AMP Treatise

Today was team building day.

For the next term, I will work with the same 4 people on all class projects (rather than having a different group for each class, which would be a scheduling nightmare). They intentially split up all the international students so most groups have one international student (some have two now, since we have 40 foreigners).

We took a personality test and learned about team dynamics, somewhat interesting but spending all day doing it was quite tiring.

Had dinner at a Japanese place that was grossly overstaffed (12 waitresses greeted us at the door!). Now, time to study more Chinese.

Uploaded some more pictures to http://www.apaulsson.com/gallery of our orientation. It was a little weird. Supposed to be a team building workshop but felt more like kindergarten for MBA students since we spent much of the time making and sailing our boats plus making a really, really long fabric dragon.

Over the weekend and Monday, the other 120 students descended onto campus. As if learning the names of 60 people in a month wasn't hard enough, there are now another 120 people's faces who now require that I learn there names.

The first orientation day consisted of a registration in the morning, then a introduction to the administration, then a couple of speeches, followed by "cocktails."

The speech, paraphrased, went something like this, "You are the best in China, work hard, don't cheat, set an example for the rest of the country."

The "cocktails," as they were labeled, were not really cocktails at all but more like finger foods & soda. We were all expecting at least some beer and wine and were quite disappointed to find only the non-alcoholic type drinks. This was remedied by a trip to the canteen for 8RMB Tsingtaos.

We've also gotten a lot material, the most interesting of which is a student profile book that has a picture and background submitted by each student. The school had previously requested we submit 200 words and a "non-portrait" photo. But I assumed a non-portrait photo was supposed to be a fun one. So yeah, now I'm the idiot in the hat who looks like a lunatic.

This morning we had our statistics and calculus assessment test. Really not that bad at all, I thought, and so I don't expect to be taking the "remedial" course (that's that they called it! Remedial! Probably the main reason I don't want to take the course).

I'll give some more detail on the makeup of our class later. But for starters we have people from China, US, Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, North & South Korea (Yes! North! Seriously), Taiwan, Hong Kong, Guatemala, Canada, India, Ireland, Australia, and Thailand. Although, as expected, the Chinese number around 140 of our 180 person class.

Some random notes I wrote down during the trip last Monday

• The Chinese students put on music over the bus's horrible speaker system for almost the entire 4 hour bus ride. It was pure torture. Four hours of what was basically Easy Listening 101.7. Kenny G, Bryan Adams, Muzak with "Chinese Characteristics" (literally! Elevator music! That's bad enough for the 20 seconds you spend in an elevator, much less four hours). Although, I would prefer this hands down over the Chinese karaoke singing I heard a couple of weeks ago. But seriously, why Kenny G???
• Table Manners: On the way back from the waterfall the first day, it eventually ended up with the 4 international students walking all the way down (the rest cheated and took a bus), and the conversation quickly turned to the table manners of the Chinese. The Indian didn't really care because he said in India you always eat with your hands, but for the two Spanish and myself, the manners are somewhat appalling, at least initially. There really are very, very few rules regarding who to do (and not) when eating in China. Feel free to spit any bones or undesirables right onto the table, no need to even lean down, either. Many times, you simply get a little tiny bowl and thus there is no room for anything else, hence the spitting. And you can throw out all the years of "no elbows on the table" rules. Doesn't matter. Smoke whenever you want and feel free to hawk loogies on the floor, too, especially if you're inside! What's funny is, you find yourself adopting these mannerisms and when I go back to the States, everyone will be horrified, so you've been duly warned. Yes, I expect to get thrown out of the house during Christmas at home.
• After the 4 hours on the bus, then the 4-5 hour hike up to the waterfall, we finally made it back around 5:30 for dinner. Siddhartha immediately retrieved an armful of beer and before I knew it, I was being toasted individually by every student. The odds were NOT in our favor. 3 drinking internationals and 25 toasting Chinese. And they don't just want to toast, either. "Chug with me! We finish bottle!" Oh god. It was a drinking fiesta, one which Eduardo did not survive. I did, however, "gain much face" by drinking 8, 9 or 10 750ml bottles of beer, besting the nearest Chinese student by double. But they were relentless so this wasn't really my choice! I literally had to hide at points.
• After a while, a fire was started and soon thereafter, and I have no idea if this is common or not, a congo line around the fire. Another couple of hours and everyone was taking turns jumping over the fire. But, they did this in a kind of limbo/jumping hybrid style. They'd sort of limbo up to the fire under some sort of imaginary limbo bar then take a leap of faith. Leg hairs were singed. I can't remember if I participated in this activity.
• The Redneck Chinese Jetski Boats. Of Death. On Tuesday, after the 300 meter climb, they had these insane boats and drivers. You got in, while the driver was shoveling water out of the boat, put a death grip on the side handles, and before you know it, the driver is careening around the lake turning so often and fast the boat nearly becomes vertical.
• And of the 25 or so names I learned on the trip, I have now forgotten them all. Awesome.
• Chinese Breakfast: They simply just do NOT understand the western concept of breakfast, which is to say something different than you'd normally have from lunch and dinner. Nope, its the same things you eat during the rest of the day, rice, rice porridge, beef, fish, vegetables. This is perhaps, next to rural toilets, the worst part of daily life in China. Thank you Carrefour for your selection of international cereals.

Just now, we came back from an all you can eat Australian BBQ. It was heaven. 80RMB (US$10) for sirloin steak, filet mignon, sausages, chicken, ribeye steaks, lamb chops, and vegetables. Oh, and that included one free drink. Of course, these are no NY Steakhouse cuts, but hell, you have to be thankful for getting any meat that is too big to hold with chopsticks here.

Not that I'm really complaining, because it really is great here. Just... ah... different.

Oh, and I think I'm now used to coming within inches of my life during every cab ride. I've even started to goad drivers to go faster. This will probably be my undoing.

One more thing! At Lion's Bar, a small little pub-like place near the school and our new favorite place, we were introduced to a new and apparently very typical Chinese drink. Chivas Regal mixed with bottled green tea and ice. It was actually pretty damn good, give it a shot if you're adventerous and can find bottled green tea. Or if you're just an alcoholic looking to introduce more antioxidants into your diet.

Ok, stop reading here. I kinda messed up the posting order of the pictures here. So skip down to the picture with an Indian guy in a blue shirt dancing in the aisle of a bus. When you get to the bottom of that, return here.

The ancient fisherman's village and monument... place. Featuring many statues, chinese characters, and an unexpected 300 meter climb up the mountain. Actually, everything on this trip was unexpected since we weren't really told the agenda and we didn't bother to really ask.

This village was a monument to a fisherman. Basically, the legend is this, a fisherman and his buddy were childhool friends. Then the buddy went onto to be emporer and invited his fisherman friend to come and help him run China. The fisherman refused because he said he would rather fish. And, um, that's it. Not sure if we four international students were missing something or whether its really that simple.

This was the starting point for a climb up 300 vertical meters, with stone statues stone slabs covered in chinese characters. Most of them were famous poets during various times in Chinese history.

I particularly like this photo, not only because its cool, but if you look at the figure on the left, I will dare you not to see the striking resemblance of his facial features to a generic Simpons' character!

By no means the official name, at this site excursion they were giving boat rides. And by boat rides I mean Redneck Chinese Jetski Boat Rides. Of Death. Seriously, if you imported a family of back water US southerners here, with in weeks, I bet this is exactly what they'd be doing!

These boats went nearly vertical. I really don't know how they stayed afloat, but a telling sign was watching the driver pour out bucket after bucket of water between leisurely cruises.

I don't know where the hair dryer came from, but it was heavily used as most people got unexpectedly soaked.

Don't know who this guy is but he has a fishing pole and a couple of fish, and some scavenging birds next to him so I will go out on a limb here and say he's some sort of fisherman.

The end of our second day excursion and the barely sea worthy craft we were on. Many tired faces here, and after stopping for lunch, everyone but me fell asleep on the way back home. So, of course, I was forced to write on all their faces in permanent marker.

After being twenty minutes late, and also the only person late, for the 7:30 bus departure from CEIBS, Siddhartha was forced to dance in the aisles to cheesy Chinese pop music. If that had been me, they would probably have thrown me from the bus into oncoming traffic.

This is our "hotel" and was not that bad, bathrooms aside. They definitely packed the rooms in upstairs and trying to find your bed while drunk was like playing blindfolded hide-and-seek.

After the four+ hour bus ride, we finally arrived for lunch, which in China, is never a ham and cheese sandwich. On the menu was chicken soup (not the kind you're thinking, basically a whole boiled chicken in some flavored water), snails, a whole fresh fish, pork, tofu, soy beans, and spicy beef. And, of course, the ever present chinese sticky white rice, which despite having all the time has not gotten old. I've actually started looking forward to it, except for breakfast, which is a whole other issue.

After lunch we headed out. Destination: Unknown. I just followed everyone else and hoped it wasn't to some "burning of the foreigners" ritual no one had warned us about. And I know what you're thinking. No, that bridge definitely was NOT confidence inspiring. And it didn't help when people started jumping up and down on it in what I could only view as a preview of the foreigner burning ritual.

A giant character carved in the side of this mountain and it means "dragon." Or so I was told.

On the hike, we were frequently crossing a stream over and over. The water was relatively devoid of life, though, and I don't know why. Aside from the bamboo and with a little bit of imagination, this place could have been the Appalachian mountains. This was actually a little surprising to me since I expected a lot more "Wow, what the hell is that??" moments.

What I'm guessing was the goal of our hike up the mountain, but I have no idea since no one told us anything! And it wasn't as much a waterfall as it was a really, really steep stream. And unfortunately, no one provided comic relief by falling in the water. It was actually a really nice place and hike.

Someone managed to scale the rock walls near the waterfall and pick these flowers, although I have no idea what kind they are. He then gave it to the Spanish girl in our group, who, proceeded to be quite embarrassed, especially after everyone started a "Give him a kiss!" chant.

Dinner after our long day travelling and walking. We dined al fresco. I actually managed to take this photo before we devoured it, finally. There is duck soup, basically a whole duck boiled in some water and not taken apart or anything. This requires immense chopstick skills to eat from. Also, frog, sweet cucumbers, young bamboo, whole freshwater fish, that stupid green spinachy stuff that I eat every damn day now, two types of pork, and tofu. The frog was kind of like a mix between chicken and fish, more flaky in texture than chicken, but the flavor was a little bit of both. Anyway, I didn't go hungry.

This was the toast that caused the ensuing 5 hours of crazy chinese partying. You can see these beer bottles are closer to our American "40z" than our 12oz bottles in size. If, also, not in taste but far, far more cheap. 3RMB per 700ml bottle, which works out to 40 cents or so.

There were three puppies roaming around the place. Strangely, there were no mommy or daddy dogs. I'll let you make your own conclusions.

This is where it went all wrong for Eduardo. Cigar in mouth, he was tipping the jar to get every last bit of the homemade "wine" in the jar. It wasn't really wine, but more along the lines of moonshine grain alcohol. He spent the next 2 hours in the bushes swearing.

Our party provided all night entertainment for the villagers of this very small area. I guess they hadn't seen 25 drunk chinese and international students in a while. A fair trade for the good they served, though! Now, I just hope they didn't also give us the gift of dysentery, hepatitis A, or japanese encyphalitis.

Half of the group (the cooler half!) at Tuesday's Dinner at Little Sheep after we got back to Shanghai.

Dinner was at "Little Sheep" a chain restaurant originating in Inner Mongolia and specializing in what they call hot pot and pretty popular all over China. You basically have a heated pot of boiling water and aromatics (garlic, onions, and other weird unidentifiable things). Ours happened to be split in two, a mild side and a hot side. And yes, the red on the left side is all chili peppers. You then order a variety of raw foods, then cook them yourselves in the boiling soup. Our featured dish was pig brain, which wasn't half bad!

The Nanpu Bridge I've mentioned earlier. You can see the multiple cork screws as it winds down to near ground level. It is a lot of fun, for a bridge, I mean.

All is not rosy in the Middle Kingdom.

Land of 74,000 Protests (but Little Is Ever Fixed) - New York Times

Just got back from Baiyunyuan in Zhejiang province, about 4 hours by bus from Shanghai. Stories and photos to come, but my online gallery is giving me trouble at the moment.

Meanwhile, this video is awesome.

Octopus Eats Shark

I went to O'Malley's Irish Pub tonight to go watch the F1 race from Istanbul, Turkey. Nice place, outside, decent TV, and bunch of people interested in the race. Something I would never find in the US. Also, no longer to I have to get up at 7am to watch the race, but I can have a beer and dinner, instead. Anyway, an Australian guy next to me left about halfway through since his man Mark Webber was having a disasterous race, again. He gave me his raffle ticket and off he went. You can probably see where this is going. In the end, I went home with a 1:6 scale Foster's brand remote control F1 car! Its huge. I now have an excuse to get a bigger apartment.

Ben and I went to the mother of all retail stores yesterday, good old American Walmart. I've only been to this fine institution once or twice in the US and I'm not a particularly big fan, but damn, I'm in the People's Republic of China and little bit of home isn't something to be scoffed at. We arrived with no particular items in mind to buy but with more of a relaxing stroll through a capitalist institution. My anticipation couldn't have been more wrong. It was like Black Friday the day after Thanksgiving. Throngs of Chinese super consumers were running around the place and of particular interest was winter coats, for some reason. It was difficult simply to navigate the shopping cart around. So much for a relaxing stroll. I'm surprised that only 45 people were injured at the grand opening 3 weeks ago. And this place is at least twice the size of Carrefour. It's basically two Carrefours on top of each other. The line for rotisserie chickens was wrapped around the hot food counter. I've really seen nothing like it in my entire life. I ended up leaving with the ingredients for a good ham and cheese sandwich, some cleaning supplies, and some granny smith apples. Outside it was pure chaos. Most places like this would have a cab stand outside so there wouldn't be mobs of people wandering around trying to find taxis and clogging up the street, which is exactly what happened. By the time we made it home, we were exhausted. From going to Walmart. How depressing is that????

After dinner.

The xiaojies and us at hometown restaurant.

Later the same night at Latina for Big Tony's birthday.

We went to what is known as "the village" last night. At the entrance of CEIBS, if you make a right, you go to Carrefour, the Ramada Pudong, and various other modern developments. Basically, modern life. However, if you make a left out of the school, you walk 20 years back in China's history and into a cramped, old village that is probably far older than anything surrounding it. It's dirty and the people in general are quite poor. This isn't to be confused with what we'd call the "ghetto" in the US since it isn't crime ridden or a drug den or anything like that, "just" poor. They don't get many waiguoren (foreinger) here at all, if any. We had heard that they have some small food stands, where food was cheap and good.

So I gathered up a two international students and a Chinese student (since, you know, he speaks Mandarin and all that) and off we went. There are bicycles everywhere here and after a couple wrong turns we found the food street and although it didn't exactly LOOK that great, it smelled great. But really, it was mostly pretty basic food. Roasted chicken, dumplings, noodles, and vegetables. In a way, I was expecting live chickens in cages and thinks of that sort, but as far as I could see, none of that. Not sure if I can say I was disappointed or not.

Regardless, we didn't eat there (I can hear my mother's sigh of relief from here). Our Chinese friend was a little sketched out and after talking to a local, there was a apparently a famous place on the east edge (famous in the village, at least). Meanwhile, I'm really getting stared at, despite my attempt to conceal my blond hair with a hat. Foreigners aren't THAT big a deal, but being seen in that village must have been a rare occurence.

We find the "Hometown Restaurant" and soon, we have beers and dishes are on the way. First up, roasted duck tongue. It was wonderful. Really! It wasn't just the tongue either, more like the whole lower jaw. But China is no place to be squeamish. In this case, I was rewarded for my adventurousness. I'd heard of this before because its apparently the equivalent of popcorn and nuts at US bars. But I was envisioning just the actual tongue, not the entire lower *beak*.

The rest of our order consisted of a cold spicy tofu dish, stir fried beef with hot green peppers, sliced potatoes, green peppers, and red chili dish, ox intestine soup, salted & steamed chicken, a duck, garlic, and potato dish, a whole steamed trout, and one or two more that I can't remember now. Except for the intestine, which didn't taste bad but the texture just got to me, everything was good. All that, plus eight liters of Tsingtao, cost us 40 kuai (the slang term for renminbi) or about US$5 each.

The xiaojies (waitress) came over near the end of the meal and started to talking to us while our Chinese friend translated. We were told that we were the first foreigners ever to eat in that restaurant, so of course, photos were in order. And I'm not quite sure how this last part happened, but we suddenly also had 4 mobile phone numbers. Yeah, so China isn't too bad.

15. "Pretty Woman" - "I Will Marry a Prostitute to Save Money"

14. "Face/Off" - "Who Is Face Belonging To? I Kill You Again,
Harder!"

13. "Leaving Las Vegas" - "I'm Drunk And You're a Prostitute"

12. "Interview With The Vampire" - "So, You Are a Lawyer?"

11. "The Piano" - "Ungrateful Adulteress! I Chop Off Your
Finger!"

10. "My Best Friend's Wedding" - "Help! My Pretend Boyfriend
Is Gay!"

9. "George of the Jungle" - "Big Dumb Monkey-Man Keeps
Whacking Tree With Genitals"

8. "Scent of a Woman" - "Great Buddha! I Can Smell You From
Afar! Take a Bath, Will You?!"

7. "Love, Valour, Compassion!" - "I Am That Guy From Seinfeld
So It's Acceptable for Straight People to Enjoy This Gay
Movie"

6. "Babe" - "The Happy Dumpling-to-be Who Talks And Solves
Agricultural Problems"

5. "Twister" - "Run! Ruuunnnn! Cloudzillaaaaa!"

4. "Field of Dreams" - "Imaginary Dead Baseball Players Live
in My Cornfield"

3. "Barb Wire" - "Delicate Orbs of Womanhood Bigger Than Your
Head Can Hurt You"

2. "Batman & Robin" - "Come to My Cave and Wear This Rubber
Codpiece, Cute Boy"

1. "The Crying Game" - "Oh No! My Girlfriend Has a Penis!"

The min-keg of carlsberg. Cost: US$14!

The typhoon crew.

The celebration of a successful pilfuring.

The singing Italian! Very moving.

Saturday at Park 97.

In the distance on the left you can see part of the Nanpu bridge. Unfortunately, it's too far to see the corkscrew.

Daytime photo of Puxi taken from Jimme's apt in Pudong.

Night shot, you can see a boat on the bottom left. The Shanghai obssession with putting lights on any and everything does indeed include seafaring vessels.

In the middle-left of this picture you can see what I can only assume are temples that are covered in lights (but being Shanghai, they could just as likely be a mall). I haven't been there yet but it is now on my list.

Another from Jimme's sick apartment.

I've noticed lots of peculiarities in China but by the time I get back and remember to write them down, I've mostly forgotten them. So Friday night, when I went out I took a small notepad and pen so that I could actually remember them. So far, I don't think what I've written has really shown how strange it can be here sometimes so hopefully these note will somewhat remedy that.

In the taxi coming from pudong (literally West of the River and Puxi, East of the River and the far older and more traditional Shanghai), along the highway, you can see the Pearl Orient Tower and other pudong buildings and tonight, the clouds where just about at the level of the top of the Jian Mao tower. There is so much light coming from Puxi and that area of Pudong that the clouds literally look white as day.

As opposed to NYC, lots of people will sit in the front seat of the taxi when they're by themselves. I think this is because taxi drivers love to talk to people and riders just find this easier to do from the front. We try to talk to the drivers but usually they do more laughing at us than talking so it can be a fruitless endeavor. Actually, I find this a lot. When ever I throw out some Chinese (or Putonghua, the common language) people always laugh. One girl told me I have a "cute accent." How I can even have an accent with my vocabulary of 100 words baffles me.

The Nanpu Bridge rocks! You can see it some of my pictures that I'll post up but the most interesting part is the "off ramp." When the bridge reaches the Puxi side of the river, it is quite high up and instead of making a long gradual slope down to the ground, since space is at a premium in that area, it corkscrews down. Someone described it is as "feels like you're being flushed down a toilet. " You can go down three full revolutions. It really is cool. And the view from it is awesome, too.

Cab interiors are a little strange. Once you've released your death grip on the handles and managed to relax from all the close calls and frantic and chaotic driving you start to notice the oddities. First, many cabs have a little message saying welcome to the cab, etc., in Chinese and English. What's funny is they tell you to put your seatbelt on, but when you look over, you find that it has been embedded a good six inches behind the seat and no amount of pulling will free it. These were definitely not intended to be used. They are this way, I think, because all the seats have this white fitted seat covering and in the process of installing it they just jam them back there. Oh, and "drunks and schizophrenics may not travel alone and must be accompanied by someone else." I would really like to hear the story that lead to them putting this message in the cabs. Finally, the driver sits in this plexiglass shell barrier. And all the taxis are VW Santanas, very similar to the VW Fox the US used to have. But we did get a Mercedes Benz E-class the other day, THAT was nice.

They have TVs in the buses! Which, by the way, always seem to be crammed with 40 more people than they were designed to take.

In the cab, I noticed an electronic decibel meter on the side of the street. I assume this is supposed to make people conscious of the noise level and try and reduce it. However, the result is that everyone honks in order to see how high it will go. At the time, it was 71db.

The Chinese LOVE watermelon here. They sell it everywhere and our fridge downstairs is always full of them.

After finally waking up on Sunday August 7th, I ventured to the Carrefour in search of lunch and necessities. Underneath the Carrefour, there is a place called Mega-Bite, basically like a little food court but its all local food (ie no chain restaurants like US food courts). I was almost tempted to get KFC across from the Mega-Bite until I noticed no where on its signage did it actually say KFC anywhere. But the picture of Colonel Sanders was there (or it is an intentional likeness). So i got some dumplings but these mofo's were big and filled with juice, which means I ended up with more of it on my shirt than in my mouth. I'm sure the locals got quite a kick out of me that day. But for $1.20 this is quite the value. I just need to adjust my technique.

Upstairs shopping, nothing too exciting, aside from the $10 Absolut Vodka. What was strange about my shopping experience, and maybe word had gotten around about my debacle downstairs, was that many of the Chinese shoppers were absolutely fascinated with what was in my cart. Really, it was pretty weird walking down an aisle and people passing me would lean their heads down and do a quick visual examination of what I had picked up. I don't know if this was sheer curiosity or if they would see my vodka and then go running off to pick some up themselves. I was tempted to test this theory by stocking my cart exclusively with tampons but I didn't have the patience for the level of commitment this comedy would require. Perhaps next time.

And the worst of this was when I finally finished I was queued up for the cash register (of which there are 60!!! And there was still lines!) and the couple in front of me turned around and started point at individual items and having some sort of grand debate about each one. I really wished I could understand them at that point.

The following Tuesday, all the international students were invited to a Sichuanese restaurant (and this isn't your US Sichuanese) for dinner. The Dean is a very smart person, and he let us know it, literally. He started talking to us (there were 2 tables, I was at the table he was seated) and among the first things he said was that he was the best English student at the universities he attended, he had the highest GMAT and TOEFL scores, etc. I'm not sure if this is because its a Chinese thing to do, or to prove to us he was qualified to be our Dean, or just a little bragging.

Food was served on a Lazy Susan (one of those round, spinny things in the middle of the table where all the food goes), and they do NOT mess around with there spices. One dish that was chicken and peppars had MORE peppars than chicken! Even the SOUP was spicy. I was really looking forward to a break and to cool my mouth down, as I'm a glutton for punishment when it comes to spicy food, and I dig into the soup only to find it is not intended to be a break from spiciness but just as spicy as everything else. Thank god for cold beer.

Some of us headed to Latina (in the same complex) for after dinner drinks. Here we were treated to an Italian classmate, decked out in a white shirt and white pants, going up on the stage and singing U2's With or Without You. Great fun.

sichuanese. spicy. politics. latina and philippino band, antonio dancing.

Saturday August 6th, typhoon Matsa was relentless. Pretty much no reason to leave my room and watched some Scrubs, Family Guy, and Arrested Development. Eventually, however, I had to get out, especially considering the chairs provided in the rooms might as well be called Iron Maidens. Met up with Elise and we ordered Papa John's pizza which, although a little cold, was really just as good as it is in the US. Eduardo joined us, hurting severely from the night before. This guy is a professional student! He's got engineering degrees in Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Systems Engineering. Then he decided he don't want to be an engineer anymore. Oops!

After the last of my Budweisers (yes, I still drink Bud occasionally here!) we headed over the the canteen to get 5RMB Steinlager beers (60 cents US!). Unforunately, Siddhartha had beat us too it and cleaned out all five beers they had on hand. Sign of the devil #1. Don't let his religious Indian name fool you.

Under the covered walkways the typhoon still managed to get us. And trees had fallen down all over campus. "Let's go to John's Pub!" says Siddhartha. Brilliant. This place is close enough to walk and he suggested just that. He was loving this typhoon because it reminded him of home. Sign of the devil #2.

And before you make some snarky remarks about how we could have chosen not to follow him, we were in a particularly vunerable state. Satiated with pizza but with only two beers, we were still thirsting for some more. Also, we'd been stuck in our rooms all day. Somehow, his suggestions sounded like a pretty damn good idea.

Elise retrieved her umbrella (we all laughed at this, I've seen the New York streets littered with broken umbrellas in far less destructive storms) and off we went with another Chinese classmate, George.

Braving the storm, we did the 1km walk to the pub (I've been forced to start using metric here) only to find the inevitable, it was closed! Pouring rain we floundered about when a taxi rolls up, and in we jump and onto Latina Bar. Elise passes around tissues to dry ourselves, which is like giving a tic tac to a whale.

Let me remind you that this is all Siddhartha's doing.

We order what is essentially a keg of Carlsberg and proceed to attempt to make our insides as wet as our outsides. Siddhartha shows off his dancing moves again with the Philippino band singer, April. Eventually, after more beer, shots, and mixed drinks, they finally kick us out. Making it back to the school, we're nearly dry and Elise, Siddhartha and I walk into our dorm where Siddhartha makes left instead of going for the stairs back to our rooms. We follow him only to find him the raiding the common fridge for every single last beer. Elise and I are horrified. I don't know the exact reasoning he gave us but somehow, at the time, it all made sense and we went to my room with our recently "liberated" four carlsbers, 1 tsingtao, and one strange belgian beer. Sign of the devil #3.

Before we know it, the sun is shining. D'oh! Sign of the devil #4!!

Friday - Went to a lecture by some American Marketing Guru who has been in China for the last 10 years. Actually, it was quite interesting and I think it was funny but all the jokes he told were in Chinese so Ben and I just pretended to understand and chuckled along. After, I had plans to go and have a couple of drinks with Godwin, a fellow student from the west of China who started as a Doctor then went to pharmaceutical sales then finally ended up in IT. What a path. Oh, before you think he through away 7 years of schooling and residence, you only need a bachelors to be a doctor in China, which in a way makes sense because there is a shortage of doctors. However, I'll remember that when I need one and will go to the international hospital!

Anyway, so I just let him decide where to go (you let me know if this was a mistake or not) and we walk about 3-4 long blocks north of campus and walk into a bar. This is definitely local territory, or it would have been if anyone was actually there. "Let's go somewhere with more girls," says Godwin. Not a bad plan but at least someplace that actually has people in it, I think and then we turn and immediately exit.

Just a few "store-fronts" up, we roll into what I found out is a karaoke bar. Or more appropriately "karaoke" bar. There are about 6 girls sitting in the place as we walk in an the presence of a Westerner immediately grabs their attention. This was a good sign until I noticed that they weren't drinking or doing any of the normal things people do at a bar. They were just sitting there. Ah-ha. I now realized this was one of the trifecta of fronts for prostitution in China. Godwin and I go and sit at the 8 foot long bar and order up a pair of Heinekens. Godwin and the "Madam" start talking in Chinese and the first waves of worry wash over my face. I was hoping that this wasn't going to turn into one of the situations where a Chinese host tries to impress their guest by taking them out for a night on the town with ladies of the night.

But soon Godwin turned back to me and just started chatting as if nothing was abnormal about the situation, which for a Chinese man, I guess it was not. So what this turned into was more of a cultural viewpoint where I got to see how things "worked" in a place like this without any participation on my part. So talked about random things when about 45 minutes after being there a group of Chinese men roll in, do some negotiating with the Madam and then head straight for the first Karaoke room (there is a row of private karaoke rooms in a hallway perpedicular to the bar). All the Chinese girls get up and file into the room after them. Shortly, 3 of them return and soon enough the Chinese pop music starts up. Turning back to my beer, we continue talking about music, culture, history, and surprisingly, politics. But soon enough, I notice there there is no actual singing coming from the karaoke room, which is a mere 10 feet away. Ok, well, whatever. Now the typhoon really starts and it comes in with fierce, wet vengeance on the people of Shanghai. However, outside, people continue on their bikes as if it's a mild drizzle.

Then the real horror started. I think my ears started to bleed and my hands naturally came up to my ears, covering them and trying to block out some of the worst noises I think that I will ever encounter in my life. The Chinese men had officially started their karaoke session by exhibiting some of the worst and most vile singing I've ever had the displeasure to experience. On top of this was the super cheesy echo effect of the karaoke machine. We did not stay long after this.

My friend now took me up the street to the next cross street because we had been talking about Chinese culture, and given our location at the time, discussed this particular aspect. Lining that street were 15 or 20 large, spinning barbers poles (the red/blue/white ones that signify a barber is there willing to cut your hair). We went up to just take a look and walking past some of the girls waved to us. But being about midnight, there was no haircutting going on but each shop was fully staffed exclusively by women. The blatantness of this area was overwhelming. I even think there were three police officers sitting in the middle of all of them just hanging out.

So that ended our night and the rain had temporarily stopped so I headed home before the elemental fury continued.

Later: Saturday - Papa John's, unknowingly meeting the devil, and more carrefour adventures.

1. Do not go to the bar. Especially, do not walk there. It will be closed. Recommendation: Take a cab around until you find an open one. Then drink heavily to forget about your wet clothing.

2. Do no stand near trees. They fall down. A lot.

3. Do no order in pizza expecting to avoid the mess outside because this will only result in it arriving late and cold. And the Papa John's doesn't deliver beer either. Stock up ahead of time. Liquor is preferable in the case.

4. Do NOT put your mattress on the floor because it will act as a sponge in the event that your room leaks (this one courtesy of a classmate!).

5. Enjoy the Shanghai view while it lasts after the winds and rain have made visibility farther than 500 meters and you can go outside for more than 5 minutes without sweating profusely.

6. Finally, do not go to a Carrefour the day after a typhoon unless you enjoy masses of Chinese people nearly looting the place.

Got this from my American classmate this morning...

Heading my way, just in time for my weekend trip to Hangzhou!

TYPHOON!!!

I've added an RSS feed link to the sidebar. It is a little XML button. If you don't know what this means then you can just click on it and it will tell you what it does but most likely you probably won't care.

That he doesn't like regular old steamed rice. I think that's number one on the list of things you NEED to like before deciding to come to China. I've eat so much rice here I should have turned Chinese by now.

A bunch of us went to the Shanghai Museum (Chinese Cultural History) yesterday and then to Senses, a lounge.

You can see them all here.

So I go to the Shanghai branch of Bank of America, which is the US bank where I have my checking account still. I needed to get money since my wire transfer hasn't yet appeared in my local China Merchants Bank account. I've tried taking out money from my BoA account but there is a problem. All the PIN numbers at ATM machines in China have to be at most 6 digits. And, of course, mine is 7! So the local ATM here gave me an invalid PIN error. Fine, BoA must let me at least change my PIN to a 6 digit one. After wandering around Nanjing Lu for about an hour, I finally find the place and make a bee line for the ATM (you end up making lots of bee lines in China, it seems). 6 digit PINs only!!! So I go over to an employee and basically they tell me to call BoA in the US. Kindly, they let me use their phone. After navigating various menus I'm transferred to a BoA Associate, except one of the biggest banks in the world only has customer service hours from 7am-12midnight and of course was closed! Argh.