I'm feeling tea

I've been feeling particularly sad this week. A family friend died at the weekend. Someone too young to have gone so soon. I feel sad, I miss my family, I miss my friends and being able to use my own language to explain how I feel. It can be very hard to say what's on your mind or in your heart in another language. Especially when (if said incorrectly) the word for 'bad' can mean 'tea', and, like me, you regularly confuse the words for 'it's a shame' with 'it's laughable'! However, it's reassuring to me that my linguistic blunders are available in times of sadness to provide mild entertainment.

 

Today, one of my teachers spent a lesson talking very openly about her experience during the long march, her re-education period and the cultural revolution. This lively vibrant woman, who I see as a cross between a Beijing opera singer and Mrs Miggins, was made to walk around the university in a dunce's cap for teaching foreigners, with a placard to criticise her own bourgeois behaviour. Teacher Qin is a kind of cuddly grandmotherly figure - all round and splodgy. I've never actually given her a cuddle - which I know will surprise many of you given my fondness for cuddles with people I know, people I don't know, small animals etc. She spent a summer working in sweltering temperatures in a  smelting works, and then went to the countryside for several years - and required to do the lowest jobs in a small village.  She also had to take part in a 'short' long march, walking around 50miles a day for 45 days. What a shocking way to spent your 'prime'!

 

I have read so many books about this period of time, and even though the history around it is familiar to me - having a much loved teacher describe all of this was a bit much. A bit like finding out that your grandmother had some horrible experience that should never have happened.

 

Another student (quite bravely, I thought) asked what she thought of her experience.

 

She threw back her head and laughed her tinkling sing-songy laugh and said "What do I think? I think Teacher Qin is no longer afraid of anything".

 

So, tonight I am going to raise a cup of tea (or a 'cup of bad') to not being afraid of anything, and to Lola, who it seems was also not afraid of anything.

A fishy tale

Recently I was in vegetarian restaurant having a very delicious lunch
when a Dutch man and his mother came in and sat in the courtyard
outside. Through the window it seemed that they were having some
trouble ordering their lunch, the waitress came in and asked me to go
out and translate for them - instant ego boost, much fluffing of
feathers and out I trot to dazzle everyone with my linguistic
skills....

....me being me, that's not exactly what happened.

The man wanted to order a fish dish - it's typical in China for all
veggie food to be made to look and taste like meat (bit of a bugger if
you're one of those veggies who is veggie because you don't like the
taste and texture of meat!) so you can order
'chicken','beef','duck','snails' etc and it all appears to be the real
thing. The man, who I have to add was extremely grumpy, wanted to know
if the fish dish was very large because he was very hungry and thought
it might not be big enough to satisfy him. He was very sure he only
wanted this type of fish, and no rice, no other vegetables and no soup
- which is a pretty odd way to eat in China so the waitress was
already doubting my translation skills. I kept asking her 'how big is
the fish?' and her reply was 'it's not really a fish'. I was getting
more and more frustrated and she was acting as though I was barking
mad. This went on for several minutes before I realised I was asking
her repeatedly 'how old is your fish?'.

Eventually, the dishes were ordered and I was allowed to go back to my
table very red-faced. The man and his mother ended up with fish, side
dishes of veg and rice - I overheard the waitress telling a colleague
that the foreign girl's Chinese wasn't so good after all and so they'd
better give them everything! The Dutch man was even grumpier at having
been given all the things he said he didn't want!

More practise needed!

A China Man

It seems that Chinese masculinity is defined in very different ways to the Western idea of 'what makes a man'.

 

I am still tickled whenever I see a man carrying a pink glittery handbag with Hello Kitty on it - at first I thought the Chinese man bag was just a bit different from our UK-style - but soon learnt that the bag belongs to a lady, and he's just carrying it for her. It's seen as polite to carry your girlfriend's bag for her, the equivalent of carrying someone's books home from school. However, I'm pretty sure that if my book bag had been lilac, sequined and had butterflies all over it, it would have been up to me to carry it! I 

hope that when Sam arrives this week (I am aiming, of course, to avoid telling the taxi driver about my beloved's masturbation habits), he will adopt this practice so that I can laugh at him carrying my ladybag!

 

Another quirk of Chinese fellas is that they don't seem to mind wearing matching T-shirts with their girlfriends/wives.It's common place among younger people to see couples strolling around in matching pink tops with kittens/monkeys/bunnies/anything else cute and fluffy emblazoned on the front. There are special his'n'hers glittery matching t-shirt shops all over Shanghai. I asked a friend (who was wearing a pink t-shirt with a bear on it to match his wife's) if there was anything special about this habit - I didn't want to say that at home I couldn't think of anyone who would wear a pink bear t-shirt to match his beloved's and that us foreigners think it's pretty funny that Chinese men do. His answer "Oh, this t-shirt's cute, I like cute things and so does my wife!". I'm not sure what answer I expected, but it wasn't that.

 

Shanghainese men are seen as special in China - they cook, they clean, they run households. In general, Chinese men from other places see Shanghainese men as the inferior Chinese man. However, Shanghainese men pertain that they are the manliest men because they can take care of everyone in the family and have a job etc etc.

 

It's a whole new world of macho.

Break in Transmission

A longer-than-intended break. I am being censored by the Chinese
firewalls - so I can't see my blog from China, or publish photos from
China or do as much as I would like from China!

However, as the Chinese would say "wo you ban fa" - "I have a way".

I'm back!

A Chinese Voice Makes David Beckham More Attractive

Today I had a satisfying lesson.

 

My teacher asked me if Victoria Beckham was the most famous singer in Britain - and it set me off on a rant about the Beckhams. They are impressive because they are famous and their business sense is admirable, but I don't particularly like either of them. OK, so he can kick a ball, and she looks nice in clothes but there's not much else that I would credit them with. In fact, I just find them a bit irritating!

 

I went on to explain that although a lot of people think Mr Beckham is very good looking, as soon as he opens his mouth and the little squeaky voice comes out, I think his chiseled jaw fades into insignificance. I can't overlook (or overlisten?!) that he sounds like a small child when he speaks and this makes him unattractive in my view. My teacher said that Asian girls really like David Beckham and he's often voted "best looking" man etc. However, I think this is because the men who dub Mr Beckham's voice into Chinese, Korean and Japanese have really deep, manly voices. According to the news here, David Beckham kicked a ball for 12 minutes at the weekend (oh how I would love to know what's REALLY going on in the world!) and while watching his face and listening to the Chinese dub artist speak, I realised that Mr Beckham was becoming more and more attractive!!

 

However, I write this not because I am particularly interested in whether the Beckhams are worthy of their fame or not, but to celebrate having the above conversation completly in Chinese. Six months down, six months of studying at Fudan left to go.

School's Out for Summer (well, for some people anyway)

Last week my semester at Fudan ended. It was a strange mixture of exams and farewells as many beloved classmates go back to their home countries, or move to other cities in China. We had a lovely party last week and I had a little blub (quite an achievement for me - just a little one not a full on sob) as my classmates have been such great fun for the last 5 months.

 

So, what now?

 

Summer school!!! Miss Freya is taking daily classes in business Chinese and working on grammar, writing characters and getting these damned tones sorted out. I have made progress, I am no longer monotone when I speak Chinese - but now I have 3 tones and not the necessary 4! For some reason, I cannot get any distinction between the 2nd and 3rd tones.

 

As well as going to school, I'm also teaching a lot more classes. All my childhood dreams of "being a teacher just like Miss McGowan" are coming true. Well, almost. My little Watermelon Boy told me he loved me on Saturday morning, right after singing "heads, shoulders, knees and toes" all the way through. Adorable.

 

I am learning that the elements of Chinese culture that are more familiar (working hard, being able to repeat something over and over and over again until it is perfect, constant practise) are necessary to learn Chinese. For example, remembering each individual character which may or may not have any clues contained within it as to its meaning or its pronunciation. I can't decide if it's fascinating, or frustrating (or perhaps a nice mixture of the two 'frasctrinating').  There is no "quick" way to learn any language - no fast road you can take - but there's only a slow boat to Chinese with very few short cuts. However, I'm on board. I've got a merry band of sailors with me and the captains not bad so here's to a safe passage!

The Wonder of "Watermelon"

So, the burning question appears to be "why hasn't Miss Freya been writing her stories?". I'm afraid I don't have a sufficient answer for my recent neglect. The adventure in Shanghai continues though with a little less time for amusing anecdotes.

 

I started teaching a few months ago to keep my funds healthy for next semester.

I'm teaching at a small school in the south of Shanghai. On Friday and Saturday I teach nippers, and on Sunday I teach adults. My kids class has one student who has found a special place in my affections. His name is James, he's 6 and he's quite possibly got the most perfectly spherical head possible. Think watermelon. For the first few weeks, the only word in English that my little watermelon could say was "James". So, ask him any questions - how old are you? Where do you live? What's your favourite colour? - he's reply with "James". As my Larry told me, I was just asking the wrong question! For weeks, it was "James", "James", "James', "James" until last weekend when suddenly his vocabulary had amazingly opened up to days of the week, colours, numbers, animals, fruit and vegetables. Incredible. The penny dropped! My new favourite pass time is to make sure that during lessons James gets to say "Watermelon" at least twice as it never fails to make me laugh. It's very easy to find work here if you are a native English speaker - though sadly, because it's so easy, a lot of the English teachers here are loons. For example, teaching primary school children songs about how to kill themselves etc. It makes me want to get on my soap box and lobby for some kind of regulation of foreign English teachers here - but for now, I'm focusing on my Chinese literacy so that when I do write a letter to the Chinese Government to suggest this change in legislation it makes some sort of sense. Better get back to "the monkey is in the tree, the monkey is on the roof..."

 

Aside from teaching, the studying continues. Exams started yesterday - and continue throughout next week. My pronunciation has taken a turn for the worst, but my writing has perked up. I long for the day when all skills are at roughly the same level! I'm continuing class throughout the summer so hopefully will move up a level or two before next semester starts.

 

I haven't had a language disaster in a while, but I'm sporting a beautiful collection of bruises. Last weekend a friend of mine got engaged. The first time I saw her after I'd heard the news, I started to race along the corridor hoping for a Kylie and Jason style hug to congratulate her. Sadly, my flip flops did not agree with my plan. I was within one foot of Irene when the flip flops decided that this hug was unnecessary and it would be much better if I fell over. In a cartoon fashion my feet came up in front of me, and I slapped the concrete corridor - like a reverse belly flop - and my my bottom, my elbows, and my lower back are fashionable shades of purple. Next time, I think I'll just stick with sending a card, far safer.

 

My first linguistic disaster

Before my blushes fade, I thought I should share this story with you. The week before last my beloved Sam came to Shanghai to visit me (for those out of the loop, we're back together). I took a taxi to the airport to meet him and could hardly sit still because I was so excited. The drive out to the airport was almost an hour and despite my best efforts, I could not manage to string a sentence together in Chinese or English.

 

After 40 minutes or so we started to reach airport territory - I could see that the road forked in two up ahead. The driver asked me whether he should take the left or the right road. I figured this had something to do with going to arrivals or departures. "OK" I thought, "I need to say 'arrivals'", I racked my brains but the word wouldn't come. We were getting closer and closer to the fork in the road and the driver was starting to look worried. I decided that forming a sentence would help the right word appear in my mind - so I set about saying "my boyfriend arrives at 3:30". The word for arrives is "dadao" but I am never too sure about the tones, sitting in the taxi I couldn't remember the "dao" part but I knew it was "da-something". So, I confidently told the driver "wo de nan peng you da fei ji san dian ban", which translates as....

 

 

....wait for it....

 

 

"my boyfriend masturbates at 3:30"

 

Yes, a true clanger. As soon as the words had some out of my mouth I understood what I'd said and spent the next 15 minutes blushing furiously and apologising over and over again. Thankfully, the driver didn't take offence (although he also did not seem amused) and I got arrivals on time. I don't think I'll ever forget the word for "arrive" ever again!

Food-an' University - Part II

As requested, here's the latest update of my epicurean adventures.

 

I have now discovered something else to add to my short list of food stuffs that I really REALLY don't like. There's a really popular drink here called "Bubble Tea" or "Pearl Tea" and for any self-respecting tea drinker it's just the wrongest of the wrong! Bubble tea is sweet, very weak, very milky tea that comes in a plastic cup with one of those plastic covers that you pop with a straw over the top. You can drink it cold, or the shop/stall with microwave it for you to heat it up - I can hear my Mum's disgust at the thought of microwaved tea - drinkers are then armed with a very wide straw - about the thickness of a marker pen - with which to burst the plastic lid with. Now, why would you need such a wide straw to drink a cup of cha? Because the bottom of the cup is filled with marrow fat pea sized globs of tapioca. Yes, that's what I said - TAPIOCA. These jelly like balls slip up the wide straw and pop into the unsuspecting drinkers' mouth as a "surprise". I must thank my friend Mrs Spink for providing me with by far the most suitable word to describe this beverage - GOPPING!

 

Writing about tea has made me shudder. I need to think about things that are more delicious so let's move on to pineapple. I am becoming an addict. It's pineapple season here so for around 25 pence I can buy a fantastically sweet and fresh, cleaned and ready to eat pineapple. Soo Ah (my roomie) has developed this addiction with me - the small shop attached to our dorm sells a brand of pineapple juice that we're both hooked on. It doesn't seem to be available anywhere else so we're going to have to find a new dealer, I mean supplier, sometime soon.

 

Lots of people are asking me what I am missing - and top of my list is hummous. I am even dreaming about Middle Eastern food - someone told me that there's a supermarket on the other side of the city that sells chick peas so I may have to go on a special mission to find them. The other obvious things are bread (most Chinese bread is sweet and tastes faintly of coconut), cheese, and red wine. Thankfully Mrs Spink also armed me with a jar of Marmite so I'm not missing that - just missing the toast to put it on!

Trips to Venice

It never takes long for a toilet story to emerge when you are overseas....

 

I have to share the loos in my classroom with you. There are two tiled troughs that run along either side of the room, partitions divide the troughs into individual cubicles but becuase the troughs are deep the partition stops around a foot before the ground. This means that you can see (and other fellow pee-ers) can see you go about your business. Some of the girls in my class have taken to calling the toilets the canal, so my Swedish friend and I have taken it one step further "I'm off to Venice".

 

Two weeks ago I was happily straddling the grand canal when I heard someone shout my Chinese name - I looked down to find my teacher excitedly waving at me in the reflection of our combined pee. An odd experience. Wang Laoshi (teacher Wang) told me that she had been looking for me....I didn't expect her to look for me that hard! She wanted me to take part in a competition - I could understand this much - but couldn't understand the sport she was describing. It turned out to be tug-of-war! Yes, if I were putting together a team of tuggers, I'd be my first choice too with my superb balance, exra strong muscles, and sporting reputation!

 

I could not refuse Wang Laoshi...so I dutifully donned my sports kit and went to lead the ladies' foreign students' tug team. We were told to meet at one of the uni's sports grounds, and arrived to quite large crowds of people - each team was allowed 4 women (and around 16 men) and thankfully our team had 16 REALLY big men in it so we won! Photographs of my first Chinese sporting achievement will be posted shortly - I couldn't take any as I was too busy pulling on a rope!

My Sexy Box

I have a new good habit - daily aerobics classes. I was delighted to learn that the University offers classes every evening - and even more delighted to learn these were free. I also thought this would be a good way to meet other Chinese students at Fudan in a more relaxed atmosphere. I got a group of foreign students together and we overcame our nerves about taking an exercise class in a language we don't understand. 

 

For me all feelings of nervousness are heightened because I don't "look" Chinese. A lot of Korean students are mistaken for Chinese, and  many of the other students have Chinese heritage - but for me there's no escaping the staring that goes along with white skin and brown hair. 100+ students went to our class on Monday - and I was the only white person. It can be funny when someone trips up in an aerobics class, or turns the wrong way etc - but when the "foreigner" does it - it's evidently a talking point. Those of you who are familiar with my malcoordination will appreciate my additional nerves. I certainly know that one person will be reading this wondering how on earth I managed to do the grapevine in China as I regularly ended up on the floor at the Arnold leisure centre (or worse - tripping someone else up). However, I am pleased to report to you Miss Stretton, that I practised a great deal before going to the class so that I would draw any more attention to myself.  I survived without too many mishaps and after the first 15mins of pointing and starting, it passed and we all just got on with the class.

 

Our teacher is a young Chinese woman - a talented dancer - who must have had some classical dance training . All her aerobics moves are done with poise and slightly over the top hand flourishes. There are evidently a large number of students who take their aerobics moves very seriously - and there's a fair amount of posing and serious dancer-like facial expressions. The first half of the class is very typical aerobic routines - for the initiated - grapevines, V-step, shuffle etc. She shouts the body parts and directions in Chinese - but the names of the aerobic moves are all in English. I am going to resist writing "blah blah blah" as "shenme shenme shenme" is more Chinese....so she's yelling "shenme shenme shenma V-step. Shenme shenme shenme Jumping Jacks. Shenme shenme shenme Mambo".

 

The second half of the class is done in a salsa style and reduced us to fits of giggles. The teacher has devised a series of "sexy" moves that involve a lot of Latino-style hip wiggling. This evidently is not something that Chinese women are familiar with as the rows of students in  front of us looked more like they were doing tinman impressions to the strains of Gloria Estefan. I have to admit that our efforts weren't much better - but things really peaked when the teacher started encouraging us all to be sexier. then all of a sudden she starts with a move called "the box" - I could barely stand when she started shouting "shenme shenme shenme Sexy Box. Sexy Box" and then for my benefit as the only obviously non-Chinese person "Move your Sexy Box".  

 

The exercise and the laughs are worth it - and I think it will be a regular part of my Fudan experience. It had certainly improved my energy levels - I'm off to play football ("soccer") with some American students later this afternoon.

 

 

A Whiter Shade of Pale

Just a little story from last week. I was a little unwell - fortunately this coincided with a lesson all about how to say that different body parts hurt or weren't "shufu" (comfortable) so I could at least explain why I wasn't my usual bouncy self. For the worriers among you, I wasn't really sick - just ate something bad - slept for a day and then felt much better...anyway, I arrived at school and my Korean classmates all told me that I looked extremely pretty and that my skin was so nice and white (this also coincided with another lesson about how to describe someone!). Simultaneously, my Western classmates told me that I looked like a ghost and should be in bed. It made me feel slightly better to learn that when I am sick, I am beautiful in Korea - but now I am worried what they think of me when I am my usual rosy cheeked self!

Getting to know my classmates

I now have some very nice new friends - SooAh, my afore mentioned lovely room-mate

 

Pip, an Australian girl from Canberra who somehow has managed to get a bunch of her friends to all come to live in Shanghai this year while she is on an exchange programme from her University.

 

Marc, a softly spoken Frenchman - who qualifies as a giant in my book as he's about 10ft tall who likes to play games. We've already had a good go at Scrabble and chess and he's teaching me to play poker.

 

Pictures of these three will follow - but the good news is they are all bears!

 

Now, on to the real reason for this posting - a little tale about how I've managed to "make new friends" so far...

 

I was at school yesterday - and waiting for the bell to ring at the end of class so that I could use the loo. I'd had a pretty dreadful lesson - misunderstanding pretty much all the instructions from my teacher and struggling to read anything. I rather absent-mindedly walked in to the toilet - only to find that I'd gone in to the men's bathroom. I let out a loud squeal when I realised that I was in the wrong place - ensuring that all my classmates using the urinals turned around to see what the noise was..let's just say I now know a few of my classmates a little bit better!! Nothing like profuse apologies and all-round embarrassment to bring people together!

 

Food-an' University

I decided that my epicurean adventures to date deserved a posting all of their own.

 

I have a favourite place to eat - and surprisingly it's the University canteen! It's a massive dining hall - with around 20 different stands serving different types of food. My favourite stand is a "create your own" noodle soup place - a nice lady fills an individual pan with your choice of veggies, noodles, 7 types of tofu, seaweed etc and then cooks is for you. You then get your bowl of soup back and can flavour is with your own choice of seasonings. I love it - the perfect place to practise the words for different vegetables - and I can make sure I get enough protein (every vegetarian's dream). I also get very excited that I can have half a dozen quail eggs in there - because they aren't seen as anything special here. This veggie-noodle-dream dinner costs around 60p - so falls well within my budget.

 

Jiaozi (small ravioli-like dumplings) are really popular - and they are delicious - though finding veggie ones can be difficult. I ate a lot of street food when I was staying at the hostel - lots of tofu on sticks and savoury pancakes filled with chillies and spring onions. It seems the way to make money here is to serve a food stuff on a stick - snacking is a national passtime and if you can snack and walk at the same time, then that's even better.

 

There seems to be a snobbery about Western things - Pizza Hut is a fairly high class establishment here, and a cup of coffee at a Haagen Daaz cafe costs around the same as it would in Britain - except people don't earn British wages. I'm considering opening my own street vending operation selling "genuine Western food" - something like a jacket spud van, or mushy peas and cockles like at the seaside....perhaps I should stick with the studying for now....

Wo Shi Yingguoren

So, I've arrived at University - I've registered for my student card, my roomkey card, my canteen card, my laundry card, my TV card, my transport card, my Chinese bank card - I'm a full card-carrying student at Fudan University. So many cards in fact, that I have to buy a new purse!

 

The University is enormous - especially when I think of the tiny Bournemouth campus - it's also very beautiful with carefully planted gardens, small fish ponds with elegant oriental bridges over them and even a few kitties for me to terrorise into giving me a cuddle!

 

It takes around half an hour to walk from one side of the campus to the other - about as long as it took me to walk from my flat in Hackney to my office in the City. I'm sharing a room in the Foreign Students' Dormitory with a lovely Korean girl called Soo Ah. The view from the top (23rd) floor  of our building is incredible - you can see Pudong - the redeveloped financial district of Shanghai with its famous skyline. If I'm honest, I was just excited that my student halls weren't on top of a car park like the delightful Glenfern House in Bournemouth!! Our room is great - it has a bath tub (what student luxury!), a balcony, air conditioning - but the bed is only 1.5" of foam mattress away from being a wooden board.

 

Last week we had to take language tests to see which classes we should take - there are 8 different levels from A (the beginners' classes) to H (for students who are preparing to do postgraduate study). I was really nervous about taking the test - my reading and writing are non-existent and most of the people around my have studied Chinese at school or University. It really puts my sporadic evening classes into perspective. I was surprised (but also really pleased) to be put into the B classes - because my speaking and listening are OK - but the teacher who assessed me warned me that I would have to study really hard to catch up on the reading and writing. She was not wrong!

 

On Monday I was totally mortified when my teacher asked me to stand at the board and write a sentence that he would dictate to me. The board remained very blank until I was allowed to sit back down and he picked on someone else. This was enough to spur me in to action - I've done 3hrs of reading and writing every day this week and last night I managed to read (and understand) my first full sentence (for those who are really interested it was "last night I went to see a basket ball match with my friends") without using the dictionary or guessing at any of the words. It feels like progress - even if it's just teenytiny steps. Next Monday, I have to give a 3 minute talk about a topic of my choice in Chinese. It's so funny spending several hours a day having conversations with my classmates that go along the lines of:

 

"what did you do last night?"

"last night I ate dinner, then I watched TV, and I studied Chinese. What did you do last night?"

"last night I also ate dinner and studied Chinese. Do you like football?"

"Yes, I do like football. Do you like to play tennis?"

"No, I do not like to play tennis but I do like to play basketball"

"Have you ever been to Beijing?"

"Yes, I went there last year. It is a nice city"

 

I've been spending time with a nice group of students (Spanish, Korean, Italian and Philipino) and I'm sure you would all find our excitement at managing to have the above conversation - or something similar - each day very endearing. I shall leave you that thought...

No longer Shang-Shy

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I started my stay in Shanghai at the Ming Town Youth Hostel - not exactly Ming dynasty, but not minging either. I had a lovely few days walking around the city by myself - just getting to know where things are and how they work - I then realised that I was passing each day without speaking to a soul. As if by magic, I had lost my nerve in speaking not only Chinese but English too! Feeling shy has to be the worst affliction for the lone traveller and I needed to shake it off - FAST!

 

It didn't take long - and I was back to my chattering self - the phrasebook came out at every opportunity to use a new word and I even mustered some enthusiasm for the tedium of "backpacker chat" - whose been where, whose had the worst stomach upset, whose got the most horrendous travelling horror story etc, who can better the horrendous horror story with one that cost less money etc etc.

 

I soon found my new friends, Pip from Australia, and Marc from France. We are all studying at Fudan University together - so before we came to enrol in our classes we went to visit a Confucian temple in the city where we could follow in the footsteps of many Chinese students. It's traditional to write studious wishes on to red ribbons and tie them to the trees in the  temple courtyard. This brought out the romantic in me - temple court yard filled with smoke from an incense burner, two large rubber trees and thousands of red ribbons blowing around in the breeze. I was really moved by so much hope hanging from each branch - and it's nice to know that my hope is tied there too to flutter around in the wind (or, as it turns out today, get soggy in the Shanghai rain).

 

 

 

 

Her Royal Shang-Highness

I have safely arrived in China.

 

The last 24 hours have been fairly smooth - today I took a long walk around the city. It was meant to be a little walk but I've just calculated that I covered 8 miles of Shanghai today all because I was navigating by a distinctive tall glass building with a big red sign on it. I now know that there are two of these tall glass buildings with big red signs on different sides of the city- not so distinctive after all. Still, the pavement pounding was good exercise...

 

I am surprised at the number of parks and open spaces here - loads of lovely bamboo, willows and Spring buds appearing on the trees. Apart from the four lanes of traffic that encircle the parks, the greenery could be straight out of a classical Chinese painting. I also went to a tea house where the Queen has been, and Bill Clinton, and Jackie Chan. No famous folk there today - not even someone from the Bill or Hollyoaks - just me and about 100 other people hoping to do some star spotting.

 

I watched an older couple practise qi gong in a park, and listened to a man play his er hu (a traditional Chinese instrument) - it was all very stereotypically Chinese.

 

I am managing to play my part as stereotypical foreigner - today I thought I had started an international incident in a restaurant...I had managed to order some veggie food in Chinese so was feeling quite pleased with myself, and quite grateful to the patient waitress. She bounded away and talked to a large family group sitting across the room. I'm not sure what she said - but they were soon all turning around to have a good look at me. Lots of smiling and waving ensued - and after a few minutes, a small boy was pushed in my direction, egged on by his family. The little boy came to sit with me - "perfect" I thought, I can ask all the 'getting to know you' questions from my phrase book. After a few minutes, I had introduced myself to my new friend - Little Han who was 4, I had told him that his mother was very beautiful (which she was) and that his dad looked very strong (which he didn't but I couldn't think of another word to use!). Slowly, my little friend warmed up and we played a lovely game where Han would point at something and tell me what it was called in Chinese, I would repeat and he would laugh. All very good - Little Han then gets a bit fresh with me and pokes me in the cheek. His family find this hilarious and he pokes me again, laughing hysterically. On the third poke, I start to think about how I can avoid this happening all the way through lunch. On the fourth poke I came up with a top idea. On the fifth "hilarious" poke - the other diners and waiting staff are watching now - I let out a loud roar and pretend to be a ferocious lion. Funny, yes? Well not if you are little Han, I scared the poor soul silly. He fell of his chair, hit his head, started to cry and had to be scooped off the floor by his Grandma who gave me the evil eye. I then noticed that the whole family were scowling at the nasty foreign lady who had spoiled the game. I had to eat lunch with my head firmly stuck in a book until the tutting and teeth sucking subsides and wimpish Little Han had stopped snivelling. What a baby!  

 

I will try to stay out of trouble. No more playing lions with little boys.