Here we are

Haven't seen us for awhile. Well....here's a recent pic taken on the Bund in Shanghai.

Finally

After 2 years of living in Shanghai we finally happened to walk by St. Ignatius Cathedral, located one block from our apartment, when it was open.

We were out yesterday and noticed a bunch of tour buses parked in front of the cathedral so we headed over, acted like we new what we were doing, and walked right in past the guys with blue badges around their necks.

Also noticed about 10 guys with the clerical collar, so it must have been an official church outing of some kind.

Inside, fairly traditional architecture. See photo below. A few people were praying. We noticed a photo of Pope John-Paul II in one of the chapels.

Inside.


Lit up at night during the Special Olympics last fall.

It's beginning ....

... to look a lot like Christmas in Shanghai.

Loaded

Three-wheeled bicycles are used to haul anything and everything in China. In the past month we've seen a few real loads.

The Styrofoam loads are common. Every expat has a photo. The ice load is unusual. That guy was really struggling.

Going to the dentist

I just got back from the dentist. My third time in the chair since we've been in China.

My insurance from Intel covers dental up to about 100 USD per year. You don't actually pick a dentist, but a dental clinic. When I looked on the list of approved dental clinics, there was one called iMD located about 10 minutes walk from our apartment. The first visit I brought Sun-Ling with me, but since then I've been back twice by myself with no problems.

So on Tuesday of this week I called up iMD and requested for an appointment on Friday at 10AM with Dr Wang, the dentist I had on my second visit who speaks English, does a good job, and has a sense of humor. I reminded them that I have GBG insurance since for some unknown reason they need to have a GBG specialist in the office during my visit to process the paperwork. I found that out last visit. OK. I'm in.

So today, I arrived right at 10AM. They had my file ready, asked to make a copy of my insurance card and ID, and had me fill out the patient section of the insurance claim form. The usual kind of claim form with a teeth diagram, and lots questions about dependents, dates, policy numbers, etc.

Dr Wang goes by the English name of King Wang which is slightly humorous if you speak Chinese since wang means king. So he's King King. I told you he had a good sense of humor. Also, Elvis is called Mao Wang in Chinese which translates to Cat King which makes a lot of sense if you are old enough to remember 1950's hipster lingo.

I walked back to a bay, they don't have rooms, and sat in the chair. A smiling Dr Wang asked "How can I help you today?" "Please clean my teeth" I replied.

In China the dentist does all the work, while the assistant only adjusts suction, spray, etc. This clinic uses ultrasound to clean the teeth.

The cleaning, flossing, and polishing took about 30 minutes. King Wang reminded me to floss every day which I already do. I took my chart up to reception and paid the 19 RMB Co-pay (about 3 USD). Then I asked for a copy of my records, which are in Chinese. And I got them to put a copy of my panorex on my USB disc. See below. I was back home at 11.

Living away from our house

We have lived in four apartments in the past four years; two in Shanghai and two in Jacksonville. Those have been fantastic experiences for us, though it was not completely our choice the first time around. I love the choices and freedom apartment living afforded us. I would even venture to declare that home ownership is overrated, except

1. Having a house gives me a tremendous amount of security. If ever our wild escapades go awry, we can retreat home anytime.
2. Recently we were almost thrown out of our apartment by our landlord for the last two months of our Shanghai stint because they wanted to sell. It's awful when someone else messes up your plan.

Now we are about to embark on a new phase where we will again test our family motto: Home is where we are together.

The big five-oh

The in-laws threw me a surprise birthday dinner for my 50th at the Dolar Shop hotpot restaurant. Here are a few photos. Johnny's getting older. ;-)

Fun at work

I commute to work every day in a shuttle bus provided by Intel. Last week we had an evacuation drill. It was lots of fun. [That's my head sticking out the top of the bus window.]

Moving on

John just had a BIG birthday. We decided it's time to start the next phase of our adventure. We are quitting the tech world. The plan is to work in Shanghai until the end of the year. After the new year, we will head south to travel in southern China and northern SE Asia. When it gets too hot to run around, we will retreat to our house in Raleigh. In the fall we will come out to travel again for 6-9 months. We have no idea of how long and how much traveling it will take to get rid of this travel bug ...

The most fascinating building in Shanghai

John and I have been pounding the streets in Shanghai looking for/at Art Deco buildings. We finally got around to seeing the Shanghai Municipal Slaughterhouse which we have known about for some time. Yet we were astounded by the magnificence of the place. Its sinister, bloody past added to its fascination.

The main building is fronted by an elegant art deco facade that spans 80 meters. All the slaughtering took place in the roundish building inside in the style of a Roman basilica. There are corrals everywhere for driving animals.

Across the street sits the imposing incinerator, a perfectly proportioned symmetrical building topped by two chimneys.

When originally built in 1933 this was the largest modern slaughterhouse in the Far East. In the days of the People's Republic, the building was first left unused (or continued as a slaughterhouse depending on which source you read), then manufactured pharmaceutical products, and then was storage for a hotel. Today it is being turned into an upscale shopping & entertainment area, under the name of "Shanghai Millfun 1933."

The wonderful young lady who showed us around said they have already signed up a couple of restaurants. As a vegetarian I am not sure I would be able to stomach food in a place where so many animals met their end and so much blood flowed. We also learned from her that this year's Design Week (starting 11/15) will be hosted by Millfun 1933.

There are supposed to be two other slaughterhouses like this, one in the UK and another in the US. I would love to find those and learn about their current incarnation.

Here are the photos.

The magnificent front facade.


The sturdy legs of the main entrance.


Interior ramps, corrals, and walkways.


The sinister incinerator.


An artist's rendition of Shanghai Millfun 1933 entertainment complex.


To see all the photos, click here.

I'm published!

The dream of many photographers is to get published in National Geographic. Well, I didn't get published in National Geo, but I did get a photo published in the July issue of Shanghai Talk, a local English language magazine.

[Of course we now have at least 4 copies floating around the apartment. ;-)]

They needed a wide angle photo of the Shanghai Exhibition Center for their monthly architecture column and spotted my photo on flickr. The rest is history.

Here's a scan of the mag. Excuse my boasting but it was the highlight of the summer for me. ;-)

Update

Hey all,

It's been awhile since our last post. Everything is fine. Just not much going on. It's been very hot in Shanghai for the last 6 weeks and we have been mostly staying inside, or working, or planning our upcoming Japan trip.

Shanghai was not effected buy this summer's floods and rats. And the typhoon Sepat that hit Taiwan and Fujian brought a few showers and a few gorgeous, windy days of blue skies and white clouds; but little relief from the heat.

We did mange to get out a few times during this "blue sky period" to continue our quest to visit and photograph all the historic Art Deco buildings in Shanghai. Click here to see the latest shots.

This weekend we will attend a wedding in Nantong, a city about 3 hours away from Shanghai. John will make a speech in Chinese. Look for a full report next week. ;-)


-john and sunling

Gridlock (updated)

UPDATE: August 09, 2007

In a recent email to a friend in Shanghai, I coined a the new phrase "driver induced gridlock" to describe the type of gridlock caused solely by impatient, ignorant drivers as opposed to gridlock caused by too much traffic, accidents, bad weather, etc.

----------------------------------------

Original Post: July 31, 2007

Traffic congestion in Shanghai is usually not too bad. Many people use public transportation (ferry, bus, subway, and light rail), bike, take taxis, or walk. But during rush hour the subway is packed, buses are crowded, traffic moves slowly and empty taxis are few.

One of the busiest intersections in Shanghai - Nandan Lu and Caixi Bei Lu - is just below our apartment window. It has loads of pedestrian, bus, motorbike, bicycle, and bus traffic due to it's proximity to a major metro station, a major business and shopping district, a sports stadium complex, and a major north-south expressway.

It is amazing to peer from our window and watch the action - the flow of humans and machines. However, last Saturday night, the flow became a trickle. Gridlock. Even though there was no accident, no construction, and the traffic lights were working, the flow came to a momentary stop.

Here's a photo.


After about 10 minutes the grid became unlocked.

Huang Yu

The 3-wheeled bicycle plus driver is the real workhorse of China. They carry anything, anyone,anywhere, anytime. Their common name in Shanghai is huang yu ("yellow fish" or "croaker") as in the past these wagons were mainly used to transport fish. Northerners have a different name.

Last night we saw a huang yu moving an incredibly large load - probably Styrofoam - and Sun-Ling spotted it just in time for me to shoot this video (I apologize in advance for the overly long credits. Sometimes I just can't help myself with Windows Movie Maker).



Here are a few other shots of 3-wheelers in action.

My summer projects: #1

Summer is hot in Shanghai. I tend to stay indoors. Last Saturday the two of us nested in our apartment all day. Didn't even unlock the door to take out the trash.

This is a great time to catch up on reading. One of my bookgroup books for the upcoming year is "Leaving Mother Lake." I had known about the book soon after our arrival in Shanghai. The book is a memoir of a celebrity from a matriarchal minority group. I did not feel compelled to read the book, because 1) I abhor self promoters. 2) I am skeptical of the claim of matriarchal society.

Nevertheless I would read any book for a bookgroup. Once I got started with the story, I got totally immersed. I read other books on the subject. I am up to 5 books. I found the celebrity every bit annoying as I suspected. She also turned out to be a sociopath -- the details in her memoir by a Chinese writer is drastically different from "Leaving Mother Lake." But the story has all the issues I am interested in: indigenous cultures, women's issues, religion, influence of modern culture, effects of tourism, etc.

While in the process, I finally managed to read my 1st Chinese book cover to cover since coming to Shanghai. I was only looking at travel guide books before. I also learned how to buy used Chinese books online. And, I learned that my initial intuition was correct -- there is no true matriarchal society. They are matrilineal at best.

----------------------------------------------------------

A word about Chinese Minorities or Minority Groups: 97% of Chinese are Han, like myself. There are officially 50+ minority group with distinct languages & cultures, but I recently learned at the founding of the Republic in the 50s, 600+ groups applied for such a status.

Movie Theater Scene in Shanghai: Then and Now

I grew up during the cultural deprivation of the Cultural Revolution. Although there were 5 movie theaters within a 200 meter walk of my home, only a handful of movies would be shown over the span of a year: Chinese Government propaganda films and a few North Korean imports which were much more popular.

By the time I was old enough to go to the movies by myself, the scene was much improved; more movies, different themes, and more imports beginning with Eastern European Communist Block countries. I loved going to the movies. It seemed like I was going to the movies several times a week. In addition, a big variety of movies was also shown on television.

Nowadays all the movie theaters in Shanghai are set up pretty much the same way as the US (stadium seating for example) except the popcorn is sweet not salty and the seats are sold by seat number not general admission. In addition to Chinese movies, top US action movies are very popular. For the last few weeks "Pirates of the Caribbean 3" showed all day long at 3 out of the 4 screens at a nearby theater. Prices of tickets also match US level too: 90 RMB (~$12) for premium showings.

Recently an art house movie theater has set up shop, but we are yet to visit.

Road Rage

One day last week on the way home from work, the shuttle bus came to a stop on Humin Elevated Expressway and I woke me from my nap just in time to see a guy running down the middle of the highway. He stopped about 50 meters in front of the bus and started arguing with the driver of a minivan. I quickly pulled out my mobile phone and snapped this photo as we drove by. They are not dancing. ;-)

Shanghai's Bad Climate - The Proof

Last year I published an hypothesis on this blog

Shanghai has the coldest winters of any city in the world at similar latitude and elevation.

On purpose, I published the statement with no supporting data and was a bit surprised to receive no comments, questions, challenges, nor congratulations to what I thought was a brilliant, new, and provocative insight. Sigh....

So, now with much humility, I am belatedly publishing the proof. I used data from BBC Weather comparing Shanghai's January weather to that of San Diego, New Orleans, Marrakech, and Alexandria. As a bonus, July is also included.

Here is the same data. [I've been playing with google docs again. ;-)]

A walk through the Jewish Quarter

The past Saturday (19 May) we took a walk through a part of Shanghai called Tilanqiao by the locals (after the old fishing village there) and also known as the "Former Jewish Quarter" due to the fact that about 24,000 Jews lived there during WWII, escaping persecution in Europe.

During World War II, the city of Shanghai provided refuge to a Third Wave of Jews escaping from persecution in Europe. During this era, there was a great contrast between the stateless refugees who fled from war-torn Europe and the established Jewish entrepreneurs who were prospering in Shanghai. Now, the Sephardic and Russian business communities worked together to organize food, shelter and clothing for the European refugees.

From 1938 on, some 20,000 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria escaped to Shanghai, the only place in the world that did not require a visa to enter. Among them was Michael Blumenthal, who later became U.S. Secretary of the Treasury in the Carter Administration, and the late Shaul Eisenberg, who founded and ran the Eisenberg Group of Companies in Israel.

Between 1939 and 1940, approximately 1,000 Polish Jews escaped to Shanghai, avoiding certain death. Among these, all the teachers and students of the Mir Ygshiva, some 400 in number, miraculously survived and continued their studies in the Beth Aharon Synagogue, the only place of worship with space enough to hold the entire Yeshiva. They escaped Poland through Vilna, obtained transit visas to Japan from Sugihara Chiune, the Japanese consul in Kovno, and finally made their way to Shanghai.

The Japanese invaded China in 1937, and later occupied the area around Shanghai. From December 1941 to 1945, the Japanese interned the population of Shanghai Jews who were citizens of Allied countries. "Stateless refugees" from Germany, Austria, or Poland were relocated to a ghetto in Hong Kou ("Hong Kew"), while those from neutral countries like Iraq and Russia were left alone. Despite these difficult conditions, the Jewish community adapted to retain its culture, tradition and social lifestyle.

By the end of the war, Shanghai was home to approximately 24,000 Jews. After the end of the war in 1945 and with the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the community dwindled, with many Jews emigrating to Israel, the United States, Australia and Hong Kong.

-From www.chinajewish.org.

The Jewish Quarter is north-east from where Suzhou Creek meets the Huangpu River. It's actually quite close to downtown, a few minutes from People's Square by taxi, and just across the Huangpu River from the Pearl Tower.

We rode Metro Line 1 to the Yangshupu Station and for our first stop headed east, away from the Jewish Quarter, to the historic (founded in the 1880's), sprawling, riverside, and still operational, Shanghai Waterworks. Unfortunately the museum was closed and according to the guard "not open to individuals". Hmm. However we had a good view of the historic buildings through the fence and luckily the road in front was torn up for repair and offered a good view of some humongous water pipes. Great guy stuff!



Rode bus #21 3 stops back west. After getting our bearings, we hit the sites, all roughly clustered around the intersection of Houshang Lu and Zhoushan Lu: Houshan Park with a plaque commemorating the "Stateless Refugees", the Vienna Cafe, and the Synagogue which was under renovation but due to reopen in August.

Vienna Cafe.


View to Houshan Lu.


While walking around we saw these guys playing a type of billiards game. Sun-Ling says she remembers seeing it played when she was a child.


In addition to the Jewish history, this area is also home to a prison and a Buddhist temple.

The Shanghai Tilanqiao Prison,formerly known as the Shanghai Municipal Gaol, is almost right across the street from the synagogue, and features a magnificent art deco gate (no photos allowed but here is an old photo I found on the web), guard towers with guards and guns, and an impressive complex of brick buildings, mostly art deco. We asked the guard about getting a tour. He said there tours for officially invited groups, but not for individuals. Hmm.

On one side of the prison is an art deco hospital; formerly and/or currently the prison hospital. On the other side, a line of shops. And in the shadows behind, a flower and bird market from where you can see inmate's laundry hanging in cell windows.

Prison hospital.


Just a few blocks away at 73 Kunming Lu, in the XiaHai Miao Buddhist Temple and Nunnery open daily from 7AM to 4PM (7AM to 7PM on the 1st and 15th of the lunar month). The recently refurbished temple is home to about 30 nuns. We arrived at 3:45 and got to see the 4PM prayers. Vegetarian food is served on the 1st and 15th.

Here is the main temple.


Two of the four guardians.


Just down the street is a vegetarian restaurant. We bought 6 vegetarian zongzi "to go" for 6 RMB total.

A few block south and west of the temple, at 505 Dong Changzhi Lu, is this awesome example of Art Deco architecture, the Lester Institute of Technical Education.


Just before grabbing a taxi home, we saw this unidentified structure on the riverbank. Hmm. Maybe a viewing stand of some sort.


Finally, from the newish Yangshupu Metro Station: Drinks, Meds, and Photos.


To see all the photos from May 19, 2007, click here.

Quality of Life

The quality of life in Shanghai has just improved. I spotted these Nacho Cheese and Rock Taco flavored Doritos at my local Family Mart in XuJiaHui. I tried the Nacho Cheese (3.40 RMB a package) - not as cheesy as the ones in the States, but still quite tasty. Correction: Careful reading of the package reveals that the name is "Nacho Cheesier" NOT "Nacho Cheese". Hmm.