Go Dong Bo Go!

• I am kind of addicted to these rice crackers I bought at Carrefour. I'd tell you the brand name but, uh, I can't read it.
• Emboldened by my success at ordering watermelon on Friday, I tried it yesterday also. Unfortunately I ended up with a straw. You know, like, a drinking straw. I guess I must have gotten the tones wrong there, haha. Again, judicious use of the word chi saved the day. (I also may -- may, I stress -- have mimed eating food by biting my hand.) Undeterred, I asked the waitress today if she had xigua, and she said no. Going on the assumption that they do have straws, I will interpret her response as pertaining to watermelon, which means she understood me :-)
  
• On the subway back from Xintiandi I started talking to this Chinese guy who was headed to Guam for some diving. He spoke pretty good English. He asked if I was American and I was like yeah, I am. He then said he was going to America, and I was like oh really, where? He told me Guam, and I chuckled and was like uhh, that's almost America. (Best line from The Critic: "I don't even know what to call those people. Guamanians? The Guamish?") I know it's a territory of ours, but does that really count as "America"? I was about to say no, because they don't pay US taxes. But they are technically under Dubya (at least according to Wikipedia) and their currency is USD. I also found out that its people are US citizens. So OK, I concede my error. That guy is going to America :-)
• Four days later, there are still crazy fireworks shows going on outside my apartment as I type this at 10:30 PM. I can't stress how bizarre it is to have fireworks exploding in midair literally 10 feet from your window. Bizarre and annoying. I guess I wouldn't mind so much except that I have to work tomorrow :-)
  
• I just finished watching like 20 minutes of the 2007 CCTV Cup English Speaking Contest. A (Chinese) contestant comes onstage and gives a minute-and-a-half prepared speech. Then they are questioned by a panel of experts and commentators. They then pick a number at random that corresponds to a topic, such as urban sprawl or the necessity of doing work-study programs in college. They have 5 seconds (although the hosts say "15 seconds" which is strange) to prepare a response to the question, give a minute-long speech, and then defend their answer again for two minutes. The whole round is then scored like slam poetry (drop the high and low scores; add the rest) by a panel of judges.
  

I was really into the idea of judging and editing the English (yes, that's right, I was into it), but apparently it's more like a debate competition. However, the comments focused not so much on the English but on the debating skills. I wanted the commentators to be like "'Upward' is not a verb, kid! Stop saying that cities are 'going to upward'." I almost said that out loud during one speech, haha. But instead the commentators were like, you know, you should present more evidence, you should organize your points better, etc. So that program title seems like a misnomer.

You could easily tell when a candidate got flustered, which happened with all three of the candidates I saw. One poor kid was sweating his ass off -- I felt bad for him. They started slipping in their answers - making broad generalizations and logical fallacies and such. I dunno, I would have been way harder on these kids. They were scoring like 95/100, whereas I would have scored them maybe in the 70s. I guess I'm not sure to what standard they were being held, though.

The extemporaneous sections were tricky because they were set up in terms of absolutes. "Is x better than y? Is z necessary?" I would have called most of these questions false dichotomies. But I guess those force you into taking one extreme position or the other, which probably makes for better TV than a candidate advocating for balance. But as a judge I would have hoped at least one contestant might break from that mold. Granted I didn't watch all the contestants, but the three I saw didn't deviate from the yes/no standard.

One commentator asked a follow-up question in the form of "Is x better than y?" which he immediately followed up with "Or is it a balance between x and y?" And I was like no, that's a terrible question! If you set up a false dichotomy and then give them a way out of it, they're going to take it. They need to come up with the deviant path on their own.

Wow, look how riled up I got over 30 minutes of TV. I totally need to be a judge on that show :-) However, I got bored after the third contestant when I couldn't follow their speeches very well. This might disqualify me from judging if one of the commentators hadn't begun her response by saying "I kind of tuned out during the last part of your speech...." hahaha. At least they're honest.

Anyway this post's title references Dong Bo, the last contestant I watched. Her extemporaneous speech was on sprawl vs. density, and she chose to argue for density. The three commentators attacked her by arguing for sprawl. I couldn't tell if they seriously felt that way or if they were just trying to, you know, engage her a little bit by saying she was wrong. Probably some of both. Her arguments were mostly good. But I wanted to hand her a copy of The Austin Chronicle :-) After 5 minutes of reading that, she would have had like 60 arguments for choosing density over sprawl, haha. Either that or she would have wanted to move to Seattle.

I think it's funny that, while America and the UK and Australia are like "Hey, Chinese is going to be an essential business skill soon -- let's spend years learning it!" the Chinese are like "Let's give money to kids who can speak English the best and put them on national TV!" Which side would you say is using their time and energy more effectively? (Quick, you have 5 seconds to prepare your argument.)

• I was pressing random buttons on my TV remote and *gasp* the color came back! I'm so excited. It's like 1954 all over again!
  
• I've been asked several times about the US elections. Mostly it's British and Australian expats who are doing the asking. So I've been involved in a couple political discussions already. Very interesting. I love hearing outsiders' perspectives on the situation the US and how other countries perceive us. I realized I didn't know what was really going on because I've been concentrating so much on Shanghai. So I did some Googling and caught up with who's in and out of the race up to this point.
  

And the Rockets' Red* Glare ...

*by "red" I mean "red, blue, purple, yellow, green white, orange, etc ..."



So like I said, the fireworks began in earnest about 6:30 PM yesterday, as I was typing up that other blog post. As soon as I submitted it, I left for my friend's house in the Jing'an district. Walking to the metro was like being in a loud and colorful war zone. The staccato bangs of fireworks were all around me and going off constantly. The sounds were amplified by the fact that many fireworks were going off in the courtyard of the numerous apartment complexes around. The buildings form echo chambers in which the blasts of fireworks, already very loud, reverberate even more.

You could, as I did, question the safety of setting off fireworks so close to apartment buildings. If anyone has their window open, well, I suppose that's the Darwin Awards at work, right? Also, some of these fireworks fail to launch properly, and they explode like 10 feet off the ground. Yeesh. Luckily I was never anywhere near them. As I arrived at my friend's building, I encountered two kids putting down a firecracker literally right in front of the building. That was kind of exciting, so I took a video, but it didn't turn out well.

Throughout the dinner, conversation was impeded by loud bangs of fireworks. It was kind of funny and also kind of scary. I mean you're literally sitting in the middle of this mass fireworks display. I took some great video from the window that shows how close and loud it was:



Keep in mind that was happening all throughout dinner. And this is at like 8:30, 9 PM.

After dinner we all chatted for a bit and settled in to play some video games. Another guy was supposed to come over with his own fireworks that we were going to launch. But since this is my first (and most likely only) experience in China for Chinese New Year, I wanted something a little more insane. I mean, I've heard all these stories - I wanted to see for myself. So around 10:30 I hopped a cab to The Bund. I assumed there would be a good view of some fireworks from there.

I got there just before 11, and there was not much going on. I kind of wandered around among everyone else there. I could see a couple small pyrotechnical displays across the water on the Pudong side, but nothing insane. I was beginning to wonder if I'd made the right decision, and I considered taking another cab to Centry Park.

But at around 11:30 the fireworks across the river increased in frequency and tempo, so I was like "Okay, this is the right place to be after all." As the clock ticked closer to midnight, more spots across the river, and behind me in Puxi, lit up in celebration. And then to mark the switch over to the Year of the Rat, at midnight, this happened:



I think that building is the HSBC Building, but whatever it is, it was literally right across the street from me. So yeah, I had a front-row seat. But the cool thing is that from my viewpoint on the Promenade, I could see like 360 degrees of fireworks. Everywhere I looked, either across the river or on my side, there were 2 or 3 spots where someone was setting off an insane amount of fireworks. I could see flashing lights reflect off the Jin Mao tower and its neighboring buildings. And the noise -- in those videos, it kind of sounds like wind, but it's not. It's the sound of firecrackers echoing across the Huangpu river.

That was probably the most impressive part. That it was all around me. Your typical July 4th fireworks are, like, right in front of you. You all gather at a certain spot, look up, and are presented with fireworks. But here I was surrounded by them. I dunno. It seemed more ... pervasive? I think that's the word I'm looking for. Also, with fireworks I'm used to, they're more paced out. Typically the launchers don't fire until the previous firework has dissipated. At the end, you might get a rapid-fire blast to close it out. But here it's constant launching, bang-bang-bang-bang for like, well, three or four hours really :-)

It wasn't like spectacular insanity, like night turning into day or anything. But it was neat :-) I'm very glad my first experience with this was on The Bund. It was a good spot to be.

I tried to capture the panorama as best I could. You can see a little bit of it in the second video above. The rest of the videos are available at my YouTube page here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ryry9379. There's another video of the Bund and one of some kids lighting fireworks in the middle of Nanjing Dong Lu as cars whiz by.

I stayed put for about 20 minutes, then took a cab back to my friend's place. The ground outside all the apartment buildings was smothered with red fireworks paper. I couldn't believe how messy it was. I guess the city cleans it all up or the complex has to pay for it? Regardless, it was the same story for every single building, just piles and piles of spent fireworks paper in front of the doors. I am kind of glad I wasn't there because I'm quite sure I would have gone deaf :-)

Anyway, her friend with the fireworks hadn't shown up yet, so we settled in to watch this random French action movie. By the time that was over, it was like 3 AM and I was beat. On the cab ride home I managed a mini-conversation with the driver. I could understand him okay, and that he was asking me question about myself and/or America, but again, he was using words I don't know. So it was mainly ting bu dong and zenme shuo bu zhidao, but sprinkled in there were a couple of informational tidbits, like, I'm a science/technology "IT worker", I'm American, I work in Pudong, his New Year wasn't the best because he had to work himself, etc. I was a little confused when he began one question with nimen, which means "You all (collectively)." I'm like, uh, it's only me sitting here? But maybe he was talking "me all" in terms of Americans.

So far this morning I've heard more sporadic fireworks blasts (including right now), but nothing insane. I think it's funny because I'm like, uh, it's daytime - fireworks can serve only as noisemakers now. But maybe that's the point :-)

People's Square

planning050
Originally uploaded by ryry9379

Today I did a walking tour of the area in & around People's Square (Renmin Guangchang). The tour included a 2-hour stop in the Shanghai Urban Planning & Exhibition Hall. The highlight of this museum is a giant model of the city, in full 3D and lit up when the lights dim, that takes up 75% of the third floor. It's amazing to look at. I took a couple pictures of it in the set, but these pictures hardly do the model justice.

Afterwards I wandered around the area just taking some pictures of the buildings. I stopped in a small little eatery and had some fried rice & dumplings. Man, I really love the dumplings. They're so good. I get them whenever I can.

I had small conversations with people throughout the trip. I asked a street guard where Renmin Ave. was. (I knew the answer, but I just wanted to see if he could understand me. He did!) I talked a little bit with my waitresses, but nothing major. I even tried to talk with the staff at the public toilet (which costs 0.6 kuai to use, btw). But these conversations were limited to Wo shi meiguoren and other teeny-tiny phrases.

I feel like a dope when I can't understand people. It's actually pretty discouraging. And it happens a lot for two reasons: 1) people talk quickly, and 2) they use words I don't know. And by "quickly" I mean "normal speed for people who understand Chinese." They repeat words again, slower and louder/clearer, but it's lost on me if I don't actually know the word. It's very frustrating and humiliating to not be able to order a meal at KFC without pointing at this special menu they have for the lao wai. (Yes, I've eaten at KFC -- so sue me :-)

I knew before I came here that I'd feel this way. And actually I was looking forward to it. You know why? Because now I know what it feels like to be the newcomer who can't speak with anyone outside a pre-determined circle of people. That's a perception that not everybody gets to have. And it's very alienating. Especially because I like being nice to people and chit-chatting with them, but I can't do it here in the way that I want. So I feel like I can't be myself when I'm out alone, unless I happen to meet someone who speaks English. Therefore, regardless of what these people think of me when I'm around them, they are not seeing who I am.

So I'm looking at it from that point of view. But, you know, I've only been here a month. And I'm trying to practice all the time -- that's all I can really do, right? Hopefully at some point I can at least understand people. But I have no idea how long that'll take.

However, I did understand my waitress when I asked for the check. She just said Wu shi wu, or 55. She had to repeat it three times, but I got it :-) You know, now that I think about it, I probably should have asked for a paper receipt instead of just going with what she told me. But it seemed reasonable based on what I saw from the menu, haha. And I did have a small conversation in Chinese with Justin on Sunday night, too. So that was encouraging.

Learning Chinese while being in China is just like learning a programming language. In both situations, you have this system, out there, that you have to interact with. And in your head, you know what you want it to do. But it doesn't understand your English that you've worked 20+ years at perfecting. You speak at it in English, and it doesn't do squat. So you have to learn how to talk with it.

You start by learning the basics. Then you write one small "Hello world!" program, which here I guess is like taking a taxi somewhere successfully or ordering food all by yourself. This is your first test. Does the system respond the way you want it to? Do all the characters print onscreen? When you tell the taxi driver "Fuxing Lu", does he take you there or to Xingfu Lu instead? (Both of these are actual streets in Puxi, and they're pretty close to one another.) I guess that's what I'm doing right now.

But it's fun to watch the system respond correctly to my inputs. For example, in a bar telling someone that they're drunk, at my office asking my co-workers if they want to go eat lunch now, or in a taxi telling the driver that the guy who just cut you off is insane, or asking the guard where Renmin Ave. is. In these situations I have seen the system produce the expected output, and it's made me happy. These are my "Hello world!" programs, and they're not all perfect, but they compile and execute and return results that are mostly similar to what I expect. I get excited when, for example, I asked the waitress today if the restaurant had watermelon, and she said "No, we don't have it", and I understood her.

What I'm doing now is, again, working on parsing the results. This can be a problem in computer programming too, as any of you who've done it (or even used Adobe Photoshop) will understand. Many programs spit out incomprehensible error messages, and in a similar fashion, when I ask someone a question in Chinese, I seldom am able to understand the response :-)

God damn, I'm a dork.

The good thing is that I'm getting better at adjusting my camera's flash, f-stop, and exposure time manually. Most of the pictures I took today turned out pretty good, I think, and I took 95% of them manually. It's a small hassle to adjust the settings before every single picture, but now that I'm used to having this degree of control over each photo, I'm hooked. I don't know why I wasted all those years relying solely on the automatic method. See, people -- reading manuals actually pays off :-)

Plus, I avoided another tea scam. And I feel pretty competent with a map of Shanghai, like, I have a good visual picture of the city in my head. That's pretty helpful.

The fireworks are beginning. I've been hearing them sporadically, like maybe once or twice a week, for the past two weeks. But last night there were a ton of them, and they are only getting more frequent. Actually, I'm hearing some as I type this :-) Tomorrow is New Year's Eve when the big shows go on. People tell me the fireworks go on for literally hours. I'll venture out to Shiji Gongyuan and try to get some pictures and/or videos. I wanna try and catch a parade, too.