Dinner and a Walk

Here is a wonderful picture of my friend Gaby, Gaby and I went to dinner last Wednesday with the Shanghai Expats Association. The venue was Italian, and you know my passion for all things Italian......the restaurant, Vino e Pane. It was delightful. I met the most interesting lady - Christine Cullen, Founder and Executive Director of Heart to Heart a non profit group that helps children who need heart surgery. The group raises money for the surgery, donates clothing and household items to the families of the children in need. Also she is quite an adventurer she just came back from the Antarctica with a group that I am interested in using to take the same trip. Tony and I were talking about a trip to Antarctica about 4 years ago. Christine said it was incredible but not relaxing. More of an adventure trip.

Tony of course was away traveling for work so he could not join me.

I belong to 2 groups here in Shanghai, the American Woman's Club of Shanghai and the Shanghai Expats Assoc. Both groups have tons of activities scheduled each month and sometimes it's hard to choose. My favorite activities are the "walks" around Shanghai. Various guides are used, one gal is a writer who writes about the architecture here in Shanghai, another is a photographer who grew up in Shanghai and others are just experts who have lived here for 10 years or more and give these walks to subsidies their income.

Here are a few pictures of my walk in the Russian ghetto. The postman rides up and down the lane homes to deliver the mail.




Barbershop.

Guard cat.

Cooking dinner.

A letter from a student

Dear Mrs Mollica,
I'm Nebula from your Conversation English Fri 12.
I'm terribly sorry about the things I did. I didn't finish my homework, and I couldn't stand my heart beating so fast for feeling guilty, so I escaped finally. Regret to cheat you. I made a terrible mistake without any excuse.
I do respect you so much and take the homework seriously. I like to speak English as well. But I don't know why I'm not myself. Recently, I always do terrible things, then escape far away and feel guilty for a long time. I hate myself so much. I'm afraid it's a kind of psychological problem. I really want to be brave and responsible.
So, could you please give me a chance? I can fix all these and do it well, I promise. And I'll be very happy if you accept my homework next week.
Thanks a lot for reading my E-mail.
All my best wishes.

Yours gratefully，
Nebula

How about that. And you should have heard some other excuses..... Overall I would say 80% to 95% of each class turned in the assignment. Which seems about right. I actually had 100% turn in their homework in one class including a kid who was absent but had his friend bring it.

The homework assignment was to write a brief paper on creating your own ideal nation.

Populate Ideal Land

A large area of your country has been set aside by the current government for the development of a new nation. This area will include an invited international community of 20,000 men and women. Imagine that your group has to decide the laws of this new country.

Discuss the following questions.

1. Which political system will the country have?

2. What will the official language(s) be?

3. Will there be censorship?

4. What industries will your country try to develop?

5. Will citizens be allowed to carry a gun?

6. Will there be the death penalty?

7. Will there be a state religion?

8. What kind of immigration policy will there be?

9. What will the educational system be like? Will there be compulsory education to a certain age?

10. Who will be allowed to marry?

11. Other things you would like the country to have?

Apparently I would not have been able to do this sort of thing 5 years ago, so I have been told. The most consistent answer was to question number 3. Will their be censorship? The answer was always: Yes, at least some sort. The main reason they say is because it makes for a happier nation. How about that!

I do not try to change their opinions I just listen and nod my head.

Flower Market

Tuesday was such a beautiful day that I thought I would walk to the Flower Market, it took me about an hour. I did not realize that the flower market also had birds and fish.Albino frogs?The flowers I bought at the market, a deal at $5.00!

Spring time in Shanghai

Pretty day in Shanghai!


There seemed to be someone else enjoying the flowers too!

Sidewalk Traffic

Ok so this guy was walking around on the sidewalk at the flower and bird market.


You have to see it to believe it......and you better be alert or you'll get mowed down!

Traffic lights

One really interesting thing that they have in Shanghai (All of China?) is this count down meter to the green or red light. It tells you how long you have before the light changes. This picture was taken out in Song Jiang, not in the city of Shanghai, notice the lack of buildings and some green.

Also I managed to capture this picture of the large metal flower bouquet. What do you think? Good outdoor art?

Lunch at Donghua University

On Thursdays I have a full day of teaching at the Song Jiang campus , starting at 8:15 and finishing at 4:20. There is a break for lunch at 11:30 till 1:00 at this time I head over to the canteen. The reason I go to the canteen is that the second half of my day, 1p - 4:20p, is comprised of two classes and are in a building that has no heat.

That's right the building was built 6 years ago and they did not put in any heat or AC. Crazy. Since it has been cold, hey it's winter, I try to keep as warm as possible till the last possible moment. And that means going to the canteen, which is heated. The food is inexpensive and pretty good if you like Chinese food, and generally I do. You can get lunch for about 2 dollars/ 14 yuan. Includes rice, some sort of hot stew, like beef with sweet potato's, a steamed veg and 2 slices of watermelon and of course tea. They also have a selection of food in a clear glass fridge where you can point to the item and then they will cook a fresh one in the kitchen and bring it to you.Good idea right? Except that the samples in the case are actual food, not plastic representations and I just realized that they do not change the items in the fridge. I guess that would be wasteful. So a wonderful bacterial experiment has begun...... and it is so gross and unappetizing - and you know it is going to start to smell soon. I bet the fridge is not turned on it's just used as a case.
Yes that is mold.
The canteen has 3 floors and the "nice" restaurant is on the third floor. You can sit in a private booth or just grab a table.As it gets warmer I hope to eat outside and enjoy the fresh air. Perhaps I will eat a protein bar or bring a sandwich, actually I may just bring a sandwich now. I have not gotten sick, but that moldy food in the fridge does not bode well for what might be happening in the kitchen.

Where did they post that health inspection certificate anyway?

Aren't you glad I shared!

Everlasting Spa

Everlasting Spa is where I go to get my nails done, sometimes I get a pedicure and sometimes a foot massage, depends on my schedule and how I am feeling. It takes me about 7 minutes to walk from the apartment and I love the building as it is an old home of a Shanghai military officer from the 1930's.

Everlasting Spa has about 6 locations in Shanghai, but this is the only one located in an old home, it's very cozy. The other locations I am told are located in shopping malls.

Across the street is Grace Church which I was told has an English service. Tony and I went today, and the English service is actually a translation of the service. The foreigners wear a small headset with a receiver attached, just like in the UN, and there is a Chinese lady on the other end translating what the preacher is saying. It was quite difficult to understand. The church was fully loaded with Chinese, many older Chinese. They sung hymns in Chinese and it was very beautiful. The songs were the translations of all our favorite hymns we sing in church. We left after and hour although the service was still going strong.

We plan on going to a different church next Sunday, which we believe the service is in English, we shall see. That Church, which has a Chinese name is near Tony's office. Here a picture of it.

I took a tour of it last week so I am quite familiar with the building now.
There was a young lady taking pictures of/for her wedding, not of the actual wedding. You see in China they take the pictures in advance of the wedding celebration.

The building is 200 years old and was used as a grain storage facility from 1940 - 1970 or so. The windows were all destroyed by the army in 1940 and the spires burned down. It has had a total face lift and they are slowly working on putting in stain glass windows to replace the clear glass that is currently in place. Although the windows will have a Chinese flair to them. The Bishop who is not affiliated with Rome, but affiliated with the government, had made the decision not to replace the windows in the traditional European style. The Bishop is 93 years old and spent 26 years in prison during the cultural revolution. He of course bends to the desire of the government. There are 7 recognized religions in Shanghai, one of them being Catholicism.

Pay Day!

This is so funny and I have been waiting for this day since I signed my contract back in January. You see when I signed the contract and agreed to the salary I asked if they wanted my bank account number so they could direct deposit the funds, or would they be paying me by check?

No, we will pay you cash was the reply. Hmmmm, I thought that's quite a lot of bills. I can't wait to see how this goes down.

I get paid on the 15th of each month, if the 15th falls on a weekend then the following Monday is pay day.

Here is how it happened, I met Mr. Pang, the guy who hired me, at the downtown campus. He rode his bike up to me and took out a brown envelope from his grocery bag. I handed him a receipt and he asked me to count it. Fortunately I did not walk or take the metro to meet him, but I had the car and driver. So I popped into the car and counted the cash. Otherwise I guess I would be counting the wad of bills right in the middle of the road and my walk/metro ride home would be fraught with fears that someone was following me and waiting to rip my purse out of my hands. Oh, you know I probably would have taken a cab home........well this was not even an issue. Anyway that's it.

In case you are wondering this part-time job pays me about $20/per hour. I work 15 hours a week and probably 10 hours of lesson planning. My monthly salary is 9,000 yuan = $1,323.52.

So that's it, I had such a great level of anticipation since January for this moment and now it's over, but I am wondering.......will next month be different? Will the process change? Will Mr. Pang get a briefcase or will he still carry around a grocery bag?

The tallest nail gets hammered down.

Part of the complex philosophy of the Chinese, don't stand out.

So how will this society become the world power it wants to be?...... because of it's numbers......
China 1.3 billion people. America 300,000 million. I really don't know.

"Losing face" is another ingrained cultural philosophy. It means to be be embarrassed or to make someone embarrassed. Consider this - asking a question embarrasses you because you don't know the answer and if you ask someone a question and they don't know the answer you have embarrassed them. So you don't ask someone a question unless you know they know the answer. Huh?

The word for "question" in Chinese is "problem".......however there are no problems in China. This sounds sarcastic but it has been this way forever.

Interestingly, Mao (of the Mao Tse Tung /Cultural revolution) wrote a letter to his people in 1963, about 8 years after he was in power, and asked them to tell him what he could do better. This was a set up, once all the literate responded, about 40,000 or more, were rounded up and shot or put in prison.

So it is feared if you question anything you will be shot/fired from your job/in some sort of trouble. Can you imagine how my classes are going?

The kids have learned from their parents, who grew up in this terrible time.

I have begun week of 4 of teaching and it is going well, in spite of these challenges. I have had some hits and misses but I am having more hits now. Here is a picture of one of my classes, I took it during a break.I am so busy these days, teaching, taking Chinese lesson classes and just getting through daily life. The Chinese lesson classes are HARD. I mean really HARD. The pronunciation of the Chinese letters are 'song' like but the actual words are hard sounds. I ask you, if you are learning the sound of a letter shouldn't we learn it as we will use it? No no I am told, this is the sound of the letter and here is the sound of the word. Just to make it more interesting every word has four tones or sounds. So you learn the word jiang and then the 4 tones. What does jiang mean? No idea.But I have to learn the 4 tones before we can move on. You see each tone of jiang has a different meaning. And the tones are so subtle. Yeah this is a hard language.

I did manage to get out and buy a new briefcase/bag for work. I needed one that was made of synthetic material, my leather one was about to get ruined. Everything here is dirty and gross! A plastic type material can be wiped clean, won't get ruined with water and can be banged around without care. But I did get a nice fakey fake Prada! What fun shopping.
The lovely shop girl started her pricing at 1,800 yuan = $264.70 I decided immediately that I did not want to do business with her. This thought process has a flaw as every single one of the shop keepers who see a western face automatically go for the highest price and hope you don't know any better and will pay it. This is also a culture of negotiation. It is expected. As I walked away she said: ok ok you are my first customer today so lucky price for you. 1,500 yuan = $220.59. Not interested. As I am walking away she begins screaming - yes, screaming like a witchy housewife, - ok ok 1,000, ok ok, 500, ok ok, best price 230 yuan = $33.80. Now we are in my price range for a bag. She then swore it was leather....can you say pleather! What do you think?

Weather has cleared up finally, 4 days in a row sunny and warm. We had 4 weeks of rain and grey. It is so nice to see the sun. One evening after a gloomy day I decided a face mask with some aroma therapy built right in was in order. As you can see I also bought a 'lifting' face mask. Not sure why, I don't think I am sagging just yet in the face. Oh, well couldn't hurt.I bet you probably wanted to see a picture of me not quite so fettered. Fear not!
Lisa will be here in 3 weeks and we will be traveling to Beijing to see the Great Wall of China and some other wonderful sites. I hope to post all kinds of pictures of our time with her. Stay tuned.