Return to Fife

Well, it’s been over two weeks since I made my way back from the bustling metropolis of Shanghai to the breezy seaside town of St Andrews, and I can say with confidence that reverse culture shock is a very real thing. Not that I didn’t know it before, but Shanghai and St Andys really are polar opposites in most every way.

-You all knew this was coming, but I do have to put in a bit about the weather. When I got off the plane in Edinburgh, and for about three days afterward, my body was racked by a chill that went so deep I simply could not get rid of it. The jeans, cardigans, socks and boots that would have been stifling back in Shanghai did nothing to shelter me from the dampness seeping into my skin or the wind pressing on my body. It hasn’t been that cold—around 13 degrees, or 55 Fahrenheit—but being thrust into it immediately after my gloriously sweltering summer amplified the effect. I’ve managed to adjust, I think, helped in part by the storage company delivering my boxes of winter clothing and my reunion with my Uggs. People have pointed out to me that it’s only the first week of October, though, and I’m already bundling myself in my warmest sheepskin coat. So there is probably still a risk I won’t survive the winter.

-One thing to which I haven’t managed to adjust is the painful lack of any kind of decent East Asian cuisine here. St Andrews has its fair share of restaurants—Hugh Grant has to eat somewhere when he comes up for the golf—but Chinese? Forget it. Malaysian, Burmese, Sumatran? REALLY forget it. Last night I was on the phone to my mother literally in tears because I felt too ill to leave my room and all I really wanted was a bowl of Xinjiang-style kuan mian (thick noodles), which I could have been enjoying for a mere 7rmb in five minutes’ time were I still in Shanghai. Needless to say, there is no kuan mian to be had in our little town, and certainly not for the equivalent of 70p. Oh, food of Shanghai, how I pine for you.

-If I had run into someone I knew randomly on the street in Shanghai, I would be shocked. In a massive city of sixteen million people, the chances aren’t terribly high. Here things are quite the opposite. The walk to Tesco, for example, takes eight minutes (yes, I’ve timed it). When I tried to walk to Tesco the other day, it literally took half an hour because I kept running into people and having conversations. It’s been one of my favourite parts of small town life, really, and I will miss it when I leave. There are downsides, though: it can take a ridiculous amount of time to walk short distances, leaving the house on a ‘low maintenance day’ is pretty much unacceptable, and you always seem to run into the people you least want to see—either at that particular moment, or just in general.

-St Andrews is notorious for this, but holy Christ, I’ve blitzed through a shocking amount of money in the past fortnight. When I remember the time I thought 38rmb was a lot to pay for a taxi ride, I weep a little bit.

-Free champagne at 100 Century Avenue or the Apartment is a distant memory now. If a pub in this town had ladies’ nights, the results would be somewhat disastrous in that the streets would be littered with girls rendered paralytic from free booze and the pub itself would go broke with shocking speed. I have stubbornly refused to buy any drinks so far, preferring to get my kicks during pregaming (sadly). I also miss the wonderfully laughable assortment of pick up lines I would get in Shanghai, ranging from the clichéd (‘so what do you do here; are you a model?’) to the bizarre (‘do you play for the Australian beach volleyball team?’) to the direct (‘my associates and I would like you to come drink champagne with us on our sofa’) to the simultaneously hilarious and alarmingly inappropriate (‘I want to $%&# you @%$#&# on this dancefloor’). A girl hears a memorable pickup line in St Andrews only on occasion, owing to the diminutive size of the town and the degree to which everyone’s social circles overlap. That is to say, if you make a tit of yourself trying to chat someone up, most of your friends (and their friends) will hear about it within the hour.

-Needless to say, I don’t get people coming up on the street asking if they can take my picture, blowing kisses, mistaking me for a celebrity or offering free cigarettes or flasks of green tea and vodka. If I walked down the street and people started staring like they do in China, I would start to worry that, I don’t know, I had a hole in the bum of my trousers or had had someone draw something rude on my forehead in the middle of the night. Considering that rural Fife is one of the least diverse places on earth, being white will not garner you any special attention here.

-When I speak in English, passersby understand what I’m saying. This means no more making fun of the taxi driver on a night out, which yes, I’ll admit we tended to do back in Shanghai if he did something particularly amusing, stupid or both (‘Why does he keep giggling unnervingly; do you think he’s stoned?’ ‘I think so; he’s been going in circles and singing “Hit Me Baby One More Time”’). If I tried that in the back of a Scottish taxi, I would probably get beaten up, or at the very least chucked out of the car and told to learn some manners. See, it’s the little things you miss.

However, I have found one thing that St Andys and the ’hai have in common: in both places, you will see genuinely weird things happening in public on a regular basis. It’s the same thing I’ve found in San Francisco, the unofficial world hub of weirdness, and you’ll see it in Amsterdam in New York as well. The other day, for example, when Natasha and I were camped out in Starbucks rehashing the events of the night before, a parade of people in period costume marched down the street, their leader hoisting a 10 foot-high lance into the air. As the line snaked on, we realised that these weren’t just large ugly girls in mediaeval garb; no, it appeared to be a procession of men in drag. They then proceeded to walk up and down Market Street for the next half hour or so and crossed in front of Starbucks no less than four times. No one knew exactly what they were doing and no one seemed to care all that much. Really, the sight of the mediaeval drag queens was comfortingly similar to the man walking backward down Xinzha Lu singing ‘Poker Face’ to himself, or the Rastafarian who once ran in front of my friend’s car in San Francisco, and when she screeched to a halt, banged his fist on the bonnet and yelled, ‘You ugly, bitch!’ I can’t even imagine the reverse culture shock had I gone back to somewhere…normal.

Worshipping in the Mecca of free stuff

Back in St Andrews, it is really and truly difficult to get anything for free. Anything major, I mean-maybe a drink here and there, like the time I asked for a vodka cranberry and the guy at the Vic made it with tomato juice instead, or when there are old moneyed golfers lurking about. For the most part, students are stingy, things are costly and the weather is cold.

Here, things are a bit...different.

First off, there's a 'ladies' night' every night of the week at some bar/club or other. My first Wednesday, for example, we went up to the 96th floor of the World Financial Centre (the building that looks like a massive bottle opener) because they were offering girls free champagne. I'm not talking about a tiny little flute of mediocre bubbles; I'm talking about unlimited proper champagne in a gorgeous posh bar with an absolutely mind-boggling view. Just a typical Wednesday night, you know? And ladies' nights can be found everywhere, from places like the World Financial Centre to the crappy little frat house basement-style bar down the street from our flat (we did give that one a go and personally I found it off-putting and surreal, what with its pool table, crowd of 'low maintenance' American girls, plastic cups and John Denver-esque music selection-there's a reason I didn't go to uni in the States). Anyway, it's entirely possible to have a night out in Shanghai for the equivalent of about 3 quid, assuming your taxi fare is a bit higher than normal.

Then there's the fact that the crowds that frequent Shanghai bars are decidedly NOT comprised of miserly students. I've always liked that St Andrews is a town run by students, but I'm starting to wonder if that's just because the alternative-a town being run by the Fife locals-is so terrifying (I can understand some of their reasons for hating students, but I would definitely feel more charitable towards them if I didn't get spat at whilst withdrawing money, shoved out the way by the schoolkids, or made to feel guilty for using the NHS). Going out and meeting 'real people' has proved to be quite fun; usually their stories are a bit more interesting than 'I grew up in X and I'm at X University' and they are much, much more willing to treat you to a drink. Or five. For some reason we always seem to end up chatting to businessmen, either located in Shanghai or just passing through, and they're probably the most generous of all.

The time is a few weeks ago on Saturday night, the place is the iconic Bar Rouge (the one right on the Bund, daahling, you must know it). Riviera has put together the White Party, and thanks to our oh so valuable business connections, my chums and I are able to waltz past the queue of people at the entrance and the cover charge is waived. Upon being treated to a free bright green cocktail by the bartender, we head out to the terrace to look for someplace to sit down, weaving through the throng people clad in all manners of white and admiring the sublime view of the Pudong skyline. We spy some couches that probably have the best view of all and exclaim, 'Oh, look! Empty seats!' Now, looking back, it seems unlikely that, at an absolutely packed party, there would be free seats on a comfy couch overlooking the river, but at the time we just thought it was luck and settled in with our drinks next to some well-dressed guys. The conversation flows easily; two are American, one French and they're in oil and gas and passing through Shanghai before heading onto Dubai and then Paris. They also inform us that the table was actually reserved-cue gasps from us-but hastily assure us that they really don't mind if we sit there, and would any of us like a drink? Cosmos are fetched and replenished without us having to ask; I suspect they go onto the company card, which appears to be one of the very few black American Express cards on earth. The whole night costs us about $3 each (taxis, of course), which is less than a single pint at a downmarket pub back in the UK. God knows how much it cost our new businessmen friends.

Later, our boss Stephane told us that reserving a table at Bar Rouge on a night like the White Party is around 10,000rmb-approximately $1500. Probably not something we would have elected to do on our own...


Thanks, obscenely wealthy businessman!






















Reserved section? What?












Some other fun instances featuring free stuff:

-My friends and I are always a hit at Richbaby, as any cluster of foreign girls at an all-Chinese club would be. The whole place is hilarious anyway; the best way I can describe it is like a collective acid trip. One minute I'm just dancing and enjoying myself, the next a guy grabbing me by the wrist-alarm bells! is he dragging me away or am I in trouble; are they for some reason chucking me out of the club?!-and leading me to the bar, where he presents our group with two flasks of vodka and green tea. For no apparent reason. Green tea and vodka, by the way, is really not bad.
-Mint (or, to be precise and pretentious, M1NT...I know) is a really lovely lounge with a great ambience that happens to feature a bar menu full of rather costly drinks. We're sitting enjoying the view, but I'm thinking that I wouldn't mind another beverage, so I'm pondering how to do it without spending a fortune. Finally I think, 'oh, whatever' and go plunk my elbows down on the bar with no real plan in mind. I get to chatting with two Brazilian businessmen, one of whom is actually called Julio (priceless!), who sort of give themselves away when one of them asks, 'So what do you do in Shanghai; are you a model?' Oh, Julio, sto-op! You are TOO sweet! Really, I didn't even know that people used that line anymore. Anyway, they ask if I'm drinking anything, so I say no, but would they know what the good cocktails are here? In response, they get a bottle of black label Johnnie Walker and another glass. Not exactly what I would have chosen, to say the least-whenever I've tried whisky, I've hated it. Like really and truly hated it; I've thought that it tasted like compost (and not in a good 'I make odd comparisons when I taste wine' sort of way). To my surprise, after Julio fills my glass to the brim and we all toast to something or other, I find that it's not terrible-bitter and smoky, but not in an entirely bad way. It appears that the reason I don't like whisky is that I haven't been buying the stupidly expensive vintages; it all makes sense now.
-It would be a shame to be in Shanghai for three months and not take a stroll on the Bund. This is prime tourist territory in Shanghai; you've got the beautiful old turn of the century architecture behind you in Puxi and the alienesque skyline of Pudong right across the river. On any given day it's packed with tourists-Chinese, Japanese, European, North American-and Saturday is no exception. When Jess, Prudence and I alighted at the intersection of Nanjing Lu and Zhongshan Lu, we trotted over to the riverside and got the standard pictures with Pudong in the background. Almost immediately we were mobbed by people wanting pictures with us-imagine the double whammy of a freak blonde girl and iconic Shanghai in ONE photo! We've been debating about charging for photos, something like 50rmb a pop, but I personally haven't had the heart (okay, the courage) to do it yet. However, one man actually had one of the professional photographers trolling the Bund come over and take a picture of him being flanked by me on one side and Prudence on the other. As we were walking away, he tugged me back by the wrist and presented me with a professional picture of the three of us. It now resides in our flat behind a glass cabinet-a beautifully shot photo of us and a random portly Chinese man.

Needless to say, when I get back to the UK and have to shell out 10 pounds for a bus, I will not be terribly pleased. The good thing? Shanghai and all of its perks will be waiting for me after graduation.

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.