Art Clokey, In Memoriam

February 1st, 2010

I heard the news last week that the creator of Gumby passed away at the age of 88. So it seems fitting that, even before he died and perhaps unbeknownst to him, he is being memorialized on a grand scale here in Shanghai.

Several years ago, we barely paid attention when Shanghai unveiled the new mascot for the then-distant World Expo 2010. Looks like Gumby, my sons yawned. But Haibo, as the blue near-knockoff creature is known here, has since become ubiquitous.  Gumbys greet you at the airport,gumby1 adorn the Expo ads pasted everywhere promising Better City, Better Life, gumby3cuddle up as soft toys and dangle on the ends of keychains, gumby2and are carved into topiaries at traffic intersections.

My favorite rendition is in a park along a major boulevard in Gubei. How about this  multi-cultural festival of  Gumbys frolicking under the already-bizarre (permanent) flowerpot sculpture!gumby4

And I guess that would be the American Gumby/Haibo under the ten-gallon hat!gumby5

Art Clokey must be smiling.

Old and New

January 21st, 2010

For years now (more than five), I have traveled around Shanghai in a fog when it comes to the written language. Although I’ve struggled constantly to add new words to my spoken Mandarin, I have left reading and writing strictly alone. The blizzard of characters, each as different and imponderable as a snowflake as far as I was concerned, floated by me — on commercial signs, traffic directions, newsstands, wherever.

But since I’ve taken up the study of hanzi, characters, this fall, life has become one big flashcard. Not that I can actually comprehend many phrases, let alone whole sentences, but the few hundred characters I’ve supposedly mastered jump out at me from billboards everywhere, constantly sending me scurrying to my dictionary in on-the-tip-of-recalling frustration.

One of the new words I learned to write this week is 老, the character  lao, meaning “old.” After scratching its six strokes  50 times into my little copybook, I’m quite certain I’ve conquered it, at least for the moment. I’m even sure that the strokes are formed properly and in the right order.

Imagine my delight yesterday when I spotted a substantial sign with three consecutive characters that I recognized, including the word I’d just learned: 老 西 门, lao xi men, old west gate. (Ok, my pleasures are admittedly simple….)

But what’s this! Check out the English translation below! oldnew

If they get something this simple so wrong, what else have I been misunderstanding as I go through life here?

I guess I better get back to work on the remaining several thousand I need to learn and retain before I’ll be able to read a newspaper.

Watching Over Fuxing Park

January 18th, 2010

When I revived yesterday from my gastronomic distress, my husband and I went out for a stroll in the neighborhood, landing in one of my very favorite spots in Shanghai, Fuxing Park.

Public parks in China wake you up.  I remember the first time I found myself in a park here after dark. It was full of people talking and I realized with a start that there was no reason to be afraid! And if anybody was drunk, s/he kept it under wraps.

Fuxing Park is everything you could hope for in a park. A place to meet up with your friends and have a chat in the sunshine, or make headway on the sweater you’re knitting.

April 2006

April 2006

To bring your kids to the amusement park rides or to invite your husband for lunch al fresco.

April 2007

April 2007

To tune in to an impromptu concert, or waltz with your wife on the sidewalk.

May 2007

May 2007

To participate in a card game, or, better yet, hold onto your kuai and stick to advising the players.

April 2006

April 2006

To stretch your body in a tai chi move, in a morning group

April 2006

April 2006

or (appearing rather ominous to western eyes) behind the bushes alone. Even, on occasion, to have your photograph made in a herd of  synthetic cows.

April 2006

April 2006

Fuxing7In short, to relax just about any way that a body can think of.

You don’t see many westerners in Fuxing Park. The most important ones are there every day,  overseeing the scene with an air of avuncular benevolence. Fuxing8Marx and Hegel. A penny for your thoughts now, I’d like to say. What do you have to say about how it all turned out? At least the people’s parks are pretty nice.

Yesterday somebody was obviously feeling at least a bit wistful. Take a close look at the base of the sculpture.

January 2010

January 2010

Those are bouquets of flowers.

Winter Provisions

January 17th, 2010

I love watching Shanghai get ready to celebrate the new year.  I’ve written about this before, but one of the preparations that grab my attention is the habit of hanging out marinated meat and fish to dry on the cold days we’ve been having lately.  I wander the streets stalking treasure.

Even in the midst of the most modern areas of Shanghai, the old traditions literally hang on. Here’s what caught my eye last week as I tooled along in front of smart clothing stores:provisions1

In the wet market a few blocks down the street, I spotted a bonanza in the rafters, available for purchase:provisions2

“Let that be a lesson to you!” my friend chuckled when we came across this dangling pair elsewhere in town:provisions3

At our house, we’re do-it-yourself-ers. Wang ayi has pork aging in the garden again this year:provisions4Son Christopher and I sampled it on Friday, his last day in Shanghai before an early-Saturday flight to return to the States for college. Chewy and full of sharp flavor. Reminds me of Kentucky ham, he observed, recalling the specialty my husband used to have shipped from his hometown.

Sorry to say, Christopher and I spent Friday night hugging the porcelain goddess, retching our guts out. He could barely muster to get on the plane in the morning. Sure, the problem could have been with any of a number of treats we had loaded up on in the last couple of days, but I’m nervous.

Undaunted, my husband insists he’s going to give it a few more days and then sample the delicacy himself. Sometimes, I guess, he really misses Kentucky.

You gotta buy a lottery ticket….

January 14th, 2010

I’m not mentioning any names, but one of my family members got out of a taxi last night on our street and left behind his backpack, with his laptop inside. Zaogao! Disaster!

Did he have the cab’s receipt? (One visiting friend last year left the tennis racquet she had bought at the fake market in a taxi, handed the taxi receipt to the hotel concierge, and had the lost racquet back in a couple of hours.) No, the receipt machine in last night’s taxi was broken.

What company was the taxi? Dunno, but red in color. It turns out that there are over 100 companies in Shanghai with red — independent — cars.

There’s nothing you can do, my family member said.

But I can’t stand to leave something like this alone. This morning, I got help in drafting a sign offering a reward and went outside the lane to the place where the unlucky person had gotten out of the car. A small crowd of construction workers and a security guard gathered, curious as to what I was taping on the wall, just in case a super-conscientious driver returned to the scene. Oh, lost your computer, they read and crooned sympathetically. I can’t imagine that any of them has ever come near a computer.

I asked Driver Ou Yang to take me to the police station. He said that would be useless, but immediately swung into action with good ideas. After all, he is a driver. “You’ve got to get it onto this station before lunch, he said, turning the radio dial. That’s where they announce all the lost stuff, and the drivers will be listening while they eat. This afternoon, they won’t be paying any attention. But after he called and learned that it costs 600 RMB to run an ad 4 times, he changed his mind.

I had Ou Yang drive me to the police station anyway. There a polite officer with a cigarette dripping ash asked me the expected questions. What company, what color car, where did he get in, where did he get out. What are you going to do? He shook his head.

Back in the car, Ou Yang shook his head, too. Useless, he snorted with respect to the police. He insisted that we place an ad with the Xinmin Evening News, which I gather is a sort of taxicab newspaper, widely read. The ad will run tomorrow.

Then he suggested that I go onto the internet and place an ad there for other people to read. Not a bad idea from someone who admits he’s never touched a computer, but where on the internet? One Chinese friend said to read the offerings on Chinese eBay to see whether your computer turns up there.

Ou Yang  gets frustrated when we’re so inept, doing such obviously idiotic things as taking taxis, especially the red ones. For two days, you’ve lost gloves (it’s true — I’m down 1 1/2 pairs since Monday) and now this, he muttered as I walked away.

But I haven’t given up yet. Here in China, we’ve had waiters chase us down the street to return items we’ve left in restaurants, hotel maids bring items to the lobby. If a Shanghainese cabbie can find the owner of a lost computer, I think  he would try to return it. Anyone taking a bet on whether we hit the jackpot?

On the 17th day of Christmas

January 12th, 2010

One great thing about Shanghai is that there is no January post-Christmas letdown. Every year since I arrived in 2004, noticeably more Christmas decorations are going up in December. And, as I found last Sunday when I braved the grim, gray weather to do a little shopping, they are still up.

Like the gold tree on Nanjing Lu in front of Plaza 66.postXmas1

Out at the pearl market in Hongqiao, a jolly little Santa is still hanging out under a big tree, although the poinsettias aren’t trying hard any more.postXmas2

At Marks & Spencer, the plum pudding hasn’t even been discounted.

postXmas3

What’s the thinking? I dunno. Certainly it’s not “out with the old; in with the new.” I suspect it has to do with the fact that the lunar new year lies just around the corner. Hyper-optimistically (and confusingly), that holiday is called “spring festival” as well as “new year” here, although it falls smack dab during winter. Why feel blue when we can just keep on making merry until spring arrives?

Water

January 6th, 2010

So there I am in my Chinese lesson, painstakingly (and painfully) reading aloud like a 5 -year-old.

水 龙 头

Shui long tou. Water dragon head. I look up. Okay, I can read it, but what’s it mean?

Tap, my teacher says.

I’m still clueless, so I wait.

You turn it and water comes out, she adds.

Ah, ok……. And why is a faucet called a “water dragon head”?

She seems to think this should be obvious. Because it looks kind of like a dragon head.

Oh. Well maybe this could be useful, I think. The terminology for water has been, shall we say, murky for a while. Ever since our first tutor back in Washington in 2004 told us not to drink any water in restaurants in China, but to stick to beer — this advice to a mother moving her teenage son to China! Her concern was that even bottled water may be unsafe tap water masquerading in a re-capped bottle.

On a roll, I write out 水龙头水。Shui long tou shui.  So is this how to say “tap water”?

Now my teacher is puzzled until I explain. No, here’s how we say that: 自来 水。 Zi lai shui. “Self comes water,” means “you don’t have to go to the well for it.”

Aha.

The Chinese teacher back in Washington used to say that Chinese is a very scientific language. I guess it does make sense. Well sometimes, sort of. As my son says, just not in a way that you would expect.

The Wire

January 5th, 2010

We’ve been hearing for years about all the improvements that are coming to the city “for Expo.” And now that we’re only months away from its opening this spring, we are witnessing clean-up and other preparations at breakneck speed.

But still. On Christmas Eve, the Shanghai Daily reported that “communication wires on the city’s utility poles will be cleaned up or removed to improve Shanghai’s looks for the coming World Expo 2010.”

There is, quite simply, a lot of wire coiled in wait out there.wire1

wire2wire3But maybe the same folks who built an extensive subway system here in a decade will be able to unravel this mess. I’ll keep you posted.

To Market, To Market

December 30th, 2009

Over the weekend, we honored the ancient tradition of going post-Christmas shopping, setting out for the leather market in Haining, a couple of hours’ drive from Shanghai. We really didn’t know what to expect, and I thought it might be akin to the yarn market — outdoor stalls, cats and kids roaming throughout.

No way. The snowy parking lot was jammed with cars and buses. It’s a huge, modern complex. Where to begin? Bags and clothing?market1The shoe wing? market2Reviewing all possibilities on the map, we thought maybe we should check into the hotel.market3

Opting for Pelage Finery (only the best for my guys),market4

we headed to the escalator.market5So many shops, all with different stuff in almost-familiar brands!

market6Son Christopher got a Piraida leather jacket for his new life in California,market7and John got a Gabbanie (not modeled),market8while Alex selected a bag, shoes, and a belt.market9Here I am, keeping toasty in a down-filled “Mexican” jacket.market12

Time flies. I was forced to forego the fur wing, only getting a quick look at some of the more outlandish fashions,market10

And sadly, we didn’t set foot in the Bundesrepublic Deutschiand.market11(We are certain that there was no Bundesrepublik in 1828, and pretty sure that there never was a Kaiser Abdul Hamid!)

But there’s always next year! By that time, the high-speed train will be up and running and we could make Haining in 20 minutes.

In the Lane, Bells are Ringing

December 25th, 2009

After a wonderful German Christmas Eve dinner with our friends last night, I woke up early and heard the sound of bells jingling. Could it be???? I threw open the balcony door and looked out into the foggy dawn — no snow glistening in this lane — to see the recycling man with cardboard piled on his cart, clanging away on his bell. I went back to bed.

At 8:00 the phone rang. Family calling with greetings? No, it was the yogurt delivery lady. It may be Christmas, but it’s still Friday, and we had forgotten all about her. (Apparently she had been ringing the doorbell for some time.)  John zipped down and collected the week’s supply of jars of the world’s best yogurt. Yum, Christmas breakfast!

It’s a good thing I remembered to cancel the drycleaning delivery, or there wouldn’t be peace at all in our house today, let alone on earth!

9:30 — time to go downstairs and see if the adult youngsters are stirring.Wait! The doorbell is ringing again! It’s a woman I’ve never seen before, and she is waving her knitting project at me. It seems she needs more yarn to finish it… okay let’s traipse up to the tinzijian to see if I can match her color. Ok now, I am going to wake Alex and Christopher. It’s time to open our gifts and go to the Filipino Catholic English-language service and then pick up the rest of the fixings to make Christmas dinner.

To our family and friends far and wide, best wishes from Shanghai for a very Merry Christmas!Xmas1