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.