Shanghai on Life

Today it was 11 degrees, clear and sunny in Shanghai – I love these Chinese winters :D Is anyone else aware that it’s December the middle of December? Christmas is next Friday! I just don’t know when Christmas stopped being an awesome waiting game of advent-calendar dedication to sneaking up on you…I guess it was probably around the time when formalized winter exams started.

Now, I know I said I was planning to ignore Christmas but apparently I just can’t really help myself (mother’s daughter). I’m listening to Aaron Neville’s Soulful Christmas (totally classic, eh Steph?) as I write this and more Christmas music torrents are downloading. I even bought myself a tacky Santa Claus garland and some twinkly lights for the mantle…but I think I’m going to stop now.  Unconventional Christmas plans are taking shape and will involve some strange mixture of German and Chinese activities (as usual in Shanghai) and then some new Christmas traditions which simply don’t exist in any culture.

The past weeks have been relatively quiet with the usual schoolwork, usual activities, so no complaints here.  School is winding down, or winding up depending on how you look at it. Final projects and exams are looming without the benefit of a Christmas break, but still the academic stress pales in comparison to UVic, so I’m sure I’ll survive.  I am scheduled to have class on Christmas day but our prof told me and Simon (the only international students in the class) that he would cancel the class for us. Maybe he’s sympathetic as he taught in the States for many years, or maybe he just likes an excuse to take the days off, but either way I’m happy about it!

Recently, I discovered reasonably priced bowling in Shanghai. I went with competitive-edge-Simon and perfect-form-Hoyoung so I wasn’t really expecting much in terms of personal performance. But would you believe I scored 163 in the second game?! Yeah, I don’t know what that means either, but I do know I had four strikes in a row followed by a spare :D ahhh it was so hilarious, these kind of things just make my life! But anyhoo, I’m pretty sure that I will never bowl that well ever again. Simon was bitter because I started on my streak after my embarrassing performance in the first game, he thought he should be nice and teach  me how to hold the ball properly – muahahaha! big mistake!

Post-bowling we hit the attached arcade for a quick and abysmal DDR dance-off between me and Simon. Afterwards  Hoyoung hopped on and blew us away – I have never seen someone look so cool when they’re dancing, let alone on a DDR machine! Being the poster-boy of Asian-modesty, Hoyoung insisted that he wasn’t that good. A few days later when it came up in conversation at school it came out that Hoyoung is the 4th place national champ of DDR in Korea!! hahaha! Keep in mind that this  is a very impressive feat in Asia where DDR and arcade video games are about 100x more popular than at home.

Following bowling we went to (the other) Simon’s German-Carnival-themed birthday party. I went as a pumpkin dressed in a full-body jumpsuit get-up (complete with pumpkin stem hat) purchased from what I’m sure is that only costume shop in Shanghai. There was a lot of beer drinking and jumping, singing and linking arms to carnival music. Though I obviously didn’t know the words in German I just shouted along incomprehensibly anyway. Danny boy went as a woman and managed to make it the entire evening wearing Sandra’s heels, actually pretty impressive! Simon went as an “emo” kid who couldn’t manage to get his eyeliner off the next day and permanently weirded out his Chinese tutor – boys with eyeliner is especially socially unacceptable in China.

Continuing with the German holiday theme, last week we went to a German Christmas market hosted by Paulaner’s, the German pub in Shanghai. The atmosphere was amazing, I really felt like I could’ve been in Germany! Even the Germans agreed it felt pretty authentic, citing that there was even the disadvantage of German-style prices :D We drank some holiday “glühwein,” a warm, spiced wine drink, which apparently they have everywhere in Europe under various funny sounding names (glögg in Sweden!).

My life as a foreigner in Shanghai has recently become complete after our relatively recent discovery and obsession with the Shanghai fabric markets, the favourite of all expats and exchange students. Fabric markets are basically large, dingy, crowded malls full of local tailors. Pretty much anything you can imagine or print off the Internet, you can have made there. It’s great, some times a bit risky, but mostly just addictive. Custom cashmere (or sometimes just “cashmere”) coat for $80 anyone? Tailor-made suit for $85 or jeans for $25. Anyway, the fabric markets are great, an especially convenient option for those of us living as Amazon women in this country.

I’ve recently joined a dodgeball team in Shanghai, and I know what you’re thinking and the answer is that you’re right, Chinese people don’t really play dodgeball. One of the girls from my basketball team invited me to play with her as one of her American colleagues organizes the league whose members are composed mostly of expats. It’s reasonably fun aside from those overly-competitive American guys who are taking dodgeball just a weeee bit too seriously (and by a weeeee bit, I mean WAY too seriously!). I haven’t played much dodgeball in the recent past, but I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a terrifying “sport” to play with grown men. I think I’m going to have to start pumping iron to work on my dodgeball arm.

On Saturday our basketball team played the Shanghai team of the Women’s Chinese Basketball Association! Pretty cool opportunity to play with a professional basketball team in your host country on exchange, I have to say! Needless to say, they were very good, not WMBA good, but impressive nonetheless. The whole event was a very Chinese in my opinion…there was a long introduction, many speeches delivered in a carefully planned order, gifts were exchanged, with pleasantries and ceremonies taking over an hour before the game. The game was short and casual, they went easy on us and even mixed their coaches into their roster. In a serious game they would have slaughtered us, but this would just never happen in China, this concept of “saving face” is so strong, I think this would be considered about 10x more inappropriate than it would be even at home.

Last night the gang went for dinner at Hooters with our Chinese classmates. The restaurant was maybe not the most appropriate of choices to represent western culture, but it was entertaining nonetheless. The Hooters girls dance around to the YMCA and sing songs in Shanghai!!…I’ve never been to Hooters before but I’m pretty sure they don’t usually do that, do they?

That’s it! Merry Christmas everyone if I don’t manage to post before then! :D