Orienting to Shanghai Part 2: Sights and Fights

Left to Right: Jack, Sarah, JennyJo, Andy, Joe, Gillian, Me!, Becca, Max, Sean, Anna, Pete, Wes, and Austin

As of today, I have officially lived in Shanghai for a month. There isn't enough time or space (or brain cells in my head) for me to recount every fun/awesome/weird event that I've experienced since I got here. But I will do my best to recap the very best of the first month so far. Here's a taste (in no particular order):

- Most of orientation stunk. An expat who had lived in the city for 10/15/40 years would discuss all of the culture shock and worst case scenarios we would almost certainly encounter (now we literally take what was said there and do the exact opposite, it was so bogus). However, there was one great lecture: The Role of Chinglish in China!

A Chinese English professor with a funny British/Chinese accent gave a lecture saying that it was impossible to experience China without experiencing Chinglish. She showed a lot of stellar examples of translations gone wrong. My favorites: "Please Slip Carefully" (for wet floors), menu items such as "Spring F--- Chicken with Rice" or "Husband and Wife Lung Slice", and my all-time favorite one from her slide show was a business with a large sign reading "Translation Server Error" (apparently she told the owner what it said, but even a year later the sign remained).

These are everywhere, but that doesn't stop it from being funny every time. Here's one from the Swan Hotel where we spent our first three nights.

We found out later that the Chinese symbol for "ceiling" is very close to the symbol for "smallpox." Needless to say, that was the last button we flicked before going to sleep (that is NOT the way I want to go out).

- That lecture came right before a great night.

We had a traditional Chinese banquet with about 20 courses. Duck, fish, pork, steak, many vegetables they don’t have back home, and plenty of pijou. A great meal and I got to meet a lot of the people from Marshall teaching at the other schools.

I’d say there’s too many to mention, but that’s not my style.

I had already met Becca, Jenny Jo, and Sarah at my hotel the first night and they were all at my table; they teach at Jin Cai over in Pudong. We still see them whenever possible and they'll come up in a bunch of my adventures in the future. Likewise with Austin and Jack, who teach at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SHUFE). Austin lived here last year and knows all the fun places to party and visit around town. Anna, Wes, and Will are teaching out in the Hunan province; they were a ton of fun when they were out in Shanghai, hopefully they come back for a visit. Joe and Gillian are a really interesting couple from New York City who will also be teaching out in Hunan.

We follow up with a cruise around the harbor. It’s absolutely magnificent when it’s lit up, even with heavy rain. The city looks like it was built in the year 2500, and more new crazy/interesting architecture pops up everyday. I can't wait to see Shanghai in 2020 (I lied, I can wait, there's too much fun to be had in the next decade). Since there are no words left to describe it, here are a few images (all compliments of Sean Jackson, since I lost the cable to upload my own pictures).

- I've officially set a new Scublog record for most words between sports references, so now is the time to snap that streak. I am now a proud supporter of the Shanghai Shenhua Football Club! When I try to talk to co-workers, students, or annoying flower saleswomen outside of clubs about the Shenhua, I always get the same reaction: "Why???" (or "You want buy flower?" They're never really interested in making small talk) I had read that there is a general lack of enthusiasm for Chinese soccer, especially due to some game rigging scandals in the past few years that lead to the retirement of several high standing soccer players who wanted no part of the Chinese Superleague.

But don't tell that to those inside the stadium. The first game I went to with Sean, Andrew, and the Jin Cai girls, Shanghai played against Dalian Shide. It would be generous to the local team to say that the stadium was half full, but the stadium is massive and those there were noisy, flag waving (huge freaking flags too, I got some good pictures I'll get up ASAP) zealots. About as exciting as the Shenhua's inability to convert on a plethora of strong looks - which cost them the game, which ended in a 1-1 draw - was the off-field action.

A small, but loud, contingent of Dalian fans chanted at the Shenhua faithful, who would respond, and they would go back-and-forth when action was slow (see: players rolling around in agony). It turns out that about 15% of the words yelled by anyone in the stadium are "cai pao" meaning "referee" and about 80% are, ahem, let's say "to thank." So, the most common phrase is either "thank you referee" or "go thank yourself ref" (it's kind of like that, just the exact opposite).

At halftime, a number of fights broke out near the concession areas of the stadium. The refs started out letting the players play a rough style, but increasingly blew their whistles more often causing a lot of tension between the fans. Within the last 10 minutes, a fight broke out on the pitch (unfortunately, I was too slow with the camera to catch any of it before it was broken up). For an arena so empty, I had never felt this type of electricity before. After the final whistle, there were immediately fights in the stairwells leading away from my section.

For whatever reason, I had brought my backpack with my computer, iPod, and camera in it. The way I understand it, Chinese can hit Chinese and Foreigners can hit Foreigners, but there's trouble when there is any crossover. However, with emotions running high and alcohol involved, I was obviously in protection mode. After getting the ladies to the Metro station, we started to head back, which took us right back to the stadium. As we approached, we saw a man and a police officer being chased by a large, angry mob. The man somehow continued running after being hit by a thrown bicycle and made it into his car, somehow unfortunately parked directly in front of the stadium. The police officer threw a couple hooligans out of the way while the others started whaling on the car. The car was not in a good position to leave the vicinity and, while I was some distance away from the scene, I could distinctly hear the shattering of windows and the windshield (hopefully Chinese insurance covers football riots). After he somehow escaped, the Shenhua hoard started chants set to the music of car horns.

Take shots at Chinese soccer if you please, but don't say that the fans lack passion, intensity, or craziness.

- There's so many other good ones:

- We went to eat at what seemed like a decent restaurant for lunch near Jin Cai. We were put at a table next to five Chinese businessmen who were drinking and smoking the afternoon away (it was 13:00). After eating a scary looking seafood dish - which I randomly chose off the menu that had no English or pictures on it - one of the businessmen came over and started talking to us in Mandarin. Before we knew it he started filling up our glasses and saying "GAN BEI!" (Bottoms UP!) Thanks to Andy and Sean's skills and Becca's Chinese-English dictionary, we learned that they were stoked that we were in their city, in their neighborhood, all the way from America, and wanted to show their appreciation. By 14:30, we were all sloshed and they paid for not only all of the booze, but also our entire meal! Someone somewhere has a picture of me with one of the businessmen... I need to get my hands on that. [UPDATE: Thanks to Jenny Jo for the photo! BTW, our table was the one to the left in the picture. Those were some generous dudes, and they were ready to buy us more!]

- We went out to a nice huge dinner and the restaurant was playing some good Chinese rock music, so I went to inquire about it. Using sign language, I successfully got them to turn off the music and play some gosh awful American pop music. Rather than sulk off defeated, I continued until they found one guy who could "talk" to me. His English was broken, but he really loved Americans.... I mean really loved them. After learning that I was one, he tried his darnedest to fulfill my request. He came over to the table with three things painted (in black paint) on his arm:

only music
3track
that's it no more

Being me, I thought these were the names of the bands and not the instruction, "there are only three tracks on the CD, that's it no more." After realizing this, I tried to ask him what the three tracks were to no avail. I gave up.

But that's not it. Eventually, I needed to relieve myself. He was staring at me for the entire meal, so I figured he could help me find the facilities. So I asked him, and he was so excited that he not only showed me the way to the WC, but decided to join in on the experience, by taking the urinal next to mine and starting a conversation. It would have been awkward if not for the motto one must live by when over here: This Is China (TIC). He told me that when he got off work at the restaurant that he was a policeman. I probably laughed at that point, since this kid was absolutely giddy just to be in my presence and that he looked like he might be old enough to start riding his bike without training wheels in a few months. But he set me straight a few minutes later. While sitting at my table he came over in his full policeman garb. I gave him mad props and we took our picture together. TIC TIC TIC

...

Everyday there are more stories, I'll try to update more so I can keep you all informed when the best ones happen. And did I mention that I'm actually teaching here? I'll save that for Part 3.

Zaijian!
Stephen "Scuba" Lauer