9. Halloween Special: The road.

It's close to midnight, and something evil is lurking in the dark.

Yes, it's a Halloween special.

Shanghai is to my mind a safe city. Touching wood when I say it, I do not think you will ever be in danger walking home late at night or having your stuff stolen on the train. There is one place though where you will always need to have your wits about you. On the road.

I heard somewhere that the future level of CO2 emissions in the world lies with China. Only a very small proportion of the country has a car but this is growing due to a expanding middle class. So China is very new in terms of having a driving history.

This youthful exuberance I feel is best represented on the road. Their driving etiquette has been borne not from a long established history of motor travel, but almost a rushed induction. Chinese people have very little courtesy to other people on the road, it is all about getting to the destination with as little traffic as possible. So this sees people flying everywhere. You take a taxi anywhere and I guarantee they will try to do some unnecessary overtaking at one point in the drive.
Saying this I always feel relatively safe in the car, the drivers have adapted to these dog eat dog roads and will drive accordingly.

The buses rule the roads, they are the biggest and can command there lane well. I'd give them the status of the T-Rex. The taxi's, they are the ones most in a hurry. They are like those raptors in Jurassic Park. Bullying the smaller road uses. Then there is the multitude of mopeds, they really are the common dinosaur. They will go about their own business but will make themselves known to the pedestrians. Next are the old bicycles the long necked plant eating dinosaur, they are slow and don't care what's going on the road. These are people who pose no threat, but are not bothered by their surroundings either. Then there are the pedestrians, we are made to be respectful of all cars, even when given the green man to walk you can never be sure to be allowed free passage unless you are in a sea of fellow pedestrians you may get the odd taxi who will try and slip past you, we are the humans.



Yes that is a Darwinian look at the state of Shanghai roads.

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One further point is that all drivers like to use the horn. They use the horn a lot. They will press it then hold down for an indefinite period. They will push it for pretty much any situation to 'warn' people of their presence.

Here was a video of when I got the honour of travelling at the front of the bus back from the golf. This guy was a standard horn user.

So keep your wits about you on the road!
Happy Halloween.

8. Food no 2

29th October 2012

Halloween coming up and it looks like its celebrated quite hard here. There are decorations up in my language school and I was even presented with two huge pumpkin bags heaped with candy to give to the children.

The sweets were actually quite good. The chocolate is poorly represented here. The Chinese brands aren't anything to write home about, Western brands include Hersheys and Snickers both overpriced.


If you need your sweet tooth supplemented, the food that is just too good are custard tarts. Or at least thats the name I'm giving them. Sold in hot from hot containers at most stations for about 3 remnimbi a pop, they have a pastry outlayer then the innards are a custardy eggy beautifulness creme bruleeesqe muk. I average about 2 of these bad boys a day.

Delicious!!!!!

7. Sport in Shanghai

28th October

I have days off on a Friday and a Saturday and I've been lucky to watch some great sporting events.

The Chinese market is one which most people want to get involved in. World sport stars it seems are in more demand than most to spread their brand to China.

In my first week, I went to the Shanghai ATP Masters, a tennis tournament which is highly regarded on the circuit. It was easy to see why. I've been to Wimbledon, the Australian and the US open, but what I liked about this tournament was also a section where you could get rack up points by visiting tennis skills sections, you could then hand in your points and get an award. China is obviously looking to get a better crop of international sport stars. I went at the quarter final stage, and amazingly got to watch Tsonga/Berdych, Murray/Stepanek, Djokovic and Cilic/Federer. The stadium was spectacular, the entertainment and players entrances were both really good. It was Federer who it seemed most of the Chinese public cared about. His brand had spread into China and he was by far the most popular player at the tournament. What was quite interesting was how the players connected with the crowd, Federer gave quite an interview where he said a few things in Chinese, Djokovic signed his name in Mandarin, Murray though didn't do much.

The next week I went to a rugby tournament hosted by the Shanghai Hairy Crab RFC. A team I'm looking to join. The club had 60 playing members which are split into 3 teams: one for players who are here for under a year, and the other two are for players who are here for longer.
The standard was surprisingly good. There were teams attending from all over China. The best team in my opinion was an all Chinese team who destroyed a team with a majority of Japanese players. The Chinese would play quick ball and were very opportunistic with their play.

Finally, I went to the BMW Golf Masters yesterday. It virtually trumped them all. 11 of the 12 Ryder Cup team were present and it was quite amazing to see them all so close. Free to get in, I realized watching live golf is quite a lot of fun given how close you are to the players as they walked from hole to hole. After the 18th hole players were there to sign autographs et al, I wish I'd found this autographing section earlier as I would have loved to meet Darren Clarke. I was lucky to meet Graeme McDowell, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood though which was physically incredible. I got from them a sense of annoyance though that most of the public didn't really know who they were, so when I started talking about Medinah and Celtic Manor they smiled. Most of the public went mental for Rory McIlroy who had to be guarded by bodyguards and a metal fence to keep the crowd off.

From the time I have been here I feel lucky that I'm in Shanghai where there is a lot of sport to watch and to get involved in and the venues are only a tram ride away.

No 6: Pre conceived misconceptions

25 October.

I have a 1 hour commute to my Tues, Wed, Thurday school, I have to be there at 8:40 for my first lesson.Therefore I am pretty much half-dead (almost zombie like!!!) on the train in the morning which gives me a good time to ponder.

There are some misconceived things about China I felt.

One, all Chinese people look the same. Now this is bordering on racist. But in England it is very easy to group Chinese people into one category unless you have good Chinese friends which is fair enough. However once here, you see a sea of individuals and you can tell a lot about each person by their style and sometimes their face.

Two, China is a communist state. Now I'm not into my politics and of course China is run by one party and one party only. But there would be no other way to run Shanghai and this country, given most of the population are farmers. However, the great transportation link in Shanghai is the metro where you will see every person take it at 30 pence a ride or 3 remnimbi. Today in rush hour a couple decided to pretty much move house and take a whoe ton of stuff on the train. It was a bit of an inconveniece.

Three, Chinese people are quiet. Go to my afternoon school and this will be swiftly taken back.

Four, one is restricted by the goverment. Well I haven't had any trouble yet and for all I know I'm being watched like a member from Big Brother. But it seems there are always round the bans on such sites as Facebook and co, or they just create their own music downloading, or twitter esqe sites (weibo its called here).


I took a few photos on my way to school.

This orange stuff in the bread is not very nice.

Quite a rush for the escalator.

Always building new stuff.

Same as above

Same as above.

Now, all Zombied up and ready to hit this crawl.

no 5: My first encounter with a 'tradition'

So I was at my morning school today (Juan Qing Middle school) and after the second period I was pleasantly surprised to find a package on my desk in the English department. In fact there was this similar red package on all of the desks, my first thoughts were that the head of the department a lady called Shirley (her Chinese name is too apparently too difficult to pronounce so she insists I call her Shirley) had given us each a present for our hard work. She had sat in on my first lesson today which was the first time I've been observed so it might have been a kind of reward for a barnstormingly good lesson on 'the Face'.

Alas it was not, the other English teachers (all Chinese females) were chatting happily and they exclaimed that I was the first foreigner to get said gift.

The gift was from someone I'd never met a Music teacher who'd just given birth to a baby boy. The legend had prompted her to buy all these gifts to her work colleagues. Pretty cool ay!

What a great tradition!

Inside I found a few Western things - Hershey's Kisses which I haven't had since Summit Camp 2010, and some Vienneese twirl style biscuits. Then there was the Chinese delicacy of a hard-boiled egg <picture below> in a packet, just why! I thought it was some kind of marzipan before I bit into it.

I'm starting to like and appreciate the Chinese way of life, today was a good example of that. This way of protecting oneself against misfortune, by in this case giving to other people.

I think i'll see more of this if I take Alex up on the offer to go stay with him over Chinese New Year's (see previous post).

When I asked I'd send something in return, the English teachers said not to bother as unlike the English culture people don't really congratulate you on a birth/shower you with gifts.

Well meeting an old friend (in fact an ex!) tomorrow who without being harsh i'd never think in a million years I'd see again and now we have decided to meet up tomorrow for a Zombie Bar Crawl. Who would have thought?

In other news we bought an iron and horse, dvd player, kettle and I've visited an immaculately clean McDonalds and came last place in a poker tournament.

4: Surviving a 9-5 teaching day on 3 hours sleep

23rd October.

I went out last night. Only in China will you be invited to a club and given a free table with 2 bottle of vodkas and whisky to consume. Why do these nights escalate when I have work the next day.
It all started in Ellens a student bar which is quite hard to find, it is though, a sensationally good dive. Beers at £1 /10 remnimbi, you can't argue at that. There is also drink deals throughout the week, the stand out one being free beer on Thursdays. What! The night lasted a few more hours than I had hoped, but it was a lot of fun. We visited Maya nightclub, which like most clubs here is full of tables. I really do not like this. There was a cat walk where our group chose to dance like true Brits. Housemate Sean came out with the phrase 'Let's get weird' which seemed to catch on.

Getting up at 6:30 the next day was not good. I had 7 lessons, 4 different lesson plans to adhere to and 3 different schools. How I got through it? I have no idea. A lot of  games were played  and I'm very lucky the students I taught today are quite mature so were not too loud.


Achievement for the day: Finished all of my school lunch today!

Discovered these custard tarts sold for 3 remnimbi at most tube stations I average about 4 a day. They're absolutely delicious.

Off to a poker night now.

No 3: Food

Ni hao.

I'm lucky I have no qualms about eating things out of the ordinary to Western people. Of course the first two weeks have seen me try and avoid meat which has ended in me having loads of eggs. But now I've been here 2 weeks I feel my body has adjusted so why not lets try some new things!

So the Chinese method with cooking it seems is to just use every last ounce of the animal. They display the whole animal when you buy it in the supermarket so I can imagine that they would not like to see anything go to waste.

As I work in schools I get to try out the lunches and sometimes the breakfasts they provide. One funny thing which I benefit from is that the man is awarded with a larger portion of food to the woman staff member. Another strange concept is that all the children eat in the classroom which is a bit messy in my books. So Chinese school food. Well most meals although not the same, keep the same formula, a large sticky rice block, a wettish cabbage like veg, then the spicy/BBQ flavoured meat which you have to pick off the bone, this is washed down by soup where you will always find something floating in it, today I had seaweed in my soup, so it was basically like drinking seawater.

I like chopsticks also. It makes eating a skill in a way and the food a lot tastier when you pick it off them rather than off a fork. I think this is because the way you put the utensil into your mouth but I have no scientific proof of this.

Lastly I have bought a wok, essential I feel and have got cooking in my apartment. As we have hobs only, everything rather unhealthily is boiled or fried. Here is something I chucked up. It really is my standard Uni chuck anything in then add eggs meal.

Here is an odd mushroom.

Set of cooking attire.