From the archive.....T'internet

I wrote this one during my first few months in Shanghai, and then decided not to post it whilst I was still behind the firewall. I've just rediscovered it whilst sorting out some photos and decided it needed an airing, so here we go...

The internet. Oh the internet. Where do I start? It’s incredible how much we take our digital freedom for granted. Sure, you shouldn’t be ebaying at your desk, but apart from that there are very few rules and restrictions as to what you can and can’t do with the World Wide Web (take your minds out of the gutter, I’m not talking about THAT kind of stuff).

Not here. Some of you may have heard of The Great Firewall of China. Basically that means that websites you and I take for granted, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, the BBC and even Google (google!!!) are blocked. You have to use Bing instead. Which, let’s face it, is rubbish. It’s like settling for a Folex watch or Mulbrery handbag. It also makes life massively difficult. Every website in the world uses Google translate. All website maps are Google maps. My personal email account is Gmail. Blocked. Blocked. Blocked.

So every expat I’ve met has a VPN (that’s Virtual Private Network, acronym fans). It means you can connect to a server somewhere outside of China and all your websites are accessible again. Sadly, not all of these VPNs work as certain people get wind of what everyone is doing and shuts them down every now and again. So far (touch wood) mine is working, which is how I’m managing to upload this (as Blogspot is owned by, guess who, Google). All the expats have their VPNs installed on their work computers too so they can work ‘normally’. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without mine. Being away is hard enough as it is, but being away and having no Facebook? I know that sounds silly but it’s the easiest way to feel connected to your friends and family, it’s a link to home that you just wouldn’t have otherwise.

Although Instagram and What’s App (both owned by FB) = not blocked.

But it’s not just the firewall issue. Internet here is slow in general. There’s no such thing as fibre-optic broadband and normal broadband is about as slow as AOL dial up used to be just without the screechy dialing tone noises. It makes watching and streaming things very difficult. In June, it got even slower and there was uproar. The official reason was because there’s 2 cables somewhere under the sea that serve broadband to China, and one of them got cut in half by the Japanese. I have no idea if this is true or not but it makes for a good story.

And then there’s Taobao. Taobao is like the ebay of China – you can buy anything on there. The issue is there isn’t an English version so it’s impossible to navigate. But it’s as omnipresent as ebay and Amazon are in the UK. There are companies you can hire that will negotiate Taobao for you, you tell them what you want and they’ll buy it on your behalf and deliver it to your house, which is hugely enterprising I thought. Or you can just ask a Chinese colleague to help you which is what most people here do. I haven’t attempted it yet, but apparently the salad cream dilemma can be solved as there is some for sale on Taobao!

Oh, and Chinese cinemas have a quota of foreign films they can show every year – it’s something like 37. Don’t think I’ll be catching a lot of movies here – although I didn’t at home anyway either (last thing I saw in the cinema was Titanic). (No, not in 1998, the 3-D version that came out in 2013.) And everything is pre-censored so there’s all sorts of stuff missing that might make sense to the plot. Apparently the only film last year that wasn’t censored was Insterstellar, and that’s because the censors couldn’t figure out what was going on long enough to know which parts to cut. That’s the rumour anyway.

Censorship. That’s one for another time.

2016!

Sometimes I cannot believe how much my life has changed in just a year.

This time last year I was living in Shanghai, working in a job I hated – but having the time of my life.

This year I’m living in Watford, working for a charity that is very close to my heart, spending lots of time with friends and family, got a lovely boyfriend – big changes, mostly for the better.

There’s still a lot I want to tell on this blog – the real stories. The real China. Plus travel stories from Japan, Seoul, and all the other places I toddled off to on my ‘Gap Year’ as I am now referring to it as.

So my New Year’s Resolution is to update this blog more – and tell some of the stories I couldn't tell whilst I was still behind the firewall….

Happy New Year! 

4 month check-in

I cannot believe I have been home nearly 4 months. More importantly, I can’t believe that I have been home 4 months and I’m still living out of a suitcase! Finally it seems like in the next few weeks I will be able to get my stuff out of my parent’s garage and into my new flat, which is very exciting.

I know it’s just stuff, but not having it all around me means that I still feel a little bit in limbo. Life doesn’t really seem real if that makes sense. It still feels like I’m in that waiting phase, just waiting for the next move, the next step, the next thing to come along. And it’s taking a little while for my head to catch up and realise ‘this is it, this is life now’.

And I have to admit, I miss my life in Shanghai. Not so much the air and the craziness but the way I lived. Travel, food, art, culture, friends, no responsibilities. When you do come back and you have to book your mates in for nights out 3 months in advance, it makes you appreciate how easy it is to send someone a WeChat message on a Saturday afternoon and just toddle off to the pub.

None of this means I’m not enjoying being back. I am. I just feel the odd little pang when I get group texts from people still out there, or pictures from my friend who has just spent the last week on a beach as it’s October bank holiday time (this time last year I was in Singapore).

Back in the real world, things are going well. I’m working, spending time with friends, there may be a new ‘someone’ in my life, loving spending time with my niece and family, going to lots of gigs and am heading off on holiday to Egypt in a few weeks.

And to deal with the itchy feet I have booked the trip of a lifetime – Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and a little bit of Thailand, departing March next year – very excited about that! Only question is do I do a stop off in Shanghai?!

Things I miss and things I don't...

Top 5 things I miss about Shanghai:

1.   Cheap transportation. Yes, for the most part you were taking your life into your own hands and had no guarantee that your driver wasn't going to fall asleep and crash you into the central reservation, but it was just so cheap!! And the subway – 30p a journey! As long as you could deal with feeling a sardine surrounded by irritating fellow sardines playing on their phones, it was fine.
2. Lunch breaks. Actually taking an hour away from your desk and sitting and having a nice lunch with your colleagues.
3. Sherpas. Restaurant food delivered to your house, along with booze! What’s not to love!?
4. The lifestyle. Drinks after work, long weekend brunches, art, history, travel, having a cleaner, doormen, no responsibilities and everything is just easy and chilled out. I really miss that.
5.  Every bar having table service and no dress code. Flip flops, ripped jeans and someone taking your order without any bar loitering. Perfect!

 Top 5 things I do not miss about Shanghai:

1. Taxi drivers. Annoying, rude, crazy people who felt the need to drive like a formula 1 driver and couldn’t stay in one lane for more than 2.5 seconds. And more often than not they would fall asleep on you on the way to the airport. Or try to scam you out of money. Or just point blank refuse to take you somewhere. Or all 3.
2. No central heating. The bloody winter was freezing!
3. Not being able to see the sky. When I first said I was going to Shanghai, a lot of people said to me ‘won’t the air bother you?’ and I hadn’t really thought about it. What I found was the bad air didn’t bother me as such, yes there were days where it gave you a headache and I couldn’t wear my lenses but generally it was fine. What bugged me more was not being able to see the sky and just living under this grey smog cloud for weeks on end. I think there was one point there early in the year that I didn’t see ‘sky’ for over 6 weeks. That’s depressing.
4. Bureaucracy. Want to get some money out of the bank? Take your passport, work permit, residence permit, blood type, urine sample, second cousin’s next door neighbours date of birth, and your first born, and you might have a chance. Or maybe not.
5.  Internet!!!!!! I honestly didn’t realise how much I relied on the internet until I moved to China. No google, no gmail, no maps, no Facebook, no twitter, no YouTube, no Instgram, no BBC (depending on what they were reporting on this week), no Netflix! And everything being so heavily censored. And the feeling that if you stepped out of line, you’d be in serious trouble. I have tried to be as honest as possible about everything that happened to me in China, but there’s certain thoughts and opinions that I wouldn’t post up whilst I was still on that side of the firewall. I’m sure they’ll make their way onto this blog at some point – or maybe not if I actually want to go back someday…
6. And one bonus one - the music scene. If you didn't like EDM or hardcore dance (I don't), you're kind of limited!

Repatriating

I have officially been home for seven weeks now, which is weird. On the one hand, I don’t feel like I ever went away, and Shanghai feels like a dream that happened to someone else. On the other hand, those last seven weeks have completely flown by.

I've been keeping myself busy. Spending time with my niece (who now knows who I am – yay!), catching up with friends, setting up my own company, and actually working! I was really lucky to pick up a contracting role as quickly as I did, and now I've just managed to land another one for 6 months, which is a relief and gives me a bit more stability which is good.

I've loved being back home but it’s not been easy. Part of you expects that people’s lives are going to have been on hold whilst you’re away and things are just going to fall back into the same patterns now you’re back. And of course that’s not the case, nor should it be. Of course you want your friends and family to be progressing and living their lives, but when you feel like you've missed out on so much, and you’re missing your friends and your life in Shanghai, it’s difficult. And not having a real base, and all my stuff being spread between somewhere in the North Sea on a boat from China, with me, or at my parents, it’s really easy to feel a bit lost and discombobulated (as my best friend put it, who has been my lifeline!).

I definitely feel like I've come home a different person. Aside from the odd readjusting meltdown (!), I’m calmer, more confident in who I am, less stressed and a lot less scared. I guess after you've moved to China on your own, nothing else feels that scary! 

Coming home..

It’s official. My notice has been handed in, and I am coming back to the UK, almost a year to the day after I left for Shanghai. It wasn’t an easy decision, and there were lots of factors in play. Ultimately it came down to what was going to make me happy, and being back in the UK with my family and friends would do that.

Moving here was, without a doubt, the best thing I have ever done. I feel so different as a person. Despite  the bolshy exterior, I’m one of those people who had never travelled alone, never been in a restaurant alone, never been in a pub alone even! The fear of the unknown crippled me – which I think links back to my extremely control freak-ish personality – and actually coming here I even shocked myself! I’ve banged on about this a lot but I am so proud of myself for doing it, for doing something so completely out of character, breaking out of my comfort zone and going for something I really wanted. In the last year I have dipped my toes in the sea in Singapore, stood on the Great Wall of China (twice), seen the Terracotta Army, drank beer with strangers in Hong Kong, climbed a fort in Macau, eaten street food in Seoul, and stood on top of one of the tallest buildings in the world in Tokyo.

And of course, I have lived in Shanghai. One of the most vibrant, exciting, crazy cities in the world that I’m so happy to have been a part of for a little while. I have had so much fun here! Walking past the Pearl Tower every day on my way to work. Screeching along to Katy Perry songs at KTV after a lot of Coronaitas. Seeing the old people dancing in the park. Jazz festivals in the sunshine. Countless brunches and happy hours. Fantastic parks, museums and galleries. And most of all, the friends I’ve made, some of whom I’ll keep in touch with for life. Trust me, there’s a million things I won’t miss, but I am sad to be leaving.

It’s been a crazy year….

The mundane..

I’m not sure at what point I stopped writing about life here. The last few blogs I’ve written have read more like Lonely Planet travel guides. I think it’s because life here is becoming…well, life. Bordering on the mundane and ordinary. Nothing is really surprising me about Shanghai at this point. 3 people and a kid on a scooter? Normal. Dog wearing trainers? Normal. Old people dancing with swords in the park? Normal. Paying 20 quid for a bottle of wine? Normal. Getting out of every taxi ride just happy to be alive? Normal. Homeless guy with a pet monkey? Normal. You get the point. The novelty has worn off somewhat. 

That’s not to say I don’t still enjoy it, I do. But there’s few things now that I discover in everyday life that make me go ‘Oh wow that’s so random!’ Maybe now I’m just used to the cacophony of randomness that makes up this city. 

My parents were here a couple of weeks ago (hi mum and dad!) and that was good fun. But it did confirm my point above that nothing really surprises me about China any more. For every exclamation of ‘look at that!’ I was unfazed. But it was also really nice to see Shanghai again from a newbie’s eyes, because when you live here every day you forget how much of a culture shock it was at first.