The blonde effect

Were I to say that I do not look particularly Chinese, I would probably be found guilty of gross understatement, and indeed, my round blue eyes, pinky-white skin, kangaroo feet and perhaps most of all my blonde hair make it utterly impossible to blend in over here. Of course, the number of foreigners (waiguoren) in Shanghai is substantial, considering that it's a world capital in the throes of the Expo, but the ones who are shorter and darker aren't considered nearly as freakish and therefore don't attract quite the same attention.

Before you roll your eyes at my unbelievable narcissism, let me describe what exactly this 'attention' comprises. I'm not talking about modelling scouts coming up to me or starting wars that launch a thousand ships; I'm talking about people's reactions to seeing a circus freak or zoo animal walking the streets in broad daylight. Imagine if you saw, say, an ostrich strolling around your neighbourhood. More than likely you would think, 'Jesus Christ, an ostrich!' and take a picture with your mobile, maybe elbow your friend in the ribs to have a look as well and point. I get much the same treatment. Most of the time, people stare unabashedly, take surreptitious or not-so-surreptitious pictures with their phones, point and say (and I'm making a guess here), 'Look at that massive pink thing with the yellow hair'. Children alternatively grin with delight at seeing something so strange or look as though they're about to burst into tears. The elderly, often hunched with age, usually just fix their eyes on me and exhibit no discernible emotion, leaving me to wonder if they're cursing my laowai self. Laowai, by the way, is the...erm...old-fashioned term for foreigners and doesn't carry the best connotations (think 'foreign devil'). It's mostly old people that call me that, though there was one taxi driver who got fed up with us giving haphazard directions. And I think there was a bit of venom behind it.

That, of course, is cosmopolitan Shanghai. In Hangzhou, some less central Shanghai neighbourhoods, and in Beijing in 2007, it's been a bit different.

Beijing, April 2007: it's sometime before 6 am in Tiananmen Square, and the flag of the People's Republic of China has just been raised in time with the sun's first rays peeping over Chairman Mao's picture. My little Branson Mandarin class and I have been told that a 'small gathering' congregates to watch the ceremony, mostly provincial tourists. A 'small gathering' has turned out to mean several thousand people who are nonetheless easily accommodated by the looming vastness of the square. As we are taking it in, a man in a suit grabs my wrist and is excitedly asking for a picture. 'Why not', I venture, and before I know it he and four of his friends have their arms around my shoulders and waist and are all beaming enormous grins and flashing peace signs. A small crowd has gathered around us, most of them taking pictures of other people taking pictures of me. After they disperse, there are still several people trailing our class as we walk through the square and indeed until we climb into the car and shut the doors.

Walking home down Xinzha Lu from the gym, Thursday: gym bag slung across my shoulder, I'm on my mobile to my mother back in California, even though it's a bit early considering they're fifteen hours behind in the summer. 'People do tend to look at me like I'm a mutant here', I tell her, and glance to my left to see a man take a brief pause from chopping a plate of ginger to snap a picture of me on his phone's camera.

A cluster of shops in Putuo, Shanghai, the day before yesterday: my Shanghainese friend Rose, who works with Prudence and me at Riviera, has taken us shopping in a neighbourhood a few kilometres away from our flat in Jing'an. As Prudence sits down to wait while we try some things on, a little girl is peering at her with a combination of awe/abject horror on her face. When the girls mother tries to move between them in an effort to stop staring, the little girl leans around, mouth still agape.

Hangzhou, my first weekend here: read the earlier entry for a description of the mob that descended at Lingyin.






Some new friends in the train station at Hangzhou. It took them about half an hour to work up the courage to ask us for this, but they seemed happy as they ran off giggling wildly.






Richbaby, an all-Chinese nightclub, the wee hours of Saturday morning: this Swedish guy and I are dancing together when a smiling Shanghainese guy comes up to us and asks if we like free alcohol. We exchange glances and allow him to lead us to the VIP section, where he hands us champagne flutes of something much stronger and less pleasant than champagne, offers us all the cigarettes we want to smoke, and says that his girlfriend 'really wants to meet us'. His girlfriend is gaping wide-eyed as she shakes our hands, trembling with excitement.

I could go on, but you get the idea. A lot of Westerners get really annoyed at the stares and picture-taking and strangers 'accidentally' touching their skin or hair, but I personally find the whole thing hilarious. It's no skin off my teeth and it's a pretty effortless way to give someone their kicks. I also laugh when I think about what happens after they thank me and we part ways-what, for example, are all those people with pictures of a random white girl on their phones going to do with them? Show them to their friends and say, 'Look what I saw yesterday, it was f***ing weird'? Same with the people who ask to get a photo with me. Does this mean they'll have a photo of them and an odd-looking stranger in their 'Our Vacation to Hangzhou' family photo album? What on earth would they caption that? I will say that no one has handed me their baby yet like they did in India, which I found exceptionally strange...what if I had just run off with the baby, never to be seen again? Or what if I had dropped it? What on earth will those children's parents tell them in ten years' time when they're going through the family photos-'Here is a hilariously pale girl we found, so we had her hold you and we took a picture'?

The thing is, though, that I don't feel much like a freak here. I go about my daily business like everyone else in Shanghai-work, errands, shopping, nights out, breakfast, lunch and dinner-and don't really dwell on the fact that I look so obviously different. It's easy to forget, actually, which has made Shanghai not only way too much fun, but really and truly an agreeable place to live.

One quick thing: I have gotten the first proper manicure of my life. What took me so long? I've bitten my nails since I could chew and nothing, not even painting them with this unbelievably bitter glaze, could make me break the habit. But much to my surprise and delight, a few days ago I realised that they were longer and healthier than they've ever been. I don't know if this is from the heat and humidity (hair and nails do grow faster in the tropics) or if it's because I'm so happy and NOT anxious, but my fingers are now presentable. The manicurist had to work on them for a good long time, but I couldn't be more pleased with them and their pink polish. I hope it's the first of many manicures to come. Call me shallow, but it makes me happy.

Up in the sky there is heaven; here below on earth we have Hangzhou

Everyone seems to know this quote; I'm not sure who said it first, but when one sees Hangzhou and its beautiful West Lake (Hu Xi) in the flesh, it seems fitting. The place is so beautiful as to make you feel as though you're in a different century (or planet) and makes for a lovely escape from the relative chaos of Shanghai...though I still find it quite clean and orderly here compared to, say, India, where the chorus of car horns never ends, cows walk into restaurants and white clothing turns into fawn clothing in record time.

Luckily for Jessica, Prudence and me, our Mandarin teacher Lisa is from Hangzhou and was going home for the weekend, so we were fortunate enough to have a tour guide and translator. Lisa is also incredibly sweet-I'm so glad to have her teaching me Chinese! Anyway, we all piled in a taxi, crossed the river into Pudong to get on our long-distance bus, and watched the industrial outskirts of Shanghai slowly fade into older towns surrounded by verdant rice paddies, where people wearing those iconic cone hats tended and harvested. The bus, by the way, was far nicer than what we have in Scotland-leather seats, air conditioning, and even little personal TVs, which I didn't end up watching because a) my Mandarin is limited to colours, countries and numbers and b) I passed out asleep. About two and a half hours later-Hangzhou is about 200km south of Shanghai-we rolled into the downtown bus station, which is flanked by these MASSIVE apartment buildings decorated with everyone's drying laundry. Hangzhou is a decently-sized city, but the 'heaven on earth' part makes up just one area, so we hopped in another taxi to Qinghefang Old Street. Qinghefang is nice in a Disney sort of way-very very clean, bright and freshly painted-though a pickpocket did try and make off with my wallet (luckily I was able to grab him by the wrist and he grudgingly gave it back). Lisa, Prudence and I also bought some fans, as it was mid-morning and already we felt like we were being steamed.

Our next stop was the Lingyin Buddhist temple, which is perched on a forest hillside about two green leafy miles west of Hu Xi. The temple and its grounds really are stunning; it's hard not to be amazed by them, even if your own sweat is blinding you. In front of the main complex is this bamboo-sheltered grey-green little river that snakes through some black rocks, which are full of carved buddhas. All kind of buddhas too-fat happy ones, thin pensive ones, kind ones, vengeful ones. After having photographed about twenty of them, I stopped taking pictures because I realised that few people back home would be lose interest after the first half hour.

What happened next can only be described as the manifestation of mob mentality. Prudence and I are both tall, blonde and white, but what with Shanghai having the Expo on and being a very cosmopolitan city, we get stares and occasional 'halloo's but nothing more. Hangzhou is not Shanghai. As the only foreigners (waiguoren, or the more old-fashioned laowai-foreign devil) at the temple that day, we had felt hundreds of pairs of eyes on us from the moment we got out of the taxi. As we were all admiring the buddhas, one woman finally took the plunge and asked, 'May I take picture with you?' Prudence and I said yes, of course, because it was no skin off our teeth, so she stood between the two of us with a huge open-mouthed smile while her friend got the photo. The next thing we knew, a noisy, heaving crowd yelling for pictures surrounded us and cameras beeped, flashed and whirred from every direction. One after another groups stood next to us as we grinned and held up our own peace signs to match theirs. Lisa and Jessica (who's shorter and brunette and therefore is viewed as less of a freak here) stood by and laughed as the mob swelled. Finally we managed to extricate ourselves, but by then a good fifteen minutes had passed and our smile muscles were aching.

Not to sound unbelievably narcissistic or anything, but over the years I've had foreign randoms take pictures of me more times than I can count-it's not because they think I'm attractive, it's because they think my blue eyes, big feet, blonde hair, pasty skin and five foot ten inches make me look like an alien. Or the devil. I find it funny.

If anything, it was even steamier under the thick forest of broadleaf trees and bamboo as we climbed the steps up to the various temple buildings, but the crowds thinned and I really got a sense of how timeless the whole thing was. Lingyin is so pretty in this serene kind of way, almost hidden in the trees and perfumed with plumes of incense. Here are some photos-I loved the circular dragon windows in particular:





















By the time we had posed for pictures and climbed up all those stairs, we were all starving, wilting and in need of a good long session in somewhere-anywhere-with air conditioning. Again, though, Hangzhou is not exactly the world city that its northerly neighbour is, so, there being no English to be found on any menu, Prudence, Jess and I put our fate in Lisa's hands when it came to ordering food. Being a Hangzhou local, she ordered us some of the city's signature dishes, like this absolutely delicious sort of chestnut smoked cube of pork and (wait for it) SNAKE! The snake's head had been chopped off (that probably would have been a bit much, even for me), and the rest of it was cut up into pieces and fried. It had a nice light meaty taste; I will definitely be ordering it again. I'm not a big fan of snakes when they're alive and slithering/hissing/eating small dogs so I don't feel all that guilty. Well...maybe a bit. Sorry, Mr Snake.

Following lunch we tried in vain to flag down a taxi-something that is nearly IMPOSSIBLE during Shanghai's rush hours, by the way!-so instead we ended up walking to Hu Xi, which was actually really lovely because it was so green. Of course, by this time it was into the afternoon, meaning that the air was so thick with humidity that I could feel it pressing on my skin, and the sun was beating down with a ferocity to rival midday in Qatar. I don't think I actually stopped fanning myself for more than ten seconds on our walk to Hu Xi in a vain attempt to keep the sweat from forming on my face. Still, even the intense heat can't dim the beauty of Hu Xi. When I first set eyes on the Taj Mahal, it was imbued with such a sense of loveliness that all I could do was sigh. Hu Xi is the same way; truly the best way to describe it is that it is resplendent in all its loveliness. With its weeping willows, arched stone bridges, thickets of lotus flowers, and delicate teahouses, it is archetypal classical Han China. It's easy to imagine Confucius or Lao Tzu sitting cross-legged on the grass under a willow pondering the deepest questions of humanity.

Pictures hardly do it justice, but I've put some here anyway:





















After a leisurely stroll around one part of the lake (the whole thing is enormous), Lisa took us back to the bus station, where she would bid us goodbye and then head home for the weekend. This is where the fun started: as we queued up to get our 7 pm coach back to Shanghai, the ticket taker asked us for our passports. Que?! Considering that we weren't staying overnight and Hangzhou is all of 190km away from where we live, we hadn't brought them and instead offered up some drivers licences. No, we were told, ONLY PASSPORTS (said in such a way that brought to mind all the cliches about Chinese authoritarianism). Apparently, because of the Expo, the CCP has put a new law into place that says that foreigners must carry their passports at all times. For the first time ever, I called an American consulate, spoke to an extremely unhelpful man with a flat Midwestern accent, and eventually got through to a woman who explained that the buses were getting stopped on the motorways and inspected, so they were being extra careful about foreigners regarding passports. The train, however, might work, because they wouldn't have to deal with motorway inspections. To the train station!

Lisa went home at this point as the station was in the opposite direction, and I'm proud to say that I managed to use my scant knowledge of the Chinese language to get us three tickets back to Shanghai (it's not that impressive, really; I told the cashier 'san ge shang hai', which translates to 'three Shanghai'). The next train we could get was at about 10 pm, and until then, we crossed our fingers that they wouldn't ask for passports and went to the lovely Dumpling King, where, continuing my eating-weird-things streak, I ordered ox innard soup along with my pork dumplings. It was tasty, despite how very unappealing it may sound. The three of us also passed the time by musing about how, if we did need our passports to get on the train, we would get a hold of them, or, alternatively, how we could get back to Shanghai not using either the train or road. We did discuss hiring someone to drive us in their car, hide us in the back and cover us with blankets, but all agreed to try the train first.

I'll admit, my heart was thumping well above its usual freakish 39 beats per minute (the average person's is around 70, which explains why everyone else seems to weather the cold better than I do). Standing in the queue to hand over our tickets and get into the waiting room, I was really, really hoping they didn't ask for our passports. I didn't dare look any of the ticket inspectors in the eye, as though I was worried they would spy the blue colour and yell, 'Laowai! Where is your passport?!' And thank God, none of that happened. We were on our way back home, albeit a few hours later than originally planned. The train itself was sleek, spacious and modern, and, after a day of going all over old Hangzhou, the perfect place to fall deeply and contentedly asleep.

Odds and ends:

-Joined a gym down at the other end of Xinzha Lu the day before yesterday and just came back from my first workout there. Cardio in the strength-sapping humidity is a challenge, but the heat is simply GREAT for flexibility training! I hadn't stretched my splits out for at least two weeks, but I found I could drop to the floor with no trouble. The gym, MOB Fitness, is conveniently located across the street from my Mandarin school, and it feels fantastic to be able to work out again!
-I looked at the Bain and McKinsey websites for their Shanghai offices, and apparently they require applicants to speak Mandarin. And by 'Mandarin', they mean more than just colours, countries and numbers. Buzzkill.
-There's a little hole-in-the-wall street food place about a block south of the flat where they sell vegetarian bao and tea eggs, and I've been getting dinner there for the past few days. The man that runs it has yet to say a word to me, despite the fact that I speak to him in Chinese and offer up my winningest smile. He does not respond to either, and I kind of get the feeling that he hates me.
-A lot of the work I do at Riviera involves googling things that, trust me, I would not normally be googling. This is very entertaining; I couldn't come up with some of this stuff if I tried. Today, for example, I typed 'voodoo', 'flamingo on a lead' and 'can you hire a monk?', amongst other things, into the search bar. Hilarity ensued. My favourite result for 'voodoo' was this bright orange knife block in the shape of a voodoo doll, so that when all your knives are in place, it looks as though the little guy is being stabbed. It's kind of cool (and how often can you say that about a knife block?) but I don't think I'd want it in my kitchen.
-My little bit of high school Mandarin is coming back, thanks to the fact that I hear it 24/7. It's exciting-now I can make small talk with taxi drivers.

Shang-hi to everyone

Et enfin! A massive ni hao from Shanghai, which has been home for the last six days. The list of things I like about the ‘hai covers a bit of the basics, but a lot has happened since I got here—I had my first night out in this lovely energetic city, my first day of work at Riviera, went to gorgeous Hangzhou on Saturday, and, as of an hour ago, joined a gym! That last one is rather important, I think, because you simply can’t avoid delicious food here, and I would prefer not to have to ask for a seatbelt extender on my flight back to St Andrews. I have a feeling that I sweat a lot of it off, but I want to savour the tastes of China without fear of turning into a large white hippo.

So last Thursday, the night after I got here, one of the other interns was leaving after a four-month stint here and decided to organise a get-together at this place called Shiva Lounge, where Paul (one of the people who help me set up the internship and flat) knows the bartender Danny. Danny was nice enough to give us a two-for-one deal on Pimms, and it was actually really tasty because it was made with ginger beer and not that foul Morrison’s lemonade. A day in and Shanghai had already shown me something amazing—I now knew why I’ve detested all the Pimms I’ve drunk at St Andrews. Shiva also has some brilliant-sounding cocktails, and when two of the other interns—Jessica and Prudence, my flatmate and coworker at Riviera—got pina coladas, they looked sublime. I did have my first day of work the next day, so I wistfully closed the menu and told Danny that I’d get one some other time. In the blink of an eye he had made another pina colada, passed the cocktail glass into my hand and told me that it was on the house. Really, not a terrible welcome to a new city—especially compared to Natasha’s, Joe’s and my infamous welcome to Sfax, Tunisia, where we checked into what appeared to be a crack den, got followed by a slightly crazy guy, saw the slightly crazy guy get beaten up by the police, and spent the rest of the night giving a statement while they took our passports into another room.

A few hours after that pina colada, I woke up unusually bright-eyed for my first day as an intern at Riviera, which is about fifteen minutes away by taxi on Haui An Lu by Suzhou Creek (for some reason I feel a bit embarrassed that I haven’t seen the creek yet; all of my lunch hours have taken me in the other direction). I think it’s housed in a refurbished warehouse from the early 20th century, which of course brings to mind all these romantic images of old Shanghai, the Paris of the East, and its fantastically debauched ways. I was introduced to Henri, the key accounts manager and the person who interviewed me over the phone—I remember it quite clearly; if I’m doing academic work in my room I’m cross-legged on the bed, but because my landline doesn’t stretch that far, I was twirling around on my office chair somewhat awkwardly and wondering if the floor would be more comfortable. I suppose I should have taken a more thorough look at the website before I got there, to have some faces to attach to names—but the whole office seems quite nice. I have my own little table and white leather office chair, where I tap away on my laptop. Again, I’m not used to working in office chairs, but it would probably be wildly unprofessional to request a beanbag on the floor or something. Still, I bet when all the major CEOs have made it, once they’ve ushered their clients and colleagues out of their vast mahogany-panelled offices, they just flop on the couch and work with their laptops perched on their stomachs (kind of like I am right now).

The actual work I do as a marketing intern is the creation of proposals for major events for international corporations, especially hotels; for example, my main project right now is two proposals for Christmas galas at a few Marriotts throughout Shanghai, and I’m also working on the grand opening of the St Regis in Lhasa (yes, the Lhasa in Tibet). I do a little bit of research on the hotels (for example, I need to know whether or not the Hongqiao Marriott’s grand ballroom can be divided up into multiple sections, or what the main foyer’s dimensions are like), a bit of research on the market they’re aiming to attract to a given event (Christmas galas tend to be a bit more family-oriented than other events, but the Chinese, obviously not being overwhelmingly Christian, see the holiday more as an excuse to go out and party), decide on a concept and theme, and then formulate ideas as to how to translate the theme into an event (communications/PR, entertainment, decoration, food and beverages, giveaways, etc). I put all of this together in Powerpoint presentations, which are then pitched to the clients. Bang.

It's fun stuff, and I stumble across some really random s*** on the internet while I do it. Take this Caribbean Christmas gala theme. Today, for instance, I had this idea that there could be a performing magician, but, in keeping with the theme, he could be a sort of Haitian black magic voodoo-style magician. Very shortly thereafter I found that if you search for ‘voodoo’ on Google images, you will get some REALLY weird stuff. I also found out that this company makes a knife block in the shape of a voodoo doll; when you’ve stored all of your knives, it looks as though they’re stabbing a little orange person. A cool idea if you’re in the knife block-manufacturing business, but I don’t think I’d want it in my own kitchen.

As for something like the St Regis Lhasa grand opening, it’s obviously a bit different and, in some ways, more complicated. We also can’t exactly meet with clients in Lhasa for the morning—for those of you with hazy map skills, it’s a two-hour flight from here, plus you need special permits from the government in advance before going there—so I would presume that we’ll be doing conference calls from Riviera’s meeting room. It goes without saying, though, that I would have LOVED to go to Tibet on business!

Wait a minute, you might be saying. Isn’t the last thing Tibet needs a luxury hotel like the St Regis moving in? Well, from an historical/cultural/anthropological standpoint, yeah. Again, though, if I started making strident, obnoxious American-style objections about it, that probably come off as just a tiny bit unprofessional. As I proofread the proposal that had been put together, however, I realised that St Regis is really committed to making this a truly Tibetan hotel; there’s nothing about it that says ‘Han Chinese’. The grand opening features lots of traditional Tibetan dancing, music, food and general festivities and really seeks to give guests the chance to experience the local culture. Most touching, I found, was that the Hong Kong billionaire who’s financing the whole thing owns one of the world’s largest collections of Buddhist art, and is shipping them up to Lhasa to create a Buddhist Art Museum as part of the St Regis, so that guests and locals alike can take pleasure in viewing all these amazing artefacts. In addition to all that, you can’t deny that working with St Regis is rather cool. Perhaps they offer young blonde interns a discount? Or the loan of one of their trademark butlers?

Obviously there’s been more than just work; coming to Shanghai and just staying in the office would be a travesty! But I’m afraid that I’ll have to write about Hangzhou tomorrow, because it’s already half past midnight and I’m trying to get in a good sleep before tomorrow. It’s a full day, including a Mandarin lesson during my lunch hour (normally reserved for veritable culinary adventures around Huai An Lu!) and a ladies’ night in one of the tallest buildings in Shanghai that overlooks the Bund and features free champagne. Needless to say, there won’t be much time for a siesta.

Here are some pictures of our flat, though. It’s a really perfect little place, plus it’s on the eighth floor, which is extremely lucky. Ba, the word for eight, sounds like fa, the word for wealth, so all of China is clamouring to have eights in their life. Even airlines try to make their flights in or out of China as lucky as possible—my flight from Doha to Shanghai was 888, as was my flight from Beijing to San Francisco. The number four, on the other hand, is considered unlucky because in Chinese (si) it sounds very similar to the word for death. I’m not superstitious, but as they say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.


1. The view up Yanping Lu, our cross street, from my window.


2. The kitchen and dining room, which gets loads of sun through the balcony windows.


3. Our living room with the gloriously comfortable L-shaped couch.


4. Looking up at our skyscraper home. I've never lived in a big world city and even I'm a little taken aback by how much I love it!

Hello, Shanghai...this might be awkward, but I should probably tell you that I'm in love with you

If you're reading this, it means that I've made it out of California/the UK/Qatar and into Shanghai, have figured out how to skirt the CCP's ban on blogging sites, and am finally getting my *** together and doing the blog like I promised. Although I'm kind of screwing myself over by being awake at 3am to write this-the girls and I are leaving for Hangzhou, about 200km south of the 'hai, in less than four hours-I figure that I've been here for three days already and should probably say a little something about the place. It's just bits and bobs, so don't expect great things.

What I like about Shanghai:

-the heat! Even when you go out at night, you don't need to wear a jacket. To me this is a beautiful thing. The flat has air conditioning, which I've never really needed to use in California or Scotland (HAHAHA), so it took me a while to get the hang of, you know, turning it on, so in short the air con keeps us cool when we're inside.
-the flat! It's on the 8th floor-eight being very lucky here in contrast to crappy 4-and has massive windows and a balcony looking out over Jing'an. We've also got an L-shaped couch, something I've always wanted. But Mom always said we didn't have space. Now that I am 21, I have space. As they would say in 1996, booyah.
-the flatmates/other interns/pretty much all the Westerners I've met here so far! They're lovely people that are obviously globally minded and well travelled; just living here acts like a filter. As in, I haven't met anyone here who thinks that 'Homeland Security is there for our protection' or 'Nick Griffin isn't that bad' or 'let's nuke the Middle East and start over'. Or at least they haven't said it to my face.
-the cost of stuff! Europe and North America are expensive. China, even in its most expensive city, is not. Enough said.
-the food! I simply cannot tire of Chinese food, and even if the unthinkable were to happen, I would have a host of other options at my fingertips. The bao and dumplings alone are enough to convince me to live here. Plus the majority of people in this city don't think I'm weird for liking things like tea eggs or bean curd-flavoured ice cream.
-the internship! aka the reason I'm here! I had my first day at Riviera and this is the first summer job I've had where I ACTUALLY GET TO USE MY BRAIN. And it feels fantastic. Plus I like getting to wear nice clothes and be in an office; it makes me feel like a real person. Marketing, so far, is interesting.
-the Expo! Drove past it on the way from the airport and the pavilions I spied from the car were definitely eye-catching. At some point I will definitely go and explore it. In the meantime, the city has been prettied up, spitting and honking bans are in place, and there are people from all over the world flocking here.
-there are obviously more, but finally, not to get all abstract, but the energy of the place! Shanghai feels so lively and exciting, but it's gracious at the same time. It's quite green, full of tree-lined streets and a few beautiful parks, and you do get that intriguing mix of rambling old apartment blocks with the washing all strung out to dry in front and massive sleek skyscrapers.

Things I don't like:

-stupidly, my camera cord managed not to make it to Shanghai with me. I will track down a memory card reader or something, but for now I can't upload any of my pictures. I'm sorry! I'm sorry!
-that my faithful hound Katia apparently sulked for days after I left. This makes me sad, though I think Shanghai is too hot for her, and there's not enough shady grass where she can flop on her side.




This is more her kind of scene.













The money shot of Pudong. Unfortunately, not taken by me.


In short, Shanghai is rather good. More later!

Rah, rah Doh-ha ha

Applying for my business visa at the San Francisco consulate, not realising that the 'long way' to Shanghai was going to be THIS long












Update: waited until half six in the evening but got up the courage to face the heat and go outside; at this point it was a mere 45 degrees (111F), which was down from 49 (120F). Decked out in clothing completely unsuited to the climate, I made my way along Musheireb for a few blocks and then turned around, a journey that took all of half an hour but left me glistening and begging the front desk for a bottle of water.

Doha is funny—it’s much like other Islamic cities in its architectural motifs, the wares sold in it shops, and its bright, gaudy signs, but without that charming sense of timelessness and organic decay. It’s weirdly clean, with paved streets and well-maintained roundabouts, and instead of that tawny golden colour, the buildings are best described as off-white (or kind of the colour of a white oxford shirt that needs to be thrown in the wash because it’s been worn in hot weather a few too many times). The mosques, with their clean lines, are clearly quite new—and look almost sterile in their spotlessness. They actually look a bit like play-mosques, as though they were made out of Play-Doh (plasticine) for a child.

One thing you won’t see on the streets of Doha? Women. I saw exactly three on my foray—two that looked to be friends on a shopping trip, decked out in elaborately decorated burqas, and one, holding her husband’s hand, covered in black from head to toe save for her eyes. Even though it had killed me to do it, I had put on my blazer over my shirtsleeves and was immensely glad I did; I don’t care to imagine the commotion a blonde-haired, blue-eyed and bare-armed foreign girl would have caused. I also wore my sunglasses despite it being dusky outside, as it made it much easier to avoid making eye contact with Doha’s male population—which is interpreted as sexual forwardness. Finally, I forced myself to sort of grimace the whole time, as a smile also happens to be interpreted as sexual forwardness (much like in Eastern Europe, where I hear that it’s also seen to be a sign of psychosis…only the Slavs would be of the mindset that, if you appear happy, you must be going crazy). Needless to say, I didn’t approach any strangers and ask them to take a picture of grinning and waving in front of a minaret.

I arrived back covered in a thin film of sweat and feeling as though I had been slow-cooked, and so as not to stink up the plane tonight, jumped into the shower. Now, in most of the world, hot running water is considered a luxury, and you only get a certain amount before it runs out. Here, in order to get some cold water on your hair or skin, you have to catch it right as soon as you turn on the shower or tap, because after about seven seconds, everything that comes out could cook a chicken. The water temperature available to you now ranges from hot to scalding. When you envision water tanks sitting out in the 49 degree sun, it makes sense…kind of.

When I got back I also tried to take a look at qatarsucks.com (just for kicks and giggles), on which someone has posted a list called ‘Ten Things I Hate About Qatar’. It seems that the government has blocked access to qatarsucks.com, which I found out thanks to this hilarious/frightening notice. I don’t enjoy my internet shenanigans being censored and I don’t think that there’s anything particularly dangerous on qatarsucks.com, but I can understand why the government *ahem* resents the site, considering as it’s devoted to hating the nation. It’s also nothing compared to the Great Firewall of China, which should be fun to contend with for the next few months. Hopefully the flat uses proxies or VPN or onion routing (I use these words like I know what they mean, but in reality all I know is that they let you access facebook).






Is this meant to be geared towards children or something???










Oh, and it’s ‘not recommended’ to drink out of the tap. Although I think Qatar is so unsuitable to life forms as to be inhospitable to even parasites, I’m not taking any chances.

D'oh-ha

Greetings from beautiful Doha, Qatar, where I’ve been put up in the luxurious Doha Palace Hotel for the next while. The Palace’s amenities include an extremely firm bed twice as wide as it is long, a humble Turkish coffeeshop with free but Pleistocene-era wifi, a battered Qatari pride-themed tissue box, and a minibar (unplugged). To QA’s credit, they did pay for it, along with three meals, transport, and the entry visa.


This is where I am right now.

























This is where it feels like I am right now.

















Qatar itself is hot in the way that living on the surface of the sun would be hot, with the added benefit of the salty stickiness from the Persian Gulf. To give you a better idea, the pilot announced that it was 34 degrees (which I think is around 95F, though I never get this right) when we landed in the middle of the night. This is the sort of place where it’s too hot to actually go outside in the daytime, and if you don’t have air conditioning, you’re essentially dead. Even though it’s five in the morning right now, all of Doha is humming—because of all the a/c units struggling and wheezing away.

Don’t get me wrong, I love heat. And humidity. All winter long I dream of running around outside in a bikini and feeling the sun on my skin, and one of my favourite things to do is cook myself in the Bay Club’s steam room for longer than is advisable. The thing is that I stepped on the plane in Manchester, where it was about 15 degrees and raining, and I was dressed accordingly, ie jeans, blazer, boots. My flip flops and sundresses are in the checked bags, which are having a fun day out in some Doha airport storage area…so I have been reduced to watching Jazeera News in my underwear; thankfully I am travelling solo. Even if I did have my hot weather clothes, there’s no way that I could wear them outside without seriously offending passersby. Or getting a horrific sunburn—the first rays are out and they already look intense. I may have met my match. We’ll see tomorrow (actually ‘today’)—if I can bear putting on my clothes, I will make my way to a souq and buy everyone souvenirs of one of the planet’s least attractive destinations.

A few odds and ends:

-I suppose one of the big Doha attractions is the corniche, for which one sees signs that say ‘Al Corniche’. I like this. At first I thought, ‘It seems sort of cute’, and then immediately felt ashamed for being a patronising imperialist Western pig. Edward Said would be proud of himself.
-Very conveniently Qatar uses the same plugs and voltage as the UK. Win!
-Is it safe to drink the water here? I feel a bit squawky asking that, but it’s not like I had any reason to expect to have to know. I get the feeling that everyone just drinks bottled water here and there’s a problem with plastic bottles piling up, probably because everything else about the place is so unsustainable.
-There is an item on the hotel restaurant’s menu called ‘homos salad’. This is probably just an alternative spelling of hummus/hommus/houmos, but it did have me confused and a bit alarmed for a second. My favourite item on the menu, though, is something called Mutter Mushroom.

Edit: you now have the pleasure of seeing for yourself what a dump Qatar is! I've managed to upload some photos of this garden spot.


This stunning view was from my hotel room at dawn.




Rampant construction and indescribable heat: two things distinctly Qatari.


I did like this ziggurat, I'll admit.






I suppose there are some nice bits, but doesn't this mosque look a bit...fake to you?




I don't mean to hate on Qatar or the Gulf, but my God, when it's 49 degrees outside, wouldn't you be feeling a bit negative too? Anyway, I'm just glad to be here on the lucky 8th floor in Shanghai.

An auspicious start, or How I Ended Up In a Frying Pan on the Persian Gulf

'The internship' period has technically gone on for a few days now, so I've been writing things down until I had solid internet access. This is from the 12th:

As to how my internship is shaping up so far, I’ll give you a hint: that first title is the tiniest bit sarcastic. My flight to Doha with Qatar Airways, yes, ‘the world’s five-star airline’, is already two and a half hours behind schedule; considering that I had all of eighty minutes to make my connection once I got to Doha, I can safely assume that I will be in that oh-so-scenic little Gulf state for a little longer than I expected. I should add that there is only one Doha-Shanghai flight per day.

The launch of my internship, so to speak, has so far proceeded as such:

-I had a lovely sleep on a plush white downy bed and then had a long soak in the bath, emerging relaxed, well-rested and eager to arrive in Shanghai.
-I arrived at the Qatar Airways desk, where they actually weighed my hand luggage and told me there was no way they would allow it onto the flight. What kind of airline weighs hand luggage?? (nb: I am fully aware that this whole thing was my fault; I plead young and stupid.) Anyway, the excess baggage charges were going to be about 300 pounds.
-I cried (kind of). I can do this on command and though I’m not terribly proud of it, it has indeed allowed me to weasel my way out of about 150 quid worth of overweight charges before.
-The guy behind the desk relented about halfway and told me to get rid of five kilos (instead of eight), which I promptly did, much to the amusement of the massive Indian family surrounding me. I’m not very good at throwing things out, even clothes that I’ve had for the past seven years, so maybe it was good for me. At any rate, my wardrobe has been streamlined.
-I pelted through security and duty free with the briefest of stops to squirt some Chanel Chance on my wrists (I really can’t help it), screeched to a halt at the gate and filed onto the plane with everyone else. I’m pretty sure that most everyone is connecting to somewhere that is NOT Qatar—it’s hard to imagine why there would be enough people that wanted to go to Doha to fill an entire plane. Perhaps that a bit harsh, but most everyone says it’s an armpit.
-The pilot told us that the plane was being towed back because of a ‘fuel tank malfunction’. As fuel tanks are the things that seem to explode a lot, I figured this was for the best.
-The pilot told us with a few nervous laughs that we would have to disembark, because they actually had to replace the faulty fuel tank with a working one. The last time we heard from him, he said it would be ‘at least an hour’. This means it will probably be about four hours.
-I went back to duty free to try on some lip gloss and then got myself some juice at WH Smith. Absentmindedly I stuck my Boots card into the machine; the girl behind the counter told me, ‘That’s a Boots card. This is W-Haytche Smif’. Feeling stupid, I took my card back; as I looked down to take a five pound note from my wallet, I gestured towards the total on the till and asked, ‘What’s that, again?’ Referring to the cost of the juice, of course. The girl looked at the fiver in my hand and informed me, ‘That’s five pound’. Thank you for that.

I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting an actual resident of Qatar—not a Qatari but rather a native Mancunian. This inexplicably cowboy hat-wearing guy was kind enough to confirm that the Qatari sand thing was true—that is, Qatar is so unsuitable for living that even the sand is useless, as in you can’t make concrete out of it, so the country actually has to import sand from Saudi Arabia. It’s apparently not even sand, just baked dirt. My new chum also confirmed that it’s a ****hole crawling with fast food restaurants and people with more money than sense…kind of like Dubai, but with less in the way of entertainment. Indeed, when I read through the QA Oryx magazine, it included a friendly welcome from the Emir of Qatar in which His Highness claimed that his state was ‘fairly liberal’ because it permits Westerners to drink alcohol…in hotels only (by the way, don’t even think about bringing your own booze into the country). The Emir did abolish child slavery and the Orwellian Ministry of Information, though, so he sounds like a decent fellow. Relatively.

Some other fun facts about Qatar:

-It’s only three hours ahead of Britain and two in the summer! It seems like the difference should be greater, considering that Doha is far away from pretty much everything apart from Yemen.
-Its national animal is the gazelle-like oryx, which is probably the only thing that’s actually suited to living in Qatar. Homo sapiens, not so much.
-I’m sure there are other things.

Qatari musings aside, I am SO excited to (eventually) get to Shanghai! The Chinese government has poured ten times the money into the city for the 2010 World Expo as it did for the Olympics in Beijing, and apparently the whole place looks gorgeous and is packed with people from all over the world. Hopefully I’ll get to take a look at some of the podiums during my time off—as great as it would be to see the Chinese or Saudi Arabian ones, the queues are about six hours long, so I’m keen to see the smaller, more obscure countries’. I’m sure Belarus has put together something spectacular, or at least funny. And of course I can’t wait to meet my colleagues and flatmates, stuff myself with the famous local dumplings, explore the old neighbourhoods and soak up some of that lovely humidity.