3 month review

Last weekend was my 3 month anniversary – I cannot believe it has gone that quickly but I have been here three months. I went for a drink this week with someone who’s just got off the boat, so to speak, and they asked me when it was that I started to feel at home here and like I’d got it sussed out. Up until that point, I hadn’t realised I had but asking the question made me realise that yes, I feel quite at home now, and I have picked up enough tips to be able to advise other people, which is a very strange feeling.

Of course, Shanghai will never be home and I would never want it to be, but I love being here, which in those first couple of weeks I wasn’t sure was going to happen! Time seems to be flying, if I decide to only stay for a year; I’m a quarter of the way through already which is crazy.

So it seems like a good time for a re-cap – a review of some of the things I’ve learned living here:

1.       Forget everything you think you know. Nothing, and I mean nothing, prepares you for the craziness that is living here. It’s insane. It’s busy and messy and dirty and noisy and there are some days you feel like you’re living in a Baz Luhrmann movie, but it is nothing like you anticipate it will be. The Western world’s perceptions of China, and what China actually is, are two completely different things.

2.       Don’t judge things here by your normal standards. By that I mean if someone told you in London to go to an art show in the basement of a shopping mall, you’d think it was Crayola pictures done by 5 year olds at the local school. Here, it is one of the best exhibitions I’ve ever seen. So keep an open mind.

3.       Look forwards, backwards, sidewards, above and below when crossing the road. You never know what might be coming your way.

4.       Say yes to everything – at least at the start. So far I’ve done everything from cocktails on the terrace overlooking the Pearl Tower to tequila in the street. It’s those kinds of nights that make you glad you’re here (not so much the next morning).

5.       Do the touristy things. It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day – wake up, go to work, come home, and go to bed. Doing the touristy stuff reminds you why you’re here in the first place and it’s important to remember that.

6.       Skype as many people at home as often as you can. Skype and Facebook have been my lifelines. And knowing there’s someone there at the end of the day to talk to makes a bad day a whole lot better.

7.       Form your own opinions. This one’s really important. When you’re a newbie it’s easy to read the forums, listen to what your colleagues say who’ve been here longer, and believe what they say. And a lot of time what they say will make complete sense and be the truth. However there are things I’ve been told that once I’ve explored for myself I don’t necessarily agree with. So listen and take advice, but also find things out for yourself. Which leads me onto number 8:

8.       Don’t assume that people who have been here longer than you know everything. Last week I told my friend who has been here four years about the bill paying website. She had no idea and neither did her colleague who has been here 2 years. So that made me feel quite smug!

9.       Learn some basic language. Even if it’s just ‘stop’ to taxi drivers or ‘thank you’ or ‘where is the bathroom’.

10.   Don’t assume it’s all going to be sweetness and light. It’s not. Some days you’re going to want to scream and slam your head into the wall. It’s all part of it.

In other news, I’m debating changing my name to Nicole, which is what I get called constantly, even in emails where my name is clearly displayed.

Next time, I take a foray into expat dating....

Tourist week

As it’s a Bank Holiday here this weekend, I decided to do some touristy things. Despite living in Shanghai for nearly 3 months, I hadn’t really seen much of it. I know that might seem weird but when you live here your time is taken up with work, seeing people, shopping etc etc – life, basically. And you get a bit de-sensitised to it too. I can see the Pearl Tower out of my office window, so the thought of visiting it never really crosses my mind. It’s like living in London and walking past the London Eye every day and not going on. And how many of you who live in London (or visit regularly) have never been on the Eye? I know I haven’t!

So I decided that this Bank Holiday weekend was my time to do some of the things I put on my Pinterest board about Shanghai instead of just talking about them. Not an easy thing to plan. As Shanghai is the biggest city in the world, you can guarantee that everywhere you go will have crowds. It's just trying to figure out when will be bad and when will be ‘Oh my God where did all these people come from please just get me out of here alive’ bad. (Also known as the Prodigy mosh pit, Reading 2009).

Friday night was the beginning – I went to an Internations mixer. For those of you who don’t know what Internations is, it’s a global society for expats. The members organise dinners, drinks, trips etc – I went with a girl from work that is also a member and ended up seeing another couple of people from work there too. Now, after a few weeks here I devised a rule – never go to a mixer on a Friday night. The reason is when you’ve had a long week at work, Friday nights are not ideal for making small talk with people you have no interest of becoming friends with. I did break my rule for this one however as it was at M1NT, which is one of the most exclusive places in town. It’s on the Bund, which I think I mentioned before is the name for this collection of beautiful old European buildings that sit on the bank of the river (Puxi-side). Real estate there is more expensive than anywhere else in Shanghai. Anyway, M1NT has a roof terrace that they only open to VIP members normally, and it has great views so I decided to go. It also has a restaurant and club and is very posh – think glam luxe noir. And they have a tank of baby sharks on the way in. What I realised, after about 10 minutes is that I was right – mixers on a Friday night are a bad idea. Luckily I was with people I knew, so we just had a few drinks and a nice chat, then went downstairs to the club bit. And I still hate nightclubs just as much as I did in the UK. Full of annoying pretentious people and a glass of wine is 9 quid! So we went to the Apartment instead which is over 3 floors and had an old school RnB room so that was good fun – although in both places I saw Western guys being ridiculously drunk and groping bored looking Chinese girls who were playing on their phones which was a bit grim.

Saturday I went with a girl from work to the Shanghai Exhibition Centre which looks like this:

 

It used to be called the Sino-Soviet Friendship Building and was built in a Russian architectural style for that reason. For years it was the tallest building in Shanghai, until the Sino-Soviet split in the late sixties. There’s an article about it on Wikipedia of course. Now it hosts all sorts of events and exhibitions and that’s what I went for - there was an exhibition on called Photo Shanghai, which is the largest photography exhibition that’s ever been held in Shanghai with artists from all over the world taking part. It was fantastic and such a great location to have it in.

And then yesterday I braved Old City and Yuyuan Garden. I don’t really know a lot of the history as there were so many dynasties and different eras etc it all kind of merges into one. What I do know is most of the older buildings (even some with historical significance) were torn down in Shanghai to make way for new buildings, skyscrapers etc. The Old City (including the City of God Temple and Yuyuan Garden) were preserved and rebuilt and is now a massive tourist attraction, with lots of shops, markets etc. During the Concession era (in the 19^th Century, foreign concessions were common in China – little pockets of cities that were owned and governed by other places  -  a bit like Hong Kong and the UK), it became just another concession but was still the government seat of Shanghai and of importance so as the concessions went one by one it was decided to preserve it.

I went at 9am as I figured it made sense to go before it got too busy. And it was busy, but when I left at 12 I had to fight my way out, so going early was a good a shout. It was stunning. I know the houses, shops etc would have been rebuilt but it didn’t matter. You see so many skyscrapers and apartment buildings here which are all new it was fantastic to see a little bit of history. Sure, there’s also a Starbucks and the biggest queue I saw all day was at a Turkish ice cream stand, but still. And yes you do get a bit pestered to buy ‘Gucci’ bags and watches but once you say ‘Bu Yao’ (I don’t want), they do leave you alone which is nice.

Yuyuan Garden was amazing too. It was actually started in the Ming dynasty (1500) and was passed from dynasty to dynasty and is now a heritage site. It’s full of plants and trees, little pagodas, dragon head stonework and everything else you would expect from an oriental garden. It was also very funny as ever time I tried to take a picture, there would be couples, friends etc taking horrendously posed pictures of each other with these awesome backdrops. I couldn’t stop laughing. And then there’s the selfie sticks. You may have heard about these – they’re claw-style devices that you attach your phone to and it gives you extra long reach to get that perfect selfie. No, I’m not joking. There was a lot of those too, although I did see a security guard trying to fish a phone out of the lake with a net, so maybe the grip on them isn’t great.

Anyway here’s some pictures – I am by no means a fantastic photographer but I think some of them came out OK!

 

Fashion sense!

So I’m heading into week 12 and I’m starting to feel quite comfortable here. I have lost all sense of personal space (so I apologise in advance when I come back to the UK and I am wildly inappropriate with you), I feel no need to apologise when I bump into people on the street, and I caught myself walking and texting the other day – so I fit right in.

Where I don’t fit in is my dress sense. I’ve alluded to this a few times but it warranted a full post and there were other things to talk about before now.

Now I’m not saying I am a sartorial genius by any stretch of the imagination. I’m more Primark than Prada. I’m at my happiest in jeans, flip flops and a vest top. I don’t do dresses. The only thing dress-wise I really care about are my accessories and my shoes. And yet I think I am aware what is appropriate for an office environment and what isn’t.

Let’s do a little quiz. I will list a number of outfits I’ve seen women in my office building wear and you can guess if I’m making them up or not:

1.       A bright red, short, bodycon strapless bandage dress with no tights and sliver glittery strappy high heels

2.       Cut off jean shorts, a t-shirt with a dog on it, and Crocs

3.       White skinny jeans with black ‘check’ lines all over them, paired with a white t-shirt with sunflowers and the words ‘fuck off’ printed on it and jelly platform shoes

4.       A blue strapless sheer ‘mullet dress’ that is super short at the front and see through at the back with socks and heels

5.       Beige silk ‘parachute’ pants with a khaki denim shirt and spiky sliver heels

6.       Black short skirt, pink ankle socks with a frilly trim, yellow peep toe high-heeled shoes with butterflies on them, and a red vest top.

7.       Lime green satin hotpants

Of course the answer is I have seen all of them. My personal favourite was number 3. I have also seen on my travels:

1.       Teenage girls wearing hipster glasses with no glass in them, just the frames

2.       Neon pink platform trainers (move over Baby Spice)

3.       Unbelievably strange slogan t-shirts like ‘did’ht’, ‘what life feels’, ‘live to live’ etc. Think something is getting lost in translation

4.       Men in crocs. Everywhere.

5.       Sheer pop socks. On every woman. Usually worn with bare legs, a short skirt and heels

6.       Men rolling up their shirt when it’s hot to show off their bellies. No I’m not joking.

On the plus side, it makes people watching very interesting as I am constantly gobsmacked by what people are wearing. My commute is like one long catwalk show. I kind of like the fact there seems to be no trends, no fashion to follow, everyone just wears what the hell they want. On the other side, it makes my eyes bleed.

Can’t wait for the winter weather to see what that brings – if I don’t see someone rocking a (faux) furry Russian Cossack-style hat with a mini-dress and sandals I’m going to be really disappointed.

Bills, bills, bills..

Something someone told me (whilst drunk) when I first got here was that I would have days that were ‘Shang-highs’ and days that were ‘Shang-lows’. What they didn’t tell me was that it’s perfectly normal to switch between the two about 6 or 7 times a day.

A few weeks ago I talked about little victories and how even the smallest thing, if you manage to get it done, can fill you with euphoria. Sadly the reverse is also true. The slightest little hiccup and it’s easy to go into a fit of unbelievable rage ‘this f*ing country’ etc, followed by a bout of despair ‘what am I doing here, what am I doing with my life’ etc. The whole thing is like a massive emotional rollercoaster.

So this week I have had a cold, so that has led to Shang-lows. Mainly because finding the ingredients for honey and lemon were challenging (yes, really). I paid £6.50 for a squeezy jar of honey, which is nearly as much as the whisky I bought to also go in the honey and lemon.

On the other side, I also had a huge Shang-high in that I managed to pay my electricity, water and gas bill. That sounds weird because normally as you know in the UK, they drop through your door and you’re on a DD scheme so they just up and lower your monthly payment in accordance. Not here (of course). Firstly, there’s the bill itself. For water there’s no envelope just a perforated piece of paper that looks like a wholesaler’s invoice (which it is I suppose). It’s all in Chinese apart from the numbers so you know how much you owe but that’s about it.

Traditionally in Shanghai you’ve had to go and pay your bills in person, either at a bank, a Family Mart (they’re like the Co-op or Tesco Express, one on every corner) or if you live in a fancy apartment building there is an office where you can do it there. So in the last couple of years the government have set up a website where you can pay all your bills online, including topping up your phone. And it’s in English too (score).

 

Once you’ve picked which bill you want to pay e.g. electric, gas, it shows you a whole list of suppliers and you have to choose yours. The fun begins when you realise that the company name is written on the invoice in Chinese so you don’t know. However, help is at hand! For every company, the website shows you a picture of what the invoice looks like so you can figure out which one you have. The website then recognises the barcode you type in, you fill in your card details and you’re done! You can pay all your bills in one place and apart from the company name thing, it’s super-efficient.

It’s my first Chinese Bank Holiday this weekend. This is for the Mid-Autumn festival, which is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar and during a full moon. This year that falls on Monday 8^th, so we all get the day off. The festival is sometimes also called the ‘moon festival’ as it is very much a celebration of the moon and the Moon Goddess of Immortality Chang’e – there’s a really interesting story of how the festival originated on Wikipedia. So there are celebrations and fireworks etc all over China. The traditional gift to be given is a mooncake. It kind of looks like a pork pie, but is sweet with a filling generally of lotus seeds or red bean although I have seen some that are filled with chocolate, cream etc.  The top is normally inscribed with Chinese characters including the name of the bakery. Mooncakes are big business – most companies give their employees vouchers so they can go and buy a cake, and suppliers will gift them to companies too. Some of them can cost a fortune – about 500 RMB (50 quid) for a really fancy one!

Chinese bank holidays fall in a really weird way in that they are at different times every year, and the schedule is announced towards the end of the previous year. What makes it different is where a holiday falls on a weekday, often the weekend will be ‘moved’ to compensate for that. So for example, I get a week off in October which starts on a Wednesday, however I have to work the previous Sunday, as well as the Monday and the Tuesday.

I was initially planning on going to Japan for the long weekend but as it is my first national holiday I’ve decided to stay in Shanghai and experience it all. I’m going to go to People’s Park (one of the biggest parks in Shanghai) to see the fireworks and also go to the old town to see the displays at the temples – and hopefully get some good pictures. I’m looking forward to seeing such a big part of Chinese culture.