Now that I've settled in a bit...

Well Hello! I didn't see you there.

Alright, so this week's blog is going to be about some interesting events that have happened during the last week of my life in Shanghai. I know that are already jumping out of your seats in anticipation, but slow down a bit! I haven't got to the juicy parts yet. As per usual, I will give you a rough summary of some of the things that happened so that you can either decide to skip the text and go for the pictures, or read half of the text before you get bored and play scrabble on facebook. This week's episode:

After two grueling weeks in the hot humid port of Shanghai I've finally managed to get some things accomplished (and some things checked off my bucket list). This week I finished my first full week of work, strung up my guitar, saw an 11 year old buy cigarettes, bought a beer at the supermarket from a 5 year old girl behind the counter, went to a bar to get a drink and was immediately hit on by four overly friendly women (bucket list), led some parts of a tour on my own to paying customers, got lost in the big city, jumped into a picture with some random Chinese girls, was presented a pig's foot as a gift, got a haircut (it's not as scary as it sounds) and learned how to play Chinese Chess. I continue to eat lots of eggplant, bullfrog and rice but this week, I was introduced to another gem of Chinese cooking: the potato.

I'm super, super glad that I decided to buy some shot sleeve button up shirts last week because this week has been hot! It's not the heat that I mind, it's the humidity that really gets me. Each time I shower and towel off, I immediately start sweating and it's like another layer of skin has developed over my already existing, quite pale, organ overcoat. I was also smart to buy light colors and have denounced my black, long sleeve button up shirt that I brought here as well as my black cotton slacks. My new favorite tour has become the ghost tour simply because we do it as the sun starts setting which brings the relief of a cooler atmosphere.

Work has been very busy with the learning of tour material as well as steadily working my way towards becoming the manager of tours in Shanghai. There is a lot to learn in the office as well as on the actual tour and I have now done each tour at least twice and presented in almost all of them. When my weekend comes (Wednesday/Thursday) I feel like I have earned it and am proud to be in the business world. I am meeting quite the variety of people and we have guests from all over the world that are either visiting or living in Shanghai. We've had people from Indonesia, France, Germany, America, Japan, Great Britain and even Mexico on the tour, and each person I talk to has a great story to tell as why they've ended up in Shanghai.

This week was also a little crazy because I started presenting parts of the tour to paying customers. I don't have stage fright so I don't mind talking in front of the guests, but I do get a little anxious when it comes to remembering all of the material and presenting it right. Making small talk with the guests is the easy part for me, but presenting material that I'm learning on an on-the-fly basis is a bit stressful sometimes. I have no doubt that the anxiety will pass once I've done the tours a few more times.

During my first weekend, I took out my guitar that I brought with me and threw some strings on it and was immediately rewarded with the sweet sound of the blues. My Chinese guitar buddies were jealous to see that I owned a Les Paul because out here in China, the cost in RMB is roughly the cost in USD unlike so many other products sold here. After a couple of hours of letting my baby sing, I put her away to go out and enjoy a bit of Chinese culture and cuisine. This is where the potato comes into play. My favorite potatoes are mashed or fried but in China, I've found a couple of alternatively, but equally tasty variations. One of my new favorite dishes is what's referred to as "sauteed sword potato" which involves very fine strings of potato being sauteed with peppers or green beans or something of the like. They're almost crispy but still soft and taste oh so delicious. Another of these delightful treats that my boss introduced me to is the potato pancake. You can see in the picture that it looks like a slice of potato pizza and it's really quite good. It has a subtle sweetness to it and the texture is amazing! A plate of these will run you 15RMB (about $2.20USD) which is definitely worth it. I don't usually make a whole meal out of it, but it goes quite nicely with a rice and meat dish.

On Wednesday, my friend Yang Jie (from last weeks pictures) took me to a place called Qi Bao (chee bow) where we met up with his good friend who is a partner in a tasty restaurant. We got a 100RMB meal for free (yaaa!) and sat around talking for awhile. They then took me to a canal town which is very close to the restaurant (I didn't bring my camera because I wasn't anticipating this little excursion) where we walked through a Venice-like market. They had everything from bizarre food (this is where my friend bought me a pig's foot) to ancient charms and everything in between. It was fun to walk around, but the alleys are so crowded that sometimes it's hard to traverse through them.

It was at this time that we were headed back to the restaurant and I saw some cute girls getting pictures taken by a rock formation and like almost every single Chinese (maybe Asian) person ever, they were all posing with the peace sign. As we walked by, I gave them the peace sign right back and they all laughed. My friends and I kept walking, but I heard them talking about a picture with me, so I ran back and jumped in a picture with them and posed with the peace sign accordingly. It was a great time and my friends and I later decided that I should walk around with a sign on that says "Picture with a Gwai Lo (Slang term for foreigner) 5RMB". Maybe I can make an extra bit of income...

Later that evening I enjoyed a "group discount" meal with my friends where we had plenty of tasty dishes including one strange dish which had bull frog, potato chips (not the potato gem I was referring to above) and cucumber in it. It was quite tasty but also a bit weird in the sense that is was a rather expensive dish... Anyway, after dinner we all parted ways and I decided to treat myself to a drink. I walked around my neighborhood looking for a bar and I eventually found one that now I know to avoid. In the picture you can see the bright lights and Heineken signs much like they had in Amsterdam. Those are all red flags! I figured they might have a decent beer selection so I went inside to take a peak at their drink menu. They had Guinness, and it was quite expensive (about $7.00USD) but I figured after a week of work, I owed myself a little treat.

 As soon as I sat down, four women that supposedly worked at the bar came and sat down on either side of me as well as across the bar from me and immediately asked me my name. Well, I knew that these were all red flags, so I quickened my pace on the beer with hopes to finish it within minutes. As they continue giving me compliments in Chinese and asking what I do for work they also start throwing in little subtle hints about their true nature. They asked how old I was and when I told them, they pointed at one of the girls and said she was the same age and that she could be my "girlfriend". "Haha...ha......ha" I nervously laughed as I started to gulp down the rest of my beer.

They then posed a question: "Would you buy us all a drink?" My first inclination is to say "no" but with four girls gridlocking me into my seat and a not-so-nice looking bartender only feet away I decided "why the hell not?" The only problem is that they only want hard alcohol, and the cheapest drink is the same price as my Guinness. As I cringe, I order four drinks for the ladies. This might have been part of the money making process because I didn't watch the bartender pour the drinks, but he served them as a mixed drink. I may have been swindled and paid 200RMB ($28.00USD) for four single malt glasses of orange juice, but I'll never know. We all did a quick cheers and as the conversation started getting a little heavier and a little less subtle, I thanked them for the company but told them I had plans to eat and quickly ran out of there without looking back. Whew! So let's see here, getting approached by what I believe to be essentially call girls and buying them all a drink... CHECK!

On the second day of my weekend, I decided to go for a walk with my camera to see if I could find anything interesting. I took some pictures of some decent-looking buildings but, I didn't really find anything of note. After walking for an hour, I tried to find my bearings. I looked around for landmarks or buildings that I recognize but unfortunately, considering just about every building in Shanghai is super tall, I couldn't usually see further than the block I was on. I wandered and wandered and wandered trying to find streets that sound familiar (they aren't numbered like the streets of downtown) and eventually found a subway station that connected to my stop. It was a fun experience and I asked several people for directions, but every time I asked a different person, they gave me different directions. Even though it was good exercise and interesting to see other parts of the city, I should probably pick up a road map...

After the first day back to work, I decided it was time to get a haircut. The weather is too hot to have even a medium length business haircut. Near my apartment, there is a whole row of barber shops, so I went to one that looked nice and walked in with my trusty dictionary in hand. I don't normally carry my dictionary around with me anymore because I like to have people explain what words mean in Chinese but this time, I wasn't taking any chances. As they took me to a seat, they showed me the prices depending on what level of stylist I wanted. The prices were a bit more than I anticipated, so I went with the stylist with the lowest "status". He started asking me how I wanted my haircut and I instantly became as stiff as a board. One wrong word and I could have ended up with a buzz cut or even worse... extensions... AHHHHHHH! This might be like any regular experience back in the states, but I was terrified due to the fact that my communication with him was limited.

I used my sparse haircut vocabulary and said "shorter" and he held up my hair and asked if I wanted about half of it cut and luckily that's exactly what I was looking for. He asked me if I wanted it off my ears to which I replied "yes" but then, he took out his clippers... As I sat in the chair, stone-faced with fear he went for what my dad refers to as my "neck beard" on the back of my neck and cleaned up the short hair. Whew, crisis averted. As the haircut went on, I was thoroughly pleased with the work that the stylist was doing and he certainly earned all of his money. I was in the chair for about 20 minutes and it was definitely weird for his assistant to come up every now and then and use a soft brush to clear the hair from my face. After he was finished, they cleaned my hair for no extra charge and I was very impressed with the work that he had done. In China it's not customary to tip in the service industry but to show my appreciation, I told him that in America we tip based on a job-well-done and I left him a solid 18%.

During one of the tours we give, we go through a park and see the daily activities of the locals. Among these past times it is very common to find water calligraphy (Chinese characters written on the ground with a big calligraphy brush and water as the ink), card games, people walking backwards while clapping their hands (exercise), the board game Othello (black and white pieces) and my new favorite game, Chinese chess. I was very interested when I first saw this game and decided to learn how to play by finding a website online with the rules and a place to play the game for free (for those of you who don't know how to play chess, you can skip this section if you think it will make your eyes bleed).

The objective of the game is very similar, to put the king in checkmate. However, the king has a castle or kingdom that he is restricted to and he cannot leave it. Along with this kingdom in the back middle of the players board, there is also a river that runs through the middle of the map which prevents some pieces from crossing while giving others additional abilities if they have crossed. For instance, the bishops can't cross the river, but when the pawns do so, in addition to moving forward, they can move sideways. Besides the pawns, other pieces of this version vary a bit and although a few pieces are the same, they function in different ways. For starters, they don't preside inside of a square box, but rather on the corners of the spaces. As for some variances, the horse in Chinese chess is very similar to the knight in Western chess. It seemingly moves either one space to the side then two up or down, or vice versa but actually, the horse in Chinese chess moves one space in any direction, then diagonally from that space. If you look at a board, it would appear to move exactly the same but here's the twist! The horse in Chinese chess cannot jump over pieces so it can actually be blocked in. This takes strategy to a whole new level with the horses. There are other crazy pieces like the elephant instead of a bishop, but I will spare you the rigorous details of each and let you check it out on wikipedia for yourself if you're interested.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog and if you want me to include any additional information that you may find interesting, please don't hesitate to ask! I might have forgotten to add some details that you would all like to hear about and if that is indeed the case, I don't want to rob you of the experience.  If you would like to see more pictures, simply click on one of the pictures in the blog!  As per usual, please subscribe so that you get reminders when I post new blogs and please look me up on skype if you have the chance! Much love to my mother in particular on Mother's day, and to all of the mothers reading this. Thank you for the continued support and well wishes, they mean a lot to me. Ciao!

Tony G.