Everyday life

Saturday, March 26, 2011

In my Skype call with Marcy this morning, the conversation moved into what we have to do before we can go out.  She suggested that I share some of this on my blog with pictures.  For any outing, large or small you must plan.  I have mentioned this in several of my blogs, particularly regarding addresses for the taxi drivers.  But this preparation must also be done for anything that might be difficult to find in the grocery store or doing everyday things. 

That was the case for me on my last visit to the grocery store.  We have been looking for mailing envelopes which has turned out to be a bust with every visit to the Carrefour.  So when I went on Thursday, I was determined to ask if they had them.  So I prepared for my Thursday outing.

 First stop was the Dragon Fly for a little personal pampering.  I would be trying the facial.  They use German products so I thought it would be alright.  Not to worry there, they speak English… or at least pretty good English.  Vickie would be administering the pampering today.  She was very young and had been in Shanghai only 4 years with her husband.  She moved here from somewhere in Middle China.  She named the province, but the name did not stick with me.  She referred to me as Madame…. Spoken as ‘MaaaDom’.   Is Madame comfortable?  Is Madame warm enough? And so on…. It was really chic.

She spoke to me of her parents, her Mother in particular.  Her parents were farmers in this middle China province.  Her Mother had lived a very hard life.  To assist her Mother, she sends money home to her.   She said she wanted to make her Mother’s life better.  I admired her for that loving gesture she makes for her Mother.  She enthused about wanting to have a daughter when they decided to have children.   She also told me of her love of dogs.  Of course I shared my story of Miss Maggie… I really miss her!  She had a dog, big dog, only 7 months old that had died.  She was still sad about it.  

She asked me what grade my children were in… I had to smile to myself… and told her my children were grown and had children of their own.  She told me she thought I was only about 40!!  Thanks, but no… my eldest daughter is nearly 40.  But I must say… I was terribly flattered!!!  Matter of fact it made my day!!

But I digress… back to the everyday life.  Here are some examples of what I do before heading out to the store.  On this particular day, I knew I had a few things on my list that I had not seen in the store so I wanted to make sure I could ask for them.  Now, bear in mind… I try to only ask questions that the answer is easy for them… a nod…or shake the head ‘no’… or take me to it… or point me in the right direction.  This is just page one.   Don’t laugh about the eggs… there are all different kinds of eggs available… duck, goose, quail, green, and many others… I wanted to make darn sure I was getting chicken eggs.

I also needed to put more money on my prepaid phone and pay my utility bills.  I wanted to make sure there were no misunderstandings.  You just go to any convenience store to pay your bills.  It is very interesting the way they do things here.  So I try to be prepared for anything I might need.  I go to the translation application, type in English and translate.  Cut and paste to a word document.  We bought a printer just for these kinds of tasks.  Printing maps from Google maps, or translations or anything else we think we might need when we are on our outings around Shanghai.  Like I have said before, it is critical to a successful outing.  If you are not prepared, your fun filled day of exploring can end in frustration.

By the way, I did not find the envelopes.  They had the 8 1/2 x 11 size, but no normal mailing envelopes.  It was very disappointing.  And… they had no canned water chestnuts… BUT they had fresh in the produce section!!  Since I had never seen fresh, I was a little concerned that I would get the correct thing, but a young Chinese woman showed them to me.  Fortunately I know the Chinese character for water.  See the symbol that is third from the right… see the 2 flicks on the top left section?  That means water.  Using that and the following characters and a little pointing to the produce… we managed to get the right thing!  And the next picture is… you guessed it… fresh water chestnuts! I broke one in half to show you the inside of it.

I will have to go to the internet to figure out how to prepare them so I can use them in my dish.  But I have water chestnuts!!  I am thinking when I need bamboo shoots I will have to buy fresh of those too; then peel and cook them.  There are very few canned foods here.  There are wide selections of pickled products, but they are not in cans or jars.  They are in sealed plastic pouches.  So if you are hungry for some kind of pickled vegetable… you are in the right country!  And they have lots of dried fruits and nuts; an entire aisle at the grocery dedicated to these 2 products.

Now on to what was really planned for today.  It would be an expedition, of course, but of a very different kind… more of a mission really.  We were on the hunt for an address that would yield us a Baby Shower Water Purifier Shower Head.  We did our homework and mapped out the route.  Since we would be in Puxi,  we thought we would have dinner there too.  And naturally, we would HAVE to stop at the Hershey soft serve for dessert!

We are off and today, although a little chilly, is a beautiful sunny day.  They must be starting to recognize us around the market now because we only had a couple of people try to give us their card to lure us in with discounts for today… or we walk with the confidence of a local now.  Not sure which it is, but they don’t run after us so much anymore.   There are lots of people in the common areas around Century Park metro station.  There are whole families out roller blading or flying kites, having lunch on the benches, or children just running and playing.  There is one thing that is consistent no matter where you go… the children… the giggling and squeals of delight that is pure kiddo.   Dodging the roller bladers, we make our way to the escalator and down to the metro.  We are headed to People’s Square station.

Being the old pro’s we are now and having decided that we were not going to rush and stress each other out, we found the correct exit that would put us right at the street we needed to get to, Huanghe Road.   Huanghe Road is off Nanjing Road.  Nanjing Road is THE road for shopping in Shanghai.  Our destination however, is 256 W Beijing Road, Rm 102.  We are looking for GreenWave Solutions.  We cross over Nanjing to Huanghe in search of a shower head.  It is an incredible journey, see the pictures below we snapped along the way.  Many of the buildings have a distinctive art deco look to them.  It is like stepping back in time.

  

We arrive at West Beijing Road and began looking for 256.  We pass a plumbing store, but it is not 256.  We find 256, but it is a laundry and cleaners. What is up now?  Michael consults the Blackberry, googling the shop again… yes we have the address correct.  So we head back to the plumbing store … it is possible it could have moved. 

There are three really nice Chinese women in the store… I inquire about their English.  No English… The one thing we had failed to do before leaving is to make up a translation sheet like I showed you in pic above for the name of the product.  Oh silly me… I thought the person at Greenwave would know what we wanted… never did it occur to me we might have a problem finding the place or communicating with the owner.  They had an English web site. 

So in my desperation, I rip out my Mandarin phrase book and Michael is looking for the translation.  Michael has failed to charge his Blackberry and we are almost out of juice…. Not good!   But I am determined.  The ladies were just delightful… with the few words I could find to convey my desired product and the address I am looking for… they still were unable to help us.

I was not going to come all that way and go home empty handed… that just was not part of the plan.  So I tell Michael I am going to the laundry and ask the owners if they know where Rm102 is… and it does not matter that they do not know English and I know very little Chinese… and very poor at what I do know.  So in I go… I ask if there is a room upstairs that is 102.  Now this is all happening with charades and a google map with their address on it. 

Then she consulted her husband and between them…they get it… she motions me to come through the laundry to the back.  A little fearful to head back there on my own… I yelled out to Michael who is standing on the street to come into the store.  We are taken to the back alley way apartments of China. 

This was something I had read about, but never thought I would see and visit.  It is a maze of corridors with doors and community toilets dotted along the corridors.  It was an incredible site.  The variety of smells, the way these people live, the rundown buildings, it is overwhelming. They took us around to an area where there was an older woman tending a baby.  They were trying to help us but could not understand what or who we were looking for.  With the help of the Mandarin Phasebook, I was able to find the words ‘water’ and ‘filtered’.  With that… a light bulb must have gone off in the older laundry man’s mind… he indicated wait a minute and he disappeared leaving us with the woman and baby.  A couple of minutes later he came back smiling broadly and motioned us to follow.  He took us around a couple of corridors then down one to an open door with a young woman standing there talking on  a cell phone.  She hands me the phone and on the other end is the distributor for the GreenWave Baby Shower Purified Water shower head.  We had success!!!  He was amazed that we had come to his home…. We had no idea when we set out to 256 W. Beijing Road RM 102 that it would lead us to the man’s home.  We thought we were going to a store front to buy a product.  We negotiate the price and he sells us one over the phone.  His wife gets all our info for the warranty and we exchange money…and we are off.   In this case, perseverance paid off.  Michael admits he would have given up without even going into the laundry.  We thanked the laundry couple for all their help and left.  As we walked down the street with Baby Shower Purified water shower head safely tucked in the backpack… we could not believe what had just happened.

 But as we passed back by the plumbing shop, we had to stop in and show them our purchase; since we had had such a tough time trying to explain it the first time around.  They were all interested as they greeted us again.  The owner had arrived in the meantime, and she spoke a little English.  So all four of these Chinese ladies were examining the shower head and then reached into the case behind them and drew out a shiny new water purifying shower head… at a fraction of the price.  They had been so gracious to us; we bought it from them for the other shower.  They wanted to know what we paid for the other one… I would not admit we paid considerably more than they were asking for the one in their shop.  We just said ‘way too much!’.  Thanking the ladies, we stowed our second shower head in the backpack and set out again for People’s Square and lunch. 

If we had been able to communicate clearly about what we were looking for, the ladies probably could have helped us the first time around.  However, if that had happened, we would never have had the opportunity to see what lies behind the store fronts of Shanghai.  So even though we paid considerably more for the Baby Shower, it was well worth the experience we had and the keen insight about how some of the locals really live.  In this instance, I felt we had really embraced the culture. 

I also reflect at how truly blessed our lives are.   We live in large homes with modern conveniences and plenty of fresh water and toilets and showers for our personal use… several in most homes.  We have large yards for our children to play in.  When we decide to go somewhere, we hop in our new automobiles and take off.  Most people in China do not own and cannot afford to own a car.  Most people walk or ride very old bicycles… some have motor bikes; which is why most of them are thin and quite physically fit.  But to see those back alleys and communal toilets… you have to be struck at how good our lives really are.  It is humbling.

We made our way back to Nanjing Road and began walking around People’s Park.  We ran into a fellow American on our way… he was from Chicago.  He had been there a few days on business and was taking in the sites.  He worked for Phillips… the light bulb division.  We walked and chatted for a couple of blocks and then he headed across the street toward the Shanghai Museum.  We continued on to Raffles City.  It is a seven story mall on Tibet Road.  We went in and straight to the escalators bound for the 6^th floor.  There were many eateries to choose from and we figured we would find something that would strike our fancy.  We ended up in the Ramen Play Restaurant.  After perusing the menu and a few questions for the waiter, we ordered.  It was some kind of broth with ramen noodles topped with a breaded and fried piece of pork, scallions, chives, bamboo shoots, and some kind of pickled something.  Well that pickled something was so hot and spicy… wooooo… the after burn was almost too much.  I figured pretty quick that would be shoved to the side and left.  But other than that… it was tasty.  And it was perhaps one of the cheapest meals we’ve had since arriving in Shanghai. 

My tummy was pretty full and satisfied, but I had left room for the Hershey’s soft serve ice cream that I knew was right down the street.  So we paid our way out and were headed to the down escalator.  We spotted a hair salon.  Michael was weeks overdue for a haircut and was looking very shaggy.  The kids even noticed when we talked on Skype.  He wanted to find a place and opportunity had presented itself.  We checked out the services list with prices:  Stylist -88 RMB, Sr Stylist – 120 RMB, Top Stylist – 150 RMB, and there were 3 more categories, Artistic, something, and international… each getting more expensive.  So he decided to give it a go… Steven would be our Top Stylist.  So in we go and he discusses what style Michael would like… that would be basically the same style it is… only shorter…  and no, we would not be wanting the beard done.  While Michael is escorted by an aid to the wash basins, I got comfortable in the chair next to his.  Steven began his process.  I was amazed how he flicked the scissors back and forth as he cut and then the comb.  He would flick them back out of the way while he parted off the hair then cut then flick… and so on.  But in the end, it turned out pretty good and Michael was… number 1…relieved and number 2… he now knew where he could come to have his hair cut.  Here are a few snaps of the hair cut.  I almost forgot about pictures, but Michael reminded me and Steven was ok with us taking his picture.

       The end result!!!   And tomorrow I would take scissors in hand and trim that shaggy beard up.  It is way past due.   Before we left though, we got his card and he let me know he also cut ladies hair… if I would like a haircut today also.  Perhaps another day I would give it a try, but not today.   And we were off.

Here are some pictures we took of various points of interest on People’s Square.  This was a beautiful church which I unfortunately failed to get the name.  The second photo is of the People’s Palace …we think.  Those 2 figures that look like statues… those are two real soldiers standing guard perfectly still.  It looked painful to stand at attention, motionless for who knows how long… not me!

 See that image on the building selling watches… our own George Clooney thank you very much!!!

That odd looking building that looks like it has a square hat on is the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Museum.  Among other things, it has a miniature replica of what the future Shanghai is going to look like.  We have not visited this particular museum yet.

This was the last photo of the day before we headed to the metro and home.  I have no idea what building this is, but it has an interesting architecture… so it became my final snap of the day.