Learning to Swim, Part 2 of 3: SPLASH!

Before I begin, I’d like to acknowledge the birthday of the woman who gave me life, and also swimming lessons, my wonderful mama. Happy Birthday Mom! I hope it’s a great day and send you my love. Whether it was in the swimming pool as a young kid or in life as an old kid, you’ve always helped me stay afloat.

Now let’s get to the post and driving this swimming analogy into the ground…

You can’t start swimming unless you get in the water, and with the keys to my apartment in hand, that weekend I dove head first into the pool. Late Saturday morning I took a cab with the bulk of my luggage from the hotel to my new pad. I called Zhao Jun, my landlord, earlier that morning and she agreed to meet me at my apartment at 1 o’clock to take me to sign up for internet access and such. She had offered to accompany me on this errand the day before when I signed my contract, a kind gesture that only confirmed my first impressions of her.

The cab ride was easy enough up until the end. In my limited experience with the area I only knew of one route to my apartment. Of course, it turns out there are multiple options, but at the time, all I could remember was “go down the alleyway with the giant construction hole in the middle of it, near the side road with the big white sign.”

After passing the big white sign in the cab, I informed the driver that we were close. Forgetting that the particular alleyway was not accessible by car from Chang Ning Lu (Lu means “road”), we quickly passed it and I asked the driver to pull over into a nearby parking lot and let me out. “Cash or card?” he asked in Chinese. “Cash,” I said as I pulled out money to pay him. I had been pleased enough this trip with my ability to understand the cabby. Earlier I had confirmed his planned route to my apartment. “Should I take Jiangsu Road?” he had asked. “Yeah! Yes, yes, yes.” I eloquently replied.

After another coherent exchange – “Do you want me wait?” “No want.” – I carried my bags the last few hundred yards down the alleyway, past the giant crater, around a few corners, through the courtyard, and finally up the stairs to my apartment. I dropped my stuff on the living room floor with a thud and took a moment to take it all in. Home!

Shortly thereafter, Zhao Jun and her husband, Wu Zhiming, who she affectionately called “Ming Ming,”[1] arrived at my door with smiles on their faces and bike helmets in their hands. Like many Chinese – not able to afford a car but too prosperous (or maybe too old) for just a plain ol’ bicycle – Zhao Jun and “Ming Ming” got around on a scooter. “William!” was my greeting as I opened the door. Zhao Jun had successfully read the foreign name on the contract. I welcomed them inside and did my best to be friendly, despite being a bit tired from my mini beast-out carrying the suitcases.

They were both eager to show off more of the apartment they had recently invested a lot in refurbishing, but we didn’t linger long. Wu Zhiming went off to ride his scooter, probably have a cigarette or three, and do whatever else he could do in my neighborhood. Zhao Jun escorted me on the mile and a half walk down Jiangsu Road to the local China Telecom branch.

As we weaved our way through typical Shanghai scenery along the main roadway – small shops, construction, etc. – Zhao Jun provided me with ample opportunity to practice my Chinese. The most common phrases I used were “I don’t understand,” and “I don’t know how to say it,” but I wasn’t completely inept, and I got the chance to learn a little bit more about my land lord. From what I gathered she and her husband and their 17 year old son used to live in my apartment. She used to be a teacher, but now, I’m not sure, but I think one or both of them had been recently laid off and are struggling with China’s poor unemployment support structure.

She asked me about the unemployment rate in America, and highlighting the gross inconsistencies in my Chinese, I was able to reply rather quickly and coherently (I think). For example, I can say that the unemployment rate is around 4.5% but I can’t say “The folder is purple” or “vanilla ice cream.” For the time being, I can get by, but this year it’s a major goal to get this beast of a language under control.

We reached the office and Zhao Jun helped me sign up for a deal that suited me. Somebody would be coming Monday morning to install everything, welcome news to a person that can barely survive without internet in his native country, let alone a country where he has no other forms of entertainment. We took care of the necessary paperwork and I returned home, now thoroughly exhausted.

After some much needed rest and a few hours of Chinese television, it was time to prepare for Sunday night – my first night in my new apartment. Though it seemed like the day was already over, it was only 4 o’clock or so, and I made my way to Carrefour, the chain superstore in the basement of the same mall that houses my office.

Long Zhi Meng, translated as “Dragon’s Dream” in Chinese, but known also by its English name, the Cloud Nine Shopping Center, is home to many struggling shops, all high-end fashion stores without a high-end consumer base to justify there presence. No matter what day of the week, or what time of day, many of the shops in Long Zhi Men are empty. Carrefour (“Jia Le Fu” in Chinese), like my office, thankfully, does not have to deal with this problem. Almost like a small version of Target connected to a huge super market, it’s always crowded and provides its many customers with goods ranging from Chinese toaster ovens to imported toaster strudel. There is a butcher (which sells EVERY part of the animal), a Chinese deli (like ones in America, except without anything good), a fish monger (pretty unremarkable, actually), and a place where you can get freshly made snacks (they have actual Indian people there making Indian Roti!). Basically, anything you need in your daily life, you can find at Carrefour.

Overwhelmed by all the purdy things, and eager to kick my settling in up a notch, I bought a ton of stuff. By the time I realized the size of the load in my cart, it was too late; the thing was overflowing with sheets, towels, pillows, a blanket, laundry detergent, and whatever other things I considered “essential” for my first night in the apartment. How many bags were they going to try to give me this time?

I checked out and began the haul back home. My wrists and hands started to hurt before I even got out of the mall. A twenty minute walk later and I had had my second beasting of the day. The good news was, I was back home. I threw the sheets and towels in the wash so that I could let them dry overnight while I was back at the hotel. As I broke in the washing machine, I resumed the unpacking process: hanging this, folding that, stacking this, storing that. By about 7:30, I had gotten most everything put away, and hung up. It was time to head back across town to enjoy one more night of internet at the hotel.

… …

I am startled out of bed around 8 am by the shrill chime of the hotel room doorbell (You can’t flush your toilet paper down the toilet, but the room has a doorbell). I look through the peep hole to see Zhang Zhiming (Ken) outside it is street clothes. I had told him I was going to be checking out early Sunday and that I would take him to see my apartment so he could find it at a later date. I had failed to clarify that early for me was before noon, not before nine.

I open the door, in a foul mood. His insistence on following me around in recent days, however innocent, had been beginning to get on my nerves. Cultural differences prevented him from knowing any better, and at that particular moment, also prevented him from knowing that it was rude for him to try to come in to my room at this particular time. Thoroughly pissed off, I sent him down to the lobby to wait for me for a few hours.

I checked out of the hotel around 11 and took a cab with Ken to my new place. I showed him the lay of the land and then sent him on his way so I could get ready for work. I took my first shower in the new apartment, which I’m pleased to say featured hot water AND good water pressure, got dressed with clothes taken from a closet, not a suitcase, and headed out for my first full day at Long Zhi Meng.

… …

NOTE: I’ll leave off here. The settling in saga has been a month-long process with lots of little stories along the way, but at this point, it becomes so intertwined with working that I will try to incorporate both into my next post. After that, I will try to get a little more focused with my postings.

Until next time…


Vocabulary: 生日快乐， shengri kuai le, “shung ruh kwigh luh”, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Happy b-day to my mama! Everyone wish her a happy birthday…or else! >:o

Music to move you: “Two” by Ryan Adams



[1] Chinese names put the surname first, followed by the first name. First names are most often one or two characters/syllables. My name for example, Bai Weilin (白威林), has a two-character first name. It’s a phonetic transcription of my English name. Other famous examples include Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Notice the surname first. That’s why people say “Chairman Mao” and not Chairman Zedong or Chairman Dong (haha). Zhao Jun provides an example of a one syllable first name.

A common way to nickname someone is two double the only syllable or the last syllable of their first name, hence Wu Zhiming becomes “Ming Ming.” This is not a constant rule. Nicknames are also subject to other conditions, such as whether they sound gender appropriate. I think it’s unlikely that people would call me “Lin Lin” because it sounds feminine…and I’m a terrifying foreigner. It's also unlikely that anyone called Mao "Dong Dong," though that would've been hilarious. Anyhow, there’s a little lesson for you.

Learning to Swim, Part 1 of 3: Give a man a home!

So as it turns out I’m not as good at updating this thing as I thought I’d be. Rather than update the blog regularly with short anecdotes and passing observations, I’m forced to scramble every few weeks to put together a super-sized Thanksgiving feast of a post. For those of you with short attention span…or an insatiable appetite for whatever it is I have say…I apologize. Nonetheless, it’s time to pull up a chair, put on your bib, and sound the Feasting Horn! There’s a lot to get you caught up on…

First of all, an explanation for my hiatus: quite simply, moving in, settling in, work, and recovering from the first three. When trying to set up shop on the other side of the world, the list of things to do seems endless. When you can check one thing off, you have to add another item to the list. I often think of learning to swim as a little kid, when your parent stands a short distance away from you, arms outstretched, encouraging you to swim to them. As you paddle and kick your way over, the parent backs up and backs up, and you keep swimming and swimming, flustered that the already challenging task has become even more so. (I often find myself using this analogy…maybe I’ve blocked out some traumatizing swimming lesson from my youth) Anyhow, “learning to swim” in China has been a non-stop mission to find a rhythm and get settled, and a month into it, I’m pleased to say, life is finally starting to show faint signs of settling down.

A major step – finding my apartment – was an interesting mini-adventure. After meeting with the real-estate agent Anson on my first day of work, I was told to expect a call from him the following day to set up a time to go apartment hunting. Tuesday morning came and went without word from Anson, so I took it upon myself after lunch to give him a call. He hadn’t been able to prepare any places to look, so he said one of his colleagues (“colleges,” as many Chinese pronounce it) would call me Wednesday.

Wednesday morning was oddly similar to Tuesday (no phone call), so, beginning to get a little bothered that my already slow acclimation process was approaching “watching paint dry” status, I had Lucy Lu put the whip to them. The uncertainty of why they hadn’t called me when they said they would bothered me greatly. I needed a place soon and the idea that the people expected to assist me in that process weren’t doing their jobs worried me. I only had a few days before EF stopped covering my hotel bill and these factors all made me even more anxious to lock down an apartment.

As it turns out, from what I’ve seen so far, that’s just how things go here. One needs to be patient but also proactive and persistent when trying to get things done. The sooner money’s involved, the better. And while most professional transactions aren’t conducted how they are in the states, if you get a business card from your peer, you’re probably safe from getting scammed.

Finally, that evening, Anson’s “college” Anne gave me a call and we agreed to meet the following morning to look at a few properties near Zhong Shan Park, where my office is located. On the phone, Anne’s timid English was the icing on the incompetence cake as far as I was concerned. Not only had these guys twice failed to follow-up with me when they said they would, but the woman handling my apartment hunt couldn’t even communicate with me? I was not feeling confident about the following morning, at all.

But with the new day came a new attitude and I wasn’t nearly so skeptical about the morning’s outing as I was the night before. I woke up to catch the bus/subway to meet Anne. After a few exchanged text messages I met up with her outside the Zhong Shan Park metro station. She had arranged two properties for us to look at on short notice. One was in my price range; the other was slightly higher than what I wanted. Anne’s English was better in person than on the phone, but I decided to drop the bombshell that I could speak Chinese (kaboosh!) As we made the fifteen minute walk from the station to the first appointment, that seemed to ease things a little bit.

The walk was a straight shot along Chang Ning Lu, a main road in the area. We arrived at a white sign with gold lettering that matched the address of the first stop on our itinerary. The sign hung outside of a nice looking apartment building and we waited there underneath it for the landlord to arrive. After a few minutes, a short woman in her mid-40s with short hair and a gentle, motherly face came to meet us. I missed the Chinese lesson on “Meeting the Landlord” so I just said “ni hao” (hello) and smiled while Anne did most of the talking.

Much to my distress, the woman led us away from the nice apartment building and down a small side road, lined with small shops and speckled with small construction projects. The narrow road served as the main artery for a number of alleyways which each housed a handful of short, concrete apartment buildings. A majority of traditional residential neighborhoods in Shanghai are built in this “long tang,” or alley-way style, which now contrasts quite noticeably with the new high rise apartment complexes shooting up all over town.

After weaving our way through an indistinguishable maze of concrete, construction, drying clothes, and iron gates we arrived at our destination. We walked through a quiet courtyard and into an unremarkable concrete apartment building. The landlord led us up to the second floor, past an abandoned couch and an abandoned bicycle, and welcomed us to our destination. Inside the apartment, the TV was on as the landlord’s husband shuffled around sweeping the floor with a short broom and long-handled dust pan. He, like his wife, also had a friendly face, but his appearance was more aged and his teeth were stained from the common Chinese past-time of smoking.

After seeing the neighborhood, I was very skeptical that this first place was going to be any good. This also concerned me because it was right in the price range I wanted and if this was all I could get for that amount, I would have to make a sacrifice on one end or the other –accommodation or price. Upon entering the apartment however, all of these doubts quickly disappeared. Anne’s exclamation of “Waaaaaah…” (Chinese for “wow”) pretty much summed the place up. Nestled in this old alleyway apartment building was a one bedroom apartment, newly renovated with brand new appliances in every room. A big bed, great natural light, two TV’s, a full bathroom, a sofa bed, a washing machine, a sit-down toilet…and all for a price that couldn’t be beat! The landlords gave us a full tour of the little apartment, and I was certainly impressed. It seemed to have everything I needed.

Excited by this surprising discovery, Anne and I bid farewell to the landlords and went to make a courtesy stop at the other location on the itinerary. It was a located on one of the upper floors of a new hotel right across the street from my office, but it was very small, and too expensive. Anne and I quickly concluded that I should sign a contract for the first place, especially because it was in rather high demand. It was extremely unlikely that I would find another place like that for that price, so close to my office. I told Anne to go ahead and inform the landlords that I wanted the apartment.

Now as much as I could complain about the first few days of dealing with these realtors, I was very impressed by how well they handled things from this point forward. The property was in high demand, but since the landlords liked me, Anne and Anson were able to drop the hammer and lock up a contract signing. Furthermore, they talked the landlords down from their listed rental price and got me the terms of the contract that I wanted. We signed Friday morning and by 1 pm I had the keys in hand. Now I could get the ball rolling!


Vocabulary: 家， jia, "jah," home. Check out the character. The upper radical represents a roof; the lower radical is a pig. Home is where the hog is :)

Music to move you: "Keys to your Love," Rolling Stones, The...

First day on the job...

The weather on Monday morning as I woke up for my first day was ridiculous. The remnants of Typhoon Krosa, which absolutely annihilated Taiwan by all accounts, hit Shanghai the night before and stuck around for all of Monday, adding a little bit of adventure to an otherwise unspectacular day.

After some serious debate in my hotel room as to whether it was safe to go outside (it was), I put on my boots and rain jacket and trudged out the door, intent on actually doing something work-like for the first time since I arrived. I pulled my pastel blue EF umbrella out of my slightly darker blue EF man tote as I exited the hotel. Within about 2 minutes it was clear that the flimsy plastic umbrella would be useless against the relentless down pour and rushing wind. Umbrellas, bent inside-out, littered the sidewalks wherever I went for the rest of the day.

I walked the 3-minute walk around the corner to the bus stop, hood up, head down against the elements. My bus ran half as often as the other line that stopped near my hotel, enhancing the remoteness of the area and prolonging my time in the rain. Finally, the bus arrived, and I, along with a larger-than-usual crowd of commuters crammed our way onto the bus.

Riding the bus in Shanghai is one of the more ridiculous activities I’ve partaken in so far. Yes, it’s nice to know how to get where you want to go on a bus, but like many things in China, the buses are too small for their purpose and inefficiently-operated. Another thing that comes to mind is grocery bags. They only come in two sizes – small and extra small – and they try to bag everything you buy, which is both wasteful and annoying. I don’t need a bag for my bottle of water. It’s a bottle of water; I’m going to drink it; now. I don’t need a bag for my garbage can. It’s huge, so your fun-size bag will be useless anyway, and I want to carry stuff home in that garbage can, and I know that if you put it in a grocery bag you’re just going to set it aside and waste that prime carrying space… It’s this kind of thinking at the grocery store cash register that might explain why the buses can be so awful.

First, unless you get a seat on the bus (which you won’t during rush hour unless you get on at the beginning of the line), you are damned to be jammed into the cabin of this vehicle in such a way that the term “fire hazard” becomes a gross understatement. People are wedged shoulder-to-shoulder; the yellow caution zones of the bus have nearly as many people in them as there are in the seats. Second, many buses have two employees on them, one to drive and the other to collect fare and pass out receipts. It’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen – these people trying to collect fares from the endless horde of passengers. It’s like trying to swim through sea of drying cement. Eventually, you get the baseball game concession effect, where people pass the fare card or money along to the fare collector like a box of Cracker Jacks trying to make its way to the center of the row.

Such was the scene as I rode the bus on Monday. The roads outside were just as crowded as the bus inside. You couldn’t tell by the view – the windows were completely fogged up – but the fact that the bus didn’t move at all for ten minutes at one point was a pretty good clue. That made the already unpleasant ride all the more awesome!

Anyhow, what would otherwise have been a 20 minute trip turned out to be about 35 minutes, and I arrived at the office a few minutes late. Great start to my first day! Well, as it turns out it didn’t matter much. After a 15 minute tour of “Mega Center” I killed the rest of the morning at a computer, which by this point was not as exciting as it had been on Friday during my crisis. A tasty lunch on the company dime carried me into the afternoon.

The PM hours were a little bit more productive. Lucy Lu from HR arranged for me to meet with Anson, a real estate agent who does a lot of house-hunting for EF employees. We talked for a half an hour or so. I gave him my specs and price range for an apartment. Ideally, I wanted something near my branch office on the west side of town, over at Zhongshan Park. Anson said he’d get back to me on Tuesday…he didn’t.

And thus would begin my made adventure for the week: house-hunting.


Vocabularly: 上班，"shang ban," to go to work.

Music to move you: "Blame it on the Rain" by Milli Vanilli

Week 1: It was the Best of Times; it was the Worst of Times… (WARNING: LONG POST)

Well, mostly it was the worst of times. Had I known that all of China would be shut down for the week on national holiday, I would not have elected to arrive on the eve of the annual celebration of the Chinese nation. On the week of October 1st, many businesses shut down, including my own, and Chinese from all corners of the Middle Kingdom take advantage of the time off to travel and explore the sights of their own country. That leaves places like Shanghai even more congested than usual.

If only my schedule were as busy. Being new to the city, without any contacts save one or two, and struggling to get a handle on my neglected Chinese skills and adjust to my surroundings, I was counting on some job-related responsibilities to ease me into my new environment and distract me from the emotional difficulties of my move. The holiday week all but eliminated this possibility, not because my office had closed for the holiday (there were still people around), but because it was undergoing renovations that left the whole place covered in tarps and drop clothes and filled with noxious paint fumes, (smell that lead!). Thus, on consecutive days, my orientation process was postponed and I was left to explore Shanghai on my own…and wallow in my loneliness. Waaah waaah, I know.

I occupied my time wandering around the periphery of my hotel and going for slightly longer walks in my remote part of the city. My hotel was a good 20 to 30 minute ride removed from any popular or relevant area of town so my sight-seeing was somewhat limited for the first few days. As it turns out, the hotel where new EF employees usually stay upon their arrival was booked solid – because of the holiday. I did break away from the monotony on Wednesday night though, checking out a famous dumpling restaurant with a friend from the States and walking along the Bund, a historic strip along the Huangpu River (through which European imperialist dogs infiltrated China during the 19th century).

But just when things were starting to look up…disaster! Wednesday night, my main line of entertainment and communication went down for the count. My computer overloaded itself and basically became so slow that it was non-functional, leaving me with little to do besides watch HBO Asia and Cinemax on the hotel TV, channels that seem to rotate the same line-up of low-budget horror films, low-budget kick boxing movies, and a collection of Baldwin brother movies starring every one but Alec. Sometimes I wonder if some of these films might have been released exclusively for HBO Asia.

Anyhow, I like to think that there’s a positive side to everything, and indeed my computer catastrophe turned out to be a blessing in disguise, especially since I was able to fix the problem rather easily. For the roughly 48 hour span in which I did not have a computer, I had no way to contact anyone, and as such, I spent the bulk of that time looking for alternative means to contact the outside world: my family, my girlfriend, my company etc. I was deterred from this pursuit briefly on Thursday morning with an orientation event that did come to fruition – a tour of the city – but upon my return I sought out an internet bar.

This seemingly simple errand turned out to be more of an epic pilgrimage. I asked at the front desk where to find a “Wang Ba” (literally, net bar) and the concierge told me where to go, a place quite close by. Having become well versed in the surrounding blocks, I made my way over there with ease, but wouldn’t you know, not a wang ba to be found. I looked for signs and asked a few people, but to no avail. After traipsing around for about a half hour, I go back to the hotel and ask the concierge once again where I’m supposed to go. I ask him to draw me a map thinking I may have misunderstood his directions, which he does, but it mysteriously directs me to the same place. I go to the same area once again, ask around more, and get pointed in a number of directions only to have the same result…nada.

I return to the hotel for a third time, this time to find the concierge out front chatting with the bell boy who had picked me up some dumplings on my first night in town. I say hello and tell the concierge that there tisn’t a wang ba to be found in this desert of a district…at least not where he said. Baffled, he sends the bell boy with me to find the place. Unlike the concierge, the bell boy doesn’t speak any English, so it forces me to use my Chinese. We retrace my steps and then beyond, going down a few random alleyways, chatting in elementary Chinese along the way. His name is Zhang Zhiming, or “Ken” for the western guests, he’s 20, he lives in Pudong with his parents, he’s worked at the hotel for a few months, etc. As we chat it becomes clear that the kid things I’m pretty okay for a foreigner.

Then, after about an hr of walking and directions-asking, and the umpteenth random alleyway, we see it, an oasis in the desert, an internet bar! We go in and I tell the girl at the front desk I want to “shang wang” or “go on the net.” She gasps, and with an angry expression throws her cup of water in my face. Zhang Zhiming, somewhat stunned, explains to me that in my bad pronunciation, I’ve just solicited the poor girl for intercourse, not internet…okay, I just made that last part up…but the outcome was essentially the same. For whatever reason, probably because they didn’t have the equipment to document my passport, I couldn’t get access to a computer. Part of the problem, Zhang Zhiming tells me, is that they need to confirm I am over 18. Children younger than 18 should not be wasting time on the wed; they should be studying.

So, probably not unexpectedly, my frustrating search ends in frustration. We walk back to the hotel and I buy the kid a coke on the way. I also concede to teaching him English at some uncertain point in the future. He’s happy to help me with my Chinese. That’s all well and good, but after this ordeal I need a rest.

A few hours later, after catching my breath and washing off the “essence of Shanghai,” I commence Plan B and venture downstairs to go looking for an international calling card. The concierge recruits my new-found friend “Ken” to go hunt one down for me. I give him the money, and wait patiently. An hour or so later he returns (“I’ve got a golden tiiicket…"). I’m eager to hear a friendly voice. But not so fast. After some trouble using the card on my hotel phone, Zhang Zhiming suggests that I might need a cell phone to use the card. I wasn’t planning on getting a shou ji (sounds like “show gee,” literally, “hand machine”) for another week or so, but that would have to change. I would have to go to the bank in the morning to exchange more funds.

The next day I head out to the nearest bank to get some RMB and lo and behold, the branch is closed. I return to the hotel beginning to grow very frustrated with this recent trend. In the lobby, I run into a guy named Kellen as he’s getting off the elevator. Kellen is another new employee at EF. He’s from Georgia and has been in Shanghai a few weeks longer than me. I had met him originally at breakfast the morning before, but this second meeting yielded another positive outcome of my 48 hour computer-less isolation.

Kellen tells me he’s heading over to the mega center (the main EF office in the city) in a bit and invites me to come along. Desperate for a computer, some contact, and some assurance that my company actually exists, I happily agree. We meet a little while later and take a bus to People’s Square, the center of town where the main office is located. I’m pleased to discover a bus line that can take me where I need to go. Not only is it cheaper than a cab, but I find I’m a lot more settled in a new place once I learn its public transportation systems. This was a step in the right direction...

We stop at Kellen’s apartment to drop some things off as he’s just begun the moving process. I try to get a gauge for how price, location, and accommodation come together in this city as I know I’ll have to figure it out for my own apartment hunt soon enough. With my mind on my money and my money on my mind I find an open bank and get some RMB. Now on to business…

The giant blue EF signs on the neighboring buildings are reassuring, but I’m still skeptical I actually have an employer until we finally get to the office. Save for one room of computers the place is undergoing a complete overhaul. As I had been told on the phone earlier in the week, it would have indeed been pointless for me to come in earlier in the week. I met Katie and Jean, the two recruitment staffers I had been in contact with throughout, figured out when I could actually start showing up to work (Monday) and finally got on a computer (e-mail, g-mail, chat, Facebook, giants.com…phewwwww, much better).

Recharged, I consult with Kellen and the office crew and head over to China Mobile to get a cell phone and a sim card. I whip out the Mandarin once more, elementary but effective, and purchase a “hand machine” and select a number. After the fact, I recalled that many Chinese stay away from phone numbers with “4” in them because the word for four, “si,” sounds very much like the word for death. My number only had one “4.” That was safe enough for me. After an encouraging and productive morning/early afternoon, I hop back on the bus and return to my hotel.

Within a couple hours of returning to my room, I am able to bring my computer back from the dead. A seemingly catastrophic situation turns out to create some positive gains: I make a Chinese friend, I make an American friend, I meet confirm the existence of my office and the specifics of my schedule, I discover the bus, and get a cell phone. Not bad at all.

I spend the rest of Friday and most of the weekend enjoying my newly resuscitated computer and resting up from the loneliness, stress, and cardiovascular workouts of my first week in Shanghai. Saturday I venture all the way across town, by bus and subway, to hunt down my branch office in Zhongshan Park. It’s located in the Cloud Nine Shopping Mall, a 9 – story shopping center on the west end of town. As expected, it’s closed, but it was useful to locate my eventual place of employment. Sunday, I treat Zhang Zhiming to dinner at restaurant near the hotel. He’s surprisingly helpful with my Chinese. I pick up one or two new vocabulary words each time we chat, and get a little more comfortable with my language and my new environment.

The remnants of a typhoon from Taiwan began to hit the city as we sat at dinner. I hope that the heavy wind and rains can wash away the stresses of Week 1. As I look ahead to the following day, as the rest of the country goes back to work after the holiday, I will be going with them. I hope the upward trend of my first week will continue.

Vocabularly:
网巴, Wang Ba, Internet Bar; roughly pronounced “wong bah”;
手机， Shou Ji, Cell phone; roughly pronounced “show gee”

(Vocab Notes: Remember the literal translation “net bar”? Notice how the first character of Wang Ba, “wang,” resembles a net. The second character “ba” is a phonetic translation of the English word “bar,” I believe. For example, 酒巴，jiu ba, literally “alcohol bar” refers the conventional Western notion of a bar.)

Music to move you: “Radio Nowhere” by Bruce Springsteen


Notes: Sorry for the long post, but I’m trying to get the blog caught up on my goings on here. When I’m not busy, I’ve been exhausted, so getting things in order has been hard. I hope to be up-to-date soon though, so stay tuned. Week 2 has been hectic but busy. I got an apartment on Friday! I’ll be sure to write all about it in the next post.

Also, I have resurrected my Shutterfly site and uploaded some pics to that. You can start checking that regularly for updates as well. 'Til next time, take care!

Arrival in Shanghai Pt. II: Apples and Dumplings

Driving in China does not have the same soothing effect of walking through a Chinese airport after a long flight. The roadways are crowded – not only with cars and trucks, but with motorcycles, bicycles, and product-peddling bicycle-wagon hybrids as well – and the streets are not getting any less congested. Thousands of new drivers take to the Chinese roadways every day. China very soon will pass Japan as the second largest car market in the world, if it has not already done so.

The roadways, thus, are chaotic. With an expanding pool of new drivers and an expanding network of new roads, driving regulations, or at least drivers’ awareness of those regulations, are often in doubt…at least to me. On the ride to the hotel, I could have sworn on multiple occasions that a scooter casually…um, scooting…through an intersection or a pedestrian walking in a crosswalk were about to get steamrolled…thankfully, neither happened. Regardless, these factors made for a slightly more discomforting time on the ride to the hotel.

Apple and her friend accompanied me on the hour plus cab ride to the hotel. Apple sat in the back with me, while her friend sat up front with the driver, chatting with him and helping him navigate using the directions Apple had written in her planner. No one in the car had been to this hotel before, so there was a lot of dialogue back and forth between the three of them, alternating between Mandarin and Shanghainese, as they tried to figure out the route.

The cab was small, so while I managed to get my two suitcases in the trunk, Packzilla rested on my lap in the back seat for most of the ride. After a half hour or so, I figured out that there was room to stand it up on the floor, and relieved my legs of the burden. The ride was otherwise comfortable, with a nice breeze circulating through the car as the taxi rode along through the crowded Shanghai streets.

Apple, when not conferencing with the driver and her friend in the front seat, took the opportunity to welcome me to Shanghai and to English First, and to practice her English with a Westerner for the first time! She explained my schedule over the next few days and gave me a very handsome company man-purse (ok, so it’s a messenger bag, which I think is actually pretty cool), filled with useful stuff, including a company umbrella, some guide books, and my contacts/itinerary for the next few weeks, and told me a little bit about herself.

I’m amused to find that the first thing she shares about herself with me is the origins of her name. The last character of her name is ping, as in pingguo, the Chinese word for apple. Her friends have called her Apple since grade school, so when it came time to select an English name, it was not an arduous process.

Now, as a 21 year old student at Shanghai Maritime University majoring in maritime law (Cherith Cutestory, anyone?), Apple admits contemplating a name change, something more conventional. I tell her that I think her name is unique and distinguishing. As a full-time student during the week, and a weekend warrior for EF performing tasks such as this one, I figure she’s got much more pressing things to deal with.

Apple is very friendly and does her best to make conversation with her new, jag-lagged colleague. As she “protests” (her pronunciation of “practices”) her English, I try to get some “protest” being patient and encouraging, two traits I figure I will need in my new job as an English teacher. As I mentioned, Apple is speaking with a native English speaker for the first time. As she explains to me, there’s not much opportunity to practice speaking with native speakers at school… I know the feeling.

After a little more than an hour, we arrive at the Shanghai Summit Hotel Nanpu. It’s in the Huangpu district of Shanghai, west of the Huangpu River and south of the Bund. The area is pretty removed from any eventful part of town, with more places to buy fabric than places to eat. Location aside, the hotel is very comfortable and modern.

Apple and her friend help me get checked in and follow the bell hop and I up to my room. Apple and I exchange e-mails and she and her friend take their leave so that I can rest.

After nearly a full day of traveling, that’s just what I’m ready to do. I take a survey of my room, my home for the next two weeks. Though small, it has everything I need to be comfortable: a sit-down toilet, electric light…just kidding… there’s a TV with a few English channels, a mini-fridge, an electric tea kettle, high-speed internet – enough to keep me going in my new environment. My first night, I try to stay up until 9 or so, just so that my body clock is not completely out of whack. The front desk helps me out and sends the bell boy out to get me some dumplings for dinner around 8. I eat half, put the leftovers in my fridge, and then gratefully call it a night.

Notes:

I'm slowly trying to get the blog in order. I hope to have a photo page up soon, and when that happens I will link it on the right side of the window. I have already posted the link to another, more academically-minded blog that I contribute to in the "links" section of this page. The Asian Studies blog has been a bit slow-going getting it off the ground, but I hope that it can develop into something eventually.

Finally, I think it would be fun to conclude each blog post with a Chinese vocabulary word and a music recommendation, two areas in which I'm always looking to broaden my horizons. For this post, the vocab word is ping guo, apple ("ping gwo," if that phonetically-convoluted explanation helps). And a song currently rocking my ear drums is "My Moon My Man" by Feist.

'Til next time. Word.

Arrival in Shanghai, Pt. I: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

After 18 hours of travel, three airports, two plane rides, and one “The Undertaker” sighting, I arrived at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport at around 2 pm local time on a warm but breezy Sunday. Exiting the plane, I certainly appreciated the chance to stretch my legs after the long ride. And though I was once again hauling my monster backpack around, my shoulders also appreciated the change of scene, as they had just spent the better part of a day sandwiched between a plane window and a scrawny Chinese kid, who, despite his narrow frame, somewhat bafflingly managed to infringe upon my personal space for the entire plane ride.

As I regained circulation in my legs and shoulders, the physical trauma from my trip began to subside. Getting over the emotional difficulties of leaving home however, would not prove so easy. Traveling alone to the other side of the world, to a new, unfamiliar city, tearfully leaving behind loved ones, and trying to get some sleep while contorting my shoulder into positions that would make a Yogi cringe do not leave a person in the best of spirits. Making my way through Pudong International, the quiet atmosphere did not do much to shake me out of my funk.

This has been one surprising consistency of my travels in China, albeit a very limited experience: eerily quiet airports. Perhaps it’s only in my head, perhaps it’s the physical and emotional exhaustion that comes with the trip numbing me to my surroundings, or perhaps my experience has just been particularly unusual, but I find Chinese airports to be bizarrely calm. You’d think that in one of the world’s most bustling metropolises, in the world’s most populated country, the airports would be unmitigated chaos: Chinese travelers and foreign tourists weaving back and forth through a sea of people and luggage, cell phone conversations and cigarette smoke, hurrying from one point to another. On the contrary, I feel like I might as well have landed in a museum.

I get my luggage and clear customs without hassle, still contemplating why I find the airport so surprisingly relaxing. I find the whole country relaxing for that matter. Maybe it has something to do with the immense size of the place. Be it the airport or the country itself, the overwhelming size of the environment just might detract from or distract from the craziness within. It also might just be really hard to feel stressed out wearing corduroys and Birkenstocks.
Exiting into the Arrivals area, I turn my attention to more pressing matters: I need to find Apple Peng. EF (my company) has sent Apple to meet me at the airport and take me to my hotel, where I will be based for the better part of the next two weeks until I find more permanent residence. I push my luggage along, trying to locate a sign with my name on it in the crowd. I see no sign. I am prepared for such an occasion.

I hunt down the nearest phone and use the phone card and phone number provided to me to reach Apple. The good news is she’s at the airport. After another quick round of hide and seek, we finally find each other. She has brought a friend to help carry my bags…just kidding. I can leave airport, and if I'm lucky, I'll get to ride the bullet train!

When I booked my flight to Shanghai, I had the choice to arrive at Pudong International or the city’s other airport, Hongqiao. I elected to arrive through Pudong because I read about the high-speed maglev train that connects that airport to the main city. I figured it was the primary way to travel to and from the airport and was looking forward to the experience. The experience would have to wait another day. Apple and her mystery friend lead me out to the cab port.

To be continued…

Welcome!

Welcome everyone to my online home for the next year, my blog. I plan to use this site as the primary means of keeping people updated on my adventures in China. The look, layout, and name of the blog will probably change as I've sort of rushed to put it together before I leave, but baiweilin.blogspot.com (my Chinese name) will remain the URL. I hope to update the blog frequently with pictures, stories, and personal observations from my time in Shanghai, so please check back regularly for updates!

Talk to you soon, Will.