Missing presumed useless

There are many strange things to be seen in Shanghai, and I have written about many of them already. What is just as interesting though, are the things you DON’T see. As I have said before, there are 15 million people living in Shanghai. How come I have never seen a skip, a bin-man, or even a rubbish bin? Where do all these people put their rubbish? I don’t even know where our rubbish goes. We put it all in miniature black bags, such as you might line a pedal bin with. Several times a day, the Ayi takes it to the end of the drive and leaves it under a tree. Then it just disappears. You might think then, that the streets of Shanghai would be lined with a daily quota of at least 10 million tiny little bin bags, all stacked up under trees, waiting to magically disappear. But they aren’t.

Cotton wool balls. They’re something else that don’t exist here. I spent at least a month looking for them, and in the end realized that the only alternative available was those little flat white cotton discs. I think it must be a question of space. There is no space in Shanghai, and certainly no space for ridiculously enormous cloud-like bags of puffy cotton wool, when it is obviously far more sensible to compress them and flatten them to the depth of 1mm and then put them in a tube. And caravans. Not a single caravan. I suppose that living in a space of 8ft by 15ft, cooking on two rings, sleeping on a plywood mattress and swaying in the wind loses some of its appeal when you live like that normally anyway. Granted, if you were at home, you would be doing it on the 29th floor, but at least you don’t have to trek across a field to go to the toilet.

And roundabouts. Plenty of zebra crossings (to be ignored), traffic lights (to be ignored), and road junctions (to be ignored), but no roundabouts. Although, having said that, I did see one tiny roundabout here once. It was in the middle of the extremely complicated car park of the Regal International Hotel. I can only imagine that someone in Hotel Planning (Car Parks Division) had recently watched a TV program on Milton Keynes, and decided that installing a roundabout might be a good way of making the British feel at home. Charley drove straight over it.

Blowing hot and cold

On Friday, the temperature dropped by 10 degrees and stayed like it all through the weekend. This dramatic fall opened up a whole new world that I’d just about forgotten – the world of ‘outside’. It has been bliss. On Saturday morning, with the temperature standing at 30 degrees, we went for a bike ride, played tennis for a whole hour, and sat in the garden for two hours. We had lunch in the pub, sitting outside. And on Saturday afternoon, the water in the swimming pool actually felt cold, instead of being at bath temperature like it normally is. And then after tea, we sat outside again, a cool, dark, peaceful evening, with nothing to break the silence except the chirping of the crickets in the trees, the croaking of the frogs by the pond, and the roar of the Boeing 737s skimming the roof on their final descent towards Hongqiao airport (4 miles away and busier than Manchester). Heaven.

Apparently though, with it still being August, this is just a blip, and temperatures are back up to normal today. Still, come September when temperatures really do drop into the high twenties, we should have at least three months before we need to figure out how to make the air conditioning units blow hot air.

Car chaos

Charley, perhaps unsurprisingly, is very keen on cars generally. I don’t know for sure how in-depth his knowledge goes, he certainly doesn’t seem to have taken any advanced driving courses (or even any basic driving courses now I come to think about it), but he is always thrilled to see an unusual car make on Shanghai’s streets. Apparently, import duty on cars here is extortionate, resulting in practically every car on the road being either a Volkswagen Santana (as made by Shanghai Volkswagen), or a Buick of some sort (as made by Shanghai General Motors). BMWs for example, are even more expensive here than they are in England. So, looking out for cars that aren’t either VWs or Buicks is how we pass many an hour sitting in traffic jams. Spotting such cars means the spotter has to shout out, as loudly as possible, the car manufacturer’s name. If at all possible, it is normal to prefix the car manufacturer’s name with a very excited, high-pitched, Chinese “oooooooooh!”

Sometimes, when Charley wins this little game, it is immediately obvious what car he has seen. “Ooooooooooh – Toyota!!” he shrieks, and nobody has any problem with that, even though Toyota is said (obviously) with a Chinese accent, and with the third syllable accentuated - Toy-oh-TAH! - rather than the second - Toy-OH-ta, as we would say it in English. But, as you can imagine, it is not always so straightforward.

“Ooooooooh – Bee em dabble you!” as a starter for 10 was not too bad. “Mer shady bans” was a little trickier. “Fur rarry” (pronouncing the 'rarry' to rhyme with ‘Larry’) took a bit longer to work out. “Oooooooh – shitty ron!!” was somewhat surprising when it first appeared out the blue. But I think the best one was “Louser Lacer”. This came out in conversation rather than in the car spotting game, so I didn't even have the car itself to look at to give me a clue. It had me completely stumped, and ended up with Charley having to draw the badge so I could work out what he was talking about. It turned out to be Rolls Royce.

Charley and the dirty water

Wy-deelen is a word we learnt recently. It is a term (we think) used to describe anyone from China, but not from Shanghai. This covers anyone from a wealthy Beijing businessman here in Shanghai in his Mercedes (usually to be found parked at the edge of one of the freeways in the rush-hour, receiving his ticket from a traffic policeman - only Shanghai-registered cars are allowed on the freeways during rush-hour) to the 3 million migrants that have descended on Shanghai having heard that the streets are paved with gold. These people are usually found, with their extended families, dirty and sad and wearing pyjamas, queuing at bus stops, with their pink gingham suitcases. Sometimes, they can be seen riding their rusting bikes, often towing a pile of empty plastic containers. Charley is somehow able to identify a wy-deelen from a mile off, and his dislike for them is undisguised. The only reason I can find from him is that they have two or three children – no doubt a contentious issue for the law-abiding families that only have one child. The fine for having a second child when you’re not supposed to (certain families are exempt) is three times your annual income. For the average hard-working, gainfully-employed man like Charley, that amount of money would be impossible to find. For rural peasants, whose annual income may be £40 if they’re lucky, I assume that the amount is just as impossible to find, but the chances of anyone bothering to try and collect it are remote.

With this in mind then, one of Charley’s favourite pastimes (much to our horror I might add) becomes possible whenever it rains. When it rains in Shanghai, it really rains, throws it down, and all the cyclists put on their brightly-coloured cagools. These are hopeless though, useless at protecting them from the deluge of rain coming down and the dirty water splashing up, and just as useless at hiding their roots – wy-deelen or Shanghainese. Charley hunches over the steering wheel, and carefully adjusting his speed with a skill not normally apparent in any other of his driving activities, he waits for his wy-deelen victim to be perfectly positioned next to a pot-hole, at which point he aims right for the pot-hole, speeds up and completely covers the wy-deelen with around 10 gallons of dirty Shanghai road-water. Laughing manically, he carries on in search of his next victim, who could equally innocently be standing at a bus-stop.

But, living in a country of yin and yang, I was not surprised one recent morning when Charley arrived, telling a very sorry tale. Apparently, on his way home the previous evening in the rain, he had inadvertently driven into a pot-hole (or possibly a ditch, who knows) approximately 2 feet deep, full of water. The car had got stuck to such a degree that the passenger footwell even flooded with dirty rainwater. A group of wy-deelens kindly helped to somehow lift and push the car out of the hole. Ironic, I thought to myself, considering the only reason he was probably in the pothole in the first place was for the purpose of giving those same wy-deelens a good soaking.

Feet Treat

We paid another visit to the Pearl Restaurant at the weekend. You may remember this restaurant, it’s the extremely Chinese restaurant at the end of our road, the one where J ate chicken’s feet, and my bag gets a chair of its own. (In fact, on this occasion, it not only got a chair of its own, but also got carefully covered up by a napkin. Whether this was because they didn’t trust us to keep food under control with our chopsticks, or whether they realized that despite the Gucci label, my bag was in fact a £2 fake from XiangYang Market, I wasn’t able to work out).

J was very excited, keen to demonstrate her culinary bravery to our American friends by sucking on some more chicken’s feet. You can only imagine her disappointment when the waiter sadly shook his head and regretfully advised that the chicken’s feet were off, as it were. Still, J was undeterred and decided to pick some other disgusting option. Overwhelmed by the choices, she decided it best to continue with the feet theme, and, in the interests of balance, she also decided to order two of them, which meant one for her and luckily, one for me too.

I was a bit surprised when the feet eventually arrived. A chicken’s foot is about the size of a golf ball. These feet were nearer the size of rugby balls. And, interestingly, were floating in gravy. I have never seen gravy here before, and certainly never with a foot in it. Just as curiously, the waiter rushed over to me at this point with a knife and fork. Presumably they think we always use a knife and fork to eat feet. Or maybe he just didn’t think I would be able to pick it up with my chopsticks. (I should point out here that when you have mastered the art of chopsticks, including picking up things like peanuts, grains of rice and lychees, the next big challenge is to do what the Chinese people do, and eat a KFC chicken wing using them. Try it.) Anyway, I made a start on the still-attached webbing with my knife and fork, but it was hopeless (a bit like carving a spare rib), so I gave in, picked it up and ate it with my fingers.

You may have noticed by now that I haven’t actually said what the feet originally belonged to. This is because I don’t know what the feet originally belonged to. They tasted like turkey, but we didn’t think turkeys have webbed feet, so can only assume they were duck. I didn’t think ducks had such big feet, but then I suppose I never really thought about it before.

And so, I ate all my foot, webbing too, and it was surprisingly tasty. And then they came round and put boiled rice in the gravy, so I ate all that too. And J? Well, she pretended it was ET’s hand for a while (when held upside down, it did bear a strong resemblance), she pretended it was a strange growth coming out of her forehead, and she even made it do a little one-footed dance. Oh, and she ate it as well.

Clearly one to watch

One of the hurdles to be overcome by the people in the copied DVD business is the production of the sleeve. You know yourself that when you pick up a DVD with a vague idea of either renting it or buying it, the first thing you do is turn the box over and read what it says on the back. A good cover is therefore of paramount importance, even when the customer is only spending 80p. The standard layout of plot synopsis, plus a few one line extracts of glowing reviews (where available), can be a major stumbling block when the person producing the counterfeit cover doesn’t even know what the film is about, simply because they don’t speak English.

The solution is, as always, on the internet. The graphic designer does a search on the film title, and the results of the search go on the DVD’s sleeve. The front of the sleeve is usually just the film’s promotional poster and does not therefore cause too many problems. The back is a little trickier. For our hapless Chinese-speaking member of staff, finding some words is very difficult. Finding the right words is just about impossible. Nevertheless, he presses on undeterred, the only method available to him being a simple, but entirely random, cut and paste. As a result of this rather haphazard process, there are covers emblazoned with completely inappropriate reviews, such as “Watching this film was the most tedious 98 minutes I have ever spent”. Sometimes the reviews and plot summary on the cover belong to a completely different film altogether - “Bruce Willis takes departure role in chilling paranormal thriller about a boy stalked by dead people” on the back of Sense and Sensibility.

With this minefield then, you cannot fail to be impressed when you come across a cover that is actually relevant to the film. But then, when you realise that someone involved has not only watched the film, but actually written the review themselves….well, that takes some beating.

Here then, in all its glory, is the review for the Alfred Hitchcock classic “Rebecca”, reproduced faithfully as it appears on the back of the DVD.

‘The film is according to adapted from the novel named Lubuka that it was wrote by Dafne du Moler. A lady arrived Monte Carlo, she met very rich man named Michaeh, they loved each other, soon they got married Everyone knew that Michaeh’s first wife named Lubuka died for the ship was sank last year; Michaeh still thought of her because of her dead, newlywed got to Michaeh’s datcha in Mandli, They met the housekeeper who was Mrs Danfus, Mrs Danfus told that Labuka to all people in Mandli still contained dint of a kind of fancy control…’

The clue is in the question

I see ‘Lost’ is about to start on British TV. Thanks to our local DVD shop, we have already watched all 25 episodes of the First Season. I have to admit we were hooked from beginning to end. Was it good? Am I glad I watched it? Will it have the whole of the UK gripped? When will Season 2 be here on DVD? Will I be watching Season 2?

Hands that do dishes (and floors)

I knew that B’s arrival would open our eyes once again to things we had stopped noticing. So far though, the only thing he has really noticed is that the Ayi wrings her mop out with her hands. So today in Carrefour, I bought her a state of the art of the art mop bucket, complete with 4 little wheels and a mop wringer. While his powers of observation have not exactly left me stunned, I’m sure the Ayi is extremely impressed.

Mentioning the unmentionable

The time has come to talk about something unpleasant. Readers of a more delicate disposition may wish to leave now – before the going, as it were, gets really rough.

We were in Mr Donut on Huaihai Lu the other day, enjoying free American Drip Coffee refills, and fluorescent pink donuts, when J returned from a visit to the toilet. She fairly ran to our table in her excitement, hair flying and eyes sparkling. “The toilets in here are really NICE!!!” she exclaimed. I looked at her sadly, and wondered where it had all gone wrong.

A friend of mine once told me the sad story of how the weak bladders of his wife and three daughters had ultimately resulted in him having to sell his caravan. Their home was near Blackpool, and on any journey South, their first toilet stop was Knutsford Services, a mere 45 minutes down the M6. With comfort breaks of these frequencies, a trip to Cornwall could take the best part of 3 days. Holidays became journey-planning exercises dominated by finding suitable toilets at intervals of no more than 20 miles. In the end, the poor man gave up and took himself and his Swift Challenger to his local We Buy Caravans for Cash dealer. I nodded sympathetically during the telling of this tale, while secretly congratulating myself on the robust waterworks of my own children. We could travel from Middlewich to Scotland towing two jet-skis without the thought of a toilet even crossing anyone’s mind. I firmly believe there was no element of luck in this, no fortuitous bladder gene involved, it was entirely down to my own exacting toilet-training methods, 15 years, 10 years and 6 years ago respectively – namely – Pampers firmly in place until the age of 2¾, then no messing about with potties – it was straight onto the toilet, where they would sink slowly into the bowl, hanging grimly onto the sides to prevent themselves from falling in completely. Thus, in this position, with their little knees wedged firmly under their chin, they learnt to survive, they learnt to take responsibility for their own toilet fate, and both they and I avoided the dreaded toilet interrogation that seemed to dominate my own childhood.
Mother: (immediately before the start of any journey expected to take longer than 10 minutes) Have you been to the toilet?
Me/brother: Yes I have.
Mother: When?
Me/brother: When I got up.
Mother: Well, you should go again.
Me/brother: But I don’t need to go again.
Mother: Well, you should still go again, it’s a long journey.
Me/brother: But I don’t need to go again.
Mother: Well, you should still go again.
Repeat ad infinitum, until brother/I gave in and went again.

However, all my determination not to let toilets become this sort of life obsession now seems to have gone to waste, no pun intended, due to the appalling state of Chinese toilets and the strange toilet habits of Chinese people.

Even though toilets have been around in China since 24AD (a toilet with running water, stone seat and comfy armrests was apparently discovered in the tomb of a Chinese king of the Western Han Dynasty), toilets as we know them were not widely available until very recently. In fact, they still aren’t that widely available now. The vast majority of toilets in public places (shopping malls, trains, cafes, and incredibly, even our local KFC) are simply toilet bowls in the floor – squat toilets. Even the toilet (a squat toilet again) at our swimming pool is in the changing room – quite literally in the changing room – not even a door on it. And again, although I have never personally witnessed it, assuming the public toilet even has a door, many people don’t even bother to shut it. This is what comes of generations of living 8 families to a room.

And so now, breaking the habits of our lifetimes, both J and I obsessively make sure we are never caught out, never desperately needing a public toilet. This is done by making sure we always go before we go anywhere, and when we do go anywhere, J now checks the toilets out as a matter of course - so we are compiling a mental list of Suitable Public Toilets.

And for a final example of the very different attitude to the toilet here in China (I have found as well that my nerve has sadly failed – conditions are far, far worse than I have been able to bring myself to describe) last weekend we had a barbecue. Two Chinese girls, friends of a friend, came along. Just before they left, they went to the toilet. Together. They went into the downstairs toilet, together. It’s because they live together, explained our friend, they live together in the same room. They’re used to it.

Confusion rains

It is now 7.30pm, and we are not entirely sure what is going on. We don’t seem to be able to tell if the typhoon has gone, or if it is here, or if it is still to come, or even if it has been cancelled altogether. Although it has poured with rain since 9.00pm last night, and both Shanghai airports have been closed all day, and next door's picnic chair blew over, it hasn’t really been as bad as we were expecting.

It is possible that part of the confusion for me stems from my ignorance of severe weather conditions. Therefore, although I knew a typhoon was coming, I was mixing up my typhoons and my tornados, and had actually been expecting a type of whirlwind to appear, Wizard of Oz style, possibly just passing by at the end of the road, perhaps even carrying a small wooden house and some reincarnation of Judy Garland along with it. But, it was not to be.

However, probably the scariest aspect for all of us was, having given Charley the day off today in anticipation of the torrential rain and howling gales, we've had to stay in all day and I had to cook breakfast, dinner and tea. I don’t think I have cooked three meals in a single day since we have been here.

Windy weather warning

We have been reliably informed by both the Shanghai Daily and BBC World that a typhoon is on its way, and is due to arrive in Shanghai just after breakfast tomorrow morning. Apparently, there will be winds of 200kph and widespread flooding. Never before having encountered anything stronger than a stiff breeze, we are not entirely sure how to prepare for this. We have brought in the parasol from the roof garden, put the paddling pool in the garage and charged up the video camera. I'm not sure quite what will happen to the houses up the road that are made out of planks of wood and leaves.

Good to be back

Well, dear reader, if indeed I have any readers left after this length of time, I can only apologise. I have spent the last two months reading about China, China generally and more specifically, China during the last 100 years. China was not something I learnt about at school, nor was it a country that I have ever paid any attention to since, with the result that I arrived here in March with a vague idea of where it was (somewhere North of Australia) and that was about it. For anyone who isn’t familiar with China, or its recent history, I can tell you that it is not a subject that makes for happy, light-hearted reading. In fact, it makes for extremely difficult reading, to such an extent that it coloured my whole outlook. I no longer felt I could make light of any aspect of life here.

I struggled with this for some time, until it occurred to me that the people of Shanghai have obviously put the horrors of the last century behind them, just as the people who lived through terrible times in England (two World Wars) put those nightmares behind them. Life goes on, people have to look forward instead of back, and I have to start updating my blog again.

So B finally arrived this week. Apparently, there are four distinct stages that people go through when they emigrate to another country, the first of which is Euphoria, also known as the Honeymoon Phase. As he arrived in the airport, where the temperature outside was 39 degrees, he took off his coat, looked a bit surprised, but smiled happily nonetheless. We took him to Jin Jiang Amusement Park (home to the third largest Ferris Wheel in the world), where the temperature was 42 degrees. Still he smiled happily. We went into the Arcade area (only to get a break from the heat) and played on the 1998 Sega games (Street Fighter II, Puzzle Bobble), and still he kept smiling. We walked round Carrefour and looked at the pigs' faces, and the live frogs and turtles. It was here that he also had his first experience of people stopping to stare at him. We beat off the one-legged beggar in the car park. We shook hands with 4 scruffy little boys who ran up to us in excitement shouting Wy-gwollen – nee hao!! (foreigners…hello!!). We went to the Police Station to report his arrival (visiting a Chinese Police Station is not for the faint-hearted), driving past some ramshackle huts made out of wood and leaves on the way….and still he kept smiling. I think he’s possibly seen the worse, with plenty of good things still to come. However, also still to come is the second stage (Culture Shock – also known as Irritability/Hostility, or Disintegration). I can hardly wait.