A trip, and to the hospital

We have four flights of stairs altogether. Like all the floors in the house, they are wood, mahogany, and highly polished. For some reason, the stairs are treacherous – whether it is because they are just slippery, or because the colour makes it difficult to determine the edge of the step, or whether it is because there is a different number of steps in each flight and we’re subconsciously counting, I don’t know – but we have all slipped on one of the bottom stairs at least once. And on Friday night, S slipped and banged his toe. By Saturday morning, his toe had turned purple and he could hardly walk. On Saturday afternoon, the host and hostess came back to tell us the piano tuner would be here next week. They were most concerned to see S limping and wanted to know what had happened. D managed to stage a dramatic re-enactment, which was much easier than trying to explain, or indeed easier than phoning James in Australia. The hostess insisted on having a look at the purple toe, then suitably horrified, disappeared out the front door. The host thumbed through our phrasebook to the medical section. “I am a Doctor”, he pointed out, gesturing at the front door to indicate that the hostess was the doctor, not him. How lucky we felt.

Some minutes later, the hostess returned with a large bandage, pre-smeared with some foul-smelling brown waxy stuff. We all gathered round to watch, fascinated, as the hostess wrapped this round S’s foot. I began to wish I’d recorded it. The host continued to flick through the medical section. “Traditional Chinese Medicine”, he showed us. “Ming tyen”, said the hostess. “Shur dyen”. Tomorrow, 10.00am, they would be back, to see if there was any improvement.

At 9.30am on Sunday morning, while I was still cooking breakfast, the host and hostess came back. The bandage was ceremoniously removed. “Eee-wen”, said the hostess. Hospital. I put the breakfast in the bin.

At 10.30am, S sent me a text to tell me they were just waiting for his X-ray results. The host and hostess had taken him to a normal hospital for Chinese people, rather than one of the Medical Centres that specialize in treating expats. S had to register and queue up with everyone else. However, as queuing is not something the Chinese are particularly good at – he who pushes in hardest gets served quickest - and presumably as Doctor Hostess got him some sort of preferential treatment, S didn’t have to wait too long. The doctor, the host and hostess, two small boys and a security guard all gathered round to look at the X-ray results. The hostess and the doctor argued for some time, but finally agreed that the toe was indeed broken, albeit a small break. His planned trip to Seattle on Monday would have to be cancelled, as a long-haul flight was not advisable, but apart from that, complete rest for at least 3 days was all that was needed.

As this was a normal hospital, and the normal hospitals are pay-as-you-go, like America, S had to pay for the registration and the X-rays. The cost was 120 RMB – about 8 pounds.

Chinese Whispers

Before we arrived just over 4 weeks ago, it appeared that the host and hostess (landlord and landlady) were spending so much time at the house that they had all but moved in. After our arrival though, days turned into weeks, and we hadn’t seen them at all. Until last week.

We have satellite television. I have no idea what channels there are, I didn’t watch television in England and I have no intention of starting to watch it now, but I know it isn’t Sky – we get some BBC World thing, and that’s about it. But – most important of all – the satellite does mean (somehow) we can get English football. Actually, football is very popular here; Premier League matches frequently appear on normal Chinese television. S has started a 5-a-side league for people at work – apparently, they’re incredibly keen, but as most of them are not particularly tall, heading the ball is traditionally not part of the game. Therefore, anyone over 6 feet tall (that’s just S and the Test Manager from Seattle) can just stand there and head the ball over the surprised defenders into the goal. Anyway, I digress. And so, when the satellite TV stopped working last Tuesday, I had to get in touch with the landlord. I say that, but of course communicating with people who don’t speak English is difficult enough, but on the phone it’s just about impossible – even more so when it’s someone you’ve never even met. So, I showed the satellite TV card to the Ayi, told her it was kwayler (broken), and showed her the Landlord’s name on the Lease agreement while pretending to hold a telephone. Simple.

The next day, Wednesday, the Host appeared. Apparently, satellite TV here is a type of pay-as-you-go thing, you just go and buy a new card, and the Host brought the new card with him. It wasn’t kwayler after all, it had just expired. He went upstairs to insert the new card into the satellite box thing. I had decided not to waste this opportunity, as I had gradually been building a list of things that needed attending to – none worth summoning him for individually, but since he was here anyway, I could go through the list with him. First, I took him into J’s bedroom – we’d bought a mosquito net from Ikea some time ago, and a hook needed fixing in the ceiling to hold the net up. Next was a door on the top floor that I knew was the entrance to the loft – when our boxes arrive from England (if indeed they ever do) we will need somewhere to put them, and this loft would be ideal – but the door was locked and the key was missing. The final thing on my list was to get the piano tuned. This was the trickiest. I pressed a few keys, and then clutched my hands to my ears, making grimacing faces to indicate how awful it sounded. The Ayi and the host watched my performance with interest, but clearly had no idea what I meant. It was only when I lifted the top and pointed to the piano’s insides that the host clicked. It was while we were standing congratulating ourselves on this major achievement, that in a scene that reminded me of Life of Brian when the house is searched, the front door flew open and an army of workmen marched past me and trotted upstairs. Incredibly, they had come – literally 15 minutes after being summoned – to install the hook in J’s bedroom. I was very impressed, and some time later, with much handshaking and thanking and so on, the host left.

The next day, Thursday, he was back. This time he had come with a new wire for the satellite box.
The next day, Friday, he was back again. This time he came with the hostess, and unlocked the door to the loft. The hostess appeared to be concerned about the length of our to-do list, and insisted on phoning her son James, in AUSTRALIA, who speaks English as well as Chinese. This way, we could tell him if we had any more problems, and he could then translate these problems into Chinese for her. Unable to really think of anything important, S told James that sometimes the water level in the fish pond gets a little low, and he’s been keeping it topped up, but he was a bit concerned that there may be a small leak. S handed the phone back to the hostess, and we sat and waited while the pond was discussed in animated long-distance excitement. After 10 minutes or so, the hostess handed the phone back to S. James explained that the problem was only to be expected, as the plumbing in the bathroom and the kitchen are connected, so if a tap is turned on in the kitchen, it could make the shower run cold for a second. S, not wishing to make this misunderstanding any worse, told James to tell his mother that this was no problem whatsoever at all, he was happy with that, everything was fine. Luckily, this final exchange between James and his mother only took another 10 minutes, at 50p a minute.

The next day, Saturday, a man appeared to fix the boiler.

The Driver

The lack of updates recently have been due to the amount of time I have spent sitting in traffic jams in Shanghai, and therefore with the driver. It may be a good time to describe him a little better, now we’ve all got to know him. I certainly did him an injustice saying he could only speak two words of English. This is not the case at all – he is trying to learn more words, and knows about as many English words as I know Chinese. With us both being at exactly the same level, our journeys have become enjoyable language lessons. “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10!” he says, in English. “Huang ho, very good!” I say. “Huang ho!” he replies, correcting my pronunciation, “Very good!” His English sounds curiously French. I am guessing that his last family was M and Mme Bertillon, so the English lessons must have been, I assume, with a French accent. “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10”, I say, in Chinese. “Huang ho, very good” he shouts, happily. When we first arrived, with no taxi drivers knowing where we lived, I very quickly learnt the Chinese for left, right and straight on. I am teaching him the English equivalents. Straight on, he has trouble with. In fact, left and right he has trouble with. “Left”, he announces confidently, turning right. This is surprisingly disconcerting. “No, no, no, right”, I shout, adding to the general confusion. This Chinese excitability is catching.

On the first day that he drove me anywhere, I was surprised that he never beeped once. Beeping is a way of life here in Shanghai; it’s as integral to driving as indicating. In England, beeping is supposed to mean “I think you may not have seen me, but here I am”, whereas it is usually used to mean “goodness, that was a careless manoeuvre”. Here, as far as I can work out, it means “Here I am”, “There I was”, "I'm speeding up", "I'm slowing down", “I’m planning to overtake you but I haven’t decided which lane to do it in yet”, “I am overtaking you now”, “I have finished overtaking you”, “I might be turning, I might not”, “I’m joining the elevated highway”, “I’m leaving the elevated highway”, “I’m swapping lanes”, “I’m staying where I am” – oh, and it can mean “goodness, that was a careless manoeuvre” as well. Therefore, in the space of about 7 seconds, it’s perfectly normal to have at least 4 different beeps, all meaning different things. So it was very strange to spend an entire day in a car without the driver beeping once. However, on the second day it became obvious that he was feeling more confident, as he started beeping occasionally, but in a quiet, reserved fashion, and by the third day, there was no more room for pretence anymore, it was “Bee Gees Radio” on full blast, and we were away, horn blaring.

Something I find quite remarkable is his parking ability – or perhaps I should say complete lack of it. Speaking as someone who absolutely never reversed anywhere unless it was a matter of life or death, I can only watch in amazement at someone whose reversing is worse than mine ever was – particularly when that someone is a professional driver. We arrived in an empty car park just off Huaihia Lu last week. There were 2 attendants in a hut in the corner, and one came out to supervise. “Park there”, he said (I assume). The driver reversed. “No, no, not like that, that’s no good” shouted the attendant (I assume again), waving his arms round. The driver went forward, and reversed again, this time at more of an angle. “No, no” shouted the attendant again, this time with even more frantic arm-waving. Forward we went again, backwards we went again, this time with the driver’s head out the window in an attempt to line himself up with whatever he was trying to line himself up with. Still not good enough. I sat helpless in the back, feeling like I had wandered into that Reginald-who-couldn’t-park advert. The second attendant came over to offer his opinion. I don’t think they could really believe how much trouble he was having. After considerably more manoeuvring, we were finally in a position that met the attendant’s exacting requirements, and I was free to beat a hasty retreat. I think that part of the trouble may be that a lot of the car parks, and particularly those underground (which is where most of the car parks are), actually have little speed-bump type humps at the back of the parking space – so you just keep going backwards till your wheels hit the hump, and then you stop. An excellent idea in my opinion – except, like park-assist, you get used to it, so when it’s not there, you’ve got no chance…

We actually parked next to a Rolls-Royce the other day in an underground car park (needless to say I kept my hands over my eyes and held my breath throughout). “Oh wah,” he said. This translates roughly as “Oh wow”. He always says it when he sees a Rolls-Royce, BMW 7-series, or a VW People-carrier. I wished I could have shared with him that although England must be groaning under the weight of everything in it that’s been imported from China, the Rolls-Royce could possibly have been made just 10 miles away from where I used to live, and was probably the only thing for miles around that had been made in England and brought to China. Unfortunately my Chinese isn’t quite up to that just yet. I decided it was easier just to agree with him. “Oh wah,” I said, too.

He has certainly made travelling round Shanghai a pleasure, and obviously much easier than using taxis. The only problem sometimes is arranging a place and time for him to pick me up. This is usually done with me speaking some rubbish Chinese as I hastily get out the car, with angry beeps around me because he's just stopped in the middle of the road, ending up with neither of us really being certain about what we’ve agreed. Later on, when I make my way back to the place where I think we agreed to meet, at the time I think we agreed to meet, I see him in the distance, pacing around and anxiously scanning the crowds. When he catches sight of me, the relief on his face is enormous. The responsibility for not losing me somewhere in Shanghai must hang heavy on him. I am just as relieved that I have not got lost, or misunderstood, or made him misunderstand.

I still don’t know how long our ‘car and driver’ perk will continue for, it may only be another 6 weeks, but I’m hoping it will be longer. After all, of all the positive things I expected to get from China, I never expected feeling good about my reversing skills to be one of them. I would like to repay that by making sure that when he goes to his next family, he at least knows which is left and which is right.

That'll teach me

I think I said yesterday that I'd seen most types of shop that Shanghai has to offer. But that was before today's experience.

The driver wasn't due to get back to me until 11.45 am today, so I knew I didn't have time for any full-day excursions. I thumbed through his copy of Yellow Pages (not Yellow Pages as we know it - but a little pocket sized directory of shops, markets, restaurants, estate agents, schools etc, all appealing to westerners, and all in English with Chinese addresses for the bemused taxi drivers), and wondered where to go. With the sixth-sense that both he and the Ayi have started displaying recently (a story for another day) he took the book off me and turned to an advert near the back. "OK", he said. I read the advert. Another supermarket. But the advert did mention Australian Beef, which these days is enough to tempt me anywhere. We worked out between us that it was near Hongqiao (of course, where else would it be, the Westerner's Paradise), so about 25 minutes away, not too far.

I was expecting another Carrefour. Bear in mind that Carrefour is over two floors, and is at least the size of the biggest Asda I have ever seen, and although it stocks a lot of western products, the overwhelming majority of its produce is Chinese. It therefore smells like a Chinese supermarket, such as you might find in any Chinatown (I'm not sure what the smell is, I think it's a combination of fish, duck and five spice) - it's not an unpleasant smell, and I think I hardly notice it anymore, but it certainly makes sure you don't ever get confused and think you're in Sainsburys. Carrefour also has a slightly tatty feel about it somehow, I'm not sure why - but it always reminds me slightly of KwikSave, or Fine Fare, or a very old Tesco. Anyway, I was a bit surprised when the driver stopped suddenly on a main road and waved towards a Papa John's Pizza restaurant. I got out the car. Next door, almost unnoticable in comparison to the brightly-lit Papa John's, was a very small, dark-fronted shop, with a subtle dark-green sign over the door saying "City Supermarket". I took a basket from the front and went in.

It was as if I'd been transported back in time 100 years. If Selfridges or Harrods had ever had a separate food store in those days, this would have been it. The smell was heaven - I think it was mainly English tea somehow, but it was that old-fashioned Grocery store smell. It was dark wood floors and dark wood shelves, and dimly-lit and cool and unhurried and peaceful - so different to the Carrefour atmosphere. It reminded me a little of those food-gift shops that are always somewhere in the grounds of stately homes - except it sold real food instead of rows of 'home-made' jam and pickles. The food was of course from all over the world, American, Australian, German, French and even English. The food that was familiar to me would be commonplace on any English Supermarket shelves, but even a bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup looked more exciting in that setting.

I have only been away from England for 4 weeks, and I certainly haven't started to miss any food yet - except maybe those sausage rolls that Morrisons sell freshly-baked on a Saturday morning, and Hampsons sell every lunch time - so today's visit was more entertaining than a chance to desperately search for some impossible-to-get item. I wandered round, making lots of mental notes for future reference, and comparing prices. We have got quite used to restaurant bills being between 10 and 15 pounds for an excellent meal for 4 of us, so it's probably only right that we should expect some Ying and Yang. But...here are some examples so you can shake your head and be thankful next time you're filling your trolley at Tesco.

Cadbury's Chocolate Spread - 3.50 per jar.
Fruit Shoot (small, snack-size bottle) 1.20 each.
Lucozade - 1.50 for a 300ml bottle.
Ambrosia Snack Pots of Rice Pudding and Custard (yes, those little fiddling ones) 1.10 each.
80 Tetley Tea Bags (that actually had 1.29 printed on the box) 4.50.
A packet of Krackawheat biscuits - 1.50.
A 100g jar of Alta Rica coffee - 6.50. (I don't know why this is so expensive - I thought it was made by Nescafe, which is available everywhere and is cheaper and nicer than in England. I think the Alta Rica coffee in England is the Nescafe coffee that's here!)
A jar of Patak's Curry Sauce - 4.00.
And finally, a packet of Bird's Trifle (I have no idea how much this costs in England) is 3.00.

I don't think City Supermarket will really replace Carrefour (I wouldn't have bought Bird's Trifle Mix in England, so I see no reason why I would buy it here), but if I ever want a shot of old-fashioned England, I know where to go.

Getting what you pay for

There has been a shortage of updates recently. I have been making the most of the driver, by mostly going shopping. After dropping S off at work, he gets back to me at about 9.30am. Shanghai traffic being as it is means that it takes at least an hour to get anywhere, and obviously an hour to get back - which means my entire day seems to be filled with just travelling and shopping. Today, thankfully, is the driver's day off - a day of rest for both of us.

Although I say shopping, I really mean mostly window-shopping. I have only bought a few things, but enough to have learnt some valuable lessons. Over the last week, I have been to probably most types of shops available in Shanghai. These shops range from those I have already described, the open-fronted shelters selling dusty fruit and plastic tubes, to the Xiangyang Market (where I was hassled beyond belief - I couldn't get out fast enough in the end), to the underground Metro Market at Xujiahui (the Metro Market does not cater specifically for tourists, but nevertheless there are enough Westerners working at Xujiahui to mean that there is no novelty in seeing one - so there is still haggling, but without any hassle), to the upmarket gift shops of Xintiandi, to the designer and Trafford Centre type shops on Huaihai Road, to the Western DIY havens of Ikea and B&Q. Incidentally, my research showed that there are four B&Q's here in Shanghai - one of which is the largest B&Q in the world. It was a pity that the one I chose to visit was the most rubbish B&Q in the world. The website didn't tell me THAT. The driver actually took me to OBI first (all DIY Store logos look the same to the Chinese) - I should have stayed there. Anyway, I digress. Although I was never particularly fond of Ikea when I lived in England (in fact, I think I went once to see what I could find, and then once 5 years later to see what I could expect to find when I got to Shanghai), there is a certain pleasure to be had now in going shopping there, seeing a tin-opener such as you might see in England, know that the price that's on the ticket is the price it actually is, without any need to argue with the assistant over it, and not only will it be a bargain compared to how much it would have cost in England, but also it won't fall apart the next day.

Haggling was fun at first, a novelty, a game to play - but now I realise it's far more than that - it's the only way to ensure you don't get ripped off. I was happy with my 100RMB bag - it was a cute bag, it was exactly what I wanted, and I knew it wasn't 'real'. But 100RMB is still about six pounds, so when the handle snapped after two days, I was not impressed - I could have paid five pounds for a bag in Matalan and it would have lasted longer. In fact - I DID pay five pounds for a bag in Matalan - and it's been to China twice (three times if you count the fact that it was probably made in China in the first place) and it's STILL going strong. We bought an everyday cutlery set two weeks ago from Carrefour, I can't remember how much it was, but already the handle has come off one of the knives. J's school uniform was bought from school, in their official school uniform shop, and within two days, the buttons had come off two of her polo shirts. Things are not bargains when the quality is so poor.

However, having said all that, a 100g jar of Nescafe is about a pound here, and is considerably better quality than the Nescafe in England. I'm sure there is a moral in here somewhere, and when someone finds it, please can they let me know.

The driver knows best

After yesterday's experiences with the driver, which on reflection I felt had gone reasonably well, I decided that today I would venture further afield. S had asked him to come to the house at 8.00am to take him to work. He was outside at 7.18am, engine running, pacing up and down beside the car. We did our best to ignore him and carry on as if he wasn't there, but it was terribly difficult - and at 7.45am S gave up and went to work.

I sat down with my Tourist Map of Shanghai and my City Guide. I wanted to do some real shopping - I'd had enough of supermarkets now, fascinating as the Chinese versions are. I came to the conclusion that Central Huaihai Road was the place to go. This is the road that runs through what used to be the French Concession - according to the guide book, the shops were excellent, the architecture fascinating, and there was also one of the best parks in Shanghai right there. It sounded perfect. At 10.00am the driver arrived, and I laid my map out on the boot of the car and pointed to Central Huaihai Road. He put his glasses on and peered at the map. "OK," he said, shaking his head and pointing to some other road about 2 inches south. He started talking excitedly in Chinese - there was only one word I could pick out - Xintiandi. This was a very touristy place that we had been to last week - it was nice but I didn't really want to go again today. I pointed again at Central Huaihai Road, less hopefully this time. "Xintiandi!" he said. "OK," I said. He's got me at it now.

But where he dropped me off was not Xintiandi, it was Old Shanghai. This is a very busy part of the city, quite near to the Bund, full of small shops, old and new - but the new ones are all designed in traditional Chinese style. Again, very touristy, but still very nice. We had been here before, but hadn't spent long here, so I was pleased after all that I could have some time to wander round at my leisure.

I wanted a bag. I stopped at a shop, picked one out, haggled the price down to 100RMB (sounds good, but you just type your price into a calculator, they say no no, type their price in, you say no no, and so it goes on...and on). She was putting my bag into a carrier bag, when she suddenly said, very confidentially, "You want purse?". Well, yes I did as it happens. She took me by the arm and led me across the narrow street to another shop selling scarves. A girl appeared from the back of the shop and motioned me to follow her. Through a door at the back of the shop, and we were in a dark alleyway. We went across the alleyway through another door into a very grey and dingy warehouse, past a woman chopping up vegetables in a grey and dingy sink, and through another door - I felt that I shouldn't be following, that it was a pretty stupid thing to do all on my own, but I couldn't help it - and then suddenly we were in a brightly lit room, a veritable Aladdin's Cave of Gucci, Prada, LV, Rolex - bags, purses, watches, pens - I couldn't believe it. There was already a Chinese man in there, the girl shut the door behind her. Thank god she didn't lock it. Feeling like a real underworld criminal, I picked out a lovely Gucci bag and matching purse, haggled the price down from 1300RMB to 550RMB (OK, I could have got it for less but I think I'd been brave enough), and then I was free to go.

In the sunlight once more, I took some pictures of the pretty Chinese buildings and went back to meet the driver in the pre-arranged spot. Would it have been such an experience if I'd gone to Central Huaihai Road? I doubt it.

Mind your language

I haven't tried terribly hard so far to learn any Chinese. I have just learnt the odd few words that I needed at the time - but more often than not, I lose my nerve with the pronunciation and just point to the word in my Mandarin phrase book. It's all about tones you see - there are different tones (raising and lowering pitch on certain syllables, according to my book), and different tones give the same word completely different meanings. So, the word ma for example, has 5 different meanings - mother, horse, question mark, hemp and scold - and the difference in meaning is all conveyed by tone. Apparently, foreign diplomats quite frequently introduce themselves in China as rubber U-bend pipes, simply because they get the tones wrong. You can see how scary it is.

I have given a lot of thought to this over the last couple of weeks. Everywhere you go, there are appalling English translations. There are terrible translations and spellings - and not on hand-written signs outside fruit and vegetable shops such as you find in England, but on huge adverts and in neon lights. Coming down the escalator at Carrefour today, there was an advert for toilet cleaner - "For a Sparkle Clean Bowel" - I am not joking (although perhaps the advertiser is). I have come across so few people who speak any English at all, that if you find someone who knows a few words, you're impressed, no matter how bad their grammar or pronunciation - so perhaps I shouldn't be so scared after all. Maybe they are just as impressed with my shocking Chinese.

Yompee, our waitress at 7 days, is probably about 18 years old, and speaks a little English - she is really keen to learn, and always wants to know how to say things, and tries desperately hard with her pronunciation, which is actually dreadful. I imagine I am just as bad when I say Thank You, Goodbye and Turn Left. We were there yesterday for dinner, and M had ordered steak. We had eaten steak there before, and S had learnt from bitter experience that "How done?" means how do you want it cooked, and "1, 2 or 3" does not, as you might expect, equate to rare, medium or well-done, it means minutes under the grill. S had asked for 2, and his Angus T-bone had arrived shortly afterwards, bleeding profusely into his pasta twirls. After elaborate discussion with Yompee, it went back for another 6 minutes under the grill. Anyway, so we were able to deal quickly and easily yesterday with the "How done?" question. But Yompee caught us on the hop with her next enquiry. "Shop?" We were silent for a moment. "Shop?" persisted Yompee. "Shop? Paper Shop?". No, we hadn't a clue. Yompee flicked frantically through the menu. By pointing at other dishes, in just 10 minutes we had managed to work out that Shop was Soup, in other words Sauce, and Paper was Pepper. When your raw beef comes with a Paper Shop, you can see how easy it is to be a rubber U-bend pipe.

Driving Miss - er - Daisy

The powers that be have deemed that it is not good for us to be so isolated, and have assigned a car and driver to us, at least for the next two months until we find our feet (as it were). S of course used to have a two minute walk to work when he lived in the apartment, now his journey consists of a 5 minute walk to the estate's shuttle bus, a 12 minute drive on the shuttle bus to the metro station, a 15 minute journey on the train, then a 10 minute walk at the other end to work. Not nearly as arduous as his daily journey down to London used to be, but still not as nice as nipping round the corner. So at 8.00am our new driver appeared - his first job of the day was to take S to work, then he was to return to our house to pick me up - then the world (or Shanghai at least) would be my oyster.

The first problem we encountered was that he spoke very little English. In fact, the only English words he appeared to know were Thank You and OK. S phoned me when he got to work to warn me, and to give me the driver's mobile phone number - although that was not likely be much use. I decided that baby steps (as always) would be the way forward, and made up my mind to go to the supermarket near the Metro station - I had a flash card for that.

Everything went very well - he arrived back at the house at 10.30 and I showed him the flash card. "OK!" he said, clearly thrilled, and off we went. I found the word for Supermarket in my Mandarin phrase book, and spent the journey learning it - I wanted him to know where I was going, so I didn't have to try and mime that although I was going to the Metro station, I wasn't actually going anywhere on the Metro. It could have got very messy. At 10.45, he dropped me off in the cycle lane outside the supermarket, I arranged to meet him in the same cycle lane at 1.00pm, and away I went to get a trolley.

I was happily wandering round the CD department about 25 minutes later, browsing such titles as "Perfect Music Of Car", "Wandering on the Country Footways", and "Li guyi - the Best Famous Collection over Century", when much to my surprise, the driver appeared by my side. "OK!" he said, mysteriously. I was completely confused. Had 2 hours passed so quickly? Had my watch stopped? Had his watch stopped? Was I messing up his lunch hour? Was he like most other chinese people and fascinated to see what goes in a Western trolley? Had he misunderstood my 1.00pm mime and thought I meant 1 minute? He seemed quite happy, so I decided the best thing to do was to continue with my shopping (the only thing on my list was a mixing bowl - I'd only really come for a look round), but perhaps to continue as quickly as I could.

So I whizzed round at a pace, the driver following at my heels, with me missing out entire aisles (I didn't feel it appropriate to go down the bra aisle, or the feminine protection aisle, and I knew it was pointless going down any chinese food aisles as I didn't really have time to stand and work out what the things were) - resulting in me being at the checkout less than 15 minutes later. S would have been proud of me. But by this time, I'd come to realise that whatever his reasons for coming to get me were, he was very nice and extremely keen to help. He looked in my trolley anxiously - he obviously thought I'd come to get a week's shopping and couldn't find anything. "Carrefour!" he suddenly cried, thereby instantly appearing to have increased his command of the English language by half - "Carrefour!!". As we left the supermarket and made our way to the car, I realised why he'd come to get me - he had parked in the car park to avoid having to park in the cycle lane (I don't actually think it's allowed) - and quite possibly he'd come to help carry my bags too.

In order not to hurt his feelings (and because I wasn't sure how to mime "Yes, I have been to Carrefour and think it's reasonable and probably likely to be extremely useful on occasion, but there are times where I prefer to come to a smaller, more authentically Chinese supermarket, and today is one of those days, especially as I have a flash card for it"), I agreed "Carrefour" with him and off we went. We parked in the car park, agreed 1.00pm (again), he gestured to the cafe to indicate he was going to have his dinner, and I was away with my trolley again. Breaking my own record for the second time in a day, I whizzed round the giant supermarket in under an hour. I did get some very nice strawberries, some cooked chicken for tea, some cooked duck for my dinner, and a bunch of bananas - the bananas are about 2 inches long - J will be thrilled. I didn't find my mixing bowl, but I did get home safely, so all's well that ends well - or, as they say here in Shanghai - "OK!"

Rosie, Supermodel

Yesterday was J's first modelling job here. It was in Hang Zhou, which is a city south west of Shanghai. B, J's agent, told me it was a lovely place with a beautiful lake, and many people from Shanghai go there for a day or a weekend. I began to imagine it as a sort of Chinese Windermere, and as it turned out it was - it took 3 hours to get there and most of the 3 hours was spent sitting in a traffic jam. We sat in the back of the people carrier we had hired for the day and whiled away the 3 hours alternatively watching the real life Wacky Races going on around us (motorway driving is even worse than Shanghai city driving - it is mostly two lanes with a hard shoulder, but when it gets busy everyone just drives along the hard shoulder and also squeezes down the middle of the official two lanes, thereby forming four lanes of traffic with quite literally 5 cm between the cars) and watching the gauge above the driver's mirror that told us the temperature outside. It was on 70 degrees Fahrenheit when we left at 7.30am, and by the time we reached Hang Zhou it had reached 99 degrees.

We got to the studio finally at 10.30am, not knowing what to expect at all. As it turned out, it was exactly like a nice studio in the UK. There were 3 other children - 1 American boy and 2 English boys. They were taking photos for a catalogue, summer clothes, and J thoroughly enjoyed herself, probably relieved to find it was just the same here as she was used to. "Your daughter's a natural, she's so pretty, she could model anywhere," said the American mom to me at one point, "but here they are so keen on Western children, it doesn't matter if they have what it takes or not." This seemed to be borne out later when I happened to look round, and Rosie was sitting on the mock sand, next to some neatly folded t-shirts, with the photographer snapping away. Rosie is J's teddy.

Oh What a Night

It was such a lovely evening last night that we decided to go to the 7 Days for tea. We were intending to go on our bikes, but D's tyre had burst earlier (quite literally - it went with a very loud bang - we thought he'd been shot) so we decided that we would walk, but J would go on her bike to speed the journey up a bit. As I have explained earlier, 7 Days stands at the end of a new block of shops and restaurants that are becoming more occupied by the day - although mostly by Estate Agents unfortunately. As it is so new, I don't think I have ever seen more than 8 people in the 7 Days at a time - although it is a club (on the ground floor) as well as as a restaurant (on the second and third floors) - so for all I knew it could be packed to the rafters come 1.00am. Nevertheless, as we turned the corner we were a bit surprised to say the least to discover the car park was full of Rolls Royces, Mercedes and BMWs. We handed J's bike over to the smartly attired attendant so he could valet park it in the bike rack, feeling a little out of place in our jeans and D's t-shirt with "AVE IT" emblazoned across it. The finishing touches were obviously being applied to some sort of firework display in the far corner of the car park, and the steps to the restaurant now had a red carpet up the middle with large flower displays on each step. As we went up the steps, we could see that the restaurant was packed - my cafe au lait was looking a bit unlikely now. At that moment, the doors opened, everyone poured out (all in dinner jackets and cocktail dresses) and the sky behind us exploded as the firework display started. There was even a man with a TV camera. Our little 7 Days had turned into a national event. We came to the conclusion that this must be marking the opening of the Club, and everyone had come for dinner first. Perhaps we'd have more chance of Pork Chops if we came back a bit later. We left J's bike in the bike rack and made our way to the Pearl Restaurant at the other end of the block.

S and I had only been here once before with friends, D and J had never been. They were a little surprised to be greeted at the door by 8 chinese girls in purple ballgowns chorussing 'Good Evening'. Still, they're used to being surprised now. We hadn't abandoned all hope of Pork Chops, so we ordered some barbecued meat as a snack. The Chicken's Feet arrived...and I knew the time had come for me to try one....I got one out of the dish with my chopsticks, and (oh god) bit into one of its toes.....but - what do you know - it tasted like chicken. Chinese chicken in fact. S had covered his eyes, but J and D were watching with morbid fascination....the next moment - J had got one out and put it on her plate!!! We urged her on, the 4 waitresses around us were motionless with disbelief, as she picked it up, shut her eyes - and bit into it. I'm sure everyone cheered! She proclaimed it disgusting, but carried on eating anyway...

We finished our barbecued meat and spicy beef, paid the bill and went back to 7 Days. It was a lot quieter now, most of the people had gone (downstairs to the club I think) so we went in to see what was happening. Although there were a lot of new waitresses there, the four or so that we know all appeared immediately from somewhere to greet us like old friends. Yompee took us upstairs, then up another spiral staircase - to the roof garden. We never even knew it had a roof garden. It was now 8.30pm, dark but still very warm. There were tables and chairs with parasols and swing seats and huge flower arrangements and subdued coloured lamps - it was beautiful. The manager (who is Belgian I think, and introduced himself to us about a week ago) came over and told us that tonight was a very special night, we were very welcome to eat there, it was a set menu of soup, roast beef, fish and dessert, and there would be no charge for the food or the drinks.

And so we spent the next hour, looking out over the twinkling lights of Shanghai at night, feeling like yet again we were on the holiday of a lifetime. In true 7 Days style though, the roast beef arrived, the soup (lobster) arrived 5 minutes later with the first dessert (bananas and apples, beautifully carved and displayed), then came the fish (salmon), followed finally by the profiteroles.

That's more like it

On Tuesday, I went for my Medical (needed for my Resident's Visa). I was accompanied by someone from the Relocation Company who told me where to go and what to do, so it was a pretty painless experience. The Medical Centre itself is very near Gubei, which is about 15KM away from where we live, and is where the vast majority of the Western compounds are. The biggest Carrefour is here, and all the shops have signs in English, and the Restaurants are all geared to Western tastes. There is a bar there (one of many I'm sure) called Hooters, and for the obvious reason, so that about sums it up. You could live there for 3 years without ever needing to remember you were in China at all. This is why we felt we would all get more from our China experience if we didn't live anywhere near Gubei at all. This can at times be harder - as I discovered during my walk later that same day - but I think on the whole it's a good thing. Today restored my faith in that decision.

After D and J had caught the school bus this morning, S and I went back home. It was a lovely day, very sunny and warm again (yesterday had been warm but dull and wet). We sat on our balcony with a pot of Jasmine tea. It was so nice and peaceful. Not really having anything more important to do, I went with S on the shuttle bus to the metro station. This is the first leg of his journey to work. The shuttle bus goes from the estate to some shops, then carries on to the Metro station - this journey takes about 15 minutes (and actually goes the way I'd walked the other day). Next to the metro station is a huge supermarket. Like Carrefour, it sells everything from live frogs to electric scooters, but this was a Chinese supermarket - and much nicer than Carrefour. It was quiet, the people were friendly and the store was clean and spacious. S and I wandered around for half an hour before he went to catch his train, and I stayed there for another hour, mostly studying the food to try and work out what it was (unlike Carrefour, there weren't any English translations).

I finally left (with some bread, a box of coloured pencils, some Dove shampoo and 6 eggs), crossed the road (easily!), and called a taxi. Because this is so close to where we live (probably less than 4 miles away) the taxi driver had no problem this time and knew exactly where I wanted to go. He even taught me how to say Left and Right. I was home 10 minutes later, and my taxi fare was 12RMB (about 60p).

What a lovely morning.

Walking Scared

Today, while everyone was at school and work, I went for a walk. Our estate is very quiet and feels very secluded, but is actually on a small dual carriageway. Admittedly, it is a very quiet dual carriageway, with the only traffic using it being the school bus, the shuttle bus between the estate and the local shops, and the man on the bike who rides round towing a wicker chair display. However, 5 minutes walk along this dual carriageway brings you to another dual carriageway. A 5 minute walk along here brings you to yet another dual carriageway (we have now walked round a sort of square if you can imagine) - and this dual carriageway is busy. At very busy times (which is most of the time), a man with a red flag and a whistle stands here. He wave his flag at cars and trucks and blows his whistle at bikes. This is also where the 7 Days restaurant is, and this was actually as far as I've ever walked before. But today I was determined and feeling that although the whole thing is a bit scary (walking away from 7 Days in the opposite direction from home was very much out of my comfort zone) it was something I had to do.

I carried on past a very pleasant sort of park area - there is a university here, and the park area actually belongs to the university. Immediately next to the park is a row of shops - but these are typical chinese shops - really just open fronted huts selling strange things - like empty plastic containers, or tubes - I didn't really spend too much time looking, I just kept on walking. Under the railway line. There are special pathways that run along each side of the road at this point, and are separated from the road by a concrete wall - they are wide paths for pedestrians and cyclists, but unbelievably, cars come down them, horns blaring, to queue-jump the traffic jam on the road. One young man on a bike deliberately kept to the middle of the pathway to prevent one taxi getting past. I kept as close to the wall as I could.

Another two minute walk and I came to another intersection - this is where the main road I'd walked along joins the Outer Ring Road, and crossing at this intersection is probably equivalent to trying to cross the M6 on foot at Thellwall Viaduct. There is a zebra crossing, and there is even a green man who appears from time to time - but this doesn't really mean anything. You step into the road, but there is still traffic coming at you from every angle. I have never been genuinely scared of crossing a road, but I was then. I know it's not good form to run pedestrians over, and running over a Westerner is probably punishable by death, but this didn't make me feel any better or safer.

Another thing that was making me feel distinctly uncomfortable was being stared at. When we're all out together, or at least when I'm with J, I never warrant more than a passing glance - it's her that they fall off their bikes staring at. But while I was on my own, and perhaps because I was on my own, I seemed to be getting lots of almost hostile looks. Determined, I still kept walking. I felt I couldn't give up - otherwise I'd never dare to go out again.

I was also terrified of getting lost. So far, I had walked along one straight road, but I had to turn left to get to the shops I had in mind. And then I had to turn right. I didn't dare make any more turns, as by now I was away from the main roads, and I wasn't sure how easy it would be to find a taxi. I walked past the shops and then back down the other side of the road. I bought a hair bobble (very nice, black velvet with pink silk lining) just so I could feel that my walk had a purpose, and then I set off back the way I'd come.

I was very relieved to make it home, about 2 hours after I'd set out. It was a hot day too, I'd guess at least 24 degrees, not a pleasant temperature for walking next to busy main roads.
I was glad that I'd done it, but I won't be doing it again for a while.

Busy Busy Busy

This is the beginning of a new stage for me I think. Today D and J put on their new school uniforms. J looked like little girls always do in a new uniform - cute and smart and grown-up. D looked remarkably like he did in his old school uniform - plain scruffy. How do boys do that?

All four of us walked to the main gate to wait for the school bus. It arrived 5 minutes late. It was a small mini-bus, fitted with seat belts, and the seats covered in pristine white cotton. There was a friendly lady bus driver, and an Ayi in attendance to look after the children and make sure they were securely fastened in. There were three children already on the bus, all sitting seperately. I couldn't say what nationality they were, Korean maybe, none of them looked older than 6 and they all looked quite forlorn. J and D clambered aboard, very excited, hardly nervous at all, with J particularly looking forward to Maths for some reason. When we'd waved goodbye to them, S went off to work in a taxi. I went back home.

And now it is 8.40am, I have a whole day ahead of me. The Ayi has already washed up, put the first load of washing in (or item of washing I should probably say - we couldn't possibly have created a load in the 12 hours since she last did any washing) and is now busy ironing. I could of course spend the day playing Puzzle Mania on my new Sony PSP, but instead in true working-from-home pretence, I have brought all my bits and pieces up to the study on the top floor - a pile of papers, cards, brochures and leaflets that I have accumulated over the last week and now have to read and put in some sort of order.

I have the Learning Chinese prospectus from the Shanghai International College of Culture. I study this and see that there is a course that starts later this week. I decide that the one starting at the end of May is a better bet. I have several new flashcards to sort through (these are small cards that contain key locations in Chinese and English, for use in taxis). I have a brochure from the Medical Centre in Hongqiao, ready to be filed away under 'Hope I Never Need'. I have a large fold-out tourist map of Shanghai, a map of the Shanghai Underground and Bus Lines (yeah, right), and a "Home Delivery Shopping Service" brochure ("Goods are delivered in perfect condition - we accept the order through phone fax and email"). As well as all this, I have brought up my Guide to Customs and Etiquette in Shanghai, my Mandarin Phrase Book and my City Guide to Shanghai. I am ready - my pencils are metaphorically sharpened, and my work laid out in neat piles in front of me.

Now, where did I put my PSP?

Valid everywhere except here

Every time we go to the 7 days restaurant (and I know it must sound like we go there a lot at the moment - I'm just trying to summon up the courage to cook something) we get at least three money-off vouchers. At least, we assume they're money-off vouchers, they have 20 RMB printed on them anyway, but everything else is in Chinese. It seems a bit unfair to use them when the bill is only 77RMB in the first place, but as we'd been for dinner tonight and the bill was 299RMB, it seemed fairly reasonable. We handed in one of them with the bill and 300RMB. A crowd of waitresses immediately gathered round in a sort of rugby scrum to discuss the situation. This included our regular waitress (Yompee I think her name is, probably not spelt like that) who knows our names, and who had actually given us most of the vouchers. They appeared to reach some sort of agreement, and Yompee cautiously approached our table. She most apologetically managed to tell us that we couldn't use the voucher, but she couldn't really explain why. We told her it was really no problem, and clearly relieved, she disappeared. She returned a moment later with 1RMB change and 7 more money-off vouchers.

Road Kill

From the second floor, the 7 days restaurant has a splendid view over the busy intersection that it sits beside. This particular road is always very busy - in fact, today there was a man with a red flag there who helped us cross the road. But while we were in the restaurant this evening, there was a terrible accident at the intersection. Two small vans were involved. One had its bumper torn off, and the other got a dent in its door. There was traffic chaos. Two police cars arrived and started directing traffic round the scene. My illusions were temporarily shattered. There is so much traffic here, so many cars, so much tootling of the horn (as they say in Chinese translations), so many underpasses and overpasses, so much swapping lanes and ignoring red lights and zebra crossings and general mad driving, that for the first day being a passenger is horrifying - and yet you quickly start feeling safe and secure because actually, everyone does seem to know what they're doing after all - and therefore there must be no such thing as accidents. So to see an accident after only a week - it was like finding out that Santa Claus isn't real when you're only 18 months old. Reassuringly though, S said it was the first one he'd seen since he'd been here.

Exercise Regime

I have had more exercise today than in the whole of the last year. We went for a bike ride this morning, admittedly only round the estate, but it still lasted an hour. We then came back and collected the tennis rackets, and played tennis for two hours. This was not perhaps quite as strenuous as it sounds, as D and J took it in turns to 'play', while the one who wasn't playing acted as ball boy. This really just involved me hitting the ball gently over the net to J (who had never held a tennis racket in her life before) and then waiting for D to retrieve it, or me hitting the ball slightly harder over the net to D, and then waiting for J to retrieve it. Nevertheless, it was sunny and very warm (at least 20 degrees I'd guess), and I did at least do a bit of running around. We then rode home, and walked to the restaurant for a fruit platter and a cafe au lait (a 30 minute round trip). The waitress greets us by name now.