Remembrance of four-car pileups past

Before you read any further, I will warn you: this post is about Beijing. I’m not in Beijing at the moment. The last time I was there was two months ago. And it’s not even really about Beijing; it’s about a tiny hamlet in rural Hebei, the kind whose American equivalent I would describe as being in the ass end of nowhere. I don’t know its name and I don’t know if it even has a name, or if it’s big enough to warrant mention on a map.

At the moment, I’m thousands of miles from that hamlet in pretty much every way and I’m looking at my left foot, which apparently is not full broken, but one of the bones in there has been ‘chipped’. ‘What do you mean, “chipped”?’ I asked the NHS nurse. ‘Like a coat of paint. Nicked, if you will,’ she replied, and sent me away with instructions to ice it, load up on pain pills and maybe be more careful next time. To be fair, the poor foot has taken a real beating—the big toe was broken in a particularly forceful high speed ski crash when I was seventeen, and then I managed to fracture the fifth metatarsal in the autumn of my first year. The combination of the foot, the pile of coursework and job applications sitting in front of me and the sleet forecast for the next few days suggests that my immediate future does not hold anything terribly exciting.

Which is why I found myself reminiscing about my flying visit to Beijing and the Great Wall a couple of months ago (fondly, I might add). Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and the Wall itself were all spectacular, of course; they’re famous for very good reasons. But one of the most enjoyable afternoons I spent up north was in that hamlet straddling a minor motorway—a lazy, sweet afternoon that could have only happened by accident.

We were on the road from Beijing to Simatai, where our traditional Chinese guesthouse was nestled at the foot of the crumbling Wall, and had managed to pack an unlikely number of people into the back of a rattling van. Jess, Prudence, Pae and I were squashed into the very back row, whose batik print-upholstered seat was dubiously attached to the rest of the car and had a tendency to fly loose and launch us all into the air every time we hit a bump. At two and a half hours into the drive, I could feel the metal framework digging into my spine (the cushions were long gone) and my arms had grown tired from awkwardly propping up my book in front of me. The others felt much the same way, and when the van slowed to a crawl, and then shuddered to a complete halt, we all gave an inward groan. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why there would be traffic in, well, the middle of nowhere. A herd of goats or sheep had perhaps escaped. Maybe there was a dead cow on the road (a dead cow apparently held up a train in Lincolnshire for four hours the other day—they’re bigger than you think, and surprisingly hard to move apparently).

Our driver, a wizened little Northern woman whose head was wrapped in a balaclava, grumbled something, put the car into park and hopped out. She returned a few minutes later and informed us that, up ahead, there had been a car accident. And not just any accident, either, a four-car pileup. How four cars managed to collide with each other—we’re talking a head on collision—on a clearly divided road with such minimal traffic was beyond me. At any rate, the mess was blocking both sides of the motorway, bringing everyone, northbound and southbound, to a dead stop. This being rural northeast China, there were no policemen or tow trucks in sight. The van, with the late afternoon sun beating on its roof, was marooned in a tiny but impenetrable sea of cars and lorries for the time being. Around us, we heard car doors being flung open and then slammed shut as people spilled out of their vehicles to observe the wreckage, take guzzles of water or tea in the open air, or just weave leisurely through the stopped traffic and take a look at the surrounding village.















Gorgeous day for a four-car pileup

I could feel a bruise blooming on my spine where one of the vertebrae had been pressed up against the metal skeleton of the seat, my limbs were stiff and prickling from being folded up for so long, and it was a beautiful summer afternoon, so I, too, opted to clamber out of the van. Prudence and I ambled down the motorway for a hundred metres or so and scoped out the village shop, where we were greeted by two grinning and wrinkly old men and a jolly elderly woman with great fanfare and much laughter. What were the chances of foreigners ever having set foot in that shop, let alone two blonde girls who spoke a smattering of funny-sounding Chinese? we wondered. As the massive fan in the corner blew around warm air, we slowly scanned the aisles, our sandals lightly slapping at the concrete floor. ‘My God, everything here is so cheap compared to Shanghai!’ I exclaimed, examining a tube of toothpaste that cost 5rmb. ‘I feel like I should do a massive shop, as long as we’re here.’ I realised what a loser I sounded like—was that how I got my kicks and giggles now, a bargain on toothpaste?—and put it back. It is easy to forget, though, that Shanghai, which those of us who live in the West consider one massive bargain, really is the most expensive place in mainland China.

After the obligatory ‘ni men shi na guo ren?’ (‘where are you from?’) conversation with the shopkeeper and his two friends/relatives/whoever they were, we strolled back into the open air to take a look at the wreck itself. Sure enough, there were three cars and a lorry all smashed together, doors bent off their hinges and windows shattered, glass thrown all over the tarmac and glittering in the sun like razor-edged confetti. There were plenty of people milling around, very much without urgency and very much without any idea what to do. It was clear that none of them were policemen or tow truck drivers, which meant we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Fine with me, really. As we wandered on packed-dirt lanes through the rest of the hamlet and watched kids weave unsteadily on their bicycles, trailed by a couple of loping dogs, I personally thought that it couldn’t have happened on a better afternoon. Above us was a thrown-open blue sky, and the air, drier than in Shanghai, was both gloriously hot and fresh. The mountains of Hebei, steep, high and jagged, were a deep green where they rose around us from all sides. With traffic brought to a halt, the only noise came from the chatter of those waiting idly for the jam to be resolved, the birds and cicadas in the surrounding trees and the occasional bark of a dog (and to clear this up for those less informed about life in modern China, no, I did not eat dog whilst there; end of discussion). This far out of Beijing, the air was sweet and clean, and this, along with the stunningly blue sky, brought to mind the myriad summers of my youth spent at Lake Tahoe, high in the Sierra Nevadas. The lazy summer afternoon: it’s the same everywhere, really.
















This is how I spent a lot of summers too, minus the whole being Chinese thing

We made our way out of the village and back to the van; unsurprisingly, no progress had been made in moving the pileup. I ducked back into the car for a second to pluck my book off the seat and then sat myself down on the roadside, where I spent the next hour trying to make sense of Haruki Murakami and munching on the dried sweet potato sticks I had bought at the shop (which pretty much everyone I knew seemed to find distinctly unappealing). To my left a few men stood with their hands tucked behind their backs, heads turned to the pileup and watching to see if anything would happen. To my right, another handful were engaged in a lively card game in the middle of the road. There was an atmosphere almost like that of a carnival, or a 1950s American block party.















Haruki Murakami: writing for crackheads since 1979

Eventually the owners of the cars and lorry found a tractor to tow the mess off the road, and a lone policeman even showed up. He didn’t do much, as far as I could tell, mostly waved his arms around without saying anything. As people hopped back in the cars and started to weave through the stopped traffic, slowly untangling the mess, chaos reigned briefly. Cue much inching forward and braking abruptly on the part of our balaclava-wearing driver. I was blissed out and full of fresh air and sun, however, and hardly minded as I was alternately thrown backwards and then jammed into the seat in front of me. I knew we’d get to Simatai in the end.

There was something so simple and enjoyable about those hours spent on the northern roadside that I can still remember it all in vivid detail, even as I’m cocooned in my duvet up here in Scotland and watching the icy rain fall outside my window. A dozen job applications, a few hundred pages of reading and a daunting five thousand-word essay on Malaysian political and economic involvement in sub-Saharan Africa await me. I wouldn’t mind a warm, sunny afternoon waiting for a traffic jam to clear.

A few brief things:

-Last Saturday, when Zoe was visiting from Glasgow (yay!), we were walking up Alexandra Place when we saw a girl riding a unicycle. I kid you not. She was pedalling her way down the pavement perfectly steadily, and her face gave no indication that it was anything other than completely normal. I, personally, have always wanted to learn to ride a unicycle, so this blew my mind.

-In preparation for my little holiday in Krakow, I am teaching myself to read Polish. I don’t know why we even bother using the same alphabet.

-We have a pair of regular buskers here in St Andrews: the accordion guy, who's usually somewhere near the Subway, and the flute guy, who stations himself outside what used to be a wine shop (thank you, recession). Even though I've never given either of them money, I've always liked the accordion guy because for some reason he reminds me of Christmas. The flute guy is also okay, I guess. My issue is: does he EVER play any other song than the Beatles' 'Yesterday'? Walking past an abandoned wine shop on a grey, drizzly day to hear a particularly mournful rendition of 'Yesterday' is the definition of 'downer'. Maybe if he played something a bit less depressing people would be more inclined to throw him money.

-Winter has come to the UK so early this year that it is cruel. When I say ‘winter’, I don’t even mean my definition of winter (10 degrees, overcast and a slight breeze), I mean SNOW. Well, not in St Andrews, but quite close by. I’m already wearing my heaviest sheepskin coat, but I haven’t yet brought out the ski socks, gloves or hats. I’ll confess that I’ve worn my black fleece-lined jodhpurs, though. It’s not obvious that they’re riding trousers—they just look like thick leggings with black patches on the inside of the knees—and they’re just so warm. Needless to say, whenever I speak to someone back in California and they tell me how it’s been NINETY DEGREES! (somewhere around thirty) and sunny, I want to throw something breakable at the wall. I do love you, St Andrews, but I also love vitamin D and looking as though I live above ground.

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.

Zai jian, Shanghai

Crying in public is, in a word, humiliating. The eyes go all puffy, your mascara runs, you feel emotionally naked, everyone around you starts shifting awkwardly, and there’s no better way to make people stare at you. And here in the People’s Republic, people tend to stare at me anyway. My white skin and yellow hair and blue eyes immediately establish me as a freak; let’s chuck in a few tears, because clearly I’m not weird-looking enough.

And yet here I am at the Pudong airport, in the middle of the night, four blazers, a scarf and a sweater next to me (I’ll explain later) and tears dropping off my face. Unfortunately, the heart does not care about these things when it is breaking. The sadness I feel at leaving China behind is so intense that I can actually feel it in my chest and my throat, a deep, pulling ache that won’t go away. Bidding Shanghai farewell is made slightly easier only by the fact that I know I’ll come back, but the pain is still there.

As anyone who has ever dropped me off at an airport/train station/bus station/ferry terminal knows, I have a horrendous time with goodbyes. I’m just bad at it, full stop. One of two things will happen. Option A: I drag it out for days, work myself into a state of deep sorrow and wallowing, and burst into dramatic funeral-style sobs at the check-in desk. Option B: in the days leading up to my departure, I procrastinate to the point that all I have time for is a fleeting ‘haveagoodsummer’ as I run down the street with frantically and badly packed bags hanging off every body part. Option B, I believe, is my subconscious way of avoiding Option A. I’m not sure if there’s a pamphlet or something on how to be less shit at saying goodbye, but if there is, I would love a copy.

I shall return, said General Patton. And so I shall. But when your heart feels like it’s been bruised, this sentiment is of scarce comfort.

Fast forward about ten hours, and I am back in the Doha airport. It’s autumn in Qatar, too, which means that it’s 40 degrees during the day instead of 50. Shanghai already seems so far away (which it is, technically—about 4000 miles), which is good in that I’ve actually left, so I can stop dreading it. Besides, since I landed in Doha, I’ve been distracted by this drunk Russian biznizman called, and I kid you not, Vladimir. Vladimir has about six gold teeth and proudly told me that he is part of the mafia and a krav maga master—you know, the martial art they teach to the incredibly fierce Israeli army? For the past hour, Vladimir has been trying to make conversation in extremely broken English, hold my hand, get my phone number, and have me visit him in St Petersburg. Wow, that sounds like a GREAT idea! I would tell him just to piss off, but the mafia connections and krav maga make me a little bit nervous. Maybe I should have pretended to be mute.

Anyway, my last few days in Shanghai may have been tinged with sadness, but they were satisfying. Shanghai is a great city for walking—rather, aimless wandering or ambling, which translates to sanbu in Chinese. I think that I’ve covered most of the ground around our flat, so I figured that it was only proper I say goodbye to all of my usual streets. In the days before my departure, the weather in Shanghai was been idyllic as well—sunny and a bit dry, with a cool breeze, and generally just perfect for being outside. Not to sound like a scrooge, but in Scotland, for much of the year, I hate being outside. It’s so incredibly beautiful, but it’s just too cold. So for the past few days, I’ve tried to savour the warm air and sun on my skin and remember what it feels like. Hopefully I can recall when I get caught in the St Andrews sleet without an umbrella (I’ve lived in the UK for three years; you would think bringing the damn thing with me would be reflex by now).

Embarrassingly, up until yesterday I had never been to Yuyuan Bazaar, which apparently is where all the tourists head straight away (as I found out when I waded through the throngs of Chinese and laowai alike). So I hopped on the metro and admired the delicate structuring of the pagodas and lavish decorations in the temple, all of which bring to mind the old dynastic China. One of my favourite Chinese traditional architectural features is the lines of animals marching along the upturned curves of the pagoda roofs. The more animals on the roofline, the luckier, or so the thinking goes. It was explained to me when I first visited Beijing, though, so I could be completely wrong. Whatever. I like the animals. From Yuyuan I made one final stroll down the Bund and watched the Pudong skyline burst into colour and light as dusk fell. The scale of the buildings is unreal—you have to see it to believe it. I’m not a huge fan of modern architecture, but it really is stunning. I’ve been to the World Financial Centre in all its second-tallest building in the world glory a few times now, but it has never failed to take my breath away. What really struck me, though, as I leaned over the railing and watched a black cargo ship steam its way down the Huangpu River, was the enormous significance the skyline carries. The sense of history weighs so heavily on you. Forget a picture being worth a thousand words; the face of modern China has spawned entire libraries of words. Deng Xiaoping, were he alive to see it, would be proud. I think.

As I was bidding the Bund adieu, I stumbled across a large half circle of Chinese tourists all staring at something on the ground. Feeling curious, I went to join them and was greeted by the sight of two dirty white hippie-wannabes, complete with dreadlocks, guitars and sense of obnoxious self-righteousness. They were strumming away and singing something (off key, naturally) with an upside down hat in front of them, clearly thinking that all the Bund's foot traffic would make it an ideal place for busking. You have to be seriously dim to think that China is a good place to do that sort of thing, but there they were in all their Asian backpacking glory. Sure enough, two police offers marched up to them and told them to get out (even if you didn't understand Chinese, it was pretty clear). I know it makes me sound like a bad person, but I laughed. I hope that, after I left, the two policemen told them to take a shower as well.

After my twilight farewell to the Bund and Nanjing Xi Lu, I savoured one last meal of good genuine Shanghainese food, which was a particularly sad occasion. When I was waxing poetic over the phone to my dad about epicurean Shanghai, he commented, ‘I guess you’ll be really and truly spoiled with regards to real Chinese food now—nothing in the West will measure up.’ I readily admit that I was a Chinese food snob even before coming to Shanghai, for which I blame/accredit growing up in the Bay Area. Now, I imagine, I’ll be unbearable. My apologies in advance.

I’ll admit that my last forty-five minutes in the flat was spent frantically chucking odds and ends into my suitcases and praying that they wouldn’t weigh more than twenty kilos (checked bag) and seven kilos (carry-on). I’d brought the big one down to the post office a few days earlier to weigh it, thinking I had most of my stuff in there. After fighting through the crowds of people shipping mooncakes for the mid-autumn festival, I had been relieved to see that it weighed in at a mere 16.5. Unfortunately, the aforementioned odds and ends actually weigh a lot. I’m not very good at gauging weights, but when I picked up the suitcases, they seemed a lot heavier than what they were supposed to be. As I berated myself for not just shipping a box back to St Andrews, I frantically started rearranging. Shoes are heavy, I figured, so I stuffed a few pairs into my ‘personal item’—the one thing Qatar Airways doesn’t weigh. My books—which are easily three or four kilos alone, went into a plastic grocery bag in a bad attempt to make them look like snacks. I was still left with the problem of my four blazers and wool cardigan, though, which I knew would add a few kilos. With a sigh I squeezed on the sweater and two of the jackets and folded the other two over my arm along with the grocery bag of ‘snacks’. Needless to say, managing the blazers, ‘snacks’, massive ‘personal bag’, carry-on and big suitcase was actually impossible. By the time I got to the check-in desk I was roasting in my myriad layers, and my arms felt like they were about to fall off from trying to carry everything. Plus I looked like I had a disproportionately bulky torso and had a sort of wild look in my eyes, as the hour’s drive from Puxi had given me ample opportunity to work myself into a worried frenzy about what I would do if my stuff was still overweight. Crying? Pleading student status? Paying off the clerk? Faking a heart attack?

As it turned out the clerk didn’t say a word. My heart slowed down to its normal speed, though I’m still carrying around the four blazers and cardigan.

Next stop, Heathrow. Then Edinburgh, and finally, back to my seaside home in St Andrews, which, last time I checked, wasn’t so popular with the krav maga master mafia thugs.

Autumn wins you best by this, its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay

Well, as hard as I may try, I can't deny that autumn is upon us here in the northern hemisphere. And as depressing as this sounds, I've come to dread these funny few weeks of mid-September. St Andrews term starts late compared to a lot of places, so for the past three years it has felt like I'm trying in vain to cling on to that warm-sunny-holiday idea. Then, of course, I've started to associate this time of year with goodbyes (California, our summer flat last year, Shanghai). Add to that this imminent sense of dread at the approach of a Scottish winter, and, well, it makes you feel a bit...meh. Don't get me wrong, the weather is really lovely and all that, but I can't shake off that little something niggling at my heart. I have to say that I preferred this time of year when I was a kid, even if I had been in school for something ridiculous like three weeks already at this point. In California, Indian summer is simply gorgeous, and I had Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, ski season, Christmas and a generally sunny, mild winter to look forward to.

This year, it's especially difficult because of two things, the first of which is the Shanghai goodbyes. Seeing people head back to Europe and the States has sucked. The second thing is that I'm heading into my last year at St Andrews, and no matter how much I slag off the winters there, I love my town and my friends and my St Andrean life more than I could ever say. I'm so excited to graduate, but the thought of leaving my adopted home is enough to leave me in tears. And it's still months away! Then again, I've never been good at...um...not crying. Considering that I always seem to be about 6000 miles away from at least someone that I really care about, you would think that I would have learned to cope better, but most every time I leave California or the UK I end up in tears. The kind of hug-my-knees-to-my-chest-and-sniffle tears that, when I'm sitting alone in a departure lounge, make people think that I'm being deported or something.

I'm afraid that there is a 99 per cent chance that I will be in a similar state in six days' time, but it will be even more depressing because it will be in the middle of the night (thanks a whole f***ing lot, Qatar Airways, for having your ONLY flight out of Shanghai leave at 1 am, that's so convenient).

You can feel that it's autumn here now. All summer long the temperature has been around 34, 35 degrees (high 90s for all Fahrenheit people out there) and pretty steamy, with lots of sun. I would hardly call it cold-29 degrees is still considered 'sweltering' by many of the Brits I know-but it doesn't sap your energy or make you feel like you're being cooked quite the same way it did earlier during the summer. The little blue fan I keep in my handbag has gotten much less use over the past few weeks. I won't lie, I'm worried. If I think that 29 degrees is counts as 'cool', then how am I going to survive landing in Edinburgh to a more-than-likely rainy 13 degrees? Will my fingers fall off? Will I die?? I remember landing at EDI in early February wearing flipflops and a sleeveless top after having been in Singapore and Thailand for two weeks. It was pitch-black and snowing. It took weeks to get over the trauma.

It's getting dark earlier as well. I left the office at about quarter past six the other day after fifteen minutes of heaving frustrated sighs at my computer (my laptop has this spectacular talent for uploading files very, very slowly, leaving me to wonder just how much of my life I've wasted attaching documents to emails) and to my surprise I stepped outside and it was NIGHTTIME. Gah! Doesn't that seem a bit early to you?! This is, of course, mere foreshadowing. I know how much worse it can get. For those of you that have never watched a sunset at 2.30 in the afternoon, I can't say that I would recommend it, but it's an experience. Ditto waking up in the dark for four months straight. Most of you know about my beloved sunlamp that resides on my desk back in St Andrews-the giant square lightbulb with two settings, 0 (off) and 1 (SUPERNATURALLY BRIGHT)-so that's my answer as to how I get through the winter. Unfortunately, even prostrating myself in front of the lamp for those minimum 90 minutes a day doesn't always work. As my aunt says, the best way to combat darkness like that is a boarding pass. After enjoying long evenings and dusky sunsets over the city's skyscrapers all summer, the early nightfall is quite sad.

Shanghai doesn't exactly have New England's reputation for leaf change (no leaf-peeping buses here). but if you look at the trees overhead you can definitely see autumn coming to them as well. This morning I went for one of my standard long ambles, and up on Yuyao Lu, suddenly found myself walking beneath a shower of slim golden leaves being shaken loose by a gust of wind. The street was silent and nearly empty, sort of like being in a surreal urban grove. The sky overhead was a thick blanket of gunmetal clouds, as there was a heavy storm brewing all morning, and you could fill that anticipatory click and whirr of brewing rain. Simply put, it just didn't feel like summer anymore.

You can tell, as well, by the hairy soft shell crabs that are suddenly popping up at all the fishmongers. All through July and August it was crawdads crawdads crawdads, all stacked immaculately in massive red piles, but now it's the crabs' turn. Ditto with persimmons, apples, pomegranates, and all the rest of the fall fruits. The other thing you see everywhere now is, of course, moon cakes! The mid-autumn moon festival is almost here, so they are EVERYWHERE in all their exquisitely crafted festive glory-from vendors in the street selling them off the top of a battered steel bicycle to the bakeries of luxury hotels. If only I were around for the actual holiday, which is the 22nd. To be entirely honest, I'll probably be bleary-eyed and wrapped in a cardigan and uggs in Starbucks with the girls rehashing whatever mayhem freshers week will bring. It doesn't really evoke that same romantic oriental image, does it?

Again, though, I know that there's no reason to get sad, as I'll be back after graduation. I really am just that bad at goodbyes. Oh, and cold weather. According to my weather widget, it's about 19 in St Andys right now (65F) and not pouring rain, which is not awful. I still see many scarves and ugly-but-warm hats in my future, though.

Small things:

-The other day, I walked into a shop and plucked a few dresses off the central rack. I pointed to the dressing room and asked if I could try them on, but the girl behind the counter gave a weary sigh and told me, very definitively, no. Why? I asked. The girl then told me that I couldn't try them on because I was too fat. We all appreciate it when people are straightforward, but what do you even say to that?!
-I promise (really, I do) that I will put my photos on shutterfly when I get back to the UK. It just takes forever with the VPN, and Mom and Dad, you've both made it clear that you don't want to go anywhere near my facebook. Good call.
-As Qatar Airways are so ridiculously anal about overweight luggage, I have decided to ship some clothes/stuff back to Scotland via the China Post slow boat. It's only 50rmb per kilo, which is a fraction of what QA would charge, and will get to the UK in a month. My goal is to have The Box (as I've taken to calling it) prepared and sent off in the next few days. Well, I guess it kind of has to be in the next few days, but sooner rather than later. If anyone wants anything sent to the UK in The Box, let me know asap and somehow get me the money for the extra kilos. For the record, I'm very curious to see whether or not The Box will actually get to me. Ever. If it does arrive within a month, I'll probably have a coronary out of pure shock. There's apparently an even slower option for 25rmb per kilo. A parcel is meant to take three months to arrive, meaning it probably reaches its destination within the next two years. It's 2010, why do these things still take so bloody long?! Ahem. Sorry.
-This afternoon I went up to Hongkou to get some clothes and jewellery at the Qipu Market, which is one of those multi-story labyrinthine behemoths packed full of stalls and pushy vendors. Amongst the things I bought was a necklace of a rhinestone panda playing an electric guitar. Pandas? Rock 'n roll? Totally logical combination. I also got myself a shirt that reads, 'THE FILTH AND THE FURY!' (yes, in all caps, with exclamation point). Behind the words is the outline of some very bizarre and perhaps Satanic-looking animal, like a cross between a rabid bunny and a goat. I really have no idea what the shirt means. At all. Finally, I figured I should buy some little souvenir touristy thing, so I got myself a shirt to sleep in. It appears to be a Texas extra large and has a picture of two pandas eating bamboo above the words 'Shanghai, China'. That may seem like a pointless disambiguation, but there are apparently Shanghais in North Korea and Puerto Rico as well. I would hate for people to be confused. We don't have pandas in Shanghai, though. That part is a lie.

Beijing, take two

I should have posted this weeks ago, really-I've been back from Beijing for some time now. Sigh. Such is life.

The first time I went to Beijing, and indeed my very first time on the Asian continent, I was seventeen. The year was 2007-China's much-talked about coming out party of the Olympics was still a while away, Sarkozy, Obama and Cameron weren't yet in office, the financial crisis was only just brewing and my little mind hadn't yet been blown wide open by the sensory smorgasbord of the Far East. Needless to say, I loved my brief time in the capital and am still immensely grateful to the Buies for making it possible and for our Mandarin class at Branson for making it so much fun. Landing at SFO, though, I couldn't help but feel genuinely sad-and normally I love coming back to its silent sterile emptiness (not sure why, but I do). When, I wondered, would I get the chance to come back? I could have easily stayed in Beijing for months more and felt that I had barely scratched the surface of the behemoth of the People's Republic, and the UK-which would be my new home in a few months' time-was just as far away as California.

Really, I have such amazing memories of that first visit, and they've hardly faded since then. I still remember how the late winter air felt, the dusky early morning light over Tiananmen Square at the flag raising ceremony, the gritty black tickle in my throat I developed after just a few days and, at the foot of the Great Wall, laughing over something that was distinctly un-funny so hard that we were all in tears. Plus, I brought back loads of STUFF-souvenirs, I guess, but not much in the way of 'I went to Beijing and all I bought was this stupid t-shirt!' sort of things. The massive brass Tibetan ceremonial dagger still resides on my mother's coffee table, the Cultural Revolution-era propaganda posters are folded up in storage boxes in St Andrews as I type this and I still lounge around in my mint green and navy silk bathrobes. In short, that trip to Beijing has stayed with me, and I couldn't wait to go back. I just didn't know when I would be able to; as hard as I tried to think like General Patton ('I shall return'), it's not easy when you're a just a dumb seventeen-year-old.

So fast forward a bit to me in Shanghai Hongqiao train station, getting ready to board the night train to the capital, and you can imagine that I was rather excited. The train, first off, was so pristine and white that it kind of looked like a mental hospital-a bit different from the lovable but grimy third class cars in which Natasha and I trundled around Rajasthan. I could wax poetic about the downy white comforters and bottled water in our private compartment, but, so as not to sound like a country bumpkin/weird train afficionado, I won't. Despite having lived in Britain for three years, in which the trains are overpriced, often delayed and generally a bit crap, I still find train travel novel, which I suppose comes from growing up in California. The sleeper train had me excited enough as it was, and when I opened my eyes to the early morning fog, birch trees and low blocky buildings, it brought to mind my first glimpse of northern China from the plane and had me raring to go.




















Yours truly getting way too excited over how clean the train was

Beijing and I have both changed a lot since 2007-they had the Olympics, and I moved to a tiny wind-blasted town in Scotland (though I suppose some other stuff has happened too). Anyone who's experienced pre- and post-Olympics Beijing will tell you this, but it really is striking how much cleaner the whole city is-the air, the sidewalks, the streets, the buildings. In my Chinese politics module last spring, our tutor (the famous Marc Lanteigne) told us that, in the months leading up to the opening ceremony, the government kept running tally of all the 'blue sky' days in the capital. 'Blue sky' didn't actually mean perky blue expanses with puffy white clouds; 'blue sky' meant looking at the pavement and being able to see a faint shadow. Kind of misleading. When we were there three years ago, we had quite a clear first morning, but mostly it was mottled grey haze of varying thickness. Even out by the Great Wall at Mutianyu the sky was the colour of dust. By the time we headed back to California, most everyone had a low hacking cough that sounded terrible, which was particularly unfortunate considering that this was the height of the avian flu epidemic. US customs is notorious for holding people for hours at a time, and I think that the combination of death-cough and 'I've just been in China' would have set off some alarm bells. (Ahh, the memories.)

So when that early morning haze burned off to reveal crystal-blue skies overhead, I was pleasantly shocked. No more black lung for me! Up at the Great Wall at Simatai, the difference was even more pronounced. Up in the lush and verdant mountains, I felt as though I was in Tahoe-not the country that boasts seven of the world's ten most polluted cities. Not to digress, but I'm looking over a list of the planet's most polluted places right now, and it's making my stomach turn over (though that might also be last night taking its toll, oops). When I did a paper on the impact of environmental problems in China, I looked over a photo essay of some of the cities in the rust belt up north. And let me tell you, Jesus Christ, it simultaneously made the bile rise in my throat and brought tears to my eyes. Photos of places like Linfen make Guatemala City look like a garden spot. Very distressing.

Anyway-it wasn't just the air that seemed so much cleaner; everything generally looked as though it had been hosed off and given a new coat of paint. Even the hutongs looked as though they'd been spruced up a bit...which, to be honest, made me a bit sad. I really do love the sleek, spotless efficiency of Geneva and Singapore, but I'm a big fan of chaos as well. I love hectic markets with monkeys running around and people selling mysterious meat on sticks and haggling and dilapidated buildings festooned with clotheslines. The Beijing government certainly did what it set out to do for China's coming out party, but I hope they leave the hutongs alone now.

It's also a lot quieter in Beijing now, as people actually seem to be taking notice of the no horn signs all over the city (yes, the ones that I first thought meant 'no playing trumpets here'...embarrassing). Rather than the cacophonous symphony I remember, it just seems to be occasional beeps now. My mother, who literally jumps when she hears loud or sudden noises because I've 'shattered her nerves', will be relieved to know this (because I WILL drag you to Beijing one day, Mom).

Another difference is that the streets are no longer mobbed by the same throngs of bicycles anymore. There are still loads, of course, but it's nothing compared to the swarms I remember. Our flat in Embassy House back in 2007 looked out onto a massive intersection, and I remember that we could watch the frenzied dance of trucks, cars, people and bicycles for a good twenty minutes at a time. The bicycles were like locusts, threading in and out of cars and somehow avoiding getting flattened. I suppose it's not just Beijing, though-China is going car-crazy at the moment. Think 1950s America, but with 1.3 billion people. Kind of frightening, actually.

But so much of Beijing is exactly the same-the stunning monuments of the imperial past, the wholly delicious kao ya (roast duck!), the heavy curly sound of the northern accent. It's impossible not to be blown away by the splendour of the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace or the Great Wall. Tiananmen Square-the very very first emblematic place I went in China-was just as I remembered it, which is to say HUGE. Pictures can't capture the scale of the place. And looking at Mao's portrait gave me history-geek chills-another thing that was just the same. Oh, Mao-'cult of personality' doesn't do him justice. Even after doing a lot of really stupid s*** and being dead for 30 years, he's got a larger-than-life portrait in the nerve centre of the world's burgeoning superpower. It sort of floors me that one guy with poufy hair and poor dental hygiene was able to alter the course of human history this much. Historiography as an academic discipline tends to sneer at using individuals as the primary unit of analysis-you know, the whole idea that history has been determined by a succession of kings and emperors-but when you look at people like Mao Zedong, it makes you think. And in Beijing, you definitely feel his presence more than you do in Shanghai (though I'm sure there's a less creepy way to say that).



















There he is!

One nice difference about this time around? It was a lot easier to say goodbye, because I know for sure, like General Patton, that I shall return.

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.

Pǔtōnghuà, anyone?

Some time ago, I was told that I am a 'language person'. I'm certainly not a numbers/science/technology person, and the Romance languages and Swahili came easily to me, so I assumed that this was at least partially correct.

Much like the modernisation theory (I won't go into that, I promise), China has blown a huge hole in that hypothesis.

Characters have always been hard for me; my expectations regarding reading and writing are low. I know a handful of characters, some of which come in handy-'Shanghai', 'Beijing', 'entrance', 'meat', 'tofu'-and many of them nice, but really rather useless-'jade', 'Vietnam', 'heart', 'safe', 'hero'. But even the verbal part of the language is tough. Mandarin only has five tones, compared to Cantonese's nine, and I don't have to worry about tongue clicking like I would if I were seeking to learn Khoisan, but there is no getting around the fact that it's a hard language to learn. For those not in the know, Mandarin uses a variety of pitches to differentiate words with the same basic sounds; for example, depending on the tone, 'ma' can be mother, horse, scold, hemp, or used to indicate a question. Understandably, this leads to saying something nonsensical/confusing/hilarious/really really inappropriate (to find out more, look at the entry for 'grass mud horses' on wikipedia; apparently it's been driving the government crazy).

Not being able to read or write is also a rather surreal experience. I now know what it feels like to be illiterate, because no matter how well I can write in Roman script, over here, it's pretty much just squiggles. That sign over there? It could be for a restaurant, or a slaughterhouse, or a brothel-pathetically, I wouldn't know. Someday, hopefully, I will learn these things, but today is not that day. At the moment learning to speak and listen presents enough of a challenge.

This is where my status as resident pink-and-white freak comes in handy (sort of). The way I figure, everyone already regards me as an oddity/mutant/mythical creature anyway, so really, there's very little I can do to shock people. I could probably walk down the street on my hands and people would stare, but oh wait! They stare anyway. So when it comes to Mandarin-pǔtōnghuà-no matter how crudely I speak or how garbled and weird my speech is, my guess is that people will just say, 'That laowai was so weird, telling us that it wanted to buy forty-six giraffes...and did you see the size of its feet?!' In other words, my sounding like I'm either retarded or on an acid trip is really just part of the whole strange package.

A few notable instances of my failing to scale this rather intimidating language barrier:

-Sometime last week I went out to the Marriott Hongqiao on business (haha! This still cracks me up whenever I say it!) with Isabel, a Shanghainese woman who works at Riviera. We got a ride back to the office with a guy called Zane, who was looking over the site (distances, dimensions, etc), and his girlfriend in their car. His girlfriend was holding the tiniest golden Chihuahua mix puppy with the biggest, darkest eyes I've ever seen, drifting in and out of a nap, stretching its little toes, yawning and blinking its long dark lashes, and of course the little thing simply enchanted me. 'Hen xiao!' I squealed ('very small!'). I realised then that I could also ask if this was their dog-'Zhe shi ni de gou ma?' Hurrah! I knew enough to start a conversation in Chinese! Very unfortunately, what came out of my mouth next was, 'Zhe shi ni de rou ma?' In accidentally saying 'rou' instead of 'gou', I had just asked his girlfriend, 'Is this your meat?' The whole car turned to look at me in quiet horror before I exclaimed, 'Aaagh! Ni de GOU!' They laughed, but in the end I didn't get to hold the dog. Understandable, from their point of view, but still pretty gutting for me.
-A few nights ago Jess and I decided to go out for dinner at this little hotpot place on Yanping Lu, which, in retrospect, was probably biting off more than we could chew in terms of our Mandarin capabilities. Hotpot is not one of the more laowai-friendly cuisines to order, as one has to mark tick off boxes on a menu to indicate what one wants. We decided to order three of something random, but then realised that this was not going to work when the perplexed waitress asked the two of us if we really wanted three 7-Ups. In the end, she actually brought us into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and told us to point out what we wanted. Again, kind of embarrassing, but I think we were the only people that got to go into the kitchen all night (it was very nice and clean, by the way).
-It seems as though every time I turn my head in Shanghai, I see a bank-Bank of Shanghai, Bank of China, Bank of Ningbo, China Construction Bank, Everbright, the list goes on. Last night I was down to eight kuai, which for those of you keeping track at home, is about $1.20, or less than a pound sterling. I set off after my Mandarin lesson with two goals-withdraw some cash and get some dinner, as I had had the lesson straight after work and was bordering on ravenous. I suppose that my hunger affected my brain, because as I walked down the pavement I spied one of those places where they give you a box of rice and you get to pick out three vegetable or meat dishes to put on top of it, and it all looked sublime. These places are great because you don't have to know the name of anything or how to say it, and because you can look at exactly what you're ordering, there's no danger of ending up with a slab of lard/a duck head/a raw egg. 'Eleven kuai,' the woman told me. S***! my hungry, hungry brain thought. I showed her my lonely eight kuai and made a pathetic helpless gesture with my hands and then probably made myself look even dumber by taking out my debit card and doing a very bad job at miming withdrawing money. I'm guessing that the proprietors and patrons of this tiny little restaurant couldn't read 'Charles Schawb platinum checking card', or that they had any idea who Charles Schawb was, so they probably thought I was some Western moron who was trying to pay my whopping eight kuai bill with a credit card. I handed over the rest of my cash, held up a finger-wait!-and started to walk out the door, when the woman holding my dinner took my hand and simply placed the bag in it. They clearly felt so bad for me-either they thought I was absolutely destitute or I had lost face so badly-that they knocked three kuai off the price. I was mortified and wished more than anything that I could knew how to say, 'If you wait just a second, I'll withdraw money at the nearest bank and then come back and pay you that last three kuai'. As it is, I don't. So even though they were laughing and smiling as they sent me out the door, I still feel like I owe them three kuai, and it's going to be really, really embarrassing to pay them back.

Other things I lack the ability to talk about are burnt out lightbulbs, clogged toilets, shoe repair, stain remover and life-threatening emergencies. It's cool, though; when I go to a restaurant, I can order something other than beef noodles now.