Rules of the city

The other night I was walking on Hengshan Road. Not much to do (except work, but cannot work all the time, and I had a flu, so couldn't go to the gym), so I decided to spend an hour walking to the bakery and back. Nothing to do with the delicious lemon tarts they do. Oh no, not at all.

Anyway, on the way there, a street vendor was selling kiwis. I veeery very rarely buy anything from the street vendors, and this time was no exception: xie xie, bu yao (thanks, but no thanks), I said.

But uncharacterasticly and without explanation, I started to feel bad for the man. After all, he is just trying to make a living for his family. Can't be easy. I like kiwis. Why don't I buy a few kiwis from him? Why shouldn't I get some kiwis and, at the same time, help this man?

The man was still there when I came back, and handed me two kiwis to try. They were firm and nice, so I bought 8 kiwis for 20 RMB, which is about 1/3 of the price I would pay at City-Shop. Why have I not bought my kiwis from this guy earlier? Stupid, prejudiced me.

I felt good about me, Shanghai, and world, and walked home via the Xu Jia Hui park, where dozens and dozens of dancing citicens made me feel even better.

I got home, and started to put my kiwis on a plate to ripen up. Except that I noted if they ripen up any more, they start walking!! Each and every one of my kiwis was rotten. The man had done the old switch-trick: given me the good ones to try, and while my both hans were occupied holding the two good kiwis, he put no longer edible kiwis to the bag.

Well, I lost 2 euros, but got a lesson. This reminded me never to forget the basic rules (in order of importance):

1) Check your kiwis one by one.

2) Do not get sentimental and mushy (this one should also apply to kiwis, if you ask me).

3) Never trust anything or anyone in this city. They are all there just to get you :o)

Expo effects

I went to our regular DVD shop today. Since I have paid them a visit almost once a week the past two years, I was a bit surprised when I accidently stepped in to a wrong shop. This place was less than a half of the shop I was going to go, and it only had a few items on the shelves. Chinese music and some sort of binders. This was clearly a new shop, since the neighbouring place used to sell clothes, I am sure of that.

I was ready to turn on my heels but then, with my jaw still dropped, I looked at the sales lady, and realised it was the same shop I was looking for! Only it wasn't! The sales lady recognised me and took me to the back wall between the shelves and knocked. And what do you know: there was a door, hidden behind a huge poster.

And, behind the door, there was a girl guarding the door, and of course, all the fake DVDs and CDs, as before.

That's what Expo does for you! It closes the bar streets (Tong Ren and Da Gu roads), it gets a whole lot of streets paved again, it gets the highway bottoms painted, it gives many buildings a new facade, and, it gets your DVD shop to go undercover. Fortunately Chinese are inventive.

Educational cartoon

Some days ago I went to pick up J. from the airport in Shanghai. I had time, and there was nothing interesting in sight. But then I noted they had an informative cartoon rolling in the telly. To prevent the spreading of H1N1-virus, or swine flu.

I want to share with you the most important bits and best practices I learned from the video. I apologize for the lack of music, but hopefully you can imagine a childish rap beat to the background. Because that's what the original had.

Firstly:

"The swine influenza comes from America."

Oh, in deed: "What a shame!"

"But it is not only my fault!" Says the pig. No, we have also the duck and the man to blame. H1N1 is mixed, you know.

"It "is very stressful to live in this situation", but still "remain calm".

"It is very important to have "balance of body and mind... no illness"

"Pay attention to you diet at home"

"The meal must certainly be boiled"

"If you have no business strolling outside..."

"...don't be around groups"

It is: "Dangerous"

"No stress, no bother", no swine flu. Also "take care of air circulation, you won't catch the cold."




I really want to do my part to prevent the spreading of swine flu. So, once more to make sure you remember the most important thing:

Ban flying!

Chinese National Day is drawing close. This year, it is the 60th birthday of the People's Republic of China. October 1st is the big day, and this year, because it is combined with Mid-Autumn Festival, we have eight (8!!!) days vacation to celebrate the two. Well, I am flying to Finland, to celebrate the wedding of a good friend.

Also, I have no idea how it happened, but during the eight day vacation, I am WORKING 5 or 6 days. That doesn't sound right, does it? What the heck went wrong? Maybe it has some connection to the fact that of my 4 week summer vacation I have spend just one week... I dunno, have to investigate further.

Anyway, what I wanted to tell you relates to flying. Namely Beijing has banned "flying activities" starting 15th of September, due to the upcoming National Day. It is for security reasons. This applies to sports, recreational and advertising flights. But not only those! They have also banned kite flying, because of security reasons. They have banned balloons. Because of security reasons. They have banned pigeon flying, because of security reasons. (Did someone watch Alfred Hitscock's "The Birds" recently, or..?)

Head of the Public Security Squadron of the Beijing Municipal Security Bureau, Mr. Li encourages citizens to report to police if they see these flying objects.

Pigeons! Balloons, for Pete's sake! Please excuse me while I tremble as I think of these horrible threaths to our security.

Strike, while the iron is hot

Chinese are fast to pick-up business opportunities, that is already known. And I am not sure there is anything as hot as Michael Jackson, right now, business wise. So, couple of chinese made book, a Michael Jackson biography, in 48 hours. An instant book, that's what they call it.

High quality stuff, no doubt.

Jackson's memorial will start in two hours. J., mid-night Beijing time. I guess that must be watched.

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Blogging has been a bit slow lately. I have been alone in China since May, but J. is now here, so I've been busy. He is fully and completely jet-lagged, and comes to bed couple of hours before I need to get up. Like 5 am this morning.

Optimus Prime and Maximus Irritation

Freedom is the right for all sentient beings, says Optimus Prime. Well, there seems to be no freedom of choice if you wanna go to the movies around here. We went to our neighbourhood movie theater, which has 11 screens. The ONLY movie they were showing was Transformers II. They have 11 screens, the shows start in every three hours. Quickly counting, that makes about 33 showings of Transformers every night. I did know Sanghainese were big Transformers-fans, based on the abundand Transformers-bumber stickers in every other car, but this big? Are you serious?

Well, maybe it should have told me something, that some colleagues from the office, whom I rarely... I mean NEVER talk with, have asked if I have seen Transformers. I never talk with them, but they consider Optimus Prime important enough to start talking to me :o)

But back to the movie theater. Oh, my Lord. For Pete's sake what was I thinking. Why did I do that to myself? The theater was full. Full of people, who kept eating through the movie. 400 people eating chicken wings, burgers, and all kinds of fried snacks, you know, normal stuff... In China. 400 people who needed to go to the restroom (or to smoke in the hallway, if you want my guess) three times during the flick. But never mind that. What really, really bugged me, was the talking. I should know by now, but O M G the talking! Oh, how I wanted to shut the mouths of those talkers. This guy just behind us kept explaining the movie to his mother. And not in hushed voice! Nooooo, nooo, so that noone could miss what ever important comments he made. To his MOTHER!

Life in China has certainly flexed my nerves, and there are many things I have learned to just shrudd of. But this continuous talking during (such important and culturally important) movie experience! I just wanted to stand up and start yelling. "Shut the F*** up! Shut up shut up shut up!" Or throw my popcorn at this loudest, closest terrorist. (Popcorn, which I, by the way, brough from home, because they only sell SWEET popcorn in the theater, but that is another story.)

I made it through the movie without organazing a public scene, but I am seriously considering signing in to one of those anger managing classes...

Enjoy... classifieds

We got into talking about Shanghai Enjoy Classified's personal ad's with my friend this weekend. She asked why I read them. Why? Why??? See for yourselves. Because it is a lot funnier than most comedies they broadcast in TV.

Now, it may seem I am laughing at their deficient english. Which is partly true. But no offense intended. And I am kind of allowed to, since mine is far from perfect, too. And I really doubt they read my blog anyway.

But there is one pre-requisite: do not read on unless you are tired. I mean really tired.

Special quality:

So did your boyfriend run away? Why are you telling so much about yourself? That won't help us identify your boyfriend if we happen to run into him?

Are you the one? Do you "take seize the day to the principle of value"?

Are you her marrage object?

Bill Clintonian definition of what is "not sex"...

Some are very particular about the nationality of the true love they are looking for:

Who do you think you are fooling you pervert???

"I was a strong muscle guy from U.S"? That's great but what happened? I think your possible clients are more interested what you are now.

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Oh, and the pics from Korea will appear as soon as I buy a new memory card reader. So before Christmas, I promise.

OH...

MY

GOD.

Words cannot describe this combination of black windbreaker-fabrik, white lace and neon pink highlights. I wanted to go to the store and wait around to see if anyone tries this on. As this is China, chances are someone will. I don't know what I woud do then. Well, I had other things to do anyway, but I'll finalise my plan later...

Runaway Bride - A'la China

This is what you get for discriminating girls. Oh, plus rushing to marriage. Plus engouraging people to get rich.

Wedding pics

Any given weekend day, Shanghai is a city full of brides. Any Saturday or Sunday if you decided to go to a park, chances are you will be seeing anything between 5 and 20 "just married" couples taking their wedding pictures. You can just walk Hengshan Road, which, really, is busy, noisy, dusty road and mostly under construction (they are tidying up places for Expo 2010), and you are bound to see at least three couples taking wedding photos.

On Sunday, we went to have a picnic with a couple of friends to Changshu Mountain Park. It was such a warm day, that we were suffocated and swetty after ten minutes walk to get to the picnic area. It's a nice park, although a bit far away from Shanghai.

Most of the time we had people coming very (very!) close to check us and our menu out. This is a rare moment when there are only three people looking at us and from a distance of at least 5 meters.

You see, we wanted to crush the stereotypes all the "laoweis" (foreigners) are elitistic, spoiled and completely lost their moral by bringing a small hairless dog with us and drinking a bottle (ok, ok, two bottles) of the bubbly drink in the middle of beautiful Sunday afternoon together with lamb sandwiches, two kind of salads, meatballs, tomato pie, fruits and chocolate cookies and strawberry cake.

So, as always, there were a lot of brides around:

But look! Look! What is that... what is that girl wearing under her wedding gown?

Oh yes, my friend: it is a pair of jeans she's wearing. And what's worse, she was not the only one!

A friend of mine is getting married next autumn, I better make sure she's aware of this new trend...

Trouble in my neighborhood

This is what they are planning to do to me: Open a Godiva Chocolatier less than 50 steps from our front door. Whilst I am alone in China? They have really done their demographics well...

And what would go better with quality chocolate than luxury-brand coffee? Like the famed "Louies vuitton Coffee". You haven't heard of it? I think that just shows you are not keeping up with the world. Ought to be shamed of yourself ;o)

Science faction

Regular blogging service will return as of.... right now. While in Finland, I just seem to be running out of time. Or, to put it another way, I am busy enjoying everything.

I returned to Shanghai on Sunday. When the plane touched down, as always, there were already several passangers on their feet, ready to grab their bags and get out of the plane. But this time we were in waiting for a little science faction show. Namely, several governmental healht inspectors "raided" the plane, and inscpected the planeful of passangers.

They were dressed to face plague, radio active waste, extra terrestial aliens, or... a planeful of possible swine flu carriers. And armed to shoot every one of us. Thankfully only with a some sort of thermometer. They came to every passanger, asked the passangers to close their eyes and aimed to the forehead.

Some persons were questioned, but I could not hear what they asked...

I was just thankful noone showed any symptoms, otherwise I can imagine we all would have been put to a guaranteen for a week. At least. And if they put the whole planeful of passangers to guaranteen, would they all get a private guaranteen? Otherwise the swine flu would spread IN the guaranteen.

Anyway, we were let to the country, and all is well.

For sale

I have already told you couple of times, that in Shanghai you can buy anything you could possibly want, like for example official receipts, live frogs, fake eggs or children. Or documents. Any documents.

Swiss James from I Spy Shanghai had noted an add providing an easy way to staying home "sick" for couple of days without loosing your salary (or job). Or you can simply choose to defraud your insurance company.

The world is your oyster, just pick your favorite sickness and contact "Michelle0924". The hottest thing in town, swine flu, might be out of stock right now, but she shoukd be able to get more next week.

P.S. I didn't find any babies or kids under the "Baby & Kids" section.

More names...

I know it hasn't been long since I pondered about the "english" names of the locals, but I have got to tell you this to emphasize my point. Recently four people have joined our company. Namely, Kiro, Subrina, Marine and Harway. All pretty words, but hardly pretty English names. But hey what do I know? Though, I am not to only one to raise an eye brow or two for this.

Superstition

Do you know what that thing in the photo is? The ugly plate on the right side of the photo.

Care to even guess?

Could it be...

...a small portion left of a prison wall?

...an only standing wall of a warehouse taken by a tornado? (Or some other grazy storm, I am not an expert.)

... an old, abandoned billboard?

...a slightly rusty climbing wall?

Nah, maybe not. I'll give you a hint. It has a purpose. It is being used all the time, even as we speak. It is on the "backyard" of the factory, where my other office is. It is beside a road coming from a river.

Maybe it is a huge backpane for equally huge dartboard (tikkataulu)?

Or, perhaps, it is a huge metal wall set up in the midst of "nowhere" to stop or mislead all the evil spirits before they reach our factory. Oh, you knew it right away? Why didn't you just say so! Because that's what it is. As you surely know (I don't even know why I bother to tell you this), the evil spirits live in (on?) the river. For reasons unknown to me, they like to get off the water at times, and try to reach our blessed site of employment. But aren't we just LUCKY someone was smart enough to set up a wall like this. Phiu. I don't know whom to thank for it, but indeed the person should be granted a medal (Valkoisen Ruusun Ritarikunnan risti, ihan vähintään).

I have been wondering how long we can fool the evil spirits so that they don't go and learn to go AROUND the wall. I find it hard to believe they would be that stupid, but I try not to voice my concerns. Who knows when the evil spirits are listening... I don't want to be found guilty of such a treasonous leakage.

Btw: Does anyone of you know if they can READ?


Where some westeners believe number 13 will cause you bad luck, for Chinese, number four (4) is evil. In Chinese, it sounds similar to the word "death", or "si" in mandarin. No one wants to have a phone number ending with four. Prices usually end with eight, never with four.

Due to this, there is no 14th, 24th, or 34th floor in our building. Maybe they have had some symphaties for westerners, as we also don't have 13th floor at all. I am not so particular about these number issues, but if it makes someone happy, what's that to me? Go ahead and skip all the fours.

But what I don't get is why we still have 4th floor?

(Apologies for the high quality pictures. I have excuses. First one was taken in a hurry with a mobile phone (and if the sky is grey, then the sky is grey, that cannot be helped) and in the second shot you can see my concentration reflecting from the mirror like elevator panel. There isn't much room to take photos, and the mirror kind of makes it a little difficult... Lame excuses, I can hear you say to yourself. But I ain't got any better ones right now.)

On a completely different note: can you but just love the spring?

Two degrees more

One of the reasons I like my colleague is that he is, in many respects, very non-chinese Chinese. I mean, the lack of spitting, the lack of the long pinky finger nail, the lack of responsiveness, the lack of , the ability to THINK and question and challenge, flexibility, hardworkingness AND ability to speak English make my day, every day. Anyway, point is, every now and then I start to speak Finnish to him, when I forget he is Chinese. But some days ago the most Chinese thing came out of his mouth. Let me start from the beginning.


During the summer, he told that his parents house does not get electricity every day, partly because they needed somee much electricity in Beijing, to get all the Olympic related things ready. And the summer in here is hot. HOT! Airconditioning and fridge are appreciated during July-August. Well, now it has gotten cold again, and I wanted to know how his parents are doing now.


Him: "We don't use airconditioning during the winter", he said.


Me: "Your parents don't use?"


Him: "No, we don't use either."


Me: "Ok, what do you use?"


Him: "We don't use anything. Air conditioning makes the air so dry it is bad for your health."


Me: "So what do you do during the winter? It is freezing here in January?"


Him: "We just wear a lot of clothes."


Moment of silence. I was stunned.


Him: "We have warm boots and winter jackets."


Me: "So how cold is it in your apartment?"


Him:"It is couple of degrees higher than outside temperature. About 2 to 10 degrees celcius."


What the heck??? So, here we are, two finns complaining about the cold floor of our apartment. And the windows that are insulated with... well, the world-renown Chinese workmaship quality. And it is about 21 degrees in our apartment (though I am a bit afraid of the next electricity bill).


Me: "Two degrees?!? That is... freezing."


Him: "It is not common for Chinese family to use airconditioning during the winter."




Perplexed from this I started to investigate a little further. When an occasion rose, I asked: "So, how cold is it in your home / apartment nowadays when it is getting colder?"


Lady 1: It is about 20 degrees.


Me: What about when the winter gets colder?


Lady 1: It is about 20 degrees all winter.


Huh. A voice of sanity. But I wasn't ready to settle with a draw (1-1).



Lady 2: Bla bla bla bla... "...we don't use airconditioning in the winter. It is not good for your health. "


Editors note: And freezing to death is, is that what you are saying to me?
Me: "How cold it is when the winter gets colder?"
Lady 2: "It is maybe 5 degrees. But during the day we are in the rooms where the sun is shining in, they are much warmer."


Lady 2:"You know, it is not good for health to have a big change in temperature, if inside is warm and outside is cold. Not good for human body." -> Now, all you Finns, quit warming your houses, it is not good for your health, you hear me!


Lady 2: "And it is uncomfortable if you go from warm room to the washroom and it is cold."


So it is much better to be uncomfortable all the time? Oh, lawsie mercy, this is the logic I need to deal with every day...


Lady 2: "Human body can take a lot. I think it can also take cold."

Next day. Me: [Trying to think of a proper ] "It's a bit cold here, don't you think. So, is it cold in your home during the winter?"
Lady 3: "It is quite cold. We cannot use the airconditioning, it's not good for CHILDREN."
Me: [quiet, people tend to speak more if you have the patient to wait.]
Lady 3: "People get sick if they use the airconditioning a lot."

Me: [Hmm, you have had a flu THREE times this autumn.]

Lady 3: "It is about as cold as outside. Sometimes it is quite cold, even minus degrees.[Teaches me how to say "minus three degrees in Chinese.] But airconditioning is not good."
Me: [Thinking what a grazy place this is].


Their homes are colder than their fridges, for goodsake. Although it would be convenient during Christmas, when even the biggest fridge is not big enough, I am humble in front of this "chinality". Sometimes it would be good to settle with a draw:

Common sense 1 - Chinese 3

Thursday

It is Thursday, but I thought it was already Friday. Like on many different occasions during the day, even after I had been told it is not Friday. I stillthought it is Friday.Anyway, to celebrate this beautiful Fr... Thursday I am going to provide you a link to an interesting story, AND I am going to make this a Thursday tradition. And because this is kind of a celebration of this new tradition, I give you a second story, no extra cost. Lucky you!

Nightly visitors

Last Saturday night we were watching Jay Leno in bed, it was just past midnight. As my daily rhytm is to wake up at around 5:45, I easily fall asleep by midnight if there is nothing special to keep me awake. So, before I knew it I had crossed the border to slumberland. It wasn't for long, though, before I woke up. J. told me to wake up, someone's behind our door.

I am not exactly awake when I first open my eyes, ever, and since I am frequently subjected to all kinds of nightly jokes, (in the likes of "We don't have any potatoes, what should we do?" and "Do you want some herring casserole, I just made it for you?") I wasn't sure whether I should just through him with a pillow or actually do something. I soon realised I actually need to get up, find my rope and check what's going on. In deed, 00:29 on Sunday morning someone was banging our door, trying the door handle and constantly pushing the door bell. Waking up the whole darn floor, no doubt.

As this is China, the thought of actually opening the door never crossed our minds. We peeked from the peephole, an saw a Chinese woman. What do you want, I sad in Chinese, but she didn't respond. "GO AWAY!", shouted my always so polite cohabitater. No answer. "Do you speak English", I tried, but she took her mobile and called someone and moved away from hour door.

Perplexed I tried to call the reception, but of course there was no one there. Cost saving, for pete's sake. A few months ago they decided to have only one reception in the three buildings of our compound during night time. Gee, the only time I would actually need them.

We went back to bed, wondering what it was all about. You know, the doors here are not like they are in Finland. It is just like a normal door between the rooms, rather than a one that is suppose to protect our apartment from nightly intruders. No dog. No stun-gun. Not even a baseball bat. Not a nice feeling.

But then, 2:04 a.m., merely 90 minutes after the first wake-up the same thing happened again. This time I was up like an arrow (after J. had shook me about two minutes to wake up). This cannot be happening again. There was ANOTHER Chinese lady behind our door, ringing the doorbell, but with somewhat more composed demeanour. Thank goodness.

This time I had had it, and was about to push the red button (that's suppose to alarm the guards to arrive like a cavalry, though I've never tested), but then calmed down and decided to try the nigth-reception first. At this point, I was mostly mad about waking up twice and being scared twice because of some 45 kilos "heavy" Chinese chicks...

It can be sometimes irritating to explain a matter (any matter) to a Chinese. And this was definitely one of those times. "There is someone behind our apartment door, trying to get in. We don't know the person." "Aah... Where are you?" "In our apartment. There is someone in the hallway that probably should not be. Banging our door." "Ok. Are they behind downstairs door?" "No. Behind our apartment door. I don't know how they got into the building. Can you call the security to check?" "Do you know them?" "No. Can you call the security. Now." "Ok, I call." "Thanks." Thanks a lot, you master of customer service.

So, we were not disturbed again during the night. But I am certainly going to follow-up what that was all about. Why the heck do we pay for the security if they don't secure.

When you think about what that was likely about... One scenario is that some lonely "gentleman" had wanted some company, you know, not to feel so alone. After the first girl never arrived, after we yelled at her to go away, he ordered another one. Who we also, hopefully, sent away :o) Or then he just thought that the more the merrier, and kept ordering more company...

Why in the world they ended up behind our door, I haven't figured out. I let you know if I get to the bottom of this.