Kill a Chicken to Scare the Monkeys

So the title has nothing to do with the theme of the blog entry, but was a saying I heard in my management meeting today. It is apparently a very famous Chinese saying, and has something to do with giving a strong message to the employees, but it just made me giggle.

Anyway, the real theme of this entry is two of our favorite things, visitors and vacation!

We had the pleasure of hosting Adam and Lilly for a weekend at the end of last month. They are friends from San Fran, and were visiting China and stopped in Shanghai to visit us. It was great to see them, and Lilly, who's originally from China, put Zach and I to shame with her bargaining skills. We were impressed!

At the beginning of the month, we headed back to the States for a week at the Tomaszewski cottage on Stone Lake. The cottage is in a town that is pretty much the complete opposite of Shanghai, it's small, very green, and not crowded at all. Located in La Porte, Indiana, our trip was highlighted by trips to Dairy Queen and Steak n' Shake, and finding out that the local movie theater prices have actually gone down (!) since our last visit. When was the last time you saw that?? Evening shows are $1.50, and matinees are $1. Our friends Kim and Elizabeth also joined us at the cottage and we spent one morning out blueberry picking. It was fun, but we only lasted about 20 minutes in the summer heat before we called it quits. We will never again take blueberry pickers for granted!

We also spent some time in Flossmoor with my grandparents and they are doing great, and splitting their time between Flossmoor and Florida in the winter. My grandfather just turned 89, can you believe it?

After a week of stuffing ourselves with all our favorite American foods it was time for me to return to Shanghai. Zach spent another week out in California visiting friends and family and ate lots of burritos and his other favorite Californian foods! He also got to spend time with family members, and even walked the Golden Gate Bridge with his grandmother. He could barely keep up!

So now we're settling back into our China lives, and happy to finally be over jet lag. Next weekend is a trip out to Hangzhou with my company. They mentioned something about a water park? I'm sure we will have some interesting pictures and stories to share about that!

ON SALE NOW!

Tiffany turned 31 on July 21st and what better way to celebrate than with a frenzied end-of-summer-sales shopping spree in Hong Kong? And Tiffany even got to buy some things, too!


We enjoyed a very relaxing weekend at the Four Seasons in Hong Kong, and explored all the efficiencies of the island city. It is relentlessly hot and humid right now, so we really appreciated the hermetically sealed shopping environment. The hotel is connected to the famous IFC Mall, which is also connected to the high speed train that brings you in to the city directly from the airport. Pretty much the only time we went outside was to go for a swim in their refreshing infinity pool, which overlooks the Victoria Harbour (that's how they spell it there, all British and everything) that separates Hong Kong island from Kowloon and the mainland.

Here is Tiffany showing off the chocolate birthday cake that the hotel staff sent up. Our room had an unbelievable view of the water. Please also note the beee-yuuu-teee-full flowers next to her. Who's a great boyfriend?? or husband, now, is it?

Hong Kong has a great ferry transport that takes you between the island and Kowloon running constantly throughout the day. It'll cost you something like 20 cents for one of the most scenic rides in Asia.

Here we are relaxing by the pool after our massage. It was very tiring trying to keep up with the busy birthday pampering schedule! As you can see, my hair is suffering as a result.

Birthday dinner at Felix, a Philippe Starck-designed restaurant at the top of the Peninsula Hotel. If you ever get a chance, you should check out the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. It has a really grand entrance and when you enter, you feel like you've stepped back in time, warped back to the 1920's or 30's or whenever the peak of Hong Kong's colonial era was. Soaring ceilings are held up by massive white columns, huge glass chandeliers hang from high above and shimmer softly to the classic songs being played by the live jazz band.







Oh, and the low, marble stone toilets in Felix are pressed right up against the floor to ceiling windows, which gives one a sort of gleeful vertigo while "taking care of business".

Our friends Kevin and Melissa were in Hong Kong, too, and met up with us for a tea and crumpets dessert. If crumpets means cheesecake, anyway... I know we had tea at least.

It was great to see them since they've moved on from Shanghai, with Kevin taking a job at a Hong Kong law firm and Melissa relocating with the US Consulate to her new position in Bangkok.

What a great way to take a break from the madness of Shanghai! A fun, birthday weekend in peaceful, orderly, quite proper Hong Kong.

Don't Mess With The White Girl

We share a hallway with one other apartment. Being extremely conscious of the environment, I often turn off the hallway lights, particularly during the day when there's plenty of sunlight. I also have harbored a secret hope that this custom will curb the child discipline habits used by our neighbors, which entail them putting their 3 year old child, who has a penchant for screaming, in the hallway until he stops. While our walls are thick, the front door is not, so the child (who I like to refer to as 'the evil one') can be heard through our entire apartment. I've been known to open the door and give him the 'evil blue-eyed stare', which is usually pretty effective in getting him to pipe down (and is probably instilling quite a fear into him of tall, pale faced women).

One day, after returning from work, I routinely turned off the hallway light as I entered my apartment. Less than a moment after entering, someone started frantically beating on my door. I opened the door to a woman that got in my face and proceeded to scream at me in Shanghainese (now I know where her son gets his expansive lung capacity). She kept gesturing at the light switch, indicating that she was not happy that I had turned off the light. If she had been able to speak English, or had approached me in a less aggressive manner, I would have tried to either explain or mime to her that the light isn't really necessary during the day, and that energy conservation is both economical and environmentally-friendly. But this lady was looking for a fight, so I gave it to her. I don't consider myself a screamer or aggressive, but this lady really pushed my buttons, so the two of us yelled at each other for a good ten minutes. I have no idea what she was saying, or really what I was saying for that matter, but it was loud and I used vocal chords I'm not sure I knew I had. After ten minutes of screaming and getting nowhere, she started making hand gestures for what I assume meant you're crazy', at which point I called her the only Mandarin swear word I know, the number 250. I was taught this word meant crazy, not in a 'girlfriend, you so crazy' way, but in a very mean, 'you need to be institutionalized' way. Once I called her that, she gave me a look of death and went back into her apartment.

The next day, I received a call from our building's property management desk informing me that a formal complaint had been filed against me for turning off the lights in the common area. After some explanation, the service person agreed that the lights would be turned off during the day, and kept on at night.

So now, whenever I pass our neighbor in our hallway, she gives me nasty looks and starts calling me what I assume are mean names that rival 250. I just give her a calm stare, and try to be the bigger person (not hard to do, considering I've got a good 5 inches on her and could take her if I needed to).

Not an actual photo of my neighbor, but you get the idea...

Making a Name for Herself in Shanghai

We were lucky to have our friend and bridesmaid Elizabeth DeLion travel all the way from Chicago to celebrate our 2nd anniversary with us in Shanghai this past week. Well, she did stop in Vietnam, Cambodia and Hong Kong on her way here, but we like to think that the highlight of her trip was sitting down with us on July 3rd and watching the wedding video for the first time. Well, first time for her, probably about the 50th time for me and Zach.

Elizabeth braved the heat and humidity and hit all the usual Shanghai spots, the museums, the parks, the Bund, and most importantly, the shops and markets! She managed to outfit herself with plenty of new school outfits, just in time for her first day of PT school next month.
















We also had fun navigating her through Shanghai Cuisine. Her favorite dish? The famous Shanghai Xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) from Din Tai Feng. We left plenty of comment cards filled with pleas to open an outlet in Chicago.




We braved the rain to snap an evening shot on one of the restaurant rooftops on the Bund.





After almost a week of hanging out with us in Shanghai, Elizabeth moved on to Beijing to check out the Great Wall and other Chinese landmarks. Thanks for making the trip Elizabeth!

Beach Escape - Hainan, China

Tiffany, Meredith and I took a much needed break from the heat and noise of Shanghai in the summer with a weekend getaway to Hainan, an island along the southern coast of China. We spent a relaxing weekend reading along the beach and sleeping on the heavenly soft Marriott beds.



China doesn't have much in the way of beach vacation spots, which could be partly due to most Chinese having a severe aversion to the sun, but who knows, and so Hainan is like the Hawaii of China, but with no crowds.















Of course Meredith learned from the Chinese about covering up in the sun. Tiffany of course learned that if you are going to be in the sun then at least apply sunscreen heavily. I, unfortunately, didn't learn anything and happily swam around the entire first day and got burnt to a crisp by that afternoon.

The beaches were absolutely pristine and the water was warm, and the waves weren't too big as we were in a bay protected from the ocean.



The Marriott had a nice Vietnamese restaurant - here Tiffany can barely hold back her excitement for the food, and for the waitstaff, which actually responded happily when she asks for a glass of water, versus the usual cold, crusty Shanghai service she is used to.

Here Tiffany and Meredith pose in front of the Marriott, a huge, colonial-style building with a big, outdoor balcony for enjoying afternoon cocktails with the ocean view.


And the view from the balcony...



It was nice to see the blue sky and know that those white puffs were clouds and not pollution....
















Tiffany and Meredith alternated the entire day between reading for the first 15 minutes of each hour and dozing off for the next 45 minutes. Could not have been happier, too!

X-Tina Takes Shanghai

Recently, the Shanghai Government took the bold move of looking past Christina Aguilera's DIRRRRTY lyrics, and allowed her to bring her 'Back to Basics' tour to Shanghai. There was some concern, as it was less than a year ago a Jay-Z concert scheduled for Shanghai was cancelled once the government figured out what his lyrics actually meant. While not huge fans of the former mouseketeer, a musical performance where we can understand the language is a real treat, so we loaded up our IPods with her newest CD (provided exclusively by our local pirated DVD shop) and bought tickets.

The show did not disappoint. No lip-synching and plenty of cool costume changes, circus performers, elaborate sets, and fantastic dancers. The latter had such an effect on Zach, he's now contemplating how he can parlay his banking career into back-up dancer.....watch out K-Fed...

For all you US Weekly readers out there, we focused heavily on the 'is she or isn't she' expecting question. The post-show consensus was there was no true 'baby bump', just a very unfortunate pair of pants combined with a tight belt that would bunch a bit on even the tiniest of people.

The fans were in rare form, particularly during the ballads, as the Chinese seem to prefer love songs (particularly when they're Karaoke-ing or singing a capella in the streets). A neighboring seat mate seemed to be half asleep during parts of the concert, but at random intervals would perk up and scream 'I Love You Christina' at the top of his lungs. Glow sticks and lit-up devils ears (?) were out in full force, and one lucky fan managed to get her Hello Kitty doll picked up by the star.

THE “SH-OLLYWOOD” REPORTER

The stars shined brightly last Saturday at the red carpet opening ceremony of the 10th annual Shanghai International Film Festival at Shanghai’s Grand Theatre. Tiffany, Zach and their friend Meredith, aka THE THREE, were on hand to enjoy the legions of screaming fans massed along the street and the continuous rapid-fire camera flashes of the paparazzi, from inside the velvet rope. Thanks to insider connections and clout, none of which came from Zach, THE THREE were able to score highly-prized tickets to the opening ceremony and the celebrity-packed after-party on the Bund.

The opening ceremony was a chance to see some of Asia’s film stars walk the red carpet in all their glitz and glamour. While completely unknown to THE THREE, it was apparent by the increase in “screech factor” and intensity in flashbulbs who the more popular stars were. The runway procession did include two American stars, film star Sharon Stone and Michelle Rodriguez, star of the film “Girlfight” and TV show “Lost”. Interestingly, the evening’s Master of Ceremonies gave a brief description of each star as they walked the carpet, and gave an English translation for the two Americans. Sharon Stone’s introduction included something along the lines of “famous American sex symbol” and “naked film star”.

Inside the theater, the opening ceremony featured a few dance numbers, an award given to Maggie Cheung (from Jet Li’s “Hero” and Jackie Chan’s “Supercop”), the only Asian actor recognized by Zach, some very nice speeches in Chinese that only Meredith could understand, and a performance of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” by a Chinese opera singer, sung at a volume that led to Tiffany plugging her ears.

The highlight of the night was the even more exclusive after-party, the entrance to which was heavily guarded and covered with flash happy photographers shooting everybody that entered on the off-chance he or she was a celebrity, socialite or somehow famous. Though none of the above, THE THREE basked in the artificial glow of celebrity nonetheless.

Inside the party the atmosphere was as rare and stratified as China had to offer. The peak of the affair came when Tiffany was approached by a Chinese girl, aka THE FAN, who proceeded to gush compliments to Tiffany in an excited stream of Mandarin Chinese. While flattered by her apparent admiration, Tiffany unfortunately couldn’t understand why. When the language barrier became apparent, THE FAN switched to English and confessed to Tiffany that she loved her show. Tiffany, feeling glamorous from all the champagne and flashbulbs, ingeniously responded ‘You must be mistaken, I’m not an actress, I’m in marketing’. THE FAN was embarrassed when she realized that she had fallen victim to the common stereotype known as “They all look alike,” but Tiffany was unfazed and they proceeded to talk amiably with THE FAN about the actual TV star (a well-known Caucasian woman who spoke fluent Chinese) and her show.

Although THE THREE never saw Sharon Stone at the after party, and thus Zach never got to use his suave opening line of, "I loved you in ‘Bobby’!" (which he never saw), it was a memorable evening nonetheless, with memories of beautiful yet unknown celebrities, high fashion, legions of high-pitched shrieking fans, the attendant paparazzi, and a brief encounter with fame to carry with them for many days to come.