9/18-9/24: A Week Full of Songs, Sports, and Food

I've been too busy to blog on a daily basis, but there's been enough interesting stuff going on to recap it here today.

Sunday 9/18:
Woke up early to take Lady Susu to the train station. She's heading back to Hunan for a couple weeks. Sean and I were pretty nervous that the apartment would implode and I would starve without her. Fortunately, I've stayed alive long enough to write this post. We'll meet back up over the National Holiday (10/1-10/7) in Guilin, somewhere between a winding river and beautiful mountains.

Came back and watched Bridesmaids with Sean and Ellie (a British girl who works in a school in Pu Dong). Really really funny movie by the way. See the unrated version, Kristen Wiig is fantastic at awkward/make-you-squirm comedy. Made me break out the booze a little earlier than I intended.

Jimmy - my best Shanghainese friend - came over and we went and played basketball for a couple hours. Afterwards, I hit up the street market to get Jimmy the fixings for 宫保鸡丁 (Gong Bao Ji Ding, Kung Pao Chicken). Sean cooked up tomatoes and eggs for the first time, Ellie fried some cabbage, and we finished off the leftovers from what Susu and I had cooked up the night before (when I made my dad's special New Orleans Garlic Shrimp). First successful post-Susu meal. Woohoo!

Monday 9/19:
A full day of classes with some of my better kids, nothing too notable there. Then it was cooking time.

A little background. For the past few weeks, I had been preparing for Susu's eventual departure by helping out in the kitchen. Mostly washing, chopping, skinning, mixing ingredients, etc. But once the food was in the wok, it was her show. Sean is a visual learner, so he would watch and was already starting to make his own mean noodle dish. I'm more hands on, so I had the preparation on lock down, but once the food got into the wok, I was a little panicked. The first time I tossed food in the air to mix it, half ended up on the floor... I haven't tried again since.

Sean and my first independent meal was carmelized onions and eggs (him) and chicken, peppers, and green beans (mine) plus leftover kung pao chicken. He nailed his dish, and mine was edible, if a little bland. We both survived.

Tuesday 9/20:
Long day at school. First two classes were loud and crazy. Third class was my good international class; a bunch of kids from America, Canada and Hong Kong (all of Chinese descent), so that's always fun. Fourth class is the opposite; a bunch of kids who all speak two languages, neither of which are English (such as French, Japanese, Thai, or German). But I get to teach using my Mandarin, so that's fun for me. My last class was my Senior I class, which means they are three years older than all of my other classes (who are Junior I), and instead of being crazy and loud, they are just quiet. I got two people to speak all class, so I just made them write papers - which means I have grading to do. I've got to do some work to get them speaking for this "Oral English" class.

But we had Chinese class after-school, which put me in good spirits.

Tuesday night, Sean cooked up his noodle dish and I cooked pork, onions, and hot peppers. A noted improvement from the night before.

Wednesday 9/21:
My easiest day, school wise, with only four classes. With maybe my best kids in my final two classes of the day. Feelin' good.

We go to a banquet with all the other foreign teachers, the foreign language Chinese teachers, the vice principal, and his friend a former dean from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. A lot more fun than last year's banquet (which was in a hotel), this year we went to a sweet restaurant in the French Concession.

We go around and introduce ourselves before the ex-dean talks a little bit about how the VP founded our school. Apparently he didn't like the lack of appreciation for other cultures and languages in Shanghai, so he founded the Shanghai Foreign Language School. I know the VP a bit - we play basketball on Fridays together - but I didn't really know his story. So I asked him the question that can get most Chinese people talking: 你是哪里人？(ni shi na li ren, literally: you are where person? English: where are you from?)

He was born and raised until the age of 11 in Xi'An. He told us about how emotional Xi'An people are; there is a phrase that goes something like "when one Xi'An person meets another, their eyes are wet," and some funny experiences from that. Then his family moved out west to a more Muslim-dominated part of China. He talked about having friends and neighbors who were Muslim and not eating pork out of respect for their religion (not clear whether this is ongoing or not). He was one of the most cultured people I've met here in China; in addition to speaking Mandarin, Xi'An language (Xi'Anese?), and Shanghainese, he also speaks English well and apparently some French and Japanese. He's not bad at basketball and badminton either.

The free flowing beer and wine had reached the breaking point, so it was singing time. One Russian lady sang a folk song, which was the most beautiful I've ever heard the Russian language used (no offense to Russians, the language can be a bit harsh). She told us that the song is about a woman waiting for her husband to return home from war, but he dies and never arrives. Sounds Russian to me. Jean, our French teacher, sings a quick beautiful, romantic French song. Sakimoto, the Japanese teacher, sings a fun song, which got everyone clapping... but never quite at the same time as him (he's a riot). Then it was the Americans turn.

Sean Skinner (our school added a second foreign English teacher named Sean for confusion's sake) and I volunteered to sing but realized we had forgotten the words to America the Beautiful and This Land is Your Land, and we both thought the Star Spangled Banner was too long and excessive compared with the other teachers' songs. So we settled on God Bless America, which either one of us would have butchered, but we corrected each other as we went along to salvage the tune (I'm not a huge fan of the song ever since the Yankees started using it to ice Pedro's arm during the 7th inning stretch. But that's what I get for forgetting the other songs I guess).

All-in-all a great day and a great night.

Thursday 9/22:
Worst day of school all week. I had seven classes, including my three worst ones. Just before my sixth class, while I'm feeling exhausted, a little boy fires the chalkboard eraser at a kid in the front row (point blank range), but misses and hits a little girl in the head, sending her to the clinic. WTF. There were some bright spots during that class, but that's my most hellish class.

Then I had to miss my Chinese lesson to give an extra class to my good international class (so the Chinese English teacher could give an extra class to the remedial international class). I had them play a game and everyone had fun.

Can't remember what Sean and I cooked that night... but I vaguely remember it being good.

Then we went out to Trivia Night at Bulldog Shanghai. Sean and my team finished second, thanks to our buddy Jack correctly identifying a teenage photo of Vladimir Putin. If I'm there next Thursday (I may leave on my vacation early), our group gets free champagne!

Friday 9/23:
No school today! I had my first Chinese writing course with the lady who teaches my Tuesday/Thursday class through our school. Since I wrote about 60-70 characters over the summer with the help of the internet, she was impressed by my basic knowledge of stroke order. So I'm moving fast.

I need this in order to pass the HSK, which is the Chinese equivalent of the TOEFL. If I do well enough on that test, I can study or work in China, or translate between English and Chinese anywhere in the world. From everything I've heard, it's a daunting test. But what's the point in knowing just a little Chinese?

Afterwards, I went to the gym to play basketball, but arrived to find that they were going to play volleyball instead. No problem! After shaking off some rust, I was probably the second best player on our team. I played really well up front, but getting digs was a little tougher. I thought I had mastered it until this one woman kept serving to me with ridiculous topspin. No matter what I did, the ball spun back over my head after I hit it. Finally she hit it out-of-bounds, but that was a big difference when we lost 24-26. Lots of fun though, I hope to play again soon.

That night, we went to Jack's for potluck night. We've done a couple of these recently, where we get a group of people and everyone brings or cooks a dish. Sean did his tomato and egg dish and Ellie did cooked up cabbage again (Brits love their cabbage). I cooked up pork, peppers, and tofu. Jack bought pizza (pretty good actually, but I still funny). A delicious dinner!

We went out and met up with some folks at a small bar called The Rhumerie -- they make their own rum. Enough said.

Saturday 9/24:
Woke up and talked online with Susu, and she gave me the photos from Huang Shan and my birthday party. So I should have a post coming up with pictures one or both of those events in it. Hooray!

New Sean (the one who isn't my roommate) and Jimmy come over and the four of us play basketball for a couple hours. We win three of four games.

Kind of a lazy day punctuated by an early, but overdue, sleep.

And that's my week. I believe it's always better to be busy than idle, so this was a good week all things considered.

I'll try to get at least one more in before Guilin next week,
Stephen Scuba Lauer

My House: The Tour

Hakuna Matata: Means Something in Mandarin?

Badminton in the Park

How to Eat 小龙包

This is 小龙包 (pronounced xiao [shao] long bao) and it is perhaps my favorite food in the whole world. On the outside, they may look like ordinary dumplings, but we learned in elementary school not to judge a book by its cover. Inside, there can be anything - just as long as it isn't ordinary. These ones have meat and a spicy sauce. The other ones I bought here were filled with a yellow curry. Others still have shrimp, crab, eggs, yams, or bacon, always accompanied by some sort of soup or sauce. They are the ultimate evolution of the dumpling. Calling a xiao long bao a dumpling is like calling a human an ape! Or an amoeba!

"Xiao long" means "small dragon" in Mandarin, which also happens to be the given name of Bruce Lee. It's no coincidence. His parents named him after the greatest food in China and told him that if he could be half as fantastic and powerful as his namesake, he would become world famous. And so brought about the greatest kung fu actor of all-time, until the pressure of being as consistently amazing as his dumpling equivalent brought about his early death. This scrumptious dish creates and destroys heroes.

And so one must always obey proper rituals when eating xiao long bao. They are as follows:

Pick up your xiao long with your chopsticks and place it in your spoon. Have your vinegar (I believe Chinese vinegar is mixed with soy sauce. This is unconfirmed, but may explain its deliciousness) ready, you will need it soon. Using a spoon is not cheating. While the fork and knife are foreign to China, spoons are used on a meal-to-meal basis. Let's keep going:

Next, bite off the top and slurp out the delicious juice/sauce/soup/curry from the inside. I originally took two photos, before and after slurpage but they looked exactly the same. Recapping this is making me hungry.

Step Three (or Four if you count biting and slurping two separate steps). Use your chopsticks to drop your xiao long into your vinegar. I usually poke it around until vinegar gets physically inside the dumpling. That may be against protocol, I'll have to ask my superiors.

Finally, using either your spoon or chopsticks - or both - eat your xiao long. This results in temporary bliss, but are you truly satisfied? Heck no! These things are tiny! Back in September, I ate 30 of these little guys! Taste-wise, they are truly in a class of their own, but must be accompanied with another dish in order to ensure the filling of your stomach.

Alternative Method: Step 1, dunk whole xiao long in vinegar. Step 2, eat it. However, do so at your own peril. The rush of flavor from the meat, vinegar, dumpling skin, and juice/sauce/soup/curry can be overwhelmingly good.

While I've seen people prepare xiao long bao, how they make it is still a mystery to me. If I learn how, I'll share the secret with all of you here. And then this will become the second signature dish on my menu at Scuba's Ji Dan Bing and Xiao Long Shack!

Stephen "Scuba" Lauer

鸡蛋饼: Shanghai's Breakfast of Champions

鸡蛋饼 (pronounced ji dan bing) is the best way to start a morning in Shanghai, so I figured it's also the best way to start the blog back up. Ji dan means egg and bing means wrap/burrito; that pretty much sums up the overall concept. Here's the video of how it's made:

There are three ji dan bing vendors within easy walking distance from my apartment, and this lady not only makes the most delicious one, but also makes it the fastest. Her stand is outside of Metro Line 3's Chifeng Lu Station (赤峰路) and one costs 3.5¥ (or $0.54). Let's break this down step by step:


(0:00) By the time I start rolling, she's already putting down the dough straight onto the circular flat iron stove. In five seconds, she's covered 97% of the area with the thick, gooey substance by using a flat metal tool. I imagine that she would destroy me in arm wrestling.


(0:07) Cracks an egg open and covers the whole area (including small holes in the dough) with the same metal tool (wish I knew the name of that). Cooking the dough and frying the egg at the same time - so simple, yet so genius.


(0:15) Throws on some cut up greens and little spiced yellow things. I have no idea what either are.


(0:18) Quickly separates the dough from the pan using the ji dan bing device (there's got to be a catchier name for that). I'm realizing that if I ever want to learn to make this, I need to get one of those.


(0:24) Folds it in half and adds a slimy brown substance. I learned that this is primarily soy sauce and flour, in addition to probably sugar and other things - it's really sweet.


(0:28) She holds up the hots as if to ask whether I want some. I say "dui de" or "correct" which isn't technically the right answer, I should have said "yao" or "I want" - the pressure of my first blog video got to me! Aiyo! By the way, hots in your breakfast is a great wake up call.


(0:32) She puts in some crunchy bread, there is also an option of chewier doughy bits. Both are good.


(0:35) Flips it together and uses the ji dan binger to cut it in half. I stop rolling just before she smiles and gives me a wink. Clearly a rookie mistake.


I'll do better next time,
Stephen "Scuba" Lauer

Restarting the Scublog

Hey all,

I've returned to Shanghai for Year Two with some new goals in mind. One of these goals is to not only blog more often (which wouldn't be difficult really)... but much more often. Last year, after setting the bar rather high in Europe, I kind of faltered out once real life started in Shanghai. In retrospect, I wish I could have kept it going, but I realize now that when my life changed - from vacation to career mode - I should have changed my blog format too. During vacation in Europe, I had only one responsibility: blog about the cool stuff I did. So I devoted hours to long, gushing entries then reviewed and edited them several times before publishing. I no longer have this much time and, since I'm cramming my brain full of Chinese, sometimes I forget the interesting things I do on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, I'm going to switch my style up.

If I know one thing about myself, it is this: I've got two gears, first and fifth. I'm all or nothing when it comes to a lot of things. Trying to blog once a week, for example, is way too close to blogging zero times per week. So instead I'm going to go all out: by blogging everyday. So if I miss a few days, you can still get me three or four times a week. Mostly I'll do short blurbs, maybe a photo or a video with a little analysis or just something I learned/thought of that day. In addition, I'll try to have a "feature length" article each week, with the amount of depth that you've come to expect from me (whenever I actually posted something). I figure not only will this keep you guys up to date with what I'm doing, but force me to take more photos and do more awesome junk more often so that I can make my blog (slash life) fun.

Without further ado, here's some goals/topics I'm plan to achieve/write about in the coming year:

• The Qing Dao beer festival
• See the Terra Cotta Warriors
• Visit (and high five) a live panda in its natural habitat
• Chill down a river in Guilin or Yangshuo
• Make stops in Hong Kong and/or Taipei
• Cook Chinese food (post step-by-step recipes)
• Go to a professional badminton and/or ping pong tournament
• Rate the video arcades of Shanghai (I can't find listings or ratings online, so I need to take this into my own hands)
• There is supposedly a World of Warcraft based theme park outside of Shanghai, I never got into WoW, but I that won't stop me from dressing like an orc and riding all the roller coasters (zug zug)
• Ride a horse
• Celebrate the many Chinese holidays
• Potentially go to India, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam this winter break (fingers crossed)
• In the case of a lockout, see as many NBA players as possible in the Chinese Basketball League

That is a lot of future articles right there, hopefully I can pull this off.

Speaking of Chinese holidays, Chinese Valentine's Day was last Saturday and today is Chinese Father's Day. This is because today is the 8th day of the 8th month [8/8] and the number 8 is pronounced ba in Mandarin. 8/8 = ba ba and ba ba is the informal term for father in Mandarin. So Happy Father's Day to all the fathers in the world (especially you dad).

I would love to make this blog more interactive too. So if you have any suggestions, questions, comments, additions or subtractions (no multiplications or divisions though), please send them my way.

Until next time (uh, tomorrow),

Stephen "Scuba" Lauer

Orienting to Shanghai Part 3: I Teach English Good

Usually my clothes are nicer than this

Of all the incredulous things in Shanghai, one thing keeps me dumbfounded: I'm a teacher?!? A middle school teacher!?!? A middle school English teacher?!?!? If I could IM randomramsrock (my old AIM sn) about this, Middle School Scuba would certainly have thrown himself out of a window. To be fair, all of my classes were on the first floor at Curtis, so it would have been more strange than suicidal... but that's not the point! English was consistently my least favorite subject then; even though I liked a lot of the books (To Kill A Mockingbird is still one of my favs), I was bloody awful at grammar - I didn't know my predicates from my participles! Somewhere, Mrs. Hoaglin's pencils are rolling in her apron.

Perhaps I changed a little over the past ten years. In high school, Mrs. Frommer, Ms. Stein, and the Plotts were a few of my favorite teachers and I took a couple interesting English courses at Maryland. But I was a business major, in a very math intensive focus... and now I'm in China teaching English to 13 year-olds. You may be wondering: how's that working out?

Surprisingly (or not), it's really fun, challenging, and not at all what I expected. Let me give you a rundown of sorts:

Challenging:
I have 19 classes, 17 Junior II's (13-14) and 2 Senior II's (16-17). There are about 25 kids in each Junior II class and 16 in each Senior II class, which means I have roughly 455 students. I see each class once a week. They've all memorized my name, it's kind of tough (see: impossible) to remember all of theirs.

Not At All What I Expected:
Beforehand, I was told that the students were quiet and you need to force them to volunteer. The latter is definitely true for a few of my classes and at least a handful of kids in each class. But the former, is just straight up false. These kids can get as loud as any classroom I ever sat in. And when it comes to the distribution of good kids, troublemakers, and everything in between, I'd say it's pretty much equal to that of an American high school classroom.

Fun:
This summer, I had no idea of what the kids' English proficiency level would be. They would be 8th graders, so should I teach at a 6th grade level? Or even lower? While it varies from class to class and student to student, they aren't completely fluent, but they're really good on a whole. I would kill to speak Chinese as well as they speak English.

I did Ice Breaker games for the first three weeks to try and get to know them as well as possible. Three common themes popped up: they love basketball, computer games, and... Lady Gaga (in increasing order of lovingness). In fact, while my Sr. II's will say "Oh my God!" when they are surprised - something they picked up from American movies, TV Shows, etc. - my Jr. II's say "Oh my Lady Gaga!" I pretty much lost it after I heard that for the first time.


NAAWIE:
Funny Economics-esque Observation:
After a few days, I realized that some of the best students in the class were the troublemakers. At first, I was confused; they goof off in the back while the other students quietly pay attention. Then it hit me. The students in the front speak well because they volunteer all of the time. The kids in the back speak well because they are forced to speak all the time. I'm guilty of feeding into this as well... when a kid is causing a commotion and becoming a distraction, I would tell him to come up and volunteer for the activity in progress. This is also the reason I know all my troublemakers names already. I'm sure formally trained teachers are saying "No Duh" right now, but for me this was profound stuff. The kids who are least proficient are the quiet ones in the middle - I've got to find a way to get them involved.

Challenging:
I try to mix in those American pop culture references they love so much into my classes and I truly believe that the majority of my students like my teaching. Yet still, a few of my kids have told me straight up "that class was boring." I've heard that I can't make everybody happy, but goshdarn it I'm going to give it my damnedest!

I'm finding it difficult to (a) teach relevant material, (b) hold the students' attention for an entire period, (c) gain their respect (at least not become a total pushover), without (d) having to be an authoritarian.

Is this possible?

This is the golden question. Next week, I'm going to be doing a unit on American culture and if things go well I'll break it down by relevant regions of the United States (sorry Great Plains, you didn't make the cut) with games for each territory. If that doesn't cut it... I guess we'll do interpretations of Gaga lyrics or something.

Fun:
The good students definitely make any hurtles completely worth jumping.

Fred from my 10A Friday class gave me a novel he was writing. The first six chapters were very entertaining (even though I learned they were loosely [exactly] based on a video game he was playing) and I can't wait to find out what happens next!

Anaka from my 2A Monday class wanted to interview me about my thoughts on the Expo, unfortunately I haven't gone yet (SACRILEGE!). Instead, we talked about her aspirations as a journalist and about my experience as one in college and at the Olympics. She's really bright and seems like she's going places.

One of my students (whose secret I promised to keep) is applying to private boarding schools in Massachusetts. She asked me what life was like there and I gave her the whole scoop on that. Speaking of which, does anyone who reads the blog know anybody at the Concord Academy, the Cambridge School in Weston, the Governor's Academy, or Tabor Academy? She's definitely the best speaker in her class and one of my best students, so I'd be willing to write her a recommendation or something to help her out.

Oh and my favorite story so far...
I was playing this game called "Back to the Blackboard", where I split the class in half and have two kids come up to the front of the room with their backs to the blackboard while I write a word behind them. Their teammates had to get them to guess the word using other English words.

At the beginning of class there was a big kid sitting in the back named Tommy, and I asked him to move up to an open seat in the second row. He said, "I can't, I'll break seat." So I let him sit in the back.

When it was his turn to come up and represent his team for three points, the other team cheered when his name was called (thinking he was easy points against one of the smarter kids in the class). I forget the words I wrote on the board, but he raised his hand first and got the correct answer for the first point.

Pandemonium. Both teams gasped then just screamed.

Second point. Opponent gets first chance. Gets it wrong. Tommy guesses. And scores!

Kids are jumping up and down now. In disbelief on one side and jubilation on the other.

Third point. Tommy shoots. Nothin' but the bottom of the net. The class chants "TOMMY! TOMMY! TOMMY!" as he walks to his seat at the back of the class. Freaking epic. I won't forget his name for a good long time.

...

So, it's been a crazy five-and-a-half weeks here. I feel like I've lived here a year. There's so much I've left out of these entries, but I'll keep trying to capture the key moments for anyone out there who's interested.

School notes I couldn't fit in relevantly above:
- When they have vacations here, they make them up on weekends... I had a three day holiday for the Mid-Autumn Festival on a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and had to work the preceding Saturday and the whole weekend afterwards. I don't know if I'm for or against it, it was just an unusual concept, even for me.
- The kids here come from some prestigious families. When we go out to eat food after work, we pass by a long line of Rolls Royces fully equipped with professional drivers. Just ridiculous. (Matthias, I'll try to get you a photo)
- Oh and not only am I a teacher, but also a student! I take two Mandarin classes a week, plus a computer program I have, plus everything I pick up at work and on the street. I can feel the progression and I love it!

Until next time (hopefully sooner than later),
Zaijian!
Stephen "Scuba" Lauer

...

UPDATE!
I somehow forgot to mention that I was in a tug-of-war competition for the SFLS Sports Day! We got second place... CLOSE ENOUGH! Here is your reward for reading the blog:

Most people don't get the Eye of the Tiger, I've got two

 

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