducts of the Chinese spitting custom, I try to make sure I pay attention to the myriad of things going on around me. I’ve managed to capture a few of these on film:

Across from my office, they have a senior citizen version of 'Mad Hot Ballroom' every day. It's great to see Chinese people do the rhumba in this heat. I don't know how they do it!








I was initially trying to get a picture of these smelly crawfish, but this patron was so excited I was taking his picture, he ended up being the subject. He was shocked and thrilled when I showed it to him on the digital camera.







Extremely popular this time of year is the sun umbrella. Ladies across the city protect their lily-white skin from unsightly, low-class tans. From a practical standpoint, though, it does keep you cooler with the mobile shade producer. Zach and I are wondering how hot it's going to have to get before we get our own his and her's umbrellas.....I have to say, we're getting close!








People always seem to be moving things in any way possible throughout the city. Whether it's dragging huge mounds of things by bike, or in this picture, baskets of fruits by crude yokes, things get moved! Thank god massages are so cheap here, those people's shoulders must be wrecked!








I always pass this man doing his exercises in the park. I have to give him props for his trendy adidas track pants and innovative workout moves!











China boasts an 86% literacy rate and it shows. The government posts all the major newspapers (including one in english print) at various places throughout the city. You can always find readers grouped around at any time of day.








In the past 12 months I've noticed the safety laws (as well as helmets, car seats, and seat belts) are.....non-existent in China. The no helmet, stand-up and look over the front of the motorbike method of getting your child to school is extremely popular in traffic-choked Shanghai. Something tells me Britney Spears should move to China, as the Chinese would be a lot more forgiving of her questionable parenting skills......











Without the burden of a pesky helmet, it's easy to stop for a cut and a shave at your local sidewalk barber!












I admit, I may have owned a plastic visor or two back in the eighties, but these full face ones freak me out. Granted, I'm sure they're great for blocking out the sun, air pollution and any stray spit that may come your way while whizzing through the Shanghai streets, but they still look pretty freaky!


All in all, I have to say the 40 minutes I spend walking to and from work are usually a highlight of my day. I am always guaranteed at least one or two 'only in China' sights or smells.........

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...

T-30!!! (pronounced "tee three oh!")

Tiffany turned 30 on July 21st!

While I was mildly saddened by the loss of my "twenty-something" wife, we had lots of fun celebrating the big occasion, also known as T-30. It started with a weekend trip to Sanya, which is on the Chinese island of Hainan, in southern China.

Hainan is pretty much the only beach resort in China with year around pleasant weather and is sort of known as the Hawaii of China. The Chinese have a loooong way to go before they have Sanya as developed as Hawaii, but Tiffany and I thought we would go down and check it out for a weekend. It was the perfect recuperative/celebratory weekend.
We had an amazing room, beautiful weather and hung out by the pool, walked along the beach, and swam and read and ate and drank fuity cocktails poured into carved out coconuts.

Though you may not be able to read the sign on the right, it warns swimmers of jellyfish, and Tiffany wisely avoided a repeat of her Indonesia experience and stuck to the hotel pool.

Which wasn't altogether safe, as you can see from the waterslide pictures. Tiffany clearly had the edge on form here, while I basically re-lived a childhood nightmare of the time I almost drowned off a hotel waterslide in Hawaii.

We then returned to Shanghai to continue "Tiffany's Week O'Fun", although she actually claimed the entire month for her birthday celebration.

Tiffany's co-workers surprised her with flowers and a "watermelon" ice cream cake. That picture on the right is an ice cream cake cleverly designed as a watermelon. These Chinese are a creative lot, and this may go down in history right up there with gunpowder and noodles among famous Chinese inventions.

Thursday we went to the Blackeyed Peas concert, which was a blast. They are a very popular band and it was a ton of fun to see them live, as they just seemed to be having a genuinely good time up on stage performing. We got two t-shirts, which I made Tiffany wear with me the next weekend so that we could adapt to the local Chinese saying, "Qing lu shan", which is a term to describe a couple that dresses alike. Yes, it is so common here they have coined a term to describe it!

Friday we took the day off, and when I asked Tiffany where she would like to go for her birthday lunch, maybe the world renowned Jean-Georges, somewhere along the picturesque Bund or perhaps up to one of the breathtaking vistas in one of the hotel restaurants. Immediately she answered, "TGI Fridays!!" and once again, I knew I had picked the right wife. So after a momentous 30th birthday lunch of buffalo wings, mozzerella sticks and hamburgers, we went and got facials at a very nice spa (China price? $32 for 90 minutes.)

That evening we saw Lion King, which is showing now in Shanghai. Incredible costumes and sets! The creativity and skill of the actors is astounding as they are transformed into elephants, hyenas, giraffes and more.

That pretty much wraps it up for Tiffany's birthday! "Sheng ri kuai le!" as they say in Chinese

Meanwhile, back in the U.S....

I have fallen behind in our weekly blogress, and forgot to report my vacation!

I (Zach) went home to the US for a week in June, for my high school friend Dan's wedding.

It was a beautiful wedding at a northern California winery. I swear, when I flew in from China, the first thing I noticed was how deliciously fragrant the air was back in my hometown of Piedmont. According to my parents, the air is pretty much the same as it always was, so I'm thinking it may be that the air here in China isn't exactly pristine... Anyway, you can see that Dan and his new wife, Carol could not have asked for a nicer day.

The wedding was beautiful, conducted by friends and family, I cried (I think the long hair is making me more sensitive), and then we ate, drank and were merry! In a particularly humbling moment, I was challenged to a "dance off" contest by a 7-year old girl, who then proceeded to embarrass me thoroughly on the dance floor. Yes, that's me trying to do the splits... I think I managed to sprain every muscle in my body.

Also, that week I got to meet my friends Mike and Becky's son, Dylan, who was born in September, after Tiffany and I had already left for China. Here is the proud papa with his adorable and super happy boy! Dylan is always ready with a quick smile and laugh - very cute!

I also went to dinner with my family to celebrate my brother Aaron's birthday, saw my extended family at a Father's Day luncheon, filled a major burrito craving (at El Farolito on 24th and Mission in San Fran), and squeezed in an overnight trip to Las Vegas.

In a brilliantly aggressive bit of planning, I flew with my friends Cali and Parag to Las Vegas on Wednesday afternoon, gambled all night, and took a 7am flight out Thursday morning. Let me tell you that all-nighters at 30-something are definitely not as easy as they were in our 20's. Mentally we are still in 20's mode (which isn't exactly a positive comment on our maturity...), but physically we are definitely in our 30's. So Thursday we hit the proverbial "wall" -- and the wall won.





All in all it was a great week. Exhausting, but it was tons of fun to see everyone again. I still need to talk about Tiffany's big 30th birthday celebration, but I have to go now. We are heading out to see Mission Impossible III - which they finally released here in China. Apparently Chinese officials were grumbling about the film's portrayal of China. There is reportedly footage of old people playing mah jong and laundry hanging out in the street. Really? We had NO idea!!!

Acrobats, Knock-Offs and A Little Cigarette Ash!

We welcomed our next set of visitors last week, one of my Georgetown friends, Deb, and her friend Niki! We had a blast showing them around and exposing them to our life of infringing on Intellectual Property Rights by introducing them to the $1 pirated DVD and XiangYang Market – home of the $5 knock-off (insert luxury brand name here) bag/belt/sunglasses/jewelry. Unfortunately for all of our future guests, XiangYang closed the day after Deb and Niki discovered it, but I am sure there will be plenty of copycat markets popping up in the near future.

When we weren’t tainting our guests with the opportunity to buy pirated goods, we took them to see the Shanghai Centre acrobats do a myriad of freakish things with their what must be jointless bodies. We were in the second row, which was exciting at first, but got a little scary when we realized that we were in prime position for becoming landing pads, as the acrobats did stunts that would require major harnesses in the U.S., but in OSHA-free China, go unprotected. Fortunately for us, the acrobats were on their game that night and no one was injured.

We also threw a ‘1st of July’ party in honor of our guests and the upcoming US holiday. And who better to invite back than the $75 chef from our last party! It still amazes us that for just $75 you can get a Chinese chef to bring over all the ingredients to cook a 20 course meal of some of the tastiest Chinese food we’ve ever eaten. After arriving with just a few bags and pulling out food from nowhere in true Mary-Poppins-ish fashion, we had a party full of well-fed guests, leftovers for a week, and a spotless kitchen! So we really can't complain when he insists on smoking for 75% of the cooking time. We figure a little cigarette ash never hurt anyone, especially when you can't taste it!

A few more party highlights.......

Zach's summer intern, Cyrus, from Washington University in St. Louis.

"Cyrus the Virus", as Zach likes to call him, was given one task by Zach to help with the party - find a keg. He failed. And now Zach and Bing will taunt him for the rest of his internship. Splendid role models, aren't they?

Zach's work partner, Bingdong, who managed to go home with quite a few phone numbers at the end of the night! Zach was jealous.......

...until his karaoke duet with pre-KFed Britney

Zach's hair is so long, it's french braidable!

All in all, it was a great week, thanks Deb and Niki for visiting us, we can't wait for your next trip!

What a Year! Relive the Magic.

Today Tiffany and I celebrate our first anniversary in marriage, and what an amazing year it's been! We just went to dinner and talked and laughed about what a great time we had in Chicago that weekend with all of our friends and family around. It was such a special time for us to be able to see everyone together like that; we will always remember it with a smile and a laugh.

But, don't think it was 'perfect', oh no, it was far from 'perfect'. Time for the "Did You Know?" portion of the evening....

Did You Know:
1) Zach was incredibly stressed out the entire pre-wedding all the way until he and Tiff finished their dance.

"That was the most stressed out I'd ever seen Zach," recalls Tiffany.

"It was the pressure of the dance; the debut of the choreographer's brainchild, the purest expression of the artist's mind, not to be taken lightly, you know," responds Zach.

"Whatever. Freak."

2) The DJ played the wrong song for Tiffany as she walked down the aisle for the ceremony! The instrumental of the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" was the song designated for the bridesmaids as well as Tiffany's walk down the aisle with her father. Unfortunately the DJ thought Tiffany should have her own song, and fast forwarded to the next song, which was Captain and Tenille's "Love Will Keep Us Together", which was supposed to be Zach and Tiffany's exit song. That explains why Zach was desperately whistling at the DJ from the front to cut the music.

"It was perfect," comments Tiffany, "I was so nervous to walk down the aisle with my father that when the wrong music came on, I just started laughing and instantly relaxed."

3) There were some casualties prior to the wedding. Tiffany's mom, Paula, generously offered up her dining room as a pre-wedding staging area, and we housed about 20 fish bowls and 20 small containers holding the beta fish. Well one sleepless night prior to the wedding, Zach went to check on his fish, and lo and behold...

"We had a jumper..." said Zach with a grimace. "some crazy beta fish with fins and a dream. He had leapt out of his cup onto the dining room table. When I ran to Tiffany screaming for help, she laughed and reminded me whose idea the fish had been. Then when I went back, the fish had jumped from the table down onto the floor. And, certain he was dead, I dropped him into the toilet and flushed, only to see him start wiggling around again just as he started swirling down. That was one tough fish. Disney should make a movie about the little fella."

4) Finally, Did You Know that the reception was only supposed to be beer and wine?!? It remains a mystery to us how it was that all the other alcohol began flowing, but once it started, people were downing it like a bunch of breakaway Mormons.

Anyway, the point is that Tiffany and I were lucky enough to have all of you there to celebrate with us, and whatever else happened, planned or unplanned, only served to add to the color of our wedding. So thanks again to all of our family and friends, we love you and miss you!

And now, in a shameless gesture of self-promotion, here is the link to our wedding dance. And before I take all the credit, thank you Kimmy for helping us so much with the dance up at the cottage!

http://mindobserver.com/tiffzach/TheDance.htm

p.s. here we are one year later, valiantly attempting a self photo in the mirror of our Shanghai apartment. A little fuzzy, but you get the idea!