Suspicious photography

Yesterday I went "reporting" on the Thumb Plaza commercial center. I'm writing up 10 features on various stores there. The interesting part of it for me was the hesitancy and suspicion on behalf of the store workers as to why I was standing there writing and why I wanted to take photos, that's why half of the ones here are blurry and not centered-- avoid more weariness when I didn't have a "real" excuse this time.

Video of Chinese busker

These folks were extremely excited to have their photo taken! I think they thought it was to be in the "Out & About" section of the magazine


This is an undercover photo of one of the alleys near the office:


Santa Monica Track Club and Oregon shirt in Shanghai:


Nicest Victrola I've ever seen:


Homes near the office:


A building by my home subway stop, I think it is a theater or opera house:


Jing' an Temple, the area I work in. This is the temple, now conveniently commercialized with shops on the bottom floor.


Street workers are everywhere, they've all got natural brooms like this and wear those uniforms, or bright orange ones:


All construction sites have bamboo scaffolding. There seems to be very few safety precautions here, in general. The taxis don't have seatbelts and I saw a man hanging over a bridge to paint a sign without any restraints.


The aforementioned Sidewalks of Pain. The middle is where it hurts.


Yeah, for real.



Today at work, one of the people in the cubes below's cell phone started ringing and the ringtone was a little child singing the intro to Queen "We Will Rock You"!

Then I walked 5 miles.

I've gotten lost about 4 times so far today. I try to keep a positive attitude about everything, including being lost, because, really, what else would I be doing? Getting to work on time? Not sweating out a liter and a half?

In the end, I've walked about 5 miles and it's only 3:30pm, still plenty of time to get lost on the way home! For the first two hours, it's ok, kind of cool-- exploring the city without meaning to, seeing beautiful dresses. By the third hour, though, you're extremely sweaty and then I was getting sick of everyone looking at me, then looking about a foot lower than my head... I'm sorry, I had to wear a tank top, it is so hot. I can't help it! And getting bonked in the head by the ladies' umbrellas as two directions try to squeeze by the motorbikes/bicycles parked on the sidewalk. Speaking of sidewalk, all the sidewalks here are made the same way: flat bricks on both sides of a lane of bumpy bricks. The bumpy bricks are really painful to walk on, I don't understand their purpose. Drainage? They're not raised higher than the smooth ones, though. I think only Tamsen and Frank and Ciara know my true level of hatred of walking--seeing so many bikes on the streets here only compounds my frustration about it while I'm busy walking 8 blocks in the wrong direction. Actually, I wouldn't mind being lost at all if I were biking. It would be so much faster and breezier and not-walkie. One of the many thoughts that hit me while walking today was that if they had a critical mass here, it would be freaking CRITICAL-- I see at least 3000 bikes a day.

Also, I get heat rash on my legs! Vaguely itchy, vaguely burny. And now sunburnt shoulders/arms.

On the plus side, I had an hour long conversation with a French pastry chef who thought I ws someone important and gave me every kind of bread imaginable to bring back to the office for sharing. Yea, for perks and not having to buy any food today. That was the whole reason I was out-- doing the piece on the Thumb Plaza commercial center.

I feel more settled now, generally. Last night my roommate went out with some other Americans to celebrate the 4th. They sent to a bar called "I <3 America" and it was all westerners, apparently. I almost went but now I'm glad I didn't! She said, "Oh yeah, I drank all this Grey Goose!" Also, yesterday she said, "Yeah, I'm teaching the kids left and right really well because, like, when the driver we had drove us here from Beijing he would go right every time we said left!"

If you comment, I won't be able to see it until September.. so I'm not intentionally being rude if anyone is. I can't read the blog, it doesn't get through the government firewall, but the page to post from does.

Today is my first day of work.

I am at Shanghai Talk right now (known as "Talk" in town). My boss, Shamus, is great. He is Australian and very open and friendly and has me and the other guy like me doing all sorts of work. Besides him, there is only one other staff writer, as far as I can tell, so we'll have loads to do. There was an editorial meeting today at noon to go over August 2007 content. I will be doing a few pieces. One feature on an area of town/commercial center called Thumb Plaza, an environmental piece TBD (I am hoping it will be hybrid cars in China, maybe I can subtly push the GM model they sell here, ha-- not that it will help, there at least 20 times more diesel engine vehicles on the road here than hybrids! My lungs hurt in bed last night), a book review/author interview with a woman who wrote a book about Chiang Kai-shek's wife and a piece on the head chef of a Moroccan restaurant. Once I am a little more familiar with the city I think I will be capable of suggesting/pursuing stories-- right now I hardly know what the hell is going on and feel highly accomplished if I make it directly to where I am going without getting lost. I'm also relatively lost in the whole professional magazine speak.. hopefully my stories don't suck because I have no experience. My guess is they will, though! I aim to at least start at the point of not completely embarrassing myself.

We use mostly email/MSN to communicate within the office but we're all in low cubes right next to each other besides Shamus, who has an office right next to us.

I got lost for an hour this morning trying to find my way to the office from the Metro. I wandered all around and it was a lost cause being that I didn't even know the address of the office (smart.) until some nice security guard's wife let me use her cell phone. I got in at 11am but was still only the second one here. The fun part of transportation here is that it is always 80% or more humidity so if you're outside for more than five minutes, you're already wet/sweaty. Today it was raining so it was a 3 minute window instead of 5.

There were 3 westerners on the subway today. Unprecedented!
Other big news, apparently there have been a lot of tornadoes in eastern China, right by here. They don't have much on-site news reporting on TV so it's pointless to watch it because I don't understand anything they're saying but I read it on ChinaRadioEnglish's website. 14 dead or something high like that.

Michelle and I watched half of "Borat" last night on her laptop. I have never seen it before, I like it. She is teaching English to 10-12 year olds a few times a week but didn't follow instructions to make up lessons plans before arriving so she is screwed-- or would be if she hadn't called her mom, who is mailing her materials from the United States after going to her old elementary school to ask for them. Are most people this connected to their parents at age 20/have parents willing to rescue their children from stupid mistakes like that? I find it a little repulsive. Or, at least, ridiculous. And annoying. In case you couldn't tell.

I'm a little jetlagged or something because I fell asleep at 11pm, woke up at 5am to eat some mango sherbert with mango pieces (this kind of thing is more common than ice cream), then fell back asleep for another 2 hours before my epic walk. I had a meal for lunch today, it's my first meal since getting here because I was too stupid to realize the two translated English menus that were in the apartment corresponded to the dot on the map that was on a different piece of paper and so have been eating random things for the last two days. I thought there would be more people who speak English here, but it seems to be less than 5% of the population who have even rudimentary English skills. I also thought more signs would be written out in pinyin-- it is almost wholly characters (albeit the simplified ones, not the classical). As a result, I think a lot about numbers because they are all I can recognize.

Shanghai Day One

I love it so far. People have been pretty nice. Everything is guesswork, for the most part, including being on the computer. I'm at an internet "cafe" right now but between the cigarette smoke, unemployed male gamers and the cig butts on the floor, it seems more like a bar!

The flight was ok and when I got in, Leo picked me up from the airport. The airport is very nice and getting through customs was a breeze. I had my first contact with the unsmiling, stoic face of the Chinese government. Leo showed me the apartment and I met my roommate, Michelle-from-Chicago, who goes to Boston U. She's 20. I don't really understand her... alls he's done so far is moan about how hot it is, talk about her mom and laugh at the people. She's very loud and typically American. THe first thing she said was that she and her mom hunted all over for a blow dryer and a curling iron and wouldn't it be easier if we had a car and I'm welcome to use her hair stuff because OMG it's so humid here! We went to the massive grocery store together where they had an escalator to the second floor for people and carts so it wasl ike a slanted moving sidewalk. Awesome.

Then I thought my wallet was stolen but I had just left it at the apartment. Right.. very careful now! The apartment is beautiful and totally pimped out. There are 3 bedrooms (other people arrive next week), a huge living room, 2 bathrooms and a full kitchen with a washing machine + room air conditioners. It's designed so nicely, very Asian style and feng shui. I went to bed early last night after sleeping ni 2-hour increments on thep lane three times. My feet were mad sore last night. Lack of blood circulation on the 14h our flight or something.

When I first got here, I didn't notice that EVERYONE is Asian but now I can see them kind of staring, especially when I'm with Michelle. People on buses and motor bikes are especially interested. I haven't minded not speaking Chinese yet, it gives me new eyes and I feel like I have a special skill just for not being from here... though I also feel ignorant, on another level. Just what I wanted!

On the way from the airprot, we drove by some Chinese slums. I was very interested in seeing this because iti s exactly what they would not allow to be shown in the West. It s pretty destitute, very crowded. Laundry hangs outside everywhere here, including the nice areas. Our apartment complex looks a lot like the high rises in Miami with a lot of porches. We also have a porch--awesome! The Chinese obviously have a great appreciation forp orches-- my kind of culture! These are where the laundry goes, they all have metal hanging contraptions off the ceiling. I didn't ask about the slums so as not to draw attention to what might be seen as a shortcoming but I did compliment the airport's efficiency. We took a taxi and on the highway they have lanes for Heavy Vehicles, Light Vehicles and Heavy Light Vehicles. Heavy Light, of course! I think I will start a photo series of good signs/labels... there is a brand of toilet paper called "Fook Woo" haha!

I feel I have different goals for the trip than the other folks I have met so far. I also met two guys from a different apartment and they were the same as Michelle--loud and voicing opinions that indicated they thought of America as far superior, Chinese culture as not sophisticated. So far, they all seem to be more interested in partying with each other than meeting anyone else. We can do that at home...

The other apartments in the building are young Chinese families for the most part. Last night I was standing in the swelternig hallway (literally, it is about 130- on our floor, the 5th/top), trying to open the door. The lock is tricky and it's pitch black because the light is out, I got frustrated and sweaty so I decided to knock on the neighbor's door for help. They're on the other side yelling in Chinese, probably saying, "Who's there? What do you want?" while all I could do is stand there parroting, "Nihao [hello]! Nihao! The lock? Nihao.." They didn't open the door for the hello-fool so I went outside and ate ice cream then came back up and got it after about 10 minutes.

My Chinese vocabulary as of now:
-Nihao: hello
-Shasha: thanks
-Waiguoren: foreign devil

Our apartment is on the west side of the river that divides the city, work is on the east (old) side. I'll take the subway for about 40 minutes. I'm looking forward to starting work, I am going there for the first time in about 20 minutes.

The dress here is quite nice, everyone looks well put together everywhere I go. Overall, I feel very comfortable though somewhat sloppy when not dressed for work. I do feel very far from everything familiar but I like it and don't mind the feeling at all! One of my main goals when I decided to do this was to go somewhere where I felt very stupid almost all the time. That is not the exact feeling, but it is mostly guesswork.

Anticipated blog demographics

Age range: 13-85

and some other info

Shots received:
-Yellow Fever
-Bacterial meningitis
-Polio booster
-Heptatitis A
-something I forgot the name of

Drugs purchased out-of-pocket:
-200 horse-sized anti-malarial pills