Under the weather

For a week now I have had a ‘cold’ or something which puts me back to bed as soon as I get the chance. Very boring! Outside the leaves are coming off the trees so the walk home from school is very slow.
Autumn is indeed beautiful.

End of November coming

It is still clear and dry, glorious weather, fairly cool outside and inside is cool too – no central heating. I remember how used to central heating I have become, as when it is like this indoors, just switch on, and continue to walk about shoeless, slipper-less. Not here!!

Ali in his dressing gown, photo by Louis. Note, no slippers, again.

Here it is ‘put on your slippers’ and now also socks and jumpers. But, as Donal says, if only the winter did not come after this. When it does, apparently it only lasts about a month. I remember arriving last February, when I went to bed in my coat, I was so cold. The big blower heaters, which are air conditioners in the summer, do not seem to make much difference except to the noise level, so it feels better to keep them off most of the time.

I am now having a much more social time, having found a Sunday afternoon expats coffee meeting, and one of the old Shanghai hands there told me about ShanghaiMamas. As he said, this is the organisation you want, they are tied by kids but are free during the week most days when the kids are in school. Just like me!! So I have had coffee with Shanghai Mamas in Luwan and in Hongmei, districts on either side of Xuhui, and just as good, nice walking around those areas because walking somewhere with a reason to be going, always seems better. I also went to a book-group meeting this week on Wednesday evening, which was good but I was going under with a really bad headache which turned into another rotten cold, so I left the group early. I like Shanghai Mamas very much and hope I did not pass the cold on to any of them! So I have had a couple of days off Granny duty and Cindy had to take the boys to school, though I managed collecting them. Today we had a great morning in Hengshan Park, and then I just felt lik eit so we had lunch out at Element Fresh. As it sounds – fresh squeezed orange juice, etc. It is chinese international food, always ‘fresh’. They boys wanted to share a chicken and bacon salad baguette while I ordered humus which came with olives and fresh carrot, cucumber and celery sticks. Ali liked that, and the chicken from inside the baguette. Louis liked the bacon and the bread. I had the lettuce and tomato, and all the olives. We all had orange juice and everyone satisfied – though so we should be at RMB 220 which is about the same price as it would be in Edinburgh or Block Island, and probably more than in Boston or New York. China is no longer cheap.

Louis continues to create his world of pictures. I could not work out where he was getting this image from – he was so clearly drawing little devils with horns and tails and I have not seen that in any of the books, but when I asked I got that deeply resigned aren’t grownups stupid look – you know them granny – they live in your teef.

OH yes – there is a DVD which encourages proper dental hygiene – of course I have seen these little monsters!.

Q: Who are these little guys? A:They live in your teeth!

More autumn days

I do not really notice the time passing, and then suddenly realise that each day brings weather a little different from what I am accustomed to. Last week was breezy, a little chilly, and I broke out a scarf to wear as well as cardigan or jacket. Coming home from school, the boys are told, no keep your jacket on even if you are running and running and getting too hot. It is chilly as the evening falls and we have had pink and orange cloudiness glimpsed above the tall buildings before the lights start coming on and I decide it is time we left the park and headed for home. Of course it also makes me realise how very seldom we actually see sky or sun, just the general chinese city grey sky. [Here in Shanghai it is much much clearer than in Guangzhou, the 'ceiling' seems quite high, and is more no-colour, rather than grey.]

One, two, three: Up Up - - Yi, Er, San: Shang Shang

I took this photo on Wednesday – me holding up a queue of people on the one-person single-file space left on the roadside interchange between stations at Shaanxi Nan Lu. I wanted to remember this kind of typical work site, the men wearing safety helmets, but the huge heavy safe they were hauling overhead and the ladder was all within range of me and all the other people walking along, and the bicycle would ease out and ride by when I got out of the way. [I am still hugely anxious in the taxis, without seat-belts, the safety rules the west takes for granted are not part of the culture here.]

The men shouted together: Yi – Er – San , Shang Shang, and then heaved, and at each heave the safe went up about 6 inches, swinging from side to side on its rope and being guided by the guy up the ladder. I have no idea where its final destination was going to be – in one of the windows, maybe?

The photo also shows the no-colour sky. Wednesday was a beautiful autumn day. I went to Yuyuan and shopped for Christmas, having a lovely time wandering around the stalls in the old part of downtown. [Yes, Christmas, but I have to rely on China Post if anything is going to arrive by the end of this year, so lots of light-weight shopping.]

Now, the weather has changed, we were threatened with thunder yesterday, but got some rain and very high humidity instead. The tiled bathroom floors are wet again from condensation and I cannot understand why chinese building entrances are all faux marble tiles which are the slippiest material ever manufactured. Their beautiful appearance is of course practically unseen, as the gate guards roll out their cardboard/paper-carpet/non-slip walkways as soon as the rain comes.

Granny's iphone

So we spent yesterday evening at home, not too long in the park. Louis’ drawings continue to amaze us all. This is me, holding my iphone. it was actually Ali who started this off, as he was drawing outlines of hands and fingers, round my hands on the paper – you know how kids like doing this. Then he decided to do outlines round all sorts of things, including my iphone. Louis thought that was a good idea, drew an iphone outline and then produced his interpretation of what it really looks like, and how granny uses it. Do you like my 3-fingered hands? See the start of my name ELSP and the on/off button and camera point. The speech bubble at the side is “it is talking to you granny“. I do not know what all the orange items at the bottom are, though I can see his name in there – the picture must be upside down.

As well as outlines, Ali likes making squares and triangles and loves counting, so he often writes numbers everywhere. A nerd in the making! He has now begun to draw too, and is quite happy with his ten pieces of paper each of which has something on, and takes quarter the time to do compared with his brother’s concentrated masterpieces.

Well you can see I am enjoying myself, but I must get out more and see some films or something. I know there is a world somewhere which is not centred on my grandsons!!!

Ali, make a happy face

Hai Wan tourist trip

On Friday, 11.11.11, the boys kindergarten went on a tourist trip to HaiWan. The school blurb about the trip – which Donal had to get translated as Cindy was away for the week – said the class would go fruit picking, go to the beach, fly kites and have a treasure hunt – and would thus learn all sorts about nature and teamwork and many other things including bond with their parents who were compulsory on the trip. The latter being a non-starter, our two wonderkids were getting to bond with granny (if they have not done so already – I am hoping this was a translation matter rather than what was really being said). And, of course, they heard only the word BEACH and their memories of New Zealand surfaced and nothing Donal or I could say dimmed their enthusiasm.We didn’t want them to be disappointed, and although we did not know at all what to expect, we did know that a chinese beach, just an hour’s drive from Shanghai, would not match up to Manawatu or Wanganui, or even Lake Taupo.

This being so, in spite of having to rendezvous at 7.30 and get up earlier than usual, we were out of the house and at the coach departure point before the teachers arrived. Granny was of course carrying  a full bag which I thought would be sufficient emergency stuff for two boys and laughed to see many of the chinese grandparents or parents, each of whom had only one child to bond with, one of them even had a wheelie suitcase. Do they know something I do not… yes indeed they do… see later. We were all given a packed lunch, water, bread rolls and apple, and of course I got two bags. When we (zhong wu class , i.e middle 5) had all gathered, there was a roll call for the 26 children in the group and a rapid talk in chinese. Two nice mothers realised I might not follow and kindly told me I would be in bus 9, although they were in bus 2. I noticed thankfully that one of the boys’ friends, Yuan Yuan and her grandfather who speaks some English, were also lining up in the bus 9 row. Then we all filed out to the buses – there were about 20! and many many more lines of children from other classes and maybe even other schools. Bus 9 had a big 紫薇(zi wei) 9 on the front, and a guide with an orange flag, which I pointed out to Louis and Ali and said we must always remember this bus and this guide. We got on, I grabbed four seats by putting Ali and Louis on one side and I sat across the aisle from them with my bag. As we had four seats, and everyone else only needed two, when all ready to go we also got the new teacher, Dong Laoshi, who had only arrived in their class the week before. Ali came to sit with me and Dong Laoshi sat with Louis. This was great – she was so helpful all the way and also got on wonderfully with both boys, so it was clear she knew them well already.

Then we got to the tourist site, bus parked on the road and we had to walk along to the entrance, cars flying by. I can see why parents had to come too, and for the first of many times that day was extremely glad I was not one of the teachers. The first ‘event’ was treasure hunting, but I didn’t know that as the instructions were as always in chinese. We were in a large grassy area, with some bushes and ditches and Louis and Ali just saw places to jump and took off to have a whale of a time. there were people throwing lots of plastic toys around, and all the other kids were holding a parent hand and running about picking them up. It reminded me of the Easter day candy hunt on Block Island with about ten times more kids. When I finally got Louis and Ali back from ditch jumping, it dawned on Louis that all his mates had toys and he did not – Ali didn’t care but he did. Some of the parents had at least ten, and fortunately a couple of them gave each of the boys a toy – a blow out whistle.

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I could write for hours about all the daft details, like the fishing which meant putting on boots and getting into a concrete tank into which someone had dumped fish. Most of the other parents had them safely caught into plastic bags, ready for dinner, before I even got the boys boots on. After that the guide realised I hadn’t a clue, so she started looking after me. Next was the dragon boat where we all had orange life-jackets to put on, and I only had to do my own. There were eight cross benches to a boat and paddles for all, we were on the second bench and both boys were great – they were really thrilled to be rowing [though the guy at the back with a big steering paddle managed complete control up and down a big lake]. Then we had the kites, the wind was just about right and we were told to come back to this spot at 12.15 so everyone had picnic lunch here too. I found out what all the other parents had in their big bags, no simple rolls and apple for those who had been on trips before. They all shared everything, so there were kids running all over practically forcing food, especially cake and sweets on everyone else. We enjoyed everything.

Then it was back to the bus, on to the beach, and holiday rides on swingboats and a kids roller coaster. I had to go on with them and I do NOT like roller coasters, but giant swing boats are even worse. Ali would not go on that, he had been on one before, so he stayed with Dong Laoshi while Louis and I went on. Louis loved it, I was very very glad when it was over! Then we passed three horses, and had rides there too, which were much longer than I expected and far better value than any I have been on elsewhere.

Back to try to find the bus, on the bus, off the bus, etc etc we are getting good at finding 紫薇 9 with its blue front and triple silver curve logo and orange curtains. The last activity was not fruit picking, but POTATO DIGGING!! Home experience for an Irish granny. Actually it was sweet potato, or kumara, as New Zealanders call it, but seemed much the same and all the kids loved it so I added a large bag of kumara to the carry home items. Now I really know why the chinese parents came prepared with big big bags. When we finally got back to Guiping Lu / Pubei Lu coach stop, some of them had their evening meal of fish and kumara plus left-over lunch and candy. Ali and Louis carried our bags of potatoes proudly home.

I think it was an amazing day out, great for children, most of whom are city kids, but Oh I was so glad I was not one of the teachers who had to count us in and out of those buses.

Final unexpected event, the next day, Saturday, as we came home from an ordinary quiet morning at the recreation grounds, we passed some of the Suzhou coaches at their usual terminus. And there it was, blue front and triple silver curve logo and orange curtains, even without a number 9, OUR BUS. Ali and Louis said Hey, our bus, and went up the step and chatted to their friend the driver. We seem to have friends all over Shanghai, or at least, in this small corner of a big city.

Teeth Trouble … again

If it is possible to have a good dental experience I believe I have just had one! It has been clear in the past dozen years that the shelf life of all those fifties fillings was up and gone – I felt I spent a lot of time last winter at the dentist in Edinburgh getting crowns on broken left-overs after the fillings and shells of teeth cracked off. Then about a month ago, here in Shanghai, yet another tooth started to feel a bit sensitive… Uh oh … then it got better, then it got poorly again , then last week the filling fell out, and what was left was collecting lots of gunge you do not want me to post about really. It is too obvious, I have to find a dentist, and have to stop being in denial about teeth trouble.

So, That’s Shanghai Magazine has adverts for 4 english speaking dentists, and one of them is based at the Loft off Jianguo Lu near where the boys go every Sunday morning to Fastrack School, and beside where I took them to lunch yesterday, so I went back this morning to have a look. I do not rush into anything like dentistry you know.

Dr. Jane Wu had a cancellation. She was wonderful! Happy to have a look and then make a further arrangement. Happy to discuss very reasonable costs depending on what is necessary.Clear about the options, which depended on how far down the break in the tooth went. So she had a look, and like I say if it is possible to have a good experience at the dentist this was it. Careful, gentle, thorough. The tooth was broken vertically into the root, so it, i.e. both bits of it, just had to come out, and I am now at home recuperating but feeling I have been very well looked after.

I will be like Louis, with a space where a tooth is missing, I only wish I could look as cute.

George’s Visit – Tourist in Shanghai

I have been told it is time I wrote something cheerful, especially as being in Shanghai is not something everyone gets to do. [I respond briefly that there are several million people who do get to live here and I am fed up with several of them asking me every day where I come from]. I got a great email from New Zealand today, a different correspondent, with lots of news from there so here is a response of sorts to both. I do love to hear from you! I will put up some photos of George’s visit.

Getting to know you...

We started with lunch at a well-known dim sum restaurant, and like at all the dim sum places, you can’t book, you arrive and get a ticket and then wait around until a table comes available. So George and Louis and Ali waited around. Each in their own way. After we had eaten I took the boys home and George and Donal went off to watch the rugby at a suitable venue in the French Concession – it was World Cup week. Cindy and her parents spent the afternoon somewhere and we all met again for a hotpot dinner in the evening.

You're OK ...

I'm Ok too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day, Sunday, way back Sunday 16th October this was, Cindy’s parents left. Everyone continued with the getting to know each other, watching the rugby and then it was Monday and the boys were at school and Cindy and Donal were at work so George and I did Shanghai as best we could.

We started with the sculpture art at People Square exit 6

Outdoor sculpture square

and the Shanghai Art Museum and then stopped for lunch in the French Concession on the way home because George wanted to find an Arts and Crafts place he had been to with Donal the day before. We got a great lunch in a Vietnamese place somewhere on Fuxing Lu, but spent a lot of time getting lost as this looks likes the right cornerwas said more than once. Somewhat at cross-purposes, we both know well why we are no longer married, I was looking for the 93 bus stop to get home in time to get the Boys and G was looking for the pub he had been to with Donal. But, the French Concession is a good place to get lost in as the architecture and trees and all are rather nice. I was 15 minutes late for the boys who were quite rightly highly indignant. The next day we went up and down Tian Lin Lu as G had seen some T-shirt shops from the 93bus he thought he wanted to see again and it is near to Donal’s work and wewere going to have lunch with him. I managed to drag G from the shops and walked him through Guilin Park rather than up the main road to meet Donal and that turned out to be a success -

Guilin Park, Shanghai

the park is not large but seems quite extensive when walking along its paths and under the trees. Many chinese people are there playing cards and Majong and dancing or just tea drinking, but it does not feel crowded. It inspired us to visit the famous YuYuan Garden later in the week – and that was totally different as it was so crowded with tourists. We could see the idea of being contemplative in a planned garden, walkways and water and stones, but absolutely no chance of seeing half of it, let alone contemplating anything. The streets surrounding Yuyuan were great fun though, G called it Shanghai’s Camden Town, and thugh I am not sure of this as an analogy it is such a total tourist venue with Macdonalds and chinese rooftops side by side that it is really worth visiting.

And, we did the Bund and Nanxing Pedestrian Street and  a rather extensive tour of Shanghai South Railway Station in order to find out how to get to the airport, and there are another lot of not very good photos on my computer which might get on to a blog sometime, or might even get sorted!!!

Yes we saw the Bund, and this is the Bund Financial Bull

Old and new

Unhappy People

Another event today where the awful side of chinese culture showed up [see an earlier post Feeling Political]. I was coming home about 4pm on the metro and just after I got on to a crowded train, standing room only, there was a disturbance about two doors along the carriage from where I stood and many people literally tumbled off their seats and ran and pushed past in a wave, running away from an emaciated and wildly gabbling young man who was staggering along the carriage in my direction. Goodness knows what the people running from him thought, but they were clearly really really terrified.

I didn’t know what was wrong with him (ill, drunk, sick, mentally ill, what??) but it was just too awful the way people were running so I headed the other direction shouting bang ta bang ta which is “help him, help him” and took his arm and just guided him on to the now totally vacant bench seat. I could see a lot of spit beginning to foam at his mouth, so I avoided any of that, and continued to say “bang ta”, and I think he was epileptic or in some kind of fit, but really I have no idea. Certainly although alarming, he was not dangerous, and my first thought that I might get vomited on was not going to happen. Fortunately other people now stopped running, a handful of tissue came from somewhere, and the poor man wiped his face and mouth, showing he was quite competent and not a drunk, even though he was still twitching and shaking. Then he began shouting wode bao wode bao [my bag], so I could tell he knew what he needed, and then a bag he had dropped further down the carriage was handed along. From it, still shaking and quivering all over, he took out a pill bottle, nearly spilled half of them and while he was trying to get one in his mouth another western woman appeared, grabbed a bottle of water from a chinese onlooker, and handed it to the man who then managed to get his pill swallowed. He got the water top back on, while this woman who spoke good chinese talked to him, and finally peace was more or less restored. I ended up with a seat opposite him, and others took the other vacated seats, beside and opposite, and although the poor guy was still distressed, they were no longer afraid of him.

The other western woman was from Slovakia, and her English was also extremely good [more thoughts about how dreadfully unilingual most of us English speakers are]. She and I talked until we reached her stop, and she translated some of what the unfortunate man was saying as he talked loudly to everyone, now without gabbling, but clearly wanting to explain himself. He was disturbed and disturbing – I would not query that, but who would not be if regularly so dreadfully rejected and feared? He told/shouted his story of abandonment by his parents and showed us his bag and his ‘hukou’ [identity papers] and told how he now lived as well as he could collecting plastic bottles, which were indeed the remaining contents of his bag.

I am left again thinking of how many unhappy people I have met here, though the surface and the ‘face’ is show happy at all costs, there is a very different story underneath. The inability to help others is just a symptom of something else, a paralysis of sorts maybe when the surface security is disturbed. There have been two horrible stories recently which reached newspapers [and many stories never do] of a child struck in the head by a football and left to die in a playground, and a toddler run over by a van, who was ignored by all passersby until run over a second time by a different vehicle. She also died. Her parents were migrant workers, a few yards away trying to sell their goods at their market stall.

My own much less important and more trivial anecdote is that when, on several different occasions, I was standing with a map in the middle of New York, I was offered immediate help by all sorts of people; but when similarly standing with a map in January in Guangzhou, and more recently in Shanghai, no-one even seemed to notice let alone offer to help, and when I stood right in front of someone whom I thought was a reasonable looking person, with a request, qing ni, please, I was shouldered out of her way! People here do not help, it may be can’t rather than won’t, but the effect is the same.

So, whatever you hear about China and its surging economy, the actuality seems to be that many people may not cope with the kinds of change they experience, or the pace of that change, and maybe for too many there is no change, just more hard life, unfairness, stress and distress.

Do not knock the achievements of the western life, although there is also massive unfairness there, and even while I write all this I am at heart with the protesters in London and Wall Street and very very glad that protest can happen. I know that in the west people can be disturbed or afraid of those mentally ill or disturbing in other ways, but I really do not think that there would be so many running away and I am still feeling agitated that in the first instance only me, a foreign granny, tried to help this unfortunate man!

On being tired… and bed jumping

After the activity which surrounded the first three weeks in October, with Cindy’s parents here, and then George, I thought I would be up and out and back to my various projects as soon as they all left. Those of you who know me well know that I am thrawn by nature and that the gap beween expectation and what actually happens, especially in China, contains large quantities of surprise/chagrin/humility/laughing-at-self-being-there-again and the one I always forget, tiredness.  I suppose I really really do not want to acknowledge that I have a low thyroid condition and that one of the factors in managing this is ‘pacing oneself’.

Geena with Cindy and Donal on their wedding day 2003/02/08 at the Meadows, Edinburgh.

So I have not been writing much in the last two weeks. The very day George left, we went to Pudong for the evening, to help celebrate Geena’s marriage to Christian which had taken place a few days earlier. Geena, a friend of Donal and Cindy from Chengdu, was in Edinburgh the same year as Donal and Cindy and witnessed their marriage there in 2003. She was also one of my students on the Management and Training Masters, and although I have only seen her once since then, we have kept sporadically in touch.

October 2011, Donal, Cindy and Geena with Christian, celebrating Geens and Christian's wedding.

Of course, Donal and Cindy have seen her more often, especially as she has lived in Shanghai for the last few years before meeting Christian though last year she went with him to Germany – where they will now live.

Then, this weekend, newer friends, Ivan and Maggie got married and they also live in Shanghai. They both work for Air New Zealand, Ivan is a friend of Bo who studies in New Zealand and lived as tenant in our ‘back-garden’ cottage there, so Ivan often came to stay on his NZ stopovers. Both young men were very good at playing with the boys, and of course when we came here we met Maggie too. We had dinner to welcome Bo as guest arriving for the wedding, with great excitement, especially from Ali who had frequently been chased all over the garden by Bo.

Only one year ago! In NZ with Bo's sound system.

They both often used his sound system and his exercise bars frequently to great effect, so visit from Bo was a big success. On Sunday the boys got dressed up in special wedding outfits and helped with the celebrations. I took that day out and away! Photos might follow in another post as I took the day off and I have to copy Cindy’s pictures.

 

Bo's legs in the background!

 

 

 

Now, someone can tell me if this is an old chinese custom, or if it is just a new fun idea: on successive Fridays, after we had all had dinner, the boys were invited to the newly wed homes (in Geena and Christian’s case a hotel room) so they could

jump on the bed.

Needless to say they did the job with great energy and enthusiasm. Anyway, lots of fun, and maybe fertility, especially from twins, is supposed to follow.

But, this week, I am too tired to do much, and last week was not quiet.