whoooosh!

Whoooosh! That’s the sound of the fastest thing on land. At least, the fastest thing I’ve ever been in…we covered 19 miles in 7:20. That’s minutes and seconds, people.
Over the last few years, China’s been grabbing the top spot on a lot of things – biggest dam, tallest hotel, first commercially operated maglev train – and that’s the one I’m talking about. Back in 2004, right here in Shanghai, the world’s first (and maybe fastest) magnetic levitation train went into operation. Top speed during daily runs: 267mph! That’s over one-third the speed of sound – and you should see it, and feel it, when two trains pass each other. Some serious turbulence. I read that they got it up to 311mph during test runs but 267 is plenty fast enough for me! The thing floats just above the track and all of the propulsion equipment is in the track and not the train, for less weight and better acceleration. It’s a pretty cool concept although it’s apparently pretty expensive. They were considering building one from Shanghai to Beijing but I hear it costs 3x that of a ‘conventional’ high-speed train, so I don’t know if it’ll happen.
The train station is about 5 miles from the hotel so I walked down. The maglev takes you out to the airport, so I’m considering taking it again on Thursday when I fly out, although I’d need to take a taxi to the station because of all my luggage, so I may just taxi to the airport. I spent a few minutes at the airport scouting out the check-in lines before heading back on the maglev. Round trip was about $11 and I did shoot some video out the window when we were at top speed. Wow!
The station is adjacent to a subway line, so I went across and grabbed the subway up to the main part of town. Subways for me are kind of like sticking my toe in the local body of water: if I come to a new place with a subway, I just have to ride it at least once. The whole thing is pretty new (and they’re expanding like crazy) so it was nicer than, say the New York or London subways. In fact, as I was riding I was watching a video screen on the wall and a 2-minute commercial for the NFL came on! Not sure how well that sells in China, but with 1.3 billion people I guess they don’t need a high connect rate to be successful…
The only unsuccessful part of the day’s journey was my inability to find a Chairman Mao fridge magnet. I should have bought the first one I saw a couple of weeks ago but I figured I’d see more. Running out of time here, so that one may not end up on our fridge…they’ve got lots of other Mao-themed things like a wristwatch with him waving at you (that’s the second hand) and alarm clocks and other trivialities and minutiae. He must be turning over in his grave. I thought he was a reviled figure these days but I guess I don’t know my Chinese politics very well – his picture’s on every denomination. Maybe I’m thinking of his widow and the so-called ‘gang of four’.
The rest of the weekend passed relatively uneventfully. I got one last very long walk in, about 15 miles between the raindrops. It’s suddenly gotten a lot colder so even I’m carrying a light jacket, although still in shorts.
I debated about putting this in, but I’m gonna call it like I see it. I’ll go off-track here, and slightly off-colour, so skip this paragraph if you’re queasy. Many men are partial to Oriental women and of course, Shanghai’s full of Chinese women. In my personal opinion there aren’t too many pretty women here but I’m sure some men would disagree. But I got to thinking – even if you liked the women here, you’d have to ask yourself the next obvious question: “would I kiss that mouth?”. And I think the answer, 3 times out of 4, is probably ‘no’. Dental work and oral hygiene here is not a priority, or more likely, not available to most income levels. So there’s not always a lot of teeth in those mouths and the ones you see are not too clean. I hope it changes soon because they’re finding that dental health (specifically plaque buildup) is connected to overall cardio health. I think it is economically-related because all of my local co-workers have good teeth - in fact, one girl has braces.
Anyway, back to more pleasant topics. I write this blog in pieces over a few days, so my previous comment about not having the Mao fridge magnet no longer holds true. Came into work this evening and found, at my desk, a fridge magnet and a set of Chairman Mao playing cards, as well as a variety of 2008-Olympic-themed keychains. My locally-based coworkers are really being generous. Plenty of stocking stuffers for everyone. I just hope US Customs doesn’t get the wrong idea about my politics and sends me back to China. At least, not before I’ve had one good Mexican meal…I tried to get my wife to do a Mexican theme for Thanksgiving, but no go.
I’ve actually adapted pretty well to the night shift, but the weekends are tough. I remember when I was a youngster having to work on the grave shift at National Semiconductor for about 3 months when I was on a project, and I remember how difficult it was, and is, to maintain a normal lifestyle on the weekend. Unless you’re a bar-haunt, you can’t exactly enjoy weekends on grave shift, so you end up messing up your sleep pattern just to get some normalcy and daylight. Mondays are tough because you’re usually in sleep debt. This week’ll be a short week for me as I fly home Thursday afternoon, so I think I’ll just stay up after my Wednesday night shift and maybe be able to sleep on the plane for a change. Not sure how that’ll work because I’m booked in a middle seat, so it may end up being a challenge to stay awake through Thanksgiving supper as I regale everyone with tales of roast-tentacle-on-a-stick.
I just found out today that someone has requested my services so I’ll be employed a little while longer. This retirement thing is working out pretty well so far – a little job here and a little job there keeps the coffers full and keeps me from getting stale. My next trip in a couple of weeks is to the sovereign republic of Texas. Unfortunately I’ll be in the concrete portion of the state rather than the wilder areas I enjoyed on my road trip a couple of months ago. So if I post any blogs, they’ll likely be of the flavor “I can’t believe what that driver just did!”
I’ll end it here as I don’t expect anything noteworthy to happen in my last day-plus here in Shanghai. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Take care everyone!

the "rescue"...

Hello again from Shanghai! Well, I made it to the Yellow Sea (technically, the East China Sea) and dipped a toe in - but not the way I expected. Along my journey I had one of those cultural experiences that I enjoy so much. I guess it’s the reason I walk.
During the week one of my students had shown me an online map, and I knew my previous attempt had gotten me very close to the sea. So since I still didn’t have a map to carry, I retraced my steps. I was walking along a canal towards the end of my ‘known’ route when a fisherman hollered at me. Of course it was in Chinese and I didn’t understand, so I smiled and continued on my way. He and his wife and brother had finished fishing and moved alongside me in their motorized tricycle. Turned out his wife spoke some English (“as a hobby”, she said) and they asked me where I was going. I told them San Jia Gang, which is the name that the hotel concierge staff had given me. I figured it was just a little spot at the sea but it’s actually a small resort area with a golf course, amusement park, horseback riding, etc. He assumed I wanted to play golf but I communicated that I just wanted to get to the water. After walking beside him for several minutes and politely refusing his offer to give me a ride, he finally made his wife move to the back and insisted I get on. So off we went, to the amusement of just about everyone we passed – I think he was having a great time explaining to everyone why he’d picked up this Westerner who didn’t speak any Chinese. Along the way he tried to teach me some Chinese in his halting English: yes, no, apple, watermelon, and I can’t recall what else. I promptly forgot them all as I’m not very good with languages and am having trouble with just ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’. Anyway, we went quite a ways, probably 3 or 4 miles, to a spot where there was a breakwater with concrete blocks. (Had I been walking I’d have stopped at the first water I saw, but he said he came out that place all the time and it turned out they lived nearby.) He was very interested in photos so we took several photos of he and his brother and I shaking hands, until the batteries on my camera died. He knew someone with email but couldn’t remember the address, so I typed my email address into his wife’s cellphone so I could send him the photos when he emailed me. Then he took me all the way out to the main road so I could flag down a taxi back to the hotel. (We were just a mile or so from the airport.) I tried to pay him but he refused. I’m sure he will enjoy telling the story, many times, of how he went out of his way to “rescue” an American who was out for a long walk with no map and no knowledge of the local language.
The walk leading up to this was pretty uneventful. I got a few more smiles out of people than I had been – still, mostly stone-face at my smile-and-nod. Different culture than India, I guess. One thing I discovered early on in my stay here is that, like most of Asia, the majority of the public toilets don’t have western-style seating. Just a virtual hole in the ground, and those that do seat you usually don’t have any place for toilet paper. I’ve gotten used to bringing my own, just in case. Years ago I realized that, when in a foreign country, the bigger hotels are a good place for a pit stop – they’re more likely to be comfortable in the various ways we spoiled westerners are used to.
The rest of the week seemed to pass pretty slowly. I think I’m ready to come home, although it’s been nice to be able to make some decent money while doing something I enjoy. I took a chance when I retired that I’d be able to provide an adequate amount of income for the household – no illusions that I’d bring in as much as I did before I retired. The timing was right from a benefits standpoint; the last opportunity I’d have to lock in retirement medical insurance, and more importantly I was burnt out and frustrated with the corporate culture. So I went for it. I may have to stay in the corporate world to leverage my value, but I’ll definitely pick my spots. To loosely quote Carolyn Hax, although I have an obligation to provide for my family, they can’t just bang their forks on the table while I grind my soul into food, shelter, and gas money…
Was thinking today - it’s been exactly 6 months since I went into the operating room not sure what my future would be, and it’s been a pretty amazing six months. I’d love to think my next half-year will be as adventurous (without the miserable first month!) as this period’s been. But that’s probably not reality. I’m not looking too far ahead; as long as the blood tests keep coming back clean I’ll play it by ear. I should make it a policy, though, to ensure I get at least some camping and hiking into every 6-month period. Gotta do that stuff while I’m still relatively young, and I’ve gotta figure out how to bring my wife, a non-camper-hiker, along.
I finally went for one of the massages that are so prevalent here – about $10 an hour for a full-body massage and about the same rate for an hour foot massage. (I’m going to try that one next.) I was hoping for some magical resolution to the neck problems that have been a constant for the last 4 months but no luck. Still, it was enjoyable and painful at the same time – she found tissues I’m sure had never been touched by human hands. I think I’ll ask one of my students whether they know of an ancient mystical acupuncturist for this sore neck. I already tried the herbal remedy they suggested, but no luck.
Heading into the weekend – I’ll post now and hope for some interesting things to write about this weekend. Take care, all!

chinese karaoke and other interesting topics...

Shorter-than-usual blog – but I’ll post now because who knows when I’ll get to it again. I tend to drag my feet a bit, or get busy, so when I’ve got something written I should put it out there.
Well, travel IS broadening - new experiences abound. I’ll start with a silly one, which I could have done anywhere (but definitely never wanted to!). Management decided to have a team-bonding exercise, which I was invited to – and it was karaoke. Now, I’ve been known, on rare occasions, to have fun with a microphone in my hand. But singing in front of people is definitely not my thing, even though I love music. I tried to protest that I didn’t know any of the songs they were doing – but then they put on The Eagles’ Hotel California and I was on the spot. After that they couldn’t stop me – Beatles, Cat Stevens, even Moon River. I made them take a picture while I was doing it, so I have proof – a rare travel photo with me in it. I think I sounded OK – but then, doesn’t everyone think that?
The weirdest/funniest part was when they rang up ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’. Most songs had their own video, many apparently made in China, and RRNR was one of them. I’d have assumed they’d do something animated or show some Santa scenes – but instead they went with a snow theme and showed shots of a Chinese ice-sculpture festival. So as RRNR is starting, the first thing you see are giant faces carved in the snow (think Mt Rushmore) of … some Communist Party heroes! (Mao was the only one I recognized, but the others had red-star military-style hats.) Then dragons and other Chinese works of ice and snow. Quite surreal -it definitely made it hard to concentrate on this light-hearted Christmas tune!
Anyway, back to reality. As the weather’s been holding up I’ve engaged in a few more walks around town. I’m running out of places I haven’t seen near the hotel, so I may have to take a taxi to another part of town (one that’s on the map!) and start walking. Today, Sunday, our hosts hired a driver to take us a couple of hours away to an historic town in the Yangtze River delta call Wu Zhen (‘Black Town’). It was pretty interesting; sort of like a small-scale Venice with boats taking you around town, although there are many footpaths as well. There were a lot of museums – one for beds, another with coins, others with clothing, woodwork, etc. I contributed heavily to the local economy by loading up on gifts from the local artisans, including a needlework tiger for $20 (pre-bargaining price: $40) that will go in my den as a reminder of my trip. I probably could have bargained another couple of bucks out of it – the strategy is to take the original price and divide by 3 and work up from there - but what’s the point. I’ve got it and they don’t, so I’ll share a little bit.
Going during the day wasn’t optimal, since we’ve been on grave shift for the past week and are acclimated to sleeping during the day, but we were able to snooze in the van on the way back to Shanghai. And yes, I did stick a toe into the Yangtze River (delta). Now if I can just make it out to the Yellow Sea – I’m going to try that one again tomorrow, while I should be sleeping, because it’s supposed to be clear and sunny with a high of 62. Could be another long Monday night…
During the drive southwest, the countryside was very flat, with a mixture of agriculture and industry. I saw a lot of smokestacks, both big and small, belching filth into the sky, as well as a couple of smoky fires where people were burning their garbage. Now I think I understand where the pollution in Shanghai comes from. Our coworker/guide told us that this was illegal but that the government either doesn’t catch or doesn’t prosecute a lot of people or small industries.
I also saw some odd vehicles. Most places I travel, I see odd vehicles, but these were really unusual – three-wheeled trucks. And I’m not talking little rickshaw-sized 3-wheelers, but full-sized-pickup three-wheelers. One even had duals on the back to carry heavy loads. They were on the surface streets and I didn’t see any on the highways; I’d have to think they don’t handle very well at high speeds. I guess they have an advantage for maneuverability or gas mileage or both.
Just took a break from writing to see the fireworks outside my 11th-floor window. There’s a casino or something directly behind the hotel that was shooting them off, probably to draw business. It’s no exaggeration to say that I hear and see fireworks every night. First night in town, a coworker asked me the next morning “did you hear that gunfire?”. But as we soon learned, they do love their fireworks around here. These ones behind the hotel tonight weren’t going up very high – about even with my window.
No interesting food consumption to report, unless you count the excellent burger I allowed myself tonight. There’s a place around the corner, an American hangout called Johnny Moo’s, that I’d been eying but hadn’t been into. Pretty authentic, I’d say. I paid for it by making myself walk the 269 stairs back up to my room…
Hope all’s well with everyone.

more bull...

I think there’s an old saying, “Eat a duck tongue first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you all day.” Or something like that. I found that to be inaccurate; actually the meat was pretty good – better than the day that followed. Wish they’d warned me about the bone inside…
My coworkers here in China seem to be having a good time seeing what they can get me to eat. Stuart’s figured out if the camera’s rolling, I’ll eat just about anything. So far there’s film of me eating the duck tongue and film of me eating a brained baby squid – and then another. That one may show up on “China’s Funniest Videos”. No film of me eating the cow tendon snack, or the ‘hen leg’ (oh wait, that was just a drumstick). There are always a few interesting things on the hotel’s breakfast buffet, and they often show up on my plate. One coworker noted, “if I don’t know what it is, it doesn’t go on my plate” and that’s the difference between he and I.
My first two weeks here have been a lot of fun. I’ve enjoyed giving the training class and, as I write this, the first three days of ‘live action’ have been relatively uneventful. Switching to grave shift (9pm to 5am) this past weekend has been a bit of a challenge but I’m surviving on a wing and a yawn. I’m sure that over the next two weeks I’ll be acclimated, just in time to fly home. Which will be OK, because we’re essentially working west-coast hours. So no jet lag for Thanksgiving…
When I last left you I was preparing for another ‘team meal’. This was at a special place in Shanghai and my hosts ordered seemingly everything on the menu. The food was excellent and I had a good time trying each thing and then asking what it was. It was much more enjoyable than our first team meal and we were having some good laughs as a team. I don’t remember anything too off-the-wall except for the ‘century eggs’. So called because some versions have allegedly been cured for 100 years. I don’t think these were like that; I was told that they were buried in mud and cooked somehow – they look like a hard-boiled egg except that these were black. The taste was a bit different but I had three slices (cleaning up the plate) so it wasn’t too bad. (I recall eating similar eggs in Beijing and Singapore, and the ‘white’ of the egg was actually translucent, so I don’t think they were cooked. Presented a bit more of a challenge than these.) Overall a fine time was had by all.
Last Saturday I attempted to walk out to the Yellow Sea. I could see that it was probably about 10-15 miles as the crow flies, but couldn’t find a map other than ones showing the city center. (As noted in the previous blog, the government apparently sets restrictions on website accessibility, and it often makes no sense. So most of the websites I’d bookmarked before I left, showing various maps of Shanghai, couldn’t be accessed. Why? Who knows…) My local coworkers were little help; they termed it a ‘crazy walk’. I managed to get the hotel concierge to show me a map of the greater area and identify a couple of street names, so off I charged. Because I’d had to work until noon, I didn’t set off until 1:40, knowing that it would get dark by 5pm and my chances of success were low. Sure enough, around 4:30 I got to a place where I would need to make one more turn – which was going to be one too many to remember, with no taxi in sight. (I was in a sort of rural-residential area of Shanghai – and just like in India, the children were fascinated by a westerner walking through their neighborhood. I got lots of ‘hello’, which seems to be the one English word everyone knows.) So I reluctantly turned around and admitted defeat. I think I was actually within a mile or so of the ocean but couldn’t take a chance. I may yet attempt this walk again before I leave. Anyway, because I was mad at myself for failing, I refused to grab a taxi once I got back to the busy roads and made myself walk back. I had turned around at about the 17km mark and then compounded my frustration by missing the turn going north (as I was returning on the other side of the road, and the northbound road changed names at that intersection). So I walked about 3km past my turn before I decided I’d missed it and had to backtrack. All told I walked 40km that day – about 25 miles – and got back about 8:30pm. I was one tired puppy…but did get to see a lot of the Shanghai area.
On Sunday our hosts offered to take the four of us foreigners out shopping. China is the land of the fake brand-name merchandise so our first stop was the fake-name mall. Talk about hard-sells: they were literally grabbing our arms and physically dragging us into their stores. Even my mild-mannered local hosts had to get a little snappy with the vendors. I only bought a couple of knickknacks, but some of my coworkers bought attire (example: two North face ski jackets for $27) and other stuff. We went to lunch at an exclusive restaurant and they let me do most of the ordering. Nothing too off-the-wall: shark fin soup, tofu with crab meat, spicy chicken and pork, braised lily with asparagus (odd but pretty good) and many shrimp with eye stalks – which is one thing I won’t touch.
More shopping and a visit to an old section of the city and even more shopping, topped off by dinner on the 10th floor of a mall by the riverside, with a beautiful view of the skyline lit up across the river. A few vignettes of the day: Stuart missing seeing a red light and knocking over a cyclist and getting cursed out in Mandarin. Joe trying to find and bargain for the right Mao-imprinted articles. Karen waiting in line to use the ladies room, only to find a hole in the floor rather than a western-style toilet – and having to get the attendant to open up the ‘staff-only’ bathroom for her. And me embarrassing one of our innocent young guides by accidentally wandering into an adult store – unaware that she was following me thinking I might get lost. (Lots of giggles as she ran back to her friend.) And then there was the squid. Stuart had ordered what he thought was just some fried rice – missing the baby squid portion of the description. He was OK with eating one or two but of course laid down the challenge (by starting the video camera) so I had to respond. For me, any kind of fishy thing already has two strikes against it, and when it has tentacles…but at least the brains had been removed so the head was just an empty bulb. I thought I’d done my duty but later in the meal it was “hey, there’s a few more, and you hate to waste food”. So I had to choke down a second one before they’d let me be. But we were having a good time…
Yesterday I engaged in another long walk – about 16 miles. It was such a beautiful day that I only slept from 9am – 2pm and then made myself get up and walk down to pick up some more gifts to take home. I paid for it as the shift ended this morning, though – a few days of 5 hours of sleep, working nights, catches up with me eventually. But it was worth it to get some exercise, and you never know about the taxis around here – we had one get lost one night – he knew the general street area near the hotel but I had to guide him the rest of the way, having walked around quite a bit.
A couple of observations about Shanghai and I’ll call it quits; getting tired and need to get to sleep. (It’s another beautiful day out there, though…) One observation: no animal noises. Don’t see any squirrels or rats or any other mammal (or reptile), and very few birds. Very weird, but I guess that’s what a big concrete city is like. But I don’t even detect animals in the green areas (cultivated or not). One of my coworkers joked that, given the menus around here, more restaurants = less local animals. Second observation is that being a pedestrian is quite an exciting experience. Nothing like india, mind you, but cars turning right and left and just plain blowing off the red lights (which I’m told are “mere suggestions”) keep me on my toes. Apparently they WILL run you over, although I haven’t seen that yet. But I’m getting used to having my head on a swivel while near any intersection.

Anyway that’s it for now; I hope everyone’s safe and well. To my family, enjoy the reunion this weekend; I’ll be sorry to miss it.