Shanghai Literary Festival

March was a busy month for us, we attended the literary festival, restaurant week and we had to move from the 28th floor to the 17th floor of our building, more on this later.  As usual  I am weeks behind on my blog, the literary festival began on March 3rd and I am now just getting around to posting the pictures and reporting the event.   We have never attended the event and I thought that this could be a nice change of pace for us. So off we went on a Saturday afternoon to learn something new. 

The venue was at The Glamour Bar on the Bund.  The Bund is on the waterfront of Shanghai and there are many famous and historical buildings facing the Huangpu River.   The famous Peace Hotel, is located on The Bund and you can read about it here:  http://www.surpriseshanghai.blogspot.com/2010/10/drinks-at-peace-hotel.html. 

We went to hear Mr. Arvind Subramanian speak about China becoming the next Super Power. He has written a book about it in English and as it is favorable to the Chinese point of view and it supports the theory that China will be the number one super power it will be published in Chinese as well.  He told us it will be published in Chinese after the government vets it, edits it and makes sure it is completely without a negative comment against China. I am not sure why he would want his book published as his thoughts will be changed but I guess it's all about the money and the honor of having some of your ideas spread in a controlled society. It was fairly interesting but we didn't learn anything new, just a confirmation of what we suspected.    I suppose if you don't live here you don't have the same understanding of the power house that China is, but our US leaders know and try to manage it the best they can without upsetting the citizens.

Although the festival was a week long I did not see any other lectures listed that I was interested in attending.  Matt Groenig  the Simpson's cartoon creator was here but the Simpson's never did much for me and I probably have only watched a handful of episodes in the past 10 years.   Next up - restaurant week.

New Apartment vs Old Apartment

OK, OK, it really does look the same but it's not.  There is new lighting in the ceiling, and the window dressing is different, there are wooden floors instead of wall to wall carpet, kitchen wine storage changed and counter changed.  I don't dislike it but I don't love it enough to have to change apartments.  The worst part for me -  when we were on the 28th floor I could see the sky, on the 17th floor I only see the middle portion of various buildings - yuck!  The management tried to soothe me by telling me that I now had 2 balconies.  I looked at her with a sense of wonder.  The Chinese use their balconies for storage, hanging laundry and they usually enclose it as well so that it becomes more valuable space - a room.  Here at our building we are forbidden to enclose our balcony, in addition, the air quality in Shanghai is pretty bad so there are relatively few days a year when you can sit out and enjoy the outdoors. Plus now on both balconies I see the middle of the next building where as on my one balcony on the 28th floor I could see the sky!  We were "forced out" but we will be able to return to the 28th floor in October after they do the silly renovations to our place.

Old apartment with green walls, new apartment with beige walls.

The moving was terrible - I began at 5:00am and stopped at 4:15pm and unfortunately was not completely done. It's not that I had a lot of crap (as my loving husband calls it) but I wanted to move it, put it away and be organized right away.  So no dumping boxes, each one unpacked and carefully put away in a new apartment with different and LESS storage space. I know, looking at the pictures you would think the storage is exactly the same.  Oh well it's done now and we are all moved in.  I am sure I will grow to love this apartment and then be bummed I have to move all over again back to 28........or maybe not.

Following directions

 

This is the sign I encountered at the airport the day we were leaving for Vietnam!

Enough said.

Ear massage!

 

Yesterday I went to my favorite hair salon - Contesta Rockhair and in addition to a wonderful cut and color I received an ear massage during the shampoo.  So strange, yet oddly comforting.  The tops of my ears were lovingly rubbed and then the side lobes as well.  The Chinese seem to have a thing about ears.  

In the summer you can find the "ear cleaners" in the park with their odd instruments poking and prodding into peoples ears.  

Here is a picture of a typical instrument used.  One end to scoop the wax the end other to brush away the particles.  Actually I have no idea how the puffy end is used and I am not up for an ear cleaning adventure. There is usually a candle nearby but what the cleaner uses it for is beyond me.

 

 

Great Wall Wine!

 Saturday night, it's St. Patrick's Day and we are not going to the ball. Here in Shanghai (in the Expat community) de rigueur is to attend balls and galas which are events to raise money for charity and also where you go to be seen! The St. Paddy's ball is considered the best ball of the season and it is the hardest ticket to get.  We have attended this ball for a number of years and always had a marvelous time. Last year Tony and I decided that in 2012 we would not attend any ball or gala.  If we wanted to dress up in our long gowns and tuxedo we would just go ahead and do it and hit the town in our fancy dress. Or perhaps even prance around in our apartment looking fine! I wish I could tell you last night we did get dressed up and pranced around but we didn't. Instead we opened a bottle of wine given to us by our good friend Julian who has a great nose and pallet for wine.  We were skeptical when a few years ago he said he had had a delicious bottle of Chinese wine and was going to buy a couple of cases to have at home. He broke open a bottle at a dinner we had at his apartment to share with us and we were surprised at how good it was. 

 Two weeks ago we asked Julian over for dinner as his wife Gaby was still away in the UK and we thought he could use a little pampering and nice home cooked meal.   He brought us a bottle of Great Wall as a small token of appreciation.  So last night, with great fanfare we opened the bottle.  We noticed the fine dust on the bottle as we lifted it out of the attractive wooden box and thought, oh my an nice old wine, it must be good. (We are suckers for a good visual and fall right into the marketing trap...keep reading)  Tony started laughing and said "look at the vintage"!  It read - Since 1992,  now that leaves a lot of room for when the wine was actually bottled.

 As he began to pour I worried that he would have dust all over his hands and get the dust into the decanter.  But NO! Not to worry, the dust is not dust but instead the bottle has been tossed into a large machine (I am guessing here) with small stones to "chip" or scratch the bottle.  As you run your finger nail over the surface you can feel the chipped glass.  But looks like dust, right?  Now I am worried there are fine chips of glass in our wine!!!  But the wine felt smooth and silky on our tongue and we enjoyed it immensely.  Great Wall wine has similar characteristics of a good French Bordeaux. I did notice this nice little brochure which accompanied the wine.  Inside there is a map showing that China is on the same latitude as France and California, implying that of course it will be as good as their wines! 

The wine was very good and we really enjoyed it!  Cheers Julian!! (Who by the way was as the St. Patrick's Day ball with his wife Gaby!)

P.S. I do not think all Great Wall wine is equal.  I believe that this wine (vintage circ. 1992 - 2012) is of a higher grade then other Great Wall wines which may carry the Expo 2010 logo, or have a different color label. I do not know how to tell the difference except IF I were to buy a bottle of Chinese wine I would buy one with the same label as the one Julian gave us.    But I am pretty sure this isn't going to happen!

University of Michigan -Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute

 

As of October 2011 I have been working at UM-SJTU JI as a marketing consultant; in February my responsibilities increased and I began teaching a writing course as well. I have two classes, one is comprised of 40 Freshman  and the other has 40 Sophomores.  It's tough, I grade 80 papers a week, each class meets three times a week for a total of 9 hours of class time. I have to be available to the students so I have four office hours weekly and I must prepare the lessons, which takes me about 9 hours a week as I have to relearn/learn all the rules for writing.   Tough, tough, tough!

 

 

 This day was very exciting as a cat wandered into the classroom and was sniffing out the kids breakfasts begging for a bite.  My student, Martin, accidentally stepped on the cat's tail and the cat let out a loud squeal and raced out.  I was in the process of taking a picture of the cat begging for bites of food but instead caught him mid-flight.

You can see how dreary the sky is, we have had 32 days of rain and cold weather!

The school is right next to the nuclear power plant.  China loves nuclear energy and you see quite a lot of these cooling towers around China.

Trying to get home.

It is difficult to explain the incredible traffic we have here in Shanghai.  While we were heading home and driving on the correct side of the road this mass of cars decided to get across the street.  It was an onslaught of vehicles.

I was trying to make Palacsinta

Saturday morning I found myself bending over and picking up some small bit of thread, dirt, speck of something on the floor just like my Nagymama use to do and this thought of my Nagymama inspired me to make some palacsinta.  I know, what a weird way to get to this thought.

So I looked up the recipe online and whipped up a batch.  Unfortunately they ended up resembling  french crepes instead of my Nagymama's palacsinta. 

 Perhaps my pan was too small? Or the batter to thin? I just don't know.

 I had some canned peaches which I warmed up with silvered almonds and put them inside the palacsina/french crepe.

They tasted good but not like Nagymama's.  Oh well. It was nice to think about her while making this sweet treat.

Hot Pot Restaurant - Hai Di Lao

This great time, described below, occurred in December 2011 when TJ and Kristen came to visit us in Shanghai.

One of TJ's and Kristen's favorite meals in China is hot pot, and on a cold winter day it certainly hits the spot!  I have eaten at a number of different hot pot restaurants but this chain restaurant, originally from the Sichuan Province, is my favorite.  It's consistent, clean and affordable. (Uh, yes, that's TJ in glasses, newly purchased here in Shanghai.)

The process from start to finish is entertaining as well as nourishing and comforting. First you gather around a table that has a well in the center.  This is where the soup will go.  There is a heating element in the bottom of this well and a container is placed inside the well, on top of the heating element. We chose a combination of soups - a clear mushroom broth and a hot and spicy broth.  The soups are brought out and the spicy soup is mixed at the table.

 Here are the soups, the right is the mushroom and the left will be the spicy, right now it's just a clear vegetable broth.

 The chef opens a bag with the hot spicy mixture - chili oil, hot numbing peppercorns from the Sichuan Province, and other spicy red peppers.

 He pours in the mixture to the clear base and voila (!), hot spicy soup.

 As an entertainment treat, as well as to add some yummy noodles to the soup I ordered the "Kung Fu" noodles.  A waiter comes to your table and takes a bit of noodle dough, stretches it and begins twirling it around, using this method to stretch the noodle.  It's a bit tricky, as the noodle gets longer it has more opportunity to  hit the dirty floor.  Our guy had to use three bits of dough to get our order stretched and into the pot.  The first two hit the floor and he had to toss those away.

 On our table you can also see the items we ordered to throw into the soup.

Spinach, cauliflower, mushrooms and sliced beef and mutton. Oh and beer, lots of beer, not for the hot pot, for us!

A very satisfying meal!

Another trip to Monganshan Mountain - the bamboo forest

This post should have been posted in Oct 2011 - sorry for the delay.

We began the trip on a bus! One of the most popular ways to travel in China! Well, ok so our destination was only 31/2 hours away and bus is the most direct way to the Bamboo forest.  Tony's company, MWV, was having a team building trip and since I am the wife of the MD (Managing Director of China),                  I was also invited. (ah the perks!)

We gathered at 8:30am and hopped on the bus, our first stop a nearby lake (3 hour ride) for lunch and a boat ride.

I think this guy was one of the chefs in the kitchen.

All of us settling in for a nice lunch.

A variety of food was served, some seafood and some not. A very nice chicken soup and (seperately) a fish soup were part of the meal and I enjoyed both.  I did have to poke around to find the undesireable breast meat.  The Chinese do not like the tough white meat so there was plently for me!  There were 3 westerners on this trip. Tony, Julie and me. Julie is a young American gal who works at MWV here in Shanghai.

Spicey fish soup.

Chinese escargot......snails in a nice smokey sauce.  The snail is not even worth trying to suck out of it's tiny shell but the sauce over the rice is tasty.

The chicken soup, yes they cook it with the feet and all!  Well actually I did not see the beak and head so maybe no head.   The broth and breast meat were delicious, probably the best chicken soup I have had in a long time in China.  Usually it's so overloaded with MSG that I don't care for the taste.

Our view from the dining room.

The 'house" boat we were going to take to go around the lake, there are two here.

Inside the boat.

Our gang!

Enjoying the view with Julie.  The water was filthy brown. 

This is pretty neat, the lake is man made so this forest got "swamped" but seemed to have survived and thrived.  I think it is quite beautiful sprouting up from the lake.

A temple and small town.  Looks old but was created just for tourists who visit the lake.

This looks like a busy pedestrian street but it's really all of the MWV people strolling along, if we weren't here there would be no one else around.  Most of the shops were closed up.

This was lovely, an artist plying his craft.

Pickled snake for sale, what one does with it once you have gotten it home is beyond me.

Nice.

As usual, working......I like to image that the sign next to him says, no phones or texting allowed in this fine and hallowed temple.  Now THAT would be funny. 

Another way to ride the lake, by bamboo raft.

And finally a Bamboo forest.

There is always someone in attendence 'guarding' or watching out for .....something.  I see the guards' chair but I never did get a glimpse of him.  Maybe they are worried a tourist will take off with a tree?

These ladies were doing a bit of gambling. A nice way to spend the afternoon.

After the lake visit we got on the bus and began heading to the top of the Bamboo Mountain. We were nearly there and encountered this little situation, it was a real local moment.  On the road to the hotel we came to a 20 minute stop for no apparent reason.  Finally some of us got out of the bus to see what was going on.  Two guys were having a shouting match about who should have pulled over first on the narrow road.  For the record, the two cars had already passed each other and there was no obvious problem, they just wanted to yell at each other and get their frustrations out....I guess.  No mind to anyone who was on their way somewhere. The line of cars stopped had to be 15 including our 2 buses.  And it seemed everyone was bored so the neighbors come out to watch the ruckus with no thought to the fact that perhaps they could move it off the street and let the others get on their way.  Oh, I was told that one guy was swinging a hammer at one point but I missed that; I wonder, was the hammer in the trunk of the car or does he keep it next to him on the seat for moments like this?

Up the mountian all covered in bamboo trees.

Our room, which had bugs, and the bed was as hard as it looks in the picture. The Chinese like a good firm board to sleep on.  I was a good sport that night, when one large bug crawled on me I just grabed at it and flung it across the room, heard him "crash" against the wall and went back to sleep. Now you understand the perks I was telling you about!

Overall, it was nice to get out of Shanghai and breath some fresh air and hike around the mountian.  The bus trip takes 4 hours door to door and that long trip makes it hard to want to come back.  I have been twice now, prior to this trip I took a long day trip in 2009 just to hike for a couple of hours.