Day 231 to 260: Shanghai and Adventures in Babysitting: Part 3 (A Day in the Life…)

‘The time to get up is 7am’

‘The time to get up is 7am’

My eyes are still shut as I listen to this proposition. As its source repeats it over and over again, I mull it over in my head. Seems to be reasonable enough. Of course it depends on what time it is now?

I blindly grab my Nokia mobile – an ancient brick of a phone, armed with the old monotone screen that entertains me with reruns of Snake. Technology isn’t cheap in China. Even this communication dinosaur set me back nigh on 200 RMB from a side street vendor.

As my eyelids reluctantly part from themselves, I realize that it is the phone itself that is suggesting the time to greet the day.

And its proposition suddenly becomes far less attractive when it occurs to me that it is actually 7am now.

‘The time to get up is 7am.’

‘The time to get up is 7am’

Oh for goodness sake. The Air Con buzzes away doing its job, having blown its storm all night long to keep away the sweats that the Shanghai balmy nights bring. As I lie in the damp recesses of my bed, I come to terms with the fact that it doesn’t do it very well.

There’s only one thing for it. One thing to truly prepare me for a day of tackling children whose endless supply of energy challenges my own limited reserves. Whose parent’s watchful eyes are waiting for their child to blossom into English scholars. With a day of Flash cards, last minute prep, games, songs and dancing, I look to the one thing that any self respecting man would seek refuge in, in my position.

The Snooze Button

Across Shanghai, mobile phone alarms, the cries of waking babies, the horns of impatient traffic, the drill of endless construction, the urgent shouts of late commuters, the whistles of Traffic assistants, and the steam rising from the Baozi stand…

…wakes the city up to another day of Communism. And this is no moot point. Because in 2011, China celebrates 90 years of the Communist Party.

Already banners, posters, video dedications litter the available marketing space to unite this nation together under glorious Red. The hammer and the sickle – so ingrained in my mind as a symbol of the old USSR – beams a happy smile across the city.

And though the powers that be have done a very good job at muting dissent...

This gallery had just been visited by officials and asked to 
remove this picture attacking the government. 

...you can’t deny that it’s worked for China. Just look around you. From Skyscraper to skyscraper, from Bentley to Aston Martin, from decadence to decadence, could democracy and freedom of choice have ever achieved this? (Well I’m not answering that)

But herein lies the problem.

The Communist ideal (in Shanghai) has already been compromised.

As China has flourished, the government has made concessions, giving more and more rights of ownership to its people, so they can reap more Capitalist reward. So while the argument is that they’ve been oppressed, forced to tow party line, their reins have been loosened bit by bit.

But in a city exploding with money, but where owning your own property is tantamount to just 'leasing it off the government for 70 years' can Communism survive?

Maybe – China is nothing but resourceful. After all getting 1.3 billion people to step in is beyond most other country’s budget deficits. In fact it’s pretty astonishing.

Either way, China will be an exciting place to be for years to come, especially while the Western world disintegrates. Dramatic growth, increasing social awareness and the thrill of opportunity – this country is definitely waking up to something big.

And as I stumble from my shower, cloaking myself in the permanent whiff that my Travel towel seems to have adopted (no matter how many times I’ve washed it), it’s a great place to be right now.

That is until I reach the kitchen.

And open my fridge.

It started with the milk.

Just a flippant comment from my housemate Susan. As it came from a woman who specializes in spouting utter bollocks, it was one ear out t’other. It was only when my colleagues at work mentioned it that I started to listen.

In 2008, it was claimed that Chinese milk made around 300,000 people severely ill, killing a handful including children. The poison was Melamine – a chemical compound used to make concrete, glue and plastic.  

Now such a story would have shattered the British farming industry. But even now, Melamine is flagged up in many brands of milk. Though I buy the more expensive ones on the market, I’m still playing Russian Roulette over a bowl of Cheerios.

After the milk, came the exploding Watermelons.

As it sounds, China was riddled with Watermelons that due to a ‘growth accelerator’ would literally go boom. Duck the flying pips.

Back home, we are so conscious of on organic and free range farming methods, avoiding any chemical or fertilizer that may harm the produce or the environment around it. China on the other hand don‘t just  seem slow to catch on. It sometimes appears they just don’t give a forchlorfenuron.

If it was hard for Jesus to feed five thousand, he should try 1.3 billion.

Shop around and you can find heavy metal cadmium in the rice, arsenic in soy sauce, bleach in mushrooms, and – saving the best till last –  the detergent borax in pork, added to make it resemble beef.

Fake beef? It’s like Caspian’s Pizzas on the Smallbrook Queensway all over again.

As an expat living in Shanghai, you can always avoid it by shopping at one of the growing Import supermarkets that champion their organic source of their fruit and veg – like City Shop or Fresh Mart. But expect to pay a hefty premium.

Still, lets not dwell on things.

After all, it’s 8am – far too early in the morning. And I need to be in school in half hour, mom.

I rush down the 5 floors of my apartment block and- Sorry, who am I kidding.  I wait impatiently as the lift descends from 33^rd floor of my apartment block, adding minutes to my tardiness, and points to my laziness.

On the ground floor, I rush out, straight into a wall of heat. Or rain. Or both.

This is the Shanghai summer. And things haven’t even reached their peak yet. June has seen rain, plenty of it. For 2 weeks, it almost rained everyday. And sometimes the monsoon-esque downpour can blind you they’re so hard. I’ve known power showers that would cower in fear. Goodness knows hows the oblivious and reckless traffic doesn’t end in total bloodshed.

But its only at its peak occasionally. And rain brings cooler winds, more comfortable temperatures, and  keeps the wolf from the door. The wolf being the heat.

Cos by Lucifer’s balls, it gets hot in this city.

Try raising your arm in 35 degree heat, let alone walking. Its smothers you like a humid, sticky blanket, pricking at your every pore as if you’ve been swimming in Vicks Vapo Rub.

It’s a heat that denies motivation, restricts movement, and confines you to the air conned indoors. As you walk down the road, you skirt close to the open doors of shops and hotel foyers just to reward yourself with that brief breeze of cool artificial air blasting from within.

I’ve got the oven baking of July and August to come. And I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that I ain’t seen nuffin yet.

I cross Xujiahui Lu, deciding not incur the wrath of the Traffic Assistants. Wrapped up in uniform, the weather must brutalise them. I dive into the depths of Dapuqiao Station, sitting on Line 9 of Shanghai Metro, and head straight to the turnstiles, completely ignoring the security check on my bag.

It’s a legacy from the Expo days, and a sign of the times we live in, when there is a X-ray machine for your bag before you enter the turnstiles. Manned by 2 security personnel who pretty much always look bored, when I first arrived in Shanghai, I was very diligent. Always thoughtfully exposing my man-bag (it’s not gay, honest) to their scrutiny.

Until I realized – to my amusement – that its not obligatory. It advises that you can put your bag through ‘at your own discretion’.

Fancy that. I’ll bear that in mind when I decide to carry explosives.

My train pulls in, and I jump on.

I’m lucky that my line isn’t one of the most popular. I’ve caught the metro on Line 2 at rush hour – the one that cuts right through the centre West to East – when I’ve stayed over ‘at a friends’ on a school night, and been faced with an unmoveable wall of people in front of me.

There is no way I’m getting onnnnOOOOOOFFF.

Sorry, that’s just me being pushed on by one of the platform guards. Assigned to squeeze on as many people into each carriage as can justifiably fit – and then a few more – they literally spread their arms, and charge forward towards the door, pushing whoever gets caught in their embrace, and ramming them into the sardine tin.

And as you’re there, face to face, or face to armpit, its not hard to guess what your neighbour’s had for breakfast. Or what brand of deodorant the sweaty man’s neglected to buy.

But even when my personal space is denied so emphatically, the Chinese still somehow manage enough elbow room to play on their iPhones, or iPads. Because while imported branded technology doesn’t come cheap, it’s an obsession. In a city full of people chasing status symbols, it’s particularly amplified – the clamour over the iPad 2 is extraordinary. And potentially dangerous.

The news reported that a teenage boy sold his own kidney for one. And if that wasn’t enough, a girl offered her virginity for an iPhone 4.

Disgraceful. (I’ve got her email address if anyone wants it)

I get off at Shangcheng Lu, leave via the escalators of exit 4 and back out into the heat.

It’s also the first time of many that day, that my eyes will rest upon the World Financial Centre – the Bottle Opener – as it stands barely 5 minutes from my school. The slightly ludicrous thing, is that the Chinese are building the world’s second biggest building in Shanghai. Called the Shanghai Tower, it’s being built right next to the WFC. Show offs.

I’ve taken a girl for a drink in the bar on the 91^st floor of the WFC.

And it really is quite an overwhelming feeling, looking down on Skyscrapers nearby. It’s certainly a good venue to impress. Certainly earns more brownie points than the top floor of the Rotunda. It did cost me £20 for 2 drinks mind. Whatever happened to cheap dates?

But as for the new one, the Shanghai Tower is going to have 128 floors. Take a girl for a drink on the top of that, and it don’t matter what kind of facial disfigurement or nervous tick you’ve been cursed with. Even a chronic Tourette’s sufferer’s getting laid.

Fuckity fuck.

I’m now in Pudong, over the water of Huangpu River from Puxi.



As I walk through the streets, the clues of it being Shanghai’s financial centre are everywhere. You say hi to Bentley, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lambo, Porsche etc etc.

It feels less packed in like Puxi. And unfortunately infinitely more boring.

But Pudong is where you earn your money wisely. Puxi is where you spend it unwisely.

I arrive at school, salute Phillip the security guard, and walk into its wondrously air conned embrace.

Of course Phillip isn’t his real name. But like many of countrymen, and the Chinese children I teach (Roy, Elyn, Peter, Edward to name a few), they give themselves – or are given – English names to help interaction with expats. I’ve even started christening my pre-nursery class kids with English names.  It needs to be appropriate, not random, fits the character, and echoes their Chinese name . So I’ve now also got a Timmy, a Harry and a right Charley.

And my Chinese name?

丹尼尔  

Right, now where’s that Tattoo artist.

The day at school goes by swimmingly enough. I know I’m repeating myself, but I do love my job. I’ve performed puppet shows, help co-ordinate a sports days, and played guitar at our leaving year’s graduation concert. Everyday is different (mainly due to the fact that I’ve no idea how the lesson will pan out when I get there) and the rewards consistently brilliant.

And you barely feel the day go by.

AND today’s Friday. Whoop whoop.

It hits 4pm. The kiddly winks await the arrival of Mommy and Daddy, or as is common, their Ai yí?? Your Ai yí is the general term for your housekeeper.

They are common amongst expat families, and are predominantly Filipino due to their better grasp of English to help with the children. However many locals also act as Ai yí ‘s to expats without families cleaning after them for next to no money.

Whether immigrant or native, its not as if Shanghai is going to be short of candidates. It’s so cheap, you do wonder how locals can live on the wage.

This isn’t the only time you see the divide in earnings between foreigner and Chinese. As a native English teacher who is literally only tasked to come up 2 half hour lesson a day, my wage dwarfs that of the Chinese teachers who (wo)manfully educate and discipline the kids the rest of the time.

People survive in this city on less that £200 a month. Its possible – the cost of living can be cheap if you want it to be – but it’s a life that offers very little joy other than work. 2 drinks on the 91^st floor of the WFC could feed someone for a fortnight.

After the class is cleared, and me and my in situ Chinese teachers breathe a huge sigh of relief, its time to go. I bid farewell to my fellow expats: Sharon, Rowena, Roselle and Chantal, and with cheeky scamp Daniel P in tow, we head home.

Back to line 9, back to Dapuqiao, back to Puxi.

As daylight turns to dusk, and dusk turns to night, Shanghai mounts up for the weekend.

It may lack a little roughness (even the scruffy places seem to have nice toilets), but Shanghai kicks off royally of an evening. Venues cram for space on every street corner

Shelter, Yuyingtang, The Lighthouse, Mint, M2, Mao Livehouse are just a few places that have prised my hard earned cash from me for a hard (?) earned beer.

You barely leave the house before 10pm, and dawn has caught me out more times that I care to remember.

Shelter especially – underground and designed like a bomb shelter – allows you no indication of what time it is, lulling you into the belief that world outside still sleeps. It’s not a welcoming sight to emerge to the sun ready to unleash its ferocity onto you, when all you need is the air conditioned solace of your bed.

Whatever your music, whatever your poison, it’s been done

Going out and finding a decent venue is spectacularly easy. The hippest places to be seen are easily invaded by plebs like me because everywhere is so accessible. There’s no elitist mindset…

…or maybe there is. And me being a white male – albeit a scruffy white male – is all the dressing I need.

And though the drinks are expensive, you just employ the usual tactic of get drunk via the wares of the 7/11 on street corners before the extortion of the bars mugs your wallet.

Then there’s making your way home – again sublimely easy in a city that churns out a taxi every other car. The fares are so regulated that no matter the colour of the cab, you know exactly what you’re going to pay.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Life couldn’t get anymore convenient.

I’ll just sit back and relax, let the functional flow of Shanghai take me along.

This is the life…

…or is it?

Its so easy, so so SO easy… that I’m getting restless.

Very restless. Has Shanghai got a use by date. Mmmm? Nah.

More appropriately for me, this isn’t what I signed up for. Just yet.

This city appeared when I needed it most, and its furnished me with everything I wanted at the time. But for where I am now, for what I need now, perhaps its got nothing left to offer.

The rest of China holds such an allure for me. Correction, it absolutely fascinates me. And Japan still beckons from across its restless Sea.

But it was with a degree of reluctance that I confirmed that I was leaving. August will see me forage deep into the highlights of China, braving the scrum at the Great Wall, heading West to mountains, only to return for a brief respite and then onto the Land of the Rising Sun.

However, that’s still 4 weeks away.

And I’m nowhere near bored of Shanghai just yet. How can I ever be?

As I climb into bed, after an exhausting night of frivolity and frolic, I don’t care that I have no discernible plan for the next day. Cos by merely walking down the street, this city can surprise you.

Virtually every waking moment has challenged, thrilled, threatened and inspired me.

Now if I can only reach my phone to switch off my alar-zzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZ

….zzzz..zzz…

….zzzzz-

‘The time to get up is 7am’

‘The time to get up is 7am’

Selected Photos by Daniel 'Cheeky Scamp' Piotrowski (except Phone, Banner and WFC)

Day 193 to 230: Shanghai and Adventures in Babysitting: Part 2 (the one with the food)

1.       The Chinese Barbeque

I’ve sampled fresh Pani Puri on Chowpatty Beach in Mumbai, crispy samosas in Nepal, Pad Thai on the streets of Bangkok, road side Pho in Hanoi,  but no one does street food like the Chinese. And reigning supreme is the Chinese Barbeque. Without trying to sound too much like an Advertising writer (which I actually I am so that’s that fucked) if offers unbeatable choice and value (am I really writing this?) with outstanding freshness and flavor (shoot me now). You are presented with a line up of skewered kebabs as varied as a game of Guess Who – from fresh Oysters, bullfrog, cows penis, to lamb fat, cheesestring mushrooms and (thankfully) some pretty normal stuff. You walk along this parade of skewers with a basket just picking out your menu, hand to Mr Man behind his grill, who after coating it liberal amounts of salt and chilli, cooks it to melt in the mouth perfection, while you wait roadside sipping your chilled bottle of Tsing Tao, desperately searching for anything to distract you from the glorious smelling smoke filling your nose.

Cost per head: £1.50 (herbivore) £2.50 (carnivore)

Shanghai has just got better and better.

2 months is a mere drop in the ocean in the context of my life, but this city has dominated my existence to such an extent, its getting hard to imagine a time without it.

In retrospect my first 4 weeks were spent pretty much peering through the looking glass. Its not until it provides you the chance to slip in beneath the veneer that Shanghai’s really hooks you in.

Suddenly I’m surrounded by a network of friends, a phone full of contacts, bi-weekly squash games, and weekends planned for me by people I barely know.

I have become a bona fide contributing Shanghai-ite without even realizing it.

And it had very little to do with me.

Daniel Piotrowski is a Polish expat who spends his time building bicycles, taking photos, making time lapse films and generally being a friend to everyone who crosses his path. With a social platform that extends across the Globe, his warm, creative, spontaneous nature is liked by many in Shanghai…

…and adored by his kids in his kindergarten class.

The same kindergarten class that I taught.

Jason’s class.

When I had arrived, Daniel (of all the names eh?) was away. He had worked at ELFA Juyuen Pre-School since last August, but had managed to negotiate extended leave to visit family and friends in Poland and England. Sharon – our dedicated, hard working and outrageously generous boss – hadn’t known whether he would return. So I was in temporary/permanent charge of his class. And the only male teacher in the whole school.

I was the Daddy.

But return he did. And though it meant me giving up K1 Peach Blossom (and sharing any Alpha male pretences), his arrival turned out to be quite a stroke of fortune.

2.       Bi Feng Tang

There’s nothing like tucking into a Brummie balti at 3am after a night on the beers, spooning your Ghee gilded Jalfrezi into your mouth with the help of a radioactive garlic naan while you and your company dissect the previous hours’ frivolity. That is until Bi Feng Tang came into my life. A very popular Hong Kong restaurant chain , it serves up an astonishing array of dishes freshly cooked either 24 hours a day, or at least until its time to go to work the following morning. Its set up for you and your fellow inebriates to plow through a disgusting amount of food, as the last vestiges of night give way to morning. Under the smoke and chatter, the Chinese clubbers, bar hoppers, loved up cuddlers drunkenly poke Bullfrog Hotpot, slurp up Blood casserole, shove down endless Dim Sums enjoying taste sensation after taste sensation. And you know what else?

I could spit from my balcony and hit the restaurant, its that close.

Sod it, lets Bi Feng Tang it.

Cost per head: £6 to £8 – but that’s because I’m a greedy bastard.

The first one was Midi. 2 weeks later it was world music. The week after that, Reggae. In the last 4 weeks I have been to 3 music festivals.

And lets throw in numerous nights of live music at venues across town just to emphasise my point. If it hasn’t always been big-fish-little-fish-cardboard box...

...diving into Chinese mosh pits...

...recklessly spinning ladies in time to hi energy salsa…

…my feet have definitely not stopped tapping.

This is what Shanghai does. At least in summer. It liberally sprinkles the city with a variety of festivals and events, many Western influenced, but marinated in Chinese efficiency

But the first one was the Midi festival. And it provided a flagship weekend in my time. Daniel had taken me to a bicycle expo where interesting as it was, wasn’t about to dominate my scribblings home.


He had heard however of a music festival going on at Century Park in Pudong – one of the city’s many sizeable, pastoral, landscaped parks. His friends were going, and deciding that his social network was rather more substantial than mine, we plumped for it too.

However when we arrived in the taxi, the queue stretched for miles.

I had recently been privy to the Chinese penchant for queueing at the China Pavillion, one of the last remaining Expo 2010 relics still to stand. Then, I was expected to wait for 4½ hours to see something akin to the Birmingham Science and Technology Museum with added lighting. And that would only be if no one pushed in. But this ain’t Britain, and you give the Chinese an inch and they’ll squeeze in 2 elbows, a foot and half an arse cheek.  I had been about to jack it in, until a security guard, taking pity on the lonely paleface among the throbbing hordes, plucked me out and took me right to the front. As I walked past the equivalent population of Sunderland, I’ll always remember it being the first proper indication of the sheer numbers of people in this country.

So when it came to joining the queue for the Midi Festival, with no end in sight, I was worried. I didn’t want to spend my Saturday running out of conversation with a person with his back to me. Luckily, the Chinese seem to do something else as good as queueing. Touts. It almost seemed acceptable – endorsed even. When dealing with people in the billions, its not a bad idea to send out a few touts to spread themselves through the crowd, to thin out any monster queue. In return for paying a little extra (only ever around a couple of quid), you get a legitimate ticket and saved hours of your time.

Our tout had come up with the goods. And my ticket in introduced me to the world of Music Festivals. Chinese style. Under a balmy Shanghai sun, the festival unfolded very cleanly, tidily and orderly over the course of the day.

That was until the beer ran out at 7pm. Oops.

The fashion was funky, ranging from hippy chic to designer scruff with pockets of Miss Kitty thrown in.

Leave your Glasto muddy boots at the door please.

And it was just so clean. There’s a joke among expats that you know you’ve lived in China for too long when you believe littering gives someone a job.

It took me just one music festival to buy into it.

Goodness knows the tonnes of crap waiting to be picked up in the fields of Pilton after the smelly hordes have gone, but your plastic pint glass in Century Park, Shanghai barely makes contact with the ground before its swept into the bin bag of one of the hundreds of litter pickers scurrying around.

You have to hand it to the Chinese, the way they appear to make sure there’s a job for everyone. It certainly goes someway in justifying their communist credentials. For instance the job of the lollipop lady in England, comes across as the 5^th emergency service over here. ‘Traffic Assistants’ (as their called) are everywhere, perched by every major traffic lights, every major crossing. And – like the Dome II bouncers – they can sometimes be proper little Hitlers. Even dare to blow your nose while there’s a red man, and expect to hear the piercing sound of their PE teacher whistle fill the air.

Still, I suppose it takes a work force chock full of people to look after a society chock full of people. And I for one don’t want to upset an apple cart with that many apples on it.

The Midi Festival was never going to be a crazy Global Gathering, a mind bending Latitude, a raucous V, but it provided some genuine musical highlights. Like DJ Siesta – a tiny framed native with a slutty librarian look, who apparently ‘single handedly introduced Drum N’ Bass’ to the People’s Republic of China – in tow with her own pet Cockney MC.

However the main highlight was who I met. My social network in the space of 2 days suddenly went from 3 to double figures. I spent the weekend meeting and chatting to like minded individuals, making plans, mulling over offers and invites and simply having a great time. And in the middle of it a big hearted Venezuelan, who cannot blink without making me laugh, walked in centre stage.

Children, say hello to Oscar.

3.       Pork Sandwich

I love a good hog bap.

Now that’s not surprising. I love my meat, so the simple concept of getting a load of it and slapping it between bread was always going to stir my loins. And the Chinese do their own version of it. And it’s class. Sometimes the simplest tweaks can make so much difference. Take one huge pot. A load of pork. Stock, herbs like Bay leaves and leave to stew. For hours. When aforementioned hungry carnivore steps up toz the counter, remove the most tender of tender pork cubes, place on a chopping board and add a spoon of chilli and pickle. Then grab a healthy fistful of fresh, green coriander and throw it on. And then another healthy fistful of fresh green coriander. You know, what the hell. Throw in a bit more. Chop everything to smithereens with a meat cleaver. Shove the now sizeable coriander hash with a splash of meat into a warm white bap. Pour a ladle full of gravy over the filling, wrap in a plastic and hand to the now drooling aforementioned carnivore.

Dive in

Cost per head: £0.60 (so you know, what the hell… I’ll have 2)

Oscar scared me.

Having been his friend for 2 weeks, I had really come to like him. I could count on Daniel and Oscar as being good mates. Our weekends were being spent hanging out, making new friends while I was introduced to all the loveable rogues from D&O’s previous life studying Chinese in Kunming, Yunnan Province, South West China as they came out of the woodwork.

We were at my second music festival – the World Music Festival in Zhongshan Park – on a cloudy and rainy day in Shanghai. We had just watched Huun Huur Tu from Mongolia with a singer that had sung in the remarkable Tuvan throat style – where 2 separate notes, one bass one treble, are created in the throat at the same time.

And waiting for the arrival of the Whirling Dervishes of Damascus. Exactly what it says on the tin.

“When I first meet people, I ask them ‘how long are you staying in Shanghai for?’…straight away…before anything else. If they tell me less than 2 or 3 months, I just walk away. There’s no point. I’m not going to see them. I don’t want to invest myself in someone who will just end up leaving so soon.”

What? Just like that. Positive discrimination Venezuelan style. Calculating.

However, you realize its not unique. And rather valid. There’s a real difference between the transient and long termers – bit like the geek and the jock. Those passing through just play the Shanghai fruit machine with gay abandon, and then piss off. Those that stay, form a life, etching out a perfunctory, normal existence. With added whistles and bells.

They do so, miles away from home with a smorgasboard of nationalities to peer with. They need to start forming semi permanent alliances in a very non permanent city.

A lot of expats talk about ‘waves’ of friends.

Alex Ferguson will build a Championship winning team to a peak, relying on the same faces to do their same job, season after season. But it has a shelf life. At the end is broken down systemically but swiftly, and replaced with younger, fitter carbon copies in the hope they can do the same job. You build a core friendship group within your wider portfolio, that sees its members suddenly attach themselves emotionally to each other. You get close, share great times while taking advantage of the delights of Shanghai…

…only to be decimated by sudden departures – the move of the job, the pull of the family back home – and you’re left with you. You pick yourself up, delve into the forgotten pages of your contact book and start again.

You need to be made of stern stuff to really last it out alone. But the constant ‘goodbyes’ you utter must finish you off someday.

It’s seems to be a different world for couples and families.

The Pudong District especially offers sprawling compounds full of giant apartment blocks that shadow manicured gardens, swimming pools and tennis courts. Speaking to some of the parents of the children at my school, you hear of mothers that literally do not engage with Shanghai at all. While the husband heads out to work, and after the kids have been dropped off at school, they stay in their compound, or if needs must have a driver take them round to take them shopping. They seek out other moms with similar time on their hands, or just… well I don’t know what they do, but very little by all accounts. Its their own transient life bubble, like living life in a permanent holiday resort.

They pointedly refuse to engage with the Chinese on an emotional level, with contact reserved for when you’re in need of a service.

However, most of their younger children – the ones that I teach – seem immune to this up and down, move in move out momentum; healthy, happy, able to form friendships with both Western and Chinese. They pick up the language astonishing quickly, responding robotically to the requests of the scary (to the kids) Chinese teachers, obedient to their every demand.

They just laugh when  I tell them to be quiet.

But they are just brilliant to teach.

 

Any job in which you are repeatedly hugged is always going to be good.

4.       Fujian Snack Restaurant

Lunch. 12pm. You’ve just spent the last hour supervising the kids eating their gourmet  grub, and its made you ravenous. You want something quick, easy and cheap. You’ll be wanting the Fujian Snack Restaurant, Pucheng Lu then.

Fujian is a province in the South East of China. I have no idea what it looks like, its cultural impact on the world, or what the people are like. But by buggery I love their peanut noodles. Just hot steaming, white rice noodles served on a puddle of spicy peanut sauce. Throw in a cup of Black Chicken soup (literally Chicken with black skin – you got something to say, Ali G?), pork dumplings dipped in spicy chilli sauce, wash it down with a cold can of Coke and you have one of the best lunchtime feeds this  side of Philpotts.

Cost per head: £1.40 (absolute bloody bargain)

There has been one outstanding feature of my stay here

It’s a subject close my heart. About half a foot away, resting in my stomach.

The Food.

My goodness. My peanut, peanut butter, jelly goodness.

The food here is just un-Fuxing-believable. From across all corners of this vast country, Shanghai plays host to some of the tastiest, fieriest, ingenius cuisine I. Have. Ever. Tasted.

From tiny smokey dives to big budget theme restaurants, from street food served in plastic bags, to Michelin starred menus, every little thing you can do, catch, cook and serve is done. And done well.

It plays such a big part in the daily life of this city. Almost every street has either a restaurant or steam pouring from a hole in the wall dumplings (Baozi) stall or side street noodles.

In England we reserve eating out for special occasions. Here in China it’s a fundamental part of daily life. I’m sure in the offices around Shanghai, if anyone was to have the audacity to bring a packed lunch…

…well perish the thought.

After rejoicing in finding an apartment with my own kitchen, my cooking has already tailed off. When I can head out of an evening, share various platters of deliciousness with friends for around the same cost of cooking my own meal, why wouldn’t it?

Like the rest of Shanghai, the food has not stopped marveling me.

How can I ever take for granted a skyline like this, so utterly ridiculous at times. When I take a taxi to my friend Matthews flat for our occasional Chinese-BBQ-followed-by-FIFA-on-the-Playstation nights, the journey takes me onto the elevated road, up in the air driving through the pin cushion of the Shanghai skyscraper landscape. Its like a Joel Schumacher Gotham City, over the top, garish and utterly mesmerizing.

And Matthew himself has a flat overlooking the Pudong skyline, with the Oriental Tower and the World Financial Centre acting as his wallpaper for the balcony. I know its artificial, I know it just endorses the Chinese’s addiction to concrete, but it is cool to sit back with a beer and a fag and just watch.

I’m sure I would get bored. Eventually. Maybe. Dunno. After all Shanghai can frustrate. The sheer numbers of people, especially on the subway is sometimes overwhelming.

There is endless construction leaving you to refer to your memory banks to remember ‘what the countryside looked like’.

And though I trying to learn it via podcast, the language is bloody difficult. Especially when there are so many different dialects to confuse you.

Its sometimes hard to find a true Shanghainese, with so much national migration. And even when you do, don’t think your learning their language. The national dialect is Mandarin, or ‘Beijing Chinese’. Shanghainese is just a brutal, machine gun kick of a language that races over your head in a muzzle blast.

They are the tough street kids of China, cocky and aggressive, with attitude and spark. And I’m no T-Bird.

Other than the native teachers at our school, I haven’t really formed any meaningful relationships with too many Chinese yet.

Buts that not to say the Chinese don’t mix. The Couch Surfing community here is big, with almost 7000 members, a healthy mix of native and expat. There’s plenty of opportunity to mingle, events and weekly meets (like Oscar’s squash club) that provide you with platforms to integrate.

There’s a grasp of English in the community, a theme of creativity and spontaneity. It’s a great advert for Couch Surfing and its philosophy of bringing people from different countries together

www.couchsurfing.org

And it typifies what Shanghai seems to do. Many people come here for a couple of months to Suck It and See, and end up staying for years.

Oscar did scare me.  I felt a spotlight on me, an accusation that made me feel guilty, because if he knew I was only staying here for…

…but then how long am I staying here for?

If a city provides you with this extent of fun and functionality, is it wrong to want to stick around and enjoy it?

I’m young, free and single, I don’t have kids to dominate my schedule, my work is easy and fun…

…and I have the biggest playground at my doorstep

Which I don’t need to call it home to enjoy.

Shanghai… its over to you

5.       My Marmite

You gotta love it.

Unless you hate it

(All photos supplied by Daniel Piotrowski. Except the shit ones. They were supplied by me)