if i were asked if i saw it, i would say ?almost.?

China is crazy.  Let’s get that out of the way right now.  In the Yuyuan Bazaar, which I will go into detail about in a minute, a British man turns to my companions and I and says “bloody hell, it’s like a washing machine, eh?”  Which is accurate at the very least.  It’s chaotic and stressful and exciting and dirty and passion-fueled and above all, it’s different.  I feel stupid for even thinking Japan would be similar to China; they are so different in almost every way.  I liked Japan more – I enjoy order and cleanliness – but China was where I first experienced culture shock.

A narrative is always an abstraction from what happened.  I can’t even skim the surface of eight days in China.  Shanghai for five days, an 18-hour train trip to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong (which is not China, technically) for three days.  Sensory overload is an understatement.  Once again, the only way to start is from the beginning.

Fortunately, I took copious notes.

The first day was the Yuyuan Bazaar.  Let me begin by reminding you all that it is the Chinese New Year, so everyone was off work, Shanghai was filled with Chinese tourists, and it was difficult to find open shops and restaurants for the first few days of the trip.  Oh, and the fireworks.  I can’t even begin to describe the deafening sound of fireworks, the lights streaming upwards from every part of the city.  It was so surreal.  They were going crazy.  I have pictures, don’t worry (you’re not worried).

ANYWAY!  The Yuyuan Bazaar: a marketplace recommended by Rough Guides, Lonely Planet, Wikitravel, and almost everyone I’ve talked to about Shanghai.  The Yuyuan Bazaar to me: chaotic, terrifying, overly crowded, and worth it.  Supposedly there are some beautiful gardens within it, but who knows.  We tried for six hours to find them and we couldn’t.  Everyone was a tourist and no one could point us in the right direction.

Now for the actual events.

First we passed the Bund, which was dead because of the Chinese New Year, then got taxis to basically pay to go around the corner.  Elle, John, and Bailey split from Traci, Jenn, and I, so we tried to meet up all day.  It was aggravating, to say the least.  Six people is four too many, let me tell you.  So anyway, Traci, Jenn, and I decided that the first thing to do would be to find food – but it was all ugly touristy shit until some guys literally pulled us into a noodle house where they handmade the noodles in front of us.  As in, rolled the dough and put it into vats outside the restaurant.  Incredible.  There were six tables filled with loudly slurping Chinese who stared at us the entire time.  We pointed to someone’s bowl and the “waiter” brought us three gigantic bowls of noodles and beef.  It was delicious and only cost five yuan, which is two less than one USD.

Afterwards, we passed the City of God Temple (too packed to go in) and enjoyed the scenery – tons of beautiful red lanterns and tigers for the New Year.  As I mentioned before, the streets were beyond packed with Chinese tourists and we couldn’t really control which direction we were walking in.  I was constantly being pushed and touched by strangers; personal space did not exist.  As I’ve also mentioned before, China is crazy – so many people harassing you to buy things you don’t need, people coughing and spitting and pissing and throwing their garbage in the street.  I’m not kidding.  We even bought Blizzards at Dairy Queen in order to find a place to sit for a minute.  I loved it, in a strange way.  It was nice to experience chaos after the orderliness of Japan.

We finally met up with John, Bailey, and Elle at an expensive teahouse (worth it) where they made John pay for his hot water.  There were giant photos of Mao everywhere, with dark wood and koi ponds.  Simplistic design.  It was a great place to unwind, that’s for sure.  Better than DQ and far more traditional.  After meeting up, we walked to Nan Xiang Steamed Dumplings, because it was recommended by Anthony Bourdain (naturally).  The ordering process was so insane – point at the item, pay for it, get a ticket, waitress takes half the ticket, leaves other half on table, brings food.  Okay, maybe that sounds normal.  But it wasn’t.  Because there were ten or so Chinese women yelling at you in Mandarin and dozens of people pushing you to move forward as you’re trying to figure out precisely WHAT seafood is in that seafood dumpling, which doesn’t end up mattering because you don’t know what it was you ate after the fact anyway.

Highly recommended.

I tried the chicken feet, which can only be described as “bony,” as well as delicious spring rolls, soup dumplings (drink the soup through the straw!  Eat the dumpling after!), beef dumplings, vegetable dumplings, who knows what else.

After dinner, we decided to just stay out instead of paying to go back to the ship.  We walked everywhere trying to figure things out for probably an hour – everything was closed due to the Chinese New Year and we didn’t have a reliable map.  Hellish.  Eventually we ran into some SAS kids, seven to be exact, and we all went to this part of town where they heard there were nightclubs and bars and what-have-you.  I don’t think I should go into how wasted a few of them were, nor how annoying.  Because that would be mean and people read this.  Let’s just say that some people don’t know how to drink…

ANYWAY!  So we go to this club in a mall, because there are lots of those in China, and it’s insane: huge, with bright blue lights and a major dance floor.  I don’t really know if it’s worth describing, cause it was more or less like a fancy rave.  There weren’t many people there, since it was Chinese New Year and like ten o’clock, but Elle, Bailey, Jenn, and everybody else enjoyed dancing to American pop music and Traci and I hung out and bonded by drinking at the bar.  We left at midnight so we wouldn’t be zombies the next day.  Oh, SAS time scheduling.

The next day I met up with Bailey, Jenn, Carly (my roommate), and Traci.  We wanted to go to the Chinese Sex Culture Museum, but unfortunately it was closed and Bailey couldn’t really handle the Bund’s Sightseeing Tunnel given her mental state.  Instead, we decided to have breakfast in one of the only open restaurants – an English café.  We then decided to go to the People’s Square to shop and meet up with Aleeza and just dick around in the area.

Oh, People’s Square.  I love you.  We met up with Aleeza and walked around the beautiful park.  It was so warm out!  There were elderly women sitting on benches, proud hip parents walking around with their children (all children were dressed in animal outfits – really), escalators that only started when you stepped on them (loves it), underground malls built out of ex-bomb shelters, and a special part of the park where parents gave their kids pellets to feed to birds.  Babies and birds!

We got lunch at a random dive restaurant.  I ordered chicken curry rice and it was AMAZING…until it made me sick in the underground mall.  So Traci and I went home in a cab playing Chinese pop music (so distinct) and I spent two or so hours editing photos and napping.

That night, I met up with Aleeza and Jenn and we decided to go to Cloud 9, a bar on the 85th floor of the Hyatt Hotel in Pudong.  It was so cool!  Really relaxed – black and silver with muted simplistic details, comfy black leather chairs, quiet and conducive for long conversations.  And of course, it provided the best view of the city at night.  There were fireworks going off everywhere.  Just beautiful.  We ran into Elle, John, and Amy there and ordered $15 cosmopolitans (whatever – I wanted fruity and a martini glass), but it was worth it.  It was such a relaxing end to another chaotic day.  On the way home, Elle, John, and I stopped outside the port to photograph the intense fireworks displays.  Wild to say the least.  Happy New Year, y’all!

The next day, day three, Aleeza and I ventured out on our own.  It was lovely traveling with her – she’s so relaxed and easy to get along with.  We walked to the Jewish part of town so she could see the old temple that was built there for the Jews who escaped from Nazi Germany.  Unfortunately, it was closed, so we walked to the nearby Jewish refugee park where they met to reconnect.  It was so interesting to see how these post-WWII slums took on new life for the poor of Shanghai.  First it was a Jewish meeting place, and now a nice spot for a shoddy area.  There were old women doing calisthenics too, which was interesting to watch (secretly, of course).

We then decided to hail a cab to a Communist propaganda antique store in the Artist’s Quarter.  It was probably my favorite street out of all of Shanghai – preserved to look like the 1920s and 30s, with antiques, calligraphy shops, art galleries, snuff bottle shops, and other amazing souvenirs that aren’t cheap tacky glowing tigers.  It was also the meeting place of the Left Wing Writer’s Association, which is now something I want to look into more, considering I went to a museum dedicated to them.  It was so cool.  We found the propaganda antique store and I bought a book of Mao quotes (published in ’63) and a pin as well.  The people who owned it were so nice and affable and made me sign a book with an English message scrawled.  At least I know how to use a calligraphy set now, huh?  But really, so much Mao stuff throughout China.  I was so surprised by how much they genuinely seem to ADORE him – there’s postcards, clocks, watches, pins, propaganda posters, books, pamphlets, wall hangings….everything.  He’s like the fucking Britney Spears of China (Britney in ’99, that is).

Aleeza and I decided to go to a random restaurant (as per usual) and ate god knows what – an orange lean thing, rice with some sort of shellfish, and soup with a bone in it.  Needless to say, I took some Pepto immediately thereafter.  It was still delicious (and I didn’t end up getting sick).  We found out later that the orange lean thing was pork, but I’m not quite sure that’s true.  I don’t really care; I’m in it for the bragging rights (no I’m not).

We then walked down a random street near the Quarter where fish were getting hacked to death left and right – blood everywhere, with one fish cut in half but with it’s mouth still moving.  The Chinese do not care for animals in general, let me tell you.  That may sound ignorant and like a generalization, but many of the experts on this voyage have warned us about that as well.  It’s bizarre – they don’t cover up the process of making them into food at all, or at least not like the US.  They hang meat from windows, kill things in front of you, and keep tanks of fish ready to be served.  Very different.

We also got a joke played on us!  When we were walking down the Quarter’s street, we walked past people lighting fireworks, and one guy set one off right at our feet.  We jumped and they all laughed hysterically.  Aleeza and I loved it – Americans deserve it, man.

A quick side note: the differing neighborhoods of Shanghai are strange, as you can really see the disparity of wealth within the country.  In the Jewish area, as well as many other parts of the city, people spit more (I cannot stress the spitting enough), stare at us, and just throw their trash on the streets.  In the nicer parts, none of this happens (just kidding – they still spit, just not as much).  The fireworks going off in the run-down parts of town was creepy.  Sounded like gunfire and looked like a war-torn country.

ANYWAY!  We then decided to head to the Jade Buddha Temple.  Again, another thing I can’t describe.  Photos will have to do minimal justice.  It was beautiful, of course, and we bought tea.  The practice of Buddhism in China was so different from Japan – perhaps I’ll write about it and post that later.  Who knows?  I wrote it in my little journal, but there’s so many intricacies that I feel like I can’t really explain in the short time I have to write this blog.  I’m only on day three, after all.  And I’ll be in Viet Nam tomorrow.

We went back to the ship and met up with Noel, Colette, and Alicia and hurried off to our hostel.  It’s the first hostel I’ve ever stayed in!  Ship-themed and reasonably comfy beds with a confusing television and a really nice bathroom.  We hung out for a bit in our room, then Colette and Alicia went to the amazing Cloud 9 and Noel, Aleeza, and I went to the rooftop to check out the bar.  No such thing, but we did almost break a door.  So then we had pizza (Hawaiian with jelly on it?  But it worked) and fries.  Bad, cause we’re in China, but we just needed American comfort food.  Then we slept.  It was awesome.

The fourth day was amazing – Aleeza, Noel, Colette, and I decided to try and go to the Suzhou or a water village (Zhoujiajiao).  However, after traipsing around Shanghai picking up our bus tickets and whatnot, we found out that we missed the bus to everywhere except Zhouzhuang, another water village about an hour outside of Shanghai.  Instead of being freaked out and not going, we all decided to just get on the bus, which turned out to be an awesome choice.

Zhouzhuang provided another look into Chinese daily life.  The ride down was beautiful – all farms and villages built on rivers.  We had no idea what to expect at all – and I loved that.  When we arrived, we immediately looked for a place to have lunch, and even though I am an adventurous eater and willing to eat in shady places…well, this town was too dirty.  The tanks looked overridden with, well, gross stuff, pigs’ feet slathered in BBQ sauce, meats hanging in literally every doorway (next to the laundry), and turtles for sale.  We opted for In-China-Only packaged food – blueberry flavored chips for example.  While we ate our lunch in a nearby park, a woman came up to us and offered to sing to us.  Despite our insistent “bu yao”s and “stop singing”s, the woman refused to stop.  It was awkward, and also very funny.  Afterwards, we walked around – to the marketplace stuffed into two narrow streets joined together by a bridge over a river, the local Buddhist temple, past the dilapidated buildings, the snails clams pearls sardines and shrimp, the beat up boats we were sure couldn’t float, the toothless women who have done the same thing day after day their whole lives, the Chinese fishing birds.  It was an experience, that’s for sure.

After arriving back home, we met up with Alicia and her newfound friend Edward, who she met in the lobby of our hostel.  They joined us for dinner in the French Concession, next to a jazz place called the Cotton Club.  We accidentally ordered way too much food – mao po tofu, fried rice, crab and peppers, white rice, beef something, Szechwan-style bullfrogs, fried fish, and mushrooms and oysters.  It was unbelievably delicious.  Best meal in China by far.  After dinner we went to the Cotton Club for some drinks – I got a Manhattan, because the room looked like it was straight out of a Fitzgerald novel.  Red plush velvet booths, cocktails, flirtatious women, and dark dark dark.  The place was full but not crowded, pure Chinese but with a dash of expats.  I loved the music they played in between the band’s set, but I wasn’t so fond of the band (they were Americans), so Colette, Noel, and I headed home for some much-needed sleep.

The next day, our final one in Shanghai, Edward joined our core group (Noel, Colette, and Aleeza) for a trip to the Urban Planning Museum.  The museum itself was kind of disappointing – all World Expo advertisements with pro-China messages.  Colette noticed that all of the “green” information was in English, but the “rural China” sections only featured Chinese.  Very interesting.  It was very strange to go to a museum that was heavily censored.

Edward was really cool!  He’s starting his own company that will essentially create tools for urban farming and was in Shanghai for business because he invented a computer that regulates the nutritional content in plants grown in greenhouses.  Needless to say, we interviewed him for our project.  After the museum, we shopped around a bit (we were in People’s Square) and then ate at a more upscale Nan Xiang Dumpling place.  The food was much better!  All freshly made by the chefs behind a glass window.  We had shrimp dumplings, wonton soup, and some shrimp fried rice.

After lunch, we sat outside the underground Hong Kong mall while Colette searched for shoes (unsuccessfully) and Aleeza and I enjoyed some delicious bubble tea.  Afterwards, we went in search for a good Engrish shirt for my sister, but instead ended up buying a sweatshirt for myself – it says “Apoclypse Almihgty.”  Amazing, obviously.  Unfortunately, Edward had to leave us, but I got his card so I’m definitely going to stay in contact with him.  After shopping for a little while longer, we lost Noel.  Seriously, this was a huge deal.  The mall was huge and cavernous and there wasn’t much we could do, especially since we had to leave for our train within the hour.  Aleeza and I tried searching, including trying to speak to a non-English-speaking guard about speaking over their intercom, and then just panicked.  We had to leave.  We waited an hour.  We had to leave.  Then guess who was there when we arrived?  Stupid Noel.  Resourceful Noel.  Thank god.

When we got to the station, some random guy pulled us aside to tell us we had 30 minutes to get to the train.  So we ran and these two Chinese lesbians (I only mention this because I found it interesting how public they were with it – I didn’t think homosexuality was acceptable in China – hurray!) called us over and rushed us through customs and up and down stairs and we JUST BARELY made out train.  Seriously.  They waited for us.  One of them, Indie, came to our cabin and told us where to go in Hong Kong.  The best person alive.  We told her to visit later and she came by and gave us all kinds of tips about Hong Kong.  She ruled, in short.

Our cabin was amazing! There was a giant doily covering the backs of the couches / side of the beds and a TV playing clips of movies – one amazing one about a monkey king.  And a giant spider demon who beat up a guy who walks on his hands because his legs are weak.  We left our room for a subpar dinner of egg and tomato soup and rice, then returned to read and relax before passing out in our respective bunks.  We woke up to some of the greenest farmland and mountains I’ve ever seen.  The scenery was so surprising only because I didn’t really know what to expect – it looks how I imagine Vietnam to look.

After we arrived in Hong Kong, we ate quickly and showered back on the ship.  Such a good shower.  Did I mention I got sick?  I did.  A cold, thanks to the spitting, I’m sure.  Everyone speaks amazing English in Hong Kong, which was both helpful and very depressing. 

After relaxing a bit, Aleeza, Colette, Natalie, and I went to the Temple Street night market to shop around before dinner and going out.  I ended up buying a fake Miu Miu purse (which surprised even me), as well as a new little notebook to replace my almost-filled one.  It’s soft leather with a giant sailboat on it, which I found fitting.  There was so much stupid shit there – Ed Hardy, Billabong, ugly flashing trinkets, ugly art.  We walked to dinner nearby, which was decent, then Aleeza and I shopped around (bought Claire’s shirt) until meeting everyone back at the ship before leaving for one drink, then it was INTERNET TIME cause we were stationed in a shopping mall with free wi-fi.  Nothing special.

The second day in Hong Kong was far more rewarding.  Set out with Katie, Rachel, Jenn, Elle, Aleeza, and Colette – a huge group.  We went to find electronics – Jenn wanted a lens and I wanted a video camera – but the Ladie’s Market wasn’t open yet, unfortunately, so we just walked around the area.  Unfortunately Katie had an FDP so she had to leave us, then we took the subway (very efficient!) and a ferry to Hong Kong island (we were on Kowloon), where we found Hollywood Ave, an antique street.  The street was incredible!  It’s the type of market I wanted – Mao stuff, pipes, snuff bottles, “antique” eyeglasses, religious imagery.  From an antique shop I bought a jade bracelet, then we got directions to a decent little restaurant for what we think was dim sum.  Had spring rolls (heavenly), won tons (delicious), tofu (good), and weird shrimp dumplings, which were essentially shrimp balls covered in a thing translucent casing.  Kind of like a bouncy ball with liquid casing?  I tried some random thing Rachel got and had my first “I should spit this out” reaction on this trip.  After the meal we walked around Cat Street, another cool traditional market.  Jenn bought two pipes and everyone else bought artwork.  I bought a Communist propaganda poster (of course) and a photo of Mao.

We then walked over to a Daoist temple.  It was so cool!  Everything was so chaotic and there were golden deities everywhere (which was weird) and people bowing with incense that clouded the entire room and those inside were completely silent.  No one was allowed photos and there weren’t many things to buy, which was a nice change of pace from the Buddhist temples.  After the temple, we decided to try and make it to the Temple of 10,000 Buddhas before it closed.

Unfortunately, we had to change four trains and stopped for ice cream, so when Colette and I ran up half a mountain to reach the top of the shrine, we were disappointed.  However, the view was so immaculate and gorgeous that we didn’t mind the fact that we didn’t get into the shrine itself.  There were Buddhist memorials for the deceased that look like body depositories with visiting family members flanking them.  The temple wound with the mountain, lush vegetation everywhere. Easily one of the most beautiful and simple, despite the extravagance that surely waited at the top.  It was such a relief from the busy mall culture of Hong Kong.

A monk followed us out of the temple for about a mile, saying “hello” and what sounded like “sorry” repeatedly.  Very creepy.

That night we had dinner on the ship to save money, then went to the main bar street where everyone from SAS was.  We had two-for-one drinks and saw everyone we knew.  I left at 12:30 because I may or may not have gotten too drunk too quickly (sorry grandma!).

The next morning was rough – I had to wake up at 7am (hungover) for a SAS trip to Lantau Island and a huge Buddhist monastery.  The trip itself was okay – the monastery was more or less mall religion (there was a Starbucks nearby?! And they sold Buddha shot glasses?!) and I don’t even know if I want to talk about it, quite frankly.  We stopped at a suspension bridge, a beach, saw the giant buddha built in 1993 (big deal), saw the bone relic (HUGE DEAL forrealzies), and ate an amazing lunch in the monastery.  There were tons of dumb girls that I want to write about later in private, but I had a nice day overall.  We took a cable car over a mountain to get back to the bus, and our tour guide was really interesting.


SO THAT’S CHINA.  And tomorrow is Vietnam.  I’m trying to get to the Mekong Delta (perhaps in a homestay?), the War Remnants Museum (supposed to be life-changing), a bunch of markets as per usual, and hopefully climb a mountain to the Cao Dai Temple.  See you then.


QUICK TID BITS:
1.      In China, you can almost always see the men at the urinal.  Not as many bathroom hang-ups?  Plus squat toilets, again.  Luckily I’m used to them now and don’t expect toilet paper to be available anywhere.
2.      I wonder how sarcasm works in China, due to the tonal language.
3.      The water needs to be boiled, and luckily, most people serve hot water to tourists.  I find this interesting.
4.      Soy sauce pretty much doesn’t exist in China – they use vinegar instead
5.      You can’t try on outfits in Hong Kong.  Aleeza and I tried to try on dresses in a few shops (one even sold a Phillip Lim jacket for like $30 USD – but it looked bad on me).  Just found this bizarre.
6.      “Jewelry” is spelled “jewellery” everywhere, which was interesting.
7.      No napkins.  Really.